Kyle Flemmer is a writer, publisher, and
digital media artist from Calgary, Canada in Treaty 7 territory. In 2014, he
founded The Blasted Tree Publishing Co., a small press focused on experimental
poetics and visual art. His artworks and publications have been exhibited
locally and abroad. Flemmer’s other books include Barcode Poetry, Supergiants
and TzAR: Pixel Art Anthology.
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?
My first few chapbooks were released in
2014/2015 via my small press, The Blasted Tree. They changed my life in that
they were part of the first wave of publications I worked on and helped
establish me as not only a new writer, but a new editor and publisher as well.
Over the last decade, I have worked for various presses and magazines and now
have a career in academic publishing. By putting my own writing out there in
this way, I joined a nation-wide community of small press publishers that has
slowly but surely reorganized my life around it, and I am now one of the lucky
few who makes a decent living in the Canadian book industry.
Recently, I have shifted focus to
stand-alone book projects, both in my writing and in my publishing, rather than
treating publishing as a form of ongoing creative practice. It used to feel
like my whole career depended on a constant flow of poems, chapbooks, books,
and other publications. Now that I am somewhat more established, I feel more
able to give my attentions to individual projects, which, I hope, lets those
projects roam more freely, becoming what they ultimately need to be rather than
what I think they should be in order to serve the trajectory of my creative
practice. The stakes at the ground floor felt a lot higher than they do where I’m
at now. I’m having a lot more fun, feel a lot less pressure, and the work comes
out better.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as
opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
In truth, I did not come to poetry first.
Growing up, I was big into prose of all types and read very little poetry. I
was largely oblivious to the existence of a contemporary poetry scene, and it
never crossed my mind that writing poetry was even an option until my early
20s. That changed when a friend showed me Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” It blew my
mind and prompted me to start taking poetry more seriously, even penning a few
lines of my own.
However, poetry still remained secondary
to my interest in books more broadly. As an undergraduate, I enrolled in a
“great books” Liberal Arts program and initially viewed poetry as
“supplementary” to the giant tomes I had signed up to read. It was not until my
final year, when I encountered Douglas Kearney’s “Quantum Spit” in a writing
class, that poetry truly clicked for me. The poem rewired what I understood
text and poetry to be capable of communicating, and from that moment my
approach to both reading and writing became oriented toward poetry.
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?
My writing process is all over the map,
so far as beginnings go. Sometimes I have an idea that arrives fully formed and
I’m able to just dive right in. Other times, I have a murky inkling about a
poem that takes ages to bring to the surface. Occasionally, the poem arises
through the act of writing itself, and I find it by pushing words around on a
page, but, more often than not, I find it through preparatory research. My
poems are indeed built from copious notes, but the first draft usually looks
more like the final shape than it does my notes. I credit this to identifying
the spirit of the poem before I start committing words to paper. I argue that
if you want to make a good lasagna, it’s helpful to know what dish you’re
preparing beforehand, then fuss over the ingredients as you cook. Nobody makes
a great lasagna by chucking ingredients into a pan willy-nilly. Better to have
a target in mind. As for my cooking, same for my poems. Once I have a sense of
what I want to make, then the practical decisions around form and content can
begin.
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 tend to think in series or, in
practical publishing terms, in chapbooks. William Carlos Williams described a
poem as a small machine made of words, and I feel similarly, though I cleave to
the poetic impulse as a small engine that spits out poems. In general, I look
for a concept that is capable of producing five or ten or more poems.
Variations on a theme, if you will. I am looking for engines that can carry my
some distance, and when that engine runs out of gas, I start looking for
another. In this way, I will make a half dozen chapbook-length series that then
become a book. At the book-length manuscript stage I try to revisit the logic
of each series to make sure they all belong together, and sometimes the best
changes are the last one that bring the these parts into alignment. In general,
the book itself is a distant goal that rarely influences how I start a poem.
5 - Are public readings part of or
counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing
readings?
Not be a diva, but I love participating
in readings. I am very much an “on the page” kind of poet, so readings force me
to embody my words in a real and public forum, which is hugely informative for
my practice. There is a difference between putting some words on paper and
putting those same words directly into people’s ears. I used to shake with fear
reading my poems, and this fear was obvious to the audience. I was embarrassed
and scared, so my poems came off as embarrassed and scared. Overcoming this
fear, learning to steer my energy from anxiety to excitement, then from
excitement to composure, has absolutely changed the way I write. I make a lot
of visual poetry and a lot of poetry I tend to explain before reading (to
better translate it from page to stage); learning how to bring my work before a
live audience has become a central pillar in my self-confidence as a poet. Now
I am usually thrumming with energy, ready to hit the stage and give people a
show. That’s the job. I’m not so much performing the poem as a dramatist or
spoken word artist (I envy the bravado of those folk), but I hope to perform
the text as an extension of my own body, which feels really good most of the
time.
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?
The overarching concerns behind my
writing are the perennial questions at the heart of poetry itself: What is
language capable of? How is meaning created and communicated, received and
interpreted? What even is a poem? What isn’t? What is the relationship between
form and content? I think, at best, a poem serves, not as an answer to a
question, but as an expression of the desire to pose big, unanswerable
questions. The point is not to solve the mystery of life, the universe, and
everything, it is to celebrate that mystery. I want my poetry to be a point of
departure for readers, an encouragement to think differently, to see the world
anew, to go beyond what is on the page into an undiscovered territory of their
own making. I guess I would say my agenda is not to provide answers or present
arguments but to instigate curiosity and further exploration.
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?
All writing, whether hard science or pure
fantasy, is a form of documentation, though not so much of reality per se, but
of conscious human thought. Writing is the deliberate ordering of thought into
a form legible to others. A writer’s job, then, is to hone the craft of
documenting their thoughts, feelings, impressions, imaginings, observations,
and so on. Writing is a vital part of culture because we are social animals
whose identities and beliefs are co-created through interaction with each
other. Put simply, writing is a portal into the interiority of another person,
and to enter another’s thoughts in this way, to allow their thoughts to enter
you, is deeply humanizing and humbling. I have the impression our culture is
plagued by an epidemic of individualism, which erodes community by diminishing
our accountability to one another. The role of writers today is to foster
community by documenting and articulating the full breadth and depth of the
human experience.
8 - Do you find the process of working
with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
So far, my experiences with editors have
been nothing but pleasant and productive, though I don’t involve an editor
until late in the writing process. I like to make my own way to the destination
before having someone check my work. The best editorial support, in my opinion,
addresses big-picture stuff, like the arrangement of a manuscript, rather than
ground-level stuff, like specific word choices or line breaks. I usually have a
strong sense of what I’m up to in any particular poem—the maneuver I’m trying
to land—but I appreciate help ensuring that my maneuvers are apparent to
readers and fit within the larger trajectory of the book.
Moreover, I’m fortunate to have worked
with editors who didn’t expect me to follow their suggestions to the letter
because I tend to extrapolate whole new directions from specific feedback. For
instance, while revising my most recent book, The Wiki of Babel, it was
suggested that I move the process notes from the back of the book into an
introduction to better prepare readers to enjoy the poems. I moved the notes
up, but they came across a little desperate, like I was trying to sell readers
on my work, so I rewrote the introduction in the neutral, matter-of-fact voice
of Wikipedia, which was an improvement. Then I figured the introduction should
not just sound like a Wikipedia article, it should actually be one, so I
rewrote it again to match the form of an article. But if we’re going to open
the book with what appears to be a Wikipedia article, shouldn’t the rest of the
book look like Wikipedia also? So I revised the whole manuscript one last time
to better mirror the structure and aesthetics of the online encyclopedia. The
result is a book that makes its ethos evident so readers have no doubt about
what they are getting into when they encounter the poems. This kind of
extrapolation satisfies the editor’s specific concerns while making the
manuscript more cohesive and stronger overall, and I view this as an essential
part of the writing and publishing process.
9 - What is the best piece of advice
you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Don’t wait for permission to express
yourself creatively, and don’t wait until your art will meet with guaranteed
approval before sharing it. The most valuable thing you have to give is an
articulation of your authentic self. Nothing you are passionate about is too
minor to celebrate, and nothing you fear is reason enough to stop that celebration.
You are more like a squirrel than a machine; delight in your activities, take
long naps when you feel like it, know that 75% of your efforts will be lost in
the woods and the woods would not stand without your efforts. You are not here
to work, you are here to live, to spread joy, and to leave things better, more
fertile and fun, than you found them.
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 have no writing routine to speak of,
though I do have a fruitful writing practice, if that makes sense. To be
honest, I only really write when I feel called to. I am a multidisciplinary
artist, an editor, a publisher, and a writer, and all those roles intersect and
fill my cup in different ways. Some days I can put thousands of words down.
Some years I make no tangible strides toward publication. Most days I pursue
some aspect of my personal creative practice, be it publishing or writing or
digital art, and all is well. That said, creativity is almost never how my day
begins and almost always how my day ends. It’s hard for me to get into the
mental space to create until the hustle and bustle of the day has settled into
the meditative slowness of night. I would rather stay up until 2am sustaining a
spontaneous creative flow state than get up early and force myself to write
within a predetermined schedule. Ideally, all my days begin slow and all my
nights stretch out as long as they need to.
11 - When your writing gets stalled,
where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Usually other writing. I am a devotee of
the Stebnerian way and do not believe in writer’s block. I can’t speak for
anyone else, but my brain has no trouble producing ideas for creative projects,
both good and bad, more than I could ever possibly pursue. Whenever I lack the
inspiration to write, I turn to some other aspect of my creative practice that
is not lacking in inspiration. I have many other creative avenues that I hope
to explore. On the rare occasion when I have to write but don’t really feel like
it, I turn to other writers I admire. Good poetry always makes me think, “Ah
hell, I better get down to business.” Nothing stokes my fire like professional
envy!
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Oooo, tough question. I am a child of
divorce and lots of moving around when I was young, so I don’t really have a
single sense of home with a specific scent to refer to. That said, I think the
thing that has kept me most grounded throughout life is my relationship with
our many family dogs. I’ve lived with maybe a dozen different dogs, and there
is something about their smell after basking in the yard on a hot summer day
that feels deeply comforting and homey to me. There is no better feeling than
when a dog comes inside to check on you on a beautiful day, and you hug it
close, and you can feel the warm scent of clover and sun-bleached pet dander
wash over whatever was preoccupying you before. For me, this is the mental
health magic bullet. The love of a happy dog is the epitome of home.
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?
All the above and more: the internet,
video games, live-streamed rocket launches, flowers, rays of light, art
galleries, food, feats of athleticism, acts of kindness, clouds, grief,
feminism, quantum physics, inebriants, showers, cartoons, mythology, the Dewey
decimal system, gardening, satire, subtitles, jogging, cultural festivals, pulp
sci-fi films, the prairies, glitch art, etc. But mostly it’s books. Other books
provide the model, and while I try to allow all my experiences to feed into my
creative practice, I write books largely because I have been shaped by books.
14 - What other writers or writings are
important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
That would be a long list, so I’ll stick
to a handful of writers that have had an outsized impact on my life and
creative practice. Sina Queyras is an exceptional poet and teacher who dragged
me into the light of contemporary poetry and experimental writing. Sina found
me wandering clueless through literary and creative writing studies and plugged
me directly into the community where I fit best. They put me on the path,
literally “read these poets, then go talk to them.” Similarly, derek beaulieu switched
me on to small press publishing as its own form of creative practice and
connected me with publishers across Canada and beyond. I learned from him to
create more space than I take up, to let my work circulate freely, and to
cultivate the community as much as possible. Kevin Stebner helped me to
overcome imposter syndrome and decision paralysis. His views on creativity
unlocked my own unstoppable creative impulse, and I have grown into a
full-blown artist as a result. Honestly, I could go on naming writing who’ve
changed my life in some way. Surround yourself with good, talented people, and
you’ll always have inspiration and support ready at hand.
15 - What would you like to do that you
haven't yet done?
As a person in general or as a bookish
person specifically? As a book person, I would like to explore new forms in my
writing, publish in formats yet to be invented, make more collaborative work,
organize a proper multi-stop book tour, maybe win an accolade of some type…
nothing too far afield from the ambitions of a typical writer who’d like to
make an impact with their work. As for things I’d like to do in general, there
are many places I would like to travel and many things I’d like to learn. I
want to take a knife skills course and get good at chopping food. I have never
seriously attempted to learn a second language, but Spanish has long interested
me and I should dive in. It would be cool to run a marathon; even a half
marathon would be satisfying. I’ve got a fear of tarantulas I’d like to
conquer, perhaps even hold one one day. Sky-diving seems like a rush, that’s a
bucket list item, but going up in a hot air balloon would probably scratch that
itch. I’m pretty lucky and have had the opportunity to try most of the things
I’d really like to do in life, so I’m not carrying around a lot of urgent
longing for things left undone.
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?
This is a tough question for me because
my occupation isn’t really “writer” so much as it is “editor and/or publisher”
with writing on the side. I didn’t realize what I wanted to do as a profession
until my early twenties, and, even then, my trajectory was vaguely “something
to do with books.” I just knew that I valued books all my life and I wanted to contribute
to that field, broad as it is. My writing is a function of this overarching
commitment to books because, as a rampant consumer, I thought I should somehow
produce as well.
Before writing/editing/publishing took
off for me, I was renovating houses with my dad. I come from a working class
family, and without the privilege of a quality public education and the
opportunity to share my work with likeminded people, I would probably still be
doing some form of manual labor. I quite like painting and tiling in
particular, demolition as well. Something about the need to proceed
methodically paired with the immediate, tangible results of one’s efforts
really scratches an itch for me. I can imagine doing this kind of work on the
daily, but it is hard for me to imagine caring deeply about any kind of work
other than book-related activities.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to
doing something else?
My first book was written largely out of
boredom. The second came from extensive research. My third book is an anthology
and an expression of love for all the artists in it. My most recent book is
mostly just goofing around on the internet. I’m not sure I have a cohesive
reason for why I wrote those books as opposed to, say, play a video game
instead, but I can say emphatically that I do not write in opposition to some
other pursuit. In fact, I have many hobbies and interests that I pursue on the
regular, sometimes divergent from my writing practice, other times overlapping
with it. What I read influences my taste in films and video games. The games I
play are often used as source material for my glitch art. Making digital art
has pushed me to learn how to code, and computer programming has, in turn,
changed the way I write. In short, I don’t avoid the “something else” when it
calls to me. Instead, I try to fit it alongside my writing.
18 - What was the last great book you
read? What was the last great film?
Over the last few months, I have been
rereading the Dune books in anticipation of the third installment in Denis Villeneuve’s film trilogy. I think my favorite book in Frank Herbert’s original series is
volume four, God Emperor of Dune, which tells the story of an immortal,
superhuman tyrant who, after achieving godhood, methodically tortures all of
humanity, and his inner circle of advisors and bodyguards in particular, for
thousands of years until they finally work up the will to overthrow him. The
crux of the story is that the tyrant is the architect of his own demise; by
goading humanity into seizing its freedom in the long run, he saves our species
from an even worse fate at the hands of other, more brutal and chaotic elements
of human nature. It is bizarre and heady and oftentimes out of step with
contemporary sensibilities about gender roles and good taste, but my feeling is
that the book is meant to offend and repulse the reader, who must reject the
methods and culture of the god emperor alongside his most devoted followers.
Quite brilliant, if you can tolerate the absurd, unsavory bits.
As for films, Arrival, another
Villeneuve project, is my all-time favorite, and I re-watch it regularly. I
have a penchant for films that are artfully shot but overtly stress-inducing,
like Uncut Gems, Civil War, Children of Men, Melancholia,
The Substance, Nope, and so on, but Arrival has the
opposite effect on my nervous system. It is beautiful and comforting and tragic
in a way that feels supremely quotidian and human, despite its extraterrestrial
and fantastical elements. Arrival affirms my belief in empathy,
language, the scientific method, cultural exchange, de-escalation, feminism,
love, and an acceptance of death as the true path to inner peace. It argues
that life, with all its high highs and low lows, is always worth living. Brings
bittersweet tears to my eyes every single viewing.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I have a couple different book projects
in the works right now, but the one I am most excited about is a
collaboratively-written graphic poem I am making with a Costa Rican artist known as cap’n. Using retro video game aesthetics and a
choose-your-own-adventure-style narrative structure, we are creating a book
about living within and responding to the natural world. We are taking
inspiration from video games like Super Mario World and Pokémon
which have several distinct regions that can be navigated in a non-linear
fashion. We are also inspired by games like Super Metroid wherein the
appearance and toolset of the playable character changes as they adapt to
different regions. Each region will be based on an earthly environ—desert
region, jungle region, polar region, and so on—with multiple locations to
explore. Because the artwork will be simple pixel art, color will play a big
role in expressing our story. We plan to add in some sort of invented symbol
system to signpost the different regions and pathways through the book, but our
intention is to keep the meaning of the character’s transformations ambiguous
so they can stand for many things: evolutionary pressure and learned behavior, personal
and physical growth, accumulated trauma and wisdom, souvenirs and contaminants,
armor and adornments. There is much more to say about the philosophy of the
graphic poem, but I believe we’re onto something beautiful.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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