Author Q&A with Keira Deer

Keira Deer is a writer and poet based in Southern California. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University, and her work has been published in Scapegoat Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, and Halfway Down the Stairs, among others, and her poem, “if,” is featured in Issue #19.

Tell us about yourself.

I’ve always been fond of thinking about poetry as a way of telling secrets, a form of storytelling I’ve been practicing since I was a young teenager and now into my early twenties. My poetry draws its subject matter largely from my own life and experiences, focusing often on themes of voicelessness, coming of age, and memory, but I’m also passionate about writing poems that unveil stories from history, particularly narratives of minority voices and groups that have been overshadowed or erased in the course of mainstream American history. In synthesis of the personal and the historical, I find myself drawn toward poetic explorations of Asian-American—specifically Chinese-American—history in the U.S. I’m also interested in using poetry as a way of parsing the confusion and complexities of biraciality.

I hold a BFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University in Orange County, California, where I was born and raised, and will be pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in the same field at CU Boulder this fall.

What unique or surprising detail can you tell us about the origin, revision process, and/or final version of your piece appearing in this issue?

The poem that appears in this issue is a playful speculation of what alternate reality might exist if John Lennon had not been assassinated. The poem considers where the rock star might be and what he might be doing if he had lived beyond 1980, musing on his creation of new music, his continued career in the arts, and his favored walks through Central Park. While I don’t remember where the initial idea for the poem came from, I do recall how liberating it felt to imagine an extension of John Lennon’s life, how it gave me the freedom to bend the lines and march my own footprints in the margins of history. Even the fact that I’ve never been to New York did very little to restrict me, because I was writing about a New York that doesn’t really exist—I was beyond the realms of reality and therefore had the liberty to play and experiment.

What do you hope readers take from the piece?

I titled the poem “if” as an encouragement for readers to invite wonder into their own lives. By asking “if,” you’re really asking yourself to imagine a catalog of possibilities, a set of potentials that exercises your mind, your creativity, and your ability to dream. Ultimately, I think, half the work of an artist is to imagine all that is possible (and impossible) and then to realize it.

What fuels your desire to write (or engage in other creative outlets)? Or what have been the biggest influences in your writing?

I’ve operated my entire life as a notoriously quiet person, both literally—sometimes, my voice so quiet I’m asked to speak up four or five times before the ear can catch it—and personality-wise. For that reason, the feeling of voicelessness (and, by extension, a certain kind of invisibility and smallness) is one that I’ve always struggled with. Something that holds me so tightly in the fist of writing is the even ground that my voice finds on the page, the fact that I can tell everything I need to—all the truths, all the secrets—and be heard without even having to open my mouth. I get this unbeatable feeling when I’m able to write something that feels like Morse code tapped right out of my heartbeat, something that expresses exactly what I felt, saw, experienced, etc. and manages to transfer those sensations to the reader in a meaningful way.

At some point, I realized: if I could raise my own voice in this way, I could do the same for those who weren’t able to themselves. From there, I started writing poems centering around Chinese immigrants in the United States who experienced racism and brutality in the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act and beyond. My love of history and my love of poetry mutually inform each other and synthesize into creative projects that make me feel deeply fulfilled as an artist.

How do you make expression a part of your daily life? Or how do you find a balance between your writing and other responsibilities?

I journal a lot—every day, when possible. Any night available to me to stay up until midnight (and beyond) is spent in bed with my laptop and several books of poetry open and haphazard around me at arms reach. The poems come in pieces. I try to add one piece to the puzzle every day, even if just a line.

What do you think when you hear, “the good life”?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about “the good life” lately, and the word that always comes to mind is “explore.” Find what interests you and do many things. Remember the catalog of possibilities you create for yourself and be willing to try your hand at each of them. Be a lifelong learner. Make mistakes and become better because of them. “Be like the fox,” writes Wendell Berry, “who makes more tracks than necessary, / some in the wrong direction.”

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Thank you, Keira, for being a part of our growing literary community and for spending extra time with us on this Q&A. We wish you the best with writing and all life’s endeavors!