Meet Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes

Although the COVID pandemic kept Restrepo Rhodes from participating in a CantoMundo retreat, they still embrace and have been embraced by CantoMundo. In this short Q&A following the release of their new book, Wayward Creatures, they share what moves their writing and their being in this world. Arizona State University instructor Cecilia Savala conducted the interview.

CantoMundo: Why did you decide to apply to Canto Mundo?

Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes: I originally applied to Canto Mundo because I value the growth and camaraderie that extend from community built in fellowships like this.

CM: How has being involved with CantoMundo influenced your work? Your practices? Your engagement with your communities?

HARR: I have yet to attend a retreat because of the pandemic, but I was the 2020 Palm Beach Poetry Festival CantoMundo fellow, and I still talk about the things I learned in the workshop with Ilya Kaminsky there, especially in the ethics and ethos of running a workshop. The practice of generosity and meeting writers where they are at was something I really valued witnessing and receiving. It very much informs my teaching of writing as well as my editorial practices.

CM: Do you write with a specific audience in mind? If so, who do you most want to reach with your writing?

HARR: As I write, I keep close a vast diversity of human and more-than-human life with whom I want to be in solidarity, essentially all of those whose voices have been subjugated, whose lives have been devalued in the face of heteropatriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism.

CM: What are you currently reading, or what’s the best thing you’ve read recently?

HARR: I’m midway through Eleni Stecopoulos’ Dreaming in the Fault Zone as well as Sandra Ruiz’s Left Turns in Brown Study. I’m rereading parts of Johanna Hedva’s How We Know When We Will Die, and I have the dear Aracelis Girmay’s newest book, Green of All Heads, in my tote bag, accompanying me everywhere. And Tilsa Otta’s And Suddenly I was Just Dancing is patiently waiting on my shelf for me.

CM: When you’re not writing, or the writing is not coming, what do you do?

HARR: I walk through nature or surf to connect with the aliveness around me. I will read a new book or go see art or films that will spark new thoughts in my mind. There is never a paucity of new material, ideas, creativity, knowledge, affects, and relations to encounter and be changed by, and that feeds my writing endlessly.

CM: MFA or no MFA?

HARR: I do not have an MFA.

CM: What can you share about your next project?

HARR: My next book is called Ampersand Organ: a more-than-human lyric and will be out next year (2026) with Milkweed Editions. It is a book of neuroqueer poetics and probably the weirdest and freest I’ve ever let myself be on the page. I feel so grateful for the space to do that, to be in the experiment that writing freely can be, toward the possibility that others may be getting freer in the encounter with one’s own work. That is what most moves my writing and my being in this world.