NATI: tell us about you and your relationship to creating. how did you get started in this medium?

TANNER: [writing] was the earliest form of expression available to me. when you’re in kindergarten or pre-k, one of the first things they ask you to do when you’ve learned how to write anything is to write a poem. i’ve always really gravitated towards the medium [of writing], and i was already really fascinated with telling stories, real or fictional. i’d be watching anime in [elementary school] and i would think, “what would happen if this guy did this instead?!” or “what if this guy was in this universe instead?!” you know? a little fanfiction-y. i had a very active imagination, so i was looking for any opportunity to tell stories. that kind of stuck with me for my whole life. 

when i was in high school, i went to orange county school of the arts and i was a part of the creative writing conservatory there. i learned a lot about what poetry could be specifically. even though i loved poetry, i still had this interpretation that it had to be robert frost-y (no shade to robert frost) - i thought that poems had to end or look a certain way. in high school, i got introduced to a lot of poets who did weirder and more inventive things. i was like, “oh that’s really cool, shit don’t have to rhyme?” you can kind of do whatever you want with it, it’s a very pliable medium that you can adjust to whatever you need to express however you’re feeling.

i did a lot of playwriting and poetry in high school and college. weirdly, after that, i didn’t write too much poetry for a while. i kind of put it on the shelf for abit. honestly, “night surf” was the first poem i had written in a very long time - maybe since high school? and i gravitated to it for the same reason i did in high school. i had this really broad, atmospheric feeling that was weighing on me and poetry feels like a good way to explore that - at least, moreso than a non-fiction piece. nonfiction relies more on clear crisp argumentation, and you’re really trying to convince somebody of something. poetry feels more like you’re painting a painting. there’s this mood that you've been sitting with for a while that you want to pin down with words. 

last thing i’ll say about it is that writing has always been a way i try to capture a feeling before its gone. especially when something feels very special, i want to hold onto it for as long as i can. poetry is a much quicker way of doing this: capturing something that you can hold up and look at years later, like a photograph. 

NATI: going back to your journey through high school, and learning that poetry didn’t have to follow these dr. suess-ass rhyme schemes - which poets stuck with you? and what did you learn from them?  

TANNER: i really like pablo neruda, really big fan. e.e. cummings does some weird things to language and form. carl sandberg - really like that guy. “honey & salt” is one of my favorite poems, it’s a really great love poem. richard siken! my favorite poem of all time is one he wrote called “scheherazade” in his collection titled crush, and it’s one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever read. beautiful, beautiful poem. these were the ones that steered my idea of what language could do.

NATI: in which ways? you mentioned form and structure…

TANNER: e. e. cummings was experimental with form and language, he taught me that you could get away with it. richard siken makes really beautiful love poems. what i realized from his work was that you could feel something from this set of language. i think a lot of the reason why people don’t read is that there is nothing to be felt from reading, or that the experience they get from it is not attainable, worthwhile, accessible, or what have you. reading language like that [of siken’s] had me thinking “wow. that’s just beautiful as hell.” that has encouraged me to keep writing and to respect how language can be constructive in those ways. even though i don’t really write poetry these days (i write more non-fiction), i still look a lot at the language that poets use and incorporate that into what i write. you know, when you read that excerpt and it just lights your brain up, it’s always a really cool and beautiful thing to witness. i’d say the same thing of pablo neruda, his language is really beautiful. the images he conjures are truly stunning. it gives you a standard to hold your language towards when you’re writing. 

when i was younger, i had this idea that capital- l ~literature~ had to be clever or impressive. i think that idea is a disservice to yourself, to make people do backflips just to clap at you. looking at the writers i mentioned, they write not in ways to do a trick that garners applause, they write to communicate a feeling. it’s like the dumbledore magic memory, water - its really to hand that [feeling] to somebody else. i think it’s really magical when you’re able to hand that off to somebody, somewhere. seeing [writers] do that in a way that’s really honest to what they’re feeling is really cool. 

NATI: i’m gonna take that as an answer to the next question regarding inspirations. are there any other inspirations that you learn from / lean towards that might not be specific to writing? what else do you feel inspired by? 

TANNER: these are not questions i think about everyday, so i wrote a list.  **pulls out his notes app ** what inspires me: omens, moral beauty, radical acts of love, souvenirs, letters, family myths, horrible people doing good things, good people doing horrible things, radical coincidences. i find those really interesting. 

NATI: say more on radical coincidences. 

TANNER: moments that feel like divine intervention, where there’s this blurry territory where god might exist. like, there’s no way that me and this other person could be here at the same exact time and it works out in the absolute most perfect way possible. it’s these micro-big bangs that populate the universe. 

my girlfriend now, kaley, and i met by coincidence on christmas break and we just happened to meet exactly on this week's sliver of time that she was available. she was living in new york and i was living in california. it just happened to be that we kicked off a really beautiful relationship from there. it turned into a long-distance thing, and then i moved out to new york, and it just turned out to be really extraordinary and really beautiful. and it sort of began in this radical coincidence, where things just marvelously lined up. i hold a lot of gratitude towards those radical coincidences. there’s, attached, a lot of thankfulness. it prompts a lot of introspection, like “why do i feel like this is a radical coincidence - why do i feel it is magical, or a kind of miracle that this happened?” its an invitation for gratitude.

NATI: i’m also intrigued by souvenirs. you mean, like, physical souvenirs?

TANNER: this has less to do with writing and more to do with the clothes i’m working on. i’m really interested in the ways that people attempt to close distance across large spaces. when people are feeling this extreme sense of separation, i’m interested in how people use [souvenirs] to close the distance. i think letters are one way of doing that. i have a collection of my grandma’s letters which she exchanged with her high school sweetheart. 

souvenirs are in that same spirit.  you have left somebody that you care about or love, and you're going far, far, far away. even as you're in another part of the world, you're still thinking about that person, carrying that person with you as you're searching for something that feels it represents their relationship. i just find that really magical. we find objects to translate how we feel about [others we love] or about our relationships to [those we love]. i think translation is also an amazing thing. i am fascinated by the way people find new kinds of language to express how they feel.

NATI: souvenirs are keepsakes, also. they not only hold these people close to you but you bring that place to them. 

TANNER: yeah, exactly. it’s like, you did something that was really beautiful and you want to bring that back to somebody. it communicates that i want you to see what i thought, and i wanted you to have been there with me in some way.  i think writing is kind of like that. you went out into the world, you witnessed something, and then you created your own kind of souvenir to share with somebody else.

NATI: what does your artistic process look like? 

TANNER: hm, let’s see. talking when i write - i go through random productive spurts in writing and i take long periods off from writing. this has been the way i’ve “worked” since i was in high school. i would write when i was forced to for school. a lot of my classmates would try to write to be productive over the summer, and i would not be able to do that. i need a rigorous system of accountability in order to — oh my god. wow. someone just proposed. i'm in their videos.

NATI: how beautiful! radical coincidence! 

TANNER: where were we?

NATI: you were talking about being forced to write in school?

TANNER: oh, yeah. so, i would just write for the time that it was required for school, writing for a couple months at a time, and then i would take months off. it’s existed that way for a long time, now it's stretched even more. about every two years i'll have like a six-month writing sprint and then i don't touch writing at all. then two years later, i'll write a lot for, like, 6 months, and then i’ll go back into hibernation. i don't know why that is.

NATI: it's intuitive.

TANNER: yeah. i remember telling somebody about this and they were like, “you know, you’re writing during that hibernation time. you're thinking about all this stuff, it’s stewing in your brain, and then you eventually get to a point where you can start creating things.” and i'll accept that theory. the way it works is i’ll be thinking about something for a long time - stewing on a story or mood - something will keep matching my attention for a long time and i can't shake it from my brain, sort of like a haunting effect. it’ll come to a point where i've been playing this back to myself or sitting in this movie for such a long time that i'll eventually come towards writing it. 

another side of this is attached to a piece of advice i got from a writer named alexander chee. he’s a writer i really admire. he said, “the type of stories that you should write are the ones you find yourself telling again and again to the people around you.” i’ll find that the stories i come back to after a period of hibernation are the stories i tell to people when we’re being introduced or the ones i tell friends when we’re catching up, things that explain how my brain works. those are the ones that i’ll eventually flesh out on paper, kind of like what stand-up comics do. they kind of shop around, workshop their jokes by sharing them and eventually, they’ll crystallize it into something. i have a similar process. a lot of the stories i write down are things i find myself sharing with people a lot in conversation. 

as far as what it looks like when i’m in a writing groove: i only write really late at night - between 10pm and 3am. i’ll play really loud music, turn on some lights, and get to writing. i can’t have anybody around me when i’m writing. i’ll be in my studio with kaley and she’ll be looking over my shoulder and i get freaked out, like it’s impossible to write anything at all.  it’s something about being perceived while you're trying to create something really, freaks me out for some reason. i want my writing to be as clean and as perfect as i can possibly make it, then i feel like i can share it out. i have a hard time sharing something that is incomplete, or feeling that there’s more to be done with it. 

but yeah, i’d say the biggest part of my writing process is choosing to tell the stories i find myself telling over and over again. that advice was really freeing. i used to judge myself for not writing (i still lowkey do), but now i think about all the ways “writing” takes shape (talking to your friends about it, thinking about it) and i appreciate those forms as equally productive as getting pen to paper.

NATI: you said in your artist statement that this piece feels like holding a photograph of yourself in an alternate universe, with alternate dreams. how have your aspirations and dreams shifted since writing this poem?

TANNER: it was around 2020-2021, during covid, right around when i moved back to southern california from living in san francisco, and i wrote the poem shortly afterwards.  around there. obviously, i’ve since left the relationship i wrote about, and my relationship with that person has changed shape. this piece talks about wanting to have kids, and i've always felt like that was something that was really important have for many reasons. at least one of them is you have someone to pass down all of the things that you've accumulated in your life towards, and you can hope that they can do something better with it. i'm still figuring my feelings around kids. but at the very least, i don't think kids have to have a monopoly on that. you can pass along the things that you accumulated and learned to people who are not related to you - other kinds of family, loved ones - and you can care for them in ways that can be just as grand. i'm finding that my feelings are actually changing right now.

people have this timeline in their heads: you have kids at this point in life, you get married at this point. i’m finding that this timeline and understanding of how the world works keeps exploding again and again. i’m drawing my attention towards the ways that i can love and care for the people who are with me here now, not just people who will exist five to ten years from now. that feels as important as ever. if anything, it feels more urgent to take care of people in the here and now. i don't feel any urgency around kids now. it’s more important to me to  love people who are immediately around me right now.  

NATI: so, what have you learned - to use your own words - between last spring and this one?

TANNER: to really talk about all the things that i’ve learned between last year and this one is a whole book, in and of itself, that i’m working on. but to put it short, i have experienced this really radical restructuring of my family through this strange event with my father. and i’ve experienced that while also experiencing new love in a new relationship in a new city. i’m still processing all the things that have happened, but i have a couple of key takeaways. family is who you choose it to be. just as much as love can demand attraction to someone, it can also demand space. love, like evil, doesn't go away. it reinvents itself. it expresses itself in different ways. 

i also learned how to sew shit, and i learned a lot of family histories. i've gone around the country interviewing different family members about what my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents have done in their lives. it's been a very, very difficult year.

NATI: yeah, dude. thanks for being so honest. it’s amazing, though. i know you've gone through so much this year, and yet you still remain so much the same. you know what i mean?

TANNER: i appreciate you saying that. kaley’s said that a lot, too. she’s been like you’ve been remarkably consistent amidst all of this change. i guess i’m still processing and i’m sure there are ways i’ve changed this year. but i see it as a good thing, i'm glad that i have not frozen up or become embittered through all of this radical upending of my family’s life. i’ve found that trying to orient towards joy and things that feel good is important. 

NATI: joy is so powerful. there's so much that life throws at you that opens the door of making that choice - of being embittered or not. we can choose to sit with it and let it poison us, or we can hold on to what will actually be productive, which is always love and joy. it’s all about perspective. 

TANNER: on a side note - what was your experience reading the poem?

NATI: the first line made me cry. ending it with “we taught her not to bite our hands” - are you kidding me? my annotations on the side were like “this is the most goated intro line, how do you write hooks like this dude?” - i was gutted. i have lots of thoughts…. let’s see. i loved the way you intertwined the theme of parenthood and wanting children. the way you crafted the lines “a dog that will see our children. i will tell my children about this, what i learned between last spring and this 1. i hope i live to have children” - also wrecked me. 

we wanted people to make things that made us feel something, things that evoked a feeling out of us. from the very beginning of this piece, not only was our attention grabbed but our hearts also felt so tender in holding your words. i love that you wrote this at a time when you were in a completely different phase of your life. having that context totally shifts the way i read this poem. everything about this work and our conversation, feels very full circle. so much has changed, and yet so much stays the same. 

one question i had about the poem specifically is: what is the function of the doctor you mention and the novel she wanted to write?

TANNER: yeah, i guess part of what i wanted to do with this poem was to have this photograph of what life felt like during that time, in that moment of spring that i was living in. part of life included the random people that you get across paths with, and the way that you can intersect for a moment and then disappear entirely. we talked to this person about what she wanted to write, but who knows if she ever wrote that thing that she was working towards. i think it reflects what happened in the relationship that's documented in the poem. here was this thing that we were building towards. there's a different reading that comes about with the consideration of how time has progressed. i read more grief into it, you know. you experience grief for this thing you're working for that never ends up happening. there was this dream of this thing that you wanted to make, and it doesn't exist anymore. but for a moment, it felt real - real enough to talk about it, real enough to to visualize.

NATI: i’m thinking about how raw it is to share a poem about a past life of yours and to hold it with honor and love. at the same time, there's a lot of grief. what a beautiful reflection of new beginnings - to think about who you are now and who you are continuously becoming. i'm so, so grateful that you shared this poem.

TANNER: thank you, yeah. i’m glad it made you feel something. 

NATI: okay. final questions. what are some other projects that you're working on, and where are you headed?

TANNER: so i’m closing out the second collection for this clothing brand. i'm trying to get all the the samples done by the beginning of july so that i can have them as fits for my brother and cousin as we're backpacking through europe. i'm closing out of this art commission for this art gallery by next week. it’s a more modified version of what's happening in the collection, a little bit higher touch with hand-stitched poems and transposed vintage postcards from the 1950s. excited to close that one out.

NATI: remind me the name of your clothing brand, again?

TANNER: postcards home! yeah, working on the second collection for that. i'm also working on a bunch of cut and sew shirts with my mom as part of the collection. so, we've converted our, like, little apartment in brooklyn into a studio. we're chopping up fabric and doing all these, like, little cool hand embroidery pieces. kaley and i are planning to do some other cool art projects together. make a little zine with photos from our year and a half together.

NATI: aw! my heart!

TANNER: yeah, it’s super sweet. and where am i going? i'm going to europe, then maybe back to la. i’ve been intentionally taking a break from the book stuff, especially as i drive down the clothes now. i was working on the book like 24/7 which i found to be unhealthy, lowkey. as i mentioned, a lot of my writing is poised around grief, so sitting in that headspace for a long time or really intensely is exhausting. i think the clothes are more arranged around joy, connection, love, and beauty. it’s a good way to have an eye towards something that’s visually beautiful. i plan to get back into the book stuff in the fall. i’ve been finding a nice balance, you know. my brain feels like it's a garden with crop rotation. you know what i mean? i've exited tomato season and now i’ll try to grow some, i don't know, lemons.

NATI: ha! whatever is to come, i'm so excited for all that'll unravel in your future, man. you're so inspiring and i’m so proud of you! <3