12 or 20 (second series) questions with Loch Baillie

Loch Baillie (he/il) [photo credit: LMJ Photography] is a queer writer based in Quebec City. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, ice, dove parachute (Cactus Press) and Citronella (Anstruther Press), as well as the forthcoming collection River Running (icehouse poetry/Goose Lane Editions, 2026). Loch is an associate poetry editor at Plenitude Magazine, and his writing has appeared in publications such as Maclean’s, yolk, Tidewise, and Ahoy. Find Loch online @lochbaillie or by visiting www.lochbaillie.com.

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 debut chapbook Citronella (Anstruther Press, 2024) changed everything for me. In the months surrounding its release, I got really into the Canadian micropress scene and began connecting with other poets. This mainly happened through Instagram, and that platform remains the place I most often interact with other writers. Putting out a chapbook showed me just how generous the poetry community in Canada can be. It’s an incredible community to be a part of.

My second chapbook, ice, dove, parachute (Cactus Press, 2024), came out only nine months after Citronella, but it is quite different. While Citronella introduces broader themes — sexual identity and leaving one’s home — ice, dove, parachute takes these themes further, exploring their repercussions through a more intimate, domestic, and Québec-oriented lens. It is a follow-up in both subject and tone, and a more grown-up work. My forthcoming full-length collection, River Running (icehouse poetry, 2026), will weave together the threads of my chapbooks in a much fuller way, and I look forward to it serving as many readers’ introduction to my work.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

Funnily enough, I didn’t! I was raised by English teachers, one of whom is a novelist, and so I was primarily interested in prose from a young age. By the time I was a young teenager, I decided I wanted to write novels. This was around the time that young adult dystopian and urban fantasy books were flying off of the shelves. Think The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Mortal Instruments. I started (and abandoned) several projects, and by the time I was sixteen, I became more interested in writing about my own experiences and began taking a more diaristic approach to my writing. At that age, it turned out I could write a poem a lot faster, and more naturally, than a book chapter.

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 slow process. I tend to write down a bunch of words or lines and then give my poems their shape later on. This typically happens in my Notes app or in a Word Doc. I’d love to be the type of writer that fills up stacks and stacks of Moleskin notebooks, but it’s never worked for me. I far prefer a word processor, or even just scraps of paper. Some of my first poems were written on notepads at the ice cream parlour I worked at in high school. I’d carry them in my apron pockets alongside customers’ orders.

My first drafts very rarely resemble what I publish. In the case of River Running, the original manuscript became stretched in the middle partway through the editing process. I lost a family member in mid-2024 and wrote a series of poems that would eventually form the book’s third section. River Running was initially concerned with metaphorical and anticipatory grief — but it has become concerned with a very concrete sort of grief, as well. 

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? 

This might be unusual, but the titles often come first. I love titles. I love the act of naming something. It’s like a generative exercise. A perfect example of this is my poem “Antediluvian,” which is the last poem in Citronella. I was curious about the period of time in the Bible between the fall of man and the Great Flood — what I came to know as being called “antediluvian” (or “pre-flood”). I began asking myself, what happens in a moment of banishment? How does one feel looking back at a place called home while simultaneously seeing some strange land on the horizon? It was the first poem I wrote for Citronella, but in doing so, I knew I’d already written its ending. I wrote towards that closing with the other poems; led the speaker all the way to the edge of that cliff.

I don’t think I’ve yet figured out how books “happen.” But I can say this: the more I write, the more I understand how my poems interconnect. It was clear to me when I had enough poems for my chapbooks, and it was clear to me when I had enough for my full-length collection. 

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

I enjoy public readings but wouldn’t consider them part of my creative process. Being part of a community of writers and receiving feedback is essential to my creativity – but reading the work aloud to an audience, not so much. It is fun, though!

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?

It depends entirely on what I’m writing. What I’m currently working on is heavily informed by theory (see answer to question 19) — but up until this point, my writing has been more concerned with lived experience, such as notions of self, home, and interpersonal relationships. Now that I’m in graduate school, it feels only natural to work on a project that blends my academic interests and my creative interests.

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? 

This is a big question, and one that could be answered in no less than a hundred different ways. I see my own role as a writer as being a sort of truthteller. In Shakespeare’s plays, the truthtellers often operate on the margins and in the fens. Think of the Fool in King Lear or the witches in Macbeth. These are queer, weird (wyrd) characters. I feel similarly as a queer writer. I write to reveal uncomfortable truths. I write frankly, and shy from writing fiction, because there is so much happening in the real world. Fiction is an interesting genre. I read a lot of it, and I value the way it can offer escape or confront me with difficult truths. But in my experience, contemporary poetry doesn’t allow for distraction — it cuts straight to the bone.

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

For me, it is absolutely essential. I often prefer the editing process over the writing process because I feel more lucid there. Writing a poem is like throwing a pack of playing cards on the ground, and working with an editor is playing fifty-two-card pickup. I’m a better writer because of my editors. 

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? 

Ocean Vuong posted this great Instagram Story about cultivating one’s soil; this idea that writer’s block does not exist and that it’s only a lack of creative stimuli. I’ve taken that to mean: if I’m not reading, moving, living — I’m not writing.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to journalism)? What do you see as the appeal?

I find it quite difficult, but I think I’m getting better at it. Poetry is my default setting, and so when I write prose, it tends to be lyrical. I’d like to develop a prose style that feels complimentary to my poetry — but at the same time, if I ever wrote a novel, I wouldn’t want it to read like a seventy-thousand word poem. I love novels by poets; every word and punctuation mark is chosen so carefully. But for me, I’d rather be known as a poet who occasionally writes prose. 

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? 

I don’t have a specific routine. I’d like to write more regularly, but I find it difficult without external pressure (a workshop or a deadline, for example). I can’t force a poem. Some weeks I write a great deal. Some weeks I don’t write at all. 

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

A long walk. A hot shower. Rereading favourite poems.

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?

It’s music for sure. I couldn’t live without it, never mind create. I’m often more interested in how a song sounds than what it’s saying. How I hear music is how it feels to write (or read) a good poem.

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

Louise Glück, Richard Siken, Maggie Smith, Ada Limón, and Ocean Vuong have all had a significant impact on my poetry. For specific writings, I’ve turned time and time again to Audre Lorde’s essay “Poetry is Not a Luxury” and the final paragraphs of Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things. 

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I’d like to give songwriting a try. Writing for someone else, that is.  

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?

I’m trying to get better at plants, so maybe a horticulturist? I was never very good at science, but I’ve become obsessed with orchids thanks to Susan Orlean. I just replanted one for the first time and it bloomed!

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

I’m not sure what that “something else” would have been. When I began writing, I couldn’t stop. I still can’t.

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

White Oleander by Janet Fitch. It’s brilliant. I enjoyed the film adaptation by Peter Kosminsky, too!

19 - What are you currently working on? 

My Master’s thesis! It’s a research-creation project that combines poetry, essays, and interviews with artists about bilingual art in French-speaking Canada. It's called Head Split in Half  and is technically my second full-length book. It is theoretically concerned with notions of confession, belonging, and language. 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

 

Ongoing notes: mid-May, 2025 : Carlos A. Pittella + Su Croll,

You are keeping track of the above/ground press substack, yes? I mean, I’m not attempting to post there too often, but I am running a new series of author spotlights once a month or so. Who might be number three? And the ottawa small press book fair is but weeks away! And I’m going to keep pushing the above/ground press postal increase sale until you order something(or the sale ends; whichever comes first).

Montreal QC: I was very excited to see Montreal-based poet Carlos A. Pittella’s second poetry chapbook in English, PROPERSITIONS (Montreal QC: Cactus Press, 2025), following his English-language above/ground press debut last summer. I’m appreciating Pittella’s play and sense of line break and rhythm, such as the poem “BETWEEN / IN CASE THEY RUN / YOUR LICENCE PLATE” that begins: “Once I broke my front          tooth / out of a poem & still have the chip / to show—not a great poem but it tasted / like bone it was real I remember / the pain           & the scar-tissue / of writing it that became my face.” There’s such a lovely propulsion to Pittella’s lyrics, one with a stagger and staccato very nicely employed through those line breaks and spaces. Held as a kind of call-and-response, or Greek chorus, there are five “properstitions” poems, numbered via Roman numerals, each with a kind of aside or counterpoint follow-up poem. As the poem “PROPER / SITIONS 1” reads: “I wanted to carve my home mine / with a physical word on the wall & beyond / hope of getting a deposit back / but I wanted my own alphabet since / neither landlord nor family / would understand it anyway. Would you?,” the second poem, “FROM / LATIN, / BIBER,” begins: “beer this verb to be an aftertaste / bitterness my father said / you gotta learn how to love / same as coffee no one likes / at first he thus expounded [.]”

Edmonton AB: It is interesting to see titles by a new Canadian chapbook publisher, Edmonton’s Agatha Press, run by Matthew Stepanic, a press with exquisitely-designed titles in limited edition. The eighth title through the press is Edmonton poet Su Croll’s Fairy-tale logic (2025), an assemblage of poems produced in a numbered edition of one hundred copies. The poems in Fairy-tale logic are composed across familiar fairy tale narratives, but across very different perspectives. “Imagine you are a bad mother.” she offers, to open the poem “Imagine the poison,” “You are an evil step-mother. // Imagine the face in your magic / mirror announces you can grow // younger if you eat your beautiful / step-daughter’s heart // boiled and sprinkled with salt.”

Boast

It was a boast that began this
whole bouleversé world.
The boastful father’s false
claim of his daughter’s skill,
the lie that she could spin
gold from grass or leaves
or straw. The yellow of it
transformed. Transformed.
Yet it was the father
who disappears so completely.
In the end, he was not even
at church to give this golden
package of a bride away
to her new master.

They say old stories take on the purpose and character of the times they are told, the speaker of those stories, and Croll offers her unique take on a history of variations that might never be exhausted. There are multiple examples one can cite over the years through contemporary poetry—from British Columbia poet Ruth Daniell’s The Brightest Thing (Caitlin Press, 2019), to Louisiana poet Lara Glenum’s SNOW (Notre Dame IN: Action Books, 2024) [see my review of such here], Jessica Q. Stark’s Buffalo Girl (Rochester NY: BOA Editions, 2023) [see my review of such here], Katie Fowley’s The Supposed Huntsman (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021) [see my review of such here] or even Montreal poet Stephanie Bolster’s Three Bloody Words (above/ground press, 1996; 2006)—most of which engage with elements of female agency or lack thereof, throughout so many of at least those European-originated tales (such as popularized by the Brothers Grimm). There’s a curious way that Croll’s narratives bob and weave in and around and through well-familiar narratives, her own perspective providing either highlight unexplored moments or simply question the narratives we’ve all taken for granted. “Why does the king need straw / spun into gold?” the poem “Questions for Rumpelstiltskin” begins, “He’s the king. / Doesn’t the king have all the gold / in the kingdom? Doesn’t the king / have more gold than he knows / what to do with?”

Ongoing notes: late May, 2023: Emily Tristan Jones, Carolina Ebeid + Jordan Davis,

There’s so much going on! There’s even a reading on Thursday in Ottawa with three above/ground press poets—Stuart Ross, William Vallières and Jessi MacEachern—hosted by Bardia Sinaee. And you saw the big above/ground press 30^th anniversary fundraiser, happening right now? Or the fact that the spring edition of the ottawa small press book fair is coming up in a couple of weeks? And don't forget my enormously clever substack, where I'm working on one or two or three ongoing non-fiction projects. So many things!

Montreal QC: I was first directed to Montreal poet and editor/publisher (Columba) Emily Tristan Jones’ chapbook debut, HAND (Cactus Press, 2023) thanks to Hugh Thomas, who offered her as a poet worth paying attention to. I’m intrigued by the curious patterns of her lyric, and intrigued at the fact that she has a full-length debut, Buttercup, out next year with an unnamed press (at least according to her biography in this particular title) in Chicago. “A crow, inserting its hands into the air,” she writes, to open the poem “CROWNLAND,” “descends / by my human head / to low red shrubs [.]” The narratives of her scenes unfold across narratives of straight lines and deflections (the Blomidon and Bay of Fundy references I quite enjoyed, having experienced such myself), even through the fact of a chapbook titled HAND that bears the cover illustration of a foot: one thing is not necessarily another, aiming instead for the ways in which these thoughts connect. The poems are playful, specific and simultaneously tethered and untethered to the ground, akin to a kite. “My whole body, like a skeleton, music in the air,” she writes, early on in the collection. I am interested to see what her work is able to accomplish through this forthcoming debut, across a wider, broader canvas.

~

A large number of my thoughts were broadcast in the woods

I ran in every direction, leaving little to the imagination
I was like a racehorse. The wind whistled behind me
Animals whistled behind me

I was a free man
My soul fanned like the hair on the body of a wild thing

Philadelphia PA: Further to Brian Teare’s remarkable chapbook series through his Albion Books is Carolina Ebeid’s latest, DAUERWUNDER (2023), subtitled “a brief record of facts,” published as the fourth title in Albion’s series eight [see my reviews of 8.1 here, 8.2 here and 8.3 here]. The poems collected here are set, or tethered, between two words—“WINTERNET” and “TRANSGRACE”—and employ a sequence of an exploration around the accidents of language that technology spark. She writes of the glitch, of audio, text and meaning (something east coast poet Lance La Rocque explored as well from a different angle, across his chapbook glitch a few years back), from the literal glitch of audio to the recombinative. She explores the elements of what remains and what is rebuilt, reconstituted; she writes of telepathy, telephone calls and the “Hollow of a torso”; she writes of what is left behind, lost or added, from digital recordings to “something about our / neighborhood dust [.]” As she writes, mid-way through the collection: “how do you know you are remembering / an event or remembering the pictures of / an event, do your dream in the first or / third person?”

“Attention” as an imperative but without exclamations, the way one lowers her voice in the sensitive part of conversation making you lean in. “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer” (Simone Weil).

Brooklyn NY: I’m only slowly engaging with the work of New York poet Jordan Davis, having produced a chapbook of his through above/ground press (full disclosure, naturally), and now through the publication of his Hidden Poems (If A Leaf Falls Press, 2022), a small chapbook of sixteen short poems produced in an edition of one hundred copies. I’ve always been a bit envious of those poets working in miniature, from Nelson Ball to Mark Truscott to Cameron Anstee, for the possibilities that can exist in small spaces. Through Davis, the short form is less a compact form of held meaning, as in the works of those three examples, but as poems composed as pieces that exist beyond the boundaries of a single moment. Some poems here are akin to a wave of the hand, suggesting but part of an unseen and far larger space, or as accumulations of phrases that mangle and mix in the imagination, offering something far else. These are poems of possibility, including what might fall into contradiction, across what might otherwise be impossible. His directions are as evident as through the opening poem, that reads, in full:

BAD POEM

Put that rock down

12 or 20 (small press) questions with Devon Gallant, Luc-Antoine Chiasson and James Dunnigan on Cactus Press

Cactus Press is a Montreal based micro-press specializing in limited edition poetry chapbooks and other print ephemera.

Devon Gallant is the editor-in-chief of Cactus Press and the author of four collections of poetry: The Day After, the flower dress and other lines, His Inner Season, and S(tars) & M(agnets). His work has been previously published in Vallum, Carousel, Graphite Publications, and elsewhere. Along with Luc-Antoine Chiasson, he is the co-host of Accent, a bilingual reading series and open mic in Montreal.

Luc-Antoine Chiasson Né à Caraquet, N.B en 1989, Luc-Antoine Chiasson vit à Montréal depuis 2009. Il partage son temps entre l'écriture et les arts visuels. Son premier recueil, intitulé ‘’Pour commencer : le sang’’ paraît aux Éditions Perce-Neige en 2019.

James Dunnigan is a poet from Montreal, author of two chapbooks, Wine and Fire (Cactus Press, 2020) and The Stained Glass Sequence (Frog Hollow Press, 2019). Since placing second in 2014’s QWF Quebec Writing Competition with the short story “Open Bay”, he has published, or is forthcoming, in such places as Event Magazine, CV2, Maisonneuve, Lantern, Graphite Publications and more. Aut facere scribenda aut scribere legenda since 1994.

When did Cactus Press first start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?

Devon: Cactus Press began in 2006 as a Toronto-based poetry chapbook publisher. However, in 2020 we re-launched with a new mandate focusing on writing from the Montreal literary community. If there’s anything I have learned through the years, it is to be more open minded about what I publish, to make it less about me.

What first brought you to publishing?

Devon: I actually started Cactus Press primarily so that I could publish my own chapbooks. When I was coming up in the Toronto lit scene in the early 2000s, I had a very clear idea of how I wanted my work organized. Which was as a suite of five chapbooks, some of which only containing a handful of poems in them. At that time, in Toronto, even today for that matter, no publisher would have taken on a multi-book project like that. For me, or any writer. So, Cactus Press started out of necessity. But that experience has also informed the way I view my relationship as a publisher. Which is to try and always be open to the needs of the writer.

James: And now we also have our francophone project with Le Cactus Pressé.

Devon: Yeah, we’re in transition. We’re kind of like a caterpillar that’s in…what’s that word?

Luc-Antoine: Looks like a turd. What’s that word, chrysalis? [Laughs] I’ve always had an interest in publishing because, I like books as objects and I think they look cool and I'm interested in the POTENTIAL of a book as an almost spiritual object. I like making things and I like reading so, it’s just normal. The natural progression.

James: So I worked in a fish store for a few years, and one thing about Cactus Press is it’s kind of like going back to work. You get to make cool stuff (books instead of tartare) and then you get to meet a ton of people distributing them, talking about them and so on. It feels like a very artisanal project in that sense and I guess that’s what attracted me to it. Also, it was kind of in my backyard. It was these people I knew who were doing this READING and I just showed up and fast forward a couple months, you’re all working together publishing people you also met there. That’s a pretty rewarding experience.

Luc-Antoine: One of the things that I really enjoy…or that I think I will enjoy, is that writing can get so abstract and so, kind of, ‘in the air’ because it’s just words on the page. Whereas, if you put it together in a book. Into something that you can hold. It just makes it so much more of a concrete thing… Like, I remember roasting coffee and there’s such a great feeling when you finish a day and you can feel it in your hands. What you did that day. And I feel like publishing is closer to that feeling than writing.

What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?

James: Small publishers have a responsibility to the people that help build them but they don’t—I believe—have responsibilities in the same way that corporate publishers do. We don’t have as much money or power. Different kind of setup altogether.

Luc-Antoine: I feel like responsibilities is a big word. I guess we have somewhat of a responsibility towards ourselves. Being true to ourselves, to what we like and dislike, and we have a responsibility towards the poets that we publish. To make sure that everyone’s happy with what we’re doing and having fun. But, apart from that…

James: That the author’s happy with the finished product. And that everyone around it gets to enjoy it too. It’s about the environment that creates the book and that the book creates, curating the ensemble of chapbooks over the year, the events around them. That’s all under our care.

Luc-Antoine: I don’t know if I would call this a responsibility, but I think publishers—big, and especially small—should take risks. If the person that wrote the book is happy with the finished product and we are, also, the idea that the community should enjoy it, is secondary to me. Does that make any sense? Just to try shit out and be willing to make mistakes?

What do you see your press doing that no one else is?

Luc-Antoine: Well, bilingual now, is one thing.

Devon: Yeah, did you want to speak on that a bit? Our new imprint with Le Cactus Pressé.

Luc-Antoine: I don’t know how it’s going to go. I have a lot of high hopes. French publishing in Quebec is a very institutionalized thing. There are these very big publishing houses and even the small ones are kind of big and there aren’t really any small ones that don’t start out with the 12 books you have to start with in order to get funding. There are small ones that used to not be government funded but now they are…I don’t know. I honestly have no idea how it’s going to go. I think it’s going to go well. So far, the reception has been…NONE, precisely. But, then again, it’s COVID. So, you can’t really tell.

Devon: I think, much like our bilingual approach to the Accent Reading Series, this new imprint is kind of indicative of the way all three of us operate in that in-between zone. We often think of the French/English divide as cut and dry. But, there are a lot of people in Montreal whose lived experience is more of a blend between the two.

James: In the way that only people caught in the city-state of Montreal could be. A lot of people end up here and they live with two or three languages in their bodies and some have to deal with two more when they first come here. Ideally what happens out of that is this huge language party. Inevitably that makes good art. And that’s something good going on over here.

Devon: I also think we are kind of unique in Montreal at the moment in that we have a very open door right now for local poets trying to get published. We have a lot of projects planned for 2021 and are taking on even more as the year progresses. We’re really looking to create something very special in the city of Montreal. Something very inclusive.

What do you see as the most effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world?

Devon: Print them.

James: Do readings. Hold events.

Devon: Yeah, the problem isn’t really getting them out into the world. It’s easy to get them out in the world.

How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?

Devon: I prefer a light touch. What I found is that when I got too entrenched in my role as editor, really what I was trying to do was to transform that poet’s writing into my own.

James: If something’s good: don’t fuck with it. If something’s different: fuck with it even less.

Luc-Antoine: If you’re going to fuck with something to the point that you have to change its essence in order for it work, just don’t publish it.

James: Yeah. And usually, before I even think of making any edits, I have a conversation with the author to figure out what their ideas are. You want to take these people as seriously as possible and not second guess them because that just asks people to second guess you.

Devon: You also probably shouldn’t form strong ideas about editing a work until you’ve had the chance to hear the poet read it out loud.

James: Especially, especially.

Luc-Antoine: I totally agree, especially coming from Accent.

How do your books get distributed? What are your usual print runs?

Devon: We do print runs of 50 copies. In terms of distribution? Well, we’re in the middle of a pandemic so…next question. [Laughs]

James: Well, in normal times we would distribute them at Accent. We only had time to do this with my book in February. [Laughs]

Luc-Antoine: It’s true that the only one that actually got launched at Accent was yours, James. All the other ones were sold in back alleys like it’s Meth.

Devon: You’re right, though. In normal times we would be organizing book launches through Accent. Even before the first show, I knew that I was going to relaunch Cactus Press and be organizing launches through the series. I had that in mind.

How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?

James: What makes it easy is that we’re just three kids doing our thing. And that makes it very easy to coordinate whatever project the press is sailing on at the moment. Whatever events we want to organize, things like that. And, the other thing is, I would actually count the authors as editors too because, with the limited format we have (which is quite an elegant one, too), you want the book to kind of look like them. Or, at least, reflect some of their personality in a slight but noticeable way. One or two colours they like. Images they like. Layout. They get some choice within those limits. So, they’re basically making the book with us, inside and out, and yet it’s still a Cactus book.

How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?

Luc-Antoine: It hasn’t for me.

Devon: From an early age, I was organizing my poems in very specific ways. So, I think I’ve always had that publisher’s mentality.

James: If it’s changed anything for me, it’s was kind of like learning how really good wine grows. There’s a context to it. Instead of just consuming it, you’re seeing it as a whole process.

Luc-Antoine: Actually, now that I think about it, I think I’ll say that it made the process of writing more difficult for me. I think there are writers that just sort of write and write and write and write and then edit and something comes out of it. I have to have a very crystal-clear idea of what the poem’s going to be in my head before I put it down. And after going through the editorial process and being now an editor, I feel like this process of how its going to be on the page before I even start writing is longer now. Because I feel like it HAS to be even more perfect than it was before putting it down on the page. So, for me, it’s made it more difficult to write.

Devon: Be careful, Luc. That’s a serious trap.

Luc-Antoine: I know, I try.

How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?

Devon: Well, to date, I have self-published 11 chapbooks and 4 full length collections. So, my stance is pretty clear, I guess. But also, Cactus Press doesn’t receive any government grants to support its operations, so that might change the context of the question, depending on who you ask. To be honest, I’m not really sure where this stigma against self-publishing in the poetry community comes from. If you look at any other artistic field that with a thriving commercial fan base, DIY is where artists are able to breakthrough and make a name for themselves. Whether that’s through the tape cassette culture in rap or filmmakers like Kevin Smith maxing out credit cards in order to self-finance Clerks or whatever. Since poetry doesn’t have that strong consumer base, I think that leaves poets with only prestige as the definable currency to gauge their success. In my case, if I had been waiting for a publisher to pick up these books, I’d still be waiting. As an artist, you either die, or you keep living. Given those two options: I’m going to keep living. I’d encourage any writer reading this to do the same. No matter how your work is published you should know where it stands in terms of quality and be able to stand behind it. At the end of the day, it’s the work that matters, nothing else.

Luc-Antoine: I’ll drink to that.

James: I think its good to not expect people to just give you things. There’s a point to which you kind of owe it to yourself to get it out there, and having other people do it for you involves its own sacrifices.

Devon: Look at ee cummings, who won a Guggenheim and was well regarded amongst his peers. Nobody bought any of his books. So, by the time his fifth one came around, no publisher would touch it and his mom ended up having to fund him the money to publish it. He called it No Thanks and wrote the name of every publisher that rejected it beneath the title.

Luc-Antoine: That’s fucking amazing.

Devon: And that’s ee cummings!

How do you see Cactus Press evolving?

Luc-Antoine: Organically.

What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?

James: I have zero frustration about this.

Luc-Antoine: I haven’t had a chance to have a frustration yet.

Devon: No frustrations on my end.

James: We’re too busy to be frustrated.

Devon: Publishing James’ Wine and Fire was a special moment for me, since it was the first book in this nouvelle vague for Cactus Press.

Luc-Antoine: That was a good night, too. We had fun.

James: It was really, really fun and the cool thing is that the party’s not stopped since. Within the last month of 2020, we basically filled our lineup for 2021. That’s pretty wild.

Who were your early publishing models when starting out?

Devon: My publishing model, early on, was mostly myself because I had such a strong-headed, or stubborn-headed I should say, idea of what I wanted to do. But also, in Toronto at that time, during the glory days of the Art Bar reading series under Allan Briesmaster and then later David Clink—back at the original Victory Café on Markham Street—there was this buzz in the air that I will always remember. And part of that buzz was from David Clink and Myna Wallin’s believeyourownpress which was releasing chapbooks at the time. Seeing what believeyourownpress was doing was definitely a lightbulb moment for me. However, even more than that, my mentor, Rudyard Fearon, was a huge inspiration. His debut collection Free Soil, which he self-published under his imprint RWF Publishing, was fundamental in my development as a young writer. Rudy really influenced me not only as a publisher, but also on how to thrive on the fringes of Can-Lit. How to be a literary outlaw.    

Luc-Antoine: I have an answer for this: a mix of Gerald LeBlanc, who was an Acadian poet and publisher that died in 2005, and Ian Mackaye, who was the singer of Minor Threat and Fugazi and started Dischord Records.

How does Cactus Press work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see Cactus Press in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations?

Luc-Antoine: Accent.

James: Accent.

Devon: Yeah, certainly. The Accent reading series. Once we can start doing live shows again, I think it’ll be pretty clear that Cactus Press is very much interested in cultivating a robust and inclusive literary community in the city of Montreal. In terms of the community at large? I could certainly see Cactus Press expanding into other regions like Ottawa, and I already have strong ties with Toronto. But, really, our main focus right now is on building the literary community within Montreal.

Luc-Antoine: Can we add New Brunswick in this?

Devon: Yes! New Brunswick can be the Robin to our Batman.

[Laughs]

Devon: Who are we in dialogue with? Potentially anyone. Anyone that gets it. Anyone that understands just how inclusive we are. When me and Luc started the Accent series in 2019, I extended an olive branch out to every magazine and publisher in Quebec. I had lived in Montreal since 2007 but, essentially, as a hermit. So, no one in the Montreal literary community knew me. When I reached out initially, I think a lot of people were like: “Who is this kid?” But, by the end of 2019 people started to get it. Going into 2021 we had shows lined up with both carte blanche and Graphite Publications before the lock downs came into effect. This concept of collaboration is really a continuation of my days in Toronto when I ran the Diamond Cherry Reading Series with Julie Cameron Gray. In the short time that Diamond Cherry was active, between 2005-2006, we organized events with CBC’s ZED, lichen Magazine, Carousel Magazine, and Jim Johnstone’s Misunderstandings Magazine. Jim actually ended up as co-editor on Cactus Press between 2007-2012. So, I’ve always embraced that spirit of collaboration. Not to conflate the two organizations, but I think it’s safe to say Cactus Press is open to collaboration. I feel like we can all come together and make the literature community in Montreal one big happy family. So, for any literary organization that’s reading this: we want to be your friend, we want to do launches with you, we want to do everything with you. Our dance card is free. We’ll merengue if you’ll merengue.

Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?

Luc-Antoine: At this point, our answer is pretty obvious.

James: Yeah, Accent. If you don’t have boots on the ground (or faces in the zoomvoid), I don’t believe you have very much going on. It’s not just about having a magazine or having a publishing house. It’s about having a whole environment around it too.

Luc-Antoine: Having a publishing house that doesn’t do readings is like having a record label that doesn’t do shows.

Devon: I would even go beyond that and say that it’s important to incorporate an open mic segment into your events as a publisher, as well. Not only to give emerging writers the chance to make an impression on you but, also, to just recognize that poetry really only thrives when it embraces the community of poets that supports it.

James: Cactus Press is exceptional in that, if you’re in this city and you come to our readings, if you like what we do and chat a little bit with us about what you do, you’ll almost certainly get a nice candid reaction and encouragement. And maybe even a book, who knows.

Luc-Antoine: There’s this school of musicians that say if your song doesn’t sound good on an acoustic guitar around a fire then it’s not a good song; I kind of have that thing about poetry now because of Accent: if you can’t read it on a stage with a bartender going out for a smoke in the middle of your third verse…

Devon: [Laughs]

How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?

Devon: We have a webpage.

Luc-Antoine: And we have a somewhat active Facebook presence. And by somewhat I mean like: I kinda am and James kinda is.

[Laughs]

Devon: I’m like the Wizard of Oz of social media, you don’t want to pull back that curtain. All you’re going to find is a fat old man.

Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?

Devon: Do we accept submissions? Yes! Please do. If you’re a poet and you live in Quebec, not only do we accept submissions, we are fully expecting you to submit. What aren’t we looking for? Well, we certainly don’t want you to “fit” in. This word has been widely adopted by both journals and publishers and I really don’t get it…because, poetry, for me, is Robert Frost. It’s the road not taken. It’s marching to the beat of your own drum. I really don’t comprehend a publisher that wants me to “fit” in with them. So, I can honestly tell any prospective writer out there: I don’t want you to fit in with us. And I’ll even go a step further and say that it’s not necessary to buy any of our books in order to get published because I already want to publish you. The only reason you should buy one of our books is if you think you’ll actually get some enjoyment from it.

Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.

Devon: I am always most excited about whatever book I am currently working on. So, at the moment, two titles forthcoming in 2021—Bryan Sentes’ As on a Holiday and Ilona Martonfi’s Black Rain—are particularly special to me. For one, I designed the covers completely on my own. Which is a fun new skill I have been working on. But also, we seem to have struck upon a kind of unofficial travel theme in our upcoming roster of books and I think when they all start coming out, they’re going to make a nice set.

James: Me, I was really glad to do some editing for Jacky Den Haan’s forthcoming Selected Leavings. Jacky’s cool and we had a great time working on the text, though there wasn’t much to improve, honestly. It is a collection of eminently inventive, open, lyric-sometimes-concrete poetry. It’s quite a refreshing thing to read.

Luc-Antoine: Jacky’s also an extremely talented reader.

James: Yes, am especially excited for the launch for that reason. There are poems in the collection that we haven’t heard spoken yet, and she’s always good. Lots to look forward to, kids.

12 or 20 (small press) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Adrienne Gruber

Adrienne Gruber is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Buoyancy Control (BookThug) and This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), and three chapbooks, Mimic (Leaf Press), Everything Water (Cactus Press) and Intertidal Zones (Jack Pine Press). She has been a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards in poetry, Descant’s Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Contest and twice for ARC’s Poem of the Year Contest. Her poem Gestational Trail was awarded first prize in The Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest in 2015 and she won the bpNichol Chapbook Award for Mimic in 2012. Originally from Saskatoon, Adrienne lives in Vancouver with her partner Dennis and their daughters Quintana and Tamsin.

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, This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), was published in 2008. It changed my life mainly because it helped me to get grants and some short-term writing-related work, which helped buy me some time to work on new poetry. This resulted in several chapbooks, one of which won the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award, which provided me with some money and recognition, etc. So, essentially my first book got the ball rolling. Having said that, it has always felt like a young first book. Much of the work was written in my early twenties. My most recent collection, Buoyancy Control (BookThug), spans a later and longer period of my life and the length of time I spent writing the book allowed me to mature as a poet. I spent several years revising Buoyancy Control with the help of some stellar poets who provided me with incredible feedback through written comments and conversations. Without those experiences Buoyancy Control would be a very different book.

I like to think my recent work is tighter and has less of a desire to prove itself. My biggest fear has always been that my poetry isn’t ‘smart enough’ and I think I’m finally able to see how that fear has been holding me back.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

Let’s be real, I came to poetry because fiction and non-fiction scared the shit out of me and poetry seemed like the easiest and safest way to express myself. I’ve always had issues with intellectual confidence and for some reason I envisioned poetry as this shortcut to expressing myself – short-term pain for long term gain, kind of? Weird, I know. In a way, I’m grateful for the naivety I had in those early years of writing because it shielded me from psyching myself out. I wrote poetry prolifically all through high school and in my early twenties, thinking I was cheating my way into being a writer because I could sit down and whip off two or three poems in an afternoon and call it a day. By the time I fully realized that writing poetry – good poetry, that is – is hard work, excruciating at times, I had been writing for over a decade and had already written my way through a bazillion poems that sucked and managed to rework a small handful of pieces and get them published in literary magazines. So being a little smug about being prolific worked to my advantage in a way. It allowed me to write through about a decades worth of clichéd lines and suffocating imagery and build my revision skills.

At one point I discovered I had no real desire to write fiction (it started out with intimidation of the genre, but then I realized there was just no drive within me to write it) but I was interested in non-fiction. I took a non-fiction course at UBC while doing my MFA and bumbled my way through it but just working in the genre for a bit confirmed my desire to explore it further.

Finishing Buoyancy Control and working on the first draft of my third poetry collection has me completely in love with poetry. There is so much a person can do within the genre; it seems to have no bounds. I love how the language in a poem can be both rich and simple. There are poems I’ve read when I was a teenager that have stayed with me my entire life. Poetry will always be what I return to, but last year I began a project that needed to be written as non-fiction, so that’s another thing I’m working on currently. It’s been an incredible learning experience. Scary to not just be dipping my toes into this genre but actually running full force into the swell. Terrifying, but radically fun and rewarding.

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?

My weakness is that I tend to be a quantity over quality person. My revision process has me trying to move away from that and recognize that how much I produce does not equal writing success. I like to feel like I’m accomplishing something, that I’m being productive, so the number of poems written (or started – sometimes writing the first couple of lines for multiple poems makes me feel productive) or the amount of pages of non-fiction written in one sitting mean something to me. Starting projects is something I’m good at. I love starting a new writing project. It’s after I’ve written a dozen or so poems for the project that I start losing momentum. Then I usually start a different project with the hopes of coming back to the first one.

Though truthfully, my work habits completely changed after I had kids. For the first year after my first daughter was born I didn’t write a thing and I was half-convinced my writing career was over. I tried not to worry or obsess about it but I was panicked at the thought of having so little time and energy to write. When I began to work on poetry again, it turned out that first year of parenting was a much-needed reprieve and I suddenly had loads to say. I wrote the entire first draft of my third manuscript when my daughter was two-years-old, much of it during her (wonderfully predictable) afternoon naptime. I credit her for forcing me into a new phase of discipline, where I no longer mess around on social media or clean the house when I have an hour of time; I get shit done. My youngest is eleven months and I’m back in that anxious phase of feeling like I have little time and energy to work and it’s driving me a bit mad. I keep reminding myself that this is all par for the course when you have a baby under one.

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 usually have a vision for a book very early on, but that book’s vision might change dramatically from the early stages to the time it’s published. I always prefer working on a whole book because it helps motivate me. I write for the future love of the book in my hands.

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

I love readings but still, after twenty years of doing them, I get very nervous. I simultaneously doubt the strength of my work and wonder why I’ve been asked to read alongside other poets who are clearly literary geniuses. I basically feel like a giant poser. After the reading is done I always feel high and excited and anxious to get back to writing and wish I did readings every night. It’s a really uncomfortable dichotomous state and hard on my stomach.

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?

My current questions are;

Why did birth move into the hospital?

What happens when we try to intervene in and control the physiological process of birth?

Why are we always trying to control women’s bodies?

Who is making dinner tonight?

Why does my youngest keep pulling on her ears?

Will my house ever stop being sticky?

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?

I think this is a question for Google.

I don’t have a good answer, but I recently read This is Happy by Camilla Gibb and loved this:

We come to know ourselves only through stories. We listen to the stories of others, we inherit the stories of those who came before, and we make sense of our own experiences by constructing a narrative that holds them, and holds us, together. Stories are how we make sense of our lives. I have a job to do as a storyteller: we all do. To tell stories that make us knowable to others, most importantly our children. To give them the tools to help them know themselves. And perhaps we come to know ourselves differently as a consequence.

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

Essential. I cringe to think of the version of Buoyancy Control that would have been published had I not worked with the editors I had. It wouldn’t have been a bad book, but it certainly wouldn’t have been as tight. I can justify every word choice, line break and stanza, and each form I chose for the poems. I like knowing that every poem is meant to be in the book and needs to be there. There is nothing I would cut from the book. I couldn’t say the same thing about the draft I had a year ago.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

You will never be less busy than you are right now. So get it done.

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?

My writing routine shifts depending on my parenting situation. Before kids I would write in bursts, working five or six hours at a coffee shop. In reality I would spend a lot of time on social media or stupid internet sites and get about an hour or two of actual work done. Lately it’s giving myself permission to not work on writing until my youngest turns one and then re-negotiating this hiatus. I’m trying to have faith in my ability to get back at it once the chaos calms down a bit. Or get back at it in spite of the chaos.

A typical day for me right now is spending 2-3 hours trying to get my kids dressed and out of the house so I can get my coffee.

At this point I pretty much spend every spare second I have that isn’t sleep-deprived revising the work that I wrote last year. I recently started a couple of new pieces but I have no idea where the work is headed.

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

These days my writing only gets stalled by my kids. I’m sure if I didn’t have them there would be other things that would stall me, but right now they’re the big obstacle (I say this with fierce love). I’m not lacking inspiration, I’m lacking time, energy and brainpower.

I spend most of my days longing for time to work on writing projects and planning my next two-hour stint at a coffee shop. What I’m currently trying to do is get even twenty minutes of work done in the evenings after my kids are in bed so that I feel like I’m still producing (while also recognizing that I gave myself a full year to get back at it, so anything I produce right now is gravy). Along with that comes my attempt to recognize that this period of raising young children is finite, that there will come a day when I start to get some of my time back.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

The smell of a wetsuit.

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?

Science, definitely. Biology in particular. I spent a lot of time researching various sea creatures while writing the poems in Buoyancy Control. It was an exciting time. If I had known I could have that much fun learning about reproduction and mating I would have considering taking some biology courses. My current work focuses on pregnancy and birth, so I’ve spent time reading about and researching these topics – more biology. My mother, who’s a biochemist, always says that biology is akin to art and I get that now. There’s so much beauty and complexity in how our bodies function and how we mate and reproduce.

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

The work of my peers has been crucial. I read primarily poetry and creative non-fiction these days and am feeling really awakened by what I’m reading.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Travel to Italy as an adult. Do a food tour of India. Scuba dive in Thailand. Eat the inside of a loaf of French bread.

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?

I would be a midwife. I’m strongly considering this right now.

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

I can’t not write. The alternative is that I am chronically depressed and feel like I’ve hobbled myself. Of course, I’ve done and will continue to do a myriad of other things to make money/feed myself. But I can’t have a meaningful life without writing.

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

So many great books to love. Again, I have kids so every time I finish a book it’s a huge victory. I recently read Soraya Peerbye’s Tell: poems for a girlhood and was completely captivated by it. Although I read it some time ago, Ongoingness: The end of a Diary by Sarah Manguso opened my eyes to what a poetic memoir could look like. It’s a stunning book.

The last great film I saw was Trainwreck with Amy Schumer. In the theatre. With all the popcorn.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a third collection of poems called Q & A about my first pregnancy and the birth of my third daughter. I’m also working on a book of creative non-fiction about the pregnancy and birth of my second daughter. I’m a little afraid that I’m going to have to have a third child just to have more material for future projects.

12or 20 (second series) questions;