Peter Burzyński

KTQ: We are a history focused journal, so we’d love to start off with a bit about your history. Can you tell us about your background?

PB: Yeah! I write quite a bit about it these days. My current project is about growing up in my parents’ Polish restaurant. As the son of immigrants from the People’s Republic of Poland, I have been affected. I am approaching how I exist with two languages, two cultures, and two personalities in one mind— a Cold War in my head.

As a younger poet I wrote light-hearted poems filled with bendy language play, but now I write about the inherited history of war, genocide, and oppression. These new poems reflect my time as a chef, and in this vein, approach issues of the immigrant other and second-class citizen treatment.

KTQ: What is your process like? How does a poem begin for you?

PB: It’s random. Last March and April, I wrote at least one poem a day. Lately, I write a small handful a month. I think this is because I can’t force a poem— it has to be banging on the walls of my skull, desperate to escape.

KTQ: Do you find that you predominantly write in one particular language, or is it pretty evenly split? Do you find that the language you write in depends on the subject of the poem?

PB: I write in the language that fits. I have been writing more in Polish (even one is Slovak) since I moved to Eastern Europe. However, 90% or more of my poems are in U.S. English.

KTQ: Some poets edit and edit and edit, some write everything down at once and never touch a word. What is the process of revision like for you? How much is a poem an organic occurrence and how much of the writing actually happens in editing?

PB: I write a poem and the print it; I keep it in my back right pocket all day. I occasionally look at it and spot edit. After that, it goes under my pillow. If I dream of something better I incorporate that. Then I leave the poem alone for at least two months. I might edit it again when submitting it, but if I do, it’s only a few words or some spacing. I don’t do large overhauls. I don’t see the point–just wait to write the next poem.

KTQ: What do you do with the printed copy after you've slept with it under your pillow?

PB: I have a hard time throwing it away. I lose it somewhere in a desk drawer. Sometimes I go through them much much later but at that point I have the poem digitally and it's changed a bit since that print out.

KTQ: Unlike most other literary mediums, poetry isn’t just about the words, it’s about form. What do you think the role of form is in poetry? How do you choose what form a poem will take?

PB: The page is the most important factor. It’s not just how a poem looks as I am shaping it, but how it feels on a screen or on paper. I used to hate writing on my phone–I would only take notes, but
now I make new poems with the space limitations of an Instagram Close Friends story in mind. I’m still deciding if this is a good thing.

My poems are rarely written with any traditional form in mind. I accidentally make sonnets. I’m not inspired by these kinds of forms, unless I am trying to break them.

KTQ: Social media can be pretty controversial within the literary community! What do you think the role of social media is in the context of poetry?

PB: Some poets tell me that their publishers require them to be very active on at least two platforms. I resist this. Yeah, I am in the self-promotion game, but if I post I want to be saying or showing something of interest. I have not looked at Twitter/X since 2016–I can't bear it. 

If people want to be instagram poets, good on them. Honestly, I probably would be too if it didn't count as first publication etc. I'm not going to hate on anyone's medium of delivery. If I find a good poem, I am glad to have it in my mind; I don't care if it's on Facebook or on a Slam stage rather than the sacred printed page.

KTQ: Do you have any themes that you find yourself returning to again and again?

PB: All the time–unrequited love, the immigrant experience, identity, and social justice. They compel me because it is within these themes that my heart feels most dense and unmanageable.

KTQ: Every writer deals with things like writer’s block or rejection at some point. It’s just the unpleasant truth of being creative and putting your creativity out there. Have you experienced these things? Do you have any tools or advice for when these aspects of being a writer come up?

PB: I’ve become numb to rejection–you have to if you want to make poetry your “career.” I can’t escape poetry–it’s the love of my life. I am happy to suffer for love; sometimes I think I might have perfected that skill, but there’s always room to grow.

I don’t think about writer’s block. I don’t get blocked because I never force any words–they have to be bursting out of me.

Advice? If you’re talented and passionate, keep going. When you release a whole bunch of birds into the air, some of them are bound to find nests, others will return to you and that’s okay.

KTQ: Do you remember the moment you fell in love with poetry? Was there a particular piece, or was it more of a gradual process?

PB: I fell hard. It was several things simultaneously. Once I discovered poetry I devoured it. I made it my mission to explore every period and every movement I could find. Shortly after that I almost exclusively started to read contemporary poets.

KTQ: And finally, what are the seven books in your personal poetry canon?

PB:

1. Map–Wisława Szymborska

2. Collected Poems–Czesław Miłosz

3. When My Brother Was an Aztec–Natalie Diaz

4. Dancing in Odessa–Ilya Kaminsky

5. Recyclopedia–Harryette Mullen

6. They Came to See a Poet–Tadeusz Różewicz

7. Howl-Allen Gnsberg