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Courtney Bates-Hardy is the author of Anatomical Venus (Radiant Press, 2024), House of Mystery (ChiZine Publications, 2016), and a chapbook, Sea Foam (JackPine Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in Event, Vallum, Room, PRISM, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal, among others. She has been included in The Best Canadian Poetry 2021 and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is queer and disabled, and one third of a writing group called The Pain Poets.
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, House of Mystery, was proof that I could do it, I could write a book and get it published, and people would even read it. My second book, Anatomical Venus, was different from the first because I really wanted to take my time with it and be picky about the poems I included in it. House of Mystery was very inspired by fairy tales and the ways I could mix them with stories from my childhood and young adult years. Anatomical Venus became much more concerned with the chronic pain I was experiencing after being in several car accidents and I started to write about disability and pain through the lens of movie monsters and anatomical art.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I can’t recall if I wrote a poem or a short story first when I was young, but I kept going with poetry in a way I didn’t really with fiction or non-fiction. It’s much more difficult to find sustained amounts of time for fiction and non-fiction, so I’ve stuck with poetry. I love poetry and what I can do with it that I can’t do with fiction or non-fiction, and my brain tends to think in poetry-sized chunks, so it works out pretty well.
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?
It really depends on the poem. Some poems come quickly and appear looking close to their final form, some need more notes before I even start writing and go through multiple drafts, and other poems change completely from conception to final draft and might not even look like the same poem.
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?
Typically, I have an overarching idea for a book in mind but it might shift and change as I start writing the individual poems and do more reading and see what comes up.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
They should be more a part of my creative process. I try to read my poems out loud while I’m editing to get a sense of them but reading them for an audience gives more information about how the poems are landing—what lines are working, what parts are funny, which poems resonate. But there are always some poems that I’ll never feel comfortable reading at a public event, if I feel they’re too personal or too emotional to read though. I enjoy doing readings, although I do get nervous. I’m always happy to hear from the audience about what resonated for them, even if it’s just in the “hmms” and “aahs”.
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?
In Anatomical Venus, I wanted to answer the question about disability posed by Amanda Leduc that I included as the epigraph to the book: “What sort of happy ending can be found in constant struggle?” The final poems in the book are my response to that question.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I write because I enjoy it and because I like to create meaning and art out of my life and my interests. If other people read my work and feel that I have captured something that they have felt or experienced, that makes me happy. If they read my work and it shows them something they haven’t felt or experienced before, that also makes me happy. I’ll leave the question of the Role of the Writer in Modern Society to the philosophers and greater writers than I.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I find it essential. I need an outside eye to tell me what they see in the work and what they don’t. Sometimes I need that extra little push to put something on the page that I’ve been dancing around in a poem. I worked with Jennifer LoveGrove on Anatomical Venus, and her feedback was immensely helpful.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
My supervisor for my Master’s thesis was Kathleen Wall, and she told me that if I ran into a problem or a block in my writing, to put it in my back pocket (figuratively speaking) and let my subconscious work on it for a while before returning. It’s served me well.
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 regular writing routine. Work takes up a lot of my time and energy, which is why it took eight years to finish and publish my most recent collection. I write when I can, when inspiration hits, when I go to writers’ retreats, and whenever I can type something into my notes app.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
My reading. I’m always reading something, so I’ll turn to other books for inspiration or to learn more about something I would like to write about.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The smell of my girlfriend’s hair, my cat’s fur, and good food cooking on the stove.
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?
Absolutely, you name it: visual art, film, tv, nature, science, music, ballet, on and on. Some of the inspiration for poems in Anatomical Venus came from the tv shows Penny Dreadful and Hannibal; monsters from Godzilla, Hellboy II, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Blob; and anatomical art by Ercole Lelli, Eleanor Crook, Jaques Fabien Gautier d’Agoty.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Oh my goodness, so many. Amber Dawn for her queer poems, Amanda Leduc for her writing about disability and fairy tales, Joanna Ebenstein for writing about the history of the anatomical Venus in the first place, Sandra Ridley, Katherine Lawrence, and Jennifer LoveGrove for helping to shape the collection at different stages in the process. I’m also endlessly grateful to my writing group, The Pain Poets.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’d like to go on a writing retreat at Banff, I’d like to be guest editor for a literary magazine, and I’d like to publish some of my non-fiction someday.
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?
Considering my full-time job is in marketing and communications, I don’t know that I would be doing anything else except writing. I thought about other things: teaching, publishing, library sciences, but they all circled around writing or reading in some way. If I could write full-time for myself, that would be a dream come true but that will have to wait until I can maybe, someday, hopefully retire.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I loved any kind of art growing up, but writing drew me in because I felt like I was better at it than things like drawing or painting. I had a poem published in the school newsletter in grade one, and that was it, I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I recently read Jes Battis’ forthcoming collection of poetry, I Hate Parties, and I’m very excited to read at their launch in September. It’s a beautiful collection, so tender and meaningful, all about growing up queer and autistic. I also loved Joelle Barron’s new collection, Excerpts from a Burned Letter (historical lesbians!), Emily Austin’s Gay Girl Prayers (queered Biblical poems!), and Kayla Czaga’s Midway (stunning poems about complicated grief).
I just watched Alien: Romulus in theatres, and I loved it. I’m a big fan of the Alien movies, so I was pleased to see a new Alien movie that was so much fun to watch and paid tribute to the previous installments. Monkey Man with Dev Patel was another great one I watched recently that was a total surprise.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m working on my next collection of poetry, which doesn’t have a working title yet. So far, it’s about my experience of coming out as queer and polyamorous and reckoning with the religious trauma of my past while also celebrating the joy and care of having two loving partners. I’m doing a lot of reading on queer and lesbian figures from the past that I think will come into the collection in ways that remain to be seen. It’s a fun stage to be at and one of my favourite parts of the creative process.
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