Leah Tieger

“Whenever I let my ambition get in the way of gratitude, I remember my earlier self and let her revel in the win.”

We and She, You and Then, You Again (Finishing Line Press, 2017)

What motivated you to split your work into these specific sections: “We,” “She,” “You,” “Then,” “You Again”? What do each of these sections refer to?

I found myself writing a lot in the second person, either plural or singular, and at the same time I found myself writing in the third person about a mysterious She. The book’s progression (from a plural togetherness to a mysterious other; from the self to an effacement of self; to a final arrival at the self again) traces the overall complications of self and other, how we constantly come together and grow apart, and how we are changed in the process.

“Cedar” is my favorite of the…