“Wildfire Haibun”: an interview with Izzy Maxson

Izzy Maxson is a writer and performance artist. She is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently, Maps To The Vanishing. Her poem, “Wildfire Haibun,” appeared in the Spring 2025 issue.

TRP: What drew you to publishing in Tar River Poetry?

Izzy Maxson: Well, TRP is an older, established magazine, and I was very excited to be in the same issue as Jane Hirshfield, who’s very talented. It’s a magazine that has been on my radar for a while. I think I’ve submitted to TRP a few times, but I’ve only been published this once.

TRP: Who are the writers that have shaped you as a poet?

Izzy Maxson: In a literary sense, I pretty much worship the ground T.S. Eliot walks on. Of contemporary poets, I really like Patricia Lockwood. I know she’s become better known as a novelist, but her poetry is very good. I really like Zachary Schomburg, a wildly talented poet who works with Black Ocean Press. I’m also a fan of Franz Wright; the last few books he released before he passed away are exceptional. I also read a lot of novels and I love postmodern literature. I’m an enormous Thomas Pynchon fan. His new book just came out, and I’m excited to read it.

TRP: What does writing a poem look like for you?

Izzy Maxson: It feels like a muscle reflex, but one that’s triggered by certain things. I’m a die-hard imagist. I always start with an image and often one that comes from outside of me. One of my friends in the local poetry scene once told me that my poems feel like weird PBS documentaries. A lot of them begin in an almost expository manner, and then over the course of writing and editing the poem winnow down to something like muscle reflex. Often the last part doesn’t make concrete sense, as if the narrative aspect of the poem exists to move towards something that isn’t quite as sensible. It’s sort of a purposeful degenerative effect, if that makes sense.

TRP: You’re the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Maps to the Vanishing from Finishing Line Press. How are your most recent books similar to or different from one another?

Izzy Maxson: I think Whisper Gallery, 2015, was the end of a phase. I’m a great mimic. I can mimic vocally and verbally, and it is often clear which poets I’m obsessed with. Whisper Gallery was strongly influenced by those late Franz Wright block text poems, for example. Maps is more free flowing, though both books try to carve a physical space. I’m obsessed with the idea of a book of poetry as an art gallery that gets weirder and weirder as the reader wanders through it. Maps isn’t as faithful as Whisper Gallery to that conceit. The current book I’m working on, though, is an extreme manifestation of that idea.

TRP: Your poem “Wildfire Haibun” is one of the most visceral poems in the Spring 25 issue. What made you choose that particular form for that poem?

Izzy Maxson: I love haibuns. I really love haibuns. And I love haibuns because they really support what I was talking about—about a poem’s origin in a concrete image then a reduction to something else, something that isn’t completely conscious. This one’s a small one. Some of them are big, but each turns on how the two parts relate to one another. Sometimes they mutate to the point where they’re no longer haibuns. “Wildfire Haibun” might be closer to a traditional Japanese haibun than most of mine, though it wasn’t a very carefully cultivated poem; it was a quick jot—like a jolt. There are words in it that repeat in such a way that my conscious mind must have been out of the way; the poem feels like the fruit of an unconscious pattern.

TRP: How does your connection to where you live inform your writing?

Izzy Maxson: I live in New Mexico. It’s full of beautiful, and harsh, landscapes. Wildfire smoke appears in this poem because it’s part of my personal experience; every summer there’s a week or so when half the region’s on fire. You’ve got to shut all the windows, and it makes me physically sick. You go outside and you look at the sunset and it’s this apocalyptic orange-red color because of all the smoke. It’s striking, but very unpleasant, and I think this shows up in a lot of my writing, this kind of sensation, this kind of contrast.

TRP: My last question is, what are you reading right now?

Izzy Maxson: I’m rereading Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and, as I said, I’m about to start Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket. I’m also rereading T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, which is probably my favorite fantasy novel. It’s an angsty, modernist Arthurian legend written by a closeted gay writer. It’s phenomenal. I’m reading it out loud to my partner a couple times a week. I love his Merlin.

Kenly Corya worked on this interview.