Alisha Kaplan is
a Canadian poet and narrative medicine practitioner. She has an MFA in Poetry
from New York University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Narrative
Medicine at Columbia University. Kaplan is on the Narrative-Based
Medicine Team at the University of Toronto and is a workshop facilitator with
the Writers Collective of Canada. Her writing has appeared in Fence, DIAGRAM,
PRISM International, Carousel, The New Quarterly, and elsewhere. Honours she
has received include the Hippocrates Prize in Poetry and Medicine, a Rona Jaffe
Fellowship, and winning the Eden Mills Writers Festival Literary Contest. Her
debut collection of poems, Qorbanot: Offerings, a collaboration with artist
Tobi Kahn, is the winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize from the League
of Canadian Poets. Kaplan splits her time between Toronto, New York, and Bela Farm where she grows garlic, harvests honey and wild plant medicine, and hosts
barn dances.
1 -
How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work
compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I
may need a few more years to properly answer that question. From my current
position in time, I can see that writing my book helped me to process much of
the guilt, shame, and anger I had held onto from my religious upbringing and
generational trauma from the Holocaust. It was a real journey that took me to a
place where I realized I could create my own rituals and write my own prayers
(which poems can be, and often are).
2 -
How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I
wrote a lot of (terrible) poetry as a kid and angsty teen. In undergrad, when I
began to consider a writing career, I actually wrote more prose poetry and
short stories than poetry. But from the beginning, I was a poet first.
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’s
a snail-paced process. Draft after draft after draft. Sometimes a writing
project takes shape in my mind before it touches down on paper. Sometimes the
paper gives it shape. Then I need to live with the lines, turn them over on my
tongue, leave them be and return to them.
4 -
Where does a poem or work of fiction 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
like having projects. Though, I might have a notion of what a project is going
to be, and it ends up roving in an unexpected direction or revealing itself as
something else. My writing process is a bit unusual; I can best describe it as
“foraging.” I like to gather from different sources—sometimes my own, sometimes
others’—and collage it all into a poem or longer work. I rarely have a poem in
my mind that I then linearly write. I move around the lines or the pieces like
a puzzle.
5 -
Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the
sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Despite
being shy, I do enjoy doing readings—if I’m in the right emotional state. For
instance, when my book came out, I was feeling very vulnerable about it and
found myself wanting to retreat into the darkest corner rather than get up on a
stage. Now, a year later, I feel the pull to share my work face to face, in
real time and space. I also love collaborating with musicians, dancers, and
artists in performance.
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?
Prevailing
concerns I have are: What do we hear in the silence? And how do the words live
off the page?
Some
of the questions I worked to answer in Qorbanot were: What does it mean
to “offer”? How do I translate the ancient practice of sacrificial offering
into my life in the 21st century? How can a poem be an offering, or a book an
altar upon which I place what I have to give? What does it mean to write one’s
own sacred texts? What is it about giving up something that makes it a
meaningful act of worship? Why the obsession with purity laws in Judaism, and
how has this affected the way we relate to animal bodies and our own bodies?
How do we reconcile these ancient, fleshly, violent rituals with Judaism and,
more broadly, Western religion today? Do humans have an inherent tendency
toward violence? Can we find parallels to sacrifice in recent history, such as
war, politics or environmental issues?
The
main question currently occupying my writer’s mind is: How can we find more
language around suicide to better express its nuances, complexities, and
diverse motivations? I’ve also been contemplating the relationship between
depression and anger. And I’ve been grappling with how to share my story in a
way that serves as a resource for others and, at the same time, protects my own
vulnerability.
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
don’t think the writer has one role. There are so many different kinds of
writers with different roles they can take on. A writer can serve as a
lighthouse illuminating the moment in which we are living. The writer can be a
dreamer, a prophet. The writer can be a court jester. The writer can offer
medicine. And some writers have a role for themselves alone, to which the rest
of the world is not privy.
8 -
Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or
essential (or both)?
Essential.
A good editor can see what I can’t, from over there.
9 -
What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you
directly)?
I
try to keep in mind this line from the poem “How to Be Perfect” by Ron Padgett:
“Hope for everything. Expect nothing.”
10
- How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to short
stories)? What do you see as the appeal?
These
days I’m moving more between poetry and non-fiction, and I find that the
writing takes on the form that it needs to be in.
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?
These
days there is no typical day. When I am in more of a routine, which I like to
be, I usually begin with a workout or yoga and meditation. Then, before I turn
on my phone, look at my email, and let the demands of the day flood in, I sit
with a cup of tea in my favourite cafe and write until my brain hurts.
12
- When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of
a better word) inspiration?
I
find that conversations or workshops with friends and fellow poets best helps
to unstick my writing. And movement—going for a walk does wonders, especially
somewhere full of trees and plants. Or total stillness—I like lying on the
floor. It grounds all that cerebral work and offers a new perspective. A
solution tends to arrive in one of those situations.
13
- What fragrance reminds you of home?
Depends
on the season. Depends on the home. At the moment, it’s beeswax.
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?
Most
definitely nature, which includes all of the above. I get a lot of inspiration
from weeds, bees, trees, and soil. I spend as much time as I can on my farm,
Bela Farm, which is now bursting with colour, song, scents, and creativity. The
other day I was picking tiny wild strawberries that grow all over the farm, and
fragments of a poem grew in my head as I crawled on my knees through the grass,
searching for berries.
15
- What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your
life outside of your work?
Today,
they include: Anne Carson. Rosemary Tonks. Louise Glück. Sylvia Plath. Kavanagh
and Heaney. Ada Limón. Basho and Buson. Sappho. Blake. H.D. The list is, of
course, much longer. And the truth is, probably more than those giants, the
writers who are most important for my work and my life are my poet friends, who
constantly inspire.
16
- What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’d
like to write a book-length poem. I want to create a support system for women
with mysterious chronic illnesses and to build the field of Environmental
Narrative Medicine. I want to be a mother. And I’d like to be the bassist in a
moderately famous rock band.
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?
If
I hadn’t become a writer, I might have ended up being a psychiatrist or a
midwife. Or a farmer.
18
- What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It
was what I was drawn to, again and again.
19
- What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The
best book I have read this year—maybe in years—is When We Cease to
Understand the World by Chilean writer Benjamín Labatut.
20
- What are you currently working on?
I’m
working on a lyric essay about suicide—a search for better language for
suicide. It’s a hybrid of prose, poetry, and image that intertwines Kurt
Cobain’s story with mine.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
