Ron Riekki has been awarded a 2014 Michigan Notable Book, 2015 The Best Small Fictions, 2016 Shenandoah Fiction Prize, 2016 IPPY Award, 2019 Red Rock Film Fest Award, 2019 Best of the Net finalist, 2020 Dracula Film Festival Vladutz Trophy, 2019 Très Court International Film Festival Audience Award and Grand Prix, 2020 Rhysling Anthology inclusion, and 2022 Pushcart Prize. Right now, Riekki’s listening to Modest Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain.
You can read When I worked in the October 2024 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?
I like to write about the world of ambulances (medics, EMTs), because I don’t see it a lot in poetry. Or when I do, it can feel pretty inauthentic. Or from the patient perspective and not those working on it. I like to give that different angle to the perspective for the reader. I love ambulance fiction like Bringing Out the Dead, so I wanted to do it from the poetry angle.
Why was the poetic form the best fit for this particular piece of work?
I write in multiple genres (fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, screenwriting, poetry) and like the compactness of the poetic form, how you can say a lot in a small space. I also like the couplets, how you’re paired up on ambulances and the stanzas could reflect that.
Do you have a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone?
For my own writing, it’s probably “Finland” from BoomerLitMag, since it received a Pushcart Prize, which is the biggest poetry award I’ve received. Although being included in The SFPA Rhysling Anthology was an honour as well (for my poem “The Ghosts of Those”). If it’s a full collection by me, I’d probably recommend Blood / Not Blood Then the Gates.
If you’re talking about a poem by another writer, I think of Shakespeare pretty quickly, but not a specific poem (although the “To be or not to be” speech is something I keep going back to over and over, if you consider that as much poetry as play). But if I need to be more specific, I might have to go with The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
I’m multi-genre, so I’d just switch to one of the other genres. Stephen Cushman really impressed upon us (at U Virginia) to try as many different poetic forms as possible, and that helped further me into multiple genres. If I do a podcast or something like that and I get introduced as “poet Ron Riekki,” I immediately think about the other genres that are being missed that I love to explore.
If it couldn’t be writing, though, it’d be through sports, especially basketball.
How do you revise your work?
Typically, I write it fast and passionately, then get done, do one read-through for edits, paying strong attention to how I feel the rhythm is, and then I send it out. Maybe a third going through it if something felt a little off, but that’s it. No more. I’ve found if I do a fourth or fifth (or more) rewrite, I tend to make it worse.
If I’m ever blessed to have a rejection where the publication tells me why they rejected the poem, then I go through with another rewrite based on their feedback. I take it seriously. If it’s a flat-out rejection with no feedback on why it was rejected, then 99% of the time I just throw the poem out. Mostly because I tend to write poems for specific journals, with them in mind. I don’t write poems and then try to find a journal that matches the poem. Very rarely do I do that.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
Awards are nice, but, honestly, I just like being nominated. When Kevin Wetmore had his essay from The Many Lives of Scary Clowns nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, I was ecstatic. I didn’t even write it. Just edited it. But I was so happy. I’m really happy with a nomination. I don’t need to win. I’m also not anti-award like some people are. I tend not to think of money, because poetry just doesn’t tend to come with that, but recognition is nice. I think Best of the Net and Pushcart and those sorts of things are awesome. It’s a fun incentive for writers and encourages you that you’re having an interesting voice that people are liking. It kind of says to me, “Please write more!”
We love the artistic underdogs, the experimentalists, the lovely weirdos — who or what might you get creative joy or energy from that others might not be aware of yet?
My all-time favourite book is Cult Fiction: a reader’s guide. That book lists about 250 of the best cult, underground, transgressive, weirdo, experimental writers on the planet. Most influential book of my life. I started reading as many books as was recommended in there and discovered some fantastic writers like Kathy Acker, Nelson Algren, William S. Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Iceberg Slim, Tom Wolfe, and Irvine Welsh.
What are you working on now?
I have some writing that’s being included in the upcoming boxset release for Terrifier 3 (for any horror fans out there), as well as another edited horror collection with Kevin Wetmore. And then I’m always writing poems, short stories, and nonfiction that I slowly craft into collections. I also have two upcoming horror stories coming out on the Chilling Tales for Dark Nights podcast that has 400,000+ subscribers, so that’s a really fun podcast to work with.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
Typically I read a poet who’s in the journal I’m about to submit to and that starts getting my mind going. Almost always I never finish the poem I started to read, because the ideas come before I’m done with it and I’m too excited to start writing my own poem.
Are there other art forms that inspire or inform your poetry?
I love cinema and theater. It’s really fun to do anything in that area. Podcasts as well. I adore actors, so it’s so fun to hear someone else reading my writing. I was just on the Rattlecast, the podcast for Rattle and I think I read maybe two of my poems on it. Instead, I had my Dad, Tim Green (the host), and Betsy Baker (actress from The Evil Dead) read my writing. I read poems by other poets more than my own work. It was really fun to read haiku by Diane Seuss and Ted Kooser and Kimberly Blaeser and Upper Peninsula Poet Laureate of Luce County Peter Wurdock, for example.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
It’s tough. I get off work and I’m exhausted, but I force myself to. I need to. It’s healing. I write a lot of poetry when I’m exhausted. I sometimes wonder if people can sense the sleep deprivation. It probably comes across as being drunk, but it’s just lack of sleep that makes for cognitive malfunctioning that maybe helps for poetry.
What are you reading or watching or listening to lately that intrigues or inspires you?
I’m a music fiend, so I’m always checking out new music. That and podcasts.
Do you belong to a writer’s group? If not, where do you find poetry community and feedback?
No writer’s group. I don’t get any feedback, unless a poetry magazine writes back and says, “We loved this,” or “We didn’t like this.” I massively appreciate any feedback. Occasionally, I’ll see something written online about my writing, but fairly rarely, but I take any comments and try to process them. John Casey at UVa pushed us to be open to criticism. As far as good advice, though, yes, a thousand things. I’ve studied with some incredible writers, but only three poets: Anselm Hollo, Eric Torgersen, and Gregory Orr. I like to say Gregory taught me bravery; Eric taught me brevity; and Anselm taught me brutify.
How did you begin writing poetry? Was there a specific inspiration or reason?
I just always did. Since I was really little. I think it was Lewis Carroll and Dr. Seuss. Then led me to Jim Carroll and Diane Seuss. It’s been a wonderful pathway. Poets are heroic. Diane’s like Wonder Woman to me. And Jim Carroll’s The Joker. Superhuman.
In terms of poetic style or craft, is there a big question you are trying to find an answer for?
Why does the world have to be so intensely lonely and harsh at times? And thank God for those who give you some kindness and love. I’m trying to record all of this madness before I die. I hope someone out there discovers a poem of mine and then just gets pulled into it and reads a ton of my writing. It’ll feel like I have a relationship with them. A friend. A marriage partner. A one-year stand. I’m just happy to connect with human beings. My sister’s roommate once let me stay in her room when I visited my sister and her roommate was gone for the weekend and she had a little notepad and I peeked inside it and I had this massive discovery: in her little notebook she had quoted from some poems I had written. I got this intense rush throughout my body. My perception is always that I am totally ignored as a poet and writer. And when I have a moment of revelation of, Oh, maybe I do exist in the literary world, it’s quite powerful. Oh, I’m not invisibile. I thought I was.