NOVEMBER 2025 (INTERVIEW): Jordan Byrum

"To believe in something divine and put your faith into a figure with unbelievable power is inherently intimate to me, yet can be imbalanced."

This November is a busy month for Artists from Maryland! After finishing up our high school creative writing contest with Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, we have decided on three winners and one runner up! We are featuring the second winner, Jordan Byrum! Below is our interview with her, and you can read her poems here!

Jordan Byrum (she/her) is a Maryland-based poet and writer who loves writing about her feelings on identity, nostalgia, and anything in between that she finds interesting. When she’s not writing, she finds herself studying, reading, listening to music, or fangirling over 2000’s television show Supernatural.

ALDRIN: Hello Jordan! Now, this isn’t your first time being featured in Artists from Maryland (see Jordan’s June 2025 feature here). In fact, the packet you submitted included both of the poems from your previous feature in Artists from Maryland! But the pieces of yours that we’re publishing this week feel like departures from the voice that you employ in those previous poems. All this to ask: What made the process of writing “his worn jacket from fort campbell” and “rust dyed” (both published in Jordan’s June 2025 feature) different from writing “Caroline” and “Sea Smoke, Dried Salt”?

JORDAN: So excited to be back! A factor in this change of voice and writing style is time. With my previous poems, I had constantly gone back over and revised them multiple times over a course of about two to three months. I sat with them constantly, trying to make them longer, trying to figure out my voice and finding something authentic I liked. “Caroline” and “sea smoke, dried salt” are poems that were created in a bit of a time crunch, but also experimental poems I decided to try. I actually wrote “Caroline” for a class, with minimal revisions to it, while the other is a challenge to myself. I wanted to make a shorter poem and branch out from what I had done before.

ALDRIN: The pantoum is a very interesting form. “Caroline” does it well! What drew you to writing this poem as a pantoum specifically? What draws you to formalism as a poet?

JORDAN: The repetition associated with a pantoum is something that immediately caught my eye. As I said previously, "Caroline" was written for a class, but I’ve had the idea of it brewing for a while! The way it’s structured as this haunting, repeating sense of knowing drew me into the idea of having a poem centered on slight retribution. Formalism is my safety net, and I tend to resort back to it instead of reaching for something experimental-esque. It’s a neat, ordered thing, since I drift back to reaching for the familiar basics.

ALDRIN: And now to “Sea Smoke, Dried Salt.” Jordan, this poem was absolutely delightful to see in the submission pile.

“She slips through my fingers and I sway again. She lets the wind drift the tidings further and the water laps at my foam body.” (“Sea Smoke, Dried Salt”)

This poem specifically feels like a departure from the general heat that you associate with intimacy! For example:

“Red clay
instead of ash wednesday because cigarettes are for sinners, but
ash is my father.” (“his worn jacket from fort campbell”)

“i scrape away & it
makes my fingernails bleed wine-red.” (“rust dyed”)

“Blazing heat had suffocated her youth.
With embers licking at her hairline, a mess of matted entanglements,” (“Caroline”)

What interests you about intimacy? Do you think poetry is inherently intimate, or is it possible to have a poem that lacks intimacy? Or do you believe in some third qualifier for intimacy in poems?

JORDAN: Intimacy comes in different forms and shapes; I think that’s why I love to write about it and experiment with its portrayal, explaining the shift. It’s deeply ingrained into every conversation, every movement, and everything that people share in a specific bond. For the writer, I believe a poem can lack intimacy as an intentional move. Poetry is vulnerable, but only if you choose for it to be. Structure, form, and diction are definitely intentional and can lack that aspect of genuine intimacy. I’m sure there could be a third qualifier that exists out there, but it’s yet to make its appearance to me.

ALDRIN: There’s an underlying throughline of religion, divinity, and spirituality in all of these pieces. Do you view spirituality as being one of the reasons you write? How does the divine relate to intimacy in your writing?

JORDAN: Yes! Religion and spirituality is both a reason I write and why I continue to. Spirituality gave me an early insight to the way religion can be comforting and provides a sense of community. I try to draw from that sense of divineness and community because it was an influential part of my life. Divine and intimacy are entwined to me, I think, so I try to portray both the soft parts of it and the rougher, jagged edges. To believe in something divine and put your faith into a figure with unbelievable power is inherently intimate to me, yet can be imbalanced.

ALDRIN: How (if at all) does being from Maryland impact your creative writing?

JORDAN: I definitely think I draw from certain parts of being from Maryland, adopting the cultural customs that come with it. Mixing my rural childhood with the fast-paced landscape that is Maryland definitely impacts my writing to try and incorporate those parts of my identity. Maryland is my home, and I love the gritty, real parts of it that I experience, which in turn influences my person. Being close to the Bay and visiting marshlands also plays a part in affecting what I write about when considering poetry.

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