Meet Zoe Branch | Typewriter Poet

We had the good fortune of connecting with Zoe Branch and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Zoe, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I started writing typewriter poems for strangers in 2018 after inheriting my great grandfather’s 1931 Remington Noiseless typewriter. It was a machine that I’d loved to play on as a kid — writing stories of all kinds — and that I was officially gifted in my early 20s. After sitting on a shelf for almost a year, I took it down to write a poem for my grandfather upon his cancer diagnosis: he writes custom limericks for the big milestones of every family member, and I wanted to return the favor for this occasion of his.

This led into writing poems for other family members, and then for friends. When I started posting these online, I started getting requests from people I knew less and less well, until I was getting requests from strangers. This surprised me: the degree to which people wanted poems. There was a demand, and I realized that I could be a supplier. I shortly thereafter started a poem-based business, which for two years was a side hustle complement to my journalism career. For the past four years, it has made up the majority of the work I do as a self-employed writer,

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am a writer and a poet. I think of these things somewhat separately because their practices look very different at this point in my career.

As a poet, my main focus is writing on-the-spot typewriter poems at events, on the streets of New York, and on the internet. This is my main form of income and has been for three years. I think of a custom typewriter poem as being half about the poem and half about the interaction: it provides people a space to talk about things on their minds, to be seen by a stranger, and to get a receipt almost — the poem itself — as proof that the exchange took place. I think that people are yearning for ways to connect with and be heard by one another, especially as our modern world feels more and more divided, disconnected, and distracted. The typewriter poem opens up a door of possibility toward real connection. As a poet, I feel like I am part therapist, part friend, part kind stranger, part oracle. It feels like as much of an artistic practice as a spiritual one.

As a writer more generally, I tend to enjoy exploring the personal essay, the play, and the novel. I have a number of partially baked projects that I am excited to start spending more time cultivating in the next few years. This art practice is much more personal, long-form, slow, and calculated. My goal is to take steps toward having books published — of poetry, essays, and fiction — as well as toward performing a one-woman show about my estranged grandmother. These ideas are ones that need longer to become because I have to live many of their questions first, as Rilke says, in order to come quietly later to the answers.

I think my art is set apart by this twofold approach, and by the fact that I come into all of it honestly, authentically, and with my whole self. I have been a writer since I first could start forming stories in my head, and then with my hand. Getting to this point where I am supporting myself exclusively by writing was not easy in some ways — it took time, patience, missteps, re-directions, sacrifice, and discomfort — but in other ways was the easiest thing in the world: it’s always been in my heartbeat, and I know in my bones that I am living my purpose. That makes everything feel worth it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live in New York City, and I would divide up our days by area.

First, I would take them to Coney Island. I think it’s the best place in the world. Beach, ferris wheel, hundred-year-old roller coaster? General haunted vibe? Yes, please. After a day spent there, we’d do a couple in my neighborhood, where we’d walk around Green-wood Cemetery and Prospect Park, see a movie at Nitehawk, and play pool at my favorite bar.

Of course, we’d have to see something on Broadway, but I’d also take them to see whatever was being performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which always is putting on interesting and memorable shows across genres. We’d go to the New York Transit Museum, which has every model of old subway car parked on a stretch of defunct subway tracks — complete with their original ads and everything. We’d spend two days around Central Park, taking our time in the Museum of Natural History, the Met, and the Guggenheim. We’d get on a $4 ferry and ride it from end to end, and get off on Roosevelt Island to see the spooky and shut-down, ivy-covered former hospital. And lastly, we’d spend a day in the West Village, ending with a visit to Marie’s Crisis, where a live pianist plays show tunes and everyone sings emphatically along in a tiny basement bar.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My grandparents have always been a big inspiration to me — my grandfather writes custom limericks for special family occasions, which, in a way, is a characteristic of his that I have professionalized. My grandmother is a whip-smart, educated, warm person who always made me feel like anything I wanted to do was possible. The adults in my family were all very supportive of me as a writer throughout my childhood: they didn’t usher me in other directions for fear of my failure or disappointment. I think having this foundation lent me the audacity that one needs to actually pursue being a creative — possessing the self trust that is necessary in order to find any footing. That’s a head start that I got from my family’s ability to see and encourage my artist spirit, and it’s one that I’m constantly grateful for.

I also want to give flowers to the adult mentor of my professional poet life, Lisa Ann Markuson (LA MARKS), and her poetry company, Ars Poetica. Ars Poetica is an entertainment agency that specializes in providing live, on-the=spot typewriter poetry at luxury events worldwide. Joining forces with them in 2021 is the best thing that could have happened to me as I was trying to navigate being a full-time artist in New York City. I had applied to be LA’s assistant — a submission she apparently never saw — and she stumbled across my writing independently online and invited me to write custom typewriter poems with her at a popup. When I asked her about my application, she said: “You’re an artist; you shouldn’t be anyone’s assistant.” I was 25 at the time and thought that my being creative would mean that I’d always have a day job to buoy me through — that, in a way, I’d always be someone’s assistant.

The myriad similar mindset shifts that she has offered me since I began working with her and Ars Poetica — to ask for what I want, to give my own self permission rather than needing it from someone else, to think always bigger and bolder — have completely changed my life. I now serve as the Director of Sales of the company, am building a new poetry-based startup platform with her, and have wildly expanded my idea of what is possible in the scope of a poetic life.

Website: https://floraandphrase.com

Instagram: @zoe.branch

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-branch-2b0b3a148/

Image Credits
Alfred Gonzalez
David Coons