Natasha Rao
Natasha Rao
Natasha Rao is the author of Latitude, selected by Ada Limón as the winner of the 2021 APR/Honickman First Book Prize. The recipient of a 2021 Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, she has also received fellowships from Bread Loaf, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Community of Writers. Her work appears in The Nation, American Poetry Review, The New York Times Magazine, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from NYU, where she was a Goldwater Fellow. She is currently an Editor of American Chordata.
What excites you about writing? How has it affected your life?
I’m excited by all the possibilities of writing. A poem can be so many things: a site of transformation, a time capsule, a space for self-interrogation, a vehicle for life transformed into art.
Writing poetry has allowed me to imbue even the most mundane details of my life with a kind of significance—a sanctification of the ordinary. It has reminded me to look around, to collect moments and images, and to never shake off a sense of wonder.
What mindset does a writer need to continue to grow and learn?
A writer should be open, in every sense—open to experiences, to ideas, to whatever the world has to offer. So much of writing is about discovery, and in order to invite those discoveries, one has to be curious.
What makes a good writing mentor?
A good writing mentor aims to understand the distinct voice and essence of their student’s work, and then finds ways to further cultivate that spark. A mentor should be an engaged listener and should be excited to help each student execute their unique artistic vision. I also think a successful writing mentor is one who makes their students want to write—not just offering suggestions for honing craft, but also encouraging experimentation and play.
What is your style of feedback?
I aim to work as closely as possible with each writer to address their particular needs, first asking if there are any specific questions or areas of concern. I like to give copious written notes on poems, in the form of both line edits and paragraphs of more generic thoughts. Because my goal is to amplify what is distinct about each writer, I always ensure to point out what the “heartbeat” of the work is and where it feels most alive. I try to identify which specific lines or images stand out as particularly powerful/evocative, and which ones don’t feel as resonant. I also like to provide each writer with suggestions of published texts that engage with their poetics in some way.