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 first chapbook, Forever Convinced with
In/Words Magazine and Press (which I joined during my time at Carleton
University), was huge for me. However, in the decade or so since leaving school
I found that I was extremely lucky, in the sense that I was coming up at
Carleton in a scene of great young poets and fiction writers who pushed each
other to be better. We procured grants that allowed us to publish whenever and
whatever we wanted, so by the end of my time at Carleton I had 14 chapbooks to
my name… which apparently is nuts, but this kind of output seemed normal to us
at the time. I feel bad for all of those poets who had to do everything by
themselves in their 20’s and 30’s. Poets are notoriously awful and unhelpful
mentors. My most recent work, and first trade book, EJECTA: The Uncollected
KEYBOARDS! Poems (the inimitable, Apt. 9 Press) attempts to demystify some
of the poetic process, while foregrounding the importance of immersing yourself
in a community of supportive writers and audiences. Since leaving university I have
been trying, in my small way, to give emerging writers as much wisdom and
support as I can, to give them the help or guidance that I would have wanted,
or what I needed but didn’t know I needed. So, yes, in comparing my new work to
my previous work one can see (hopefully) that writing is just as much about the
community or scene you’re in as much as it is about the act of writing itself. If
you want clarification on that, buy my book, or buy me a drink sometime, and
we’ll talk. I can always go on… And I’m pretty sure I didn’t really answer your
questions directly, but… buckle up, because the rest of these answers will also
meander, as is my way.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed
to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I didn’t… does any poet really come to poetry
first? Yes, maybe you had some Shel Silverstein read to you, or nursery rhymes,
when you were a kid, but, it’s the narrative aspect that catches us when we’re
younger (heroes and villains, conflict and resolution), simply because nuance
is beyond us young writers until we’re much older, even then…
Also, I was raised on TV, and there’s no poetry on
TV.
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 am certainly not a careerist writer, so my
writing (mercifully) doesn’t have to take any shape. This is one of the myriad
advantages of working in small press, for instance: I can take my time, or
convince myself to crank it out, either way, it’s on my time, so I’ll do what I
want, for good or ill. My process tends to be slow when I am putting together a
manuscript, but then I also have a rich history of participating in
live-writing experiments (did I mention I have a new book?) which prompts a
certain speed and efficiency in process and production.
And no, I certainly do not take copious notes.
Ever. I try to stay close to the idea while writing out a first draft, and too
many notes, I think, can bury the spark. I always try to write the finished
poem the first time, and then assess from there. Work it out in the edits, not
the notes.
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?
A poem will usually begin for me with a line or
phrase which usually comes from something I have observed. Sometimes I am
dealing with a bigger idea, so I wonder how I can make inroads into that idea
without having to circumambulate the thing a million times before I can enter
into it without knowing what I’m going to do when I get there. I recommend cracking
the thing open just a little, and crawling in; it’s easier to formulate an
inevitable exit from the inside a thing. Same with conceiving of a book: write some,
and assess. A book is not a jigsaw puzzle, and it’s never finished (even after
it’s published), so don’t bother trying to nail it to the wall… a lesson I am
still learning myself. This is why we have less books that are comprised of
very solid ‘occasionals’, or one-off poems; a feat which I miss terribly. Where
do those poems that ‘don’t fit’ end up? Publishers and granting bodies have
made us operate this way, and it’s to our detriment. If the ideas you’re
dealing with in your work are big enough, the theme will present itself, but if
the theme is just ‘pursuing meaning’ without conceit, then you’ve really done
something quite rare and special, I think.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your
creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Yes, I am actually most in my element at a live
event. I enjoy forcing myself to be “on”. I like to mix it up with the other
poets and the audience, and I like trying out material that is meant for a live
audience. I would love for more poets to consider how their poems will land in
a reading setting as opposed to how they might land in a manuscript. If you
haven’t given much consideration to that dynamic, you are likely not the kind
of reader I want to see. Rob Winger and Ben Ladouceur taught me a lot about
reading in public, more so in terms of their cadence, but I put in a lot of
work thinking about how I could use live readings to hone my own skill as a
reader, and my craft as a writer of poems that work best when they’re performed.
I would relate some more of that thinking here, but it won’t help anyone else much,
as you have to find all that out for yourself, by attending readings, paying
more attention to your own beats, and by interrogating the style of the readers
you admire. No one else should be telling you how to read your work, but it is
so crucial for you to find out; if you aren’t putting the work in to your
performance, don’t expect audiences to put work into supporting your
performances.
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?
High-science is usually present in my work, and the
idea of a future that will never come (I mean, why are there still so many
goddamn cords?/”Where the fuck’s my hoverboard?”). I like to chase the big
ideas, even tho I tend to not understand a lick of what they actually mean. You
know, quantum mechanics, time travel, microbiology, nanotechnology, whatever… I
used to be addicted to TED Talks, as nothing puts me more at ease than
listening to someone tell me, with great authority, something very specific and
seemingly vital to our understanding of the world or universe: aren’t poets supposed
to be doing the same thing, just without the math? That’s how I try to write,
at least. I’m not trying to definitively answer any questions anymore, that’s a
young person’s game. I’m more of a Lynchian/Keatsian; to truly know something
is to truly kill something.
The current questions are vast, and scary, and
exciting. I recently published a chapbook of poems that I had been working on
for the past couple of years to get it off my plate so that I can begin to
interrogate myself more about what those ‘questions’ are, because I think the
world is prompting writers, especially straight white male writers like myself,
to write differently, to do less observational work and more interrogative
work. That means holding space for other voices and perspectives, but also
doing some very difficult thinking and writing that might not be comfortable, but
that is entirely necessary to educate the next generation of poets on how to
critically engage with the world through their poetics. I am curious to see if
this kind of work will be left to the vanguard of BIPOC and queer voices in
poetry, or whether folks like myself can get past their own bullshit and
actually engage with the new world in a valuable and respectful way. I think
many will try, but who will have enough courage to fail (a lot) publicly in
this regard, in order to move the needle forward?
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?
The role of the writer is to elucidate meaning.
Yes, a short answer, but I mean, if I want to read nonsense I’ll pick up a
Toronto Sun. The best poets are quite adept critical thinkers, and I look to
them to continue to show me novel ways of seeing and interpreting the world,
the universe, the street, the squirrel, the chewing gum, etc. The role of the
writer is to un-obfuscate. Complication has somehow gotten this reputation in modern
poetry of standing in for complexity… one of the worst things we continue to
teach young writers.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an
outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Difficult, tedious, but entirely necessary. I send
my work to friends, and I am part of a small writing group here in Peterborough.
That’s enough, tho, I think. I’m not sure I agree with poetry editing services,
because I think these kinds of services preclude slugging it out
(constructively) in a community of writers, which then limits your perspective.
I have heard tell of editors who flex a little too much on a writers’ work,
maybe because they feel they have to find something to say, like that
kid in class who needs the participation grade but didn’t read the book.
Outside voices are key, but authoritative voices seeking only to make your work
more like their own are to be avoided at all costs. This is one of the reasons
why small press holds more space for writers than the bigger publishing houses.
Unfortunately, small presses have long been used by regional and national
poetry scenes as a kind of farm system for larger publishing houses, like in
professional hockey: you have to prove your ability in books below the 48 page
limit of chapbooks in order to reach a renown that will then act as your draft
rating, as it were, forecasting, then, when you will be tapped for a trade book.
If your chapbook wins some small award, or gets reviewed favorably by a larger
print entity, then you can maybe leverage that acclaim into a trade book. It traditionally
goes: zine/literary journal publishing credits, then chapbook publication, then
trade book… and there are very few writers who end up with a 100 pager who do
not do it this way. Find a publisher who will work with you, who believes more
in your work than in their press’ ability to market that work. And if you’re
worried about the money, I believe you belong more on Monster.com or whatever
than you do reading this interview.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard
(not necessarily given to you directly)?
“Nobody gives a shit”. Sounds bad, but really it
just means that you can ditch all the anxiety regarding how your work is
received, how often you publish, etc. No one else is keeping score. No one is
waiting on tenterhooks for your next opus. Give yourself the space and patience
to make your work as exact as you need it to be FOR YOU. That’s it. You should
really like your own work.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between
genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
It has not been easy, which is why I haven’t really
done it. One could say I have become less of a poet over the last five years
and more of a performance artist, as I’ve been doing live-writing projects, art
installations, and audio-visual/digital work, but these forays are always, at
least, poetry-adjacent; I always come back to poetry. However, I do believe
that writing-adjacent work is very important. I think when poets are ONLY
writing poetry, or one kind of poetry, it shows. Their work becomes mechanical,
and so does their output.
P.S. Always assess the scene you want to enter, and
ask yourself if you can add something to it, otherwise you’re just forcing all
your friends to buy or attend your latest thing just to be seen or heard doing
it / just to get credit for having done something. You know what’s uncool? Not
believing in your own work but expecting others to believe. So, to answer your
question, the appeal of moving into another art form can be that that distance you’re
your art form of choice might teach you more about that form. If you don’t see
yourself as being a part of a larger whole, then don’t expect, well, anything. The
Rilkes and Thoreaus are long gone, thank god. Even the mavericks need an
audience to eschew the idea of an audience…
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 routine used to be to drink all the beer and see
what poems emerge. That was a dumb routine that unfortunately lasted the better
part of a decade, which is now finally, mercifully, ending. I tend to write
either at my local watering holes, or after my partner goes to bed. A typical
day begins with me checking in with my anxiety, breathing until it’s once again
manageable, then having too much coffee while looking out the window, or
editing last night’s vomit. Not a bad writing life, I suppose. I guess this is
where I should tell emerging writers that half of writing is not writing at
all. Write a lot, but think about writing in equal measure.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you
turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Usually other poetry, or I read about very big
ideas that I don’t fully understand… lately I’ve been reading plays. I’m still
not sure what I am getting out of reading plays all of a sudden, but I can feel
it changing my poetics. I’m not worried about my lack of certainty regarding what
to do with all of this new reading. Again, as I said earlier about ‘not
everything has to be a part of a book’… well, not everything you read or watch
or listen to has to affect your writing. To give a few specifics, tho, I think Twin Peaks: The Return from 2017 is possibly the greatest season of
television ever, and I’ve watched it three times in the last year or so just to
fuck my brain out of complacency, but I am not suddenly writing poems about
electricity. I keep returning to Matthew Rohrer’s work, especially ‘Surrounded
By Friends’ and his new book called The Sky Contains The Plans. I like to
listen to St. Vincent and Nina Simone. And if you know me you know how much I
love to talk shop, ie: discuss poetics. I can rely on my writing partner Jeff
Blackman to tell me when I’ve reached that bridge that should have been a
bridge too far, then reassess. Again, talking about writing can be just as
helpful to your writing as writing itself.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The Quaker Oats factory/landmark here in
Peterborough lends a sweet and unmistakeable smell to most of the downtown, tho
the factory is now more of a sad reminder of a time when the city used to have
a middle-class… There are few factories left in Peterborough, which used to be
a factory town. Quaker won’t stay here forever either...
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?
Of the four options listed here, science influences
my art the most. I love working to make high-falutin ideas accessible (which,
was the focus of my latest chapbook, which you can find for free at
showandtellpoetry.wordpress.com). I think time and innovation and tech is
speeding by us without a word, and more importantly, without consent. I get
daily updates from a site called Futurism, and you wouldn’t believe how many
moonshots are shot or fully realized daily. It’s wild, and terrifying. Science
is figuring out dark matter, growing roasts from microscopic proteins, re-growing
limbs in mice, making covert plans to block out the sun, running a fibreoptic
cable to the moon, etc etc etc. They cloned Dolly the sheep, like 30 years ago
or something… you think they threw all that tech out? One day we’re all gonna
wake up pixelated.
15 - What other writers or writings are important
for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
American poets Matthew Rohrer and Matthew Zapruder
are currently very important to my work. If you aren’t aware of them, you may
want to be. Zapruder’s ‘Why Poetry’ is now required reading, and should be on
every first-year university English survey class syllabus. Every few months I
go back to Phyllis Webb’s ‘Naked Poems’, because of how much she was able to do
in so few words; truly one of our country’s best poetic offerings. I happen to
be one of the lucky few with a first edition copy of said book, from Periwinkle Press, that is in fairly pristine condition… jealous?
I’m currently enjoying reading plays, as I said, which
was always a blind spot for me. Harold Pinter, and those playwrights using
tension to drive the action are really doing it for me right now, tho I have
maybe only read 20 plays in my life, 10 or so in the last couple weeks, so I am
certainly no expert. I also get to read a lot of work by friends who are
amazing poets, like Cameron Anstee, Jeff Blackman, and Elisha Rubacha, to name
just a small few, as they are the poets with which I keep most in contact. As I
said earlier, I am also part of a small writing group comprised of Peterborough
locals Victoria Mohr-Blakeney, Scott Cecchin, and Carlin Gorecki; we are all in
different stages of our writing lives which keeps the discussion, the work, and
the recommendations fresh.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet
done?
Skydiving: because I’ve always wanted to piss
myself in midair... But seriously, skydiving.
I have also never eaten a sardine.
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 have wanted to be a musician, for sure.
Piano player. A sooty gin joint’s piano player, akin to Val Kilmer’s legendary
portrayal of Doc Holliday in the movie Tombstone, when he’s moodily and very
drunkenly playing Chopin for a room of oafs… Or I’d be a cruise ship crooner.
Seriously. If you know me, I think you’d be able to imagine it quite easily…
Also, because of my English degree, I am an
accomplished dishwasher. Most poets have a similar safety net.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing
something else?
Predilection, I guess. I always liked writing, and
I was always (maybe only) creative. When I was younger, the only
compliments I would get from teachers during report card or parent-teacher
interview season revolved around my creativity and storytelling. Nothing else.
Ever. Maybe I knew at a young age that I had better do something in my
wheelhouse? And yes, I know all the Bukowski quotes about burning passion or
whatever… I think when you’ve been doing it for a couple of decades like I
have, the romantic reputation of poetry seems a little ridiculous. For a
discipline regarded widely as being so charged with romance and insight, no one
seems to care much about poets outside of poetry; everyone seems to think
poetry is important but no one is reading it. Strange thing, it’s like no one
wants to admit that they don’t care about poetry, but very few folks also want
to be known as being someone who can’t understand or appreciate the value of
poetry. Again, this is likely the fault of the poets, because, as I said, we have
long been writing only for other poets.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What
was the last great film?
Oleannaby David Mamet. The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers, and (the film version
of the play) Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh.
20 - What are you currently working on?
Uncertain,
beyond what I’ve already said about clearing my plate to get at some more
timely work… What a time to be writing… I will likely be developing my new work
through a local lens, in Peterborough, the bellwether city, as our fair city
has no identity at all at the moment, and I’d like to do my small part in helping
it find one. Hosting the biggest Mark’s Work Warehouse in the country doesn’t
count as an identity, and the Petes haven’t won a Memorial Cup since 1979, so hockey
can no longer be our main export (tho Peterborough is rewarding this dubious
performance record with a brand new rink, because rinks get votes around here).
I’m
also continuing to work, with great difficulty, on myself: “Normalize changing
your perspective when presented with new information.” If only there had been
better memes 10 years ago… I wouldn’t be stuck holding so much guilt.
And
selling copies of my new book EJECTA: The Uncollected KEYBOARDS! Poems
from Apt. 9 Press!
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