A CONVERSATION

I’ve known Melissa Broder for almost a decade. I invited her to my first book party because I was a big admirer of her writing and I wanted to meet her. She was smart and funny and I could tell she wanted to know something about what any of us are doing here (which is also something I want to know). Over the years she’s become a real friend and I’ve continued reading her with even more interest. Her new book, Superdoom, is a selected poems, offering the best from her last four poetry collections: When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother, Meat Heart, SCARECRONE, and Last Sext. She’s also written two novels, is one of the few non-cringe voices on Twitter, and is at work on multiple projects in Hollywood. What I most value about Melissa is her kindness and how no-bullshit she is. It’s a combination that makes a great friend and poet. Here’s a conversation we had in July of this year.

—Alex Dimitrov

AD You’re one of my favorite writers and one reason is because your subjects are god, death, sex, and obsession. They’re more or less my subjects also and it’s probably why we’re friends. Through the four books of poems you’ve written, what has changed in how you think about those subjects? I’m not really sure I’ve learned too much by writing about them. If anything, I kind of feel like I know less and less.

MB I think the knowing we know less and less might be the knowing! The wisdom of knowing we know nothing. This leaves room for the mystery, and what I love about the poetic form is that it allows for—and celebrates—mystery: negative capability, learning to love the