Daniel Bliss is a world-traveling poet originally from Anchorage, Alaska. His poems often focus on relationship to the long list of places he's lived. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in the Bicoastal Review, League of Canadian Poets, Blood and Bourbon, BarBar, After Hours, Down in the Dirt, and others.
You can read Front Seat of October in the January 2025 issue.
Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your poem? For instance, how or why you wrote it, or perhaps provide some extra context?
The process for writing this poem was different from what I’ve been used to. I’m usually a poet who writes page-long poems packed full of detail, but recently, I found when using that longer style, I was doing too much and often “overwriting” the piece. With this piece, I wanted to cut it down to only the necessary details. The rough draft was much longer, involving details about things happening outside the car and further background on the relationship. But the more I read that longer draft, the more I realized how none of the details outside the front seat added much to the poem. I’d like to think those details were written well and were still interesting, but I realized they added nothing to the main narrative of this piece and needed to end up on the cutting room floor.
Is there a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone for you?
I could go on for days about all the poems and collections that have had an impact, but there are a few I find myself going back to repeatedly. Anne Sexton’s Love Poems, Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters, anything by Alex Dimitrov, Jack Gilbert, or poets with narrative threads and specific images. Recently, I’ve been reading Actual Air by David Berman and have found that collection to be incredible. I couldn’t get enough of Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan, and one I know I’ll find myself going back to. I’m always looking at whatever Faber Poetry publishes to put on my reading list as well.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
I started writing so young that I don’t know what life would be like without poetry. I couldn’t see myself having life without poetry. Poetry is my way to access, understand, record, remember, and love life.
How do you revise your work?
I feel like I’m in a constant battle with the craft of revision. Generally what I do is build up a stack of first drafts over the course of a few weeks and set them aside for around three months. After three months, I’ll pull those drafts out of my desk or nightstand and start to edit. Getting away from those pieces for a few months gives me the emotional distance I need to revise the work correctly. Often, after a first draft, I’m too close to the piece and think, “well, it can’t get better than this” or “this is finished,” when in reality, it’s nowhere close to done and can get much better. During my revision process, I find myself mostly cutting details that aren’t needed and making the details that are needed much stronger.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
This is by far the most diffcult question to answer. Creative success, in my eyes, is simply creating a poem you can be proud of, but getting there can be difficult. It comes down to that moment of finding the right phrase, perfect image, or the stanzas falling into the right order that sparks that final moment where I can tell myself, “This is a success.” Writers are hard on themselves, and so many of us think achievement means getting something published. But I see creative achievement as something much simpler, and that’s finishing what you start. 99% of the population might never write a poem, and even those who do probably don’t see the piece through until the end. Simply finishing that final draft, even if it’s not published, is the achievement.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on finishing up my poetry manuscript, Don’t Steal My Days I’ll Give Them To You. The manuscript was my MFA thesis at the University of Saskatchewan, but even after completing the MFA, I felt there were areas the manuscript needed to improve on before putting the thing out into the world. Some poems are being cut, others edited down, and a few newer ones added in. I’m fortunate that recently, I got to work with Dorothea Lasky, a poet I wildly respect, who helped me totally rethink the project with fresh eyes. Of course, I’m also adding rough drafts to my stack of poems to revise in a few months.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
Writing a successful rough draft of a poem never starts with obsessing over the opening line. The entry point to writing a poem is starting with a strong or specific image. The greatest writing, no matter what the genre, relies on strong and specific images. The entry point of my poem started with the cobalt light of a dashboard; the image popped into my mind, and I started building around it. Many times, that image/phrase won’t be the first line of the poem but will influence the direction of every line in the poem.
Are there other art forms that inspire or inform your poetry?
When I first started writing poetry, I was around seven years old and had no idea what poetry was. What I was actually doing was rewriting words to songs I heard on my mom’s radio. A strong musical influence has stayed with me since those first lines. I find myself seeking out music with great lyrics in image, narrative, or some other element. I was in a few bands during my late teens and early twenties as the lead singer and primary lyric writer. During the songwriting process, I became obsessed with understanding how even the smallest word choice could impact the melody and finding small areas that could be cut to make the harmony smoother. The influence of music and lyric writing still greatly influence my poetry.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
I read poetry for around two hours every night. I’m not much of a TV watcher unless it’s football season, so from about nine to eleven each night, I’m either exploring a new collection or rereading Birthday Letters for the millionth time. As I’m reading, I always have a small leather-bound notebook and a favorite pen nearby in case anything I read sparks an idea. I find that my most successful ideas come when I’m reading a collection which I really connect with.
How do you know when a poem is finished? / Is a poem ever really finished?
During the rough draft process, I have to admit to myself when a poem has gone as far as it can, that’s when I know a poem is “finished.” Once I accept that moment, I can put the poem on my pile of rough drafts and move on to the next piece. Dorothea Lasky once told me that poems are often written in pairs or “brothers,” which is something I’ve always found myself doing. I never find that one poem can contain everything I want to say about an event or the impact of an experience. So, even though one poem might be finished, it doesn’t mean I’m done using the poetic form to explore, understand, or record the event/experience that inspired the first poem.
Have you ever received advice (or has there been something you’ve learned on your own) about writing or revising poems that has made you a better poet? What was it?
Lately, I received a few pieces of advice that were groundbreaking for me. The first was from Pinhole, who told me not to slam the door on emotions at the end of the poem. I wasn’t all that happy with how I was approaching many of my endings at the time, and getting that advice opened my eyes to a totally new way of ending a poem.
Dorothea Lasky also provided the advice that every detail of a poem needs to focus on the relationship between the narrator and whoever is being spoken about. Before, I often tried to include too much about a place in my poems, either by naming the city or including unnecessary details. However, since many of my poems are about relationship, Dorothea pointed out how all the necessary details need to focus on the relationship and not the place. Not making the place into a character within the poem was massive for me.
Do you belong to a writer’s group? If not, where do you find poetry community and feedback?
I’m always looking for online workshops to join since there aren’t many local workshops where I currently am. Faber and Faber has a few interesting poetry workshops I’m thinking about trying out. I just signed up for Alex Dimitrov’s Zoom workshops starting next month, which I’m thrilled about. When I started wrapping up my thesis, Alex became a significant influence.
How did you begin writing poetry? Was there a specific inspiration or reason?
My dad was deployed to the Bosnian War as part of a peacekeeping mission with the Tenth Mountain Division when I was seven years old. At such a young age, I didn’t know how to handle the stress of having a dad deployed to a war zone, let alone a place I couldn’t pronounce or find on a map. I started rewriting lyrics to songs I heard on the radio, which became my first poems. Poetry became my way of handling life and it’s remained that way since.
In terms of poetic style or craft, is there a big question you are trying to find an answer for?
“What makes a great poem a great poem?” is the question I ask myself every day.