Showing posts with label Caitlin Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caitlin Press. Show all posts

Friday, August 09, 2024

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tāriq Malik

Tāriq Malik has worked across poetry, fiction, and art for the past four decades to distill immersive and compelling narratives that are always original. He writes intensely in response to the world in flux around him and from his place in its shadows. His published works, including Rainsongs of Kotli(TSAR Publications, short stories, 2004), Chanting Denied Shores (Bayeux Arts, novel, 2010),and now his poetry in Exit Wounds (Caitlin Press, Poetry, 2022) and Blood of Stone (Caitlin Press, Poetry, 2024), challenge entanglements in the barbed wires of racism and cultural stereotyping in art, the workplace and across societies.

Tāriq Malik is the current Writer-in-Residence at the Polyglot Magazine and a former Writer-in-Residence (July 2023) at the Historic Joy Kogawa House and has offered Poetry Master Classes at various locations.   

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

My first published book, Rainsongs of Kotli, was a compilation of loosely interwoven short stories set in the backwaters of Pakistani Punjab. It was challenging to describe the work and situate it for potential publishers. I received several very negative responses. Eventually, Rainsongs of Kotli was published by Toronto-based TSAR Publications in 2004, and that gave me confidence in my creative voice.

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

Rainsongs of Kotli, my first published work, began as a long poem that evolved into a historical fiction. However, I retained a few original poetic sections and transformed them into prose. 

My next book was based on the Komagata Maru saga, Chanting Denied Shores. In it, I included a handful of poems to vivify the narrative and serve as an itinerant poet's voice.

I ventured wholly into poetry for my third and fourth books, Exit Wounds and Blood of Stone. By then, I had some confidence in my poetic voice and was now less concerned about how these works would be received. I am glad I was able to make the transition to poetry and find my readers.

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 write almost daily, relying on my biphasic sleep patterns, and putting work together to submit is very often slow and laborious. While immersed in this lonely process, I feel empowered and sustained by the writing's drive, passion, and truth. At no point do I consider the reader's response to my narrative my sole concern, as this often gets in the way of the writing. If I do my task well enough, the reader will find my writing accessible and then willingly take the journey with me.

I tend to overwrite, hence there are several drafts, from which I later distill the work to its bare essence before the final submission.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Since my natural state as a poet is ekphrastic, I usually begin with a scene or an image. A piece of dialogue may inspire me to move onto the page and put down my personal take or view of the situation. The writing then dribbles in and is worked into a coherent whole (or incoherent whole, if I am deliberately risking obscurity). For me, the volta is often as compelling a section of the poem as the point of the reader's entry into it, even more so.

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

I enjoy public readings immensely as the writer's voice introduces a nuance that the written word does not always convey. I also find that there is a significant challenge in reading concrete poems where the visual aspect of the phrase is a vital part of the work. However, given the subjective nature of my writing and its narrow focus on unfamiliar themes, I am rarely offered opportunities to read my own work.  

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 try to amplify a personal experience and viewpoint and attempt to vivify these for the reader.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

One of the roles of the writer in our culture is to engage with the social areas of concern/friction/intersection that are often outside the readers' sphere and then to elucidate these emotional and intellectual experiences in an engaging, enlightening, and entertaining manner.

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

I have not yet had the fortune to work substantially with any editor for my fiction.

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

Be true to your art even if it does not find fertile soil to land on and flourish.

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

My fiction is heavily laced with my poetics. My poetry is mostly concrete and narrative based.

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?

My writing day begins at around 4am.

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

Look for inspiration in writing I admire, primarily Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz for his rhythms. Lately, I am returning for inspiration in the poetry of Valzhyna Mort, Andrea Cohen, Laura Ritland, Tolu Oloruntoba, et al.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Petrichor, in other words, Blood of Stone.

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?

Nature, science, and visual arts are all inspirational for me. I am excited to be working on a poetry chapbook on the wisdom of trees, another inspired by ravens.

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

Robert Macfarlane (any of his multi-faceted writing), Pankaj Mishra's From the Ruins of Empire, Loren Eiseley's The Unexpected Universe, E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime. 

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

Write a play or a screenplay, or collaborate on a creative project in this field.

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 have held scores of jobs before turning to writing: Plant chemist, candy factory worker (mercifully only one day), a nightshift at the pillow factory stuffing down feathers (four months), industrial lab chemist (17 years)

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

I did not find any writings that related to my subjective lived experience.

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

Colum McCann's awesome Apeirogon.

A favorite TV series: The latest incarnation of The Talented Mr. Ripley (titled simply as Ripley).

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am busy with a poetry book tentatively titled STALAG NOW that explores the global consolidation of influence and wealth in the hands of ever fewer individuals and organizations, often in collusion with the military, and the experiences of the precariat societies living under these conditions.

My next novel, Blood Towers, will present an ant's POV of constructing glass pyramids in the desert sands to fulfill the wet dreams of latter-day pharaohs.

I am also working on a sophomore outing for my short story collection of Rainsongs of Kotli.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Onjana Yawnghwe

Onjana Yawnghwe is a Shan-Canadian writer and illustrator who lives in the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Kwikwetlem First Nation. She is the author of two poetry books, Fragments, Desire (Oolichan Books, 2017), and The Small Way (Dagger Editions 2018), both of which were nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She works as a registered nurse. Her current projects include a graphic memoir about her family and Myanmar, and a book of cloud divination.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Did my first book change my life? Should it? I think in the sense of giving some legitimacy to this whole writing thing, like ‘oh your writing is actually good’ and confirming my writing’s external worth. It gave reinforcement to my life choices and how I spend my free time. It was a great feeling to have the first book out - a release of held breath, a ‘oh, finally!’.

My new book, We Follow the River, has had a strange life. It was actually the first book/manuscript that I finished. But no one wanted to publish it. So I moved on, and published two subsequent poetry books, Fragments, Desire, and The Small Way. Those are both about romantic love and the loss of that love, very different from this current book which is more about my family, immigration, race, and culture. This book coming out feels like things have come full circle.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a writer, or more specifically, a novelist. But when I was 18 or so, words emerged in the form of poems. I was surprised. But I was reading a lot of poetry at that time, which I loved since I was young. Our family had one poetry book: a small paperback anthology of verse. In elementary school we had to recite poems from memory and I chose Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” which was about the end of the world, and Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” (I had a bit of a morbid streak as a kid.)

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?
The tricky part for me is coming up with an idea that sticks. Sadly, I’m not the type of writer who has a multitude of ideas. Ideas sort of appear on their own after a period of incubation, and when an idea grabs a hold of me, I become pretty obsessed and want to work on the project in every spare moment. I usually do the necessary research in a fever, write a lot and quickly after that. When I’m taken with a project, a first draft comes together relatively quickly, and arrives in pretty good shape. I then like to take a break from it, and then start revisions with fresh eyes. The revision process usually takes the longest time. I usually have a vision of what the book project should look like, and the writing and revision process are basically attempts to be true to that ideal.

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?
A poem begins with either a line that I can’t get rid of in my head, or a desire to capture or express a particular feeling or thought. I think of my writing as going from project to project, definitely thinking of the larger whole as a book instead of writing short pieces and compiling them in a book. In seeing the project as a whole book, I like the investigative, interrogative function of writing poems - you’re telling one larger story but presenting different facets or experiences within that narrative. Poetry has built-in gaps in its form - it doesn’t pretend to tell the whole history of anything - and I like how each poem can evoke a glimpse of something and shed light on it. I see the thing as a whole, with me trying to help it come into being.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
They are neither part of nor counter my creative process. To me the writing part is its own creative thing, and I consider the work finished when I’m done with the writing and revising process. I’m naturally a very shy person, so readings were very awkward and uncomfortable for me, but this time around I’m enjoying doing events a great deal more, partly because I’m excited to share a part of my family to the world.

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 guess I’ve been concerned about how to express the intangible and unsayable. How to translate a particular emotion or the inner experience of something into a form that will be able to be shared with the world, to make the subjective less objective. I like finding moments that resonate, that ring out, that confirms, that makes you tremble and feel joy and weep and be in awe. I also think that I’m just the conduit for the art; a lot of my concern is trying to let go of ego and control and let the thing be what it wants to be. It’s important to accept emptiness, free up space, and receive the art. Observing and allowing, and doing only what is necessary.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I see writing as having a number of roles: a magnifying glass, a mirror, a camera, a telescope. Writing can distil and focus and make us feel present in a single moment; it can reflect back on ourselves, our weaknesses, strengths; it can document and give witness; it can be an exploration, adventure, an escape.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
The way I work is very solitary, so I have limited experience with outside editors. However, I did work with the brilliant Betsy Warland for The Small Way, because the material felt too close and raw and I couldn’t get much distance from it. In general, I like to edit my own work. But I like to have feedback from one or two writer friends.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.” Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to the graphic novel)? What do you see as the appeal?
I’ve never seen myself as a poet per se, but more a writer who is involved in a lot of creative projects. The way I think about poems is often cinematic and visual, and I think that is very much similar to the graphic novel form. That being said, working on a graphic novel is difficult for me because I don’t have formal art training. I sometimes feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m learning as I go along.

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?
Maybe because I work in spurts, I don’t have a writing schedule or routine. It’s also difficult because my work schedule (as an RN doing shift work) is erratic and irregular. There are chunks of time when I’m just absorbing - doing new things, meeting friends,  going out for walks,  looking at art, watching films, or reading. When I’m working on a particular writing project I wake up around 7:30am, meditate, wash up, have kombucha and coffee, then try to do a full day of writing, stopping only for meal breaks. When I’m deep into the zone, I often work until bedtime, around 11pm. Time passes amazingly fast. Before bed, I record everything I do during the day in a notebook. Sometimes I journal in a different notebook.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
When I’m bummed or feeling blah or need inspiration, I go to the movies. Being physically in the cinema and having your senses taken over by the film really rearranges my molecules. If the film is really good, I leave the theatre feeling like a new person: inspired, refreshed, renewed.

13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
I avoid parties so I don’t do the holiday thing. I think in 7th grade, I wore a cat costume.

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?
I already mentioned films, and how I conceive of poems almost as scenes from a film. I also love visual art - particularly more spare and minimalist works, like Agnes Martin and Robert Irwin. Odilon Redon was a major influence for my first book, and Henri Rousseau for the second. I think good art distils and transcends. Art is food, water, and air for me.

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

Just off the top of my head, this limited list: Peter Blegvad, Dionne Brand, Anne Carson, Emily Dickinson, Marilyn Dumont, T.S. Eliot, Thich Nhat Hanh, Galway Kinnell, Roy Kiyooka, Yoko Ono, Dale Parnell, Sylvia Plath, Claudia Rankine, Christina Sharpe, Fred Wah.

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

Let’s just say I lack a lot of foundational experiences. Camping, or being in a canoe or rowboat. Staying  in a remote cabin in the woods.

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?
Filmmaker. I think I also would have liked to become a graphic designer who designs book covers and movie posters.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I was born to write. It seems to be my sole purpose. It started with non-stop reading as a child.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? Last great book?
Probably the graphic novel Monica by Daniel Clowes; it’s really weird. The last great film was The Beast, by Bertrand Bonello - it’s Lynchian and romantic and anti-romantic at the same time.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I’ve been working on a graphic novel about the story of Myanmar/Burma and my family for years. I’m hoping to create some shorter graphic novel pieces in the meantime. I’m collaborating with an artist friend on a cloud divination book. There’s a time travel romance novel I’m vaguely writing with a writer friend.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;


Tuesday, December 12, 2023

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Meghan Fandrich

Meghan Fandrich lives with her young daughter on the edge of Lytton, BC, the village that was destroyed by wildfire in 2021. She spent her childhood and much of her adult life there, in Nlaka'pamux Territory, where two rivers meet and sagebrush-covered hills reach up into mountains. For the past decade, she ran Klowa Art Café, a beloved and vibrant part of the community; Klowa was lost to the flames. Burning Sage (Caitlin Press, 2023) is Meghan’s debut poetry collection.

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

My first book is my most recent work and my previous and my all and my only. I had never written poetry before; I had filled journals, yes, volume after volume through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood, but those were never for any eyes but my own (except once, in the subway in Berlin, when I handed over a journal to the crush whose name appeared on almost every page and then blanched with horror at what I’d done.) I had never written anything that I needed to share.

The first book, Burning Sage, the only book, has changed my life. Writing it allowed me to finally step into the grief of losing our little town, and sharing it has helped me walk through that grief, and to feel the support and love around me, and to receive the gift of others’ vulnerability and emotion in response to my own.

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

A first answer:

When I was a child, the quotes that were woven into the books of LM Montgomery (“Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam / Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn”) led me to Keats and Tennyson and Longfellow.

When I was a teenager, there was a gift from my dad: his copy of Poems in English, an anthology, inscribed with “Lower Mall, UBC” and a date in the 1960s. I read it cover to cover, and then bought The Norton Anthology of Poetry and read its 2,000 pages too.

When I was a young woman, in a dark tiny shop in Cusco, Peru, a tattoo artist inked “on – on – and out of sight” onto the arch of my foot. I walked into adult life on that line of Siegfried Sassoon’s.

A second:

A year after the fire, I sat at the typewriter on the living room floor, thinking I would write a little vignette, a memory, for a friend. And the memory emerged as a poem, and it surprised me. And that poem led to another and another and another – they poured out of me – until the stack of poems became Burning Sage, and I still have no explanation for it, except that there was this intense need to write them, and they could only be written as poems.

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?

It took forty years to start the first project, but then there was no stopping it. Poem after poem, day after day at the typewriter, and my fingers typing wildly to keep up with the words as they poured out.

Most of my first drafts look and feel similar to how the poems appear in the book; I edited them heavily, but preserved that first rush of emotion. Night after night I sat with a pencil and pages in hand, while my daughter slept in the next room, indenting a line a fraction of an inch or replacing a single word a dozen times until it was perfect. Editing gave me control over the process, but also over the emotions, the grief, the experience.

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?

Each poem in Burning Sage began as something that needed to come out, just the flash of an image or the hint of a feeling. I would start typing with that emotion-memory in my mind, and often be surprised by where the poem would take me.

I think I knew almost immediately upon writing the first poem that it would turn into a book, though. I didn’t have a vision or a plan, just this feeling of story: how each poem was a piece of something greater, something I needed to tell.

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

Prior to the two months of the Burning Sage book tour, I had never been to a literary reading; I was in Lytton, in a different life and a different world. But the book tour was amazing, not so much for my creative process as for my healing. I shared from my book and from my story and felt the love and support – and saw the tears and the visible emotion – of the audience. I am full of gratitude for that experience.

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’ve always believed that there will be theoretical concerns behind a piece of writing, whether an author intentionally addressed them or not, and those concerns will be informed by time and place and experience.

I had no intentions when writing Burning Sage other than to get the memories out of me, but when I went through it afterward, poem by poem, I saw the different currents that run through it. Media sensationalism, disaster capitalism, the slow-moving cogs of bureaucracy, and how damaging they each are to survivors of trauma. Love and community and self, even, and how immensely healing they can be. And these currents flow together to ask what happens when the climate crisis no longer exists in the abstract distance – when it moves into the deepest, most personal nearness.

7 - What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

My answer to this question is the same as the last, but in different words. The role of the writer now, as it has always been, is to bring us into others’ lives. At a deep level, all experience is shared experience, and the writer reminds us of that.

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

I love editing: it is my dearest geeky pleasure, and as I said above, it was the refining and polishing of my poems that let me turn my raw experience into art. In theory, I know that working with an outside editor is essential, but in practice I’ve found it difficult; I think it’s a matter of finding the right author-editor relationship.

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

This: When anxiety is surging, put a hand on your chest, breathe into the anxiety, and talk to it. “I see you there. What’s going on?” Sometimes the answer is profound, and identifying it helps. And sometimes the answer can be “I’m hungry.”

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?

I struggle with routines, even as a single parent. But on our perfect days, my daughter sleeps a little later than me and I sit in the quiet living room with morning light and coffee and my journal, until, inevitably, we’re suddenly running late and everything turns back into chaos.

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

Because I have never defined myself as a writer, nor felt any particular need to write (with the exception of those months of writing Burning Sage), there is no such thing as a stall; there is just gratitude for the moments when, unexpectedly, I am writing.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

The sweet woody vanilla of ponderosa pine bark (with the sound of cicadas) and the potency of sagebrush just before a summer storm.

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. There is a certain feeling in the heart, and it can come from anything. The memory of a laugh. The evening sky reflected in broken glass. The voice of a cello that folds around song (I think of Appendix C by Holy Hum / Andrew Yong Hoon Lee). A charcoal drawing. A crow. Pine trees swaying in summer wind. Blood-stained concrete. Love. And, always and forever, heartbreak.

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

-       Michael Ondaatje in general, and In the Skin of a Lion in particular, with the way that language and story wrap themselves around each other

-       On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, which showed me that prose, too, can hurt like poetry

-       Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Julio Cortázar, in the original Spanish, which feels like dark red wine and low voices and the flash of a lit cigarette in the night

-       Where the Blood Mixes by Kevin Loring (someone from home), with its humour and love and heartbreaking truths

-       And, not to be overwhelmed by so many men, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot and By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart, each with its own beauty and vulnerability and immense, honest sorrow

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

Why does this question feel more challenging than any of the others?

I think it’s because the fire taught me not to have expectations for the future, when the present can be gone in a moment. What I would like to do is what I’m doing now: staying present with my daughter. Making choices for our today, not our hypothetical tomorrow. Teaching her to value her own self more than any future goal. And showing her love.

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?

The fire brought intense trauma and life-altering grief, but it also brought gifts. A chance to look at my old life, to re-evaluate, to choose what to rebuild and what not to. Out of that choice came my burgeoning career as an editor: trauma-informed editing of poetry, prose, and community-focused communication. It’s such an honour to work with others’ words, their art.

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

That day at the typewriter on the living room floor, there was no choice. And maybe, even if I wasn’t a writer until now, writing has always been my medium, and language my love.

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

A few months ago I opened Exculpatory Lilies by Susan Musgrave, and my heart was submerged. I sat down at the water beside her and cried.  And when I closed the book after the last poem, truth felt even more necessary, and grief more sacred.

And, because the seven-year-old in the room chooses the movies, the answer to the second question has to be The Grinch, she says.

19 - What are you currently working on?

At this moment, my daughter and I are in New York City for three months. She has never lived anywhere but Lytton and already a third of her life has been spent on the edge of a burned-up town. So we’re here in Brooklyn, where there are playgrounds and restaurants and grocery stores – unfamiliar luxuries – and I can see her world expanding.

It will be hard to do any writing here, where there isn’t the break from parenting that school affords, but then the heart aches in a certain way and I think maybe, just maybe…

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Thursday, February 23, 2023

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Garry Gottfriedson

Garry Gottfriedson is from Kamloops, BC.  He is strongly rooted in his Secwepemc (Shuswap) cultural teachings. He holds a Masters of Arts Education Degree from Simon Fraser University.  In 1987, the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado awarded a Creative Writing Scholarship to Gottfriedson for Masters of Fine Arts Creative Writing.  There, he studied under Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Faithful and others.  Gottfriedson has 10 published books.  He has read from his work across Canada, United States, South America, New Zealand, Europe, and Asia.  Gottfriedson’s work unapologetically unveils the truth of Canada’s treatment of First Nations.  His work has been anthologized and published nationally and internationally.  Currently, he works at Thompson Rivers University.

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

The first book validated that my work had a place in Canadian literature.  It gave me some hope that other Indigenous authors work would offer a place on the Canadian literary scene.  I think my most recent work is much more toned down from my previous works.  It feels differently because I think the more recent work feels more crafted in the art of writing.

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

I came to write poetry by being influenced by other Indigenous poets who had work published.  And their work amazed me.  When I first started writing, it was a struggle getting into the Canadian publishing world.  Much has changed since then.  Writing fiction or nonfiction calls for a totally different voice to write from.  For me, writing free verse style of poetry comes naturally, and writing other genres is much more challenging for me.

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 continuously write, so one project bleeds into another.  I seem to be a bit of a binge writer, too.  I can write nonstop for several days, and then I start to edit the work and shape it.  When I've gone through that process, I begin to write more, feeding off the poetry that has been written on that particular project.  I also carry around a small notebook and write phrases of words that I might hear, and that line of phrase then becomes a poem later on.

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?

A poem usually begins by hearing or thinking of a line or two and then it works itself into a poem.  I just work with a continuation of poems.  I don't think that I've premeditated a book of poetry.  It just flows from one poem to the next.

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

I enjoy doing readings.  I think some poems are meant to be read, while others are meant to be heard out loud.  I enjoy the conversations with the audience, because I get to hear their interpretations of the poetry and how they respond to them.  For me writing and reading for an audience is an act of exchanging experiences and learning from cultural perspectives.

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 think all poets are concerned about current issues and how those issues affect society.  I don't necessarily think about theoretical concerns but more of current issues that affect our society and I try to offer a poetic opinion of many of those issues, particularly those that affect Indigenous or people of colour in Canada.  I think that in Canada, the current questions are related to the political and colonial coverups that Canada has hidden from Canadian citizens.  The general public in Canada doesn't fully understand  Truth and Reconciliation for example.  And they are shocked to learn of the Canadian Government's policy towards Indigenous peoples in Canada.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think the writer's role in a larger culture is to entertain and teach. And I think writers have a very important and significant role.  Culture needs writers, artists, musicians and all other forms of art to be at the forefront of culture, otherwise our culture would be flat and boring.

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

It depends on the experience of the editor.  Some editors don't have enough insights into particular cultures to understand the intricacies of specific cultures, therefore, it becomes a struggle. 

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

The best piece of advice I've heard was to never compromise your writer's voice.

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

Like I said above, each genre calls for a different skill set and a different thinking process.  For me, it is difficult to maneuver between genres.  The appeal is that you are writing for two different audiences, and sometimes I like that challenge.

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 wake up early in the mornings and begin writing and editing.  I don't write every day, but when I'm focussed on a writing project, I just go for it.  Seldom do I write in the afternoons or evenings because my mind isn't as fresh as the day goes on.  I am much more productive in the mornings.

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

I go for walks in nature.  I love to 'people watch'.  I hear a line from a song, or phrase spoken in a movie and then it sparks inspiration.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

The scent of smudge always reminds me of home. 

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?

The political atmosphere in Canada and globally are other forms that influence my work.  Also, a part of the answers is listed above.

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

Writings from other Indigenous people or people of colour are important to me.

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

I would like to write a novel at some point, and work on a screenplay.

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?

My whole life has centred around my career as an educator and rancher.  There are many sides to me that interest me, writing is only one of them.

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

Please refer to question 17.

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

The last great film was Bones of Crows by Marie Clements.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I'm working on a new book of poetry focussed on the discovery of the 215 unmarked graves found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Arleen Paré, Time Out of Time

 

in the Canadian Rockies bears speak
neither English nor French nor Kutenai
nor Arabic  nor will they stay

inside their considerable mountain-side squares

to sight a grizzly
at the far end of a trail
is both bespoke

lucky   and not

the screed granite walls
the brief sunlight there
casting

overlong shadows

language then
is of little assistance
you are forced

to fall back on unfortified faith

thank you   mouthing thank you
and please
addressing the universe

mouthing no thank you too

the common grizzly
can cover vast distances
faster than the word

fear (“Etel Adnan 29”)

I was curious to see Victoria, British Columbia poet Arleen Paré’s latest collection, Time Out of Time (Qualicum Beach BC: Dagger Editions / Caitlin Press, 2022), a collection that takes as its immediate prompt of a particular work by the late Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan (1925-2021). As Paré writes as part of a “Note from the Author” to open the collection: “In April, my poet friend Maureen Hynes suggested I read Time by Etel Adnan. It was love at first page. The poems in Time are spare and exquisitely structured. And then I discovered the remarkable Etel Adnan herself! […] In 2020, Time won the Griffin Poetry Prize. Fully smitten, I have employed the poetics in Time to shape this tribute collection.” (The note also offers that Adnan died just as the book was going to press.)

There’s something not only ambitious but ultimately daring in declaring one’s intentions at the offset: any reader could easily move to the source material and ultimately compare the two. Some things can’t be helped, I suppose. On her part, Paré is the author of more than a half-dozen published collections (although this is the first of her titles I’ve seen not published by Brick Books), including Paper Trail (Edmonton AB: NeWest Press, 2007), Lake of Two Mountains (London ON: Brick Books, 2014) [see my review of such here], He Leaves His Face in the Funeral Car (Caitlin Press, 2015) and First (Kingston ON: Brick Books, 2021). And while Paré isn’t Adnan (nor is she, through this collection, aiming or claiming to be), the shift in her own work through this collection is interesting: composed from the place where her interest and Adnan’s meet, and expanding upon those possibilities of influence. “This is what a blessing is,” Paré writes, to open the poem “A Blessing,” set between poems “33” and “34,” “forty years   waking up every morning side by side / leaving the house through the front door   enduring so little   a blessing [.]”

Interestingly enough, Etel Adnan’s TIME (New York NY: Nightboat Books, 2019) [see my review of such here], was my first introduction to Adnan’s work as well, furthering my own reading of her work with Shifting the Silence (Nightboat Books, 2020) [see my review of such here] before beginning to move slowly into her backlist, and echoes of influence have certainly rippled through my own writing, repeatedly, since. Which is to say, naturally, that I understand Paré’s impulse, and admire her ambition for taking on a book-length response to another book (there must be other examples, but I’m unable to think of any at the moment). Translated from the French by Sarah Riggs, TIME is constructed out of six extended lyric sequences that work through threads of meditative fragments across temporal stretches well beyond the immediate composition of the poems themselves, but across the length and breath of the author’s own nine decades of experience, yet with an immediacy that focuses upon the small moment in striking ways. Paré’s forty-nine part numbered sequence, “Etel Adnan,” makes up the collection Time Out of Time, set with the occasional other poem folded between, also works across those small and large moments, offering her thoughts on Adnan’s work and of the author, moving across a layering of how she reads Adnan’s temporality against her own: “I want to follow you / into your small / verbal squares / elegant   spare / enough cut / enough cut [.]” (“Etel Adnan 2”). In certain ways, Time Out of Time takes a while to lift itself beyond initial influence—nearly the first third, in fact—although there are moments from the offset that certainly sparkle. There is something quite magical in the fifth section, where she writes: “she  a small moveable organism / bespeaking hope / even when hope is in hiding [.],” but less so in the following section, that writes: “I now know what you look like / on Google / you smile / you are seated / you speak English Arabic French and / you write in all three / you paint / small squares of colour / you are now ninety-six / I know you best / in your small squares of mentation [.]”

Pop Culture 1

Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian?... In part because she has been
“ghosted”—or made to seem invisible by culture itself.

—Terry Castle

In the last century   the twentieth   the late nineteen-nineties   everyone wanted
to be a lesbian   this may be an exaggeration   maybe not everyone   maybe not
Pope Saint Paul II or John Ashbery or Sarah Palin   but many   enough   lesbians

being the media darlings of that period of time   TV   magazines   photomontages
the lesbian at last   at long long last   becoming visible   transmuting the zeitgeist

a time out of time   refreshingly free of sham
if you can’t bring back the past

                                               
in time you can
                                                                       
bring forth the future.

From what I’ve seen of Paré’s previous work, her impulse is less the disjointed fragment than the narrative through-line, so in comparison, Adnan’s work offers a compactness and the suggestion of an otherwise-overt connective tissue between (although I don’t know if my comprehension of Paré’s writing is slanted through only being aware of her titles published through Brick). Moving through an exploration of the structure of Adnan’s lyric, Paré’s lines engaged with a particular level of sparseness, and the possibility of writing a narrative line across individual points that begin to accumulate, instead of a more overt narrative through-line. Time Out of Time writes out an examination of time, and of her own time, including climate, mass extinction and the forty years she’s spent with her wife, weaving elements in and around each other, both attentive and attuned, and simultaneously open-hearted and reserved. As she writes to open “Etel Adnan 22”: “you say on page 82 that the heart / sets up its own heart equations / I say you are nowhere in sight // concerning time / no one understands / its substance [.]” This really is a fascinating project, and interesting to see Paré work so deliberately and overtly beyond the boundaries of her poetics-to-date. It brings an introduction of a particular kind of abstract to her work as well, rippling across each page. “how would a rose be known,” she offers, as part of “Etel Adnan 33,” “without those four letters to frame it [.]” The real measure for this particular kind of project, in many ways, will be to see how Paré’s work moves forward from this point. I’m looking forward to it.