The editors of Eucalyptus Lit recently had the privilege and opportunity to speak with Nina C. Peláez, poet and Associate Director of The Merwin Conservancy. Her work “Attachment Theory” features in Issue 6,  Juvenescence.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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How did you start writing?

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I began writing seriously in high school, at a math-and-science public school in New York City where I often felt out of place. I was fortunate to have extraordinary English teachers—and, incredibly, a poetry class taught by the poet Emily Moore. That’s where I first fell in love with poetry. In college, I studied English Literature with a creative writing emphasis, and was deeply supported by my professors, especially the poet Nathalie Anderson. After graduation, I took a long detour away from poetry. But during the pandemic—after moving through difficult periods of grief—I found myself writing again. That was when I decided to return to school for my MFA.

 

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How do you find your inspiration? What is your creative process? 

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Inspiration comes to me from many places. I think of my writing as an act of attention. Of noticing and giving form to that noticing. There are things that help me get into that state of mind—reading is one, looking at art is one, being in nature is another, and especially letting my mind wander as I read or look or move through the world. Other times though, the inspiration is language itself—a single word or a phrase—that sparks something in me. When I feel I am doing my best work, I am able to let language take hold, to let the sounds and their forms propel me forward. I also enjoy revision—sometimes the writing is a reaching toward something I can’t yet name and revision leads me to what the poem really wants to say. 

 

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Do you have a favorite author or work? 

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I don’t have a single favorite, but I do have a constellation of writers whose work has been particularly meaningful to me. Some of those include Louise Glück, Victoria Chang, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Bishop, Kaveh Akbar, Kimiko Hahn, Pablo Neruda, Lucille Clifton, Ada Limón, Natalie Diaz, Paisley Rekdal, and Leila Chatti. Recently, I read Jenny George’s After Image and cannot stop thinking of it.

 

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How does your cultural background shape your voice as a poet?

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Culture, for me, holds many meanings. I am an adoptee who was raised among and between multiple identities, cultures, traditions, selves. I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada but adopted when I was very young and grew up in a mixed family in Brooklyn, near Coney Island. My father is a Cuban exile of mixed-race ancestry and my mother’s side is of Italian and Romanian Jewish origin. My father’s estrangement from his own family and homeland is something I resonate with, and that my writing returns to, as someone who also has been displaced. 

 

I know little about my family of origin’s cultural background, but I do know they lived in places I’ve never seen—Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska. One day, I hope to walk those landscapes. My voice is shaped both by the cultures I was raised in, and by my estrangement from the cultures to which I am biologically tied.

 

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How would you describe your experience in the MFA program at Bennington College? What communities or spaces have been most vital to your growth as a writer?

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I loved my experience at the Bennington Writing Seminars, a low-residency MFA program. Working full-time while studying made the program accessible for me—my job covered most of the tuition, which was essential. One of my favorite aspects of Bennington was the diversity of student experiences; people came to the program at all stages of life. I was in my thirties when I began, and instead of feeling out of place, I was grateful for the perspective waiting had given me.

 

The program’s structure—with two residencies a year and semester-long one-on-one mentorships—allowed for deep engagement with both creative and critical work. I loved the teachers I had there as well as the supportive community. Many of my friendships from that time have endured and we still share work and support each other. I was lucky to return this summer as an Alumni Teaching Fellow where I had the chance to co-teach one of the workshops, lead a master class, and give a reading. It was so exciting to be on that side of the MFA experience and get to see the amazing work current students are doing. 

 

All that said, I also don’t believe you need an MFA to be a writer, and I would encourage emerging writers to think carefully about the financial investment, timing, their own goals as a writer, and the structure of the program they choose to pursue, if they do consider an MFA.

 

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Could you tell us a little about the work you do with the Merwin Conservancy?

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It may help first to describe what The Merwin Conservancy is—as an organization, we care for the poet W.S. Merwin’s home and 18.8-acre palm garden located in the ahupuaʻa of Peʻahi on Maui’s north shore. We are unique as we are an organization that has both arts and literature as well as environmental conservation at the core of its project—our intention is to create ways of engaging with place, poetry, and practice. Many people know Merwin as a writer, but few know about his garden here on Maui. When he was 50 years old he moved to Hawaiʻi and started planting trees on a patch of land that had been destroyed by pineapple farming and other extractive agricultural practices. Over four decades he and his wife Paula transformed that land into what is now a thriving palm forest. 

 

My job title is Associate Director for Story & Experience. We are a very small team– there are just two full time employees, myself and out executive director, and an administrative assistant and gardener. This means I do a bit of everything, but the focus of my work is our programming and storytelling. We run an interdisciplinary residency program—hosted on site in the Merwins’ home—that invites writers, artists, scientists and scholars who create new possibilities for language and land. I do a bit of everything for that—from being a host to our guests, planning their time with us, getting the house ready, and doing everything I can to make sure their experience is nourishing and meaningful. We also run programs including on-site guided walks in the garden that I lead twice a month where I share the story of the land, talk about plants, and read poems. It is always a joy to share the garden with new people. I also manage our Green Room speaker series, on-site workshops and experiences, school and teacher visits, volunteers, virtual programs including interviews, and I work with our Executive Director to build out the overall vision for programs. I also oversee various aspects of our storytelling from our website (www.merwinconservancy.org), newsletter, social media (follow us @themerwinconservancy on Instagram), grant writing, press, and other special projects. 

 

We just had the poet Pádraig Ó Tuama here as a resident and Green Room speaker which was an immense joy—every day in my job is a little different but I always feel incredibly grateful to be part of this extraordinary place.

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Many of our editors, and those who submit to us at Eucalyptus, have been mentees at the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program. What drew you to mentorship in the first place, and what does it mean to you personally? What role do you see mentorship playing in the world of writing as a whole? 

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Mentorship is one of the things that gives me the most joy as a writer and I think mentorship and community-building is one of the most rewarding parts of being part of the literary world. I also have had many extraordinary mentors throughout my journey as a writer, and would not be where I am without the teaching and support of those extraordinary people. Prior to the job I presently have, I worked for over a decade in art museum education, primarily at College Art Museums. While I was working at Williams College and Smith College, working closely with students interested in the arts was a huge component of my job and the aspect I loved the most. My current position doesn’t include as much of that and over the past couple of years since entering this new position, I found myself eager to find ways to give back to the literary community as a mentor. I was so excited to join Adroit as a mentor this summer and hope to continue to be part of that incredible program. It is so exciting to see more and more journals and literary organizations really focusing on uplifting the voices of emerging writers—young writers have so much to teach all of us and their voices matter. I hope that my own journey will lead me toward more opportunities to teach and continue to uplift and support young and emerging writers.

 

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In what ways has mentoring emerging writers influenced your own work or perspective? Have there been any moments that particularly moved or surprised you?

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I am always learning from other writers, especially emerging writers. This summer I was so delighted to work with two brilliant poets through Adroit—both so incredibly dedicated to their own writing and literary citizenship—Honor Giardini and Lindsay Li (whom I believe is featured in this issue of Eucalyptus too!). I learned so much from our exchanges—their thoughts on the work they read and hearing what resonated with them, their expansive knowledge of other writers and work, their approach to writing and revision, their passion and dedication—it was a joy to work with them. I find mentorship also sharpens my reading, deepens my generosity in feedback, and pushes me to try new things in my own work. Returning to Bennington this summer as an Alumni Fellow reinforced that same truth: that being in conversation with writers at the beginning of their journeys is a reminder to approach the page with openness and courage.

 

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What have you been up to recently?

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I’ve been working on my first book of poetry, Myth of the Mother, rooted in my experiences of adoption and familial loss. I’m revising, adding new poems, refining the order, and beginning to send it out. I’ve also started an early-stage project exploring the consequences of human exceptionalism, which I hope will become a second book. And I’m about to begin a new role as a Tin House Reading Fellow, which I’m very excited about.

 

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Do you have any advice for young writers?

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Read voraciously. Read books and also journals. Write bad poems. Write lots of them. Keep writing. Try new things. Don’t be afraid to fail. Write poems after poets you admire. Learn from doing. Learn from failing. When and if you do start submitting your work to journals, know you will get rejections and likely, many of them. Don’t be discouraged. Keep writing. Keep sending work. Seek out literary communities. Create your own communities if the community you seek doesn’t yet exist or exist where you are. Be a good literary citizen. Strive to be a generous reader, collaborator, classmate, workshop-mate, colleague. Do not waste time on competition or the need to prove yourself. Surround yourself with other generous writers and readers and friends and mentors who uplift you, support you, and believe in you. Remember that each new poem is an act of revision. Remember that you are already a writer.

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