Writing is thinking, and thinking involves a process of going within to seek something that has yet to make itself known. Sometimes writing a poem is really the act of wading through the murk and shadows and dimly lit doorways buried in the unconscious. I often feel that when I reach an impasse in my writing, it’s because my rational, conscious self has taken over to control the poem and to thrust upon it a logic that conforms to Western ideals of English and communication. To connect or reconnect with my unconscious mind, the intuitive part of me that already knows what it wants to say and how to say it, I like to spend time daydreaming as part of my writing process. I sit by a window and stare outside. I focus on a specific detail—the bend of a branch on a tree, the light between leaves—and I let my mind wander off to follow peripheral thoughts and tangents of scattered memories. Somewhere in that daydream or meditation, I begin to channel ideas, words, phrases, and it often feels as if my ancestors are working with me and through me to say what needs to be said, while weaving through a part of me that is also a part of them.
—Mai Der Vang, author of Primordial (Graywolf Press, 2025)