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?
I'm trying to even think of what I would consider "the first" - and I honestly can't even place it. I simply see what I do as a lineage of artistic output. In terms of the literary, this was a big year for me, publishing two major works with two incredible presses: Game Genie Poems with The Blasted Tree and Inherent with Assembly Press. To be perfectly honest, the difference in feeling comes from the external, that these projects found such loving and caring homes, that there's been such an overwhelming response to them from their readership. For one so used to indifference (and that sentiment is a universal for the creative, I know, but, boy, it always feels like you're the only one) it's really gratifying to have these books doing what they're doing.
2 - How did you come to visual poetry first, as opposed to, say, more traditional narrative forms?
I came to visual/concrete after endeavours into more traditional, prose writing. But after a long hiatus of leaving that type of writing aside (my creative endeavours largely focused on bands and music, community projects, installation art) - but coming through the pandemic, it gave me the time to work on longer-form projects. So out of it came a novel, a music album of Kraut inspired work, and a swath of concrete poems (typewritten and letraset work). I've spoken of this at length, but I don't see myself as a writer per se, I am a multidisciplinary artist, and that artistic endeavour can move into any realm it so wishes, which can develop into novels, poetics, concrete poetics, art curation, wrestling trivia, various genres of music, and so on. It can manifest in any number of things, but this variance of interest forms the variance output.
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'm a many projects, many bands, many books on the go at any time kind of person. In a way, I do my best to simply plug away at projects, not thinking about the end, until at some point, that end arises. Thinking about something taking too long, thinking about what it needs to look like, those factors are already a stress on what should ultimately be a joy: creation! The question seems to be dancing around the unspoken notion of "perfection" - and that word I find a debilitation.
In the case of the concrete work in INHERENT, the sheer nature of the process (letraset on paper) doesn't allow for "editing" in a major sense. The letters, once on the paper, are there and cannot be changed once down - or perhaps the editing occurs during the process of the writing itself, the slow and conscious choices that happen when composing. Especially for my concrete work, some come from notes, an inspirational mode where I need to get the idea down, but other times it flows out, letting the letters, or keystrokes, decide for themselves how they move. Once done, the editorial process consists of what to include and what to leave out, which pieces are strong enough to want to show and include. I would not say I'm a strong editor. I always attempt to present work as best as possible, but there comes a point where an edit washes away the interesting rough edges, the places where the life of a work lives. Vigour and excitement always trump professional slickness, for me. The goal is never perfection, the goal is documentation.
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?
I tend to view things as "project" designations. So rarely would I think in larger "book" sized confines. Those might be too daunting, the scale of those might be too vast to see them doable. Within INHERENT, each "chapter title" was its own project in itself. And many of those were published on their own as their own chapbooks ("Agalma" from above/ground, "Peaceful" came out from The Blasted Tree, "Significant" from No Press). Each section was bourne for a single sheet of letraset, and so was only initially thinking about the confines as to how to use that sheet, that was the project. Only after completing a number of those was I even thinking of a "book" as a whole. Working in smaller project modes, and assembling into a larger later, was helpful. Even writing a novel, or working on an album, I would suggest mere looking at the one smaller piece as the project - let's complete this song, let's complete this story arc - and then do that a number of times, to eventually there's enough to assemble into a larger whole. I think that thinking of projects in "book" terms can be debilitating, whereas seeing it as a collection of individual pieces is a more helpful creative mode.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
In this case, releasing INHERENT, I was really confronted with how to "read" it publicly. A book of concrete poems, which purposefully eschew semantic meaning all together. This idea led to the chapbook "Extrins"which I released alongside INHERENT, in which I asked a number of poem friends (concrete and otherwise) the question as to how to read the book. Their responses were inspirational and lovely and curious (but ultimately didn't help me getting closer to "reading" them in public). For the release then, I did a sort of Q&A type events, intended more as a (not dissimilar to the Explication in the back of the book itself) invitational explanation of the work in INHERENT, offering some insights into where it came from, how to engage concrete poetics, and where it came from. In general, I wouldn't consider a reading at all when creating the work itself (so no, not part of the initial creative process at all - I would potentially go so far as to say that if you're thinking about an end audience in general, that would potentially stunt the artfulness of the work in a major way), but how to engage the work publicly becomes a NEW creative endeavor.
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'm still stewing on this one, frankly. In some ways, Inherent was attempting to be free from exerting my own control and ideas into it. Can these poems have their own voice, not an authorial one? But I wonder how possible that is. A good question that: what are the current questions? Maybe that's a theoretic concern in itself - we've said all humans can say, perhaps there's a message from the structure of typefaces and synergy that can give an insight? My newer series I'm working on I'm leaning more into titles, each being more of a piece of wishful thinking, a hope, for what these poems could embody. Putting a little more of myself, giving a little less distance. I wonder if that changes the nature of what these poems do? (I'll answer your questions with even more questions...)
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'll stretch this to an artistic thinker in general - writer, musician, visual artist, game designer, pro wrestler, etc... The role I see is that for the artist to fight the mundanity and ubiquity of our society as a whole. And this need not be an overt political, need not be a gigantic pipe bomb of an act - they can be tiny little pieces to chip at the darkness. The creative act is a defiant act in itself, an exertion of individual ebullition. And there's a kinship in that. Even those making bad art, at the very least we have that, I'll be on board with anyone chipping away at that poison control of ubiquity.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Difficult, certainly. So much of the work I do, either being constraint based, or very process-based - essentially both being uneditable - the poems simply become what they are. There are no better synonyms, only one word can fit the confines, or once a typewriter keystroke is made, or letraset put to paper, there is no going back. The only real edit sometimes is to cut the whole poem or not. Through my process, though, I tend to self edit. Make more than you need and keep the cream. Make 10 , keep the best 7 or 8. That usually allows me to end up presenting the best of the bunch.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
The best piece of advice comes from (one of) the best songs of all time, "Academy Fight Song" by Mission of Burma, the penultimate line of the song being "I'm not judging you, I'm judging me" - to me, this has meant to that the outside world is always going to have something to say, a culture of poison is going to constantly be in your ear, telling you you're not good enough, holding you to some unattainable benchmark, a comparison to another's success. Whereas, you just simply put it on yourself, the little bit you can control, holding yourself to your own standard, holding yourself accountable to your own fabric. I may not always succeed, but that change of focus on my little corner, on me and what little artistic output I can accomplish, that focus is the best thing I've found to keep the bitterness at bay.
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 try (and the advice I give to others, is) to do one creative thing every day. This can manifest as a written poem, and concrete poem or two, writing a song, writing a chapter in a book. Those are obvious examples. But it could also be something as small as writing down one good line in my notebook, finding a chord change to steal, making a mix tape, researching typefaces, sending mail to pals, stapling zines, reading something you'll use later... It's about never making your art a chore, or an obligation, but something that remains exciting, something that's responsive to inspiration and the muses, something that's still joyful when you sit down to do it. What you make doesn't have to be grandiose, it can be minorly incremental, and that's valid.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I've spoken on this before in "Make a Thing" - my zine of encouragement to friend who are making art in general. But for me, I've found is that getting stalled on projects and writer-block cannot be controlled. The muse moves as she likes and she cannot be forced. The solution then is to have MANY projects on the go. When you're stuck on one, pick up another. I don't know where this novel is going, I can't find a chorus to this song, etc. Move on to something else and come back to it. As long as you're exerting that creative muscle in some manner, it's staying active. This will inevitably leave room for the muse to return, giving you time to find that tidbit that reinspires the project from before.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
n/a
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?
(Related aside: I discovered McFadden as a young teenager while I was working as a Page at the Red Deer Public Library. I had shelved a copy of (the brilliantly designed and ever charming) A Trip Around Lake Erie, was wildly taken with it, and I've been studying and collecting him ever since. I'm only missing a few titles. He remains my favourite Canadian "writer" writer). Though, I'll disagree with the man here, mostly in it's small limits - I'm very much a proponent of the "if you're an artist you make art" mind, and that to limit oneself to one mode of art is a stunt on oneself and one's artistic output. Art comes from Art, gotta go much wider. Writing is one way it manifests, certainly. And all that to say I am collector scum, eater or media, student of culture, high and low alike, - Yo La Tengo's kraut-like chooglers, Lungfish and Daniel Higgs' poetic esotericism, Kenny Omega's pro-wrestling matches, cassette culture, circuit bending. Ultimately as a punk, someone involved in DIY and hardcore, and all that surrounds it, that mindset remains the biggest influence in my work, and especially in how I approach it, what's behind it, the ethics of it. Art comes from art. The net is wide.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Why are these exclusive? I write, and do something else!
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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