Saturday, September 28, 2019

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Susan Buis


Susan Buis completed her MFA in Creative Writing at California State University, Long Beach.  Her poems and nonfiction stories have been published in many literary journals, most recently Poetry is Dead, and have won several awards. Her writing has also been longlisted for CBC Canada Writes. A chapbook Sugar for Shock, winner of the John Lent Prize, is available from Kalamalka Press, and the collection Gatecrasher from Invisible Publishing. She teaches communications at Thompson Rivers University and lives near Kamloops / Tk’emlúps BC.

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?

There’s a special gratification that comes from holding a physical book, this concrete thing that has weight and presence, when for so long you’ve been holding your book as an abstraction.

My chapbook sugar for shock won the John Lent Poetry /Prose Award with the best part of that being associated with the venerable John Lent, who I met recently at a reading of his new collection A Matins Flywheel. A wonderful poet, mentor and human.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?  
I was studying at Cal State University Long Beach where my husband was on faculty, with the thought of working towards an English Literature or Art History degree. I got into a 4th year creative writing poetry class, somehow, because I couldn’t get into the non-fiction one. But turned out I just loved poetry and started writing a lot in my backyard under the avocado tree, overlooking the concrete LA River. I applied to that university’s Creative Writing MFA in Poetry, and was accepted with just that one class. I was unprepared for the MFA program though, with so little background in poetry’s practice or theory, and knew nothing about American poetry. I had to work very hard. 

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?

Oh it’s a slow, slow process. Early mornings I encourage intuitive drafts and hypnogogic ramblings to get me started, but then I usually have to leave it to go to my job. Later I will dig into those notes to pick out phrases of interest and then use them to outline a sketch or an underpainting that I will fill in with research and craft. It’s an enjoyable process really, though every stage gets more painstaking. I can relate to stories about Elizabeth Bishop who sometimes took decades to finish a poem. 

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose 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?  

So much is at work unconsciously, but a poem often begins with the title, a phrase or word that runs through my mind for a day or so, and later developed. My poems are loosely connected through themes and preoccupations, but I don’t set out to write a book with a pre-determined narrative.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

In a strange way I enjoy public readings, strange for an introvert.  As a university instructor, I have to face and speak to a crowd of people with varying levels of interest in what I have to say, and it’s quite draining to do so. It’s refreshing to read to an audience that wants to be present and listen, and to receive energy from their attention.  

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?

I love to read about the perceiving body, phenomenology, which leads to thing theory and how bodies relate to the material things in our lives. This shows up in my writing; I don’t consciously set out to write about theory in poetry, though it does flavour the work.

The questions that concern me are how to live ethically in this world, how to be a good steward and minimize my impact, and how to confront my privilege and to better listen.

The current questions are very troubling. So troubling I can barely consider them…the loss of life forms and the vitality of the world, and this is where intolerance and violence rushes in…to fill this loss. I hold a constant ache about it.  

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be? 

With so many dishonest and manipulative voices in the political sphere and in social media content, it is crucial for writers of fiction and non-fiction to be fearless and honest.  I’m thinking about authors I most recently read: Alicia Elliott, Vivek Shraya and Gwen Benaway, among others. I learn much from them and admire their integrity.

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

Outside editors rescue me from the whirlpools of my own head and tell me what the text is like for them. They are essential for me, and I honestly love working with them.  I find it’s best to edit with a cold, cold heart, not that editors have those…. but they lack the sentimental attachment to a piece that can get me into trouble.

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

Anne Carson’s interviews about writing are really inspiring and funny; I love listening to her speak.  And I always experience Carson with pencil in hand as I scribble quotes on my notebook covers. My current favorite is: “Edit ferociously and with joy; it is very fun to delete stuff”.

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

As a poet, I work on finding the right visual form for the content, trying out different shapes and sequences. Usually it’s quite easy for me to take text and move it around in a plastic way. I take this visual and tactile quality of the text and apply it to genre as well. Can this poem run across the page and live as prose? Can this essay be cut up with line breaks and work as poetry?  A text may go back and forth between genres before settling. I have to try things out, can’t preconceive them. When I write non-fiction it tends to have a lot of poetry within it.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Anything significant will happen in early morning. That’s why I show up at the table then with coffee.  First drafts and content creation happen in morning, but the work of research and editing can happen at any time of day.

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

Reading poetry. When I read others, it renews my fortitude, and I resolve that yes! it is possible to do this…. I get much joy and vigor from other poets.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I come from generations of people who lived by the sea: fishers, sailors and merchants, from Yorkshire, to New England, to Nova Scotia, so the Atlantic Ocean is the smell of home: a little funky, minerals and ozone. In Nova Scotia where I stay in summer, the ocean also carries the sweet smell of hay and roses on it. The Pacific Ocean smells much different.  

14 - 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?

Music, especially in live performance is the juice; recently, Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2 the Four Seasons, soloist Yolanda Bruno was so astonishing. I was charged for days. That’s a creative state for me to be in.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work? 

There are so many! To name just a few: Ocean Vuong is thrilling. And Emily Dickinson’s strangely brilliant. Sue Goyette’s Ocean is a frequent source of fascination for me. The poets I’ve read most often for more than twenty years are Federico Garcia Lorca and Dionne Brand.

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

Artistically, I’d like to work on a collection of essays or perhaps long form poems. But I’ve no interest in writing prose fiction though I love to read it.  A dream is to buy a small house in rural Italy, with no internet connection, where I can retreat to just read books and write. Romantic, I know.

17 - 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?  

Well, before I was a writer I was an artist and gallery administrator in the artist run system, which I loved, but left that behind to move to California with my husband who was faculty at Long Beach State. I didn’t have a green card though, so studied instead and ended up with an MFA in creative writing. My green card arrived the same day the moving truck did to bring us back to Canada. If I stayed there though I thought I’d be a barista / poet. 

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

I was a painter for some years, but space to work was sometimes a problem. Writing is an activity beautiful in its economy of means: no materials no supplies, you can compose while walking or washing dishes and make this thing, this story, out of nothing become physical on the page.  I find the activity of poetry very similar to that of painting, with their common use of abstractions, illusions and layers of meaning.

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

Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck, helped me understand the current situations of African migrants in Germany; I learned so much from that novel about contemporary events, conflict and empathy. A novel can teach me so much more than reading the news can.  Closer to home, Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson was one of those great reads that I finished in a couple of glorious sessions— generally I’m a slow reader. As for film, The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) by Paola Sorrentino, about a writer in Rome, tackles the big topics like beauty, banality, art and desire.

20 - What are you currently working on?  

Poems: animatronics— abject ones.


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