When Tethered Literary first read Cassund Olivier’s work for our second issue, our editors were struck by the risks “General Biology for Girls” took in exploring the narrators’ experience with a relapse in disordered eating, and the way its experiments with form unearthed the roots of the condition in familial sexual abuse and homophobia, “...you can still hear great-grandmother, babies crying in the background, as she tells herself and anyone who can hear her whispers that the worst thing you can be on God’s green Earth is not a pedophile, but a lesbian, so you push and push…” she wrote in this impactful piece.

We were delighted, a year later, to get to see more of Cassund’s poetry and her visual art come in for this issue. The breadth, depth, and inventiveness Cassund has shared with us is exactly the kind of work we dreamed Tethered could become a home for. We were doubly delighted that Cassund agreed to be featured in this issue’s Artist Spotlight so we could explore her process, influences, and what else she is working on. Ari Blatt conducted this interview with Cassund over email, near the summer solstice.

Ari: When did art—written or visual—first become a salient presence in your life? When did you understand that you were bound to create?

Cassund: It has been for as long as I can remember. I was always drawing as a kid, and started taking painting a bit more seriously in high school. Ever since, I’ve sort of used painting and writing in tandem and my work tends to feed off of each other. I knew I was meant to be an artist in college after miraculously making my way through Organic Chemistry over Zoom in 2020. I started writing in earnest that fall still as a STEM major and never looked back.

Ari: In general, what prompts you to put words on the page? Paint on the canvas? Do some experiences draw you to one form or the other more so than others?

Cassund: When something calls for words, it’s usually because I have a question to try to answer. Or, there’s a topic or concept that’s been ruminating and will eventually run out of space in my brain. With “General Biology for Girls,” I’d had these pent up frustrations on my mind for a while, and honestly the words in their abstract nature just came to me. Sometimes it’s that simple. Either words come to me or images and colors do, and I let the spiritual practice of creating take over. When I paint, it’s more about an emotion or particular motif I’m trying to convey rather than a concrete question or layered idea that takes a little more to adequately unpack.

Ari: Your pieces published in this issue include poems “Cavafy” and “Clocks, Carousels and Cyclones”, as well as visuals “Cavafy” and “Future People”. It was so enjoyable for us to see the connections between your words and art. I have been wondering: did the words or visuals come first in each of these pairs? Or, were they created at the same time?

Cassund: For “Cavafy,” the painting came first. My introduction to poetry was in a Contemporary Greek Culture class I took abroad and one of the poems we covered was Cavafy’s “Ithaka.” The line “hope your road is a long one” has always stuck with me. The metaphor of Ithaka as “home” and the expected and difficult journey towards whatever home means is a thread I’ve noticed both in my life and in my work. When I started the painting, I was very much at the start of a journey of my own and feeling lost. Whatever my Ithaka is was far out of reach, and I figured however long it takes to get there, I’ll take everything I have with me, my valuables and essentials. And what’s more valuable and essential than one’s own heart, broken or otherwise? Where I was at the time felt very much like a dissociative desert, and that I’d be driving through it for a while, but all along carrying my heart with me.

“Future People” has a similar story. It’s named after the song of the same name by Alabama Shakes. The line that stands out to me,

“I’d rather meet
the me down the road
To lead me through the fog
wouldn’t ask for more.”

I’d painted it full of uncertainty both with where I was going with the painting and with my life, so much so that with the last stroke of the pallet knife I thought I’d ruined it. It turned out to be one of my favorites. On the left, the body wears a monocle, in search of some type of truth or answer. And on the right—the future person—hangs an anchor out of its head, having found some sort of grounding and security. It’s a projection of what I hope for. Fake it ‘til you make it, if you will.

“Clocks, Carousels, and Cyclones” was written way later. I imagine the persona of this poem is still in the monocle stage and maybe isn’t even ready for the anchor.

Ari: Your two poems in this issue also center around historical figures. I read that C.P. Cavafy was a queer Greek poet of the 20th century, who grew up in Egypt and England, and whose family's home in Egypt was destroyed in battle by the British in 1882. As an adult, he was a government worker and rather than seeking publication for his poems during his lifetime, distributed them among friends. And Joe Brainard was a queer visual artist and writer who published a lyrical prose-poem memoir series called I Remember (1975). He died of AIDS-related pneumonia when he was 52. What drew you to these two characters? How did research inform your creative process?

Cassund: Andre Aciman is my favorite writer, and he writes of his relationship to Cavafy often. Both Aciman and Cavafy write in a way that captures truth and vulnerability so clearly and honestly. I’d recently gotten my own copy of Cavafy’s complete poems, and I started to try to emulate his style a little bit. Ithaka always on the mind, I wanted to write towards it even if I don’t really know what it looks like for me yet.

With Joe Brainard, in nearly every craft class I’ve ever taken, an exercise has been made out of his memoir. This poem actually began as an exercise in Hannah Tinti’s workshop at NYU. As I was going through this period of resurfacing repressed memories and figuring out what to do with all this new information that’s just been sitting dormant, taking inventory in the way that he wrote the story of his life felt natural.

Ari: How do you—or do you—think about risks in your work? In their creation, and in sharing with others?

Cassund: I absolutely think about the risk. To write is to be seen very intimately, and that’s always scary. But it also feels very necessary. Once something is written, it’s not finished until it’s read by someone else, and whatever understanding comes of that is out of my hands. But going back to being inspired by Aciman and Cavafy, the best I can do is keep my devotion to truth if nothing else. Someone has to say the thing out loud. A little bit of feminine rage also makes it easier to full-send it.

Ari: What pieces of wisdom from your mentors—formal or otherwise—have stayed with you as you continue creating? What would you share with other writers and artists?

Cassund: I wish I could remember the original source of this quote. I only remember who told it to me. Speaking of risks, Jonas Hassan Khemiri once told our class, “If someone has a problem with what you’ve written or how you’ve written them, they should have treated you better.” I thought it was so badass when he said it, and it gave me the freedom to keep to those truths that I feel I have to get out to keep to the integrity of whatever it is I’m writing.

Ari: What are you reading now? What is something you’ve read in the past year that has stuck with you the most during this time? And, what is your all time favorite book?

Cassund: I’m making my way through “False Papers” by Andre Aciman right now. I recently re-read one of my favorite books, “Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke. I first read it in college, and it’s stuck with me since. I highly recommend it. If I had to choose an all timer, it would be that or “Just Above My Head” by James Baldwin.

Ari: Do you have anything else you’d like to share? New publications, exhibits, or anything I didn’t think to ask about?

Cassund: My artwork can be found at INPRNT under Cassund Olivier. I’m working on my debut novel, but no dates or anything yet. Thank you so much for this opportunity and these awesome questions!