Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Houston, Texas. His first poetry collection, “The Understudy’s Handbook,” was published in 2020 by the Washington Writers’ Publishing House and won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize. His second book of poems, “The Opposite of Cruelty,” was published by Blair Publishing in March 2025. Leyva has an MFA from the University of Baltimore and is currently an associate professor in the Klein School of Communications and Design.
The Daily Iowan: What inspired you to write this collection?
Steven Leyva: I didn’t know I was writing the book initially. I was just trying to write the best poems I could. Many of the poems were written during the pandemic. We were invited to look at the world differently because of isolation. Some of the references to cities or family are things I am always writing about. They were more so in the penumbra of the larger question I was wrestling with. The foundation of most creative writing is that you are in conversation with all the writing that’s come before you, whether that’s unconscious or conscious.
What is your favorite poem in this book, and why?
My favorite poem is probably a poem called “Self-Portrait of the Prince of the Fire Nation.” I don’t think it’s the most important poem. It’s like asking who your favorite child is. It’s difficult to answer. If you ask me tomorrow, I think it’ll be a different one.
How did you choose which characters to write into “The Opposite of Cruelty?”
I have a poem in there starring a character called “Static.” In pop culture, we talk about him as Static Shock because it was a cartoon in which he was the protagonist. He is important to me because he was one of the few Black characters made by a Black creator. We have some people who are very important to the representation of Black books in a larger comic book history. He also represents an archetype of a Black nerd, which I think is useful for how I see myself and how the book tries to shape a capacious Blackness.
What is your favorite line of poetry you’ve written?
There’s a poem called “Double Sonnet Instead of an Introduction.” There is a line in it that says, “What even is a race / confetti after the parade?” The poem is deeply post-colonial. It is in conversation with ideas from the poet and postcolonial theorist Édouard Glissant. Glissant said, “If you ask me to draw a family tree, I will draw you a forest.” He is trying to address the idea of the rhizome, or plant tendrils, as a way to understand post-colonial identity. It speaks to the instability of race. Another line in there says, “My son can climb one branch of the family tree…” I reflected on my own family with that one.
What was your favorite form to play with in the collection?
The poem where the title comes from is a crown of sonnets, a form of linked sonnets. Every last line of one sonnet becomes the first line in the next, so it’s daisy-chained in that way. It’s circular, hence the crown, and its name was Halo. Some of it was a shout-out to Beyoncé because I grew up in Houston. I was also thinking about how sonnets used to be pastorals, poems about engagement with the natural world. Looking at what the natural world had become was important to me.