Maleea Acker, Hesitating once to feel glory

 

LOVE

It is likely that my father and my dog
will die the same year. They are both 

in their retirement. They complain.
They smile. They look as if 

they wish there were something
more they could do for me. 

The universe of tinnitus presses in
like the swell of a drama. 

I’m not mad, I say to my ex-love.
I’m not going to be mad anymore. 

I’m lying in this bed. My father is
by the sea, worrying. My dog, 

her back to me, hangs her muzzle
off the edge, out into the space 

between comfort
and the hundred-year-old floor. 

She sighs when I touch her
and does not move closer.

I’m not sure how I missed it, but Victoria-based poet Maleea Acker’s [see her 2009 ’12 or 20 questions’ interview here] third full-length poetry collection, following The Reflecting Pool (Pedlar Press, 2009) and Air-Proof Green (Pedlar Press, 2012), is Hesitating once to feel glory (Gibsons BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022). Perhaps it was simply the Covid-era, when all our attentions were scattered. Perhaps it is simply the quiet, modest way these observational wisdoms rest on the page. As the poem “HOVERCRAFT” begins, writing: “The trouble with introspection / is it keeps changing its mind. / Most of the time I sit on a precipice // of memory built somewhat like / a camping matterss. The dust-mote floor / an inch away, the wires above blanketed // like a Cuban mezzanine; it’s hard / to find a supportive position.”

Set as an assemblage of first-person meditative lyrics as a single, book-length suite, there is a striking intelligence across such lovely detail, lovely intimacy. “There was the clink of bottles // before the world began / and so its sound still / makes us melancholy / the way ice can,” she writes, as part of the book’s title poem, “booming // on a river in spring / or tilling a glass in a woman’s hand.” Across thirty-one short poems, Acker provides such a lovely series of small moments that build and accumulate through sharp observation into something else, something larger. “I turn the corner. A car dealership,” she writes, as part  of the two-page “TACOS,” “a man / behind glass adding numbers / in a store full of fans.” A bit further along, writing specifically to her poem’s subject, offering: “I am a compass needle swinging / yes to everything. / It is important to hold / their greasy, hot circles properly. / Three, or better, two fingers. Approach / from the side.” There is such quiet, deep resonances that run through these poems, elements subtle enough they nearly slip by, catching perhaps on one’s sleeve.

until the end of the world, : Victoria, part two,

Further to my adventures in Victoria, British Columbia [see part one here]:

Friday, April 24: I was to meet up with Steven Ross Smith for coffee around noonish, just prior to my early afternoon reading, so headed that way first thing to settle, read a bit, capture some notes. Coffee, naturally. Blossoms everywhere, again. Isn't it snowing in Calgary right now or something? The cafe was good enough to allow me to leave my large bag of books for the event in their space so I could walk the block or three over to the Emily Carr House, the birthplace and childhood home of the Canadian artist Emily Carr (1871-1945). My niece Emma is an artist, so I texted her a photo or two of the space [much as I had when we were in Owen Sound three years earlier, and saw Tom Thomson's grave]. I've long been intrigued by such spaces, and the stories of how well-known creators (writers, filmmakers, painters, actors) manage to get through those struggles of getting to the point of actually making. How does one make anything? Culture seems to want us to have created, but don't necessarily want to help get us there, so there's always that struggle, well beyond any specifics of family push-back, or any other hurdles that might exist. How do any of us get anywhere?

Interestingly, the house structure reminded me of the historic site Christine and I had caught a year-plus prior in Vancouver, the Roedde House Museum, "the restored 1893 home of Canada's first bookbinder," also I suspect that the Carr house lands more traffic.

There was a tour happening, started a few minutes before I arrived, so I tried to stay out of their way, work my own self-tour. One room held excerpts of a journal that Carr's father kept, some of which was quite a compelling read. When did folk stop keeping journals? I'd give anything to see further volumes of journals by Elizabeth Smart, certainly. Is this a nineteenth century hold-over, by the wealth class? I did peek into one of the rooms held by tour group, and who did I see but Ottawa poet (and relative Ottawa South neighbour) Susanne Fletcher? She won the 2025 John Newlove Poetry Award, if you might recall (so her chapbook as part of such will be out this fall). Apparently she and her husband were in town on holiday, unrelated to anything I was doing there. We talked for a bit around history just by the gift shop (where I'd already collected some postcards, naturally), where the Emily Carr House offers visitors a cup of tea (from their own house blend, a small box of which I did pick up for Christine). Apparently the Emily Carr House also offers painting classes; if you were interested in painting, I think that would be extremely cool, to be able to attend classes in her childhood home, akin to a writing class or residency in the former home of a well-known writer. Such as the Elizabeth Bishop House, for example (which we did wander by back in 2014).

Once done, I returned to the cafe, another coffee, my bag of books, and waited for Steven Ross Smith (I've since accepted work by him for the next issue of Touch the Donkey, by the way), who soon accompanied me across the street to the James Bay New Horizons Centre to where I'd be reading, via Planet Earth Poetry (a series now three decades old, you know). It was an interesting reading, with an open set, including a woman who said she used to live in Ottawa, and attended readings as part of The TREE Reading Series during the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, before relocating west. It suggests we were most likely at at least one or two of the same events, possibly. She hadn't written in moons, so she read one of the pieces she wrote during that particular era. Did a full half an hour reading, which gave my reading a bit of space to breathe. Opened with the book of smaller, moved into the book of sentences. A good event, overall, including meeting Allegra Kaplan (current Yolk editor, and copy editor of Misha Solomon's recent above/ground press title), a poet recently relocated from Montreal. A far way to meet a Montreal poet, but there you go.

After that, Steven Ross Smith was good enough to offer to hold onto my huge bag of books for the evening event, and dropped me off at the Royal BC Museum, a natural history museum comparable to Ottawa's Museum of Nature. It was interesting seeing some of the coastal BC exhibits of ecosystems and animals, plants and other things, so used to my eastern Ontario sense of landscape and geography, so attending the details of these landscapes were entirely new, and extremely engaging. Unfortunately, about a half-hour into my wander, I realized I hadn't actually had lunch or food of any sort yet (it was around 4:30pm by this point), so I realized, however much I wanted to explore the museum further, I really needed to deal with that.

So, I walked. It seemed to make the most sense to head closer to the evening's reading venue and find some food in that area, find a place to sit and just be for an hour or two. Lots of stuff to look at along the edge of the water, as well as a statue of Emily Carr, once more. Is she following me? Possibly.

Some food, a pint, a back issue of The Paris Review and a place to sit for a couple of hours. Mother-in-law did gift a subscription to the journal a couple of years back, but this issue lands prior to that. The interviews, really, are my favourite part of any issue, even if with authors I haven't heard of prior, and this issue is no exception.

A mostly-empty pub by the water, with a slow trickle of young people to an eventual thumpy-loud music and screen coming down for the hockey game. At least by that point, I was heading out to the reading venue.

The evening reading was at Russell Books, a store I realized I should have spent a couple of hours wandering before the reading began. There was no time, for which I am disappointed. It had a remarkable selection, although the store was technically closed during our event. Most of the lights were out, which made me presume the space most likely had at least one ghost.

Hosted by Kyeren Regehr, Victoria's seventh and current Poet Laureate (through Planet Earth Poetry), the crowd was stellar, and included Maleea Acker, Melanie Siebert, Chris Fink-Jensen [I did publish an essay by him, some six years ago, fyi], Sara Cassidy, Lorne Daniel, David Day, Patrick Friesen, Eve Joseph (I brought along my copy of her latest [see my review here], for her to sign), John Barton, Terese Svoboda, and a whole bunch of other folk. A really good crowd, and Anna Yin and Phoebe Wang gave good readings! Wang's mother was there as well, taking photos, which was quite charming (the one time my mother heard me read, as I launched my second poetry title back in April 1999, she actually heckled, if you can imagine, which delighted the audience; I was less pleased by it). After, I sold a bunch of books (and handed out chapbooks); the post-reading crowd lost a track of each other, with Anna Yin and Kyeren and I in one direction, for a drink, and others in another direction. After Anna and Kyeren retired, I did manage to figure out where Sara, Maleea [I've since published a poem by her, by the by], Chris and Melanie had landed, and hung out there for a bit. Into my (hosted) bed around 2am, so the days this way are long.

next up: Mile Zero, and podcasting with Kyeren,

Land of hope and glory, : Victoria, part one,

Is that too obscure a reference? The Kinks, after all, their song “Victoria.” Okay, so maybe that is too obscure. Or this Billy Bragg classic, as well (but my point was The Kinks, here), although both pulling from a British patriotic song from the turn of the prior century. I recently had some adventures in Victoria, British Columbia, doing two readings and a podcast in three days, which was a bit of a whirlwind. When was the last time I'd travelled for a reading? Dublin, last July with Christine. Or Vancouver, last year with Christine as well. Or Calgary, also with Christine. I am very fond of reading and/or travelling with Christine, as you might imagine. Do you remember when I read in London, Ontario, some two-plus years ago?

The blossoms [reminiscent, slightly, of our trip to Washington] were everywhere! Thanks to Planet Earth Poetry, The League of Canadian Poets and The Writers Union of Canada, all to help promote my University of Calgary Press poetry title from the last fall, the book of sentences. Thanks predominantly to current Victoria Poet Laureate Kyeren Regehr for bringing me out! I mean, it has been twenty years or possibly more since I've read in (or even been to) Victoria, despite the annual or semi-annual I did for a stretch beginning in 1997 or so. Maybe 2003 was the last time I was through? I can't even recall.

Thursday, April 23, 2026: Had a 3:45am alarm for 4am cab and 6am flight, landed in Victoria by 11am or so, local time. The Ottawa-Toronto part of the flight I think I slept, but the second flight I spent most of such reading through Phoebe Wang's Relative to Wind (Assembly Press, 2024), a really interesting memoir by the Ottawa-born Toronto poet [see my review of her second poetry title here] on being part of a sailing crew across Lake Ontario. The memoir begins with language in a really interesting way, and expands across a whole slew of details on the minutae of working such a craft, and how she's learned to navigate other elements through the lessons approached here. 

I landed, and my pal (from high school, even) Jennifer collected me from the airport, and we had breakfast (I had to eat something, even though I was exhausted) at Spoons, the coolest little diner. It had posters all over of classic (up to early 70s) Marvel and DC comic book covers, some of which I even have, kicking around. Then I had to crash, where I quickly discovered I'd managed to leave my computer cord at home, so my machine (and subsequent phone) were soon to die. I slept for an hour, before I caught up with my host, poet Rhona McAdam, who was kind enough to drive me out to Staples, where they sold me the incorrect cord (I was at least smart enough to also pick up a way to recharge my phone). From there, a short walk to downtown, to eventually meet up for a pub night, organized by the delightful (and Ottawa-born) Victoria writer and journalist Sara Cassidy. I figured, maybe hit a bookstore if possible, sit with notebook and read for a bit, hang about until I met up with them, all good.

The short walk, with my huge bag of books and envelopes (for that pub night, handouts, etcetera) was ninety minutes, so I completely miscalculated on that. Walked by a gallery show (gallery closed) that looked interesting, You Do Not Have to Be Good (apparently a line from this Mary Oliver poem, which is interesting), "a multi-media debut solo exhibition by Mila Rio," but more on that later. I caught C A V I T Y, a curiosity shop, which was pretty cool. Comics, records, books (I did pick up some stuff, including a back issue of The Paris Review, but was gratified to see some Barry McKinnon poetry titles in there; I nearly picked up an extra copy or two, just to carry around). Blasting punk music. Very nice. You should go to there.

From there, I finally made it downtown, wandering by this sign that led into an alley of Victoria's Chinatown Museum and little slips of history, making me aware just how unaware I am of Victoria history generally. I mean, I have a general sense of Vancouver history, but know absolutely nothing of Victoria. The little corners of history was reminiscent of the Hogan's Alley Society over in Vancouver, attempting to salvage a period and geography of Black history specific to Vancouver, most of which had long been lost (and which every city should attempt to do, acknowledging lost histories and spaces).

The alley threaded between buildings with slips of site-specific history of Chinese immigrants in Victoria, amid a sequence of quaint little shops and curious other spaces. It really is a remarkable (and very cool) array of small spaces, intersliced with histories that deserve not to be forgotten.

Given Ottawa has a Royal Arch (in that we are capital), I've been curious to see Chinatown arches in other Canadian cities, having caught Vancouver (years ago), Montreal (once, while completely lost) and in Winnipeg [during this trip, but I appear not to have taken a picture].

I eventually found my exhausted way to The Drake Eatery and Craft Beer Parlour, where I figured I could decompress with notebook and some reading before heading over to where Sara Cassidy had organized a pub night with a few local writers for me to meet. She'd originally picked one spot, and then relocated to another, neither of which I could remember properly, so when I presumed the Drake was the original spot, so I landed there (thinking this would allow me to see two different Victoria venues), asking Sara where we were ending up, and she said I was already there? So that's on me. A delightful spot, and even, at one point, Sara's teenaged son slipping through to deliver me a computer cord, so my machine wouldn't die. This is from Sara, he said, handing me a cord and disappearing. Relief for the save (but he was like a ghost, albeit far more polite).

I first met Sara [waving, in the pic on the left] back in 1998, after Rhonda Batchelor had told me if I could get myself to Victoria, she'd give me a chapbook and a reading, so, thanks to the ottawa international writers festival's 1998 Via Rail Tour (I participated all the way to Vancouver), it was a quick hop and jump to Victoria, as Sara and I both read from our newly-published Reference West chapbooks (the press ran from 1990 to 2000, co-founded by Batchelor and her husband, the late Charles Lillard). I hadn't seen Sara in more than twenty years, and then the extra delight of being able to meet poets such as Julie Paul [see her '12 or 20 questions' here], Melanie Siebert (both photos, on the left) [see my review of her latest] and Maleea Acker (above, right) [see her 2009 '12 or 20 questions' here], as well as an appearance by Kyeren Regehr and her partner. A lovely evening! Maleea landed early, followed close behind by Melanie, so it was very good to hang out with them, especially given the years we've been interacting over email (and through writing). And honestly, not only are Melanie and Sara extremely cool, but Maleea is an absolute delight (and completing a new manuscript, by the way, shhhhhh). I was worn out by the end of the night, naturally, as I'd probably been up for some uncountable array of hours. Next up? Two readings [part two to follow].

12 or 20 questions: with Maleea Acker

Maleea Acker lives and works on Vancouver Island. He first book of poetry, The Reflecting Pool, appeared with Pedlar Press (Toronto) in Fall 2009. Her poetry and interviews have been published in journals across Canada and in Mexico and in the anthologies Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2008 and Rocksalt. She has an MFA from the University of Victoria and teaches writing at Camosun College.

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?

Pedlar Press took a sheaf of papers and turned it into a beautiful object (I had nothing to do with the design), and this process, along with the joy I felt the first time I held the book in my hands, has given a greater validity to my work and my life as a writer. I expect this is a pretty common experience, and no less true for me.

My most recent work is part of my second manuscript, so that’s a whole new kettle of fish. I think it reaches further—more experimental, more willing to risk voice and leap. I feel it’s closer to how my brain works. But there are also many pieces in the book that very much feel this way as well—they are the jumping off points for where I’ve come to now in my work. Specifically, perhaps, the Summer’s Variations poems.

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

I think it rather came to me or through me, through the idea of moment or image—as something that needed to be recorded in non-narrative form. I was ten when I first started writing poems (bad ones, I might add!) and I think it was the combination of sitting still, letting something come forward, and also the particularity that could be captured. Whenever I tried to write fiction, and I’ve tried many times, it comes like molasses, because I’m so focused on every word and every image and I’m so unconcerned with plot.

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 work very much as a response to a number of things—landscape, philosophy, other poems. When I have time and space to put full effort toward attendance of these things (these days, only when I’m at a residency) poems come, not easily, but they come. I’ve started giving myself permission to let this happen not only at the desk, but on a trail up a mountain, in a kayak or, most recently, in the boathouse at Blue Mountain Center, where I spent October at a residency. Many of the pieces from that month came out whole, like fur balls. I also write from notes and journals, but I think the strongest pieces usually have an immediate shape, in terms of content. Form comes later.

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?

A poem begins for me with a feeling of being let close to the edge of something. Usually this something is landscape or an idea in philosophy. The poem is the recording of the frustration and the joy that come from approaching that uncrossable edge.

My last book was very much a collection of shorter pieces with a variety of landscapes and thoughts. I think it holds together, but I think what I’m working on now has much more of an intrinsic shape, one that came about unconsciously, but that has much more of an arc of thought, a series of related philosophical ideas and ways of relating to the natural world.

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

I don’t feel like readings are involved very much in my creative process, but I do enjoy doing them. They appeal to the performer in me. I got the chance to read from a play at Blue Mountain, with the playwright, and found that performance of bringing a play to life very similar to doing a reading of poetry. Similar to poetry itself, as well, strangely, but that’s another story. But I love the feeling of an engaged audience, and the way that voice can bring authority and conviction to a piece. I recently relearned how to read—I knew unconsciously when I was first starting out professionally—and to rediscover my voice has been a true pleasure.

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?

Wow, how much time do you have? I think my work is largely based in philosophical concerns. How to live in the world. How to write adequately about it. What it means, as Rilke says, “to be opposite,” and the ways we have found for dealing with this threshold between ourselves and the world. I love Zwicky’s work on metaphor. I have been immersed in Merleau-Ponty for two years now—his work on the body and perception dogs me and keeps me thinking. And I want to explore more of Levina’s concept of ethics as first philosophy. As for questions, I think they are the same as they have always been. How can we best perceive the world? How translate the lyric/story? How recognize this beauty in front of us? What is adequate response (if any)? What is our responsibility as writers? How do we get past Tranströmer’s wall, or even just close to it?

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 believe we still have an integral role in society—to gather and serve as memory, to inspire, to console, to incite. Poetry has never been more necessary, and I see that in my students, who come to class hungry for something that modern culture is providing less and less of.

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

I worked extensively with Beth Follett of Pedlar on the book, and that was both difficult and essential. Difficult only in the small hurtles I had to get over to see where she was coming from (and mostly realize that she was right). Essential because she offered such rich commentary and such a precise eye, that the pieces were really able to improve. Most of the poems I publish in journals, however, haven’t seen anyone else’s eye. I’ve come to trust my own sense of things, certainly more than I did when in school.

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

Don McKay said to me that walking in the woods, reading field guides and hovering over a bracken pool for hours was called research, and that I should eschew any sense of guilt when doing these things rather than simply chaining myself to my desk. To fill up, to take in, he taught me, is an essential part of the process.

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 work three jobs, plus writing, when at home, so I have essentially no routine, except to keep things in the mail and complete more of the business end of the game (residencies, grants, etc). If I have small stretches of time, I tend to edit previous work. I also pull off the car and write by the side of the road, on occasion. When I’m at a residency, which is where most of my writing work gets done, I try to walk, get on the water, or sit somewhere outside every day. I journal, I take my books and computer out to the dock and sit. I work late into the night. I immerse myself completely. I look and listen a lot. I try to become small, in order to take things in. I want to disappear, even in personal pieces. All of this not necessarily in that order. Oh, and a good amount of wine and some dancing in the evenings with other artists is also essential.

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

When the difficulty comes, I go back to essential poets—Stevens, Ashbery, Bishop, McKay, Zwicky, Auden, Hejinian—and philosophers, and read. I read and read until the knot comes undone and something is triggered. Running also helps, though I’m a very lazy runner!

12 - What do you really want?

I want to work at poetry full time. By this I mean research, reading, being out in the world and writing. There is nowhere I feel more at the threshold of something and more myself, more alive. O, for the life of the Danish poet, who gets an annual government salary after publishing a certain amount. And I want to make a difference. I want to do justice to the sense of beauty and connection I’ve felt in the various landscapes I’ve fallen in love with.

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?

Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians comes to mind. Music is a big influence for me. Nature, of course. Science, especially the natural sciences—botany, geography, geology, etc. And visual art I drink up when I’m in cities. Not only exhibits in museums (Joseph Cornell, Rauschenberg, Rodin) but the architecture and feel of a city itself. New York, Seville, Paris. I love to walk, wherever I am, and that gives me a sense of happiness that then bleeds into the work.

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

Trevor Herriot’s Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds is by my bed right now. I inhale The New Yorker and other great non-fiction and journalism. Field guides—it’s mushroom season right now and I’m just beginning to learn about another layer of the forest I live in. All of this contributes in some way.

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

I’d like to start writing more environmental journalism. I’ve dabbled in this a bit, and it feels like a viable way to fight against the onslaught of multi-nationals and the insane, right wing environmental policies that have become the norm in BC in the last eight years. There’s so little time left to save any vestige of this planet; information, into the right hands, will be a prime tool in this battle.

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?

Environmental lawyer? Botanist? Actor? Bee keeper? Chocolate taster?

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

Compulsion, necessity, sanity. Like many of us, I think, I didn’t have much of a choice. I was ambushed out at sea and dragged away from the possibility of any sustainable sort of career, toward this vocation.

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

Can I be brash and admit I’d never read The Odyssey until last winter? Its beauty floored me. I’m also hooked on Dickens and Lyn Hejinian’s Language of Inquiry. As for films, I tend to loop Wes Anderson and Truffaut films, and I loved I’m Not There, the Bob Dylan tribute.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I'm working on a second book of poetry. At Blue Mountain, I put together a rough sense of the first draft. That was wonderful, as I hadn’t written in a serious way since I was in Spain at residencies in 2007. Now, the painstaking and elated editing process.

12 or 20 questions (second series);