What We Hunger For
- Ice Queen
- Sep 2
- 19 min read
Ice Queen Interviews Keagan Wheat
Ice Queen: So the way I usually do these — I mean they're very much not formal, as you can tell. I have some questions, and it's just a conversation that I then extremely edit afterwards so that we both come off looking really good. 'Cause otherwise, it would be a whole lot of real long pauses, some real awkward moments there— as it happens with people you've never spoken to in real life before!
Keagan: I feel that. Yeah.
Ice Queen: ... So let's jump right in then! Tell me about, "If it doesn't."
Keagan: Yeah. This is a weird piece. One of the very strong connections I have to food is Philly cheesesteaks because I had a close family friend who kind of died suddenly, and he's from Philly. So he would tell you, oh no, that's a garbage Philly cheesesteak go here. Like, this is the real thing. And he was very, very serious about it. So I can only think of cheesesteaks in relation to him. There's this weird food that feels like communion in a way. This poem just kind of explores that.
Ice Queen: I was very interested in the memorial process here alongside alcohol. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Keagan: I think that it sort of relates to alcohol, partly because the majority of time that I spent with him was in like bars— sports bars, watching like football or hockey or whatever. So it was largely just hanging around, drinking and talking. Which, I don't know if that's, you know, the greatest basis of a relationship or whatever, but I think that there's something particular about reenacting the way that you were in relation to a person that makes you feel like you could possibly bring them back for a second or at least bring back something of them.
Ice Queen: That makes a lot of sense to bring them back for just a second in some way. Right? It's almost like forgetting that they're gone.
Keagan: Yeah. I think that this poem very much is trying to do that.
Ice Queen: I think all of your poems had so much to do with the body and with sickness and also, obviously, food. So, with that in mind, I'd love for you to tell me more about "You have to surrender to commune."
Keagan: I think this poem was a bit of a surprise when I wrote it. It's like those really fun times when you start writing and you're just kind of going, and by the end of it, you go back and read it and you just have no idea how that happened or where it came from!
But yeah, this poem very much is a reflection of my particular disordered kind of eating stuff. And I don't think that it would necessarily be categorized as an eating disorder per se. I think it's more so just that I, for some reason, don't perceive hunger very well. Which doesn't make sense to me or anyone.
So it's just like trying to grapple with the fact that I both don't like physically perceive hunger super well, but also have a lot of like mental health stuff that ends up just making me not particularly think about taking care of myself as a physical being. So I think this poem just kind of moves through the various ways that I forget to eat or just don't particularly care.
Ice Queen: I love the line— well, it's actually several lines—
At least / I can control this difficulty / of my body. I can grip / rugae, like reigns a lacking / appetite ruined with autoplay.
Like that line, that section of this poem was just like, ugh, like that was just, that's where it got me.
Keagan: I was just happy I could finally use the word rugae in a way that makes sense. I was like, wow, knowing this word came to use, who knew?
Ice Queen: I feel like some of your poems are not— none of them are straightforward— but some of them are more linear. For example, "Then She Buried It," I think that one is more disjointed. It's so different from the others in the collection. I'm interested to hear you talk about that.
Keagan: This one, I think that just disjointed quality of it comes from me just kind of writing a bunch of pieces and being like, this works as a poem, I think?
I think that, I dunno exactly what I was thinking about, where it came from— I think it just really centered on this idea of wanting to bring back a particular relationship and the way that this relationship had a lot of childlike wonder to it and not knowing how to be an adult in a relationship with a sense of childlike wonder and have both of those things happening at once.
Like the ability to communicate effectively, but also the ability to kind of just look at everything like it's magical. So I think this poem is a bunch of pieces of wanting to grasp at those ideas and pull them back into this one relationship.
Ice Queen: And then what were you thinking with the form?
Keagan: This is not maybe the best reason to have this form, but I had been writing a bunch of really short, small-looking poems. And so I was like, no, it's gotta take up more space. It feels bigger than if you just put these in little lines. It would be a really short, small poem.
And I was like, this is such a big and also sort of like weirdly abstract spacey feeling. So I wanted to sort of push that into the visuals of the poem. I didn't want it to look as straightforward because I don't think it, like you said, it doesn't really read straightforward so I kind of wanted to, to amplify that with the form of it.
Ice Queen: That's so interesting, because,when I read it— so I took the form in a more straightforward (and yet not way with that first line, right?
Like cracking hard candy.
So, in my head, as I was reading it, it was like those sections were cracking candy, like chewing.
Keagan: Oh, wow. That's very cool.
Ice Queen: Yeah. So I was reading it like that and then it was so interesting to me to find the length of forever during this incredibly small moment of eating candy. But it's like thinking of all of these disjointed things as you are experiencing this one thing.
Keagan: Yeah. I love when other people tell me about their readings of my poems, because they're always so like smart and interesting and I'm like, wow, did I do something that cool?
Ice Queen: And then finally tell me about "Boxed Macaroni".
Keagan: Yeah. It's also sort of, I think in the same line as "You have to surrender to commune" and, you know, one of the very surprisingly easy things to make an entire meal out of is boxed macaroni, which maybe isn't a great choice, but it's a choice that happens a lot.
So, I kind of wanted to get at this idea that there's a certain... hmm... I don't know. There's a certain way that some foods that are probably not great for you are kind of your best sustenance sometimes. And I think that this very much sort of goes at the idea that if you don't know when to eat, because you don't feel hunger, sometimes you just kind of have to go with the fakeness that is boxed macaroni and powdery cheese.
I don't know. I feel like it's a very– it's a poem bent on loneliness and a poem bent on like, not being connected to your body, if that makes sense.
Ice Queen: If you can't feel hunger, or you don't perceive hunger– obviously, the body will give physical tells that there is hunger existent, but your mind is not connecting those signals to hunger– then it has to be something that's easy to eat and that's a joy in some ways to eat as well, right? I think that's where things that aren't necessarily good for you–there's a reason that they call them good for your soul or comfort foods. Because they are going to always be easy to eat .
Keagan: Yeah, exactly. And having something easy to eat is like very necessary.
Ice Queen: And then, I am so intrigued– tell me about the recipe you chose. Why did you choose this recipe?
Keagan: Yeah, I chose this recipe partially because I don't know that many recipes but mostly because it was my first memories of cooking, like an actual thing, that's not from a box, and I used to make them with my grandma a lot. It's a very fun thing for me to make because it's not complicated and there's not a lot of, Oh, while, you're doing this you also have to be doing this, which confuses me sometimes during cooking and ends up in things being overcooked or burned.
So this is a very sort of like step by step and you just kind of go along and you're making your little, your little dough and then your tortillas– and it's also just like so good. I just love tortillas so much. There's nothing better than fresh tortilla.
Ice Queen: Little bit of lime, little bit of salt.
Keagan: Dude. I honestly can just eat them like crackers.
Ice Queen: I'll always get tortillas and then I'll get those little what are they called? Like the Laughing Cow cheese slices. Oh yeah. And then spread that on a tortilla and roll it up.
Keagan: Mm. Yeah, that's a much fancier version of me just putting a little Kraft single in there and going with it. It melts enough that it's like, this is great.
Ice Queen: Yeah, Kraft singles were always like, my brother would take ham and then Kraft single and then roll that up and then put Taco Bell sauce.
Keagan: No, that sounds rad.
Ice Queen: Yeah, those were like our like quick little snack foods, because we always had like, just, you know, bags and bags of sauce from restaurants at our house.
Keagan: oh my gosh. That's so real. It's like, what do I do with all this? Tortillas are so versatile as well. They can kind of do anything cause it's just bread. Really good tasting bread.
Ice Queen: It's like a, kinda like a flatbread (note to reader: it's not like a flatbread, Ice. It is one), like a grilled flatbread, but like better than that?
Keagan: Right. It's kind of comparable to naan–I still don't really know the difference between naan and tortillas. I'm sure there is one.
Ice Queen: So naan actually uses yeast– so it's a yeasted bread! I think naan uses yeast at least. I just made it and I wanna say that I had to use yeast for it.
Keagan: Well, they're fairly similar. I guess maybe just the steam makes a tortilla kind of like do a little bit of rising? But yeah, they're great.
Ice Queen: They're so, so good. Would you say that the tortillas are your favorite family recipe?
Keagan: Yeah, definitely– I mean, we don't have a whole lot of recipes. We're not a huge, like, we've got a bunch of family recipes kind of kind of crew. But that's one of the ones that very much has been sort of kept together.
I mean, probably 'cause it's very simple. And it's easy to have a kid do, so it's not hard to sort of pass it along because you can kind of just like, Hey! Hey kid, come here. Just squish this stuff together until it forms a ball. It's fun. This is your play time.
It was maybe two years ago, my grandma was talking to me, or maybe my mom was talking?, and we just, we were talking about tortillas and she was like, oh, you're making them now? I have to get you a comal and all this stuff, so it felt very like, oh cool. Like I'm a part of something now. I have my own little comal now, too. So it feels very family-tied.
Ice Queen: Definitely. You sorta already talked about this, but, what would you say your relationship to food is in your writing, and what do you love about food in writing in general?
Keagan: Ooh. [Pause] Okay. Those are like very different answers because food in my writing has been pretty uncommon until kind of recently. I– you know, considering I don't perceive hunger super well, food didn't occur to me to write about for a while. But, recently, more poems have started popping up about food– or, my interaction with food– and its sort of like disjointed relationship?
So that's kind of new, and I'm still kind of figuring it out, but I think the thing that I love about food and writing (more so when I read other people's things) is how sort of how really amazingly food can bring like a warm tone into any piece, even if it's a really sad piece, it can still bring this sort of like undercurrent of like connectivity almost...
I'm thinking kind of specifically about this chapbook by Joshua Nguyen called American Lục Bát for My Mother out of Bull City Press. It's one of my favorite chapbooks that I think I've ever read, honestly, because he does such an incredible job of making food this thing that you have to contend with when it comes to family relationships. It sort of becomes this thread between people that is the only thing you can hold onto sometimes; when you've sort of built more around it, it just becomes this like beautiful thing you can share instead of this only specific tie you have? I don't know. I love that chapbook.
Ice Queen: No, that sounds amazing! Would that also be one of your favorite food themes in writing?
Keagan: Ooh. Hmm. [Pause] Yeaaaah... Yeah, I think so, because it's the first thing that comes to mind. There's this poem I'm thinking of, he is talking about making this particular dish that his mother made for him when he was a kid and trying to get it right.
And there's this moment in the poem that talks about how he's living in an apartment, and like all these other people are gonna be angry at the smell or blah, blah, blah. And he's kind of like, screw you all, you don't know good stuff! It's almost like food becomes this protective layer, like, it sorta physically creates a community by the smell of it. Which is really beautiful.
Ice Queen: It makes me think, too– so, one of my favorite family recipes is this rib recipe. I remember it so vividly, 'cause it was something that my mom would only make on special occasions partly because baby back ribs were not cheap...
[This goes on for a little while and tbh it gets rambly]
So I was, you know, rejecting a family recipe though– actually... I think we got it from my elementary school principal...
[Both pause].
Ice Queen: So what are your favorite food scenes in TV, movies, or video games?
Keagan: Oh my goodness. That's hard. Hmm... [Pause]
Ice Queen: So, for me, I always waffle between them 'cause after I get done with interviews, I'm like, oh man, I forgot about that! But one of my go-tos is that scene in Hook when Robin Williams sees the food for the first time 'cause all the lost boys are eating, but they're eating nothing, so he's sitting there and he's like, [makes hand gestures indicating wtf] and they're like, You have to believe that we're eating food and then he sees it and it's so bright and then it shows that bowl of just frosting.
Keagan: Ooh, dang! That's a really good one. Oh, I'm thinking– maybe 'cause I just watched this movie– Don't Look Up about an apocalypse happening, so I don't know spoilers, I guess, but the basis of the movie is that the world is ending.
So they go to this grocery store 'cause they're like, Well we're, screwed– it's ending. Might as well eat. Might as well make a family dinner. So they go to this grocery store and they're talking about what they're gonna make and they make a family dinner and just eat while the literal world is coming to a violent end.
And I just find that very, like– of course, what else would you do when the world is like ending and you've tried everything you could to stop it, but it's gonna happen? Go hang out with your buddies, eat a nice meal, and wait. At least you're eating good food!
Ice Queen: I love that because food themes always do bring, like you said, this warmth even to a very serious thing and I think that food is often in places where you think food doesn't belong.
Keagan: Yeah, truly!
Ice Queen: And I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to start this magazine, because I kept seeing where food is in this scene and it somehow fits perfectly, but it is not about food. Right? Like the overall thing, like that movie is about the world ending but that scene where they're eating is so important, and I thought, wow, that doesn't really get a whole lot of shine.
I feel like it has to be about food for people to really notice it, but I'm just like, no notice these moments. Notice how important these moments are in something that isn't about that, but like, damn it's memorable.
Keagan: Yeah. Yeah, I love that.
Ice Queen: Pivoting a little bit; I don't know if you watch anything like this, but what is your favorite show about food?
Keagan: Oh man, so I think honestly it's between– oh, this is so... I used to watch Food Network as a kid All. The. Time. Mostly 'cause my mom watched it, so that's what you watch. So I know more of the early 2000-ish food network shows. I know so many of them. But I think that my favorite shows are between Rachel Ray's cooking show and Alton Brown's cooking show that he used to have just because I loved the idea of putting front that cooking isn't just, willy nilly do whatever you want. It can be, but it also can be very methodical and having an actual explanation as to why you do "X" is very satisfying to me. 'Cause for so many recipes, it's like, for however long until you feel it's right – it doesn't make sense! Alton Brown was very much like, here's why we're doing this and here's the science and this is exactly how long.
Ice Queen: I love that because it's one of the worst things when you read a recipe and it's like, until it forms stiff peaks, and then you have to go to a YouTube video to see what exactly stiff peaks look like. Just give me a general time that it's gonna take to beat egg white to form each of these things.
Keagan: Or even just a description of what stiff peaks means. No one knows what that means, but you and the people who would make this recipe and wouldn't need it.
Ice Queen: Yeah, like people who know that thing also probably aren't reading your recipe. They just make it.
Keagan: Truly! I watch the British Bake-Off show. So I learned some of the jargon, but it took me so long to figure out what they meant by things, 'cause they would just say it like, [Gestures like, well... here it is] AND moving on, it's like, Wait, I'm sorry– what did you just? What are you talking about?
Ice Queen: I loved it when Sandy was there and she would go and do like a history on the food that they were gonna make– like when they did the stroopwafels, or when they did the egg tarts.
Keagan: It's so nice because I'm like, oh, okay. This makes sense as to why this like exists now, like okay, great!
Ice Queen: Yeah. It gives context for what they're doing.
Keagan: Exactly! I love some context. [Laughs]
Ice Queen: So this next question, I'm gonna go ahead ask even though I already know that you don't, but... do you bake or cook a lot?
Keagan: Oh [Laughs] no. It's weird, I go into phases where I'm like, I'm gonna learn how to cook everything in the world. And it lasts like two months and then I'm very over it. I figured out my own recipe for a vegetarian lasagna and a vegetarian wonton soup and like all these random things, and then I just got tired, I think. I was like, Wow, cooking is so much work.
Ice Queen: Yes! Cooking is so much work. You have to love the process.
Keagan: Yeah. And I think for me, when I go into these phases, it's just 'cause I wanna figure something out– like I was living with a vegetarian for a while, so I was like, Oh, what if I make all these things that I used to eat as a kid, but then make 'em vegetarian so I'm not just making it for myself. So I would figure that out and then once I figured it out, I was kind of like, Kay!
Ice Queen: Yeah, it was a challenge it wasn't like a process. Right? Like you weren't trying to change anything. You just had a goal and once you reached the goal, games over.
Keagan: You know, it's Well, why would I ever do this again?
Ice Queen: So, obviously, we kind of know this one too, but what is your favorite food?
Keagan: Sort of similarly, I go through phases, but my mainstays are definitely like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets– both the vegetarian and the non-vegetarian ones. I love a frozen chicken nugget that you heat in the microwave, and like, I'm you know, a full adult, but I'm very, very entertained by having dinosaur chicken nuggets.
Ice Queen: So this is sort of the opposite of that– what is the food that you have tried so hard to like, and you just, you just don't?
Keagan: oh gosh, that could be so many things. So, okay, I have family in Louisiana, like New Orleans and stuff, and also I'm a born and raised Texan but I don't like barbecue or crawfish. And I feel like both of those things are just like how do I not? It's awful that I don't. And I've tried so many times I've tried different barbecue items, different ways, and I'm just like, It's not for me. It's not for me. I don't know how or why.
Ice Queen: Is it like the smokiness of Texas bbq? Have you had barbecue from other places?
Keagan: No, I have not, but I also feel like– okay, this is really stupid... but I'm like, if I don't like Texan like barbecue, I shouldn't like other barbecue because that's just rude to like Houston.
Ice Queen: [Laughs] You feel like betrayal. Yeah. Like you have to be loyal to the thing you don't like.
Keagan: Yeah. Like, I don't mind betraying Texas as much as I mind betraying Houston, you know? So I'm kind of like, I don't know if I should even attempt to like other barbecue because that's rude, and then I also think that if I do end up liking other barbecue, people will more often be like, oh, well you just have to try it again.
And I'm like, No, I've tried it enough. I figured it out. I've had the best barbecue that you can have. I don't like it.
Ice Queen: That's so interesting. 'Cause I love barbecue, so I've had like all of it pretty much. And Texas, to me, is so much about brisket. And brisket's good, but South Carolina and Georgia (right on the edge of South Carolina), they're not really. Brisket's obviously a done thing, but pork is king. I didn't see in any Texas menus, like hash, right?
Keagan: I don't even think I know what that is.
Ice Queen: So that for me, you can't have barbecue without having hash and rice.
Keagan: [Sounding confused] Okay. That's interesting.
Ice Queen: So hash is, it's essentially like a topping for rice but it's meat, but it's almost like a sauce. It's really good, you know, a lot of places here you'll go and you'll get hash and rice as– you can do it as a side or you can do it as a main, and then they have loaves of bread on the table so you can make like a hash and rice sandwich out of it sort of like how you do for spaghetti... Or I do for spaghetti sandwich, you know?
That's how hash and rice is, and it's just like so good and flavorful, but it is not smoky. It's just like, it's just good pork though it's actually made from the more trash parts of pork and that's why it's all like ground down together. Yeah. But it's like [Drool reaction].
Keagan: Yeah, no, I feel that. I would absolutely be the person that like tries some other place's, barbecue, and then come back and be like, Oh, so yeah, I like this kind. And they're like, No, no, no, that's not. That's just, you know, a weird sauce they made in that state, that's not barbeque.
Ice Queen: Except it absolutely is and I will fight anybody who says it isn't. 'Cause my family, we did whole hog barbecue, right? It was obviously like a 4th of July kind of situation and all the uncles would stay overnight, 'cause it took all night to roast it. It was in the ground, you know, like roasting in the ground. So they would spend all night doing that and just like drinking and talking and like all that kind of stuff. So, July 3rd was for the pig and then the next day my uncle would have made the best hash and rice. None of that pig got wasted.
Keagan: That's funny, I think I definitely have more of the Louisiana bend of like red beans and rice. I just, you know, I wish I liked barbecue. I truly am like, how dare I. It's absolutely bonkers to me that I don't like barbecue and that it's just like, how did I, how, how did I do this?
Ice Queen: I mean, I could kind of see crawfish, because crawfish is a very particular kind of... I will say crawfish is like the fishiest of crustaceans, right?
Keagan: Oh! I've never thought about that, but I guess so, yeah.
Ice Queen: And I also feel like they're generally tougher as well. You know, it's not as soft as lobster.
Keagan: I have never had lobster, so unknown, but I believe you!
Ice Queen: And then my final question, what are some of your favorite literary magazines to read and to submit to?
Keagan: Hoo boy! Hmm. I mean, I'm incredibly biased [Both laugh] 'cause I work Defunct, but I'm gonna say Defunct Magazine because I love the stuff we publish.
Ice Queen: Good! Self-promotion I'm for it!
Keagan: But also there have been a couple mags coming out that are just specifically like, I don't know, specifically geared to like a particular idea like Ice Queen, and then ALOCASIA, which is specifically about like queer plants
Ice Queen: mm-hmm which is love. That's so specific love that
Keagan: It's so specific! And I love it. And the other one, that's just such a Twitter phenomenon that's happening right now is Taco Bell Quarterly partly, I mean, they publish really like interesting stuff, but also their Twitter is just bonkers.
Ice Queen: Live Más.
Keagan: Live. Más. Also I like taco bell, so that helps. [Laughs] But yeah, I don't know. I love the idea of having an incredibly niche magazine just cause like, why not?
Ice Queen: I feel that niche mags are where true growth is gonna be able to happen because there are so many lit mags that already, you know, all we want is good writing. It can be for anything. I feel like those are the mags that sort of crash and burn after a while. You can't really grow a readership based around that because there are already so many that are so well established that do that. But if you have something like gay plants?
Keagan: Right! It's like, oh, well I like gayness and plants. Fuck yeah!
Ice Queen: And it's so intriguing, right? So that's where those can grow, you know, those have the potential for new growth. In a way that I feel like trying to cater to a much wider audience just doesn't. And it's always based on the editor, right? Like once the editors change, all of a sudden the magazine starts gearing to different voice as well.
Keagan: That's such a good point! I was also gonna say Bullshit Lit but they're technically not a lit mag they're more of a press. Oh wait, they have an online, weekly lit mag thing! Yeah, I love them. They're so fun and good–they publish like really interesting stuff. And also their vibe is great.
Keagan Wheat (he/they) is a trans, Latinx, disabled poet and artist from Houston. His work appears in The Acentos Review, Anomaly, Variant Literature and more. His reviews of poetry and podcasts have been published in Shards, Cutthroat, and Spectrum South. He’s a Pushcart Prize nominee and the winner of the 2024 Unity Committee Arts and Media Award. Keagan’s read at Brooklyn Poets Staff Picks, Houston Public Poetry, the Poison Pen Reading Series, and the Houston Contemporary Arts Museum. His work has been supported by the New Orleans Poetry Festival, Lamplight AVL, and Letras Latinas.
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Erin Armstrong has an MFA from CU-Boulder and is the editor-in-chief of Ice Queen Magazine. Her works are published in The Citron Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Banango Street, New World Writing and elsewhere.
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