12 or 20 questions: with Betsy Struthers

Winner of the 2004 Pat Lowther Memorial Award for the best book of poetry by a Canadian woman for Still (Black Moss Press), Betsy Struthers has published eight books of poetry and three novels as well as co-editing an anthology of essays about teaching poetry. She received the Silver Medal as runner-up for the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award in 1994 and was short-listed for the Arthur Ellis Best First Novel Award in 1993. A past president of the League of Canadian Poets, she has read her work from coast to coast in Canada, in Australia, and in North Carolina; her poems and fiction have been published in many anthologies (most recently, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry and Going Top Shelf: An Anthology of Canadian Hockey Poetry) and literary journals; she has taught workshops in both poetry and fiction to students of all ages from kindergarten to adults. Resident in Peterborough since 1977, Struthers works as a freelance editor of academic texts.

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

Although I’d had poems published in literary magazines, I didn’t feel I could call myself a “real writer” until after the publication of my first book. I had the confidence then to join the League of Canadian Poets in order to meet other poets – living in a small town in central Ontario I felt very isolated from the larger writing community. First book publication also gave me the courage to keep writing and exploring the craft of poetry, the belief that I could do this work successfully. And made me anxious to create another book, to not be a one-book writer.

My most recent work is an extension of a form I’ve been experimenting with, a kind of prose poem/poetic short fiction – very short, very narrative, very poetic. My first book, Censored Letters, was a narrative sequence of poems told from the persona of a woman whose husband has gone to fight in the First World War, leaving her, like Penelope, to keep the home fires burning. This narrative streak has reappeared over and over in both my fiction and poetry, the telling of story.

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

I have always been entranced by the sound of words working together to create an emotional experience – from R.L. Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses and A.A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young through Dylan Thomas and T.S. Eliot to Margaret Atwood and Lorna Crozier. Fiction seemed too big and too plain to attract me. Non-fiction was boring. However, narrative has always been a strong part of my work, as well as lyric. What I love most about poetry is the sound intwined with and inseparable from the sense.

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 procrastinate, walk the dog, wash floors, walk the dog again – anything but sit down to work. Then a line will occur to me, seemingly out of the blue (often on those dog walks, the rhythm of movement translating into words) and a poem will spin itself out. I write in my head for a long time before committing to paper – well, to the screen. My handwriting is so illegible that from the beginning I typed my work to see the proper spacing of lines on the page. I don’t keep a journal or take notes, but first drafts go through many revisions – of line length and spacing as well as word choice – before I’m satisfied enough to show the poem to anyone else.

4 - Where does a poem or piece of fiction 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?

Poems begin with a line, fiction with an idea and a voice. I often write in long sequences or serial poems and these do tend to come quickly as the voice inhabits me until I feel they’re done – or it’s finished with me. But I don’t usually think of having a “writing project” per se. I write until I think I have enough poems for a book and then structure them into what feels like a logical order, often dividing them into cohesive sections. Sometimes these sections are “unfinished” – they need something more and that alone will call forth a new poem (usually) to fill the gap. But I don’t think too much about “the book” until I have a substantial number of new poems accumulated.

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

I always get nervous before a reading, have dreams of standing at a podium before a crowd and opening a book to blank pages … but once I do begin, I trust the work will speak and I react to the reactions of the audience. A poem always sounds different when read aloud to others – I often make changes, sometimes in mid-stride because I can hear something not working well. So it’s a love/hate kind of thing.

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?

In my day job as an editor of academic texts, I wade through too much theory. So I refuse to put theoretical brackets around my work. I hope it speaks for itself.

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?

The role of the writer must be to articulate as best as s/he can the reality of living in this place at this time. Sometimes that means taking a public stance on a political issue affecting the arts – but that kind of rhetoric remains outside the art itself. The role of the writer is to translate the world as it is honestly and openly in the work.

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

Absolutely essential. It’s too easy for the eye and ear to relax when reading over one’s own work, too easy to assume that connections and/or images that are clear to you as the writer will be clear to the reader. I don’t always hear from those first readers of my work – fellow poets whose work I in turn critique – what I want to hear (that is, how brilliant every single word and line is!) but I take their criticisms and suggestions seriously. I may not agree with their suggested changes, but if they do suggest change – especially if, unknown to one another, more than one has a problem with a particular image or line -- then I know it’s not working, that I haven’t done my job yet and must go back to the work to make clear what it is that the poem is saying..

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

Read. Then write.

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

I began to write fiction because (1) I had an idea for a novel that begins with finding a body in the river beside my house and the voice of the finder came into my head; (2) I had a writer’s block in the middle of trying to finish a third book of poetry and was very frustrated and reading too many murder mysteries as an escape from worrying about not-writing; (3) some of those mysteries were so clumsily written that I thought “I could do better than that” – and had heard so many people say that about the books they could have written but did not, I thought I should either try it or shut up about it; and (4) I had bought my first computer and found it so easy to let the writing just flow, not worrying about having to retype errors or worry over dialogue. I ended up writing a trilogy of novels very quickly, but then I got tired of the voice and the genre, and found poems crowding my head instead. It was fun writing the novels and much easier work – every day I could sit down and review/revise scenes written the day before and that would suggest where the plot should go next (I never created a plot scheme or outline before I started writing, just began at page 1 and kept going to the end; this meant a lot of revision in the second and third (and fourth and fifth) drafts but felt most natural) whereas poetry depends so much on the intense involvement of the moment… I tried writing another novel, not a mystery, but my heart wasn’t in it and it wasn’t very good. Nonetheless, I’m now writing a kind of narrative fiction, very short stories loosely linked. I don’t think of them as either fiction or poetry, I just write.

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 pretend that I write every day … but truth is, the day job gets in the way as does real life (laundry, meetings, walking the dog). I’m a binge writer, days going by without anything and then a line will occur and then a poem and then another … could be why I tend to write in sequences or serials. When a poem does occur, I drop everything else and attend to it until it’s done, as too often I’ve thought out the “perfect” poem (in the middle of a cold winter’s night for instance) but not written anything down because I haven’t been in the right place or time for it – then when I do find the time to write it, it’s gone.

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

I read new poems by poets unfamiliar to me in literary magazines, in books, on line to see what is happening now. I reread favourites. I revisit the work of friends … reading sparks the writing.

13 - What do you really want?

Peace on earth.

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

I’m heavily influenced by nature, the weather, the sky, the shape of the land, how the body interprets its surroundings. I’ve written some poems on my travels and many more (most) at the cottage. There’s something about the solitary contemplation that comes with being wholly in the natural world that starts the words connecting in my head.

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

I’m very eclectic in what kind of writing effects me. I read a lot of history; in my day job I edit a lot of political science, sociology, and anthropology and these concerns creep into my work. I read contemporary literature -- fiction (both “literary” and “genre” fiction) and poetry (both Canadian and other English-language) voraciously. There are too many writers whose work I like to name here.

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

Travel to the Galapagos. Travel to the Arctic. Travel…

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?

Is this a trick question? A writer has to be a writer or will go quietly (or not s quietly) crazy. Before I began to write seriously in my late 20s, I worked in promotion and advertising – a kind of writing if not a particularly interesting or challenging kind. And then I work as an editor, which is working with words as well. I can’t imagine doing anything else happily.

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

I worked in many other jobs – advertising, promotion, bookstore clerk, library clerk – before I began editing, which I could do part-time. I felt driven to write, was not (am not) happy doing anything else.

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

I read so many books and watch so many films that my "last great" list changes constantly. Last "great" book was the new translation of War and Peace; last great Canadian novel was Nino Ricci's Origin of Species; last great book of poetry was John Steffler's Helix. Last great indie movie I saw was Wendy and Lucy; last great musical (gotta love musicals) was Across the Universe.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Relay: A series of micro-fictions

12 or 20 questions (second series);

12 or 20 questions: with Pearl Pirie

Pearl Pirie has poems in the chapbooks: Pent Up (AngelHouse Press, 2009), Oath in the Boathouse (above/ground 2008) and Whack of Clouds (AngelHouse Press 2008). She has several active blogs including pesbo http://pagehalffull.com/pesbo/ for poetry, Humanyms for general life, 40 Word Year http://40wordyear.blogspot.com/ for processing moments and people who have shaped her, and http://monktrips.blogspot.com/ where her sock monkey has a blog. She's also doing a series of interviews with haiku poets at http://haiku09.wordpress.com/.

1 - How did your first chapbook change your life? bOATHouse (Oath in the Boathouse) got me on track for collating more threads of poems. And the first question out of anyone's mouth when they ask what I do and I say write, is for them to ask, had anything published? It's nice to have something to pull out or trade.

I think the distribution means people who wouldn't have seen what I write normally got to see. I'm used to people I've never met knowing my words years before me since I've been online for 15 years or so and was met at conferences of my previous life by people who read my articles and editorials and knew me by name and work. But it's different for it being poems.

How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? Each thing feels the same, as in necessary fun, but looks outwardly different.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction? By foot. As the used bookstore clerk said -- rolling his eyes at me as I beelined to the section again -- "there are things in the world other than poetry you know."

Like the loophole of poetry. It doesn't have to answer to categories of fiction or not. It's amoral.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? I'm continuously starting. Does your writing intitially 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? Yes and yes. No and yes. Poetry not usually, and fiction and non- fiction, yes.

4 - Where does a (poem or piece of fiction) usually begin for you? There's no usual. Although when I'm overtired, my eyes read in a checkmark -- the gaze drops a line down for a word then continues right and goes up 2 lines. That resulting confusion of a sentence has started some ideas.

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? Yes.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? It helps. I can't say I enjoy, but it's good practice to 1. do something until you stop fearing it, 2. continue until you're good at it and then 3. you're in a position to say if you like it or not. I'm sometimes near step 3 unless I stop for a while, and then I go back to step 1.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? I'm trying more to ask questions.

What do you even think the current questions are? What am I omitting? Supporting? Just how classcentric is this? How much I can indulge myself in tangental leaps and still have people follow me or wish to? What resonates? With whom? Whose values am I encouraging? What's the subtext of this? What can I upend? Where, in theory, would I put my pen? What opportunity cost am I missing by talking about this instead? Do I need to write this? Who would have a tadpole's hope in hell of understanding this? Am I beating a living horse? When there's a weal is there a way? What leaks around the edges? Is that extraneous but interesting enough to pay for its piece of line real estate? What fails to resonate? If Y could never read this, how would I write if differently? What am I Taking Too Seriously? Is poetry the best detour route to get across town? Am I still having fun? Will this be filtered as gendered? Is this content for conversation instead? Or essay? How did that come back to my father? Where did I put that paper now? How did I manage to see religion there? How can this be simpler but not simplistic? Is it in my coat? What does this presume? What would my logic be for where I would put my bag? Is this a responsible thing to set out into the world?

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? Anyone can point past short-sightedly proprietary ideas to the big picture, but a writer may have a less divided attention and invest more energies towards communicating well. A writer is the (hopefully) informed observer/researcher, curator/broadcaster, instigator/ irritator, and conscience who can say something in a way so another can respond, yes, exactly!

A writer should self-train to observe astutely, think carefully, play fully, become skilled at engaging people to live critically, lead people into their own hearts, away from isolation. That done, scheduled for Monday *afternoon*....

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? It has to be easier than working with the inner editor. She's so crabby. Nothing pleases.

A particular outside editor helps until I internalize what s/he would say and then I need to swap to a new brain to pick.

Do writing groups help? I think mentoring helps. Other points of view help. Outside eyes with different experiences can catch things. For 10 years so so I've tended to be in 2-5 workshop circles at any given time. When everyone is coming from the same place, there's no stretch. It's most helpful when people don't get one another, when someone completely misses someone else's point and then I have to respond and reparse what I think the person was trying to express in the poem and how. I've started to think I'm better at giving crits and taking them than I am at writing poems these days.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? John Cage said, “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to critical/creative non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal? As pi. I like pi.

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? An eye-opener of 80% cocoa or thereabouts, then I have the luxury of flexibility. I write and read or edit from the time I wake until I tire.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? If I have any sense (and I do sometimes) switch gears to editing, walking, visiting, or do something hands-on instead for a while. Or reading what I don't understand or think I can do better to prove myself wrong in both cases.

13 - If there was a fire, what's the first thing you'd grab? My wits. They're here somewhere...I just saw them. Drat. ]

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? a) Local English, marked forms of English that don't get translated to page as "valid". I want to curate these. I want to integrate that elements that are usually apart. b) Scrabble. Letter combinations that could be words, words that wouldn't come together normally. c) Nature, movement. Like tobogganing. The first inspired poem I wrote as a kid was needing to capture the experience in words. I had a paper and pencil in my snowsuit but my snow-packed mittens made my fingers too cold to work so I had to run inside, pour hot tap water over them and lay on the nearest convenient floor to put those words down then.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work? The rich community of Ottawa writers is essential. The amount of exposure to ideas in this city is astounding. A novel workshop by Joanne Proulx was the most recent goldmine.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? Learn to sit up straight and remember to stretch every hour or so at least. Keep a few manuscripts out there circulating. Finish up all the projects on the back burner to clean off the stove and begin new things. Oh, and make that Christmas cake. The fruit has been marinating for 18 months or so now...

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? To be a statistician is tempting. www.pagehalffull.com/data.html

Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer? I've worked at a bookstore, at a candy store, on a farm, at restaurants, volunteered in conferences, been an editor. I taught for 10 years. I was making book structured things as soon as I could draw. I've wondered what closing options through literacy has done to me. If I were born somewhere with blocked access, what path would have happened? Would all the words be rerouted thru visual and spatial and I would be a folk architect? Or would I have gravitated to being a storyteller instead? Or would I teach and talk where ever however? Would my fingers have become nimble with crafts and expression would be in carpets? Would I have become a clothing designer?

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? Being born where and when kids and especially girls were to be not heard or seen (go play in the bush), and in a rural neighbourhood where I was the youngest, cloistered off into where books are revered, I was going to be a forester, a missionary monk, or a reader. And you know what happens to avid readers...

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? Funny how "great book" collocates to an intimidating "Great Book" but "great film" collocates to "such a great film, man!"

I'll start with easier first where I refer to my imdb list of the 186 films I've seen. The Five Obstructions (2003) (a process film of remaking his old film with different sets of constraints), Nothing But a Man (1964) (beautifully acted and important story), Adams æbler (2005) (for the psychological space), A Day Without a Mexican (2004) (for the interesting premise and how it played out and how the short film version of 1998 used various accents and then the polished version erased the variety of regions) or Call Me Troy (2007) (for an important overview of one man as a filter for U.S. history).

I have been wildly happy with these books (in no particular order) over the last while: Etcetera and Otherwise by Sean Stanley (Tightrope Books, 2008), Area of Fog by Joseph Massey (2009), konkrete poesie anthogie by eugen gomringer, (universal-bibliothek, reprint 1980), Touch to Affliction by Nathalie Stephens (Coach House, 2006), Once by Rebecca Rosenblum (Biblioasis, 2008), Determined by Aperture by Shannon Tharp (fewer and further press, 2008), The Real Made Up by Stephen Brockwell (ECW, 2007), and Lorine Neidecker, Collected Works (University of California Press, 2002) and the last issue (and I do mean last, it's going on hiatus) :( Noon: journal of the short poem.

20 - What are you currently working on? A series of corpus search poems. And a novel to restart from the beginning. And there's this grid poem that's resisted me for months I keep tapping away at. Going back thru a manuscript of definition-based pieces. Trying to cleave a chapbook length out the train series. And finding where I put my camera cable. Again.

12 or 20 questions (second series);

12 or 20 questions: with DM Bryan

DM Bryan is a Calgary based writer. Her first novel, Gerbil Mother, was published in 2008 by NeWest Press.

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

Gerbil Mother, my first book, was published only 18 months ago so I’m not writing with a whole lot of perspective here. Maybe describing myself in public as a ‘writer’ is producing some slow, tectonic alteration in my psyche… well, it’s possible.

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

A failure of imagination, mostly—I just really like novels.

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 am slow, slow, slow; I gestate forever. I try to make notes—god, I’m sure I should make notes—but in the end what I write is like a squash court: the black on the page records the places where, over time, I slam the idea ball most often. Obsession is my method… if only it weren’t so hard to spell, all those fucking ‘s’s.

4 - Where does fiction 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?

Always, always a book (a novel) from the beginning. I’m discovering that the real kick to writing long fiction is that the novel can end up embodying the process of discovery that results from the act of writing over time—which is probably obvious but is news to me. The idea of a unity of purpose, in which all action serves thematic concerns, suddenly seems less important than a unity of focus over time. In other words, long fiction is long so that it can contain a secret narrative: the one in which the writer changes her mind alongside the book’s events. Long fiction is a record of a deepening of understanding, and the preservation of this process in the final work explains why messy books are most interesting.

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

At some point in the writing process I do an edit where I read aloud (to myself). I value that connection to the oral and want the words on the page to work as well in their spoken form as they do in their typographic form. With regard to public reading, I write for other people so the chance to read aloud to them is the fulfillment of a fantasy.

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 hell, I got lots of theories, but theories are for bars.

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?

Okay, it’s dangerously close to a theory but here goes…. Arguably, the novel is a form that has as its genesis a concern with how we choose to live and how we choose to behave. Long fiction is a place to engage in ethical play (which doesn’t rule out other forms of play), and most novelists are moralists of one stripe or another. The role of the novelist is to offer the reader an enticing and serious offer to play along. Which turns out to be plenty hard to do.

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

Essential and joyful—I love other people’s brains.

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

To me from a screenwriting instructor: know your guns. That was the moment I knew I would never be a screenwriter.

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?

On days I get to write, you mean? Well, um, I fuck around, procrastinate, daydream, paint my toenails, write only when hysterical… please tell me everyone answers this question the same way.

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

Hey, s’good word—don’t knock it. When I get stuck I do my regular life: driving kids around, doing dishes, walking the dog. Obviously, we have some other part of our brains that works on problems without the necessary involvement of our conscious self. As long as I define the problems clearly enough, answers usually come on their own. If not, I just write shit and take it out later.

12 - Betty or Veronica or Archie or Reggie? Drive or fly (or sail)? Laptop or desktop?

Veronica on a sailboat and, silly, my laptop has a desktop. Duh.

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?

Yes, yes, yes. O, I like this question. Painting and drawing inform everything I do, from style to content. My training is mostly in the visual arts and from a craft standpoint I know a lot more about making pictures than I do about writing. I’m not sure why I don’t try to work more as a visual artist, but I like to blame it on the English painter and cartoonist, William Hogarth, who hooked me early on the notion of visual narratives. Since then, I’ve been a real peanut butter cup: stories in my pictures and pictures in my stories. I think I choose to write (instead of make movies or comics, for example) because the headspace contains the blankest canvas and the sharpest pen. I don’t have a clue what that means, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?

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

Mikhail Bulgakov, Thomas Pynchon, Tove Jannson—for the anarchy. Nicole Markotic and Suzette Mayr—for the discipline.

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

Well, I would quite like to write a brilliant, insightful, hysterically funny and impeccably elegant book that sells like proverbial hotcakes—but then wouldn’t we all?

(And, yeah, I know hotcakes aren’t really proverbial.)

Jesus met a man at a roadside stand who was selling hotcakes. A long line of people had formed waiting to buy what the man offered. Jesus joined the line, and when he reached the man he purchased hotcakes for himself and all the disciples, asking, “What’s your secret, O man? Why do your hotcakes sell so well?” “Well,” said the man, “my secret is that I mix a bit of dog shit into every batch.” “That’s some secret,” said Jesus, “I suppose you’ve got some pithy bit of wisdom justifying the inclusion of totally gratuitous shit in a parable about hotcakes?” “No, not really,” said the man, “people just seem to like eating shit.” “That’s not funny,” said Jesus. “No,” said the man, “and it’s not even true.” “I find that a comfort,” said Jesus, and he went away, munching on his hotcake.

(I’m gonna write the readers’ guide for book clubs later.)

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?

Well, I pretty much know what I’d be doing if I hadn’t been a writer because I don’t make enough money as a writer not to do something else as well. So, the answer is a bunch of mcjobs plus some teaching. I don’t really want to do anything else other than write. Sorry… grumpy answer, I know.

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

Panic. That I’d have to do something else.

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

Loved the Cohen bros’ No Country for Old Men (haven’t read McCarthy’s), which must be the most truly subversive film of all time. Hated the movie until the last ten minutes (all those fucking guns), and then it completely redeemed itself. So, hang in there.

19 - What are you currently working on?

Second novel… no talking fetuses in this one. Instead, it’s about how the essentialist division between notions of agency and determinism can never be productive. Remember, you heard it here first.

12 or 20 questions (second series);

12 or 20 questions: with Lea Graham

Lea Graham’s first book of poems, Crushes, is forthcoming by No Tell Books in 2010. Her poems, solicited reviews, collaborations, translations and articles, have been published in journals such as Notre Dame Review, Sentence, Capilano Review, Shadow Train and American Letters & Commentary. Calendar Girls, her chapbook, was published in 2006 by above/ground press. She has a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is Assistant Professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She is a native of Northwest Arkansas.

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

Well, one way the chapbook, Calendar Girls, changed my life was that it helped me get a full-time teaching job! More than that, though, it really did help me think about projects or threads that hold any kind of book together. So, in other words, it was kind of a precursor to my book that is about to come out next year, Crushes, (by No Tell Books) in that it helped me to do what I think of as walking the perimeter of an idea or set of concerns—something I associate with Emily Dickenson.

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

There are days I’m still surprised that I am not a novelist or short story writer. Storytelling was such an important thing to be able to do when I was growing up in Arkansas (as Dennis Cooley recently wrote to me “as a good Protestant girl in one of those honky states”). It was like being a singer or being able to run farther and faster than anyone else. So I’m not really sure. I guess I really knew in college as I had a really good teacher in the poet, Wayne Zade. I remember running to his house one night in the rain to give him a poem I had written. His wife greeted me at the door, and I’m sure she thought I was mad, but she gave it to him. I went to a college that was in mid-Missouri so it’s not like this was seen as “stalker-ish” at the time, but I’m sure it wasn’t happening to him regularly that students were running to his house in a tear because of poetry. He was always gracious and encouraging with me. So sometimes I think it’s where and with whom you land and the nurturing that goes with it. I don’t know that I see myself as “confined to poetry,” but I will say that I do think that poetry as my primary genre has or will certainly mark everything else that I 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?

You know it works both ways. There are times that I think the best poems come out more or less whole. That’s not to say that I don’t edit or revise in part, but that the idea or the ambition of it has simmered long enough to be more or less fully realized so that I know what I’m after. However, that’s only true about a third of the time. I think time for me—as you know, having collaborated with me—is important. I’m a slow writer. I love note-taking everywhere I go and so lots of things come out of notes as well as the fact that I take notes on my poem drafts and will eventually dismantle them. Still, that’s real work and there’s a permission that has to happen first before I can move into what I really want for the poem.

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?

During graduate school I was certainly working on short pieces, but really since the chapbook, I’ve become the writer always working on some kind of collection.

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

I find readings to be strange because they call into conflict my public and private selves. I love meeting people and I think that I’m a born teacher—as I really enjoy teaching. Still, I’ve composed these poems in private, and while I send them off to my poet friends for feedback, I still am a little anxious about the way the language will be received. Part of this, too, is knowing that most audiences want what you read to them to somehow “be true.” There is oftentimes some expectation of autobiography that I’m always fretting over. Even if the events are true, it’s not the truth of “what happened” or where you were spiritually or mentally (or even more concrete things than those). There’s either “the lie that tells a truth” or just as often, “a truth that tells a lie.”

More importantly, however, I think that readings ask the writer/performer to do what seems near impossible to me: A good reading informs, entertains, and (at least for me) sends me into wanting to create something myself. That’s difficult to do for an audience who you may or, more likely, may not know. I hope that I inform and entertain. I also know it’s probably not only improbable to think that my language might be a vehicle that someone else could ride into their own art, but also arrogant. Still, I always try to talk to older or more experienced poets about how and why to give readings. The Maine poet, Wes McNair, once told me that a good reading has “an arc to it.” I try to figure out what I think that means every time I give a reading.

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?

Always for me the question of place is central. I still am trying to figure out how geography and all that goes along with it informs our language and music. Maybe this comes out of feeling like an “outsider” because of where I grew up—if that even exists anymore. I’m not sure. But even that I find so curious. How was it that my early associations of culture, art, and being a writer, in particular, were not with the place I was from? Place is so important, even if our notions of it are based out of misinformation or stereotypes. But besides all of that, as I travel around I still believe to a certain extent “change your geography, change your mind.”

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 don’t think of the “role of the writer” as monolithic or that there are any “should be’s” attached to it. I admire writers whose work is a confluence of questioning, celebratory, remembrance, etc. I do think that most artists are somehow on the periphery of the larger culture. It allows for a larger view, I suppose.

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

Both.

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

The poet, Sherod Santos, told me when I was 22 years old that “if poetry was important to [me, that I would] get back to it.” I never forgot that all through my 20’s when I was working all kinds of jobs and writing poems on my own. I finally wrote him a few years ago to thank him for that advice because it had proven so true for me during all those years that my life seemed far from poetry in any public way. It turns out that the email I sent to him arrived after the last class he taught before retiring. So that advice seems to have somehow come full circle in its own grace.

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

I think getting into both creative and critical prose can be a kind of relief from poetry. Sometimes I need to live in language in a different way.

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 almost always write in the morning. I remember David Arnason telling me a few years ago when I was up in Winnipeg, “Save the best time for yourself.” I find that if I write in the morning, I have a kind of confidence about whatever else I’m doing that day. I try to write everyday—even if it’s just to do bits of revision on old poems. That doesn’t always happen, but it’s a goal of which I’m capable.

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

Well, I don’t like the way “inspiration” is used very much. Maybe it’s because I hear it as too much of an excuse (or lack of it) from my students, bless their hearts! What I do love about that word, however, is that it has to do with breath…what we breathe in and which goes back to place. As I’m running along the Hudson River this morning and breathing in the sweet grass and fishy stink of the river, that seems a kind of inspiration to write. But to really answer the question, I go to other poets, other texts, and art galleries to jumpstart myself. Other than that, I think smart conversations really help me. That’s why so many of my poems start out with something that someone tells me.

13 - What do you really want?

To learn to rock climb, to learn more languages, to experience another companero de alma, regular pilgrimages, and to laugh every day. In terms of writing, I just want to keep doing it. I want to keep being interested in the world and the writing, and to continue. I think getting better and having a sense of your own artistic power comes with practice and devotion. I am both practicing and devoted.

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?

All of the things you list influence me. Probably it’s visual art and nature that are the two most overt influences. I just got back from walking in Galicia and the beauty of that place is still hanging around my mind six weeks later. My brother, who is a scientist, believes that since we evolved within the natural world over such a long period of time, that there is something profoundly home-like for us when we go back into it. I don’t know how that plays out in scientific theories (I mean, I’m not really sure I feel more “at home” in the woods than I do down in Manhattan’s crowded Chinatown!), but I think there might be something to it. What I like while out in the natural world is the awareness of the simultaneity of being in your body and mind that I don’t get in my everyday life. I know my feet are hurting or that I’m thirsty; concurrently, I know I’m mulling over a memory or working out a thought. All of this stuff gets pulled into the work—alongside seeing artworks like Guernica for the first time, or each and every time I listen to Miles Davis version of “Bye, Bye Blackbird” etc.

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

There’s just too many to name…but, I always love to go back to Frank O’Hara, Charles Wright and Denise Levertov. Another writer, who I sit with in wonder, is John Matthias. His work is so expansive, and learned and human.

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

Mostly, I just want to do more and better: more books, more genres, edit/publish, teach more, etc. Beyond that, travel for me is so important. I didn’t start really traveling until I was about 23 and I don’t plan on stopping. In fact, I think my travels have taken on a more adventurous turn recently, and I’d like to see where that takes me. And the writing.

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 can’t imagine not being a teacher, so I think that’s what I would have only been if I hadn’t started really writing. Still, there’s a part of me that thinks I would love to be a Classicist or a vineyard owner, or work for some NGO. I think anything that had something thoughtful and a dash romantic and meaningful about it would have appealed to me.

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

Maybe it’s because I had no opportunity to act or dance, and I couldn’t sing, play or paint so well? Or maybe it was because I wanted to enact what I was reading? I always tell my students that I grew up with the language and song of the Southern Baptist Church in my head, and perhaps I wanted to somehow replicate that without all of the dogmatism that seemed to go with it. Gosh, mostly I wanted to do something that didn’t depend on washing dishes or going to bed at a reasonable time.

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

I recently saw 500 Days of Summer. I’m not sure that it was great, but it was really interesting in its “reality vs. imagined projection.” Also, I just saw The Lives of Others which is a few years old, but helped me understand a bit of what artists endured in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall and think about the role of art in the world. I’m currently reading a book called Writers and Pilgrims by Donald Howard. It’s helping me to frame my own pilgrimage, understand those early travels to the Holy Land, and to think about how “travel itself is imaginative.”

20 - What are you currently working on?

Some poems that are too early to tell if they will be a book or not…. Also, I’m working on some scholarly pieces having to do with the Canadian (prairie) long poem and its intersection with Olson’s ideas of place. There are travel essays in the queue, and in particular one having to do with the Camino de Santiago Compostela.

12 or 20 questions (second series);

12 or 20 questions: with Kemeny Babineau

Kemeny Babineau lives outside Brantford Ontario with his wife and two daughters. He edits an independent literary wag called The New Chief Tongue that appears courtesy of Laurel Reed Books. Babineau’s most recent work is After the 6ix O’Clock News published by BookThug.

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

It became apparent that publication didn’t depend upon others. My recent work is as tentative and hopeful as the first but now I feel I understand better how it is I write my best work.

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

I think through song lyrics, wanting to emulate that.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing intitially 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 don’t write through projects. I have learned to distrust such intentionality in my work. The original draft often resembles the final product as what one must keep alive in the poem, whether it be long or short, is the initial flush of creativity, the original intent. My work does not come out of copious notes but it does arrive from the persistent study of a subject that interests me.

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?

Poems are made one after another, and often on far ranging themes and ideas. The job of compiling a book is in pulling together similar elements from the seemingly scattered poems. Often a poem can have a companion piece that was written several years before with various other concerns lumped in between.

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

I value readings because often afterwards you can a hone a piece down to what you felt worked when reading it in front of an audience.

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 am not pre-occupied by theory at all. I approach language as a toy but not a frivolous one. For me it’s a question of how far can you bend the language and still engage, or where does the construction of narrative end and for how long can it be strung out, if even upon falsified grounds. And when it does end, narrative, can you still be engaging, entertaining and provocative.

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?

The writer has a diminished role in larger culture but I think the writer will always have the providence of the sage. Writers have many responsibilities, as chronicler, entertainer, prophet, provocateur, bacchant.

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

Neither.

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

Al Purdy said (or something like it) “there aren’t any themes, only one poem after another.”

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

I don’t consider myself much of a fiction writer, although I have a few short stories to my credit and do work on them from time to time, but in moving from poetry to fiction I find I like to pull fiction into the poetry camp somewhat and make it an exercise in economy.

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?

No routine for writing, I set time aside and use that, often when I’m very busy doing other things, especially manual tasks, that is when a poem will burst upon me.

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

Read, read, read.

13 - What was your most recent Hallowe'en costume?

Aircraft carrier.

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?

Observation.

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

Charles Olson I find fascinating, but as for opening up the poetic veins I turn to writers like Gerry Gilbert and bill bissett.

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

Write a book I didn’t write, in other words compile a book of erasure.

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?

Biologist.

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

Naiveté.

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

The selected work of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Inland Empire by David Lynch.

20 - What are you currently working on?

20 questions from rob mclennan, and a handful of recent poems.

12 or 20 questions (second series);

fwd; Michael Turner on the 1963 Poetry Conference, Vancouver

Hi fellow poets and enthusiasts of poetry & poetics.

Below is a link to a blog by a current Vancouverite, Michael Turner, containing a precis of a panel discussion on the 1963 Poetry conference which was held at the Harbourfont campus of Simon Fraser in August this year. Ten poets who had been in Vancouver back then attended the gathering to share views in the afternoon, and read some poems in the evening. Rob McTavish who did a film on John Newlove has filmed many hours with individuals who were at the original 3 week event and is creating a movie to commemorate the events back then when Olson, Creeley, Duncan, Ginsberg, Avison, Levertov, and Phil Whalen inducted those of us who were younger into the Mysteries of Poetry. The recent event was co-chaired by Stephen Collis and Rob McTavish. I hope you find it interesting.

http://mtwebsit.blogspot.com/search?q=3Drobert+hogg=20

Be fine all, bob hogg

12 or 20 questions: with Arjun Basu

Arjun Basu was born and raised in Montreal. His first collection of short stories, Squishy (DC Books) was published last year. He was editor in chief of enRoute magazine from 2001 to 2007 and is currently the editorial director of Spafax, the publishers of enRoute. He is at work on a novel and is also writing (very mini) short stories on Twitter.

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

I can’t say my first book changed my life. Getting married. The birth of my son. The first time I heard the Pixies. These things changed my life. My first book, not so much. I finally scratched an itch that needed scratching. But my life has gone on pretty much as it did before.

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

My journey into fiction bypassed poetry. I have to admit, I am not a huge fan of poetry though I am capable of being moved by it. And some of my closest friends are poets! But I’ve always been a storyteller. When I was a kid, I lied a lot. Now I make things up on the page.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing intitially 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?

The first draft of Squishy was done in three months. The novel I am currently working on has been an on and off affair for the last six years.

4 - Where does fiction 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?

Fiction starts with an image, or a series of words. Many short stories start with an image I have of the end. My novel started with the last chapter. It was the first chapter I wrote. Short fiction tends to start with a series of words. I am not an “issues” writer in that I discover a subject that I’m passionate about and then start writing. I’m very visual in my approach to writing.

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

I love readings. I love interacting with the audience. The cliché about writing being lonely is very true. It’s also thankless in that sense. I also like to use readings to suss out works in progress. Especially when you write humorous material, readings are a good way to find out if the audience is going to laugh at the right places.

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?

My first book was about small moments in life that take on greater significance later on. Much of my writing is about small moments blowing up, it seems. But I’d say the majority of my writing deals with the absurdity of the human condition and the even more absurd fictions we’ve built up over time that seem to indicate we know what we’re doing.

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 think our culture is getting more and more literate. That might seem counterintuitive in a time of diminishing (traditional) media but it’s not. We now officially live in an Information Age. I think the reaction of the public to what I’m doing on Twitter, for example (more on this below) speaks to our great need to hear good stories. The writer is needed more than ever to tell everyone is what it means to be alive. As the world gets more complex, the need for writers – and writing – will only grow.

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

Since I am an editor myself, I understand the process and the need. I have nothing bad to say about the editorial process.

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

I know the worse piece of advice every writer gets at some point: write what you know. What a crock. The best piece of advice was probably the person who told me that “write what you know” was the worst piece of advice. Another good piece of advice? Drink up.

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?

Since I work a “real” job I can’t say I have a writing routine. I write when I can. When I was working on Squishy this meant writing mornings, evenings, weekends, the middle of the night.

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

I’m going to hate to say this: but I turn on the TV. I just allow my mind to do nothing for awhile, just become passive, take in the images. It helps. I don’t believe in forcing anything. I’m the kind of writer that gets a lot done in my head before pen even hits paper (yes! I still use pen and paper!). A lot of my writing time is actually thinking time. Once I’m in the process of physically writing, the words come out rather quickly.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

My home is kind of odorless. There’s a certain kind of curry smell that will remind me of my parents’ house. If you smell like my wife, I’m probably going to be reminded of home. It’s a good smell but I’m not going to tell you what she smells like.

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?

Music I find influences my writing quite a bit. Especially the rhythms and the interplay between lyrics and music. I find staring into nature – whether it be as simple as my backyard or as grand as a mountaintop vista – helps my writing. I do get something out of nature. Even though the majority of my work is “urban.”

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

My son’s middle name is Carver, as in Raymond. Carver’s writing is, in many ways, still my touchstone. There are many writers I admire and enjoy reading. But only Carver has influenced my work.

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

I want to write a play. After I finish my novel. So I’d like to write my novel. And then write a play. And see it to its fruition. I’d like to create something that is completely collaborative.

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?

This question doesn’t really work for me. I have an occupation. And I have to say I’m lucky that I do something I enjoy doing.

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

I write because I can’t help myself.

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

The last great non-fiction book I read was The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. A great parlor question (what would happen to the world if humans just disappeared?) turned into a great, great book. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

19 - What are you currently working on?

Currently I am doing a bit of an experiment with Twitter. I’ve been writing 140 character short stories there since the fall. I’ve written about 900 “Twisters” since then, have secured an agent and I’m having a book proposal shipped around. I didn’t start the project with the aim of creating a book but they have taken off. Twitter is certainly an interesting thing for a writer: the brevity really focuses the mind and the feedback is instant. I’ve had quite a bit of fun with it. If anyone is interested, they can find me at www.twitter.com/arjunbasu

12 or 20 questions (second series);

12 or 20 questions: with Angela Szczepaniak

Congenitally ornithophobic, Angela Szczepaniak is neckdeep in a doctoral dissertation on innovative poetry, dysfunctional detective fiction, and comic books. In addition to publishing poetry and critical essays, and working as a poetry editor for Redwood Coast Press, she participated in LOCCAL’s first hygiene themed poetry-art project—traces of her visual poetry can still be found on placards in some of the finest public restrooms in Seattle. Her work has since surfaced in Belgian art galleries, alongside some top shelf vispoets as part of the 2009 Infusoria exhibit. At the moment, she lives in Toronto, where she increasingly thinks about being ravaged by time’s withered claw. Her first book is a novel-in-poems, called Unisex Love Poems (DC Books).

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’s still kind of new, so it hasn’t made much of a material difference yet. It’s pretty cool to have a spine.

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

I didn’t come to poetry first… it came to me after a long time dodging it. I’d been taught in elementary and highschool that poetry was about wrenching emotion and confession, which I had an active, hostile lack of interest in reading or writing. When I finally discovered that it could be about things like form and language, and that it could even have a sense of humour I reconsidered.

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?

Fits and starts. I spend a long time writing small things, collecting phrases and titles, names, images, rhythms. Then when I have a sense of what I’m looking for in a larger project, or how small pieces fit into something larger, it’s very fast.

Notes: Years worth. I’m all about outlines, character sketches, lists of connections and fault lines between things… I never follow the outlines like a map (I rarely even look at them again), but I find it essential to spend a long time drafting the cartography, until I get comfortable enough with my material that I can just write the work, instead of around it.

I’m a compulsive reviser. I’ll rewrite something 20, 30 times after I initially arrive at a piece that seems “whole.” I still revise the published book—the copy I do readings from is full of penciled-in and crossed-out words and lines. I don’t really think of anything as permanent, or that publication would be indelible. I don’t see why writing shouldn’t keep changing for new contexts, especially if parts of it feel flat or go off eventually.

4 - Where does a poem or piece of fiction 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?

Kind of both—each “book” is different and doesn’t follow a prescriptive plan, but constellations of connections that seem to add up to longer things often form fairly early on. With Unisex Love Poems I had about 2 or 3 pieces from most of the major “genres” before I realized that I wanted them to commingle and be intercut throughout the same book, instead of each being its own separate venture. The thing I’m working on now has very few completed pieces, but I have an idea of how small things (whatever they turn out to be) will fit together eventually.

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

I think of readings and writing as separate performances, so there’s not that much crossover for me. I like live performances of all kinds. Even when I’m the “live” one in question—I’m a really neurotic reader, but I enjoy getting an immediate response and I like the interaction with an audience. I like the idea of tuning pieces to actual present audiences.

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?

Yeah, lots. I’m half academic and all cerebral, even about really regular things like cereal and pop songs. My specific concerns shift depending on the work I’m doing, of course. I’m not sure what the current questions are in any collective sense, and I don’t think I was trying to answer anything with ULP (that seems a bit presumptuous)… Just to think about the qualities of language and the possibilities for different kinds of reading experiences they engender—how we use words, what kind of effects and implications they may have (especially the uncontrollable, visceral ones), what happens when they’re (mis)used. I like the way words fit together sonically and visually… I love the gap between what people say and what they mean. And the leaps an interlocutor has to make to participate in a conversation. I’m a sucker for idiom, but non sequiturs are really the way to my heart.

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’m not sure what an artist’s role is—art seems to be more important to artists than to anyone else, unfortunately. But if I got to place the job ad:

The world at large urgently seeks diverse artists working in any medium to fill countless positions. Tasks include puncturing holes in our social/institutional pipes, to create leaks and spurts that stimulate new ways of thinking (not to offer something concrete to think about… but to open up new avenues and processes for thinking). No plumbing or roadworks experience required. Applicants with a sharp sense of humour will have a distinct advantage.

It would probably be more useful to run ads for audiences, though.

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

I love it. It’s a challenging, invigorating process that draws the best from the work. I should probably qualify that—so far I’ve only worked with the most amazing, intuitive editors. I keep thinking that my luck has to run out sooner or later, and then it would be a torturous, useless process. But then, I suppose, I’d still find the experience with a good editor essential, I just wouldn’t be having one.

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

“The problem is that all your bank statements are from the present. You really should try to secure bank statements from the future.”

—from the Bureaucrat I dealt with repeatedly while trying to renew my visa to study in the U.S.

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

I don’t really separate them when I’m writing. I just write whatever seems to work at a given time. Pick-and-mix forms is central to what I do—I guess it’s called “hybrid genre” or something like that, which requires that kind of orchestration of lots of genres and forms working together (or against each other) in some (hopefully) interesting, productive way. The appeal—I think it’s the exuberance of disruption. Having to shift from one form to another keeps the writing lively. It’s the same hyperactive engagement I look for as a reader.

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 wish I had one! I make lists and schedules all the time, which is more a part of the routine than actually following them. I’m very chaotic. When I’m in the rhythm of something, working toward completion (after all the notes), especially when I have an outside deadline, I write to the exclusion of everything else—eating, sleeping… I often “sleepwork”—I go to bed thinking of what I have to do the next day, then when I get up and go to start on it, I find that I’ve already done it in my sleep. Mostly when I’m not tunnel-visioned like that, I just avoid writing—by eating, sleeping, reading, watching movies, doing jobs that pay, making notes for writing later…

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

See #14-15.

For ULP British sketch comedy figured prominently.

13 - If there was a fire, what's the first thing you'd grab?

Hendrix. She’s the totally rad, unfathomably aged cat who lives with me now (24, in human years).

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?

Everything. I wrote a 5 page section of ULP, triggered by a sequence of images/colours and sounds in a Dentyne Ice commercial (it’s not about the product at all, it just made me think in a particular kind of register for a while). As for things I’m less embarrassed to admit: music (I have favourites, but really, all kinds can be a catalyst for writing—rhythm and sound are important in music and words); science—especially medicine and how the body works (or allegedly works. Or doesn’t); visual art—especially comics, but I also find a few painters and toy designers influential; furniture—I like Alain Bélanger’s sense of form, for instance; architecture; and comedy—for contemporary stuff, I find British sketch comedy hits the right pitch at the moment, but also vaudeville and silent comedies (Buster Keaton, say) and Howard Hawks’ doubletime dialogue.

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

I’m not sure who would be evident as direct influences on my writing, but I like David Antin, bpNichol, Gertrude Stein, Steve McCaffery, Lisa Robertson, Jason Camlot, Lyn Hejinian, Karen Mac Cormack, Ann Quin, Shelley Jackson, Christina Milletti, Dashiell Hammett, Charles Willeford, George F. Walker… Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett… so many more. I’m a huge fan of George Herriman, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Daniel Clowes… Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Matt Berry, The League of Gentlemen.

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

Have my wisdom teeth extracted. They’ve been a real menace to my alignment and dental kerning for years, and they still feel sort of alien in there, yet for some reason I just keep avoiding it.

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?

Cryptozoologist. But that probably takes more optimism than I’m usually equipped with. So probably a filmmaker is more likely. Maybe a musician.

I’ve done lots of jobs to finance the writing and student life—baker, bus mechanic, science clown… They all posed a serious threat of becoming more permanent occupations.

I took a career placement test in highschool that said I was ideally suited to be a mime or a puppeteer. At the time I thought it was ridiculous (I mean just that a multiple choice test could turn up such nuanced results), but now I think they were probably kind of right.

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

Mostly I just like doing it—I love language and just can’t help myself. I like the hours. And I don’t have to sit at a desk.

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

I’m not sure how you mean “great”—that feels like a trap. I’ve read a lot of amazing things lately, but I especially love Art Spiegelman’s Breakdowns and Chris Ware’s Building Stories and his newest ACME Novelty Library issue.

And one film? I’m bad at making decisions like that, even if limited by chronology. Some of my favourites are: The Perfect Human, Road House (the 1948 one, completely unrelated to Patrick Swayze), Scarlet Street, O Lucky Man, Freaks. Oh, and City of Women. Sherlock Jr. And the opening scene of Peter Ibbetson.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m doing some new cartoons. And a detective novular-poetry book about a crumbling hotel lounge variety show. It has a dodo in it. Or, more like out of it. Conspicuously not in it.

12 or 20 questions (second series);

lainna, toronto, birthday;

Ongoing notes: early September, 2009

Now that Labour Day has (finally) come and gone (and I now have a child in college; ugh), did you see this interview that Jonathan Ball (newly relocated to Winnipeg from Calgary) did with me recently? He’s been doing a bunch of others since, worth checking out. Otherwise, I can barely keep up with what’s been going on lately; dates finalized for this fall’s ottawa small press book fair, as well as events for the Ottawa International Writers Festival; did you know there’s a Thousand Islands festival too? And I’m reading on Friday in Toronto; or have you already noticed? Take note, the new “12 or 20 questions” series aren’t just on the blog, here, but some over at Aaron Tucker’s Agora site, and others at Open Book Toronto; keep a sharp eye. And Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston was nice enough to mention my second novel out this fall (watch for it, either October or November, not sure yet), as well as a number of other Ottawa-specific literary happenings. What a kid. And why haven’t you signed up for this new poetry workshop of mine…?

Toronto ON: Former Puritan magazine co-founder/editor Spencer Gordon, now schooling in Toronto, recently started up a new publishing house, Ferno House, and released its first publication, the limited edition For Crying Out Loud: an anthology of poetry & fiction (Ferno House, 2009). Publishing the work of George Elliott Clarke, Laura Maija Clarke, Spencer Gordon, Alex Grigorescu, Andrew MacDonald, Jeff Parker, Wendy Prieto, Jonathan Simpson and Catriona Wright, it is a “collection of poetry and fiction by the students and instructors of the 2008-2009 Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto.” Does the University of Toronto creative writing department even have an equivalent to those magnificent Concordia University productions, headlight anthology? With their forthcoming “dinosaur porn” anthology, could this be where they settle their niche?

Wilderness

Susanna Moodie crunches through light-
lanced, fir-sweet forest. Emily Carr
portages canvas, landscape, heritage
minute.

Ecologist tribes carve telephone poles
into sugar maples. Pioneers tap
conversations.

Third-generation parrots croon covers:
Campfire classics, loons, Céline Dion.
Coureurs des booze explore vast refrigerators
of dépanneurs. Land of the Molson Ex,
home of the two-four.

People leave traces of themselves:
footprint, tent peg, CN Tower. (Catriona Wright)

Abbotsford BC: Good to see a new little chapbook press emerging out of anywhere, let alone Abbotsford, with Lipstick Press offering up a new little offering, Heidi Greco’s A: The Amelia Poems (2009). What is it about poets writing on historical characters, writing around mythologies? It reminds me of that little Marita Dachsel chapbook that came out a few months ago.

Around the World, Interrupted

So much for finding Howland
silly pimple on the sea, downed
instead on fortunate rock
barely an atoll

Fred impaled on metal, hopeless
asking for his flask
knows I will say nothing
this time

I keep sending
mayday mayday

messages lost I fear as the cry
yet another gull
riding ocean.

A beautiful chapbook, I would certainly like to see more from this press. Otherwise, there have been so many poets working in historical characters over the years that, if you read enough of them, certain tendencies tend to repeat, and even overlap (I will admit a bias against historical novels, for example; I enjoy fiction, but would rather read history than “historical fiction,” to know the difference between “what happened” and “story”). Why do I get the feeling that Greco’s writing is better than this, what she is doing with it, by walking down such a similar path? Certainly there have been those, few and far between, to do magnificent things with such, and Greco’s is good, but why do I get the sense her writing would be better suited doing something different?

Joan of Arc lives down the hall

Wearing her pilled grey sweater
she’s armed against the world,
pulling its stretched-out collar up
over her face, protection.

She hides and whimpers messages
speaks French to her Dauphin,
defends herself with a dented cafeteria tray.
She drags a broken clothes tree
proclaims it as her cross.

Now and then she simpers, her armour
getting rusty. We have learned to translate:
she’s pissed herself again.

Everyone hoards matches here
even in the rain.

Kelowna BC: After hearing for months about Kelowna BC poet Jake Kennedy [see his 12 or 20 questions here], I finally managed to get a third printing copy of his chapbook, HAZARD (BookThug, 2006). In seven movements for seven writers, his poems work as explorations, little essays on writers and writers, including Balzac, Rossetti, Mandelstam, Cahun, Beckett, Lowry and Acker. Is this a self-contained work, or is this working toward a larger project mixing poetry with biography and essay? For this sequence, part of the appeal is the range of formal considerations, working the lyric through to visual and more abstract blocks of prose, each an investigation into the writer’s life and works, as even the table of contents attests, writing beside “LOWRY”: “being the opera about Malcolm’s multiple losses of manuscripts to fire.” Exactly where is the hazard here? Or this, the first section of “CAHUN,” also called “being the story about Claude’s capture and condemnation by the Gestapo,” writing:

During WWII the cows walked around the island of Jersey looking for their displaced farmers. Sometimes a cow would be found at the side of the road, just waiting and watching the few military vehicles go by. They looked less forlorn-meditative than symbolic-indicative: the weather had changed its reality and now the cows were content to be lamp-posts and phone boxes. They just wanted to exist.

Claude worked from the early morning until late evening. She had seven cameras. One was a box-like camera that was fragile and heavy. She also wrote.

The natural suspicion with which art viewed politics and vice versa dissipated and then resurfaced – to good effect – in Jersey, in 1944, well after midnight. A resistance movement, in truth, involved a community of the hunted. During WWII it was not uncommon to see trees pretending to sway. In the farm that had no name they did not need candles, let alone kerosene lamps, to confirm each other’s good faces. They let shadows mask everything except the eyes. Claude and Moore had slotted pieces of hay behind their ears. Late into the early morning, they emerged from the large wooden doors. Saboteurs.

The German troops were hungry. They liked to smoke cigarettes. And they liked to drink beer. Many of them were 15 years old and had golden hair like fleece.

Where has this Jake Kennedy been hiding all this time, and when do we get to see something else emerge from him in print, to see where else these might be going?

For each symmetry there is a fire. Now three shacks burn, making duplications in the real-life sea (body of water). One hand-made protagonist (puppet head) must convey the inevitability of self-distrust/self-certainty about this dread: ‘he always knew already.’ Even furies cannot swim, it is up to the attendants to – in the end – really push. (“LOWRY, Introduction:”)