Adam O. Davis : part one

Adam O. Davis is the author of Index of Haunted Houses (Sarabande, 2020), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize. The recipient of the 2016 George Bogin Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, his work has appeared widely in journals, including The Believer, The Paris Review, Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and ZYZZYVA. He currently lives in San Diego, California, where he teaches English literature at The Bishop’s School. 

What are you working on?

I’m currently working on a second collection of poems that began as a departure from the style Index of Haunted Houses established (these newer poems also served as a way of keeping hope alive when my first book was going through the contest process without much luck). With the first book, I was looking for absolute precision and compression, trying to see how much I could condense a poem without losing any of its power. With the second collection, I’ve challenged myself to write longer poems by letting more air in so that the poems can sprawl out, the thinking being lightning strikes are more common in wide open spaces. 

One of the pleasures of having a book out in the world means that other opportunities open up as a result (such as this interview) and I’m really excited about a podcast I’m working on with Colin Waters of the Scottish Poetry Library about the intersection between poetry and film. I’m also working on what I hope will be the final draft of a novel set during the Great Depression that I’ve been working on for the past seven years. And, of course, there are photographs to take, cactuses to plant, push-ups to be done…