12 or 20 (second series) questions with Concetta Principe

Concetta Principe is a writer of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction, as well as scholarship on trauma and literature, living with a disability. Her current poetry collection, Disorder, is coming out with Gordon Hill Press in the spring of 2024. Her most recent creative non-fiction project, Discipline N. V: A Lyric Memoir, was published by Palimpsest Press in 2023. Her poetry collection, This Real was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award in 2017 and her first book of poetry, Interference won the Bressani Award for poetry, 2000. She edited a special issue “Lacan Now” for English Studies in Canada. She teaches at Trent university.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Interestingly enough, it was my second book, a collection of prose poems, that changed my life. For one, there was no dread in creating a 'second book" since I'd already had it drafted when my first book, a novella, came out. More than that, the poetry project actually outshone the first book, winning an award for best poetry.

Writing the novella changed my life because the experience of finishing a book length project was harrowing. I was writing it for my final MA project. I had an on-going conflict with my first mentor which involved me second guessing every move. A second mentor came to rescue me and helped me complete the draft to finish my degree. But overall, the drafting of this book was not enjoyable creatively: not the first draft nor subsequent drafts of which there were several. But in the process of writing, I came to see the value of being committed to the craft. I had some brilliant moments, some revelations, some creative break throughs, which kept me going. And when the fiction was getting me down, I'd write poetry. So I would unstick myself from creative blocks by toggling between genres. The poetry I wrote during the writing of the novella became my second book.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Thinking back to my first writing experiences, I wrote in all genres, but ended up writing prose poems for the most part, inspired by Stein's Tender Buttons. I first discovered her at the age of 10. The reason that i end up writing prose poems is because I have a storytelling drive in me. The emotional spark of the poem needs context. I find it hard to create context in the short space that most line poetry requires. And the rhythms of prose poems are just more my style, my internal voice. In fact, I was thinking yesterday that my poetry reflects a kind of inner voice that needs time to complete. if that voice isn't taking time to reflect the thoughts clustering as they do, and there are times when the voice isn't talking, i just don't write.
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I'm a messy writer. Copious notes, you could say. I never like my first draft. I look at my first drafts of anything and find them derivative, boring, not interesting to me. So, if a poem is boring, I abandon it for something else. But when something i need to say grips me i don't stop until I have a draft that expresses what I mean. But even then, I may not be happy with what I've got. For example, I'm writing poems right now about the war in Gaza (which is not a war). I don't know what to feel about the poems. I read them and know they are unfinished and possibly just not appropriate (who am I to write about this event?) And so the project has a 'body' but I don't think has shape. I have lots of these poems that are connected but ultimately, not ready for an audience. Basically, the project is a mess.

But my process is also messy because I don't know what I mean to say when i start to write. The draft comes out and it's not hanging well, and I push and pull at it to make it hang. And even after I've got it hanging, I realize it has no life. So how do I breathe life into it? So I fiddle until it feels like it's working. Or abandon it. I abandon things a lot and then come back to them. Or they return to me.

Starting a project is usually inspired by word associations. A poetic conceit. Disorder, for example, came into shape  after being diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I saw that the poems articulate what I experience living with BPD which is a trouble with borders, an obsession with order, and a tendency for chaos, or paranoia.  

Projects just happen. Sometimes projects take a long time to take on the final shape, and sometimes they're just there. Then again, to be fair, when the project comes into shape as just there, it's usually after i've been stumbling around in the bushes for a long time. In fact, one project that came together just like that actually is littered with bits of content I'd been writing thirty years before. Literally those lines stuck with me for thirty years until they found a place to 'settle'. But even that project isn't finished or it's not something for an audience yet. Still working on it.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose 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 combine pieces. I don't have the vision of a book until I can feel the pieces have a large meaning. I also find that I rarely am satisfied with one poem. I start a poem, a prose poem, and when the dust settles, another piece follows and after a while a third and fourth. So a single poem can have many pieces. The serial poem is my style. Or the long poem. There are several examples of these in Disorder and in Discipline N.V.. On the other hand, an essay may demand more essays. I wrote a group of essays on the topic of suicide, for example. I'd say that I had a few essays on suicide before I had a vision of the book.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I'm the sort of writer whose anxiety makes readings a nightmare. I mean I can do them now, when at one time, I could barely complete my reading without fainting. My stress level was so high and I was so 'on stage' in the experience that I was barely breathing. Now, after having taught for several years, i can breathe in front of people when on stage, but that's about as much as I can do. if I make a joke that's total victory. Because I can't do banter, because I'm so shy I rarely feel relaxed enough to give context for a given poem. That means I need to shape my readings around the script of my poem/prose delivery. I work hard on delivery. But I hate the experience of having to perform.
 
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?
See #7

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?
When I was a kid making art, I wrote little plays and poems and I painted. I wrote and I created material objects out of clay and paper and fabric and wood. And then one day I knew I needed to choose one or the other art form and I chose writing. I chose writing because I wanted to express the truth. I'm not even sure what I meant by that at the time but today I see that the writer speaks the truth of their zeitgeist.

I see the writer as participating in addressing contemporary ethical concerns, or engaging in social justice. I see that happening in the writing community with writers speaking from their position as LGBTQ2S+, or BIPOC, or their disability. So I make my contribution as a white settler women living with a disability. What I worry about is that this specialization of our 'truths' may mean that we can't speak on topics not directly related to our position. I'm going to harp back to the issues raised by my writing about the war in Gaza. What right do I have to write about it? That leaves me speechless. But I am full of speech when it comes to what is happening in Gaza. But what is my ethical position to that event as a writer with all the privilege to be well fed, and not worry about where I'm living, but being neither Palestinian and nor Jewish? I'm not saying these things to apologize but to try and sort out why I am having trouble with writing about a contemporary crisis about which most of us have a position and about which I am compelled to write.

This dilemma I think is part of the role of the writer in culture: does the writer have a right because the writer writes? We all want to know what Zizek has to say about what's happening in Gaza, and he's got all the privilege possible. He's a writer and a thinker and that gives him the right. Does he have the right? And the answer seems to be, yes. So why do I think I don't have the right?

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
For the longest time, I wrote alone because no one got what I was doing.  It meant that I was always struggling to figure out how to make my work stronger and better for publication on my own. I mean being rejected so much did a number on me and left me feeling completely inadequate. So I created my own voice, or form, I think. Or maybe I didn't. In any case, it has only been in the last 10 years of writing that I've had good experience with editors work with me in my writing. I'm not counting the experience of my MA which is years ago, because those editors weren't working with me for publication.  

I don't know if working with an editor is essential, since I worked without for so long. But i would say that having a trusting relationship with an editor is essential. Building that trust, using my experience with Shane Neilson and Jim Johnstone as most recent examples, has been productive and so fulfilling. I also want to acknowledge the great trust I had working with John Barton and Jason Camlot.

I'd say that difficult is there if we consider trust being something that has to be be built. Building anything valuable is difficult. Writing poetry is, fundamentally, difficult. And that doesn't stop us from doing it.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Never give up. A 'no' in the publishing industry is a qualified 'no'. Losing in a grants competition is a qualified 'no'. Keep working at what you're doing and eventually an audience will form around you. I mean, when you ask yourself: should I give up? A voice in you will tell you: don't give up.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to short fiction to creative non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
In one way I would say it's been quite easy since I write a hybrid form to begin with. Moving between poetry and non-fiction is enjoyable for me because I can test the limits of each genre. So while I can move between genres, I find that a project asks for a certain form, even if it started in the opposite genre.

For example, i was writing prose poems on suicide but then realized there was far far too much to say than a poem could handle. So I started writing essays, lyric essays, and the form stuck for this project now published as Stars Need Counting: Essays on Suicide. The Disorder project was a collection of poems that wanted to be defined, so I wrote a lyric essay to end the book. The lyric element of this project introduced a facet to the topic that the line poems could not have done which led me to realize that some projects want to be expressed in several forms.

So for me, going between genres is enjoyable and I advise everyone to do it. The other thing I'd say about moving between genres is that this movement can unstick writer's block. I discovered this way back during my MA when I was struggling so much with my fiction project. Poetry saved me. I'd say that is appealing, to save oneself from writer's block.

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 write when the impulse grips me. I write something every day, if only a journal entry. But I don't write the 1000 a day that Stephen King advises. And maybe that is working against me. But then again, i don't write novels. But when I write long projects, sometimes everything I write is for that project and I can write (and revise) daily. It depends. Right now I'd say I'm between projects. So I'm not writing daily. And working means that I don't have the time to work on my creative work.  

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I read novels and poetry and some non-fiction. Right now I'm reading non-fiction by people living with BPD. I watch films (on Netflix usually). I'm watching Baby Reindeer, which is a bizarre British series about a man who creates chaos in his life. I always want to start painting again but every time I realize I need paints and canvas and all these objects to start painting, I sit back and imagine what i'd paint and that's almost as good as actually doing it. Inspiration also comes to me from the news (Al Jazeera, Ha'artez most recently). And my feelings. BPD are known for suffering emotional dysregulation. So, my feelings inspire me a lot.

13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
Blondie with red lips. From the neck down, I'm dressed in puffy coat and jeans like anyone else in the neighbourhood giving out candies at the door.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Film is probably the biggest influence. Astronomy (astrology) and some versions of physics. And psychoanalysis big time.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Academia has been a big influence on my writing. I am a thinking writer. I am driven by thought more than emotion. This I'd say is a failing or a weakness in my work. I find it hard to express emotion which is ironic considering I have BPD (emotional dysregulation). Or maybe thoughts are my way of controlling emotion? So I'm inspired by writers such as Anne Carson who thinks as she writes.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Write that novel that's been simmering for a while. I have a vision that in my old age, when I have time to just ruminate, the novel will come, the thing that I've been trying to get down on paper for about thirty years. I can see where it'll be set (the middle east) and I can see what the issues are, but I can't see the protagonist yet. Until I have that protagonist, I can't start...

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
In grade 9, I decided I had to give up painting to be a writer. But I still love painting. I get excited looking at art and I have even started looking at the world in shapes which I can see translated to a canvas. I can see how a face could be painted: the planes, the shapes, the section of shadows. I can see bodies as shapes, and how a leg is articulated in angles and slopes. If I hadn't got stuck on the word, I would be a painter. Or a filmmaker. Or an astronomer.

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

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Right now I'm reading a book of testimonies of people with Borderline Personality Disorder. I cry while reading each story. I hear the suffering, I recognize myself. I distinguish my experiences from theirs and wonder what those differences might mean. It's a simple book, but as an honest book, it has had a great impact on me.

So I watched Zone of Interest the other day. It was a striking film. I could appreciate the European understated quality of it. I also watched fascinated to see what Jonathan Glazer was trying to do. I didn't even have to hear his acceptance speech to see the parallels between the Holocaust and the conditions in the Gazan war.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I'm working on a project in dialogue with a fellow poet on the benefits and hazards of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for people with disorders. The objective in the project is to be critical of the method from a disabilities perspective.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Cathy Stonehouse

Cathy Stonehouse (she/they) is a poet, writer, teacher and visual artist in Vancouver, BC. The author of a novel, The Causes, a collection of short fiction, Something About the Animal, and two previous collections of poetry—Grace Shiver and The Words I Know. Stonehouse co-edited the ground-breaking anthology Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood and is a former editor of EVENT magazine. They teach creative writing and interdisciplinary expressive arts at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book didn't change my life in the ways I naively expected it might (i.e. entirely positively!). It was amazing, but also emotionally complicated. In fact, being published freaked me out so much I went silent for 15 years, and I've been trying to reduce this effect with each book since. I'm getting there. My most recent work, as a whole, is very different from my previous work, in that I'm moving toward a more comfortably capacious and interdisciplinary voice. I'm finally getting into my stride. A bit late, but hey ho.

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

Poetry has always been my first love. Sound, rhythm and musicality are everything to me, even in prose. As a child I liked to read poems aloud even if I didn't understand what they meant. Writing poems can feel like how I imagine being able to sing really well might feel (an experience I only have in dreams, then wake up). Whenever I write prose I look forward to the stage when I can relate to the words and sentences as music again, i.e. when editing. I also start prose like this, but in the middle it's a heck of a lot of other work.

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 can take a very long time for me to finish a project, although I have new ideas constantly. Work is often in my brain and/or notebooks for years before I have the space & time to manifest it, and sometimes revisions come after decades. This new book's main spine, the section called Dream House, came very fast one summer (2018) after returning home from the UK having rapidly emptied my mother's house. The rest of the book took a lot longer.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose 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 work more and more in a long form--the sequence, the book-length work--even with poetry and short stories. I get a kind of "feeling" of the work as a whole, then figure out the components.

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

I love giving readings and would love to do more of them. As a neurodivergent introvert I get very nervous but once I read and listen to others read it's quite exhilarating.

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 changes from book to book. With the new book (Dream House) I'm trying to use metaphor and other figurative language to render experiences of embodiment. How to address the trickiness of language which supposedly mediates isolation, yet so rapidly becomes cliché, and which, shortly after naming something, often begins to mean something else? The interiority and exteriority of language, of structure, and of the poem. The difference between a home and a house. Are these questions current? I don't know.

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 believe that consciously making language new, or using it in new and precise ways, is critically important right now, as is tracking and recording the experience of human consciousness--because these are all practices which cannot be carried out by AI. Humans may be on the verge of losing or downloading their capacity to think and imagine, both in pictures and in language, if we are not careful (and we generally aren't). For these ancient practices to continue to emerge from the individual and collective human body we need artists, poets, musicians, dancers and thinkers. We also need arts funding, education and mentoring.

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

Both. Essential, if I had to choose--being well edited is a deeply affirming if chastening experience.

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

Don't get too attached to how the work is received, positively, negatively or not at all. Just keep doing the work and delivering it up, even if it's just to yourself.

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

Too easy, perhaps. It's very bad for building a career because you dodge the branding process and can appear to be starting over each time, even if the work is all very connected. But for me each genre provides a particular challenge and opportunity, and they feed each other. Also, I'm a Gemini.

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 have no real routine when I'm working (teaching) and even just living (parenting, dog-parenting, being a person in the world) but when I can I work best first thing in the morning. That's the magical time.

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

I've been doing a lot of painting and drawing in the past few years and I find this tremendously helpful as a way to keep my creative practice alive when language and the literary feel too hard to enter. Painting is incredibly hard but in a completely different way so it's very refreshing. Life drawing is also great because there's no time to think, just do.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Warm toast, fresh ink and wet, slightly mildewy clothing.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Lately science has been inspirational to me. When I say science I really mean nature, humility, looking, and in particular the work of Indigenous and other scholars and artists whose worldview is based on reciprocity and relationship.  Madhur Anand, Leanne Simpson, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Suzanne Simard, Timothy Morton ...

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

Leslie Marmon Silko--especially the novels, Ceremony and Almanac of the Dead. All kinds of poets especially those working in longer forms. Lately, any amount of Will Alexander. Trans writing, writing about neurodivergence--anything that troubles the edges and binaries, undoes the commodification of art or identity. Tove Jansson's Moominvalley in November. I reread it once every year.

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

I'm working on writing and illustrating a graphic memoir, so that would be one thing.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I may have begun in visual art and drifted into writing instead of vice versa. Once upon a time I wanted to cross the Atlantic single-handed but I have terrible motion sickness; I also wanted to be an activist but I'm no good on committees.

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

Being silenced as a child.

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

Film: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, about photographer Nan Goldin. Book: Was It for This by Hannah Sullivan.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Aforementioned graphic memoir; a collection of linked short stories I've been working on for a decade; some very "challenging" essays; a speculative novel set in the English Civil War; another poetry-ish book about the nervous system and the ecosystem. A painting of elephants.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Stan Dragland (December 2, 1942 – August 2, 2022)

Sad to hear, via Toronto poet Ronna Bloom, that novelist, poet and literary critic Stan Dragland died earlier this week, half-through his eightieth year. As Stephen Brockwell responded to the news over email: “He was instrumental in shaping my perceptions of Canadian poetry. An open hearted, curious reader and writer.” Most probably already know that Dragland spent his teaching career the English Department at University of Western Ontario, where he remained until retirement (becoming Professor Emeritus), during which he was a co-founding editor and publisher of Brick Books (with Don McKay), a position he served until not that long ago, as well as a founding editor and publisher of Brick: A Literary Journal (with Jean McKay). After retirement, he relocated to St. John’s, Newfoundland and built a home with the writer and Pedlar Press publisher Beth Follett. He also published a stack of incredible books: if you look at his Wikipedia page, you can find a list of his titles, any and all of which I would highly recommend (I’ve even reviewed a few of them here and here; and mentioned him and his work in essays here and here).

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve always envied Stan Dragland’s ease with literary criticism; how he articulates the interconnectivity of reading, thinking, literature and living in the world in terms deceptively simple, deeply complex, and incredibly precise. I’ve envied his sentences, and how his prose connects seemingly unconnected thoughts, ideas and passages into highly complex and intelligent arguments that manage to collage with an almost folksy and deceptive ease (a quality his critical prose shares with the poetry of Phil Hall). If the 1960s and 70s saw George Bowering as one of the most prolific reviewers of Canadian poetry, and, as many have said, Frank Davey was our finest literary critic during the same period, Stan Dragland would emerge out of those years as a literary critic with an open and inviting heart, displaying a deep and abiding love for the materials he chose to explore. It was through Dragland’s eyes that I first understood just how wide-ranging criticism could be, as he brought in a myriad of thoughts, references and personal reflections to craft a criticism far more astute, and more intimate, than anything else out there.

I caught a second-hand copy of his Journeys Through Bookland and Other Passages (Coach House Press, 1984) rather early in my twentysomething explorations, and was struck by his depth, composing perfect sentences of pure craft. It was through Dragland that I was allowed a further view into the work of writers such as Robert Kroetsch, Elizabeth Hay, Phil Hall, Lisa Moore and Margaret Avison. I’ve probably read through that collection a good dozen times, even taking it with me as part of reading tours, rereading his thoughts on Kroetsch, for example, some twenty years ago on the overnight passenger Via Train heading west beyond Winnipeg. Given how often I’ve picked it up over the years, it’s never where it should be on the shelf, and always takes forever to unearth. I can’t even figure out where it currently is, now that I want to look at it again. Instead, I offer an early paragraph of his more recent The Bricoleur & His Sentences (Pedlar Press, 2014) [see my review of such here]:

            Even casual reflection shows that the business of character, biography or autobiography, is a lot more complicated than a person might think. I got to thinking about this when Michael Ondaatje asked me to send him my bundle of sentences, because it’s personal and quirky and not meant to be shared without commentary. I began to think of it as a kind of postcard taped to the fridge. What would Michael and Mary Oliver and the barbershop dog think of it? I foresaw scratching of the head. Then I began to think about the word “bricoleur” as regularly applied to me by Don McKay. Might it fit not only my gathering and making of odd things, but also my puddle-jumping mind? Does it describe me all too well? This is not modesty. I think better sideways or in circles than straight on, so I hand my best attempts to others then do what I can to fix the flaws they spot. Do not imagine that this comes direct from me to you.

Dragland was kind enough to offer a reworked excerpt of The Difficult (2019) for my recent festschrift for Phil Hall, which included information in his author biography about a forthcoming title. As he wrote: “James Reaney on the Grid: An Essay will appear in 2022.”

Already some other tribute pieces have posted as well, such as over at Book*hug, and two poems by Ronna Bloom.

Condolences to his friends and family, including his children, and to Beth.

Phil Hall, NIAGARA & GOVERNMENT

The latest from Perth, Ontario poet Phil Hall is the volume NIAGARA & GOVERNMENT (St. John’s, Newfoundland: Pedlar Press, 2020), a suite of meditations carved from lyric fragments (alternately: lyric fragments carved from a suite of meditations). Notwithstanding his Governor General’s Award win and Griffin Poetry Prize nomination, I always think there should be larger attentions provided Hall whenever a new volume of his poetry emerges, given how solid his centre remains, how collected his lyric collages, and how pervasive his wisdoms that tun through these myriad threads of reference, articulations, pauses and speculations. Phil Hall weighs, considers and stitches together a myriad of disconnects, excising the white noise from a potential overload of information into something uniquely coherent. The poems concurrently shudder, and remain sleek. At the end of the poem “Ars Poetica,” he writes:

I work toward an intimacy    an intricacy     approaching absurdity
  spielraum

from eked notes    of self-loathing    & affinity
  I invite a discordance

that cherishes    & defies

Through more than a dozen trade poetry collections, Hall has mined further and deeper into the complexities of language, his histories of abuse, addiction and recovery, and his attentiveness to mentors, contemporaries, tokens and folk art. As he writes in the sequence “Stan Dragland’s Wall”: “So folk art   & fine art   are one // folk   in its shed materials / fine   in its poetics of   amodal   disrepair // as with the first papier collés  by Braque 1912 / we must bring to this wall   a multiple perspective [.]” He stitches together a whole cloth out of scraps, and something valuable out of what others might easily discard, or overlook, allowing for a perspective more humble, and more democratic in scope. He writes Roy Kiyooka, Dolly Parton, Stan Dragland, Nudie Cohn, Lorine Niedecker, Emily Dickinson, Robert Duncan and Eugene Mcnamara. He writes of “the legendary Joe Junkin,” “the goalie for the Bobcaygeon Ti-Cats [.]” He writes of rude songs, typos and the bottom of the seemingly bottomless bottom. 

Increasingly, Hall writes an unbroken, elegiac line composed of lyric fragments, cadence and the pregnant pause, moving further along a path he constructs as he walks, following bpNichol’s “poem as long as a life.” In NIAGARA & GOVERNMENT, more than he has done with his other recent works—including Conjugation (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2016) [see my review of such here] and My Banjo & Tiny Drawings (Toronto ON: Flat Singles Press, 2015) [see my review of such here]—he writes as though his life depends upon it; how recovery is a process not a goal-post. He writes with the perspective that the true way, or at least his way, through and potentially past the far end of trauma is through language: “without a mask I am no past / without a past I am an amalgam devoid of loyalty // except to the presenting moment / its deep accordion sigh // the next word has / my true ancestors within it [.]” (“Bottom”).

As Hall’s friend and contemporary Stan Dragland offers in his essay “DIFFICULTIES,” from The Difficult (Pedlar Press, 2019):

“I guess to be sincerely, honestly difficult,” says poet Phil Hall, “a poem has to be heard by the poet who made it as merely the clearest possible talk its maker could come up with.” Difficult English poet J.H. Prynne has a related thought about poetic responsibility. He differentiates “post-modernist playfulness, where meaning is allowed to skim across a surface in a deliberately arbitrary way” from something that goes deeper. “[T]he use of difficulty as a method of poetic thought is different both in intention and effect from difficulty as a playground or a funfair.” I offer my own “clearest possible talk,” realizing that it’s difficult to avoid a certain amount of difficulty in writing about the difficult. However, part of the pleasure of writing this, for me, has been just to tell some stories about writers, writing and readers. About the stories there is nothing difficult.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Heather Nolan

Heather Nolan is a writer of poems, prose and songs from St. John's, Newfoundland. She is the author of This is Agatha Falling (Pedlar Press, 2019). Her work tends to explore themes of place and isolation.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

It was a more subtle change than I think we expect it to be. I got in the habit of submitting pieces to journals a long time ago, so I was really used to the routine of write, edit, submit, accept rejection. It took a few days to process the acceptance of the book.

The manuscripts I have written since This is Agatha Falling have felt more confident. Bruce Springsteen once spoke in an interview about artistic intuition vs artistic intellegence--as you go, you learn how to work with your ideas to achieve the effect you're going for. I feel like my more recent work has started to develop that process.

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

I actually can't remember which I started writing first. I've been writing both poetry and fiction since I was a child. I tend to go through phases where one of the two--or songs, which I also write--will dominate. More and more I have been finding that there are specific themes which I am more interested in exploring through specific forms. I started writing Agatha at the same time that I started writing my first poetry manuscript, so publishing a fiction book first was really only incidental, because that is the one I finished first.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

My writing practice has developed around the act of walking, and tends to be very rooted in place. First drafts come very quickly, almost manically, but edits come much slower. Each project seems to have its own process, though. A project about landscape that I am currently working on has involved a lot of hiking and chatting with people. A project about urban isolation has involved a lot of drinking alone! I am very interested in fieldwork.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose 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?

That changes from project to project, but I do tend to work on the larger whole. In my fiction I generally have a wider theme that I want to explore, and then I use different scenes to find different ways of looking at that theme. I very rarely write short stories. With poetry, I do sometimes work on individual poems, but for the last two years I have been working on a collection that has taken most of my attention. I like working on poetry with the collection in mind, as it allows you to really examine an idea through different lenses.

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

Oh I really don't like giving readings haha! I am a very nervous presenter, and would always prefer a conversation to a presentation. It's one of those things you have to accept and try and improve on though. I saw the poet Tom Dawe read recently and was inspired by the way he made it feel like he was just chatting with you while he read. Readings have their own kind of art.

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?

This is definitely something that interests me and I always start a work with a central question, even usually because of a question. That gives me something to center the entire project on, like a mystery to solve. I never start with the answer, and I usually don't end with it, either. The big question with Agatha was, How does memory impact us, and what factors are there in that impact? There will be smaller questions that present themselves through the work as well.

I guess the way I see it is, I have this question. I write as a way to open up that question and investigate the parts of it. I want to invite the reader into a conversation about that question. The answer isn't the point.

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?

This is interesting, as I heard that Sally Rooney recently tweeted that novelists are given too much cultural prominence. I don't think I agree. I think athletes and pop singers have too much cultural prominence, but that arts that involve critical thinking aren't given enough space. This is a difficult question, though. As a musician also, it is interesting to see firsthand the difference in perception between musicians and writers. It's easy to take in music fairly complicitly, more difficult to be passive with writing. The writer also feels a bit more removed from what people consume than the musician does. When you read, it's your own voice you hear rather than the writer's. And writers tend to show up less in popular media. So what is the role of the writer in our culture? I think the writer gets to stick to writing a lot more than musicians get to stick to making music. I really don't know what I think the artists role should be. Artists often taken on the role of satirist, of social commentator. Maybe artists should make up a satire council which presents their findings to governments.

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

Definitely both. It can be really difficult when the writer and editor aren't working with the same goal in mind. There winds up being a lot of work and nothing actually getting done. But, at the same time, that makes you figure out what parts you need to fight for.

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

Karen Solie once told me that a bell resonates because it is stuck precisely. That has been my editing philosophy ever since. And Andreae Callanan once gave advice about submissions, that a journal editor is looking to create a cohesive issue. It isn't that they didn't want to publish your work, but that your work didn't fit the issue they were building. That made me feel a lot better about the hefty pile of rejection emails haha.

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

I move between all three pretty freely, and will often have projects going in all three at the same time. I like that I have these different forms of writing, as some feel more apt to explore different ideas. I think all of my writing is more about exploring an idea rather than telling a story. My poetry tends toward ideas of place, culture, rurality, and cultural identity, whereas my fiction tends to be more urban and concerned with ideas of class and gender. My songs tend to be more personal, and focus a lot on relationships.

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 am not a creature of habit at all, and don't really have a routine that I follow. I try to take dedicated writing breaks every few months where I can focus intensively on the project I am working on for a week or so and, if possible, write from the place I am writing about. I find it very difficult to write from within my regular life. That's where I edit. I don't know if I have a typical day-- usually just a chaotic mess of trying to balance the many projects I have going on and forgetting to eat. It might not be the most productive system.

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

That is one of the nice things about writing in different forms. If a fiction project gets stuck, I often switch gears and dig back into a poetry project. I will also often pick up researching if I get stuck. Often learning new things about a subject I am writing about gives me fresh inspiration. Hiking or walking do as well: getting out into the landscape or place I am writing about and gathering sensory information can be just what I need to push forward. And there is nothing better than talking it out. A good conversation can have me writing for weeks.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

There are a lot of places I would consider home. I currently live in St. John's, where I can't think of any identifiable smells. Woodstove smoke and fir trees and salt air and musty bog are what I would associate with home. That is what my dad's place in Sweet Bay smells like.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Oh definitely. Nature is a big influence, as is weather. You can't live in a place like Newfoundland without being affected by, or responding in some way to, the weather. A lot my writing itself happens exposed to the place I am writing about, and I like to do that so that the influence of the environment is pushed right up against me, fighting for my attention. If I am going to write about a wind cutting my face I want to be standing on the most exposed bit of rock I can find, considering how that feels.

I like influence. I like the idea of considering what is happening around me, what is being created around me, and contributing to some bigger conversation of influence.

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

In fiction I am really interested in contemporary feminist and experimental writing. Ali Smith, Renata Adler and Sally Rooney are some of my favourites. I love the use of experimentation with form to access theme. I also recently read Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter. Mimicking experimental jazz through syntax! Or Gertrude Stein's interest in writing impressionism.

In poetry, Agnes Walsh and Mary Dalton have been huge in considering writing about Newfoundland, and Don McKay and John Steffler were instrumental in my initial interests in nature and place poetry.

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

So much! I like the idea of writing scripts, having visuals to play with. I have really loved working on this poetry book, having a specific place or landscape to react to in writing, and I would love to see what other projects I can do with that process.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Well its funny, because I am 27 and still picking away at university, and I am actually at the point right now where I am trying to decide what kind of career to pursue. I am still very on the fence. I really enjoy environmental science, but have also always wanted to work in publishing. I love editing. I have at least 10 different potential paths at this point.

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

Well I grew up with three older sisters, so I imagine I read a lot, having no say over the tv remote. I like to think that I started writing poetry out of a desire to code my diary as a child for when my sisters inevitably found and read it. That might be reading too far into it. More accurately, I have tried my hand at any art form I could access, and writing has always felt like the best medium for the kinds of ideas I was trying to express.

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

I recently read What Ever Happened to Interracial Love by Kathleen Collins. It's a really evocative collection of stories that explore different relationships between race and class in America, written in I think the seventies. Lots of experimental forms in there!

I am actually not a big film (or tv) watcher.  Something about the time commitment, I think. Or I am not fussed on the visual aspect. I have about 5-10 favourite films that I rewatch. The most recent addition to the list was probably the Rebillion series on the Easter Rising in Ireland. It isn't historically accurate, but it was great to see a period piece that focused on women's stories.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I have two projects on the go at the moment. One is the poetry collection I have mentioned, working title Talamh an Carraig: Land of the Rock, which looks at six site-specific questions in Ireland and Newfoundland. That is actually finished, but I liked writing it so much that I can't seem to stop researching it! The second is a new fiction manuscript that is still in a very early messy stage. That, working title How to be Alone on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, explores themes of urban isolation.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;