10 Questions for Raphael Jenkins
Duh sky was heavy wit smoke, wails
& choppers whirrin’—searchlights
trained on civilians. Sounds of war
clawed duh windows, tried to crawl
unduh’ duh do’ways too, ’bout did
’til yo granmama got to sangin’.
—from “Grandpa’s Detroit #2 (The 1968 Riot),” Volume 66, Issue 1 (Spring 2025)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I still have some of my notebooks from high school—I’m currently eye-balling one that’s sitting on my desk—so I could tell you about the corny ass love poem I wrote and presented to my creative writing class. But if I’m to be real with myself, the poem was real bad and not at all noteworthy. What I can speak about are the tricks I picked up as I fell in love with poetry, the ways we speak our truth without speaking too many facts. Coded language, the bait-and-switch, both things you will find important if you want to write about things you hope no one ever reads. I’d eventually come to learn that I was playing around with lyrical poems, ignoring “meaning” while always endeavoring to write the truth. This is something that has followed me all these years—despite being someone who writes lots of autobiographical poems, I have no interest in sharing all of my business. I only want to add to the poem what that poem needs to live.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
My homies can attest to the fact that I’m a bit more than mildly obsessed with Hanif Abdurraqib’s work. The Crown Ain’t Worth Much was the first book of poetry I ever bought. Reading his poems, I discovered what I could do without punctuation, how to write about flowers, that it is possible to express anger on the page in a way that won’t make my mother blush were she to come to a reading. Terrance Hayes is another hero of mine, as is Carl Phillips, Joy Priest and Franny Choi. I really dig the way they make language feel like their toy. Some kind of Play-Doh or Transformer action-figure with infinite possibilities. I def gotta add Jonah Mixon-Webster to this list. If you’ve never read his poem “Black Existentialism No. 13: The Myth of Niggaphus,” you’re missing out.
What other professions have you worked in?
I’m a chef. I have basically only worked in the culinary industry my entire career. I was a camp counselor one summer; I hated it.
What did you want to be when you were young?
The first thing I ever seriously wanted to do was become a chef. I low-key think Anthony Bourdain is to blame. No Reservations (the show not the book, didn’t read that til much later) set something on fire in me. No job I knew anything about looked half as fun or intense or worthwhile. Feeding people, at its core, is an act of love. I know of few better ways to spend my time than to being paid to spread love and make it look pretty. The work is difficult at times—most times—but I’m one of the lucky ones, I actually like what I do. That said, it’s very hard on the knees and lower back in your thirties. I should’ve picked a career wherein I can sit down sometimes. We are so foolish in our youth.
What inspired you to write this piece?
I realized that too many of the poems I’d been writing about my family centered trauma, loss, general sad shit. It felt like I had been painting their stories in one color, focusing on parts and moments that didn’t allow them full personhood. I started writing persona poems in the voices of folks I’d written about as a way to “hear” how “they” feel about the ways I’d been moving. Obviously, anything I write in someone else’s voice is at most an approximation, but it offers time and space to sit with the memories of my loved ones—the ones in which they are still whole and above ground. This particular poem is part of a series in which the speaker brings his male elders back to life to get their advice after finding out he is going to be a father.
Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
Detroit. Detroit. Detroit. Every poem I write, in some way, is an ode to that city, its people. It’s the song that’s constantly stuck in my head, the lingering ache in my back. I’m constantly endeavoring to write in a way that feels familiar to those who know Detroit, even if the poem is a brand new idea for me to tackle. I also find myself thinking about the “Summer, somewhere” Danez Smith invokes in their poem of the same name, I’m fascinated with the idea of alternative reality in poems. What of a place is worth holding on to, and what can be done away with? I spend a lot of time writing toward answers to those questions.
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
I can’t listen to music I’m familiar with while I’m writing. It has to be some random instrumental jazz track that I’ve never heard of, or the nighttime thunderstorms playlist on Spotify. I talk out my poems while I write so silence is best. When I’m editing I tend to listen to podcasts. I’m not sure why, but the idle chitchat of others relaxes me. Almost like working in a coffee shop, except I don’t necessarily need to wear pants.
Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
I almost always have a candle burning. My fan is likely oscillating on low behind me. I will make sure to have at least one joint rolled and waiting in the ashtray. I’ll let the dog outside to do his business so he’s settled and less likely to interrupt. I hide my snacks and fill my canteen with water and ice cubes. Once I’m seated I put my earbuds in, whether or not I intend to listen to anything.
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
I have a handful of friends who aren’t poets whose eyes I trust. Maybe they don’t know about form or meter in the academic sense, but they do know me. They know when I’m peacocking, when I’m being avoidant, when I’m rambling to make its seem like I know what I’m talking about even when I don’t. I try not to send the homies a screenshot of every single poem I write because I don’t want them to think I expect free labor, so more often than not the first people to read my poems are the readers at the literary magazines I submit them to.
What are you working on currently?
I’m in the process of submitting my debut manuscript to publishers and contests I think might be a good fit for it. I’m always tinkering with it here and there, but I feel good about it. I’m currently in the trenches of generating poems for what’s shaping up to be my second collection. It’s still in the (very) early stages, but I’m proud of the poems that have been coming, the questions they’re asking of me as a poet. I’ve noticed this while reading the books of others: once that first book is out of the way, some poets seem to switch to a wider lens. The “I” is still there, but maybe not as front-and-center. Less “who did what to me” and more “what we do to each other”, or something like that. I think that’s where I’m, but we shall see.
RAPHAEL JENKINS prefers to go by Ralph, as he feels it suits him better and he’s heard every Ninja Turtle joke ever uttered. He’s a native of Detroit, Michigan currently residing in Kentucky with his Boo-thang and their eight-year-old boy. He’s a chef by day and an essayist, poet, and screenwriter in his dreams. He, like Issa Rae, is rooting for everybody Black. He is three-time Best of the Net nominee, a Pushcart Prize nominee, a finalist for the 2021 Frontier Poetry Open Prize, and 2022 Periplus Collective Fellow, whose work is forthcoming or has been featured on his momma’s fridge, his close friends’ inboxes, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Muzzle Magazine, Wildness, Foglifter, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere.
