Meet an Accents Intern: Robin LaMer Rahija

Robin, excited to get Matthew Haughton’s autograph

Robin LaMer Rahija has been an Accents intern about as long as I have, which means she started around April of this year. She is a graduate student at the University of Kentucky’s English department and is Poetry Editor for the University’s literary journal, Limestone.

Who are you, where are you from, and what brought you to Lexington?

I am Robin. I am from Kansas City, MO. I came to Lexington to go to school at UK.

Where do you work and what do you do in that position?

I am a graduate teacher in the English Department.

What do you enjoy outside of poetry?

I make books with my husband. We have a small publishing company called Rabbit Catastrophe Press. We’ve also been watching all the Alien movies. All we have left is Alien Vs. Predator, which he is refusing to watch.

What do you do for Accents Publishing?

I am an intern. I do mostly post-publication work like copy-editing and applying for book prizes.

When did you first meet Katerina? When did you first learn about Accents Publishing?

I think we met at the Writer’s Block Print Festival in 2010 in Louisville. Then we kept running into each other at Holler, etc. I went to a reading she did when her last book came out, and I was like, “This lady is amazing!” Even though it was her event, she saw me in the crowd and hugged me and asked me about my poetry. When I saw a call for interns on Facebook for Accents, I had to apply. Just being around Katerina makes me want to write more.

Haley Crigger, Robin LaMer Rahija, Morgan Adams, and Chris at the Carnegie Center’s Book Fair in May 2013

How would you like to see Accents grow?

Accents does so much already, with publishing and in the community. I really like the work with translations we’ve been doing. I’m looking forward to working on more projects in different languages.

What do you get out of your position with Accents?

I immediately went from dumb-poetry-ish hobby-kid to Poetry Professional. I had to learn to talk to people about creative work and about the other side of poetry—like keeping excel docs of grant info and caring about money.

What is Rabbit Catastrophe Review and how did it start?

It is a biannual (twice-a-year) lit journal of poetry, prose, and art. Greg (husband, Alien-hater) and I make it in our apartment. We started it when we moved to Lexington because we were bored and didn’t know anybody.

I understand you teach. What is the most important thing you tell your students?

It’s in the syllabus!

What is your favorite poem and why?

“Song of Myself” is the poem that made me like poetry when I thought it wasn’t important. He just lays it all out there. Man. It’s good. But as for my favorite, I suppose that changes all the time. Every new poem I read and like is my favorite for a while. I’m really into Mikey Swanberg right now.

Recommend a foreign poet?

This is a hard one I’ve been reading a lot of Bulgarian poetry lately :)

One of my favorite’s from the forthcoming anthology [The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Poetry] is Kerana Angelova. Here is a section from her poem “Visions” :

Is it out of joy or out of grief

that someone is yelling in the night someone is yelling

what is this language what is this language

Thanks so much, Robin!

And if you want to check out more from Robin Lamer-Rahija, run over to Rabbit Catastrophe Press and pick up a copy of Rabbit Catastrophe Review, currently on its sixth issue!

Previously on Meet an Accents Intern: