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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