Featured Fem | Meet Jess Mize
Interview by Anna-Claire McGrath
Jess Mize is a blond-haired surfer girl from California. Her poetry and stories have been published in The Fem, New Pop Lit and Kiss The Witch. Her favorite author is Stephen King.
Anna-Claire: One of the things that interests me in your writing is the range of the references. In your poem, “A Night Like This,” you reference both Baedeker’s, the German travel guides that went defunct in the seventies, and Rhianna’s “Diamonds.” How do you decide what goes in and what stays out?
Jess Mize: I’m kind of sporadic with my writing, though I do typically take notes of the interesting ephemera I come into contact with / awareness of. have always been fascinated by allusions and pop references. Growing up with a television show like “The O.C.” that was heavy on obscure philosophical and pop references, that’s when I initially started looking for them in everything I read. Especially poetry. So when I do sit down and write something original I am very conscious of what i have been consuming in the interim. In the above poem, to me it is a liberating vignette about unplugging, and I actually used Cara Bruni’s lyric about the moon in “Those Dancing Days are Gone” as inspiration for my line about the “moon rustles in its silver bag…” So it is an impressionistic choice for me. And I have always appreciated literary allusions as a reader. Being able to observe a piece of the writer, what they have read and researching the source their material. In composing a poem or whatever I may be working towards, if a reference pops into my head that goes along with my composition / or mixes literary with pop allusions. I tend to seize on that opportunity. But it’s not at all a conscious decision.
Anna-Claire: I’m very interested in your story, “Suffering, Suicide and Immortality,” which deals frankly with the suicidal impulses of your narrator. What drew you to that subject, and how did you approach handling it without being exploitative?
Jess Mize: The subject matter of suicide is doubtless a delicate tight rope. Suffering, specifically my own, and the suffering of the world at large plays a role in most of my poems. I was drawn to write about it because I have had personal experience with contemplating suicide, and a few unsuccessful attempts. So it’s a deeply personal story though I masked my narrator in another person and changed certain events. That is how I approached handling it and am certain I did not achieve a complete, compelling, non-problematic story.
Anna-Claire: I also notice a lot of allusions to mythology. Is there any Greek or Roman myth you love but haven’t approached in your work yet?
Jess Mize: The myth of Hero and Leander. I have tried several times over the past three years to merge the Hellenistic myth with the romantic poet Lord Byron and make a tragic poem or play out of it like Byron’s “Werner.” “Hero and Leander is the Greek myth relating the story of Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite who dwelt in a tower in Sestos and Leander, a young man from Abydos on the opposite side of the strait. Leander fell in love with Hero and would swim every night across the Hellespont to be with her. Hero would light a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. Succumbing to Leander’s soft words and to his argument that Aphrodite, as the goddess of love, would scorn the worship of a virgin, Hero allowed him to make love to her. These trysts lasted through the warm summer. But one stormy winter night, the waves tossed Leander in the sea and the breezes blew out Hero’s light; Leander lost his way and was drowned. When Hero saw his dead body, she threw herself over the edge of the tower to her death to be with him.” This is definitely my favourite myth that I haven’t finished anything with yet.”
Anna-Claire: You mention in at least one of your bios “Vampire Weekend Three Albums In Stores Now” and I’m a huge fan, so I just wanted to let you know I appreciate it. I feel like some of their songs feel like really great short stories, especially on the third album, like “Hannah Hunt” or “Ya Hey.” Do you get inspiration for your writing from any of the music you listen to?
Jess Mize: So this question just made me smile so big. A kool-aid smile. I think the last time I smiled like that was taking a picture with Ezra Koenig outside the Ryman in Nashville, Tennessee. I love Vampire Weekend. I am devoted! And to have that in my bio is not professional, but it’s not my fault I was born in the last-capitalist hellhole. Love their music and think that Ezra’s talent with lyricism is exceptional. I would compare his lyrical writing to that of Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories, in particular “The Ice Palace,” and “love in the night.” About some of the songs being written in a literary vane and having a short story quality to them, I completely concur. The storytelling qualities of Ezra and Rostam in “Hannah Hunt” and “Diplomat’s Son” are very impressive. They have characters, setting, and a plot. Ezra Koenig actually released a limited edition book of short stories over a decade ago so I think he is a writer foremost, and a musician and charming vocalist second. Stop me now! I could write about Vampy Weeks for two hours straight. I do get inspiration from the music I listen to. Certain song titles and lyrics from my favourite indie and punk artists are referenced in the titles and bodies of some of my poems .But I need seven types of Sunday quiet to compose so if I listen to anything while I’m writing its Litzt, Scarlatti, or tchaikovsky.
Anna-Claire: What writers excite you right now? Who should we be reading?
Jess Mize: The contemporaries writers that excite me right now are Hanif Abdurraqib, Adam Hamze, and Zoë Gadegbeku, Who you Should be reading According to Jess Mize? I would recommend Sylvia Plath, anything William Styron but specifically “Lie Down in Darkness.” I also would recommend every work of Karen Russell. Start with the short story collection “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” and then her debut novel “Swamplandia!”
