Michelle Elrick is an award-winning Canadian poet and artist. She is the author
of two books and creator of a limited-edition topographic poem which maps the
memories of her late grandfather across a text-generated landscape. Her work
has been published in Geist, CV2, Poetry
is Dead and other journals, and has been broadcast on CBC television. Her
new book, then/again (Nightwood
Editions, 2017), is a poetic inquiry into the occasion of “home,” tracking the
borderline between unfamiliar spaces and intimate experiences of place. She
will be touring Central Canada with then/again
in November 2017. Find her at www.michelleelrick.ca .
1 - How did your first
book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?
How does it feel different?
My first book, To Speak, didn’t change my life in the ways I (naively) expected it would. I’d dreamt of influence, opportunities,
membership in a elite literati and an audience of keen readers, but these
quickly faded into the quiet reality of the struggling writer. There were a few
glitzy moments and some really wonderful opportunities to read, tour and take
on more ambitious projects, but there was no neatly packaged career on the
other side of the publication. Looking back I can see that my life has changed
quite dramatically, albeit in ways and through means I didn’t imagine.
Publishing then/again has been a completely different experience. I am
more realistic about the book’s potential and more relaxed about how it is
received. I’m also more confident as a writer at this point and I know how the
book is remarkable and how it is not. This time around, I find myself caring
much less about what readers think the book says about me. What I care about
now is that the poetry finds its readers, so that together, meaning can be made
from my little text creations.
2 - How did you come to
poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I wouldn’t say I came to poetry first. I wrote a lot of
non-fiction essays and several drafts of a novel before publishing any poetry.
I’ve published mostly in poetry, though, and I think that’s because I’m still
experimenting with form and style. The freedom of contemporary verse allows my
ideas to get past any real or imagined structures of correctness and propriety.
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 really varies. Often my first drafts already have the structure
of the final product. Sometimes I will collage early drafts into long-form
narrative lyrics and then refine from there. My poems tend to be either moments
or ideas; as such, they usually arrive intact, though in need of a good polish.
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?
At some point I go through my recent notebooks and see what I’ve
written, flag anything with a nugget of promise and move those pieces onto the
computer, then I start editing with an eye for any thematic threads. When I get
to this point I usually have a book in mind. I prefer to write poetry
organically and responsively rather than to a particular theme or end.
5 - Are public readings
part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who
enjoys doing readings?
I love giving readings. I find them to be some of the most
satisfying moments of my writing life. That being said, I wouldn’t consider it
part of my creative process. Performance is part of my commitment to the public
nature of my art—to art as communication. Not everyone reads. Few people read
poetry. Performance is one way to surprise people with a poetic encounter under
the guise of entertainment.
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 have so many theoretical concerns its sometimes difficult to get
started! I recently reread What is Literature? by Jean-Paul Sartre. He
articulates many of my concerns about the situatedness of literature, of its
potential, its efficacy, also its ability to distract, oppress, and apathetize
readers. But on a smaller and more personal level, the questions that have
always driven my creative work are along the lines of how to be? what is
real? what is this wondrous anomaly we call time? My most recent book, then/again,
asks the question where does “home” occur? If I were to venture a guess
as to what questions we are currently grappling with as a society, I’d probably
say what do we do now? where do we go from here? how do we tell a
human story in the anteroom of the apocalypse? or something like that.
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?
As Sartre says in that essay, all writing is an appeal to the
freedom of the reader. I agree that writing relies on the free participation of
readers in order to fully become an artwork. In light of that, one role that us
writers have is to honour the readers’ freedom and seek to extend it rather
than limit it. I worked for a few years in small magazine circulation
departments where I had to write a lot of ads and marketing copy. That type of
writing—which is found in doses and hues all over books and screen-based
entertainment—limits freedom.
8 - Do you find the
process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Both. It can take me a bit of time to come around to recognizing
the wisdom of my editor on certain critiques. I’m lucky to have had excellent
editors so far in my career and each has helped make me a better writer.
9 - What is the best piece
of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Anne Carson chose this quote from Samuel Beckett as the
inscription for Red Doc>, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” I
like that.
10 - How easy has it been
for you to move between genres (poetry to visual art/installation)? What do you
see as the appeal?
Moving between genres and forms has always come very naturally to
me and has proven to be essential for my creative development. I don’t think
one form fits all ideas. The appeal is toward efficacy.
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?
My ideal writing day begins with reading—usually some philosophy
or critical theory, then often some poetry—followed by a walk. I sit down
mid-morning and write for 3-5 hours. When deep in a manuscript, I’ve been known
to write for 8-10 hours at a time, sleep in my studio, work through the night
and through the weekend until I am exhausted. Lately, I work a fair bit in my
other career as the owner of a small bookkeeping business, so my writing time
is fixed more rigidly in the first half of the day. With the exception of a few
blissful seasons, it’s always been a juggling act for me between time for paid
work and time for creative work.
12 - When your writing
gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)
inspiration?
I turn to walking—slow walking in the forest or along the sea.
Then I go back to the point in my writing where I started to feel lost and I
look for wrong turns.
13 - What fragrance
reminds you of home?
Rain, the wet forest floor.
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?
I try to be sensitive to my environment and allow myself to be
influenced by nature, art and everyday human life. My creative mind is often
jumpstarted by reading philosophy or by watching popular science and nature
documentaries.
15 - What other writers or
writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Whitman, Tranströmer, Zwicky, Carson, Calvino, Ondaatje, Sontag,
Dillard, Rilke, Neruda, Buber, Garcia Marquez, Wittgenstein—these are some of
the authors on my bookshelf. In my life, many writer-mentors have been
remarkably generous, supportive and inspiring and have helped me find my way.
16 - What would you like
to do that you haven't yet done?
I would say I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve done in my life.
Now, I’d just like to do more of the same: live more, write more, love more and
read more.
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?
I would love to be an architect.
18 - What made you write,
as opposed to doing something else?
Desperation. Writing was the only method of honest self-expression
that I had as a young person. It showed me myself, but also helped me
understand the world. I wrote to make sense of grief, loneliness and to
articulate my curiosity.
19 - What was the last
great book you read? What was the last great film?
I’ve read a lot of good books lately! Labyrinths by Borges,
The Place of Scraps by Jordan Abel, Genome by Matt Ridley. I have
a terrible memory for films, but I love the Koker Trilogy by Abbas Kiarostami, which I watched in 2014.
20 - What are you
currently working on?
It’s hard to say! I have a lot of work in progress right now and
am writing to see what will come of it.
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