An Interview with Jerrod E. Bohn

September 25th, 2018 marked the release of Jerrod E. Bohn’s PULP: A Manifesto, a lyrical poetry collection. The book,a limited release, touches on society’s woes, shortcomings, and spirit. Unsolicited Press sat down with Bohn to get to know the writer behind the words:

What literary journeys have you gone on?

I haven’t really gone on any literary journeys, although I did go to see a memorial plaque dedicated to the poet Ronald Johnson at Ward-Meade Park in Topeka, KS. I discovered Johnson’s poetry in graduate school and immediately loved it. That he is also a poet who spent part of his life in a more rural area of Kansas made him particularly appealing.

What is the first book that made you cry?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

Does writing energize or exhaust you?

It can do both, honestly. I know that I’m writing a really good poem when I feel most outside of my head, almost as if I am receiving or channeling the words from some collective consciousness beyond the limitations of myself, my ego. That feeling of connecting to something larger is invigorating. During other writing sessions, I’m too much in control; I worry about being clever, witty, intelligent. In these instances, I can’t tap into that heightened mental and emotional space, so I end up depleted and disappointed in what I’ve put to page.

What are common traps for aspiring writers?

Two traps for aspiring writers are valuing being prolific over quality and assuming the first draft is the best draft. I think the former trap is caused by bogus advice that to be a writer “one has to write every day.” To paraphrase my thesis advisor, Dan Beachy-Quick, you have to trust that you are engaging an act of writing even when you aren’t able to physically write. So maybe the advice to “writer every day” is misunderstood; a person must maintain the mind of a writer even if a particular day doesn’t involve what we traditionally think of as writing. As for the latter trap, writing is work, difficult work. Just because you crank out a poem in five minutes doesn’t mean it’s the best iteration of the poem. That first draft is an iteration, but on revising (re-seeing), one can create different iterations that are potentially (usually) better.