I've Failed Every Religion Except the Quiet Cult of Unrequired Reading

Did you know when you started this poem that it was going to talk about your mother's homophobia and her time in the hospital, or did that just come out as part of that discovery? I'm not sure. i think i had a sense that i was going to write about family in some way, but i didn't know how. And then i remember listening to this interview with tracy k. Smith in which she talks about writerly obsessions. But i think actually letting go of that pressure and just letting yourself write thep following the language that you're interested in is key.