Interview on Collaboration with Jerome Berglund and Christina Chin
Sometimes the hardest part of collaborating is getting started. Here are some tips from creators that have collaborated—sometimes with an absolute stranger—and made something wonderful!
Did you know your partner in collaboration beforehand? Explain how you got together.
I have long been a great admirer and fan of Christina's collaborative poetry, masterful command of numerous forms and courage to write in tandem with a diverse variety of practitioners from around the globe. For some time I had been hoping we might try something together, was so thrilled when she suggested we attempt some writing as a duo. I believe I had posted about my interest in experimenting with some split sequences looking for game poets. A great mode of alerting friends and colleagues of potential receptiveness to notion! If you are thinking of this rarely will anyone actively publishing not be enthusiastically flattered, inspired and overjoyed has been my experience, only lack of availability can sometimes prevent or slow process. But either way never have community I've known been anything but tickled at prospect, always how I receive such propositions too!! :D
How did you collaborate? What was your process?
I believe we started via messaging and moved to a shared Google doc which is an excellent and convenient approach I've had great success with in other collaborations too. Email can also work for slower, less formal pacing.
What were some challenges you faced during the collaborative process, and what did you learn?
We didn't encounter any particular hurdles in writing, I'd say having the courage to ask someone and sort of determining your unique process and strategy at the start, as an anxious person, is the biggest challenge for me personally! ^^ You forge such meaningful connections with friends and colleagues, improve your writing style and better understand how your work is being interpreted through these team-ups, truly so many benefits and nothing to lose, can't recommend enough.
Any final words of advice for future collaborators?
Reading examples exhibited in journals or collected, perhaps some articles and history of forms and ways they can be accomplished is an powerful way to gain confidence and understand precedents, help you excel and strive. In the short forms split sequence, renku, rengay are also fine means of writing with a partner, if you love haiku familiarity with the renga tradition and critical linking and shifting, juxtapositional components will be enormously beneficial to your solo technique, holistic foundations without a doubt!
Read Jerome Berglund & Christina Chin’s piece, “cow bells, rabbits, & dandelions”
Jerome Berglund has many haiku, senryu and tanka exhibited and forthcoming online and in print, most recently in the Asahi Shimbun, Bottle Rockets, Frogpond, and Modern Haiku. His first full-length collection of poetry Bathtub Poems was just released by Setu Press.
Christina Chin is a painter and haiku poet from Malaysia. She is a four-time recipient of top 100 in the mDAC Summit Contests, exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center, California. 1st prize winner of the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival 2020 Haiku Contest. 1st prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019 Photohaiku Contest. She has been published in numerous journals, multilingual journals, and anthologies, including Japan's prestigious monthly Haikukai Magazine.
