Sarah Ens is a writer and editor whose poetry has
appeared in a number of literary journals including Prairie Fire, Arc
Poetry Magazine, Poetry Is Dead, and SAD Mag. In 2019, she
won The New Quarterly's Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and placed
2nd in Contemporary Verse 2's 2-Day Poem Contest. She also won 1st place
in Room Magazine's 2018 Short Forms Contest. Sarah is a current MFA in
Writing candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. The World Is Mostly Sky
(Turnstone Press) is her first book.
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,
The World Is Mostly Sky, just-just came out on April 15, 2020, so it’s a
little bit hard to say exactly what its impact will be on my life going
forward. I do know that all the steps up to this publication have been tremendously
affirming and that I’m better able to bat way my imposter syndrome with this book
in my hands. This publication experience has also introduced me to different
corners of the literary world, to so many different writers and readers, and
I’m incredibly grateful for that.
I wrote the
poems in The World Is Mostly Sky over a six-year span, 2013ish to 2019,
and the book pulls from memories earlier than that. I feel like I had to write
out all those “becoming/coming-of-age” poems first and foremost because those
experiences and fixations were just immovably pervasive in all my writing.
Looking ahead, I’m noticing that I’m becoming more and more interested in
longer poems, or in poems that require a longer look and a broader space, rather
than brief flashes into particular moments.
2 - How did
you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I think I came
to poetry through music—the hymns my family sang in church, but also the CDs my
dad always had playing at home: Stan Rogers, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen. I
always loved stories and novels as well, but I distinctly remember listening to
“Case of You” over and over when I was a kid and realizing, oh, the impossible
is actually possible! I felt there was a magic in those lyrics impossible to
achieve in any other form. After that, I started writing poetry in my journal
every day and trying my best to conjure that magic.
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?
My first-draft
writing—particularly my poetry—tends to come quickly. Certain lines or images
grab me, and I just try to follow them. However, the editing process can take
time. Some of the poems in The World Is Mostly Sky, for example, needed
all six years of revision in order to land where they wanted to be.
I love CV2’s
2-Day poem contest for this reason. It forces me to move through a draft
quickly, to push myself to have an idea of what a poem wants to be sooner than
I would without that time constraint.
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?
Usually, I
collect short pieces as I go and it’s only much later, after a long time of
gathering, that I’m able to see how they work as a cohesive project. However,
I’ve always been drawn to the long-poem form and am feeling more and more
compelled to write pieces that don’t seem as discrete, that tie together into
something larger right from the beginning of their writing.
5 - Are
public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort
of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Public
readings make me nervous, but I also love to share work and feel an immediate
response from an audience. It can be almost like workshopping, if you’re
reading something new—you get a sense of what is working, what is immediately
resonant.
I do think
it’s a special thing to give breath and voice to a poem. I love attending the
readings of other poets for this reason!
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?
How can I
articulate my experiences of eco-grief and trauma, and articulate them in
truthful, ethical, meaningful ways? What does healing look like in a poem? Is
it possible for a poem to manifest healing? What does home look like in a poem?
Is it possible for a poem to manifest home? Will I always be so full of
longing? How can I live in a way that is truthful, ethical, and meaningful?
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 believe
writing to be about connection—about articulating an idea or an experience in a
way that means something to someone else. I also think that writers have an
opportunity to use their craft to call down systems of harm and to call up
communities of care. I think the role of a writer should be to point at things
and say, “There, look there.”
8 - Do you
find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or
both)?
Essential! I
love working with editors. The revision process is often, of course, difficult,
because the goal of creating a good poem regularly strikes me as
insurmountable. But though the revision can be difficult, I am always so
grateful for the expertise, guidance, and clarity editors can bestow. I think
an editor is often the best reader you’ll have!
9 - What is
the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Tim Lilburn
said to “write to the level of your best line,” which is something I continue
to fail at but now always strive for. At Sage Hill, Sandra Ridley told me to
“consider what a poem does to you rather than what a poem says” and also: “if
you have filler, the purposeful stuff doesn’t jump out.”
10 - How
easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to creative non-fiction
to collaboration)? What do you see as the appeal?
I think there
is a lot of blend for me between the lyric essay and the prose poem. Sometimes
I write poetry to work my way into an essay and sometimes an essay spills out
into poems. I tend to be confessional and write lyrically regardless of the
genre. And I love to collaborate with other writers/artists/musicians. I love
how collaborative projects introduce me to new considerations, new forms and
media, new topics, and I love how my own work becomes more fluid when I’m
creating alongside other people.
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’m terrible
at routines. I am constantly trying to do good, healthy things on a regular
basis and I always end up doing them erratically. But, because I’m a full-time
student and a freelance editor and writer, I do need to get things done by
their deadlines. A typical day begins with feeding my cat. Then coffee and a
snack and emails/admin. If I need to edit, I then sit myself somewhere with few
distractions and lots of provisions and plug away. If I need to write, and the
words are stagnating, I go for a walk or read poems I love or clean my
apartment furiously until I start to get excited to go back to the page. I’m a
night owl, so I can usually count on my most productive energy kicking in
around 8pm. I can also be really single-minded, so once I’m “in the zone” I’ll
usually stay there for several hours without a break. This means a typical day
often ends with me working from 8pm-2am while my cat dozes nearby.
12 - When
your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a
better word) inspiration?
Walking by a
river really helps when I’m stuck, but because I live in the prairies and hate
being cold, months go by during which walking outside isn’t really an option.
But reading! I can read in any season, any weather. And I can always count on
the words of others to spark ideas or images or memories.
13 - What
fragrance reminds you of home?
My idea of
home has been scrambled for much of my adult life—I’ve moved thirteen times and
between three provinces over the past ten years—so when I think of home, I still
think of my childhood bungalow in Landmark, Manitoba.
The smell of
baking reminds me of that home. Growing up, my mom made cookies at least once a
week. Also: feedmills and cow barns, because those are the smells of a small
farming town!
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?
The ecology of
the place I’m in absolutely affects my writing, both in terms of content and
style. And music continues to teach me how to write poems. I’ve already mentioned
Joni and Stan and Leonard, but also: John K Samson, Sarah Harmer, Neil Young,
Kate Bush, Fiona Apple—so many teachers.
15 - What
other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life
outside of your work?
Some writers
who have been critical to my life include: Alice Munro, Miriam Toews, Thomas King, Maggie Nelson, Robert Kroetsch, Sylvia Plath, Di Brandt, Anne Carson, LM Montgomery, and Richard Adams.
16 - What
would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I would like
to get better at birding. The thing I’d like to do is walk into a field and
have someone say, “Wow, look at that bird! What is it, I wonder?” and for me to
confidently say, “Well, it’s a bobolink!”
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 guess what
I’d really like to do is become the manager for my Instagram-influencer cat.
18 - What
made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I don’t know
if this sounds cheesy, but I needed to write, always. I can’t imagine not writing.
The cool thing
about writing is that no matter what else I’m doing—if I’m a barista or working
at Sport Chek or teaching or whatever—I can always also be a writer. I feel incredibly
lucky about that.
19 - What
was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great
book I read was Heavenly Questions by Gjertrud Schnackenberg. An
incredible work of elegy. It made me realize all kinds of things in writing,
and in grief, are possible.
And the last
great film I watched was Little Women—the new one, directed by Greta
Gerwig. I saw this movie twice in theatres (remember when we could go to
theatres) and I wept throughout the whole thing both times. I suppose, because Little
Women is about a woman fulfilling her dream of publishing a book, the
timing seemed extra resonant.
20 - What
are you currently working on?
I am currently
working on Flyway, a long poem about home, migration, and ecological and
human trauma. It’s my master’s thesis project and draws on my Oma’s refugee
experience during WWII and her immigration to Manitoba while also grappling
with our current climate crisis.
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