12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tonya Lailey

Tonya Lailey (she/her) writes poetry and essays. Her first full-length collection, Farm : Lot 23,  was released this year by Gaspereau Press. Her poem, “The Bottle Depot,” was shortlisted for Arc Poetry 2024 "Poem of the Year". Her poems “Bat Love” and “Love on the Rocks” won first and second prize in FreeFall Magazine’s Annual Poetry Contest 2024. She holds an MFA in creative writing from UBC. 

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 has not changed my life materially – ha! It has given some confidence, and some small sense of place in the big open field we call writing. I now know it’s possible to have a manuscript accepted and published. I also know that the publishing experience can be good. Andrew Steeves, at Gaspereau Press, was lovely to work with – clear, kind and respectful in his approach. The book always felt like my book in his hands.

My second manuscript (my most recent and not yet published) deals with more charged material, namely, addiction and codependency. I don’t know how different the writing is, exactly. I play with form as I do in the first book. A single thread of colour – yellow – runs through this second collection. It felt very different to write these poems since I didn’t write them to belong to a book. The poems took shape over 10 years, in various workshops and with writing groups, friends.

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

At King’s College in Halifax, where I did my undergrad degree, I took a French Feminism course with Professor Elizabeth Edwards. She was the first person who told me that my writing was poetic, that I had a sense for metaphor. Whether or not that was true, I believed her. I think that metaphor happened to me from reading Kristeva and De Beauvoir and being swept up by their prose. I wasn’t much of a reader or writer as a teenager. I mean, I won the English award when I graduated high school, but I didn’t write much beyond school assignments. I spent the bulk of my time outside of school training as a competitive swimmer, then also a runner. Growing up on a farm and doing sports had me living an intense body life. I think that’s a solid prelude to writing poetry, being deep in the bodies of things, deep in one’s own body— its pains and pleasures. And I’ve also always been a day dreamer, space-cadet as we called it when I was a kid. I think poetry is kinder to dreamers than fiction might be. I’ve always felt more at home catching poems than telling stories.

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 always have many writing projects on the go. I think that’s not unusual for writers. Starting projects comes easily. Developing these ideas and getting them to a point I feel good about  is not such a snap. It’s rare that a draft appears looking close to its final shape. I take it as a good sign when it does. I live for the poems that “flow from the hand unbidden”, to quote Derek Mahon. More often I write by hand frantically to capture what feels most alive on paper and then I spend hours working with the juicy material, trying to coax it into something without killing it. It’s not all that different from winemaking.
And often, yes, I start with research and many, many pages of notes until I feel at home enough in the content to play with it and have a say.

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 do both. I write the poems that arise out of daily living. I write them to write them. I believe in those poems. They keep me going, the way perennials keep me wanting to garden, and seeds that germinate keep me wanting to plant seeds.

That said, I also like piloting projects. There’s a thrill in imagining a book then working to pull it off, especially if I’m open to “it” becoming not what I thought it would be.

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

Hmmm. I’m not sure yet. I haven’t done enough of them. I’ll say I learn a lot about my writing by reading it out loud to people. I hear more clearly where the writing trips over itself. I hear where I may need other words I haven’t found yet.

I have both enjoyed readings and not enjoyed readings. The biggest barrier to enjoyment is typically myself, my insecurities. If I prepare myself in a loving way and read from that place, lo and behold, I find I can love the reading. I try to remember to practice what Richard Wagamese writes in Embers:

When my energy is low, meaning I don’t feel at my best in terms of creativity, inspiration, attunement or rest, I let Creator have my flow and ask only to be a channel. My deepest audience connection has always happened when I do this. So, on my way to a podium nowadays, I say to myself, ‘Okay, Creator, you and me, one more time.’ When I surrender the delivery, along with the outcome, the anxiety and the expectation, everything becomes miraculous. It’s a recipe for life, really.

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?

Oh, yeah. I’m always asking about love and relationships, how to love, how to have better relationships, what that looks like, how it’s done, what the actions are, whether the desire for sustainable, deep, caring love (not caretaking love) is a pipedream or an attainable, generative foundation for living.  I’m betting the latter. And by relationships, I mean all of them—to the self, to each other, to difference, to all the other life on the planet, to technology, to work, to eating, to aging, to death.

So, that’s also to say that I’m concerned about the social and economic systems within which we conduct our collective selves and that shape our imaginations for what is and what could be. I don’t like how we tend to define our choices, limit them. It’s strange because in so many ways we scoff at limitations, particularly when it comes to the exploitation of natural resources. At the same time, our imagination for public wealth and well-being is gravely constrained. So, yeah, I’m concerned about concentrations of wealth and power and how limiting and deadly they are / we know them to be.

I am also concerned about the degree to which women continue to be held in contempt in our culture.

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’m not one for “should”. And, I don’t know about writers having a defined role in larger cultures. Something about attempting to define that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think writers are a special class of people. Writers are people who write and share/distribute their writing in public places. I want to live in a world where people do that. And I want to live in a world where people are interested in reading what other people are writing about, especially if those other people live very different lives from their own. I want to live in a world that thrums with imagination. Writing can be one way to cultivate imagination.

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

Again, my experience is limited. To date I have had only positive experiences with outside editors, but I know writer-editor relationships can be fraught with difficulties.

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

Don’t write to be loved.

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

I find it a challenge and a relief to move between genres. My move is most often from poetry to creative non-fiction. I find the scale of CNF intimidating – it tends to happen over so many pages whereas I can contain a poem on one page. Since I write mostly poetry, when I go to write a poem I can drop into a certain state. I don’t have that as reliably with CNF. I definitely don’t have that yet with fiction.

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 tend to resist routine, but I like commitment. So, I commit to a certain number of hours each day. That number changes, almost daily. Alternately, I commit to finishing something, which doesn’t mean I won’t work on it again but rather that I’ll submit it for publication and see what happens.

The one constant is that every day begins with an hour of spiritual-type readings and a brief free write or “noticing poems” as Patrick Lane called them.

Early morning is my best writing time. I tend to wake up with a thin skin, alert and sensitive. This can work well for writing.

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

I go for a walk. I clean. I make food.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Parathion. Woodsmoke. Rotting peaches. Fermenting grapes. Diesel. Cedar. Yew.

Willow. Kerosene. Brown bread and baked beans.

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?

Yes : Plants. Paintings. Photographs. Music. Science – botany usually. Sculpture.

And the fabric arts are not to be overlooked! And the prompt – a poetry prompt is an art form I tell you.

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

I tend to freeze when someone asks me this question, so I’ll just start writing the names of the writers that feel most present with me these days. Emily Dickinson / Ross Gay / Claire Keegan / Sarah Moss / Ocean Vuong / Alice Oswald / Seamus Heaney / JaneHirshfield / Marie Howe / Ada Limón / Richard Wagamese / Richard Powers / Susan Musgrave / Sue Goyette / Joan Didion / Rainer Maria Rilke / Anne Lamott / Bronwen Tate / Lorna Crozier / Bob Hicok / Gregory Orr / Aimee Nezhukumatathil / Karen Solie / Naomi Shihab Nye. And so many Canadian poets not already named whom I work with or have shared work with like, Juleta Severson-Baker, Mary Vlooswyk, Erin E. McGregor, Kimberley Orton, Bren Simmers, Barbara Pelman, Barbara Kenney, Micheline Maylor, Lisa Richter, Richard Osler, Andrea Scott…this list is much longer but this is a start.

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

The Biles II.

Write a novel that gets published and then read by at least a handful of people.

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 no order: master gardener for hire, vegetable/flower farmer with a market stall (you know, even just a folding table would be great), winemaker with a market stall (but with no sampling, I’ve been that woman and it wasn’t fun).

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

The flexible schedule: I had kids. I’m not great with my hands. I was encouraged to do it on a few occasions that remain vivid for me – felt like a lightning strike. Writing can take place in bed, in a car, on a log, with a frog.  Farming is bloody hard work.

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

Book? Books:

Foster by Claire Keegan.

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

I’ve read both books three times. I’m not even sure why I find these books so affecting but I do. The writing comes close to the bone while feeling deeply mysterious. I find it uncanny. 

Film? Films:

The Cathedral

Good luck to you, Leo Grande

Women Talking

20 - What are you currently working on?

An essay about traffic, driving, the end-days of cars, with the working title: “Palliative Car”.

A couple of poetry book reviews.

A commonplace book on the Black Ash Tree that I hope is the foundation for a hybrid form book with the working title: “In Light of the Black Ash”

A drawing practice – I want to draw regularly.

Italian; learning it.

I need to write a pantoum that incorporates things near and things far; it’s for a writing group. (So far, it’s gotten no further than the back of my mind.)

Everyday poems that come up, as they do.

Revisions to short stories I wrote two years ago.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Tonya Lailey, Farm: Lot 23

 

The End of an Orchard

I want to land
on another reason
to yank out the farm’s fruit
trees, cut off their coming
peaches, pears, cherries, plums,
replace them with vines
for wine.

My mother had it right.
Picking cherries didn’t add up.
Couldn’t pay for the baskets
never mind the babysitter.

And she didn’t like to work up
on ladders
up, in trees.

Maybe it was just the money.
Even so, I want to make room
for another understanding.

     My mother stood level with the vines,
     took their arms into her own,
     set her feet in step with their roots,
     curled her fingers around their trunks
     and bowed to them—

as if they were her trellis.

“I’m prone to forgetting,” Calgary-based poet Tonya Lailey writes to close the opening poem, “Farms and Poems,” of her full-length debut, Farm: Lot 23 (Kentville NS: Gaspereau Press, 2024), “the purpose / of a farm / of a poem / has always been / the living in it.” According to her author biography on the back of the collection, Lailey “spent her childhood on a farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake. She started a winery there in 2000 with her family and winemaker Derek Barnet. Certified as a sommelier, she worked in the wine trade until 2020.” The length and breadth of the poems within Farm: Lot 23 explore and examine her relationship with that plot of family land, from the days of her grandfather and a history of that particular corner of Ontario to her own experiences growing up and eventually working within those particular boundaries. “I think about the new reaches of peaches,” she writes, to close the poem “Peaches,” “the cultivars we’ve bred and breed for travel. / And that year, after the war supports ended, // when my grandfather still farmed peaches / and Wentworth Canners closed, unable to compete / with plantation agriculture to the south, // all around the township peaches ripened / then rotted in piles.” She writes poems from the Niagara Peninsula—wine country, for those unaware—managing the music and rhythms of daily activity on a working farm, offering these as both documentary and as a way to speak to the human elements of familial life, such as the poem “The Give in Inches,” as she offers: “My parents sum / up the farm in twenty acres; the survey says / eighteen-point-five. They never do agree // on boundaries.” These are sharp poems, composed with enormous thought and care, composed as both portrait and a love letter to an eroding space. “On the other side / of the property line,” she writes, to open “Acre,” “the riverbank / the river, / chestnut,      basswood,       black walnut / American elm,      black willow / bitternut hickory,       blue beech,      butternut / blue ash, sassafras—with its leaf asymmetry. // Nothing / in       a / row.”

Across opening poem and four sections—“CONCESSIONS,” “LINES,” “END POSTS” and “FARM PHOTO”—Lailey offers such a soft and subtle music articulating a working farm from the inside, not merely as reminiscence but contemporary, working and lived-in space. There’s a thickness, a density, to her detail, one that embraces the lyric but carves the lines so precisely to hold all that is required, but without sacrificing her music. She writes a precision to her lushness, on seasonal crops of cherries, peaches, pears and plums. “Away,” she writes, as part of “Out to the Farm in July,” “from the stewed lap / of the shore / and the scents in banks / of raspberries / spicebushes / fringed bromes / hop sedges / bonesets / running strawberries [.]”

There does seem an articulation of contemporary space, whether cities, suburbs or rural landscapes, that begins to feel a bit outdated without mention of these same landscapes framed through the lens of colonization. When modern prairie poetry began to explode and take shape throughout the 1960s and 70s, long poems often referenced Indigenous people and Indigenous spaces, so to compose or articulate a space without that acknowledgment now seems outdated, even incomplete. It was a difficulty I remember having a few years back with Saskatchewan poet Gerry Hill’s 14 Tractors (Edmonton AB: NeWest Press, 2009), for example. For Lailey, the original occupants of her family land sit deep across the foundation of her lyrics, from the prior names of roads, or streams, or through her poem “Our Necks in the Woods,” writing:

After the Royal Proclamation of 1763, after the Treaty of Niagara, after the Treaty of Fort Niagara, after the British acquired thousands of acres in exchange for 12,000 blankets, 23,500 yards of cloth, jaw harps, thousands of silver ear bobs. After the Mississaugas accepted “300 suits of clothing” in exchange for exactly what is unclear but is recorded as the ownerhip of a “four-mile trip of land” along the Niagara River between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. After the colonizers cleared land to plant corn, wheat, other vegetables and to raise livestock, only a few of them returned the odd acre to trees.

Later farmers, like the ones in my family, replaced unprofitable fruit trees with European grape vines for wine. Others erected greenhouses to supply the grocery market.

I can’t think offhand of too many poets currently writing on farm-specifics, although I’ve recollections of certain pieces by Bren Simmers, Sandra Ridley and Karen Solie, including invocations of labour as an adult. The structure and approach of these poems compare to Solie’s, certainly, offering a perspective I can fully appreciate and understand from my own experience, attempting to acknowledge the loss of a home and homestead, and an approach to daily living: the family farm. The collection closes with the long poem/section “FARM PHOTO,” that begins:

The farm road doesn’t end
or begin

where the photo halts
at the frame

at a stir fry vegetable
angle—the sort of slice

to render a carrot’s round
an oval

stylishly dismantle
a whole—

not that a farm is every wholly
land ever not only

a patch a plot
a pinch a section

an instant of earth of life
as in one that has taken

place roughly
largely on one 20-acre lot