September Poetry Curator Leslie McIntosh

Leslie McIntosh lives in Jersey City, New Jersey. McIntosh’s debut full-length volume of poetry, within-group variance, was selected by Terrance Hayes for the 2025 Changes Book Prize. Zócalo’s guest curator for September, McIntosh chatted with us in the green room about what makes a moment poetic, pursuing poetry and psychology, and being ready to send a work out into the world.

Q:

Congratulations on your book launch! When did you know that the manuscript for within-group variance felt ready to be published?

A:

It won a contest, so it was ready, but that being said, the earliest attempts to send it out, which—that’s the door that I’m going to enter into this question through—was more a matter of me realizing that it’s ready to be in conversation. It’s ready to be experienced in some way by presses and publishers. To know that it’s being read, and there’s going to be a response to it, I was ready for that, and it was ready for that, too.

Q:

Who are poets that you return to time and time again?

A:

People who never seem to get far from me are Ed Roberson, Jay Wright, Erica Hunt, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Fred Moten, John Barrowman. Who else is coming forward for me? Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Robert Duncan.

Q:

Are these writers in conversation with your manuscript, or are they just writing about themes that you are also interested in exploring?

A:

All of the above. There are some of them that definitely alighted very close to my book. Brigit Pegeen Kelly is quoted in it. Ed Roberson, his lyric offers something in suspension that I see instinctively in my own work all the time. Erica Hunt, the way she works with layers in her poems, that’s very me. I spring from them in many important ways. But even if they don’t stand specifically close to the book in terms of the content and formal craft decisions, my sensibility is informed by all of them.

Q:

If you didn’t become a literary artist, what do you think you would be doing?

A:

I partly work as a psychologist, and it’s rewarding and fulfilling in numerous ways. So I am doing both; I’m living what the alternative to being a literary artist could be—would be, has been—while at the same time getting the book out and working on other ones.

Q:

If you had a theme song, what would it be?

A:

“Living Inside The Shell.” It is composed by Yoko Kanno. The lyrics are written by Shanti Snyder, who is mentioned in the book. And it is sung by Steve Conte.

Q:

What’s your favorite holiday?

A:

Halloween. It’s fun, it’s playful, I get to explore being, presentation, something that I’m interested in poetry, generally. Aside from that, I tend to not be a holiday person. I tend to forget them.

Q:

What’s your comfort food?

A:

Curry duck roti.

Q:

What is a non-poetry book that you’re reading right now?

A:

I’m finishing up Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country. I had started it during the pandemic, and I had to put it down because it was touching some things a little bit too effectively. I just recently gathered myself to revisit it because I want to binge the two seasons of the show, and I don’t do those things unless I’ve read the book—with the exception of The Witcher.

Q:

What was the last thing that moved you?

A:

I saw this father playing with his son on a train, maybe a few months ago. I actually wrote a little poem after. It moved me in the tenderness and also how surprised I was by this tenderness: Why is this moment so poetic to me right now, rather than just another moment? What makes it stand apart from that? And what does it mean that this father and son are two Black people? That was something that I couldn’t separate from my thinking in the moment.

The post appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.