Book interview: Hindsight by (teen poet) Sofiya Ivanova
Sofiya Ivanova has known she wanted to be a “rhyme-writer” since she was three years old. Born in Moscow, Russia, she was eight years old when she moved to the U.S., where she learned English from scratch and had to adapt to an entirely new culture.
After Sofiya won her battle with Lyme Disease, her poetry was published for the first time in the Sunday Mornings At The River Spring 2020 Anthology; she was fourteen years old. Now, as a junior at Niwot High School, she’s coming out with a poetry collection of her own.
Sofiya’s work is heavily inspired by contemporary spoken word and 1950s Beat poetry, as well as feeling everything too deeply, teenage melodrama, and the gorgeous landscape of Colorado.
Can you tell us a bit about the book you just published with Sunday Mornings at the River?
Yeah, I would love to! Hindsight is my first poetry collection, so it’s a huge step towards my life-long dream of being recognized for my poetry and really special to me. It contains almost all of the (publishable) poems I’ve written since I was 12 up until now, being 16. The fact that I get to share my work with the world “officially” feels surreal. I’m so grateful.
I think Hindsight really captures the process of growing up and the messy, emotional world of tweens and teenagers, the experience of which is just magnified for me by the fact that I’m a very emotional person… It covers topics such as losing your family pet, leaving behind your childhood, wanting to be special and important, your parents being imperfect people, mental health, etc, etc. And, of course, figuring out love. In Russian we have a saying that goes like, “the first pancake comes out as a lump”, and that applies to love too. The first few pancakes, in this case. There are a lot of love poems. There are a lot of bitter poems too, because art is a great outlet for anger. Those read as though they should have a mic drop at the end. I hope people enjoy reading them as much as I liked writing them.
It’s very universal but also deeply personal, and I fought hard to keep it that way, carrying intimate and specific details that, although it may take away from the relatability a bit, paint a very real picture. Overall, I’m incredibly proud of it.
What inspired you to write this book?
The writing itself was done without knowing these poems would end up being a collection, nor that it would be published. Because of that, what inspired me to write these poems was what inspired me to write poetry in general. It’s just the most natural way of working through my life experiences for me. It’s like taking what I go through and putting it through a meat grinder… digesting it, making it easier to stomach. At the same time, if we’re being a little more poetic, it’s like light going through a prism. It takes an experience and elevates it— it removes it from you, in a way, and once those things are on a page you can look at them from an observer’s perspective, and they can’t hurt you any more.
What does the title mean, and why did you pick it?
The title actually came to me fairly early on in the process. This being my debut, I wanted it to take the readers on a journey, be a united work that would tell a story, and have a moral or theme. Hence, the moment I came up with the concept was the same moment I decided on a title. I purposefully put the poems in chronological order and edited them minimally to allow ‘little Sofiya’ to speak. It’s from the perspective of me looking back on each of the landmarks in my life that each poem accompanies, tracking my growth as both a person and a poet. It’s me realizing how those events affected me “in hindsight”— that things didn’t turn out how I thought they would, and the things I thought really mattered maybe didn’t matter at all, or vice versa.
Who are some of your literary or artistic crushes, and did they influence you at all while writing this book?
I love the YouTube channel Button Poetry, I discovered it at age 12, and it inspired me to start writing spoken word, so many of my “artistic crushes” come from there. Rudy Francisco, Sabrina Beniam, Sara Kay, Olivia Gatwood, Blythe Baird, and Andrea Gibson are some performers I really admire. Their stylistic influence can definitely be seen, especially in some of the earlier poems in the book. “Ghost Town” feels very Andrea Gibson, if I dare give myself that compliment, especially the line, “The snow wept so much when you left that Winter faded into Spring”. And whenever I read the line, “I am in love with you and That rattles star systems,” from “Phases”, I read it in Sabrina Beniam’s voice.
I am also heavily influenced by poets from the Beat Generation. I had a collection of the work of around fifty different Beat poets that I devoured. I love their experimental and rebellious style, the way they celebrate life by embracing their insanity and their primal nature. Ginsberg speaks to my soul. Poems such as “I Want to Make Art”, “Sweat, Glue, and Cotton”, and “The Sound of the Earth” are direct products of this.
What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?
I learned just how much perfectionism holds me back. Creating Hindsight— specifically making choices about the work as a whole, editing, and assembling it— taught me that my way of doing something isn’t the only way or even the best way sometimes. There are several ways for a project to turn out and, even if the end result is flawed and not fully what you envisioned in the beginning, that doesn’t mean it’s not incredible.
What is the key theme and/or message in the book?
The key message of the book is that, in truth, nothing is what it seems at the time when you’re in the thick of it, and you can’t see the forest for the trees. The things that hurt us to the core, pains that we don’t think we’ll ever recover from— or, on the contrary, the relationships that we think will last forever— end up being nothing more than a chapter (or a poem). Eventually, they cease to matter at all. This too shall pass.
Do your family and "real life" friends read your work?
I’m not on social media only, so the only type of friends I have are “real life” friends. They’re kind enough to read my work whenever I send it to them. My mom reads all of my work, even though she sometimes has trouble understanding it (English is not her first language), she still tries for me. I’m really fortunate to have friends and family this supportive.
What does "good poetry" mean to you?
Hmm, that’s a tough question. I like the word “pithy”— it’s when you’re able to use a limited amount of words to really express something in a colourful, moving way, making each one of them count. Rhythm makes poetry extremely satisfying to listen to (I’m trying so hard to not say “hit different”), really separating it from prose.
I also hold myself to a standard of originality, not necessarily in terms of topic but in my language, in my metaphors. And good poetry makes you feel things. Above all, good poetry is evocative, and it’s authentic, it comes from a real place because I think people can feel that and that’s what allows them to connect.
What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?
The most recent one is Haruki Murakami. His work contains a lot of cultural subtexts that you need to understand in order to really appreciate it. Once I was able to get out of the traditionally Western mindset, I began to love his work.
What did you edit out of this book?
Oh, god. Well, likely because of my lack of experience, I can be heavy-handed when driving a point home in my writing. Rebecca (Sunday Mornings at the River’s Editor-in-Chief) and I had many arguments about which parts we had to take out and which ones could stay in, because of how stubborn and protective of our work we both are. Strangely enough, that’s what makes us a great team: we’re always challenging each other and each other’s ideas in the best way. We edited out some fragments that were too on the nose, but kept in some other quirks because I wanted to stay as true to the original as I possibly could.
Are there any secrets from the book (that aren’t in the blurb), you can share with your readers?
There are three poems that almost didn’t make it in because I’d forgotten that they existed until the final stages of editing. One of which I really love— the one called “Local”— and would have been sad if my readers missed out on it. Also, somewhere in the book, Becks and I planted a phrase that nobody else knows about or will be able to see. It’s our little secret.
Hindsight is now available on Amazon in both paperback and e-book editions. Sofiya can be found on Instagram.