Six Questions interview #4 : Dessa Bayrock

Dessa Bayrock lives in Ottawa with two cats and a variety of succulents, one of which occasionally blooms. She used to fold and unfold paper for a living at Library and Archives Canada, and is currently a PhD student in English, where she continues to fold and unfold paper. Her work has appeared in Funicular, PRISM, and Poetry Is Dead, among others, and her work was recently shortlisted for the Metatron Prize for Rising Authors. She is the editor of post ghost press. You can find her, or at least more about her, at dessabayrock.com, or on Twitter at @yodessa.

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?

I first moved to Ottawa (from beautiful British Columbia) in the summer of 2015 to start an MA in English at Carleton. The plan was to finish the program in a year and immediately move home again — but instead I fell in love with this salty, brick-laden city. So I stayed. And because I also fell in love with grad school and ended up starting a PhD, I’m staying for at least a while. 

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?

There’s so much to love in the Ottawa writing community. My first taste was an In/Words poetry reading around Halloween in 2015, which wasn’t really my style, but it led me to the Sawdust Reading Series, which very much WAS my style (and sadly now defunct), which led me to bywords.ca, which published one of my very first poems when I started getting serious about writing and submitting later in 2016. After finding a box full of pocket-sized zines in Shelf Life Books in Calgary, and then roaming around a few seasons’ worth of the ottawa small press fair, I decided to start my own zine / pocket poetry press in 2018, and post ghost press was born. 

I’ve struggled, in the last few years, with being an introvert, with having limited energy for social interaction, and with finding myself swimming through what is sometimes wild social anxiety — I’m that person hitting “oh yeah maybe!!” on Ottawa poetry events on Facebook and never actually showing up. Augur magazine publisher Kerrie Byrne phrased this struggle really well on Twitter last month in talking about their autism, saying “Sometimes I feel like the autistic ghost of indie Canlit / You know / Just starting a mag one day / Gradually making it pay a whole bunch / But then being too anxious/overstimulated to ever go to real person events and meet actual humans live / Autistic ghost of indie Canlit / That’s me”. Big, big same. I struggle with how to be involved with community even as my own body and brain keep me from going out into the wild and talking to actual people about it.

So I didn’t really know what was going to happen when I started post ghost press. I felt like an interloper. A voice in my head kept screaming that I had no right to do it, and that Ottawa was going to reject both me and the press, pushing us out like a piece of shrapnel. Instead, I was shocked and hugely humbled by the immediate and generous outpouring of support from so many local writers and editors and presses I’d admired for long who were genuinely excited to see another press pop up in the city. My own imposter syndrome told me I was inexperienced and I only deserved to sit at the kid’s table, but instead I was invited into this beautiful community of mutual uplifting and support and joy. I spent a couple of days just weeping at my computer as I watched 2600 people follow the press on Twitter.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?

It honestly just confirmed things I’ve been thinking for years: that writing and creating shouldn’t be competitive. If we share resources and space and joy with each other, everyone’s work just gets better and better. Here’s the result of being part of this community, even as the introverted ghost that I am: I share my work more. I ask for others to share their work more, too. I encourage the writers I know and love to ignore their imposter syndrome and submit their poems to things, even if it’s to magazines or prizes where I’m also submitting work. I don’t see it as a competition. I never want to see it as a competition ever again. It’s so easy to get in your own head when you’re writing, and even easier to stay there; on the other hand, there’s just so much more joy and freedom in writing something and not worrying about it being “good” but instead thinking, “man, I can’t wait to share this and see what happens next.” Maybe my writer pals will like it. Maybe we’ll tear it apart together. Maybe they’ll write something riffing on it. The process is infinite and collaborative and just so, so joyful. 

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?

Ottawa has some amazing folks at the forefront of the literary scene who are absolutely committed to making it a good space to be — making sure events are accessible and inclusive and kind, encouraging both new and old writers to keep writing and to try new things, bringing together people who are creating and seeing what happens. There are poets and facilitators in every city, but what Ottawa has in rob mclennan and Amanda Earl and Pearl Pirie is truly, truly special.  

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?

When I first moved to Ottawa, I was terribly, horribly homesick, and almost all my poems were about it in some way — ghosts, apocalypses, displacements, unrelenting winters, anxieties, bad omens. For this first year, Ottawa was this ominous figure in the background of all my poems — this alien cityscape where I wasn’t sure I could belong or wanted to belong.

Now Ottawa feels like wrapping myself in a patchwork quilt: it’s cosy. It’s comfortable. It doesn’t mind if you spill tea on it, or if the cat sleeps on it. It’s big enough to share if someone wants to sit on the couch beside you.

Ottawa is less present in my poems now, or at least less present as an ominous figure. It feels a little like gaining another parent: I rebelled against it, and it nurtured me anyway, and we’re both aware that one day we might leave each other for good. But we’re always going to have each other in our hearts. We made each other into what we are, into how we think of ourselves and how we think of one another, and a little bit of that will be in everything I do until the day I die. 

Q: What are you working on now?

The number one thing I’m excited to be working on is an ongoing poetry collaboration with my pal Katie Stobbart—basically a google doc where we write poems back and forth periodically in response to all the previous poems. It’s a cool process; it feels like a conversation, but also like going into a bookshop and slipping copies of your own poems in among the pages of poetry books you love. This is our second time working through this process together, and it feels practiced and comfortable, but at the same time it still feels exciting and surprising and sometimes shocking—at what we can produce for each other, at the ways our poems leak into one another, at how we can know the other person so well and still find new things to think about together. (On that note, if anyone is looking to publish a tiny 14-page chapbook manuscript of poems struggling with what it means to feel at home, rife with plants and gardens and things that grow ominously and joyfully by turns, with a dash of both good and bad omens— you’re in luck! Our first collaborative manuscript is looking for a home and you should email me about it!). 

Otherwise I’m pouring most of my energy into post ghost press—it’s a one-person show, and I try to make at least one zine a month and usually end up overcommitting and trying to make two or three—plus poetry stickers and other poetry objects (socks? matchboxes? coasters? teabags? put poems everywhere!). It’s a lot of work, but I love it. I don’t think I’ll do it forever, so I’m trying to pour as much of myself into it while I can.

And finally, slowly, furtively, I’m collecting my own poems into a full-length collection and hoping to start sending it to presses by the end of the year. There are still a lot of ghosts in my work, and homesicknesses, and anxieties. But there’s joy, too: Ottawa gave me salt and snow and crumbling brick, but also light and beauty and warmth and community. The two sides are beginning to balance, and it’s a homecoming of the most unexpected and treasured kind.

Six Questions interview #3 : Mark Frutkin

Mark Frutkin has published sixteen books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction. His most recent novel, The Rising Tide (Porcupine’s Quill, 2018), set in Venice in 1769. His recent collection of poetry, Hermit Thrush, was shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award. His novel, Fabrizio’s Return, won the Trillium Award and the Sunburst Prize, and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize (Canada/Caribbean region). His novel, Atmospheres Apollinaire, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for fiction. 

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?

I’ve been in the Ottawa area since 1970 when I came to Canada as a draft resister from the U.S. during the Vietnam War. My mother was born and raised in Toronto so I knew Canada well, having spent many vacations at relatives’ cottages on Georgian Bay. When I first moved to the Ottawa area, I lived on a farm in the Gatineau Hills near Wolf Lake, in a log cabin with no electricity or running water. At the farm, I started writing a lot, mostly poetry and short stories, and publishing in small Canadian literary magazines. After ten glorious years there, I moved to Ottawa and lived with friends in Sandy Hill.

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?

When I moved into town, I started dating a woman who worked for a small arts publication called the Ottawa Review. She helped me land a position there as the visual arts and literary reviewer so I ended up writing reviews about a lot of Ottawa artists and writers, their exhibitions and their books. Eventually I ended up teaching creative writing at University of Ottawa and Carleton University, and became the editor of Arc Poetry magazine (co-editor, actually, with John Bell), at the request of Christopher Levenson, the founder of Arc who was stepping down.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?

That’s hard to say. I’m sure the many writers I met in Ottawa certainly affected how and what I write, but it’s a bit difficult to measure. One thing I did learn was that you don’t have to be famous to be a good writer. Many writers I met and read were excellent and yet they were often little known outside Ottawa and the Ottawa writing community.

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?

This is a difficult question to address since I haven’t lived anywhere else since 1970 except Ottawa and area so I’m not really that up on what’s going on in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal or NYC, let alone Regina and Winnipeg. What Ottawa does provide is lots of down time in the winter, when there is plenty of opportunity to read and write (unless you’re an inveterate skier or ice skater, which I’m not). Ottawa also happens to be extremely rich in poets which I think is interesting. Lots of good poets here, lots of good poetry activity. Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that a government town is a place that works with words and language so many many people here are engaged in writing for work, and that somehow spills over into poetic expression. That’s my theory, anyway.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?

I think the most relevant project for me was Erratic North, my memoir about living in the country and being a draft resister. The book wasn’t specifically about Ottawa but about the Ottawa area, the Gatineau Hills, Wakefield, Wolf Lake and so on. The other influence of Ottawa is the closeness to the natural world. It’s easy to get out of Ottawa into the bush, with Gatineau Park nearby. I think that world of nature and the ever-present power of the weather here has had a strong influence on my poetry in particular.

Q: What are you working on now?

I’m always working on three things at a time: a novel, poetry and essays. I have a novel coming out with Porcupine’s Quill in Spring 2021 titled The Artist and the Assassin based on the life and mysterious death of the famous Italian painter, Caravaggio. I’ll be working on edits of that in the next year. I’ll probably try to publish a new poetry collection sometime in the next year or so, and the same goes for a new essay collection (titled, The Walled Garden). The novel I’m working on at present is set in Tang Dynasty China.

Six Questions interview #2 : Conyer Clayton

Conyer Clayton is an Ottawa based artist who aims to live with compassion, gratitude, and awe. Her most recent chapbooks are Trust Only the Beasts in the Water (above/ground press, 2019), / (post ghost press, 2019), Undergrowth (bird, buried press, 2018) and Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press, 2018). In 2018, she released a collaborative album with Nathanael Larochette, If the river stood still. She is the winner of Arc's 2017 Diana Brebner Prize and The Capilano Review's 2019 Robin Blaser Poetry Contest, and writes reviews for Canthius. Her debut full-length collection of poetry, We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (Guernica Editions), is forthcoming May 2020.

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?

I have been in Ottawa since September 2016. I moved here after living in Halifax for 3 years, after moving there from my home-town of Louisville, KY. I moved here for personal reasons, and because I got a job at a great gym here, Ottawa Gymnastics Centre. In my non-writing and art life, I am a gymnastics coach!

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?

I started writing in high school, mainly flash fiction and short stories, with poetry thrown in here and there. I edited our high school literary magazine, and wrote for myself. I continued through my BA and MA in English Literature and Creative Writing, and began sending things out for publication in 2012, near the end of my Masters. I did some open mics, a couple of feature readings.

After I graduated in 2013, and moved to Halifax, my life turned away from writing professionally, away from publication, reading, art in any public sense. I kept writing, but things were very hard for me in Halifax, and it was all I could do to keep my head above ground.

When I moved to Ottawa, things changed. Through the fall and winter of 2016/early 2017, I worked on compiling my some of my work into a full length MS, which was the skeleton for my full-length debut, We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (Guernica Editions, May 2020), and into 2 chapbooks: The Marshes (& Co Collective, 2017), and For the Birds. For the Humans (battleaxe press, 2018).

I went to Versefest in March 2017, and was blown away, but also intimidated. The next month I went to In/Words Reading Series and read at the open mic, and won some chocolate! I saw, and maybe chatted briefly (?), with people I would later become good pals, band-mates, and workshopping co-conspirators with, like Manahil Bandukwala, Ian Martin, and Chris Johnson. But I think the real hinging moment of getting into the Ottawa literary scene was winning Sawdust's Poem Off contest, and thus getting to do a feature reading in April 2017. That is where I met even more of the people who I am now dear friends with today, and got introduced to this incredibly kind community.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?

I don't know if it shifted the way I think about my writing itself, but it certainly shifted the way I think about process, community, and poetry as public engagement. I now attend regular workshops with my friends, which is not something I ever did outside of university before. I now have a more collaborative understanding of writing and editing.

I was very inspired by this community to take my art seriously. Sometime in 2017, I told my partner Nate about 2 goals I had:

1) Have a full-length book

2) Read at Versefest

Now those things are happening and it is pretty wild to me how it all manifested. I credit my friends here with so much.

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?

I am a member of the sound poetry ensemble, Quatuor Gualuor, with Nina Jane Drystek, jw curry, and Chris Johnson, and that is not something I see happening elsewhere in any real way, at least not that I am aware of, thoughI know my scope is somewhat limited. Hell, I didn't have any clue this kind of thing existed before the day Nina asked me if I wanted to come sit in on a rehearsal. It was so weird, and I loved it, and I was sold. I also think the fact that Nina is composing/recording visual and sound poetry is so cool, and I am thrilled I get to be a part of that. The avant-garde literary scene can be a bit of a sausage fest. So I am pretty into having my foot in the door with Nina on this, and grateful to jw curry for guiding me through a world I would have otherwise never known about, and to Chris for being a pal/being someone I am comfortable making aggressively strange sounds around. I have also had the opportunity to improv sound poetry with Stuart Ross a few times, and that was a blast. Does any other city in Canada have an active sound poetry group? One that isn't all men? If there is one, please please point me to them!

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?

I have not directly addressed Ottawa in my works, but I like to think that all the folks in my life crop up in my art. Either tangibly, through their influence on my work during work-shops and editing sessions, or in inspiration, through reading their work, or being so impressed by performances that I feel I need to step up my game!

Collaboration is also the name of the game here! Since moving here to Ottawa, I worked collaboratively on a publishing and music project for the first time. Mitosis (In/Words Magazine and Press, 2018) was a joint effort between myself and Manahil Bandukwala, who designed the cover, did illustrations, and did so much work. Writing the sister project, If the river stood still, with Nathanael Larochette, was another team-effort. It all came together in a way I could have never imagined before moving here and meeting everyone. Chris Johnson even came to my apartment and helped painstakingly bind 100 chapbooks, for no reason except being nice.

Q: What are you working on now?

I am mainly working on a full-length of prose poems, an extension of my above/ground chapbook, Trust Only the Beasts in the Water. But I am also working on a chapbook that I hope to send out in the fall of this year, based on events and poems written during my time in Halifax and immediately before. That one has been hard to edit, hard to see, and many lovely pals here in Ottawa have kindly offered feedback on it, which has been so so very helpful.

I am also branching out of writing, and more into music. A friend in Kentucky, Regan Layman, and I have remotely composing songs together, and just earlier today, in fact, we finished our first one! I am also working on some solo voice and marimba compositions, and some collaborative things with Nathanael. This is all so new and exciting to me! I feel like I have been eavesdropping from another room my entire life, dying to open the door, and I am finally, shyly, standing in the doorway now.

Six Questions interview #1: Manahil Bandukwala

Manahil Bandukwala is an Ottawa-based writer, editor, and visual artist. She is the author of two chapbooks, Paper Doll (2019) and Pipe Rose (2018). She is on the editorial team of Canthius, a feminist literary magazine. She was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize, was the 2019 winner of Room magazine’s Emerging Writer Award. See her work on manahils.com.

Q: How long have you been in Ottawa, and what first brought you here?

I’ve been in Ottawa since 2014, and came here for university at Carleton – and I’m finishing up my degree this year!

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?

The two are kind of tied together. In my second year at Carleton, I got involved with In/Words Magazine, and that really bridged the space between university and community. I started going to readings, listening to poets and eventually read at open mics. To read at open mics, I had to write stuff I liked enough. A book that has really influenced my writing is Bottles and Bones by Ayesha Chatterjee, and I first encountered Ayesha’s work at Tree, and then at Sawdust.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all?

Five years ago my conception of writing was of sitting holed up in a room producing ideas out of nothing. Now I see writing as a process, a form of growth, symbiotic with everything around.

Q: What do you see happening here that you don’t see anywhere else? What does Ottawa provide, or allow?

I have a beautiful memory of meeting for brunch at the Manx before Versefest a couple of years ago with Sarah MacDonnell and Claire Farley. This was before I got involved with Canthius, and I didn’t know either of them very well, but they invited me along anyways.

I can’t say much about what I see in other places because my only experience in a writing community is Ottawa, but this is what I see Ottawa provide.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here? How have the city and its community, if at all, changed the way you approached your work?

In 2018, I worked with Conyer Clayton to publish her chapbook, Mitosis, through In/Words Magazine & Press. It was launched alongside a sister album, If the river stood still by Conyer and Nathanael Larochette. The project was funded by the City of Ottawa, and was very much a product of the community. I first heard Conyer read an excerpt from Mitosis at In/Words, then as a poetry-music collaboration at Sawdust. I pitched the idea of getting funding to publish a chapbook-album collab, and there we were!

The project was my first dive into collaborating with another artist. It was a super fun process, from picking out cover cardstock to making illustrations to getting together for a bookbinding hangout. The act of writing, editing, and submitting can be a very isolating process, so collaborating with others is a huge part of enjoying being a writer. I don’t know if I would be writing so consistently and passionately if it weren’t for community.

Q: What are you working on now?

My winter break has been my sister Nimra and I working on our literary-visual project, Reth aur Reghistan. We researched folklore in Karachi and the province of Sindh in August 2019, and have now started turning that research into creative media. Our plan is to publish a book of poetry and sculptures inspired by our findings.

We’ve made about 25 sculptures from found materials like cloth, shells, dried flowers, and sticks so far, with plans to make more. It was a lot of fun seeing how the materials we had could visualize characters, scenes, and themes from the story. We’ve shared a few samples of sculptures on our website. Nimra and I both love our sculpture of Banbh and Manh, twin creatures who are half-female, half-hellish – so much so that it’s the first image on the website.