Interview with Lit Mag Enthusiast and Prose Writer, Mack Rogers

Mack Rogers is a gay Black writer. They initially appeared with their wonderful poem LIGHT BROWN SUGAR or THE SOURCE OF ALL MY LBS or MACK ROGERS in Papers Publishing: Issue One - Avenues of Communication. His work has otherwise appeared in Foglifter, Olney Magazine, Susurrus, Still, and is forthcoming in Pinch, A GREAT GAY BOOK, and Shenandoah. Mack is a poetry reader at Split Lip Mag, volunteer staff critic for Pencilhouse, and poetry editor for Zero Readers Magazine. He is a 2023 Best of the Net nominee. He lives with his partner and their three cats near Raleigh, NC.

Rian: Welcome Mack, we’re thrilled to be able to speak to you. I wanted to start by addressing your poem published with us. You used a very unique style of writing with it. The punctuation is scarce and you only use three periods (full stops) in the entire piece. How did you develop this style, and do you utilise it in other works? 

Mack: To me, this poem is just like the typical prose poem, or, at least, when I think of prose poetry, it’s in this sort of style. At a glance, it’s a handful of run-on sentences, but the absence of line breaks, stanza breaks, spacing, etc. makes it more equipped to tell a story. The pacing and rhythm increase the stakes, leaving more room for surprises (and I won’t take all the credit for the verbiage—I picked that up from Sofia Fey in one of their workshops). The lack of punctuation speeds it up so instead of reading and absorbing each individual line, you’re running this race and jumping over the hurdles that I’ve set up.

I’ve always been the type of person to wait for my turn to speak when I’m with friends or family or with total strangers and that often means that I don’t get a chance to speak at all. And when I do get to talk, I feel like I have to cram in everything I want to say all at once or else the conversation will just get away from me. When that moment arises, it usually comes out sassy, very matter-of-fact. So when I say that this poem really wanted to be a prose poem, this was the only way that it could ever be.

Rian: Like the poem had a mind of its own, its own intentions. From what I can garner, the analogy of using light brown sugar (as opposed to dark brown) in recipes speaks to the treatment of light-skinned POC - addressing colourism that views lighter skin as safer, or more able. Am I on the right track? How do you view the story told within? 

Mack: Yes, but there’s a bit more to it. It’s kind of a mind fuck really. As a light-skinned Black person, I was told I wasn’t really Black growing up because I didn’t behave a certain way while simultaneously getting called nigger and monkey by the same people. I’ve also been told that I’m not Black by other Black people. And I am constantly being mistaken as Latin. I’ve literally had someone assume I’m Puerto Rican and when I said “No, I’m Black” they were in disbelief and asked several follow-up questions like “Are you sure?” and “Is one of your parents Puerto Rican?” (Which may or may not have happened while I was typing this out at work). So, my identity as a Black man has constantly been put into question and still is. In a lot of my poetry is me sort of shouting from the rooftops that I’m Black. This one is more: “I’m brown. Isn’t that enough?”

I chose to personify light brown sugar to do this mostly because I like to bake, but also because that one ingredient is in so many recipes and can be used in so many ways. It’s a staple. It’s in dishes you probably wouldn’t expect. The metaphor was right there, ya know? 

Rian: Yeah, it made a lot of sense before, but even more so now. It’s mind blowing that people feel so entitled to your identity. Speaking of identity, you went to college in Tennessee and now live there - did you grow up there as well? Do you feel Tennessee influences your work at all? 

Mack: I’ve lived in East Tennessee my whole life, born and raised, but I actually just moved to North Carolina in the Raleigh area. But yes, Tennessee has impacted my work immensely. Where I’m from, there’s a very low Black population. It wouldn’t be uncommon for me to be the only Black person in most social gatherings, sometimes even the only POC. My work initially started as this tremendous effort to fit in. I was writing white characters in what I perceived to be the white experience. But gradually with representation from places like We Need Diverse Books, I started to see myself more in writing. I started writing a lot more poetry from my POC perspective because there was a severe lack of it in my area. At the monthly poetry open mic I went to in Johnson City, I was the only Black poet consistently reading, so it felt that much more important to make my voice heard.

But thankfully I wasn’t the only queer poet, which I was pleasantly surprised by given it’s the Bible Belt—the queer population in my hometown was so miniscule that if you wanted to use Grindr you needed to be prepared to drive two towns over usually. And there are a lot of safe spaces in Johnson City. That community will always hold a special place in my heart. I really lucked out, ending up where I did. So much support, so much talent, so much love. My values definitely don’t align with the majority of the state, but it will always be home.

Rian: It’s such an attestation on your part that you write so much from your experience now, considering how little representation you saw growing up. You’ve journaled online at your website (mackrogers.com) for years now! Poetry, flash, opinion; what initially made you want to start up a blog like this? Do you think it’s helped improve or change your writing?

Mack: So when I graduated from UTK and went back to my hometown, jobs were scarce. That wasn’t necessarily an economic trend, it was just a really small town. As an aspiring writer, my best and only option was the local newspaper, which I quickly realized wasn’t for me. So I met with a family friend who sort of mentored me and she recommended that I start a portfolio of writing. Opinion pieces and such. So I did and I wasn’t really feeling that either.

I had this idea that I wanted to post three times a week. Which was insane for someone who didn’t even enjoy what he was doing. But I had a lot of downtime at the newspaper—and free access to the Associated Press—so I thought why not. Unsurprisingly, I ran out of things to write, so I turned to poetry—specifically dream poetry (something I picked up from Dr. Marilyn Kallet at UTK). I kept a dream journal and cranked out a dream poem just whenever I felt like it. But I would also write some flash occasionally or an update on the novel I was working on.

All the work I post there falls into this grey area where I don’t think they’re strong enough to submit to journals but not so weak that I’m embarrassed to share them. I don’t think I was ever quite taking myself seriously on the blog though. I guess the better way to put that is that I wasn’t really taking poetry seriously. I was stubbornly trying to write and publish a YA novel because that just made the most sense to me at the time and poetry was just a fun thing to do. But it was a huge confidence boost. That was the first time I really put my work out for anyone to see. It’s only been in the past year or so that I’ve started leaning more toward poetry and focusing on that. So I’m not sure the blog necessarily helped or hurt my writing honestly. I don’t post like I used to either because I’m holding so much of my work close to my chest now and journals typically don’t want previously published material. But I’ve been meaning to write more dream poetry, now that I’ve found my voice and style.

Rian: Well looking at your online portfolio, it certainly seems like you’re everywhere. And not only with your own work either - you’re a reader at two presses - Split Lip Mag and Pencilhouse. How did you get into these roles and what’s your favourite part about being a reader?

Mack: Right place, right time to be honest. I saw each of them with open calls for volunteers, so I applied. For each of them, it really just boiled down to proving that I could read a poem and outline strengths and weaknesses. But to clarify, I’m more of a staff critic at Pencilhouse. We provide free feedback on fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. So for Split Lip I leave anywhere from a sentence to a paragraph of comments on poems that the writer will never read and for Pencilhouse it’s more like a full page and that the writer will absolutely be reading. And Pencilhouse actually opened the door for me to be the poetry editor for Zero Readers Magazine. The owner of Pencilhouse, Jason McGlone, had previously started this mag and decided to revive it with a full masthead and asked me if I wanted to try my hand at editing, to which I said hell yes.

My favorite part of all of it is being able to see what people are writing right now. With poetry, there are seemingly limitless possibilities with form and so many different styles, so it’s exciting to see the new techniques and approaches in real time from lots of incredible writers. And sometimes you come across a real gem. It feels nice to get a poem accepted but to be some part of that process and say yes to publishing that poem—that hits different.

Rian: I can’t agree with you more. It truly is a wonderful feeling. I was originally a reader when you submitted your poem, LIGHT BROWN SUGAR or THE SOURCE OF ALL MY LBS or MACK ROGERS which we published in Issue I of our bi-annual publication. We’re now coming up to Issue II, and I wanted to ask if you have any advice you’d give to people wanting to submit to publications like this.

Mack: I think a lot of people, including myself admittedly, like to reserve the work that they’re really proud of for some of the bigger publications. My advice is to not do that to yourself. There are so many wonderful journals to place your work and places like Papers will promote the hell out of you free of charge. Always submit your best work. And I know it’s a pain (and some of it is locked behind paywalls), but you should get a feel for the kind of stuff that publication is putting out. A lot of places have free online issues, and if they don’t, check out the masthead and see what they’re into. There are some places that probably won’t be a good fit for your work and maybe never will be, but once you find someplace with the same vibe—gamechanger.

Rian: Lastly, what can we hope to see from you in the future? Are there any publications we should keep an eye out for? 

Mack: Keep an eye out for Zero Readers Mag! We’re coming out with issue six soon and I’m really excited for all the poetry I get to publish! I’ve started querying for my first chapbook too. Hopefully the world will see it for all its glory someday soon. And I’ve got some work coming in Shenandoah and Pinch, and a poem in the anthology A Great Gay Book: Stories of Growth, Belonging, and Other Queer Possibilities by Ryan Fitzgibbon—all very soon. Check them out! They’re all pretty rad.

Rian: Mack, thank you so much for this interview. We’ve enjoyed your work so much so far and we can’t wait to see the next big thing.

Twitter/X: @mackrogers_

Insta: @macksinamillion

Bluesky: @macksamillion.bsky.social

Site: mackrogers.com