Three brilliant new interns have joined the Press this fall—remotely, from around the country—and it’s our pleasure to introduce you to each of them here. We’ll share their 60-second Q&As every #MeettheInternMonday in the coming weeks, so check back!
P.S. Interested in an internship with us in Spring 2022? Applications are due November 1. Learn more.
Meet Cole
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
C: Learning from and collaborating with intriguing minds devoted to poetry from all over the country, and world. Since Copper Canyon Press is devoted to poetry, we get to discovery, uncover, and thrive in the craft and experience of a literary non-profit dedicated to elegant word art. And we read poetry to each other!
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
C: Fernando Valverde’s America, translated by Carolyn Forché, forthcoming September 2021. Continuing a study of poetry of witness, collections described as political, with aims of increasing my awareness and readership of translational works, America “deconstructs the legacy of empire” and challenges America’s understanding of self, empire, and legacy. With Spanish original poems and English translations, I am invited to cultivate discernment with poetry through language, voice, and lived experiences beyond what I perceive to be real.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
C: “Not to idealize, not to judge, not to exonerate, not to aestheticize immeasurable levels of pain. Not to demonize, not anathematize. What I wanted was to unequivocally lay out the real feel of hard time.” -C.D. Wright introduction of One Big Self.
Meet Asela
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
A: My favorite aspect of being an intern at CCP is meeting such an incredible staff and how much passion and care they have for poetry. I’m really looking forward to sharing my love for poetry and bringing it to CCP!
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
A: I’m looking forward to titles such as Passion by June Jordan and Burying the Mountain by Shangyang Fang. This will be my first time reading June Jordan’s work and after reading about Passion, I cannot wait to read more of her poems as themes in her work resonate with today’s worldviews. I would love to read more contemporary Chinese poets , so when I heard about Shangyang Fang’s book I’m looking forward to reading it!
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
A: “A poem is a gesture toward home.” – Jericho Brown, The Tradition
Meet Sanna
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
S: It has to be the warmth and openness of the staff. Across all the departments, it’s such a special gift to feel so involved and included on so many diverse and interesting projects. Interns are so welcomed to apply our own skills and perspectives. It inspires a lot of creativity and confidence!
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
S: Akwaeke Emezi‘s Content Warning: Everything. I always get excited when writers move across genres, like poets writing short story collections or novelists writing plays, but I feel that excitement exponentially about Emezi’s forthcoming book. Their craft makes new worlds. I can’t wait to see how their voice manifests in poetry.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
S: “…Now you are the grackle’s tail / calling for eyes from the side of a road, / and I am the best room in your heart.” from “For the Woman Whose Love Is a Bird of Passage” in The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony by Ladan Osman.