b. h. fein: "my gluten-free bread and vegan butter is free verse poetry"
interview 2/12 - special addition to issue01: LOVE
this is THE CRY LOUNGE; a creative publishing studio + magazine. Read our past issue01: LOVE & join our online writing camp this Summer - more details can be found here! 🎀🏕️ ✍️
Due to this being the very first issue of my magazine, I invited most of my writers to get interviewed about their creative process, where they find inspiration & motivation to show up for their writing and work and much more.
Please enjoy the interview with b. h. fein.
content note: substance mention
Introduce yourself - what kinds/genres of writing you work on? If you wanna shout out any published work, add the links for the reader to check out :)
hi there, reader! i’m b. h. fein (they/them or it’s/complicated)~~! i write lots of stuff (mostly in lowercase), but my gluten-free bread and vegan butter is free verse poetry. i haven’t been sending my stuff out for too too long, but i feel like i recently cracked the code as to what i can offer the poetry world, so i’ve revamped my style and steered into humour and experimentalism (with the occasional sprinkle of seriousness). if you wanna check out some of my other stuff, you can read in jake a sims video game monologue i wrote and an emojipasta piece i did:
https://jakethemag.com/tag/b-h-fein/ :) (these were super fun to write, too!)
When did you start writing poetry? Do you remember your first poem?
i actually used to kinda dislike writing. english class was the slog of all slogs for me in high school. (timed in-class writes = personal attacks!) all those yawn-filled lessons on the symbolism in mansfield’s “miss brill,” the use of assonance in frost’s “nothing gold can stay”—oh, it was agonizing for younger me! but after i left high school, i got to engage with english lit on my own terms, and i found that it wasn’t so bad. in fact, it was pretty damn sick (at times). i’ll never forget—
i remember going to the library on campus during my first day of uni (i defaulted to the arts ’cause that’s where i figured a “rarefied” soul like mine belonged). i thought that’s what mature, interesting uni students did, after all—read. and i wandered through the top floor’s endless rows of dusty tomes. i had no idea what i was looking for, really, so i was waiting for some sort of sign. and that’s when i saw a collection of philip larkin’s work dangling precipitously from a nearby shelf. the first poem i opened to was titled “money.” it was about the false promises of capital, how desperately sad money begins to look the more you think about it. (i, who was about to become a fledgling communist, was spellbound at seeing money treated so flippantly.) his blending of traditional styles and modern slang and impulses showed me that poetry wasn’t just about stodgy metrical patterns—it could also be moulded and interrogated to produce more daring works. i immediately checked the book out with my brand-new library/student card, and devoured it wholesale.
that’s when i decided there might be something to being a poet. (my bank account has never recovered.)
still, i thought it would be part of some grand tradition to also go way, way back and read the stodgiest, crustiest, yt male-iest poems i could and simulate those styles first before i worked my way up to the more modern stuff. it was kinda like that meme about starting your philosophy studies with the pre-socratic greeks.
What inspired the Classical poets be like you sent in? Do you wanna share the story behind them?
my poem, “classical poets be like,” was born from those early experiments, when i wrote about frilly things, like clouds and forest glades and love in its purest form. (i’m still not sure i know what love is after all these years!) you might consider this an homage to my curious (misguided?) poetic past.
Where do you find inspiration?
at the bottom of an almond milk carton. just kidding. i spend a lot of time online because algorithms run our lives now, mine included, so much of my inspiration comes from internet culture. oWo.
What is your creative process?
i walk around while writing. a lot. i stumble around and handwrite everything as the first draft, and then i type and edit simultaneously. then, i edit again (and again and again and again). or i just wing it and go with pure intuition if i’m feelin’ like rollin’ the dice! one time, i wrote an entire poem on the back of my friend’s headrest in their car!
Do you have a writing routine? If yes, what does yours look like?
to add on to my explanation of my process: i’ll dabble with shrooms and dexedrine occasionally if i need to see a project or idea differently. but no matter what i’m taking or not taking or doing or not doing while writing, i’ll always eat. i love, love, love food, in case you can’t tell. no writing session of mine is complete without food. i’ll eat anything. even shoes. but i have definitely fallen asleep during the writing process because of this eating, or i’ve gotten so stoned i’ve ended up checking and re-checking that i turned off the stove instead of actually picking up my pen. oops!
Do you experience writer’s block or more procrastination? What cures writer’s block for you?
my cure for writer’s block is a little explicit ;) (it starts with a “g.”) but if even that doesn’t work, i will sometimes lie with my feet raised as high as i can so all the blood rushes to my head. i saw this method in a cartoon once (can’t remember which one), and it has actually helped save the day a few times. i might’ve even done that while writing this piece.
What are your writing dreams? What do you want to happen sometime in the future?
i’d like to release a full collection now that i’ve found true direction with my writing. my poet friends a. b. and adi are helping me put together something really special for y’all, and i absolutely cannot wait to reveal it to the world! every time i go to a bookstore and see these lovely, lovely collections from poets like mercedes eng, chantal gibson, jaye simpson, i just can’t believe they were able to come up with such groundbreaking works. it’s so amazing they’re bringing words into the world the way they are, so special and fresh and new—so if i wanted anything for my career, i guess it would be a piece of that action! stay tuned! ( ꈍᴗꈍ)
b. h. fein (they/them) is not fine. they have appeared in a growing number of lit mags. they no longer write cloying classical-style poetry :)
this is THE CRY LOUNGE; a creative publishing studio + magazine. Read our past issue01: LOVE & join our online writing camp this Summer - more details can be found here! 🎀🏕️ ✍️
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