Christopher McCurry teaches English at Lafayette High during the school year and studies at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English during the summer. He has been an intern for almost four years, running tasks both grueling and rewarding. He reads anything he can, but gravitates towards “poetry with a singular voice and control of humor.”  And somehow he finds the time for his wife and daughter.

Christopher is a workhorse with the gait of a prize-winning thoroughbred. He is as relentless in his craft as he is towards bettering his community and never seems to sweat. His hobbies aren’t pastimes but a way to better himself: ultimate frisbee and disc golf keep him limber while board games and StarCraft keep him sharp.

I recently sat down with my fellow Accents intern after his promotion to Junior Editor to pry him open and find out what lubricates those clockwork gears, what keeps him ticking when anyone else’s batteries would’ve corroded long ago.

Tell me a little about yourself and your connection to Accents Publishing.
It’s been almost four years now since I started meeting Katerina at Common Grounds to discuss my poetry. I emailed her before starting my Masters in education, looking for a poetry mentor after reading her book, The Air Around the Butterfly, in one sitting. Not only did she agree to meet and work with me, she waved her mentor fee. Accents Publishing was well under way at this point, and I expressed interest in doing some work for the press, in part to pay back the generosity, but also because poetry was shoving its way into my heart and I wanted to explore all aspects of it. I interned for over 3 years, doing any and everything: reading, commenting, removing staples, moving chairs and tables, manning booths at events, managing chapbooks, running the Twitter account for awhile. Recently I was promoted to Junior Editor of the press, and I hope to continue learning about and working in publishing with Accents for some time.

In what ways have you seen Accents change since you first started?
There has been a careful and measured progression toward our goal, which is to be a local, independent press with international reach that publishes, supports, promotes brilliant voices. Something as complex as that has to be built by people willing to commit time and money and expertise. It started with Katerina and her family, quite literally, and has now grown to include me and 3 other interns, and we are still growing. So I guess in a way the most notable change is our number of authors and our growing family of dedicated interns as we strive to publish the best poetry we can find.

E.K. Mortenson, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, and Chris McCurry showing off E.K.’s book at Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference 2013

How do you see the future of Accents?
It’s hard to imagine Accents in the future only because doing so takes away some of the immediacy of what we are doing now. I think it will continue to grow in much of the same ways it is now: integrating technology, finding authors with fresh voices from around the world, helping to build a local community that’s inclusive and supportive of one another.

You were recently promoted to the position of Junior Editor. First of all, congratulations! And secondly, how does that change your function within the press?
This was definitely a spider-man moment for me—like “with great power, comes great responsibility.” I think partly it’s about representing the press in a more official, professional capacity. As far as specific functions, that’s still being worked out. I’ll be co-editing a couple of upcoming anthologies for starters, and I’ll keep doing a lot of what I’m already doing: working with authors, representing Accents at literary events, working with other interns.

What kind of poetry do you write? 
The clear image, the humorous moment are what I am drawn to the most, though I’m trying to explore and push those boundaries some.

Where do you draw your inspiration?
Inspiration is tricky. I’m mostly inspired by my daughter, my family, my students, childhood, monsters and villains, but if I’m not reading, whether it be prose, poetry, comics, I have a hard time producing work, so of course there are authors that inspire me: John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Stephen Dobyns, and our very own Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, to name a few.

Where have you been published?
I have poems in print: Limestone Journal, The Chaffey Review and Accents’ Bigger than They Appear, as well as in online journals that I am immensely proud of but won’t bore you with the list here. You can find links to them on my amateurish website: here.

How has your teaching career helped with your work with Accents, or vice versa?
Being a teacher gives you practice in breaking down complex concepts and communicating them clearly. It also gives you practice in assessing a person’s strengths and weaknesses in order to help them grow. I’m constantly surrounded by the elements of reading and writing. I think it is clear in how that can translate to the editing/publishing world. Less obvious is how editing/publishing impacts my teaching, but students respond to passion and poetry in all forms is one of my passions. I think the collision of the two worlds is great for the classroom and community.

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

What are your goals as far as poetry is concerned for the next five years?
Oh my. I have some lofty ones. I want to finish my Masters in English Literature. Publish some poems. Continue to work in the community. Promote poetry as performance. Publish a chapbook. Be a featured reader at Holler Poet Series. And I think just continue to write poems is an important goal.

You want to promote “poetry as performance”. Can you elaborate on that?
Part of what I encourage my students to do is act out poems. It’s nothing original, but it leads to interesting readings and representations, and I want to explore that more in the coming year.

How has Accents helped you accomplish those?
Accents gives me access to the community and is constant immersion in the culture that is supportive and talented.

Thanks so much for your time. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Just that it is so easy to share these days, share a poem every day if you can. Thank you.

And thank you!