ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW OLZMANN

Matthew Olzmann is a Kundiman Fellow and Fellows Council member who has also served as Kundiman Retreat Faculty and Retreat Staff. In addition, his first collection Mezzanines was the winner of the 2011 Kundiman Poetry Prize. He was interviewed by Gina Chung on June 18th, 2025.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 1

Matthew Olzmann recalls his first Kundiman Retreat. He describes an encounter with Faculty member Kazim Ali, which embodied the “generosity of spirit” that Matthew has found in the Kundiman community as a whole.

TRANSCRIPT

OLZMANN: I missed my first workshop, I remember -- it was Kazim Ali's workshop that I missed, and the Faculty during their mentorship conversations, they each had like a half hour break and Kazim had asked, he was like, "Matthew, during my break if you want to come meet with me I can go over what we talked about in class." And -- I remember -- he hadn't eaten that day, like, when I went to meet him, we were looking for like a vending machine, but he was just walking around, like near-starving -- and talking to me about poems because I had missed the first class and he didn't want me to feel, like, left out of that. And I felt like that sort of generosity of spirit was very emblematic of the community as a whole; just people trying to, you know, trying to help each other, trying to find ways to support each other, and what was at the time, it felt like a very new thing.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 2

Matthew Olzmann reflects on the connection between food and community at the Kundiman Retreat and beyond.

TRANSCRIPT

OLZMANN: I always appreciated that there were three meals, and then there was this, like, this magical fourth meal where food would just show up at, like, 10:30 PM. And then that same experience I think in the early days at AWP [Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference] there would always be, like, a sort of reunion among Fellows and Faculty that would take place in someone's hotel room when we were small enough to do that, it would -- we would still be kind of crammed into a room, but there would always be food and people sharing work and a lot of laughter and joy within that community.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 3

Matthew Olzmann discusses the way Kundiman’s Fellow and Faculty listerv (called “Openspace”) serves as a celebratory space that connects Fellows as the community grows.

TRANSCRIPT

OLZMANN: I think, I remember when Purvi's [Purvi Shah] first book came out -- I think she was the first of the Fellows to put a book into the world, I'm not positive of that, but I remember that being a kind of huge deal. And then, I remember slowly after right on Openspace [Kundiman listserv] being, like, a really -- the listserv being a really sort of celebratory space where, after the Retreat was over, like, the community would get a little larger each year as new Fellows were added to that. And for a while, it was this place where people would always be sort of shouting out others' accomplishments, like, "Did you see so-and-so's poem in this magazine?" then, "Here's a link to it," or "Did you see this person got this award?" or "Congratulations to this person."

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 4

Matthew Olzmann shares how the people he’s met through Kundiman have helped him navigate his literary career, and how he’s worked to provide similar mentorship opportunities for others in the community.

TRANSCRIPT

OLZMANN: In my creative work, I think it's given me friends that have been readers of my work at different times, or that have been creative collaborators -- and it's introduced me to the writing of dozens of poets that I'm now a fan of whose work might have influenced me -- and then as far how it's impacted my work and involvement in the literary space, without trying to repeat myself too much, I do think helping me figure out how to go to grad school, how to apply for jobs, like, that was something that, I think, being involved in Kundiman gave me people who kind of guided me through those things -- but then also thinking about how work in the sort of general, more professional sense, I know it's also given me a network of people I've called upon to bring them to different places to do readings. I know there's a couple of Fellows that I've recommended for other opportunities, readings, jobs, things like that and I was able to do that because Kundiman introduced me to these people and I was like, "Oh, they would be perfect for this opportunity or for this thing." So, I think, just having access to this community and the way it sort of introduces you to a lot of writers but it's also introducing those writers to you as well, and -- there have been times where I've relied on that community to help me in various ways or for guidance or mentorship, and then there've been opportunities where I've been fortunate enough to be able to to provide that for other people.

CITATION

Olzmann, Matthew, Oral history interview conducted by Gina Chung, June 18, 2025, Kundiman Oral History Project.