Q&A with Breakout 8 Winner Duncan Slagle

Duncan Slagle is a Queer poet and performer studying Ancient Greek and Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a First Wave scholar. Duncan's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Palette Poetry, BOAAT Journal, Vinyl Poetry, Hobart, The Shallow Ends, and others. Duncan currently lives in Athens, Greece.

Duncan is one of eight winners of the 2019 Breakout 8 Prize, co-sponsored by Epiphany and The Authors Guild. Read their prizewinning poems “Pentheus in the Mirror” (excerpted below) and “Mnemotechnical Fire” in the Fall/Winter 2019 Issue of Epiphany.

From the Fall/Winter 2019 print issue of Epiphany.

How did you first come up with your winning piece?

Both of my winning poems were written in the same week while I was reading several different translations of Euripides’ Bacchae. “Pentheus in the Mirror” more than “Mnemotechnical Fire” was directly inspired by questions of (in modern terms) gender performance + presentation, which Euripides’ tragedy involves. “Mnemotechnical Fire” was a poem I wrote considering the line between abstract and concrete details within my memory.

What do you hope to gain from the year ahead?

I hope to gain some more understanding for the larger writing projects I’m working on through mentorship and feedback opportunities.

What, for you, is the most exciting development in contemporary literature?

I like non-casual reading experiences, and I notice more writers’ and their work pushing back against the instinct to simplify their work, if it serves what they’re working on. These projects seem to experiment with language and syntax beyond concerns of what’s palatable to a casual reader, and that’s exciting to me.

What resources are most valuable for writers just breaking into publication territory?

I think the most important resource for writers entering the realm of publication is money. Submission fees are usually absurd.

Who is your favorite underappreciated author we should all be reading?

Hajjar Baban is an incredible poet — her chapbook What I Know of the Mountains, published with Anhinga Press this past year is full of invigorating work. I read her poems and they make me love poems all over again.

Do you have a memorable experience of an influential teacher you’d like to share?

I was lucky enough to take a workshop called “Queer Poetics” with the marvelous Oliver Baez Bendorf in my second year of undergrad, and those months were full of generous feedback, conversations, and reading recommendations that stretched my understandings of what poetry or a poet’s identity could be. He’d make sure we were fed and well rested and sticking to the commitments we made to our writing practice. Oliver cared for and challenged us as students in a way that taught me how poetry is a lifestyle involving body, mind, and spirit all at once.

It’s been said we write what we obsess over. What themes do you find keep cropping up in your writing again and again?

Desire, undesirability, and birds.

What was your favorite book growing up?

I carried a really worn copy of some Dictionary of Classical Mythology everywhere with me as a kid — I think I must have read and reread it at least twice a week.

If the pursuit of writing is a quiet solo one, what are some ways you connect with other writers?

I find that writers have the best taste in music, so I enjoy connecting with other writers over albums we’re crying / writing / dancing to.

What’s one bit of advice you wish you’d have gotten early on?

Poetry can take time, so you have to make time for it, Duncan.