Hanif Abdurraqib, Poet from Ohio

 I saw the title for Hanif Abdurraqib on the writer as archivist but this is what really caught my eye:

How influential is Ohio in you work and how important is Ohio in general in your world view and your creative process?

It’s huge. I was gone for two and a half years. I lived in New Haven for two and a half years and I missed it greatly. I wrote most of the poetry book, which is largely about Columbus, long distance. I wrote it not living here and we created this thing where I got to imagine Columbus as a place without having to answer for the landscape, which was changing rapidly through the gentrification. I’ve been thinking a lot about writing about a place that’s not as I have always remembered it, not as I’ve always loved it, and that is changing at a rate that is somewhat difficult. A place that is not without its complications.

I’m very interested in and excited about real actual stories from this part of the country and not this kind of watered-down imagination of the grand, monolithic Midwest. I feel like anytime there are stories about the Midwestern people who live here and the real living, breathing aspect of it, it does a little bit to push back against that monolithic idea, which has been built since… I feel like since post-election, that was the whole thing. There are different Midwests. Ohio is a different Midwest than Wisconsin. Ohio is a different Midwest than, like, Illinois. So, it’s important for me to say, “Yes, I am a Midwesterner second, but definitely an Ohioan first.” It’s vital for me to track with and build stories around voices here, and people here, and struggles here that are not the struggles that make the news.

 I think Indiana writers should think along these lines. I am but I am too old to do anything good with these ideas. We need to tell about what is Indiana, about the real people here. If we don't then no one will and the lives and the voices will pass away to oblivion.

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