Hasan Namir : part five

How do you know when a poem is finished? 

I usually stop the poem when it ends on a word or a verse that makes me say “Aha.” Then, when I revisit the poem, re-read it a few times, take some time off and come back to it again, I realize that it actually needs to end on another stanza or verse, so then I start to make changes based on my new reading of the poem. To reiterate, sometimes you know when it ends as you’re writing the poem. Other times, through revisiting the poem, then you know when it ends.

Hasan Namir : part four

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

Recently I read Port of Being by Shazia Hafiz Ramji, who is an incredible poet. I loved how it evoked so much emotions and that’s what I enjoy the most about reading poetry is having all the feels. In the book, the reader is often the voyeur, witnesses and questioning all the surroundings and the very core of our own being. I also loved how the book questions our own political identities through the brilliant form.

Hasan Namir : part three

What poets changed the way you thought about writing? 

The one course that changed the way I perceive and write poetry is English 472- Advanced Poetry (Simon Fraser University). It was taught by Jordan Scott, who is not only an incredible poet, but an amazing mentor. He opened my eyes to a whole new world of experimental poetry, which intertwines with the dialectical themes such as sexuality and religion, two major themes that I play with in my poetry book War/Torn. If I had wrote the book with rhymes, then it would lose its significance. I am very grateful for him and also super grateful for my professor/mentor Jacqueline Turner, who inspired me to find new ways to write poetry. She challenged on the way I incorporate words and how to reshape them so they would give new meaning. Another author/poet who inspired me is Fred Wah, especially the term languageless, being hyphenated in-between two opposite languages. I find myself hyphenated between Arabic-English, Iraqi-Canadian, in search of reconciliation between the two identities and languages.

Hasan Namir : part two

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t? 

Novels and other forms of writing often have a strict structure and style, whereas poetry can be expressed in various forms. With poetry, I am able to experiment with words, space. Also, poetry accomplishes deep emotions that resonate with me for a long time. Poetry is personal and fills all the emptiness that’s inside me. The poems are my bodies, often destabilized to evoke the conflicting emotions that I’m feeling inside. Hence, I have artistic freedom with poetry, which allows me to experiment unlike other forms of writing.

Hasan Namir : part one

Hasan Namir was born in Iraq in 1987. He graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BA in English and received the Ying Chen Creative Writing Student Award. He is the author of God in Pink (2015), which won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Fiction and was chosen as one of the Top 100 Books of 2015 by The Globe and Mail. His work has also been featured on Huffington Post, Shaw TV, Airbnb, and in the film God in Pink: A Documentary. His latest book is War / Torn (Book*hug Press, 2018). Hasan lives with his husband in Vancouver.

Photo credit: Tarn Khare.

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

Growing up, I was writing poems that would rhyme at the end, sometimes lyrical. I perceived poetry as words that had to flow and rhyme with each other. Then, when I enrolled in English 472 – Advanced Poetry at Simon Fraser University, my whole perception of poetry was questioned and revolutionized. I veered away from rhyming and my poems all became free verse. I started to experiment with form and words to give new meaning. Now, my poetry writing has continued to be experimental with the form complimenting the words and themes.