Photograph of Daniel Poppick (left) by Charlotte McCurdy and of Jenny Zhang (right) by the author.
Daniel Poppick and Jenny Zhang
August 24, 2017
Writers Daniel Poppick and Jenny Zhang met seven years ago when they were students in Iowa City. Since then, they’ve continued to discuss their individual projects, including Poppick's first book of poetry, The Police, released in April from Omnidawn Publishing, and Zhang’s first collection of stories, Sour Heart, out this month from Lenny Books. Poppick’s poems are grammatically dexterous explorations of power and interpersonal vulnerability. Zhang’s stories are richly narrated mostly by Chinese American girls who are equal parts tough and tender, feeling and talking their way through especially difficult adolescences. Both of these books resist predictability in language and scope. They offer, instead, vividly rendered depictions that possess the surprises, wisdom, and dark humor of our lived experiences. This summer the two writers met in Poppick's Brooklyn apartment to continue their ongoing exchanges about genre distinctions, poetry's role in contemporary American letters, how profanity intersects with race and class, and more.
