Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with April Hernandez from our tenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

April Hernandez: I find that a lot of lived experiences kindle my creativity: memories, strong emotions, life events, the media I consume, the places I’ve been, and the people in my life.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/  idols/ friends that you look up to?

April Hernandez: When it comes to writing: I really look up to poet Jessica Pierce, who was my high school writing mentor, and author Justin Hocking, who was hands down one of my favorite college professors. I also admire my partner in life, Gabriel Isaac Lakey, who is an incredibly talented videographer, and my best friend, SarahAnn Harvey who is the founder of Pile Press.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?

April Hernandez: I think growing up in Portland and Oregon in general moves my work. We have so many types of environments here that it is hard not to feel influenced by the natural beauty of where I am fortunate enough to live.

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?

April Hernandez: As I mentioned before, I get inspired by lived experiences, and my poem  “Recipe for When You Miss Him” appearing in Tiny Spoon’s 10th Issue is a great example of that. When I was in my junior year of college my brother Michael committed suicide. It was a lot to handle and I found that writing really helped me not only process his death but grieve him as well. I think the same can be said about my writing in general: I use it as a way to process my feelings about events that happen. Once I get everything down on paper, I usually will then type it up and make revisions and stylistic choices from there.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

April Hernandez: In terms of my own writing, my creative nonfiction chapbook “Getting to Know the Stoveman” was just recently released through Bottlecap Press, and it is a project that I am really proud of. The summary for it is as follows:

“Getting to Know the Stoveman is a collection of vignettes that delves into the idea that love is more than big gestures and rather finding its warmth in the small yet habitual acts of care given by the people around you. After learning her estranged uncle has passed away, Hernandez helps pack up his possessions and in the process she discovers that their similarities run deeper than the blood that they share.

Through her sincere yet offbeat tone, Hernandez’s memoir finds love in small actions and encapsulates a bigger story using focused and simplistic vignettes. Her writing, while being tied to specific moments in her life, draws on universal themes of love, loss, and death that all can relate to and connect with, in both their happiest and their darkest of times.”

 I am also the Co-Coordinator and submissions reader for Pile Press, which is a journal that publishes work by women, non-binary and fluid creatives. We are currently working on our sixth issue, so be on the lookout for the release date on that!

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

April Hernandez: As someone who reads as much as I do, narrowing it down is very hard for me. I would say one of my favorite books of 2022 is Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan. It is a collection of short stories that involve queer characters, typically women, who are on the edge of change. There are elements of fairytales, myths, and gothic literature that really add to the collection as a whole. In terms of a visual recommendation, I would highly recommend HBO’s The Last of Us. This is probably one of the best adaptations I have seen in a long time and I think anyone can enjoy it- not just those familiar with the game. Just go in with the knowledge that it is a very depressing but beautiful show.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

April Hernandez: I am a huge bookworm! I absolutely adore reading and am constantly adding to my TBR pile. One other thing I would like to mention is that I co-produce (and sometimes appear in) some of my partner’s works, including his films. His first film that he has co-written and co-directed, “Punched After the Fact,” will hopefully be hitting the festival circuits this year. Here is a link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woOPQQIXLJg

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

April Hernandez: My personal Instagram is @april.alexis and the Pile Press Instagram is @pilepress

Our 10th Issue is packed full of exciting artists and writers! Our blog is an extension of the issue so we can share even more experimental, beautiful work with our readers!

Lions in the Grass

Lions in the grass, a bird flies from the tree to the cliff, orange rocks and crawling snakes jagged with lust. Here is the number five, here is the equation born from the universe and the imagination. The light goes out. The robbery is a success, this is the number five. On the outskirts of the town the sleeping woman can still hear the screaming zebra, the bookends of her slumber, the soundtrack to her flowing dream. A muscle tenses against the bone, a vacant breath for her to own, the hills rise like the edge of a cavern, the lip of a crater. No instruction is given, and the orator begins, a vacant flow of the water to cascade there under the bridge, there to touch the morning, there to awaken each one of us. As we drunkenly shake the idols from our hair, these are the gold nails hammered into the yew, hammered into the ebony, we are sore, but still we walk, still we drink from hands soft and we chant soft words to raise spirit, to break the straight line from ancestor to fateful sleep. Hold the strong, and make love to ghosts, stinging the assembly, burning the actor’s hair and beard. These candles spin, these voices are soft wrapping around our army of echoing precision. Here the masters feast on the poems of heaven, here we construct tunnels inscribed with golden prayer.

Sweet rain laying on the ground, throwing brilliant colour towards the men in space. I hold myself in the blanket and look up to the sun. Somewhere there is a fire burning the sacrifices for an understanding God. Cold hands and slouching shoulders, black shirts beneath black coats. Shoes stepping into the wet soil, shoes leaving prints in the red clay. There is smoke coming out from the roof, there are mice in the walls, and thoughts yet to be released from the shaking effects of legs and limb. All the dinosaurs came
today, all the moths flew away. Bubbles formed in the water and we flooded the valleys so we could build more boats. I read your message left for me on the standing tree, I read your words and couldn’t find the difference between now and then, age holds no recollection or lesson, age is no medal for me to pin to my dark shirt. Some new honour for me to toss in all directions, a triumph in the form of a golden apple to share at the feast, when dogs lie beneath stone tables, when horses make for home and great
philosophers sleep through the eclipse of Autumn. I do not know what your wine stands for, I do not know what your toasts are honouring, the dead they are gone. The living they are walking on dusty roads, they are kicking quartz stones against quartz stones. Pissing against the soft bark of elm trees, watching the dust of drought take effect on the middle son.

Normally the audience holds candles to the roof, normally the lust of the theatre leaves black scars on the walls. Seeds are planted beneath the floorboards, and when the building burns to the ground these will grow. On the rivers we planted grape vines, on the mud flats we planted lucerne trees. A prison was built where the caravan used to sit, and the author watched as they built statues in memory of his art. I don’t know where the paths are leading me, I don’t know where desire sits, this grassy crest beneath
citrus tree and jasmine vine, this stone ledge where the adolescent boy sits holding a cigarette to his mouth. It reminds me of a movie I once saw, the British fellow went swimming and died. I have no white shirts to wake up in, I leave words at the breakfast table, I leave words in the wine. I can’t hold this memory forever.

Bio: Tim Bocquet is an Australian writer of poetry and prose, living the semi-rural life with very large collection of books, many unread. He has a degree in Ancient History and enjoys the simple things in life, such as pork and fennel sausages and cardigans.

Find “An Ocean’s Jagged Smile” in Issue 10!

Our 10th Issue is packed full of exciting artists and writers! Our blog is an extension of the issue so we can share even more experimental, beautiful work with our readers!

Bio: William Clark holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas and teaches at the College of San Mateo.

Find “at wood’s edge” in Issue 10!

Our 10th Issue is packed full of exciting artists and writers! Our blog is an extension of the issue so we can share even more experimental, beautiful work with our readers!

Bio: Sara Whittemore is a poet and artist living with four cats in Houston, Texas.

Find “Score” in Issue 10!

Our 10th Issue is packed full of exciting artists and writers! Our blog is an extension of the issue so we can share even more experimental, beautiful work with our readers!

Process Note: Three Blackout Poems, is a sampling from an experimental collection of found poems I am working on. These poems were taken out of old obscure paperback novels, found second hand and given a second life through a combination of erasure poetry and digital collage. The idea was to take something old and find new thoughts within it. All images used in this collection were pulled from the public domain or creative commons with a CC0 (Universal) license.

Bio: A. N. King lives in Phoenix, Arizona and writes tiny poems on Instagram and Twitter as @ankingwrites.

Find “The Confusion of Death” in Issue 10!

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Dominic Loise from our tenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity? 

Dominic Loise: For me, writing started out of art therapy. Besides journaling, creative writing is a way for me to work on being present and not get lost in racing thoughts.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Dominic Loise: My friends who are an ongoing part of my mental health recovery team are a gift and guidance in every aspect of my life. After I hit my rock bottom, I was in a vulnerable state and these were the people who helped me find my true self. People who have given me a safe space to talk and helped destigmatize the conversation around mental health awareness. They got me out of my own way as I got to work on myself and eventually onto writing.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?

Dominic Loise: When I first got out of the hospital after being inpatient, a big first step for me was getting out and walking around the block. Part of my therapy in these walks was to notice the environment around me and not remain in my head. Soon, I began taking photos of things I saw, writing poetry of the images for art therapy and just posting it on Instagram. It was a daily activity that taught me to be in the moment and remain present in the natural world outside- not in my head.

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?

Dominic Loise: I enjoy rewriting and working with editors. I have had the advantage of seeing that there isn’t just one path in life after I started over after the hospital so I do my best to not be a “one and done” draft writer. It takes me a few drafts to get what I want to say with a piece just like how it takes me a while to dig into something in therapy.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Dominic Loise: I have personal mental health awareness essays, book reviews and interviews online at F(r)iction (www.frictionlit.org). My team of editors at F(r)iction/Brink Literacy Project have been amazing and I can’t thank them enough for the support they give me or shine a big enough light on the work they also do with their literacy nonprofit programs.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others? 

Dominic Loise: One of my favorite reads of last year was the novella The Bruising of Qilwa (Tachyon) by Naseem Jamnia. They have built an incredible fantasy world, which is very relevant to our own. It is a book I love discussing. The Willies (Button Poetry) by Dr. Adam Falkner is one of those “right books at the right time” scenarios. I truly appreciate what Falkner has to say about knowing your own personal truth. And Stephanie Phillips is doing some great things in the comic book industry. Particularly, her work on Harley Quinn (DC Comics) and how the character is helping others overcome trauma from The Joker.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Dominic Loise: It took me a long time to break through the stigma of asking for help for mental health. That stigma caused me to treat therapy at first like a sprint instead of like a marathon which led to a hospitalization. After I got out of being inpatient, I learned that there is help and people who are willing to talk about mental health awareness. So, I would say that if anyone reading this interview learned anything it’s that a stigma should stop anyone from asking for help.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Dominic Loise: I’m on Instagram & Twitter at @dominic_lives.

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Taylor Jones from our tenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Taylor Jones: The weird and wonderful variety found in nature never fails to amaze and amuse me and inspires most of my short stories. I tend to write poetry during periods of intense emotion, both good and bad.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/heroines/idols/friends that you look up to?

Taylor Jones: Rachel Carson is my hero. Writers I admire include James Tiptree, Jr., Ursula K. LeGuin, and Octavia Butler. They all infuse fascinating speculative fiction with a deep understanding of the human condition and profound empathy.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?

Taylor Jones: Fungi, bird mating dances, ant colonies, and sex-changing fish are a few natural phenomena I’m fascinated by, but there are too many to list!

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?

Taylor Jones: The poem “I’ve inherited” came from a place of anger. Anger is often devalued as destructive, but righteous rage is one of the most productive and transformative emotions out there, if we let ourselves feel it. This poem is a reminder to myself to keep feeling it.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Taylor Jones: I listen to the Groove Salad channel on Soma FM (somafm.com) for chill creative vibes. I have a huge list of speculative fiction books I could recommend, but if I had to pick just one work, the “Imperial Radch” trilogy by Ann Leckie is incredible if you like rebellion against empire despite impossible odds.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Taylor Jones: Links to my writing, my art store, and my social media are on my Linktree: linktr.ee/i_heart_fungi

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Grant Chemidlin from our tenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Grant Chemidlin: I find I’m most inspired when reading other people’s poetry. Coming across a poem that is exciting and totally unique is infectious. It makes me want to try new things, find my own mind-bending images.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Grant Chemidlin: Ada Limón has always been my favorite poet, so you can imagine how excited I was when I found out she was going to be the next US Poet Laureate. What I love about her work is how she effortlessly moves between the micro and the macro. In one moment, we’re watching the tiny beetle in her garden, and in the next, we’re suddenly wondering about our own existence, our lives, and our deaths.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?

Grant Chemidlin: I’ve been writing a lot about water recently. Finding different ways to imagine it moving: rain flying backwards up into the sky, a woman pouring herself into the earth, then rising up as a patch of daisies. I think it’s the ubiquitous nature of it. At the core of everything is water, even when you can’t see it.

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?

Grant Chemidlin: Generally speaking, my creative process looks like this: I wake up, read some poems from whatever book I’m reading, then go for a walk around the neighborhood while listening to meditation music. When I get back, hopefully having come across some glimmer of an image, I’ll sit down and draft a poem in my journal. Once I’m satisfied, then I’ll type it up and start revising.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Grant Chemidlin: I am currently working on a new full-length collection aimed at creating new, authentic images of gay love and gay intimacy.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Grant Chemidlin: Victoria Chang’s The Trees Witness Everything.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Grant Chemidlin: My first traditionally published collection, What We Lost in the Swamp will be released on May 2^nd and I’m so excited (and so nervous) for it to finally be out in the world.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do? (website, social media, etc., if you wish to share it)

Grant Chemidlin: @grantcpoetry on Instagram and TikTok

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Radoslav Rochallyi from our tenth issue.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

Radoslav Rochallyi: I am not an author who writes continuously. I always need a muse. I’ve been looking for a reliable formula to summon creativity all my life, but I haven’t found it yet. Creativity comes on its own without invitation. But once I have it, I can’t stop. For example, I wrote the entire Mythra Invictus prose book in 38 hours over two days.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?

Radoslav Rochallyi: I have a degree in philosophy and some courses in art, math, statistics, painting, etc. But I always go back to my basics, which are in philosophy. I look up to the philosopher Nietzsche for his mad intellectual courage. I look up to the mathematician Hardy for his discovery of light in his resignation. I look up to the physicist Tegmark for his brazen cosmology, specifically describing physical reality as a mathematical structure. So, to sum it up, I look up to the courage of those who stand up and say: All of you standing here are wrong!

Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?

Radoslav Rochallyi: Nature? Plants? The animals? The earth? The sun? The universe? Of course, as a person, everything I encounter inspires me. On the other hand, I am interested in natural abstractions, symbols, and relationships. For example, I am currently fascinated by vector and topological objects. And in recent years, I have been particularly fascinated by the discovery of relationships between temporal and spatial vectors and the possibilities of connections with syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

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?

Radoslav Rochallyi: In a way, my creative process is a ritual of creation and destruction. Which enters a coincidence that I do not believe. At a young age, I realized that my head creates more things than it can hold. And I understood that I must destroy what I don’t use. Not to postpone but to destroy. That’s the only way it won’t steal a place in my mind and attention. I have a notebook that I carry with me everywhere. I write every thought, question, and statement that comes to mind and seems interesting to me. In it, I have poetry, philosophy, equations, and patterns, but also analyses, and observations from the world around me. Every year from May, I make a new notebook and burn the old one. Ideas that I don’t use I incinerate. If an idea repeats itself repeatedly, I think about how to deal with it. If I come up with it, a concept, a poem, a short story, a painting, or even a whole book will be created. If I don’t figure it out, it will burn again. It is the same with manuscripts and paintings. Last year I burned 30 of my paintings in one day when I realized I didn’t want to carry them in my head. Only those at the exhibition in Rome and the museum in Budapest survived. It may seem sick to some, but I can’t create it any other way. For me, the new replaces the old just as passionately, and carefree as the old is destroyed.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

Radoslav Rochallyi: Recently, my interest has shifted from equation poetry to vector poetry. It’s almost May, so this article might be the only one where I’ll say something about it. For me, 2022 and 2023 are the years of answering whether vector poetry can provide an extended visual interpretation of the language unavailable through traditional notation and interpretation. The combination of time, space, movement, and direction can expand all aspects of a text and its meaning. My endeavor aims to investigate the semantics/semiotics of vectors in poetry as a response to the problem of creating meaningful patterns. I believe that Vectors can be used to create a sense of movement in a poem. For example, words can flow smoothly from one to another, creating a sense of rhythm and movement. It can add another layer of meaning to the poem and make it more interesting to explore.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

Radoslav Rochallyi: Everything by Nietzsche except what his sister published. Being and Time by Heidegger as a beautiful demonstration of the power of abstraction. Either/Or by Kierkegaard because he was a real Man. A Mathematician’s Apology essay by the mathematician G. H. Hardy is a ticket to the world of aesthetics in mathematics.

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

Radoslav Rochallyi: All the free decisions you have made and will make are determined by the mathematical nature of reality. Art and unconditional love are the only ways to turn your back on determinism, at least for a while.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do?

Radoslav Rochallyi: I have closed all my presentations and accounts. The only thing I kept is Twitter: @RRochallyi.

Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with David Martin, the Founding Editor of Middle Creek Publishing & Audio from our ninth issue, Cut/Copy/Paste: The Remix!

Tiny Spoon: What was your process for engaging with the Cut/Copy/Paste Remix? How did you choose what to keep or what to omit?

David: Noting a few poems with lines that resonated with me and seeing within the collection of lines another alternate narrative. I tried to mostly cut up the entire original poem by lines and use them all, trying not to omit anything, but at times clipping words or fragments and moving them around in the space of the poem.

Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?

David: Observation and being open to seeing variation. Transformation and experimentation.

Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?

David: The flora and fauna of the wild in my region often inspire me to consider processes and experience differently than I might without encountering and observing them. Observing them reveals aspects of their nature or behavior that I often find is mirrored in the behaviors or processes or transformative aspects of myself.

Tiny Spoon: We’d love insight into your creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?

David: Often I write out lines as they come to me observed in the world or heard in my mind, at times I repeat phrases and play with word substitution to find attractive alliteration or rhythms that feel right syllabically or in the efficient flowing of the movement of tongue and breath, I can feel a good poem with my mouth, hear a good poem in my mind.

Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?

David: As the Founding Editor of Middle Creek Publishing, I am swamped with work on other people’s manuscripts, but I do write my own poetry daily and have a few manuscripts for poetic collections in the process as well as a couple of novels that are taking their ever-so-sweet time in their final stages of refinement.

Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?

David: I would be remiss to not recommend a few choice books that Middle Creek Publishing has put out, namely, Hush by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, In Beauty We Are Made Visible by Christine Morro, Hawk Land by Sandra Noel, Our Mother, The Mountain by Alexander Shalom Joseph, Exhalations by Aaron M. Moe and a couple soon to be released: the highly anticipated Breath on a Coal by Anne Haven McDonnell and Seeking the Button Rock Hermit by Tony Burfield.

All of these works are a blend of eco-poetry and heart-based, inspirational, almost devotional works. I also enjoy poets being published by Longbarrow Press, Corbel Stone Press, and most things from Copper Canyon (as usual).

Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?

David: I have been a lifelong outdoorsman who has coupled a meditative, mindfulness and observational investigative approach to my relationship with myself and the natural world I inhabit. This pairing has led me to deepen the map of my journey in a most personally satisfying way. It is in my interaction with nature and the other-than-human beings I encounter that have enriched both my life, my cognitive map, my philosophy, my sense of meaning of life and work and action in the world, as well as my writing and poetic practice.

Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do? (Website, social media, etc., if you wish to share it)

David: My work with and aside from Middle Creek Publishing can be found on Facebook, Instagram and with some of the aspects of the Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center where I am a caretaker and environmental educator.