Monroe Lawrence

Monroe Lawrence is a teacher and poet born on Vancouver Island, Canada. Their childhood and most of their life were spent on ancestral and unceded Pentlatch, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. Past writing has appeared in Best American Experimental WritingThe Brooklyn ReviewThe Capilano ReviewFlag + Void, and Prelude. They live in Rhode Island on ancestral Narragansett and Wampanoag lands with their partner and cat. They are the author of About to Be Young with The Elephants Press.

MONROE LAWRENCE IN CONVERSATION WITH VI KHI NAO

VI KHI NAO: Almond was mentioned quite a few times on page four of About to Be Young. Can you tell me about your relationship with this edible oval nutty thing? When I was in Spain, eating pistachio ice cream for lunch, dinner, and breakfast, the ice cream maker kept repeating “almond,” and “almond” over and over to imply the almond tree growing in the winter months a few hours from Granada. It reminded me of your poem that begins with “Oh God” and ends “crying almond, almond, almond        into the night.” Will the poets in my…

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