12 or 20 (second series) questions with Manahil Bandukwala

Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist originally from Pakistan and now settled in Canada. She works as Coordinating Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine, and is Digital Content Editor for Canthius. She is a member of Ottawa-based collaborative writing group VII. Her debut poetry collection is MONUMENT (Brick Books).

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 book, MONUMENT, is a collection of historical speculative poetry. It’s the first space I’ve actively started to think about my writing as speculative as a whole.

It’s a little too early to know how it “changed my life,” but I don’t doubt that it will be life changing. Publishing MONUMENT feels like the culmination of years of writing poetry, learning from other poets in my community, and coming into my own style.

2 - 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?

Since, MONUMENT, the concept of working on a “book” from the beginning has come up more and more. Individual poems always seem to be part of a larger “voice” or collection. Now, I’m trying to scale back and enjoy working on individual poems without any expectation of them ending up as some part of bigger project.

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

I have a lot of stage fright so public readings are incredibly scary. But at the same time, they’re so helpful in improving craft, working on musicality in poetry that’s difficult to see on the page, and in making my work reach audiences in the way I intend. They’re an obstacle, but one that is worthwhile to overcome.

4 - 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 do we survive in the current state of the world?

This was the first thing that came to my mind and I turn it over every day. I recently attended a talk between Matthew James Weigel and Omar Musa at the Toronto International Festival of Authors, where the moderator, Jennifer Alicia Murrin, asked about poetry’s place in politics. The conversation that emerged from that question speaks to the theoretical concerns of my own writing. Omar talked about how we end up either overstating or understating the power of poetry. But it does have a certain power.

Is poetry more powerful than other art forms? No, but it is the medium that we (to use the royal we here) have chosen to engage with the “big questions” that each of us carries.

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

Definitely essential. MONUMENT is the book it is thanks to my editor, Cecily Nicholson. Having feedback from an outside editor was instrumental in figuring out how to blend fact with poetry and how to find which parts were confusing. I 

6 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to collaboration to critical prose to visual art)? What do you see as the appeal?

Easy enough, because when one medium seems to dry up in inspiration, there’s something creative lying in another. Collaboration is the easiest to shift into, because suddenly the pressure to create something is lifted and it instead becomes about having fun with friends.  

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

Lately I’ve been learning not to panic when my writing gets stalled, and to trust that I will have things to write about. I tend to put the pen down and go wherever creativity wants me to go. Lately, that’s been felting tiny llamas from sheep wool and making raccoon linocuts.

8 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Baking bread.

9 - 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?

All of the above. Lately I’ve been writing a number of poems in response to Star Trek. This is a response to how the series predicted our future to look like versus how it’s currently going, which too often feels rather bleak.

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

This list is so long but the answer I always come back to is that my writer friends always inspire me. My partner Liam Burke, my friends in VII (Ellen Chang-Richardson, Chris Johnson, nina janedrystek, Helen Robertson, Margo LaPierre, and Conyer Clayton). natalie hanna, who is an inspiration to so many of us.

11 - 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?

Art museum or gallery curator.

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

Not to be cheesy with this answer, but Ottawa and the poetry community. I started seriously writing poetry because of the writers in Ottawa and at Carleton, and kept going because there was always something to keep going for.

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

Everything Everywhere All At Once. I cannot stress enough how life-changing this film is, and am grateful I got to experience it.

14 - What are you currently working on?

A collection of science fiction love-ish poems.

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