Queen Mob's Teahouse: Róise Nic an Bheatha interviews Kathryn MacLeod

As my tenure as interviews editor at Queen Mob's Teahouse continues, the thirty-sixth interview is now online: an interview with Victoria poet and KSW alum Kathryn MacLeod by Róise Nic an Bheatha. Other interviews from my tenure include: an interview with poet, curator and art critic Gil McElroy, conducted by Ottawa poet Roland Prevost, an interview with Toronto poet Jacqueline Valencia, conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Drew Shannon and Nathan Page, also conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Ann Tweedy conducted by Mary Kasimor, an interview with Katherine Osborne, conducted by Niina Pollari, an interview with Catch Business, conducted by Jon-Michael Frank, a conversation between Vanesa Pacheco and T.A. Noonan, "On Translation and Erasure," existing as an extension of Jessica Smith's The Women in Visual Poetry: The Bechdel Test, produced via Essay Press, Five questions for Sara Uribe and John Pluecker about Antígona González by David Buuck (translated by John Pluecker),"overflow: poetry, performance, technology, ancestry": kaie kellough in correspondence with Eric Schmaltz, Mary Kasimor's interview with George Farrah, Brad Casey interviewed byEmilie Lafleur, David Buuck interviews John Chávez about Angels of the Americlypse: An Anthology of New Latin@ Writing, Ben Fama interviews Abraham Adams, Tender and Tough: Letters as Questions as Letters: Cheena Marie Lo, Tessa Micaela and Brittany Billmeyer-Finn, Kristjana Gunnars’ interview with Thistledown Press author Anne Campbell, Timothy Dyke’s interview with Hawai’i poet Jaimie Gusman, Hailey Higdon's interview with Joanne Kyger, Stephanie Kaylor's interview with Kenyatta JP Garcia, Jaimie Gusman’s interview with Timothy Dyke,Sarah Rockx interviews Gary Barwin, Megan Arden Gallant's interview with Diane Schoemperlen, Andrew Power interviews Lauren B. Davis, Chris Lawrence interviews Jonathan Ball , Adam Novak interviews Tom Stern, Eli Willms interviews Gregory Betts and Jeremy Luke Hill interviews Kasia Jaronczyk, Karen Smythe and Greg Rhyno, and Chris Muravez interviews Ithica, NY poet Marty Cain.

Further interviews I've conducted myself over at Queen Mob's Teahouse include: City of Ottawa Poet Laureate JustJamaal The Poet, Geoffrey Young, Claire Freeman-Fawcett on Spread Letter, Stephanie Bolster on Three Bloody Words, Claire Farley on Canthius, Dale Smith on Slow Poetry in America, Allison Green, Meredith Quartermain, Andy Weaver, N.W Lea and Rachel Loden.

If you are interested in sending a pitch for an interview my way, check out my "about submissions" write-up at Queen Mob's; you can contact me via rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com

snow day (further excerpts from a work-in-progress,

                              see an earlier excerpt of the same piece here ; and here ; and here

January 2, 1999, when a snowstorm dropped thirty-nine centimetres of snow on Toronto. As a series of storms kept rolling in. Within two weeks, a state of emergency, as Mayor Mel Lastman called in the army. Dig, baby, dig.

January, 1998, when an ice storm caused major damage across Eastern Ontario and southern Quebec, revealing the poor quality of the Quebec Hydro.

March 4, 1971, when forty-seven centimetres of snow fell on Montreal, made worse by winds up to 110 km/hour. The drifts kept rolling, rolling in.

What else do you wish to know.

Such fierce winds rush through Pyeongchang County, South Korea. Enough to knock Olympic hopefuls from their path. The snowboards turn to sails, pushed twenty feet into the air.

The mid-season opener of CW’s DC Legends of Tomorrow that actually includes their resident historian, Dr. Nathaniel “Nate” Heywood, grabbing his quick-at-hand copy of Ralph Connor’s 1901 novel, The Man from Glengarry, in an attempt to discover hints to the location of his time-displaced teammates. Why would you seek them in fiction? We begin to doubt your talents as a historian, Commander Steel.

Christine responds to an email. We discuss the possibilities of childcare. This too, happens.

*

Dead at ninety-five. Dead at sixty-three. Dead at forty. Dead at seventy-five. Dead at thirty-two. Dead at sixty. Dead at eighty-seven. Dead at seventy. Scroll through the obituaries, seeking out names, and particulars. Scroll through the connections. What am I seeking. The names of the dead and their angular pinpoints: birth, marriage, children. Remnants.

When a miracle is not a miracle. How close to your grammar.

Despite the weather delay, Canada Post delivers a handwritten note from Brooklyn poet and filmmaker Stephanie Gray. At times, one forgets such things existed: a note sketched by hand, and offered through snail mail.

The note’s verso: Brooklyn “Mapnote,” pinpointing Flatbush, Midwood, Bushwick, Borough Park.

Pattie McCarthy, margerykempething (2017): “this sentence is from several failed attempts [.]”

*

Stones in her pockets. Off-screen, I place eggs in the Instant Pot, set a dozen for hard-boil. Seven minutes on manual. Off-screen, the children sit quietly, flip through their books.

Michael Harris’ poem “Death and Miss Emily,” from Grace (1978). On The Porcupine’s Quill, Inc. blog in November, 2017, intern Stephanie Small writes of “The act of going back, of probing a topic like a sore tooth […].” Of which she was very much in favour.

Snow. What I know of it, falls.

The storm not a metaphor but situated in fact. Shovels the weight of the walk.

The penitent, kneels. Anna Gurton-Wachter: “The mouth is a whisper of an earlier event.”

Within days, temperatures rise. The rain. From minus twenty-three to plus-eight in the space of a week. The snow evaporates with such force it steams, producing light fog from the asphalt. It lifts.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Canisia Lubrin

Canisia Lubrin is the author of Voodoo Hypothesis (2017) and augur (2017). She is consulting editor at Wolsak & Wynn, serves on the editorial board of Humber Literary Review and as an advisor to Open Book. She is 2017-18 Poet in Residence at Poetry in Voice.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I had a poetry chapbook (augur) released a little over a month after my debut full-length collection. Apart from the obvious differences in format, the chapbook is made up of some work that didn't make it into my debut and new work. I've been so busy promoting Voodoo Hypothesis that I can't quite characterize what has changed in my life other than to suggest that maybe a lot more people know my name. It's too early to tell.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
That I published poetry first is one hell of a thing. I wrote my first poem in 2008. I've lived with fiction for a very long time, my whole life it seems.

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?
All of that happens.

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?
My first book came out of some great fortune and just writing poems as they came. The revision/editorial process helped me figure out its shape and obsessions. I'll let you know how the next one happens.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I don't like what, according to me, is the lime light; I'm just way more comfortable behind the scenes even though I can switch in and out of either mode with relative ease. But I understand the value of readings; I do co-host Pivot Readings after all. The bottom line is that literature's also social. So while I've done readings that have often left me more acutely editorially aware of the work I read, other times I simply regret reading certain works in public. Basically, the jury's still out. One thing seems constant: I should always decide what and how to read based on the vibe in the room.

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?
Big question. Big job. Ask me later.

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?
I'm weary of "shoulding" the world and its human inhabitants at all. Yet if I were to put forth a theory, I'd say that writing is how we test our solipsistic nature through the value of everything else. In that sense writers disrupt and reveal, reveal and disrupt and this is parallel to holding up a necessary mirror to culture. The trouble is, it is hard for us to know ourselves well enough or to trust the complexities of our judgements enough to not proselytize about what is in that mirror. So maybe the writer's relationship with society is complicated, which also means that the writer's role is what the writer decides, which is also, by proxy and essentially, complicated.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I think the truth of this moves somewhere along this continuum depending on the stage, genre and measure of the writing.

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

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 don't have a routine so to speak but I get most of my writing done between 3 am and 6 pm on the good days. Other than that I wake up and make lunches and dress little people and bid them all kinds of good as they're out the door.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I haven't yet experienced this thing folks call writer's block. The world is so full of stimulation and I am #blessed enough to have all of my major senses still functioning.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The smell of Bay leaf tea. Fresh fried fish. Mangoes. Bleach and the scent of certain "lemon fresh" dishwashing liquids.

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?
Definitely everything you've mentioned in your question and certainly more. I practice a kind of multiplicity in my writing that sees me again and again rejecting the individualist logic of modern education; we are taught to view things in specialty or in isolation because god-forbid there can be any other measure for professionalism. I find the whole jig kind of churlish and myopic. And, you know what, I may be completely presumptuous in my thinking, but I think our imaginations depend on opening ourselves up to the inner lives of various modes of knowing and interpreting the world. How these converge make for fertile ground for artistic inquiries and creation. Resonances are very interesting to me and I like to follow these in whatever form they come.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Dionne Brand. Kamau Brathwaite. Derek Walcott. Vladimir Lucien. Simone Schwarz-Bart. Patrick Chamoiseau. Aimé Césaire. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Safiya Sinclair. Cherie Dimaline. David Chariandy. Zadie Smith. James McBride. Toni Morrison. Christina Sharpe. Sina Queyras. Phoebe Wang. Dani Couture. Many others.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
A writing residency via NASA.

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've long been obsessed with the Cosmos. Likewise drama and the movies. Music, too.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I'd like to think I came out of the womb full of stories. If not that, I definitely came into a richly storied Caribbean world aided by my brilliant storytelling St. Lucian grandmother. Language is a home I know well enough; I started reading before any formal instruction, so that when I started pre-school at age 4, my teacher, the lovely Ms. Adjodha joked that I should be with the older kids. I didn't take this as a joke, mind you. She had one hell of a time talking me off that precipice because all I wanted to do (as I just about reminded her too many times daily) was to be with the older kids who always seemed to spend more time with books. To hell with all this singing (which I loved) and clapping (which I also loved) and all these brightly coloured plastic things (which I hated) and give me reading. I was other kinds of fun-enough during recess and after school, I thought. What became clearer to me in my prepubescence, though, is that through writing, I could be anything I wanted to be. I find the richness of the writing life a particular and flawed response to the notion that writing can occur in a vacuum. Writing isn't necessarily anathema to contradiction but it is how we test writing's solipsistic nature through the value of everything else.  

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great book: The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart.

Film: Get Out. Black Panther. And I simply must mention the cinematic genius of the Netflix series Black Mirror.  

19 - What are you currently working on?
A novel. Short stories. Poetry. Nonfiction. Something for the screen.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

basement: some (further) update:

Remember all that water that came into our basement, the night prior to Hallowe’en? It seems so far away now, but we still haven’t returned our finished basement to normal. We’re incredibly close: compare this picture, for example (yes, our basement is a chaos of toys, but we have small kids, what do you want?), to what the basement looked like in early December, or even early November. We’re miles from that, with new floor, new couch, bookshelves returned to the walls and drilled back into place. We’ve been rearranging, also, with a few more bookcases still to be built and put into the walls. All of our fiction remains in storage, until we can get all of that settled in.

And then, of course, the unrelated foundation work we’ve had done, or on Friday, when we had to get the carpet on the stairs replaced (given the insurance folk unnecessarily cut a hole in our carpet as they were assessing, despite the fact that no water touched the carpet attached to the stairs, forcing us to replace all of it; bah!). And the secondary handyman we had in to reattach shelving, given our regular handyman was a scheduled five weeks away around Christmas. We attempted to reattach all the shelves ourselves, but new floor is thinner than our old carpeting, which made all the already-holes in our walls at least half an inch too high to simply return.

Also: as of last week, there are now shelves in the formerly underutilized closet in our spare room, that sits underneath the stairs. We’d a hot water in there before, one we’ve now moved out for the sake of a gas heater that now lives beside the furnace in the unfinished part of our basement. The closet door has been widened, and shelves put under the stairs for the sake of comic book long boxes, with the main part shelved with above/ground press boxes. I am incredibly pleased with my above/ground press storage (which holds, possibly, a third or less of backstock), allowing us to have far more space in the rest of our downstairs. Our handyman, Keith, has yet to finish one or two items, but we are so close. Maybe in a week or two we can get our fiction library back? Completely empty the book storage that sits in our sunroom?

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Manuel Paul López

Manuel Paul López’s books and chapbook include These Days of Candy (Noemi Press, 2017), The Yearning Feed (University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), 1984 (Amsterdam Press, 2010) and Death of a Mexican and Other Poems (Bear Star Press, 2006).  He co-edited Reclaiming Our Stories:Narratives of Identity, Resilience, and Empowerment (City Works Press, 2016).  A CantoMundo fellow, his work has been published in Bilingual Review, Denver Quarterly, Hanging Loose, Huizache, Puerto del Sol, and ZYZZYVA, among others.  His work has been supported by the San Diego Foundation’s Creative Catalyst Fund.  He lives in San Diego and teaches at San Diego City College.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

The publication of my first book, Death of a Mexican and Other Poems, was a magical time.  I’m grateful to Beth Spencer and Bear Star Press for publishing my book.  Beth remains a wonderful mentor and friend.  I respect her very much.  When I received the news about the publication, I FedEx’ed her a pound of the very best Imperial Valley carne asada, an Imperial Valleyite’s gesture of lifelong gratitude. 

My dream was always to have a book on the library shelf, to help bulk up the Lopez’, you know.  It’s quite remarkable to have a childhood dream come true, and more importantly, realizing that there are wonderful people in the world who helped you do it.  I’ll never forget that; I’ll never forget them.

It’s been just over ten years since the publication of my first book, and I think my new work continues to be in conversation with those poems to some degree, but I’d like to feel that I’m also forging new directions.  I’ve read a lot more since then, spent more hours in the library, more life experience, travel, heartache, joy, more seat time at the keys, and continue to do so.  It’s an ongoing apprenticeship.  It’s quite liberating to know that I know nothing about that what obsesses me. 

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I actually came to fiction first, but when poetry began to noticeably impact me, I was in college.  It bit me hard, and I haven’t left its side since.  I learned quickly that poetry was this immense, ever-changing ecosystem that I could draw energy from. The possibilities seemed endless, as they still do today. 

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?

I’m usually working on four or five different things at one time.  I dip into each as I pace around the room.  I’ve tried to be more intentional about working on one piece until it’s finished, but my brain doesn’t work that way, and it resists at every turn.  This might be a simple euphemism for my utter distractibility or lack of discipline, but I enjoy working, I love it, and that’s what’s important to me.  There’s no race, no competition.  I must enjoy what I’m doing, otherwise, why bother? 

I almost always have a running Word Doc where I drop ideas or paste things that I find on the Internet.  Sometimes I come back to them, and sometimes I don’t.  Lots of odd lines and passages. In addition, I keep little journals on me most times, places where I scribble delightful nonsense in the most inopportune moments of the day.

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?

The poem typically begins with a single line or word for me. As a kid, I made a habit out of writing on little scraps of paper.  I had drawers and shoeboxes full of them.  Notes on tissue paper, matchbooks, corners of homework assignments, zigzag paper, shoebox lids, anything.  I never really thought about them, and I must’ve lost hundreds of these odd jottings, but for some reason, I was compelled to continue.  This is something I still do, though I try and relegate everything to my little journals. I’m sure others have a similar practice.  It’s rare for me to go back to them, but somewhere in me, I know they have existed, which means something, I guess.

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

I enjoy readings.  I’m grateful for anyone who sticks around and listens.  For someone who’s not much of a conversationalist, these are my moments to show people I can actually speak. As for the creative process, occasionally I’ll hear a sour line while reading and revise it later, especially if it’s new work.  It helps to read them aloud and in front of an audience.  Sometimes I might feel a bit unsure of a particular poem, image or line, but after reading it publicly, my thoughts toward the poem might improve.  On the other hand, I might love a particular piece, but after reading it in front of others, my feelings swing the other direction. 

Because I like to read new work, there is often an anxiety that emerges during readings.  It’s exhilarating to have something new go over well, and by that I don’t necessarily mean with the audience, of course that’s nice, but it’s really me who’s trying to quiet the inner critic.  Then there are those moments when I’m in the middle of reading something new that is completely not working, and I begin to wonder, how am I going to get myself out of this shit pile? That’s a different kind of anxiety, though one that fuels the next step of the process, which is to salvage what I can and dump the rest.

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 suppose there are questions that I’m trying to answer, but I’m not sure that I want to know what they are.  The tug that gets me to the page each day is an elusive one, and I wouldn’t want to interrogate it so much that I’d find the answer and stop.  It’s just something that I do.  “The unknown is addictive.” –Fauzi Arap

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?

I think writers should produce the most honest work that they are capable of writing at any given moment.

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

I’m honored and grateful and benefit immensely from the support and vision of an editor.  For my new book, These Days of Candy (Noemi Press), Carmen Giménez Smith and Farid Matuk were awesome.  They really helped me shape the collection.  Híjole, they are brilliant, amazing people, whose work I’ve learned from and been inspired by before ever having the unique opportunity to work with them in this capacity.  It was dreamy.  If I still lived in the Imperial Valley, they would’ve received a pound of the Valley’s best carne asada, too.  They are very special people.

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

“Don’t try, do.”—Martha Julia López.  My nana said this years before Yoda’s little ass did, and that’s a fact.

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 try to write first thing in the morning for a couple of hours and return later in the day after doing lots of stuff in between.  If not, oh well, I’ll try again the next day.

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

I look toward music and books.  If books and music surround me, I’m open, excited, and constantly learning.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

That’s easy, the smell of fresh café in the morning coupled with the music of José Alfredo Jiménez. 

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?

If I put on a joint by Miles Davis, forget about it, I’m in it all day.  Beyond music, I’m an information junky.  I’m constantly rummaging.  I must also add the energy and momentary clarity I receive when I visit the ocean. 

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

Jean-Michel Basquiat has always been an enduring literary, historical, musical, visual, and linguistic influence.  Clarice Lispector.  Nicanor Parra. And so many others!  O, please don’t make me do this!  Ha!  Lists make me nervous.  Many will be left out, and then I will need to spend the rest of my day offering penance.

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

I’d love to take a submarine ride with Steve Zissou and Seu Jorge while taking turns singing Bowie tunes.

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’d like to be a serious jazz musician, a trumpet player.  I’d also like to play shortstop for as long as I could backhand a grounder deep in the 5.5 hole and still throw out a runner, though I know that time has long passed me by.

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

It’s just something that I do, though lots of other things that I do are important to me as well.

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

Marosa di Giorgio’s I Remember Nightfall (Ugly Duckling Press). Once in a while one comes across a book that seems to narrate the interior, a voiceover of sorts. Interestingly, I recently had a dream that featured Protomartyr’s song “Night-Blooming Cereus” while a recognizable though unnameable voice recited pieces di Giorgio’s “The History of Violets”.  In the dream I ran through a field of flowers lost like a motherfucker, huffing and puffing, taking all that flowery goodness into my lungs, lavender sky, darkness approaching.  Oye, I was nervous as hell.  This dream was vivid af, beautiful and eerie all at the same time.  Mysteriously, this book did this to me. 

Last great film, hmmm, the Coltrane documentary Chasing Trane was fantastic, despite some omissions.  I enjoyed this film quite a bit.  Just what I needed in this fucked up political moment.  I must also add, Chavela, the new documentary about the late, great Chavela Vargas.  I wept on several occasions.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a number of short verse plays.  I haven’t stopped to think if they’re any good yet, but I enjoy making them.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;