Monday, September 24, 2007

12 or 20 questions: with Christine Stewart
CHRISTINE ANNE STEWART is from Vancouver and currently writes and teaches experimental poetry and poetics in the English and Film Department at the University of Alberta. She is researching the work of experimental women poets in Western and Eastern Canada, and exploring alternative forms of scholarly analysis. She is interested in poetics and philosophies of agency and identity, and the production of previously unexpressed subjectivities in contemporary poetry, film, fiction, and non-fiction. PhD. English—Aroused by unreadable questions: Vico, Spinoza and the Poetry of Lisa Robertson and Catriona Strang. University of British Columbia. 2005, MA. English. Thesis. "Nightwood: Nightwood—metonymy and melancholy in Djuna Barnes' Nightwood." University of British Columbia.1996. Fellowships & Awards, Gilean Douglas Award— 2003-2004. SSHRC Fellowship—2001-2002. University Graduate Fellowship—1998-2001. Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Poetry—1993-1994. Burnaby Writers Society Fellowship—1990. Publications: "Sounding Some Poems: Derek Beaulieu's Fractal Economies, Sharon Thesen's The Good Bacteria and Ken Babstock's Airstream Land Yacht." Canadian Literature. 2007. "We Lunch Nevertheless among Reinvention." Chicago Review. 51:4 & 52:1. Spring 2006. 65-70. " Particularizing, Historicizing and Ideologizing: A Review of Megan Simpson’s Poetic Epistemologies: Gender and Knowing in Women’s Language Oriented Writing and Peter Jaeger’s ABC of reading TRG." Canadian Literature 176 (2003): 188-189. "Busted (Inc.) 2001: In Which a New Civic is Guided—An Afterword." Busted. By Nancy Shaw and Catriona Strang. Toronto: Coach House, 2001. 108-111. "Au Coeur du Litige." liner notes for Francois Houle's CD, Au Coeur du Litige (Spool, 2000). Chapbooks: Pessoa's July: or the months of astonishments.Vancouver, B.C.: Nomados Press. 2006. From Taxonomy. Sheffield, England: West House Press, 2003. Daddy Clean Head. Vancouver, B.C.: Lumpe Presse, 2000. A Travel Narrative. Hamilton, Ontario: Berkeley Horse, 1994. The Barscheit Horse [with Lisa Robertson and Catriona Strang]. Hamilton, Ontario: Berkeley Horse, 1993. Selected Poetry in Periodicals."State Sentences." ONSETS: a breviary (synopticon) of poems. Toronto, Ontario. The Gig Press. Spring, 2004. (np). "Trees of Periphery." The Gig 17 (2004). 7-14. "St. Augustine." How2 (2003). "Taxonomy (2000)." How2 (2001): "Jack." (Letters to Jack Spicer). Raddle Moon 18. (1999). 65-80. "Biographia." Raddle Moon 17. (1998). 5-16. "Primativera." [with Lisa Robertson]. Big Allis 8 (1998). 71-72. "Clamorous." Raddle Moon 17 (1998). 5-16. "St. Augustine." Matrix 50. (1997). 53. "Barscheit Nation." [with Lisa Robertson and Catriona Strang]. Exact Change Yearbook 1. Ed. Peter Gizzi. Boston: Exact Change, 1995. [Published in the UK by Carcanet, 1995). 123. "Taxonomy" [excerpt]. Exact Change Yearbook 1. Ed. Peter Gizzi. Boston: Exact Change, 1995. [Published in the UK by Carcanet], 1995. 127-128. "Taxonomy" [excerpt]. Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative Poetry 1993-1994. Ed. Douglas Messerli. Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 1995. 157. "Barscheit Nation." [with Lisa Robertson and Catriona Strang]. Semiotext(e) Canadas. Ed. Jordon Zinovich. NewYork: Autonmedia,1994. 90.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

I don't know.

2 - How long have you lived in Edmonton, and how does geography, if at all,impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

Almost 2 months.
The light is very different.
Yes.

3 - 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?

It depends. It’s always different.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

Neither.

5 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I usually like it.

6 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

This afternoon.

7 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Don't assume they can see you.

8 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

Not so difficult. It’s good to drift.

9 - 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 often write when I have deadlines for other work.

10 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Other texts.

11 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

I'm not sure. It is less comfortable somehow.

12 - 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?

? Oh yes..

13 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Stand on South Georgia Island in the Antarctic. Watch the albatross.

14 - 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?

Digging.

15 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?


Maybe my grandfather. He wrote me poems.

16 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

book: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

film: Pier Paolo Pasolini's Decameron, II

17 - What are you currently working on?

Many, many things.

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