Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Will Cordeiro from Issue 8, Cut/Copy/Paste: The Original! Read his poem, “Glue Trap” in our eighth issue!
Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?
Will: Being alive. Travel. Reading. Thinking. Art. Music. Love. The whole flux of experience. Learning about science, history, cultures. Other people. Other languages. Creativity in any form fosters more creativity. One spark ignites another.
Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?
Will: Sure, there’s many—too many to account for here. I’ll just give a shout out to my co-author, Lawrence Lenhart, with whom I’m working on a book right now about experimental literature. Being inside the writing process on a large project with someone else is a great learning experience for me, and Lawrence’s dedication to his craft and his thoughtfulness are inspiring. My partner, M. S. Coe, is also inspiring; I’m often the first reader and give feedback on their work. Their second novel should be coming out from Spurl Editions next year.
Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?
Will: I’m often moved by the particularities of places—along with the animals, plants, and fungi that inhabit them; the intricate network of ecosystems; weather and landforms; the human body; the matter and energy that undulate our universe.
Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?
Will: I work almost every day. I move between genres and styles, older pieces and new ones. I can revise small pieces for years, for decades sometimes. The joy is staying focused on making any piece the best it can be, listening to the language, having the patience to keep crafting each word, allowing the process to push me to reimagine my aesthetic outlook, and continuing to apply higher standards. There’s no moment of arrival. The act of writing is its own reward.
Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?
Will: My first book of poems came out in 2021, Trap Street, which won the Able Muse Book Award. I’m currently working on Experimental Writing: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology with my co-author Lawrence Lenhart, which is scheduled to be published by Bloomsbury in 2023.
Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?
Will: Despite writing a book on contemporary experimental literature, I tend to read more work by authors from past eras. In the last few weeks, it’s been Herrick, Rochester, A. D. Hope, Ovid, Alejandra Pizarnik, Quevedo, and Neruda in poetry; John Dos Passos, Richard Selzer, and Eliza Haywood in prose; plays by Aristophanes and Edward Albee. I’m also teaching Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School, Hervé Guibert’s Arthur’s Whims, and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout in my classes this semester. All good stuff.
Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?
Will: Generally, I don’t think the author is all that important—I hope the attention can be placed on the work itself. I’m not advocating self-abnegation for others; but, personally, my work is not about “me” even when it’s most autobiographical.
Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?
Will: I don’t have any forms of social media. However, there’s a good deal of my work scattered around various sites online.