Jennifer L. Knox interviewed at Bookslut

When does "the funny" come to you in your process: Do you tend to start with a comic image or thought, or do you keep honing the weirdness until a poem is adequately funny, or some other alternative?

When something pops into my head that’s really messed up, like, “I want to murder that person with piano wire, scoop out their eyes with a melon baller, fill the sockets with tapioca pudding, and a watch a horse make love to the holes,” I write it down. When I hear an odd or funny phrase, I write it down. My friends are hilarious, so I steal big from them. When I write, I try not to censor myself. I do that in editing. I remember a line that included the phrase “menstruates enough for 11 vaginas” that I took out—after a friend begged me to because it made her stomach flip. I’ve been told that I don’t have the filter that other people have for profanity and gross stuff—esp the scat stuff. In real life, this has bit me in the ass many times. Conversely, the actual statements that risk emotional exposure—those scare the bejeesus out of me. So that’s where I’m trying to “go” these days.