EXIT INTERVEW: Joey Rooney

We’re lucky at the Poetry Center to get to work with some extremely awesome NEOMFA students. As we wrap up another academic year here, it means we need to say goodbye to the senior-most Editorial Assistant in our ranks as they proceed to the great post-MFA beyond. This year that’s the inimitable Joey Rooney: Writer of fictions and essays and poems, tennis and biblical apocrypha enthusiast, and “the only reasonable person at the Poetry Center” as determined by wide public polling.

Fellow Graduate Assistant Kristen Tetzmann caught him on his way out the door, ostensibly to become our next President, for some parting thoughts on writing and editing, the MFA life, and schnoodles. Congratulations, Joey! Hip hip! We’ll see you in hell!

What will you miss the most about working with us in the Poetry Center?

The answer is there in the question! What I’ll miss most is working with you all! In the Poetry Center, on slow days and stressful days, there was always such an easy commerce (or is that not the correct word?) between the personal, or personable, and the professional. A single conversation might encompass personal news, financial updates, daily tasks, future programming, and the sort of small talk that somehow gave form and meaning to all the rest. We were a team in the truest sense of the word, I’m afraid, the designation of roles enabling us to work individually and collectively toward certain goals and objectives, which were never purely or even primarily monetary (as if!) but rather intellectual, communal, missional. In all these (and still other) ways, the team’s presence and passion truly made our press a “teaching lab,” a place both of publishing and of pedagogy. There was thus fostered a spirit of collaboration and of learning that inspired all of us to devote ourselves to the mission of the Poetry Center. We were pushing forward the mission of small press editing and publishing (but more on this anon)! Also—and maybe this betrays a bit of pride on my part—I’ll miss contributing in some small measure to the reading, selection, editing, and publication of manuscripts. The fact that I am thanked, along with all of you, in the actual acknowledgments of a published book (Sam Ace’s I want to start by saying) is still so strange to me, but in that strangeness there is a sense of accomplishment, of belonging.     

What made you join this NEOMFA anyway?

To put it simply: I wanted to become a better writer! Mission: Accomplished, in that case (at least, I hope)! To go on at greater length: in pursuing a graduate degree through the NEOMFA program, I sought to enter into a socially conscious, beauty-inclined community of diverse readers and writers whose support, critique, and sense of shared vocation and purpose would provide an environment in which my particular writing interests might take root and flourish. I also remember appreciating the NEOMFA program’s commitment to fostering thoughtful dialogue across the fiction, poetry, playwriting, and creative nonfiction tracks. The NEOMFA program ultimately appealed to me because I was assured that my student-colleagues and I would constantly be pushing each other to refine our distinct approaches to literary craft and to keep service to the CSU community—and Northeast Ohio more generally—paramount. This solidarity, I could tell, came in many forms: in the professional internship program (I was eager to diversify my body of teaching experiences, which already included Writing Center consultations, tutorial courses, and Teaching Assistant duties), in events with visiting writers, in the writing workshops themselves—and of course in the preparation of a book-length thesis manuscript, a dream come true for an aspiring novelist like me! I remain indebted to my English MA Thesis advisor Mary Grimm at CWRU for recommending this program to me, and I am now further indebted to my MFA Thesis director Hilary Plum, among many others (including fellow PCers Caryl Pagel and Zach Peckham!) for vindicating my acting on that recommendation.

Got any thoughts on small press editing and publishing?

Too many thoughts! But this is hardly the time for a manifesto. I’ll settle for this: despite everything and all the forces ranged against them (from the political to the economic, from the mundane to the metaphysical!), small presses are themselves forces to be reckoned with. Or to speak solely from my own experience: the CSU Poetry Center specifically is a force to be reckoned with. Confronting existential challenges like the overnight shuttering of SPD is business as usual, nothing more than typical Monday madness, as far as we at the Poetry Center are concerned! Watching Caryl and Hilary turn a potential setback into setup for future success is a testament not only to their passion and dedication but also to the resilient, uplifting spirit that surely must permeate the world of small press editing and publishing. After all, if a middle school can have spirit, why not a small press? And although this spirit is not opposed to material realities like bookkeeping and money matters, the money isn’t the thing that matters the most; it never was. Giving previously unpublished authors their first break, accepting manuscripts from published authors with something new to say (something that perhaps cannot be said through the mouthpieces of the larger presses), and getting poems, essays, and translations into the hands of book lovers (or “book-loving weirdos,” as we often say) is and remains the goal. Thankfully, these goalposts never move, despite the modern world moving around them, and despite the vacillations and vicissitudes of these dizzying days. And I myself am moving on, too, I suppose, though not of my own volition! Perhaps what best captures the spirit of small press editing and publishing is the fact that I, who am primarily a fiction writer, albeit with a great love of and appreciation for poetry (both new and old), found myself working at a Center of Poetry these past three years! And, contra Yeats, the Center can hold; things don’t fall apart.       

Tell me about your time in the NEOMFA and working in the CSUPC. What have been some of the highlights?

In terms of my time in the NEOMFA, giving feedback to my peers has—believe it or not—been one of the highlights. In an age of AI-generated summaries, it is more important than ever for MFA graduate students to resist that undergraduate impulse to regard giving feedback as extraneous, merely the frame around the picture or the optional chips and dip before the main meal of writing one’s own prose or poetry. I learned rather early on that the feedback I write is just as much for my own benefit as it is for the benefit of the recipient. Some of my greatest “aha” moments in the program came as I was grappling with what craft elements and decisions made a peer’s piece of writing “work” and, alternatively, what revisions could make that piece work even better, resonate even more deeply. Being gracious and generous with feedback is always a challenge, of course (far easier to be selfish!), but it is also richly rewarding—and just plain respectful. Now, in terms of my time working in the CSUPC, there are almost too many highlights to, um, highlight here. Our organizing the Poetry Center’s 60th Anniversary party, held two Aprils ago at The Bottlehouse in Cleveland Heights, is certainly one memory that sticks out. (You were not yet one of us, Kristen—an outsider status to which I am rapidly returning!) On that evening, all in attendance, CSU students and patrons of The Bottlehouse alike, became participants in the arts at CSU—and this thanks in no small measure to our considerable efforts in making the event a celebration of literary history and culture, open to all. Significantly, that occasion also presented me with my first opportunity as an Editorial Assistant in the Poetry Center to introduce one of our readers, Joseph Earl Thomas. Like giving feedback to peers, introducing a reader is a great honor, and I’ve enjoyed the process of finetuning my craft over the years to maximize an audience’s intellectual and emotional engagement with, and anticipation for, a speaker. The audience isn’t attending the event to hear me—but they’ll hear me nonetheless, so I’d better make it count!  

What would you tell someone who's considering getting an MFA in creative writing? (Or any other Master's degrees…)

First of all, once you earn a degree, it can never be taken away from you. It becomes part of your identity, your calling. And I should emphasize that an MFA degree is a terminal degree, which is not quite like a terminal disease, I don’t think: more like a terminal in an airport, a liminal space ushering you to your next destination, wherever that may be. Second, if I might promote our own program once again: not all MFA programs give you a third year, with many settling for just two, but the NEOMFA does. That third year has been vital, I’ve found, in reinforcing all the lessons learned (and forgotten, and learned again) during the first two. It’s allowed me, if not the leisure (there is nothing leisurely about writing!), then at least the time to interrogate my own writing and to develop a vision for the future of my writerly life. If your goal is to become a better writer, then don’t exclude length of program from your calculations! Third, if I may be so bold as to give prospective MFA students even more advice, I would just say that there are almost always ways to make what you write work. Even if what you write seems so far away from working, you can massage it, manipulate it, manumit it, mangle it, maneuver around it, and ultimately manifest a transcendent form within an immanent frame, Michelangelo’s David within a block of stone. (Too many man- prefixes here—“man-” coming from Latin manus, meaning “hand.”) And as for other Master’s degrees . . . my God, quit while you’re ahead! Certainly don’t attempt to earn degrees in English or in Religious Studies: for in these programs you’ll encounter strange, disquieting texts that will get you thinking in dangerous ways about everything under the sun—and also above the sun. And the day is late; best get some sleep.

Got any thoughts on Northeast Ohio's literary scene?

Allow me to boast of the CSU Poetry Center some more! Importantly, we view our mission as the making of a diverse literary culture, indeed, a culture that simultaneously overlaps with, enlarges, and enriches the CSU campus community. The CSU Poetry Center stands at the center of this culture and this community—and, thus, at the heart of Northeast Ohio’s literary scene. Our adeptness at handling “in-house” matters like inventory, book production, and author correspondence is matched by our vision for community outreach and engagement. Toward this end, we have hosted the Lighthouse Reading Series, which brings nationally recognized poets and essayists to our campus each year. Each of these readings is open not only to CSU students but also to the general public and thus helps to increase the university’s presence and visibility within Northeast Ohio’s vibrant arts scene. But if the CSU Poetry Center embodies a centripetal force, drawing creative writing enthusiasts to Northeast Ohio, then we also embody a centrifugal force, extending Northeast Ohio’s influence far and wide in the world of literary arts and publishing. In line with our event-planning efforts here at home, we have also helped plan AWP offsite readings, thereby demonstrating that the edges of a literary event, the perforated peripheries, are often just as essential and exciting as—perhaps even indistinguishable from—the center. It should come as no great surprise, then, that our innovative and new small press/editing podcast, Index for Continuance, explores the ways in which the book as a form of technology might offer hope for collaboration and radical cultural engagement—in other words, the center going out to meet the margins and the marginalized coming into the center.

Bonus Question: What are your plans for your first 100 days of presidency? :)

Although I appreciate your vote of confidence (and your vote at the ballot box!), the truth is that there is no chance I become your next president: the political machine would erase me, as it seems to want to erase many people these days. And to be fair: smart people on all sides would be right to avoid a Rooney presidency, since I might just do something unimaginable—like fund the arts and humanities!  

QUICKFIRE ROUND: (no thinking, 1st answer that comes to mind)

fiction or poetry: Creative Nonfiction, of course.

best fruit tree: Fig tree—the only tree ever cursed by Christ!

best smell: A rainy summer day.

worst poetic form: Parodies of Poe’s “Raven” stanza.

favorite place to watch tennis: The Cincinnati Open, in person.

best summer vegetable: Pumpkin—or any out-of-season vegetable.

worst sandwich: Bologna.

best Westside restaurant: Danny Boy’s (for pizza) or Bucci’s (for spaghetti).

best dead poet: Poetry is the purview not of the dead but of the living.

favorite poetic form: Of the “traditional” forms? The sonnet, I suppose.

computer or notebook: A notebook computer? (Otherwise known as a laptop.)

worst writing advice: “Wake up early and write!” Better to burn the midnight oil, I say.

best place to read a book: Next to my schnoodle.

favorite book as a kid: The Artemis Fowl series. No one writes action like Eoin Colfer.

favorite Lighthouse reading: The CSU Poetry Center’s 60th birthday (or anniversary?) reading!

worst place to write: The classroom.

best creative writing prompt: The blank page.

best place to write: Next to my schnoodle.

best book to read at night: Scholarship on obscure apocalyptic literature.

best writing snack and drink: Drink: coffee and/or Deer Park water. Snack: anything that doesn’t get my fingers icky, which would in turn get my laptop keys icky.

best Ohio quirk: Cleveland, heh.

lined or unlined: Lined. College ruled.

favorite novel right now: The novel I’m reading right now! Which is Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, gifted to me by a family member.

favorite coworker: (only one right answer 🙂) Hmm. Someone named Kristen?

most misunderstood punctuation mark: The semi-colon.

best type of pen: Any pen I can twirl between my fingers when thinking.

most memorable class you've taken in the NEOMFA: Thesis hours, ha! (Only because I can’t choose from among the rest!)

recurring motifs in your dreams: The fact that I don’t remember most of my dreams?

best email sign off: “Best,”.

worst way to say goodbye: “Toodles!” (Even though it rhymes with “schnoodles”!)

Joey Rooney is a writer primarily of fiction, but also of poetry and creative nonfiction, and a graduate of the NEOMFA Program. Born and raised on the west side of Cleveland, he received his MA in English from Case Western Reserve University and his MA in Theology and Religious Studies from John Carroll University.

Kristen Tetzmann (née Tetzlaff) is a poet and painter from Wisconsin. She received her BA in Art Therapy and Creative Writing from Mount Mary University. She is a poetry candidate in the NEOMFA program. Her work has appeared in Bodega Magazine, Furrow, Respect Your Mother, and elsewhere. She knows how to say “watermelon” in twenty-six languages.