Cocteau Mercury Glove State: An OS [re:con]versation with Sunnylyn Thibodeaux

[Sunnylyn Thibodeaux is the author of Witch Like Me, an OS 2020 Digital Chapbook selection. Read more about this series, with the theme “Bloom, Mutation, Entropy, Catalyst, Brine.” You can find the entire series at the OS Open Access Library, here.]

Greetings comrade! Thank you for talking to us about your process today!

Why are you a “poet”/ “writer”/ “artist”? When did you decide to use the language you use for yourself (and/or: do you feel comfortable calling yourself a poet/writer/artist, what other titles or affiliations do you prefer/feel are more accurate)? What do you see as your cultural and social role (in the literary / artistic / creative community and beyond)?

When I was young, I daydreamed a lot, and was fascinated with the old and the other. We all navigate the turns of our minds, feeling the darkness as it comes, as well as light. We cope in various ways and come to know ourselves adjacent to the energy of space and objects. Somewhere between wanting to float away with dandelion spurs or crawl into a sepia photo of a crowded attic, I found language more responsive when written in a notebook. It seems it was about the sixth grade when the light went on. I think I likely spent a long stretch of time admiring the Sunday funnies, and reading entire sections of greeting cards, wondering how language could play in ways that wasn’t spoken in my community. Then I read Poe and my chest opened to the dark fantastical world…