.Writers.on.Writing.
Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.
W.o.W. #63
Vanessa Y. Niu
Describe an early experience where you learned that language has power.
Though I am currently studying classical music, I grew up singing and acting in a variety of genres, and I also studied theater for two years in London. Theater, musical or not, relies heavily on the power of language to communicate but also to move. Looking back, I believe it was my encounter with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as Caesar himself in a showcase of Shakespearean fragments, that really catapulted this realization. What was really remarkable about it is that even now I can still recall the feeling of the audience hanging on to your words, feeling your emotions through them, and the rhythm of the language mimicking my heart rate. Exhilaration.
What is your writing Kryptonite? Your most interesting writing quirk?
Being forced to write something in an allotted amount of time tends to clutter my brain quickly with tasks that have nothing to do with writing and completely destroys the attention that writing needs. Then you’ll see all sorts of junky metaphors that don’t flow well rhythmically or are just unintentionally senseless. Personally, I need a lot of time to sort through the cliches and the metaphors I have stored up in my head from reading other works, things that are reflexive memory. It’s a slow process of allowing whatever the predominant emotion I’m writing about really is to come out. Filing, conglomerating, remixing different parts of the mental inventory, putting it on the page. Though, and the quirk ties along with this, there are times writing in a given time can be very helpful (when self-imposed) because I tend to be a control freak about how a piece of writing goes out into the world—it’s very important to remember that not everything has to be understood, that poetry really is just for you.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
To read more widely. I was stuck in a loop of looking for a very specific genre of narrative poetry and I think it might have stunted my growth as a writer. The more you read certainly makes a difference in the structure and voice of a work, but the wider you read, the more styles and schools and time periods, the more tools you have to achieve what you want to achieve in your work. It also helps to develop a style of your own, gives you more to experiment with.
What does your inner writing voice tell you?
I think there’s a general consensus in the writing industry now that promotes writing for social change in the world. I think to some degree this holds true. I do wish my writing could enact some change in the world, but I do hope that writing continues to be something innately personal. I write because there is nothing else that is so flexible with my emotions and thoughts—the independence of it is refreshing. I suppose my “inner writing voice” wants me to not take everything so seriously.
Vanessa Y. Niu is a poet who lives in New York City. Off the lined page, her work has been set to music in collaborations with Juilliard and Interlochen composers. When not writing, she likes to play chess with her friends, learn about non-Euclidean dimensions, and listen to jazz.
“Record Player Plays Franco-American Blues” was included in Yellow Arrow Journal EMBLAZON, Vol. VIII, No. 2, Fall 2023. You can find her at vanessayniu.carrd.co or on Instagram @vvn.zihan.