“Commute;” “Border Separation;” and “Letter to My Niece, in Silverton, Colorado” by Allison Adair appeared in Issue 46 and can be found here.
We’d love to hear more about “Letter to My Niece in Silverton, Colorado.”
“Letter to My Niece, in Silverton, Colorado” sparked from a thought I had once that my young niece would never know the version of her mother I’d known when I was her age. There’s a grammatical error in the poem, a shift in the pronoun reference, around the midpoint. For most of the poem, the “you” is the addressee, my niece. But part-way through, the poem temporarily shifts, such that the “you” becomes me talking to my own younger self. That was a mistake, but one I left in the final draft of the poem, since it seemed true to my own blurry sense of which era we’re in, with which versions of ourselves.
What was the most difficult part of writing this set?
I’m inclined to answer this question about another poem of mine in the “Reprint” issue, “Border Separation.” The most difficult part of that poem is that its central crisis—separation of parent and child at the US border—is ongoing, and we continue to drink our coffee and go to work and watch television. As of spring 2025, seven years later, well over a thousand kids have yet to be reunited with their parents.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
John Murillo’s Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry is a revelation; it should be required reading everywhere. I feel kinship with Edgar Kunz’s first collection, Tap Out—what a perfect book! And I’m excited anytime Tishani Doshi drops new work; her most recent collection, A God at the Door, is a force to behold. But you know what has stuck with me more than almost anything? The Museum of Whales You Will Never See: And Other Excursions to Iceland’s Most Unusual Museums, by A. Kendra Greene. I love books that are unhinged in their devotion to taxonomy, and The Museum of Whales You Will Never See is just that.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
The novelist Susan Choi would have to be a fun drinking buddy; I’d love to hear all her not-yet-fit-for-print ideas about narrative—what it can and can’t capture about human paradoxes. Diane Seuss would be a dream. Maybe I’d invite them both and just listen to them talk.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
My next collection is done and dusted; I hope it will be coming out soon. Right now I’m working on a series of essays related to religious relics, and wow, is prose a different beast. But I’m enjoying the challenge.
Our thanks to Allison for taking the time to answer a few questions and share these poems. Read “Commute;” “Border Separation;” and “Letter to My Niece, in Silverton, Colorado” here.
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Allison Adair’s collection The Clearing was chosen by Henri Cole for Milkweed’s Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and named a New York Times “New and Noteworthy” book. Allison’s poems appear in Best American Poetry, Threepenny Review, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and ZYZZYVA, and have received the Pushcart Prize, the Florida Review Editors’ Award, and the Orlando Prize. Originally from central Pennsylvania, Allison now lives and works in Boston.