Erica’s poetry collection Instructions for Killing the Jackal is so lovely, we’re shocked it almost had another title! Erica says “For a while, it was called Throwing Matches Around, which is from the Patty Griffin song “Icicles”: “There’s always someone throwing matches around / Waving the shiny new knife.” I’m still attached to that title, but I wasn’t sure of the copyright laws. Plus, I wanted something that was my own. The violence in the Griffin lyric suits the type of violence in my poems—more resigned than shocking. But Instructions for Killing the Jackal feels right now. It gestures toward the mythological content that weaves its way into my work even when I don’t mean for it to. I can’t imagine the collection being called anything else.” Click here to read Erica’s first-book interview (and here to buy the book).
