Canadian Poets Series : Peripety and/or Tronies

Happy Canada Day! A while back, American writer Olivia Cronk invited me to participate in her Peripety and/or Tronies blog, a site that includes, as she offered via email, “established writers with whom i’m friendly & student writers & others who like to think in writing, etc. not fancy, no gate-keeping.” I was curious at the suggestion, a thread I could offer in-between all the other notices of readings, new publications, interviews and the like. In the end, I thought it would be interesting to offer Cronk’s students, already attempting to pay attention to writing and readings and new publications, a glimpse into some of the amazingness of Canadian poetry, especially during the current climate. The “Canadian Poets Series” offers short biographies on contemporary poets working in various corners across the country, each featuring a healthy-sized author biography with links to publications, and poems and interviews online. I like the idea of these posts as being introductory, able to catch a good sense of what each poet has done and is in the midst of, through these rather straightforward biographical posts. We should be celebrating ourselves, after all, with all the self-reliance, self-reflection and dignity our sovereignty provides.

The first six posts in this ongoing series have landed online since the beginning of March—ryan fitzpatrick, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Kate Siklosi, Jake Byrne, Tolu Oloruntoba and Maggie Burton—with forthcoming posts featuring Armand Garnet Ruffo, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Jen Currin, Mark Goldstein and Jessi MacEachern. We are Canadian! And we are amazing. Elbows up!

Jake Byrne, Daddy: Poems

 

But I do try. I try so hard.
That’s why I bus to see my therapist mid-winter.
I am seeking his assistance with a complex project. (“PARALLEL VOLUMES”)

It is good to finally see a copy of Toronto poet and editor Jake Byrne’s second collection, Daddy: Poems (Kingson ON: Brick Books, 2024), following their full-length debut, Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin (Hamilton ON: Wolsak and Wynn, 2023) [see my review of such here]. Across a loop and reloop of articulated, traced and repuporsed trauma, Byrne’s poems offer a curious blend of sexual swagger, explorations through and into “patriarchy, intergenerational trauma, and queer desire” (as the back cover offers), and a degree of tenderness, including the very fact of the author dedicating the collection “to the memory of a little cat / named My Sweet Princess (2018-2023).” The poems assembled here are expansive, allowing for this large project built out of intricately-crafted small parts, opening with a poem of short lines held aloft by such wide open space. “My father calls to talk about my poems,” Byrne writes, offering a four-line stanza at the top of an otherwise empty page, “and seamlessly incorporates my words into his paranoid delusions. / He says I ought to be more careful what I write, implies the poems / come from a demon birthing itself through the vessel of my body.” This is Byrne in a further step of moving beyond composing poems to composing books, something already evident in the umbrella of Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin, a structure that encompassed the entirety of the poems in that collection, but Daddy: Poems provides a more overt and more coherent book-length structure; and the coherence is further impressive through the assemblage of a variety of lyric shapes and purposes. “My parents taught me many things the hard way.” the poem “A POEM ABOUT MY PET CANARY II” offers, “But I cannot for the life of me recall / what the moral of this lesson was. // Do poems require moral lessons?”

Daddy: Poems is constructed in two roughly-equal halves—the title section, and “gnostic iambic pre-exposure jockstrap jukebox prophylaxis”—each of which offers poems that accumulate in swirls and sweeps, emotional gestures set with a precision that holds what otherwise might flail. There might be excess and messiness, but Byrne’s lyrics explore with such deep and empathetic clarity.

A baby is born between shadow and crevice

The baby cries out for the touch of a hand

The hand delivers the sting of authority

A man doles out; a boy receives

 

 

 

Splitting between black and white

I have not resolved my DADDY issues

I bring them to my bed to sleep with

Not terribly uncommon, is it (“II OF RODS”)

There’s a vibrancy to Byrne’s lyric, whatever the subject matter; an energy that can’t be denied, making for a powerful collection on trauma, desire and how one might move forward, even through the flailing, a flailing that might hopefully find its way toward something more stable, certain. “sometimes you know / by the crackle of static in the air,” begins the poem “event coordinator moving into / project management,” “the vibrations in the puddles / on the sopping sauna floor. / i had so rarely felt the virtues of a / tall white man before marco.”

Jake Byrne, Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin

My review of Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin (A Buckrider Book / Wolsak and Wynn, 2023) by Jake Byrne is now up at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jake Byrne

Jake Byrne is a writer based in Tka:ronto, cka Toronto. Their first book of poems, Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin, is available now from Wolsak & Wynn's Buckrider Books imprint. DADDY is forthcoming with Brick Books in 2024. Find them at @jakebyrnewrites somewhere on the Internet.

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 chapbook didn’t change my life very much – well, it did, but in the normal way that time changes things for you. It was nice to get a nod from the bp Nichol shortlist, but I would say my life quickly returned to what it had been previously.

            Things feel a little different for this book – but I’ve felt ‘career momentum’ before that went nowhere, so I’m not going to count any chickens prior to hatching. All I will say is that it feels nice to feel so supported as I get to accomplish a dream I’ve had since childhood.

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

            Horrific attention span. Poetry involves the types and durations of concentration I am naturally suited towards. It also is still a lot of fun. Writing prose has always felt laborious. 

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 takes seconds to start any particular writing project, and just as long to abandon them. Some poems come fully-formed, quickly: those are the bolt-of-lightning poems. Then there are ones that are formed over months, years, often with little active work, just my mind slowly composting an idea or image until one day it coalesces. These are the long poems I tend to end my books with.

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 have no idea of telling where one book ends and another begins, other than they tend to have different ‘feels’ to them. Many of the poems in Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin were written at the same time as poems from DADDY, for example, but to me, there’s no way of mistaking one for the other.

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

I enjoy readings, as a poet I think you must MUST be down to hang out. Novelists are the industrious introverts of the literary world – for poets, all we have are our communities.

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 guess, ultimately, I am only trying to answer one theoretical question, which is the question of theodicy: why does suffering exist? If God exists, why does God permit suffering and evil?

I guess I’m just kind of culturally Catholic that way.

On the level of technique, prosody trumps all other considerations for me, 99.9% of the time.

My poetics derives from sound, not from image. All considerations such as logic, fact, or whether a word is ‘best’ or not will be overturned in favour of a syllabic pattern that sounds ‘right’ to me.

The other things I am interested in are primarily the art of artifice and its corollary, sincerity and vulnerability, or the appearance thereof, and I have some very minor concrete leanings in that I prefer to think of the whole page, including its white space, as my canvas. You may continue to expect some weird grammatical and formatting stuff from me in the future.

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 think the role of a writer, or the role of any artist, is to both attempt to describe and reshape the reality you live in, and to encourage others to have the courage to do the same. It takes a great deal of courage to live honestly.

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

Essential. I consider myself a sharper editor than a writer and always have. It would be hypocritical of me to respect the process when I’m on one end of it but not the other.

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

This is not a piece of advice I’ve heard, but rather one I’ve witnessed and observed: in a small industry mostly consisting of friends passing the same $500 back and forth between each other, the relationships you form are everything. Kindness and collaboration provide better returns than competition.

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 have no fixed writing routine. My only rule is that when I hear the call, I write it down, no matter how horrible or artless it seems in the moment.

I have long fallow periods, sometimes up to eighteen months, where I barely write at all. But the urge comes back, it always does, and then I make time for my notebook.

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

I’ve gone through enough of these cycles that I no longer worry about this or attempt to force it.

I redirect attention to my life and try to live it, and after a few weeks or months of that the poems start flowing again.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I grew up in a fragrance-free household, for the most part.

I guess certain soaps and cleaning products, or maybe the ginger cookies my mom made for us in the fall in the nineties.

I wear a lot of scents myself now in adulthood, so I still don’t have a fixed ‘home’ aroma!

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?

I’m only a poet because I couldn’t cut it as an actor, novelist, rockstar, playwright, director, or painter.

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

            Everything is grist for the mill, but I’ve always been someone interested in responding to the art of others, and that includes

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

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?

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

            The path of least resistance. Bookworm child, author adult. Oh and the fact I had a really really powerful experience of being the day I wrote my first word, which is probably the most vivid memory I have from my early life.

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

            Great book? A Queen in Bucks County by Kay Gabriel.

Great film? I’ve been having one of my little obsessions about David Lynch’s Inland Empire, and have watched it about thirty times since November of 2022. One day I will simply grow tired of it and never watch it again.

19 - What are you currently working on?

Surviving my debut book tour. I have three to four book ideas ready to go but I think I’m going to need a period of rest and recovery before I can start thinking about those.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Rahlia’s Ghost Press: Jake Byrne, Megan Fennya Jones + Beni Xiao

After announcing themselves with no small amount of fanfare, Vancouver’s Rahlia’s Ghost Press opens with their first round of chapbook titles, all three of which appear to be chapbook debuts: Jake Byrne, The Tide (2017), Megan Fennya Jones, Normal Women (2017) and Beni Xiao, Bad Egg (2017). Produced as gracefully designed limited-edition perfect-bound softcovers, by the time I saw copies of these chapbooks, all three were already in their second printings.

There is a brashness to these three collections I quite enjoyed, one that each poet utilizes to announce themselves as self-aware, self-confident and completely present. If this is how they begin, this is a press that will easily be producing multiple works that require your attention (much in the way Montreal’s Metatron has already been doing for a couple of years now). And the same for these three poets; there might be some rough or loose elements to some of this work, but all three writers here are worth your attention, especially for what they might end up doing next.

These push notifications unpushed.

Hard boiled eggs smashed on a silver tray.

Our mutual friends admitted you were dying.

All life is subject to potential hazards.

Some more evident than others.

Millions struck blind.

Millions displaced.

Millions wandering.

I could ruin you.

Eating roots and twigs.

I saw a man with his torso almost severed.

He was still alive.

I did not stop to help. I wanted

To find my mother in the rubble

Before the tide went out.

Montreal poet Jake Byrne’s The Tide is a chapbook-length lyric suite that writes on the crumbling of civilization, and a tide that exists as both destroyer and potential cleanser, removing the potential and possibilities of violence, cruelty and disease. Opening with a quote by Lisa Robertson – “You’ll go to a place that is crumbling in order to watch civilization fall.” – his poem begins: “This is personal as eschatological. // We lost Miami and Riga in the opening salvo. // We lost friends on both sides [.]” Exploring ideas of truth, confession and trauma, Byrne’s poem works to wash away the sins of the world, articulating into words what only then can be properly removed.

A POEM IS A DEATH WISH

This is how George Lucas must have felt about Star Wars: Special Edition.

The film was a flop. Even amongst his cult following amongst fans everywhere: it was doomed.

An untethered spacewalker—useless fumbling

of giant gloved hands

in unending dark—

an asteroid

hurling itself at

nothing

at other asteroids.

Vancouver poet Megan Fennya Jones’ Normal Women is a collection of short lyrics that work to get to the heart of things, working to explore and dismantle the smallest moments and ideas, kicking and searching and confident. As she writes in the poem “BLACK LAKE”: “It’s true that I am inwardly / screaming. I make my heart / into a black lake.” Or, in the poem “ON BEAUTY”: “We are not afraid / of anything.” Although I might question the argument of her short poem “CANLIT”—“In America I hear / writers are plentiful, / beautiful and important. / There are gymnasiums full / of writers publishing real work / and getting money.” (I suspect part of that is the fact of their population being ten times ours and the fact that Canadian media doesn’t discuss dollar figures as easily for successful literary writers)—the poems in this collection twist and turn with a narrative speed enough to injure one’s neck.

hotdog poem

before we even dated Jose told me he had a dream about San Francisco and me

I’m thinking about how dreams never really make sense

Like maybe it was San Francisco but San Francisco is a symbol for hotdogs and maybe it was me but I am a symbol for me eating hotdogs

Jose and I dated for almost 2 years before we broke up but anyways please dream about me eating hotdogs

I still want that

Vancouver poet Beni Xiao’s Bad Egg is a collection of exuberant first-person lyrics with the patter and patterns of texts, composed with the energy of a tweet, and titles that reference pop culture and the complicated measures of how we address each other, such as “Dear God, Can I Have A Designer Purse?,” “apocalypse poem no. 1: a list of thoughts and questions i will wish i had asked somebody before the apocalypse” and “in semester one i watch Buffy in her white dress kill the Master but i still can’t get out of bed [.]” In many ways, this feels the less polished title of the trio, but Xiao’s energy, intelligence and wit sparkle through with enormous potential, enough to allow for a “wait-and-see” on their writing. And how could anyone not love a poem, such as “conditions of staying alive,” that begins:

if you love some don’t give them your heart

i suggest a kidney that way if they

leave you you aren’t heartless

or heartbroken you have a backup kidney