Jessica Popeski is a
queer, dis/abled opera singer, professor, and internationally published,
intersectional ecofeminist poet. Her work can be found in carte blanche,
Room, Riddle Fence, The Woven Tale Press, Grain, Best Canadian Poetry 2027, The
Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, filling Station, The Antigonish Review, PRISM
International, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of multiple scholarships
and awards, and was named one of Tkaronto’s “exceptional up and coming writers”
by Open Book. She authored Oratorio and The Wrong Place
with Anstruther Press, and the problem with having a body and grenoside
with Gordon Hill Press. She was raised in Moscow and Sheffield by her mother
and grandmother, and lives with her rescue pit bull on land which is covered by
Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties, the traditional territories of the
Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee,
and the Wendat peoples.
1 - How did your first book or chapbook change
your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it
feel different?
I don’t know if it changed my life
much! The best part is seeing the unexpected places where my writing lands. I
often get messages via social media from folks who somehow came by my book.
They always have such wonderful things to say! I feel honoured, and surprised
sometimes by how far it’s travelled.
All my books are connected, whether I
meant for them to be or not. I seem to be preoccupied by similar ideas. Even
though the subject matter varies, poems from both my collections with Gordon
Hill Press (and even my chapbooks with Anstruther Press) excavate themes of
ecofeminism, epigenetics, physical dis/ability, madness, grandmaternal
ancestral trauma, the matrilineal inheritance of song and oral identity,
historically suppressed voices, conflict, womanness, ptocd, disordered eating,
accent, classism, and care. I think of the problem with having a body and grenoside as sister books.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed
to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I took an Introduction to Creative
Writing class with Professor Dale Lakevold at Brandon University. I wanted to
be a fiction writer, a novelist. I thought I hated poetry, so I looked ahead at
the weekly schedule on the syllabus, noted that in Week 6, or whatever, we
would be reviewing poetry, and vowed not to attend. Turns out I forgot to miss
it, and fell immediately in love with poems. I was studying opera at the time,
and had just been diagnosed with Muscle Tension Dysphonia. I was put on
complete vocal rest, meaning I couldn’t speak for many weeks. Poetry found me
right at a time when I needed a new creative outlet to communicate.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular
writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow
process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does
your work come out of copious notes?
It varies. In the problem with having
a body, for example, some of those poems were a decade old, taken from my
graduate thesis; however, some were written a month before publication. I must
be preoccupied and ruminating on the same themes all these years later. Often,
I jot down notes in a “dump document” on Google Docs or in the draft of an
email, and gradually add more lines and eventually shape it into a poem.
Sometimes I feel like a vessel for the words, like they’re just zooming through
me onto the page and I have to work super quickly to capture them. Sometimes
the process is slow. A poem could take a morning, a month, or a year.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are
you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or
are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I’m usually working on a cycle to make
up part of a book without knowing it. Stand-alone poems are not typically my
forte. I find that I have more to say that can’t be contained in one poem, so I
write mini cycles of six, seven, or eight plus poems. I can’t always be sure
when the cycle is done. I have to feel my way through it
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to
your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love readings. I put my opera singer
hat on and immerse myself. Many of my poems are written phonetically in
Yorkshire dialect, so they’re fun to perform and speak/sing out loud. I don’t
think readings are part of, or counter to, my creative process. They’re more
like a rip-roaring exclamation mark or semicolon to my poetic process.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind
your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?
What do you even think the current questions are?
My poems ask loud questions about
epigenetics, ancestral trauma, and the genetic inheritance of madness and
disordered eating. They consider gender-based, intimate partner violence and
coercive control, and tap into dis/ability justice by countering institutionalized
ableism. I think a lot about womanness, PTOCD, classism, marginalization, and
voicelessness. Yet, I’m always wondering what is my story to tell, and I think
there are more pertinent, current questions that poetics can excavate and
illuminate, and my job is to know when it’s my turn to speak, and when it’s my
time to sit down and pass the mic to others.
7 – What do you see the current role of the
writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the
role of the writer should be?
I subscribe to Nina Simone’s theory
that “an artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.” This
is true for me, at least. I feel compelled to tell the stories that are mine to
tell, and it often happens that those stories intersect with larger cultural
phenomena– intersectional feminism, madness, dis/ability, classism,
intergenerational trauma, geographical rupture, ablemism, et al. I’m have the
bandwidth to “reflect the times” in my work, and I belive it is also my job to
uplift the voices of those who have been marginalized by society, although it
is not their duty to educate us about their experiences of subjugation. Nor are
dis/abled writers, or readers, for example, a monolith. I don’t seek to
represent every dis/abled person on the planet in my poems, but if what I share
can touch a heart, or a hundred, I’m happy.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an
outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Both! While I don’t always love how an
editor might morph my poetics, I trust deeply in their talent to improve them.
I do think it’s important to push back, though, if the edit obfuscates what you
originally hoped to communicate. I’ve found that leaning into the wisdom of
experienced editors and writers ultimately strengthens the work.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard
(not necessarily given to you directly)?
That multiple versions of one poem can
coexist. This advice was granted to me by Roo Borson. I’m a perfectionist,
which can halt my creativity. If it isn’t going to be perfect, I don’t want to
write it at all. But Roo had me take a poem, and splash the words across the
page, then make it into a spindly, skinny little poem with short line breaks,
then elongate the lines to allow longer line breaks, then chunk it into
couplets, or triplets, or quatrains. If many versions of the poem can exist at
the same time, I don’t need to worry about creating the singular, perfect
iteration of it.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to
keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I used to have a dedicated writing
practice. Up and at a coffee shop by 6:00 a.m., writing until noon or later,
drinking tea constantly. Brioche Dorée is where I wrote almost all of my
graduate thesis a decade ago. They let me pour my own hot water for tea
refills. I could never write at home. But since the pandemic, I’ve gotten
better at writing in my own apartment. So my day usually begins between 4:30
a.m. and 6:00 a.m., first by walking my dog and doing yoga, by reading poetry
or prose (for my latest collection, I leaned into Damian Rogers, Jeanette Winterson, and Ocean Vuong), and then by jotting ideas in either my notes app
or an email draft, before transitioning it to Google Docs. I’m typically
useless in the afternoon, so all writing occurs in the morning; never the
evening; however, sometimes, I’ll be out and about, throwing the ball at the
park for Maggie, or taking a yoga class, and I’ll have to stop and write an
idea down. Poems often write themselves in my brain, and I have to capture them
before they flit away.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you
turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I listen to audiobooks by authors I
admire, or pick up a novel. I return to books of poetry I’ve enjoyed, or head
to my favourite local bookstore, Queen Books, to stock up. I might listen to a
podcast, like On Being, as it typically has really thoughtful, inspirational
guests. Often, I’ll take my dog for a walk into nature, Cherry Beach, perhaps,
to see if that sparks any ideas.
12 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
Not my last, but my most memorable was
Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a decade ago.
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come
from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether
nature, music, science or visual art?
Certainly nature; annex, king west,
to york, cannon hall farm, and essentially the entirety of grenoside have
nods towards nature. Roo Borson said that my book is “full of monologues and
stories, the common names of birds and trees that mark out particular
neighbourhoods,” which is true! I try to use the precise bird breeds and tree
species typical to each area. I'd say almost every poem has a pastoral element.
Music is also an enormous influence. I’m a classical/opera singer, so I imbue
my poetics with musical vernacular and metaphor, and I’m often told there’s a
musicality or singabiity to my writing. Visual art also plays a role as, for my
graduate thesis, I documented my grandmother’s paintings, and used them
ekphrastically to inspire poems.
14 - What other writers or writings are important
for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I will always have a soft spot for all
of Di Brandt’s poetry, especially Questions I Asked My Mother. She was
my undergraduate thesis advisor, and she taught me everything I know about
ecofeminist poetics. Roo Borson, too, who was my graduate thesis mentor. I will
always return to Rain; Road; an Open Boat. Michael Ondaatje’s Handwriting is
another collection I keep close at hand, along with Ian Williams’ Personals. I shamelessly fangirled Katherena Vermette (I’m in love with The Break) and
Zoe Whittall (Bottle Rocket Hearts changed my life) at literary events.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't
yet done?
Start work on a new collection! I’ve
been so caught up in editing, I haven’t written much new material recently. I
have four or five new poems floating around, but not much more. I’d also like
to work more with video or installation poetry. I did a lot of that during my
undergraduate degree, but that feels like a lifetime ago.
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to
attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have
ended up doing had you not been a writer?
In another life, I would have been a
costume designer. Before moving to Canada to pursue opera and poetry, I had a
place at the Central School of Speech and Drama to study costume construction,
but fell back in love with voice after (somewhat) healing my muscle tension
dysphonia. I still love to sew, making baby clothes, dresses for myself, and
masks during the pandemic. I think if it weren’t for art, I’d be a midwife, or
work with children in some other way. I also dream of opening a dog sanctuary,
which I suppose is still possible alongside being a poet!
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing
something else?
I’m only any good at art. I scraped a
pass in maths and science in high school. I love to paint, draw, and sew. I
almost became a costume designer, but fell too deeply in love with music. While
pursuing an opera degree, I lost my voice to muscle tension dysphonia. I was
put on complete vocal rest. My only way to communicate was through writing,
and, luckily, I found poetry. I thought about being a teacher, or a therapist,
but I feel so fortunate that, instead, I’m able to write.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What
was the last great film?
I love A Little Life, which I know is
controversial, and I absolutely hear those on the other side of the
controversy, but I connect so deeply with the lead who, like me, moves through
the world with dis/ability and sings Mahler, one of my favourite composers. The
Lied he sings when asked to perform something emblematic of him is one I sang
during the final jury of my undergraduate degree. Douglas Stuart’s Young
Mungo and Shuggie Bain stay with me always. Nadine Sander-Green’s Rabbit
Rabbit Rabbit completely shook me. I love everything Billy-RayBelcourt, Katherena Vermette, and Souvankham Thammavongsa.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m still sitting with book two, grenoside,
out with Gordon Hill Press in Fall 2026. A flush of new poems hurried in,
and my editor and I are spending time deciding if they belong in this book, or
in a future book. Good problems to have: too many poems.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
