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 debut chapbook Citronella (Anstruther Press, 2024) changed everything for me. In the months surrounding its release, I got really into the Canadian micropress scene and began connecting with other poets. This mainly happened through Instagram, and that platform remains the place I most often interact with other writers. Putting out a chapbook showed me just how generous the poetry community in Canada can be. It’s an incredible community to be a part of.
My second chapbook, ice, dove, parachute (Cactus Press, 2024), came out only nine months after Citronella, but it is quite different. While Citronella introduces broader themes — sexual identity and leaving one’s home — ice, dove, parachute takes these themes further, exploring their repercussions through a more intimate, domestic, and Québec-oriented lens. It is a follow-up in both subject and tone, and a more grown-up work. My forthcoming full-length collection, River Running (icehouse poetry, 2026), will weave together the threads of my chapbooks in a much fuller way, and I look forward to it serving as many readers’ introduction to my work.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Funnily enough, I didn’t! I was raised by English teachers, one of whom is a novelist, and so I was primarily interested in prose from a young age. By the time I was a young teenager, I decided I wanted to write novels. This was around the time that young adult dystopian and urban fantasy books were flying off of the shelves. Think The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Mortal Instruments. I started (and abandoned) several projects, and by the time I was sixteen, I became more interested in writing about my own experiences and began taking a more diaristic approach to my writing. At that age, it turned out I could write a poem a lot faster, and more naturally, than a book chapter.
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’s a slow process. I tend to write down a bunch of words or lines and then give my poems their shape later on. This typically happens in my Notes app or in a Word Doc. I’d love to be the type of writer that fills up stacks and stacks of Moleskin notebooks, but it’s never worked for me. I far prefer a word processor, or even just scraps of paper. Some of my first poems were written on notepads at the ice cream parlour I worked at in high school. I’d carry them in my apron pockets alongside customers’ orders.
My first drafts very rarely resemble what I publish. In the case of River Running, the original manuscript became stretched in the middle partway through the editing process. I lost a family member in mid-2024 and wrote a series of poems that would eventually form the book’s third section. River Running was initially concerned with metaphorical and anticipatory grief — but it has become concerned with a very concrete sort of grief, as well.
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?
This might be unusual, but the titles often come first. I love titles. I love the act of naming something. It’s like a generative exercise. A perfect example of this is my poem “Antediluvian,” which is the last poem in Citronella. I was curious about the period of time in the Bible between the fall of man and the Great Flood — what I came to know as being called “antediluvian” (or “pre-flood”). I began asking myself, what happens in a moment of banishment? How does one feel looking back at a place called home while simultaneously seeing some strange land on the horizon? It was the first poem I wrote for Citronella, but in doing so, I knew I’d already written its ending. I wrote towards that closing with the other poems; led the speaker all the way to the edge of that cliff.
I don’t think I’ve yet figured out how books “happen.” But I can say this: the more I write, the more I understand how my poems interconnect. It was clear to me when I had enough poems for my chapbooks, and it was clear to me when I had enough for my full-length collection.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I enjoy public readings but wouldn’t consider them part of my creative process. Being part of a community of writers and receiving feedback is essential to my creativity – but reading the work aloud to an audience, not so much. It is fun, though!
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?
It depends entirely on what I’m writing. What I’m currently working on is heavily informed by theory (see answer to question 19) — but up until this point, my writing has been more concerned with lived experience, such as notions of self, home, and interpersonal relationships. Now that I’m in graduate school, it feels only natural to work on a project that blends my academic interests and my creative interests.
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?
This is a big question, and one that could be answered in no less than a hundred different ways. I see my own role as a writer as being a sort of truthteller. In Shakespeare’s plays, the truthtellers often operate on the margins and in the fens. Think of the Fool in King Lear or the witches in Macbeth. These are queer, weird (wyrd) characters. I feel similarly as a queer writer. I write to reveal uncomfortable truths. I write frankly, and shy from writing fiction, because there is so much happening in the real world. Fiction is an interesting genre. I read a lot of it, and I value the way it can offer escape or confront me with difficult truths. But in my experience, contemporary poetry doesn’t allow for distraction — it cuts straight to the bone.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
For me, it is absolutely essential. I often prefer the editing process over the writing process because I feel more lucid there. Writing a poem is like throwing a pack of playing cards on the ground, and working with an editor is playing fifty-two-card pickup. I’m a better writer because of my editors.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Ocean Vuong posted this great Instagram Story about cultivating one’s soil; this idea that writer’s block does not exist and that it’s only a lack of creative stimuli. I’ve taken that to mean: if I’m not reading, moving, living — I’m not writing.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to journalism)? What do you see as the appeal?
I find it quite difficult, but I think I’m getting better at it. Poetry is my default setting, and so when I write prose, it tends to be lyrical. I’d like to develop a prose style that feels complimentary to my poetry — but at the same time, if I ever wrote a novel, I wouldn’t want it to read like a seventy-thousand word poem. I love novels by poets; every word and punctuation mark is chosen so carefully. But for me, I’d rather be known as a poet who occasionally writes prose.
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?
I don’t have a specific routine. I’d like to write more regularly, but I find it difficult without external pressure (a workshop or a deadline, for example). I can’t force a poem. Some weeks I write a great deal. Some weeks I don’t write at all.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
A long walk. A hot shower. Rereading favourite poems.
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?
It’s music for sure. I couldn’t live without it, never mind create. I’m often more interested in how a song sounds than what it’s saying. How I hear music is how it feels to write (or read) a good poem.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Louise Glück, Richard Siken, Maggie Smith, Ada Limón, and Ocean Vuong have all had a significant impact on my poetry. For specific writings, I’ve turned time and time again to Audre Lorde’s essay “Poetry is Not a Luxury” and the final paragraphs of Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’d like to give songwriting a try. Writing for someone else, that is.
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?
I’m trying to get better at plants, so maybe a horticulturist? I was never very good at science, but I’ve become obsessed with orchids thanks to Susan Orlean. I just replanted one for the first time and it bloomed!
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I’m not sure what that “something else” would have been. When I began writing, I couldn’t stop. I still can’t.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
White Oleander by Janet Fitch. It’s brilliant. I enjoyed the film adaptation by Peter Kosminsky, too!
19 - What are you currently working on?
My Master’s thesis! It’s a research-creation project that combines poetry, essays, and interviews with artists about bilingual art in French-speaking Canada. It's called Head Split in Half and is technically my second full-length book. It is theoretically concerned with notions of confession, belonging, and language.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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