MFA Student Spotlight: A Conversation with Mark Spero
by Emily Collins
Welcome back to CutBank’s weekly student spotlight where we interview current MFA students at the University of Montana. This week’s spotlight is Mark Spero, a poetry student balancing a number of different projects related to gender, Anthropocene, and the necessity of anti-capitalist notions in any contemporary work of art. I recently sat with Mark and got to hear his thoughts on poetry, writing communities, and Big Sky living!
Emily Collins: What drew you to the MFA in poetry program at the University of Montana?
Mark Spero: I applied because I love poets who have taught here, like Ed Skoog, and because I love Montana. My mom grew up outside of Helena, and when I was a kid I spent a few weeks every summer running around my grandma’s house, so coming here felt like I was investing time in a space and personal history that are important to me.
EC: Who are your favorite fiction writers, memoirists, poets, etc.?
MS: The list is too long. John Berryman, CD Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Roland Barthes, Louise Glück, Italo Calvino, Cervantes, Yousef Koumanyakka, Toni Morrison, Samuel Beckett. Though many of those people are old or dead. Some more contemporary writers would be Maggie Nelson, Leslie Marmon Silko, Anne Garréta, Amy Lawless, Claudia Rankine, CA Conrad, Carmen Giménez Smith. So many authors have been revelatory for me. I think one of the real pleasures of getting older is rereading, coming back to authors again and again and continuing to learn from them. Every author I’ve mentioned has pushed form and politics at the same time, meshing the two until they are indistinguishable, and returning to their work is always a masterclass in writing.
EC: What are you working on writing-wise and what do you hope to gain during your time at UM?
MS: I have the attention span of an amoeba, and far too many interests, so I jump around from project to project. I am currently working on poems that attempt to make the Anthropocene and climate change something we can better understand and feel, giving more agency to nature while reorienting our relationship with deep time and rewilding. Other projects I am slowly building are about how gender is created in our minds but also performed in the world, and the way cop shows and true crime shows present faulty, simplistic images of crime while glorifying the police state. All of these topics also relate to anti-capitalism, which I think is absolutely key to any contemporary art.
UM has already taught me so much. I’m excited for a space to write, a community of writers, closeness to the big sky. I am being introduced to writers and ideas that are pushing me to achieve more in my poetry, reaching for something I don’t quite understand.
EC: When you're not writing, what are some of your favorite hobbies, interests, etc.?
MS: I love music. Even that feels like an understatement. I am obsessed. Before turning toward the literary world, I was working in the music industry, and much of my working life has been devoted to producing concerts and helping musicians. These days, music for me is mostly playing guitar or piano or tenor sax alone or with some friends, searching out new artists, and obsessively researching the minutiae of albums, artists, and the process of creating music.
The deeper I go into any obsession, the more it changes my writing. I want my writing to be musical, and as I’ve pushed myself to explore more difficult ideas in poetry, I’ve found that I want my work to go beyond mere meaning and instead create a kind of melody. For me, the beauty of poetry is that it can surpass the limits of language, becoming more than just semantic and more than itself, more like a melody or a rhythm. The best art communicates something that cannot be expressed in any other way.
EC: When you look back on your journey as a writer so far, what excites you the most?
MS: I think I’m copying another writer in the MFA program, but I am most excited that I am still writing, and still finding wonder in the act of writing. Ed Hirsch once said that as a growing writer, you’ll come to many points when everything you’ve written before that moment needs to be thrown out. Something will click and your writing will reach a new place. This idea is terrifying, knowing that I’ll throw out most of my writing, but I love how I can dream of the future, of what I am going to write. My poetry keeps me thinking and changing, becoming a better person, seeing more and more in the world.
Bonus Question: If you could quarantine with any writer throughout history, who would they be and why?
MS: Oh I have no idea. So many of my favorite writers and artists are actually quite mean people, so I try to stick with their art rather than their personalities. Shel Silverstein seemed like a cool dude. We could just stay inside and play guitar and write fun poems. But my post-quarantine party would be thrown by Truman Capote.
Photo by Samuel Dunnington
Mark Spero grew up in the San Francisco Bay area before attending Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. Mark is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Montana and was recently awarded a certificate for the Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response from FEMA. Mark is excited for a vibrant posthumous career.
Emily Collins is the Interviews Editor for CutBank and a MFA in fiction candidate at the University of Montana. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New Orleans Review, The Florida Review, The Atticus Review, The South Carolina Review, and others. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and other anthologies. When she’s not interviewing incredible writers, she enjoys hiking and volunteering.