I Don't Go Down That Road Anymore
Lion Bridge Publishing (2026)
Read the complete digital book online @ Lion Bridge here
Lion Bridge Publishing (2026)
Read the complete digital book online @ Lion Bridge here
Up the Staircase Quarterly: Hello, Rachel! It is lovely to see you grace these pages again. You have been a long time contributor to UtSQ, most recently with your poem “Alabama Heat”. Speaking of Alabama, your first book I Don’t Go Down That Road Anymore is coming out with University of North Alabama’s Lion Bridge Publishing. How are you feeling? What are you most looking forward to with the release of your first poetry collection?
Rachel Nix: Thank you! I’ve said it over and over again, but UtSQ has always been my favorite literary journal. You’re by far the most attentive and supportive editor a writer could hope to impress.
I’m thrilled about the book release! The process of creating and then setting the poems loose feels like I’ve fully processed things and can exist in the now without thinking backwards so often. I’d been trying to write at least three different books for years but it was the road poems that needed to come out the most. That the book is through Lion Bridge Publishing via University of North Alabama is extra exciting in that the Shoals area has always felt like my home despite not having a mailbox there. The community is art-based, primarily with music but even those artists are writing poetry–be it in the form of lyrics. I’d also like to mention how impressed I’ve been with the Lion Bridge Publishing staff. Led by Professor Jason McCall, the women who built this book rivaled the care a top tier press could offer. That’s what I looked forward to the most: seeing what the press could do with my poems. They outdid my expectations, for sure.
UtSQ: The poems in I Don’t Go Down That Road Anymore are very familial, delving into complex relationships with relatives and touching on the concepts of conditional and unconditional love within those dynamics, all with a markedly Southern setting and voice. How does place inform and influence your compositions? What do you love the most about Southern poetics?
RN: With these poems, the mood was always here or there. I felt darkness here and light there. Place defined feelings. Family defined my place. When writing I Don’t Go Down That Road Anymore, I remembered where everything happened even if I didn’t know why it happened. The same is true for anything I write.
Details are what I love most about Southern poetics. A writer may tell you a story they remember but a Southern writer will tell you where they were when it got interesting. You’ll know what the place smelled like, how humid it was, if the mosquitos were out. You’ll know if the writer was trying to tell you something that wasn’t in the words. In that sense, it’s not so much about craft; it’s more to do with how we were raised. It comes from our grandparents. Any time they told us anything, we knew everything there was to know before the end came.
UtSQ: I love the way your first and last poems of the collection closely mirror each other. In “Go”, the first poem in the book, you write: “go / before the exits are taken.” A warning, one in which your narrator does not heed, even with the prevalent sense of urgency. However, in the titular last poem, we are left with a hopeful “now I know all the exits.” I am curious about your process for these particular poems, but in general, how did you compile these works? Did you write poems specifically to appear as landmarks on the Road or did it happen more intuitively?
RN: It was a bit of both things, I think. About half of the poems were written over the past 20 years and then suddenly new poems filled the gaps. Some were landmarks that maybe I hadn’t noticed as much before but I finally felt like I could describe them. Overall, it was probably a more intuitive effort than much else. I’ve never written so much so quickly. The poems tumbled out almost whole and while inside those poems, another would appear. I didn’t intentionally try to mirror the first part of the book but when it started happening, I went with it. I think I wrote 10 new poems in less than a month, which is far more productive than I typically am. To stick with the road metaphor, the gaps felt like potholes and when I’d go over them I suddenly knew how to patch them. By the time I got to the end of the book, I realized my initial fear in the first poem had been not being able to escape where I was and without realizing, I wrote my own exit in the last poem.
UtSQ: I have had the unique honor of being able to watch your work evolve and mature over the years. Looking back at your earlier works and the poems in your collection, what do you feel has changed about your writing? What has stayed the same? What has been the hardest lesson to learn about writing poetry from a craft standpoint?
RN: I think my writing has become more personal. Vulnerability was always the aim and it still is. From a craft standpoint, I’ve had to learn how to cut what isn’t necessary. Intention is everything and if that gets lost, the poem won’t know where it’s going. Another tool I’ve been reliant on is rhythm. When writing, I read everything aloud until I get it where I want it. The clunky bits reveal themselves when given voice. Rhythm also helps to find a pattern. It creates a path a reader can follow.
UtSQ: You are also an editor for Screen Door Review and Hobo Camp Review, both wonderful online lit journals that more people should check out. From an editing standpoint, what fills you with joy? What fills you with displeasure?
RN: The joy is reading new writers, to be honest. There’s no better feeling than finding a new voice in our submissions and getting to be the first home for that work. Specifically with Screen Door Review, we get writers of all ages and are continually reading some of the finest work out there–largely from writers who’ve just gotten their nerve up to submit. The new voices are what drives poetry: they honor those before them but offer us new versions of grit and fragility.
As for displeasure, I think any editor will agree it’s largely sifting through submissions that don’t remotely adhere to guidelines. It wastes our time. With Hobo Camp Review, I just assist here and there as needed so I don’t usually go through submissions. James Duncan does all of that and I guarantee he’d say the same thing bugs him. At Screen Door Review, I do the bulk of the declines and more often than not they’re going out to those who ignore or argue with our guidelines.
UtSQ: Rachel, give us the goods. What was your first significant literary encounter? How did this experience inspire you, or shape you, into the writer you have become?
RN: That would be Ms. Annette Little, a teacher where I went to high school. She noticed my writing in my early teens and took an interest in me. I remember she once told me my poetry reminded her of e.e. cummings. It was overly generous but it meant so much to me that she could see anything in my poems. In English class, she showed such passion for words and meaning. She cared about intention and I carried that with me as my writing evolved. All those years ago, she convinced the school to get a subscription to a high school magazine so I could have my poems published nationally. Ms. Little gave me confidence at a time when I genuinely needed it. I saw her recently and getting to tell her about this book was so exciting. She’ll never know what she stirred up in me.
UtSQ: Finally, Rachel, if you could have a meal with anyone, dead or alive, real or imaginary, who would it be, and what on earth would the two of you eat?
RN: Hm, there’s probably 30 different writers trying to be the answer here but ultimately the person I’d give anything to see would be my Maw-Maw Rachel. She passed nearly 15 years ago but I can still hear her in my head. She was the person who most understood me in my teenage years when the bulk of the poems in this collection were based. She guided me through the worst of my insecurities and would always remind me the only person who had a choice in who I’d become was me.
As for the food: red velvet cake. Maw-Maw was an incredible cook but that cake was her specialty. No one’s ever matched her recipe and I suspect it’s because she didn’t actually go by her own recipe. She never was one for minding rules. I got that from her.
Rachel Nix: Thank you! I’ve said it over and over again, but UtSQ has always been my favorite literary journal. You’re by far the most attentive and supportive editor a writer could hope to impress.
I’m thrilled about the book release! The process of creating and then setting the poems loose feels like I’ve fully processed things and can exist in the now without thinking backwards so often. I’d been trying to write at least three different books for years but it was the road poems that needed to come out the most. That the book is through Lion Bridge Publishing via University of North Alabama is extra exciting in that the Shoals area has always felt like my home despite not having a mailbox there. The community is art-based, primarily with music but even those artists are writing poetry–be it in the form of lyrics. I’d also like to mention how impressed I’ve been with the Lion Bridge Publishing staff. Led by Professor Jason McCall, the women who built this book rivaled the care a top tier press could offer. That’s what I looked forward to the most: seeing what the press could do with my poems. They outdid my expectations, for sure.
UtSQ: The poems in I Don’t Go Down That Road Anymore are very familial, delving into complex relationships with relatives and touching on the concepts of conditional and unconditional love within those dynamics, all with a markedly Southern setting and voice. How does place inform and influence your compositions? What do you love the most about Southern poetics?
RN: With these poems, the mood was always here or there. I felt darkness here and light there. Place defined feelings. Family defined my place. When writing I Don’t Go Down That Road Anymore, I remembered where everything happened even if I didn’t know why it happened. The same is true for anything I write.
Details are what I love most about Southern poetics. A writer may tell you a story they remember but a Southern writer will tell you where they were when it got interesting. You’ll know what the place smelled like, how humid it was, if the mosquitos were out. You’ll know if the writer was trying to tell you something that wasn’t in the words. In that sense, it’s not so much about craft; it’s more to do with how we were raised. It comes from our grandparents. Any time they told us anything, we knew everything there was to know before the end came.
UtSQ: I love the way your first and last poems of the collection closely mirror each other. In “Go”, the first poem in the book, you write: “go / before the exits are taken.” A warning, one in which your narrator does not heed, even with the prevalent sense of urgency. However, in the titular last poem, we are left with a hopeful “now I know all the exits.” I am curious about your process for these particular poems, but in general, how did you compile these works? Did you write poems specifically to appear as landmarks on the Road or did it happen more intuitively?
RN: It was a bit of both things, I think. About half of the poems were written over the past 20 years and then suddenly new poems filled the gaps. Some were landmarks that maybe I hadn’t noticed as much before but I finally felt like I could describe them. Overall, it was probably a more intuitive effort than much else. I’ve never written so much so quickly. The poems tumbled out almost whole and while inside those poems, another would appear. I didn’t intentionally try to mirror the first part of the book but when it started happening, I went with it. I think I wrote 10 new poems in less than a month, which is far more productive than I typically am. To stick with the road metaphor, the gaps felt like potholes and when I’d go over them I suddenly knew how to patch them. By the time I got to the end of the book, I realized my initial fear in the first poem had been not being able to escape where I was and without realizing, I wrote my own exit in the last poem.
UtSQ: I have had the unique honor of being able to watch your work evolve and mature over the years. Looking back at your earlier works and the poems in your collection, what do you feel has changed about your writing? What has stayed the same? What has been the hardest lesson to learn about writing poetry from a craft standpoint?
RN: I think my writing has become more personal. Vulnerability was always the aim and it still is. From a craft standpoint, I’ve had to learn how to cut what isn’t necessary. Intention is everything and if that gets lost, the poem won’t know where it’s going. Another tool I’ve been reliant on is rhythm. When writing, I read everything aloud until I get it where I want it. The clunky bits reveal themselves when given voice. Rhythm also helps to find a pattern. It creates a path a reader can follow.
UtSQ: You are also an editor for Screen Door Review and Hobo Camp Review, both wonderful online lit journals that more people should check out. From an editing standpoint, what fills you with joy? What fills you with displeasure?
RN: The joy is reading new writers, to be honest. There’s no better feeling than finding a new voice in our submissions and getting to be the first home for that work. Specifically with Screen Door Review, we get writers of all ages and are continually reading some of the finest work out there–largely from writers who’ve just gotten their nerve up to submit. The new voices are what drives poetry: they honor those before them but offer us new versions of grit and fragility.
As for displeasure, I think any editor will agree it’s largely sifting through submissions that don’t remotely adhere to guidelines. It wastes our time. With Hobo Camp Review, I just assist here and there as needed so I don’t usually go through submissions. James Duncan does all of that and I guarantee he’d say the same thing bugs him. At Screen Door Review, I do the bulk of the declines and more often than not they’re going out to those who ignore or argue with our guidelines.
UtSQ: Rachel, give us the goods. What was your first significant literary encounter? How did this experience inspire you, or shape you, into the writer you have become?
RN: That would be Ms. Annette Little, a teacher where I went to high school. She noticed my writing in my early teens and took an interest in me. I remember she once told me my poetry reminded her of e.e. cummings. It was overly generous but it meant so much to me that she could see anything in my poems. In English class, she showed such passion for words and meaning. She cared about intention and I carried that with me as my writing evolved. All those years ago, she convinced the school to get a subscription to a high school magazine so I could have my poems published nationally. Ms. Little gave me confidence at a time when I genuinely needed it. I saw her recently and getting to tell her about this book was so exciting. She’ll never know what she stirred up in me.
UtSQ: Finally, Rachel, if you could have a meal with anyone, dead or alive, real or imaginary, who would it be, and what on earth would the two of you eat?
RN: Hm, there’s probably 30 different writers trying to be the answer here but ultimately the person I’d give anything to see would be my Maw-Maw Rachel. She passed nearly 15 years ago but I can still hear her in my head. She was the person who most understood me in my teenage years when the bulk of the poems in this collection were based. She guided me through the worst of my insecurities and would always remind me the only person who had a choice in who I’d become was me.
As for the food: red velvet cake. Maw-Maw was an incredible cook but that cake was her specialty. No one’s ever matched her recipe and I suspect it’s because she didn’t actually go by her own recipe. She never was one for minding rules. I got that from her.
Rachel Nix, author of I Don’t Go Down That Road Anymore, is a poet from Northwest Alabama and an editor for Screen Door Review. Her work has appeared in Salvation South, Sundog Lit, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and other venues.
