In this intimate conversation for Tupelo Quarterly, I had the honor of sitting down with poet, actor, and visionary artist Karl Michael Iglesias to discuss his new poetry collection, The Bounce. Rooted in Milwaukee, layered with grief, and alive with memory, The Bounce is a testament to what it means to grow up, look back, and speak your truth. Across the conversation, Karl reflects on designing the cover art, the ghosts of childhood, the ache of loss, and the emotional precision it takes to be vulnerable on the page. This is more than an interview—it’s a meditation on legacy, storytelling, and the emotional landscapes we carry as men of color. It’s also an offering to those who, like Karl, are still figuring out what it means to be alive in their own skin.
Darius Phelps: First off, congratulations on The Bounce. It’s such a powerful collection. I noticed you designed the cover—can you tell me about the photo and the title?
Karl Michael Iglesias: I’ve always been into cover art. Even when I was younger, making music, I was drawn to the full package—what a piece of art looks like, how it enters a room. The photo on the cover isn’t actually me—it’s some kids from Milwaukee, just a few blocks from where I grew up. But it spoke to me. That scene—shirtless boys racing down the street, playing football—it brought me right back to those summer days.
We added the parrots into the trees, which is definitely artistic license—there are no parrots in Milwaukee. But for me, that bird, that image, kept coming up. It became a symbol throughout the book, even separating sections. The parrot felt like this Puerto Rican presence in a place that didn’t always fit. And that’s the tension—between home and otherness, nostalgia and dissonance.
The title The Bounce wasn’t my first choice, but it emerged through editing. There’s this moment in life, when childhood ends and adulthood begins, where you hit the ground. You either stay down or bounce. That bounce-back became the metaphor. A crash, an impact, and a choice to rise.
DP: That impact is felt in the work. How would you say you’ve grown artistically from Catch a Glow to The Bounce?
KMI: Vulnerability. That’s the biggest shift. With Catch a Glow, I was documenting a moment in history, during the pandemic. There was a lot of protest energy, a need to be sharp, to hold the center. But The Bounce—this one is deeply personal. It’s nostalgic, yes, but also emotional. I wanted to open the curtain, just a little, and let people in. Especially those who know me—family, friends, readers who’ve walked alongside me. I wanted them to see something real. Something I maybe hadn’t shown before.
DP: One poem that really stayed with me was On Being Vulnerable. Would you mind reading it?
KMI: Absolutely.
DP: Hearing it aloud—there’s such weight in it. In writing a collection this intimate, did you find it emotionally exhausting?
KMI: Surprisingly, it felt safe. Catch a Glow was a pandemic baby—written during a time of protest, chaos, and survival. But The Bounce came out of stillness. I was at home, and the writing was a way of being with myself, of reckoning with the young man I used to be—and still am in some ways.
Grief played a big part. One of my best friends, a fellow MC – Andrew, passed away in our mid-twenties.That never leaves you. And then Cydney—my college friend, poetry teammate, my editor—she passed away recently. So The Bounce became a space to honor those losses without pretending they didn’t hurt. I wanted to put things to rest in a peaceful way, not a performatively “manly” way.
DP: There’s such maturity in how you reflect—not with rage, but with reverence. What would you want young men of color to take away from The Bounce?
KMI: I’d tell them: Be patient. You don’t have to rush your decisions. When I was younger, I leaned hard into being a cis man, into patriarchal ideas—speaking without thinking, acting without pause. Youth gave me excuses. But that’s dangerous. It’s okay to not be sure.
And vulnerability—it’s not weakness. It’s just opening yourself up to the world. That’s rare in a world where we grow up on social media, projecting what we think people want to see. But the truth is the truth. No matter how you run from it. So you might as well tell your story. Tell it fully.
DP: Before we close, I’d love for you to read one more—either portrait as a beach, I want to walk it until I’m always lost, or looking both ways. Your choice.
KMI: Let’s do looking both ways.
DP: Thank you for sharing that. Last question: what legacy do you hope to leave through your poetry?
KMI: Restlessness and fearlessness. Whether it’s facing myself or facing the world, I want to be remembered as someone who told the stories of his people—family-sized or nation-sized—with care and clarity. My job, I think, is to figure out what it means to be alive while I still am. To make sense of this body, these histories, and this moment. And to write that into the world.
Darius Phelps is a poet, educator, and scholar whose work explores grief, identity, and liberation through poetic inquiry. He is a Poetry Co-Editor at Matter, Associate Editor at Tupelo Quarterly, and the author of the forthcoming My God’s Been Silent.
Originally from Milwaukee, WI, Karl Michael Iglesias is a Puerto Rican actor, director, and the author of Catch a Glow. His work can be read in the Madison Review, Westchester Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Pigeon Pages NYC, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Breakwater Review, The Florida Review, RHINO Poetry, Kweli Journal, Haymarket Books’ Breakbeat Poet Anthology, NO DEAR Magazine, Brooklyn Review, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. Karl lives in Brooklyn, New York. His latest collection, The Bounce, is available on Finishing Line Press.