Melissa Castillo Planas GSAS ‘11: Poet and Professor
Melissa Castillo Planas
By Peter Krause
Melissa Castillo Planas (GSAS 2011), is a poet and Assistant Professor of English at Lehman College, where she focuses on Latinx Literature and Culture. Melissa is the author of the poetry collection Coatlicue Eats the Apple, editor of the anthology, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets, co-editor of La Verdad: An International Dialogue on Hip Hop Latinidades and co-author of the novel, Pure Bronx.
Her most recent book project, with Rutgers University Press’ new Global Race and Media series, A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture (Rutgers UP), examines the creative worlds and cultural productions of Mexican migrants in New York City within the context of a system of racial capitalism that marginalizes Mexican migrants via an exploitative labor market, criminalizing immigration policy, and racialized systems of surveillance. Her second book of poetry, Chingona Rules is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press in summer 2021.
At Fordham, Melissa participated in the Poets Out Loud event series in 2017 (now called the Poetic Justice Institute). She has also been interviewed by Fordham News in 2020 and Fordham English News in 2014 and 2017. Please visit Melissa's website for more information.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Peter Krause: Thank you, Melissa, for chatting with Fordham English News today. Many of our readers are deciding whether to declare a major in English or wondering where their already declared English degree will take them career-wise. Could you talk about how your time in the English department at Fordham influenced your early career?
Melissa Castillo Planas: Oh my gosh, my experience at Fordham influenced everything I do now! All of my book projects were started at Fordham. One of the reasons for that is because Fordham allowed me to explore so much, even within the M.A. program. I am not actually someone who has written for all of my life. I wrote my first poems at Fordham. As an undergraduate at NYU, I started as a journalist and then dabbled in fiction writing. Then, at Fordham I took a poetry class. A friend recommended that poetry could improve all of my writing. I said, “Why not?” My very first poems, which were later published in my first book of poetry, Coatlicue Eats the Apple, are from that class.
“Oh my gosh, my experience at Fordham influenced everything I do now!”
My scholarly book too, A Mexican State of Mind, which is about Mexican migrant youth culture in New York City, started in a class at Fordham. Fordham offers a graduate certificate in Latin American and Latino Studies, which I recommend to anyone in the English department who might be interested. I took a few classes to fulfill that, one of which was a Sociology class that introduced me to the concept of ethnography. Ethnography is, of course, related to journalism which is, in turn, related to English and literature. I found such natural overlapping useful.
In terms of the M.A. program, I really liked how we were able to dip our feet into the literature of different time periods. I’m interested in contemporary twentieth and twenty-first century work but, as a professor, I have to be able to teach with a wide historical lens. I teach American history, so I often think of the eighteenth and nineteenth century literature classes I took with Glenn Hendler at Fordham. Classes like those helped me in two ways. First, they prepared me to teach in an English department later on. My Ph.D. is in American Studies and African American Studies, not English, so, I earnestly had to look back at my preparation at Fordham to prepare to teach many of my early English classes. Second, literature classes at Fordham helped me to think about literature in new and important ways, such as in relation to popular culture, history, consumption, race, etc. It is vital to examine literature in ways that move beyond close reading. What can we learn from literature about the pop culture of the day? What can we learn from literature about the political issues of the day? These questions continue to influence how I approach literature today.
PK: It’s always heartening for young writers (myself included!) to hear that they don’t need to commit early in life to one kind of writing or one kind of discourse. You’ve obviously had success across multiple genres.
MCP: I’ve enjoyed learning about academic writing, fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Even within academic writing, at Fordham I was exposed to literary analysis, historical analysis, sociological analysis, etc. There is the opportunity to explore broadly even with the two year M.A. window. I was actually just talking about this with my colleagues. In Ph.D. programs, especially once you have a dissertation topic, it is easy to get stuck in a narrow discourse. It’s like a swimming pool lane. As academics move further into their careers it can be more difficult to transfer lanes. However, in the M.A. program, I was all over the pool!
PK: This actually anticipates my next question, which has to do with balancing different genres. You completed your Ph.D. at Yale and you currently teach at Lehman College, yet you have consistently found time to write, publish, and deliver readings of your own poetry (including at Fordham). Could you talk about finding a balance between your career and creative work?
MCP: It is vital to balance the responsibilities of my job, whether it’s teaching, preparing for class, or committees as a professor, with my own writing time. Throughout my teaching life I often designate a writing day, or at least one or two writing mornings a week. It’s hard to write all day. It’s exhausting. But two or three hours a few times a week really works. Especially when in graduate school, I think that we often overestimate the amount of time necessary to write something substantial. We might say, “Oh, I must have three full days to write this article or finish that chapter.” But you can get a lot done in just a couple focused hours.
Personally, I find that I cycle in and out of academic and creative writing. I consciously allow that cycle to take place. When the pandemic first started, I did not want to do academic writing. I only wanted to do creative writing. Creative writing was the mode by which I wanted to deal with the emotions of lockdown. For a month or two I was writing a poem a week. Then, I wrote some articles for a few months. Then, I switched back to revising poetry for a few months.
Let me also say that I think writers and academics often place enormous writing burdens on themselves. We like to give ourselves daunting weekly quotas. The older I’ve gotten, the more reasonable my expectations have become. [Laughs] And you know what? That has absolutely improved my quality of life. A thousand words here and a thousand words there adds up. Over winter break I wrote twice a week and was able to complete an article. It works. If you take on exhausting writing loads, you can find yourself blocked by those expectations.
PK: You’re speaking, among other topics, about the importance of balance in the life of a graduate student or professor. When you were at Fordham were you the monastic graduate student or did you engage with campus life?
MCP: Fordham was the most social I’ve ever been! I worked in the writing center. I was a graduate assistant in the department of American Studies. I was active in the Latino Studies department. There was always great programming. I went to all the Poets Out Loud events. I was very engaged. My cohort and I would do something together several times a week.
“The Fordham English department is terrific too because it’s not too big. You can actually get to know people. You genuinely feel like you have a community.“
Here’s the ironic thing: When I did my Ph.D. at Yale I became much more monastic, which is what I thought was necessary, but I actually produced more writing at Fordham. At Yale, especially when I was writing my dissertation, I was like a groundhog underground: just hyper-focused. Looking back, I don’t recommend that. Much of my work is inspired by social engagement. Community involvement can drive writing. I think my experience at Fordham was so positive, and so productive, because I was engaged with campus communities and was inspired by them. Disengaging too much from campus life in order to devote more time to writing can actually backfire on you.
The Fordham English department is terrific too because it’s not too big. You can actually get to know people. You genuinely feel like you have a community.
PK: As a doctoral candidate myself, I’m underlining multiple times in my notes: “Do not adhere to the unsustainable monastic model of dissertation writing.” [Laughs]
MCP: [Laughs] That is the message that graduate students receive, though, right? I remember thinking, “Okay, I cannot go outside until this chapter is completed.” But if you do that, you don’t get out for months!
PK: Obviously, a big topic of conversation among graduate students is the job market. Could you comment on your experience both after the M.A. program at Fordham and after the Ph.D. program after Yale?
MCP: I applied to Ph.D. programs while I was completing the M.A. at Fordham, so I wasn’t really on the job market then in the traditional sense. Of course, graduate school is a job, or at least it should be thought of as one. I applied to Ph.D. programs in both English departments and American Studies departments. Even after Fordham I was still in an exploratory phase. When applying to Ph.D. programs it is not necessary to know exactly what kind of project you would like to take on. Masters students often apply to Ph.D. programs with a year left in their M.A. programs, so it is assumed that your research interests will morph in that year as you learn more. Even in my Ph.D. program, I changed what I was writing about a couple of times. In personal statements prospective graduate students have to present themselves as having a good idea of their research interests, but they should feel comfortable with that being somewhat of a fiction. Don’t feel guilty about exploring.
The post-Yale job market was very stressful. I would say that was the most stressful time of my life. I was on the job market for three years. I went on as a sort of test run in my fourth year, which would have meant finishing my dissertation very quickly. I was a finalist for a position that I ultimately did not get, so I stayed on for a fifth year. After that, I received a postdoc at Harvard. Then, I applied again. Applying for jobs is a full-time job. Don’t think that you will be able to complete writing projects and apply for jobs at the same time.
“I would still be a writer and still publish even if I had taken a different route, and that is true of others as well.”
One important note that I always want to share about the academic job market: it really is not about how talented or smart you are. Rejections started to make me feel insecure. I still feel kind of haunted by them, honestly. That can negatively affect your writing. You may feel doubt. You may ask: “What do I have to contribute?” Remember that much is arbitrary and much is out of your hands.
I didn’t just apply to academic jobs. I was a finalist for educational jobs in the nonprofit world. I don’t think that would have been a bad route. If being a professor is your dream, by all means pursue that. Never feel as though it is bad or inadequate to seek non-professional jobs, though. A lot of Ph.Ds. have amazing careers without going into academia. I would still be a writer and still publish even if I had taken a different route, and that is true of others as well.
PK: Happily, this misconception that a Ph.D. must equal a tenure track job at a “peer or better” university is increasingly less prevalent. Though, like all things in academia, the change is slow.
MCP: Never be afraid to apply for jobs beyond academia. Humanities Ph.Ds. may say, “Well, am I qualified? All I’ve been doing is reading.” Know that many fields value those skills and that Ph.D. more than you think. I went to a job placement agency and they told me that I was qualified for all of these jobs that I had never considered. There are many skills that we take for granted in the humanities, like writing well, that are desired by smart, successful companies. The tech industry, the health industry, the sciences - there is always a market for people who can research and write effectively. Many of those jobs are very well-paid and offer excellent benefits and quality of life. You’re much more qualified for a range of opportunities than you think you are.
PK: By way of closing, could you tell us about any current projects you’re working on?
MCP: My latest book, A Mexican State of Mind, I hope, shows how reading literature can be applied more widely than we often think. In the book, I analyze art, I analyze interviews, I analyze song lyrics, etcetera. Reading and analytical skills are broadly applicable. That’s a realization I first had at Fordham, where I engaged with a large range of interdisciplinary authors. We don’t just “read books.” We read “texts”, and we should think of that term very broadly.