Naturalism, An Annotated Bibliography: Poems by Michael Goodfellow

 

DIESEL

Tide was a motor,
gap in the sparkplug

twisted black.
Sea shone

with undercoat,
windy days

were gears
grinding, clutch

of a storm.
Rockweed choked

the beach in wire,
cable running

the pitchy bottom.
Through rotten

cast iron, suck
of brackish water

in the basement
drain. The sump

ran all night,
jerrycan of diesel

at the basement
stairs. Nothing stopped

turning. Sunset
left a sheen.

I’m fascinated by the single, staggered, unbroken sentence of Lunenberg County, Nova Scotia poet Michael Goodfellow’s surefooted lyric as displayed in his full-length debut, Naturalism, An Annotated Bibliography: Poems (Kentville NS: Gaspereau Press, 2022). Through an assemblage, nearly a suite, of short poems, Goodfellow offers a descriptive layering of landscape across the connective tissue of his self-described “small waterfront acre,” rippling slowly out from that central, singular focal point of roots, observation and interaction. He writes of home and his landscape, offering a lyric of the right words in the right order, and a tangible and concrete poetics of light across the water, the movement of human culture and sunsets, beaches and sullen hillsides. “The moon rose behind us,” he writes, as part of the poem “HIRTLE’S BEACH METONYMY,” “an animal // staring out the brush. / The thick, you called it. // You had other words for things, / you tongued them out, letting them shape // in the air, then dampen: / sand the colour of bark, // how night was the green of a burnt forest, / how years leaf-out loss, // their bloom.” Goodfellow’s approach to “naturalism” offers exactly what the word entails: the belief that everything depends upon that accurate description of detail, and his is certainly that, writing a lyric deeply attuned to his specific time and place, allowing it to breathe and react, attempting to determine and detail without overt interference. Even if a reader might know this place, this scene, Goodfellow’s tone and temper offers up a glimpse into the heart of it. “Ashley Conrad owned a general store,” he writes, as part of “HUNGRY,” “the kind that sold can goods, tobacco, salt, // whiskey, snowshoes, handwoven nets / and things the neighbours made—trade a rake // for a bristle broom, apples for a hooked rug. / The Depression was in another country. // No one along the river went hungry / or lacked a thing they needed.”

What intrigues about this collection is in how the lyric is textured, certain of itself while feeling out what words might best capture, or hold, more solid in its approach; a thickening lyric reminiscent of certain poems by Don McKay during the era of his Birding, or Desire (McClelland and Stewart, 1983). Or, as the fourth poem in the seven-part sequence “BOOK OF DAYS” reads, titled “Hop Bar”:

Metal slammed
to leave a hole,

water the suck
of wet dirt,

old mud, hand against
cold soil,

heart wood,
hard roots.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Sophie Mccreesh

Sophie Mccreesh is a writer living in Toronto. She is the author of Once More, With Feeling published by Doubleday Canada.

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

Right now, I’m just enjoying the feeling of having published my first novel. I have been appreciating all the support and kind messages from people who enjoyed the book. It makes my day when someone sends a note about the novel. I’m also really enjoying seeing people post photos.

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

For a while, I wrote poetry but then I realized I wasn’t very good, and I just stopped. At the risk of giving a boring answer, I’d say that I was drawn to fiction just from reading it when I was a kid. When I started writing, most of my stories evolved from a piece of dialogue that I found funny or interesting, so it makes sense for that to be the medium I chose. It’s also easier to for me to try and make jokes while writing fiction.

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 try not to overthink things when starting a new project. It’s important for me to try and navigate the pressures of perfection in the sense that I often remind myself that the project doesn’t need to be fully formed immediately. It’s easy for me to dwell on a piece, thinking over possible ways that it could simply be bad. For that reason, I find it useful to get a first draft out quickly without weighing in too much how I perceive its quality. I usually try and reach a point where I cut it off. My aim is to convince myself that it is the best that it can be and that only time can make it better. Then I move on to something else for a while.

4 – Where does a 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?

When I write, I’m always conscious of character, as that is always the first thing I am drawn to when I am reading a novel or even watching a show. I usually start with an idea of a character in mind as well as a vague question that I want an answer to. I try to figure out the answer to whatever questions I have, writing though the character’s perspective, asking how they would respond to whatever situation I’m playing out. How can I show what I think and feel through their perspective? How is their perspective helpful? Can it add either humour or insight into the situation?

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

It’s great to share my work with my friends and I usually enjoy hanging out at whatever bar the reading is happening at. Although I feel like some of my material doesn’t always translate as well in a live reading (as a good deal of it is heavily based in dialogue), I still enjoy doing public readings. I like to see how some of the more humorous aspects of a piece will land with an audience—are people laughing, or did whatever joke I thought was funny not land?

6 – Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I usually end up writing about whatever vague, unanswered questions that feel important to me, or whatever I’m obsessed with at the time. I find that any questions or theoretical concerns I have change throughout the process of writing and publishing a short story or novel, so for that reason it’s hard to pinpoint any.

One of my goals for Once More, With Feeling was to write about female friendship in a way that was new and interesting, which I hope comes out between Jane and the character Kitty. As I kept writing, I found I was relating some of my own ideas to do with feeling vaguely inadequate while making art to the two friends. I wanted them to navigate wanting a career and a certain fear of failure.

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

To get a silk pillowcase.

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

It’s usually pretty easy for me to work on multiple projects at the same time. What I work on can depend on what mood I’m in. Sometimes, writing short stories can feel a bit more light-hearted and fun. When I’m working on a novel, I can start to take things too seriously, as I feel every scene/ interaction/ piece of dialogue must have more meaning in terms of the movement of the story.

9 – What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Although I tried to make myself into a morning person, I really only get meaningful work done at night. I think there is something about the emptiness of the late hours when everyone has already gone to bed. For a while, I was experimenting with a set word count. The number of words kept slowly decreasing until I decided it would just be better to spend a certain amount of time writing. Sometimes deleting a sentence can be as important as writing a new one.

I worked on parts of Once More, With Feeling at night after work so I would listen to electronic music to try and keep myself stimulated, awake, but not distracted.

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

I try to start by reading more. Giving myself permission to pause the writing for a bit while I carve out time to read and experience new things.

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

It’s hard to speak specifically about how all these forms influence my work. I used to like to go to the AGO alone to relax and listen to music. I like it when it’s quiet and there’s no one there. I have attempted to write about music in my fiction—something that is a way for me to grasp how I relate to it personally.

Music comes up in different ways in my novel, Once More, With Feeling. The main character Jane is always conscious of what’s playing around her, trying to place the name of the song in her head. Maybe it’s a way for her to make sense of things. In a way, I think Jane views whatever music she is listening to as a way to connect to her emotions while she feels isolated and alone.

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

I really like Mary Gaitskill’s writing.

13 – What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Make music. Or at least get to a point where I feel comfortable writing about it.

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

I would be a ballerina, simply because I love watching ballet. I also like the idea of being an architect. Sadly, I think I lack the skills for both.

15 – What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I can’t really think of a definitive moment when I decided to be a writer. Writing just feels like something I enjoy doing and feel committed to improve upon. Forgive this answer, but I always liked the idea of being a person who “writes novels.” haha

16 – What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I really enjoyed Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This. I recently watched The Lost Daughter

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Rae Armantrout, Finalists

 

I’ve been finding it difficult to keep up with the production of American poet Rae Armantrout (he writes, fully aware of the irony), just now getting into her latest collection, Finalists (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2022). Since discovering her work more than a decade ago, with already a dozen titles published by that point, I’ve already a significant list of further titles I haven’t properly engaged, including Conjure (Wesleyan University Press, 2020), Wobble (Wesleyan University Press, 2018), Entanglements (Wesleyan University Press, 2017) and Itself (Wesleyan University Press, 2015), having at least, worked through her collections Partly: New and Selected Poems, 2001 – 2015 (Wesleyan University Press, 2016) [see my review of such here], Just Saying (Wesleyan University Press, 2013) [see my review of such here], Money Shot (Wesleyan University Press, 2011) [see my review of such here] and Versed (Wesleyan University Press, 2009) [see my review of such here]. Billed on the back cover as “A double book,” Finalists is a paired collection of what could easily have been two separate collections of short lyrics—“Threat Landscapes” and “Finalists”—packaged together, perhaps, for the sake of publishing (or even compositional) ease.

Her poems are simultaneously meditative and punchy, and there’s a layering I’ve long appreciated in her work, the ways in which she composes her narratives from thought to thought, moment to moment, akin to watching dots of colour by Seurat form and accumulate. As the opening poem, “Hang On,” ends: “A plaque of barnacles / on top of a toilet— / this cluster / of brittle puckers, // clinging / to its old idea, // these craters striped / pale lavender // for some / unlikely eye.” Each poem is composed out of that assemblage of small pieces, small moments of thought, into something larger, in the same way her poems assemble together to form groupings and manuscripts of larger structures of critical examination, reporting on the movements and minutae of living, social interaction, politics, perception, finances and the weather. Seen as a singular unit, her published books to date, one might say, are about everything: examining and questioning our perceptions of the world, turning around and over ideas akin to the domestic lyrics of Robert Creeley, offering what appear to be quick, short takes that shift how we might encounter or experience the familiar. She writes the spaces between words, between stanzas, sectioning poems in such a way that one might wonder how her work might read in a different order of sections and poems, if there might be something different articulated if the ending of one poem, say, was simply switched out for another. In many ways, Armantrout’s poems aren’t what exist on the page, but what connections the mind makes when assembling each section of what she has crafted. Her poems offer shifts in perception and cadence, composed with pinpoint accuracy. As the end of the poem “Instruction” reads: “The child in her crib / turns her head restlessly, / says, ‘aaah, aaah’ / like an engine left running.” Or, as the poem “In Response,” close to the end of the collection, ends:

I pop,
                  pop
pop 

that question.

Or I coalesce
around it

as ice crystals

form around specks
of coal dust

or pollen.

I begin
to self-report.