12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tom Cull

Born and raised in Huron County (Treaty 29 territory), Tom Cull currently resides in London, Ontario near the banks of Deshkan Ziibi on traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lunaapéewak and Chonnonton Nations.Tom works at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and teaches creative writing at Western University. He is the author of two books of poetry, Kill Your Starlings (Gaspereau Press, 2023) and Bad Animals (Insomniac Press, 2018). Tom was poet laureate for the city of London from 2016 to 18. He is the director of Antler River Rally, a grassroots environmental group he co-founded in 2012 with his partner Miriam Love.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first chapbook --What the Badger Said (Baseline Press, 2013)-- was a life changer! Karen Schindler makes beautiful books and is a brilliant editor. That she was willing to invest her time in my poems gave me a huge boost in both confidence and stick-to-itness. Her editing was also the crash course in poem-making that I needed.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I came to prose first. I wrote odds and ends of stuff that didn't really go anywhere. I think, maybe, that those first attempts at stories/non-fiction were actually poems trying to be something else. When I did start writing actual poems the form just felt comfortable, natural--the right fit. At that time (back in grad school) I was reading for comprehensive exams and while I loved reading fiction, it was the poetry (modernist/contemporary) that really sparked something. I'm really attracted to the density/precision/distillation of poetry. Poetry is like a well-made multitool: all that utility, craft, and mechanical dexterity packed into something you can hold in your hand.  
 
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 writing comes quickly and the editing takes forever. I'll write a full draft in a sitting and then I'll tinker with it before I take it to my writing group. After its first rodeo, I'll stitch it back together and then take it back to the group. Once I get it to a good place, I'll put it away until it is time to send out. At that point, I'll have another go at it to make sure I'm happy with it.

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?
I've never started a writing project with a book or end point in mind. Even my chapbook with my friend Kerry Manders (Keep Your Distance: https://longconmag.com/collusionbooks/digital/2x4two/keep-your-distance/) began as a poetry exchange that we then crafted into a concept/book. This is what I like about writing poetry -- you can build towards a book in a modular fashion. The book is then shaped after the fact. I know some poets begin with a book/concept and I would like to try that. But so far, it has been a process of one poem at a time.  

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love public readings. An audience is a gift. I always feel humbled and grateful that folks are willing to listen and respond. I also like readings because I can add some of the connective fibres/stories that exist alongside the poems but don't make it into the poems themselves. Often, I see the readings as an opportunity to add back in  what the editing process took out. That editing process is necessary and it shapes the poem so it can stand on its own in a collection, but a reading allows me an opportunity to add some 'tell' back into the 'show.'  I also like how readings give you an opportunity to bring out some of the rhythm and musicality of the poems. You have to be careful not to go overboard on both of the above (over-read or over-talk) but I do love sharing my work in this way.  
 
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?
"Concern" is a good way of putting it. I think art/poetry is innately theoretical in that it asks questions and plays with ideas. My concerns are ecological; I'm interested in relationships among things/people/plants/creatures and relationships to home and place. How we dwell well in our dwellings.  

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 there are as many roles for the writer as there are writers.  One important role is to ask and struggle with that very question. Some would say that their role is to have no role -- that they owe themselves to the work and that the rest is of secondary importance. I get that--it is important for art to resist instrumentalism. On the other hand, I do think poetry and the poet can have a role in society/culture/the civic sphere. I was the Poet Laureate for the City of London (2016-2018). It was a great two years. I enjoyed writing and reading for specific occasions--this helped me see how poetry can crystalize a moment, can concentrate into language a shared space and time, can focus and provide a vehicle for shared emotion, can frame civic concerns in new and subversive ways. The existence of the poet laureate comes from an idea that art and artists have a role in shaping civic space and discourse. Every writer does this in one way or another.  Near the end of my tenure as PL, I was asked to write one "legacy" piece. Instead of writing a poem, I worked with a group of artists, community members, and institutions to organize a three day summitt centred on the river that flows through this city and the traditional territories of this place. We called it "The River Talks: Gathering at Deshkan Ziibi" -- It was a confluence of people whose work, lives, concerns, cosmologies, histories, art, and activism centre on or are defined by the river. I felt very grateful and honoured to be a part of this event -- it fit with how I understand/imagine my role as a writer.  

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Both! They go hand in hand. The difficulty and challenge of outside editing helps forge a much stronger poem.  

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Reading is an essential part of writing. Also, don't be a jerk.

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 write in the pockets of time I can find. I do have a monthly poetry workshop--It forces me to, at the very least, write one poem per month.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Sometimes the field just needs to lay fallow. Reading is always a good way to get back into writing. Going to poetry readings is another way. Galleries/exhibitions/performances can also get the blood pumping. Probably the best thing to do is not to sweat it and just go for a walk. Staying inside your brain is not good when things are stalled. Get outside and go on an adventure.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Fresh-cut hay, WD-40, chainsaw oil, roasted chicken, manure, burning leaves.

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?
Nature, science, and visual art are big influences. Many of the poems in Kill Your Starlings were inspired by gallery visits (The ROM, AGO, National Gallery, Biodiversity Gallery at UWO). Nature is a major preoccupation --both in terms of the living world, but also in terms of how nature is represented in cultural artifacts (in car commercials for example). At UWO, I teach a nature writing course (You're a Strange Animal: Writing Nature, Writing the Self). We spend a large portion of each class outside exploring campus (the river, arboretum, forests, parking lots). We also visit the McIntosh Gallery, go on guided tours with biologists, and speak with Indigenous knowledge holders. We explore UWO's zoology collection, collect and identify benthic macroinvertebrates (stonefly larvae, dragonfly nymph, beetles, etc ) from the river, interview trees, collect garbage--we go on adventures. I encourage my students to research--to learn about the many ways we can approach and understand the living world.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
My editor, Andrew Steeves, at Gaspereau Press recently sent me two beautiful Gaspereau books: Wendell Berry's Notes: Unspecializing Poetry, and Aldo Leopold's Wherefore Wildlife Ecology. Both are terrific. Today I'm diving into Pollution is Colonialism by Max Liboiron.  Two books that I read over a year ago but keep bubbling up in my mind are Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a White Sky: The Future of Nature and Kathryn Yusoff's A Billion Black Anthropocenes Or None. I'm always reading fellow London poets and I'm really looking forward to picking up Kathryn Mockler's new book Anecdotes (Book*hug Press). Annie Dillard is the best, and if you really want to blow your mind, read The End of Everything by astrophysicist Katie Mack--I don't really understand a word of it, but it does give me a sense of my complete insignificance--which I find both comforting and terrifying.  

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Swim in Lake Superior, win a squash tournament, write the perfect poem, buy a farm with my partner and rescue animals.

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?
In school I wasn't strong in math or science, but I would love to be a biologist. I ran in the 2019 Federal Election for the Green Party, so the job of Prime Minister was also on the table.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I've never thought of writing as in opposition to something else. I do a lot of things in addition to writing (work two different jobs, run a river cleanup organization, serve on boards). I don't know if I could ever be just a writer because my writing comes from the other stuff I do (this doesn't mean that I wouldn't like much more time to write).

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Sneaking in two books: Shaun Robinson's If you Discover Fire, and Liz Howard's Letter in a Bruised Cosmos.  Movie: I Like Movies

19 - What are you currently working on?
I was recently part of a group show at Museum London called GardenShip and State (https://www.gardenship.ca/garden-ship). The collective is planning for a new show in 2024, so I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing for that. I'm hoping to work with Michelle Wilson on an installation that combines text and materials recovered from the river. I'm also currently writing a poem about electrofishing.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Notes and Dispatches: Essays by rob mclennan, reviewed by Julian Day

Hey! Winnipeg poet Julian Day was good enough to review my second collection of essays over at Empty Mirror! I don't even know if copies are even available anymore (although I always have a couple of copies for sale, of course). Might they be? Either way, thanks!

See the original review here.

Notes and Dispatches: Essays by rob mclennan / Insomniac Press / 2014 / 978-1554831265 / 318 pages

rob mclennan has operated above/ground press from his home base of Ottawa for more than twenty-seven years, publishing over a thousand items since the press’ inception in 1993. He is himself a prolific writer, with more than twenty books of stories, poems, and essays to his name. In Notes and Dispatches: Essays, a collection of his writings from 2010 to 2014, he displays remarkable breadth and depth. mclennan’s interest is not just in writers and writing, but also circumstance and surroundings, and he is as much interested in how these external factors affect writing as in the output itself.

Throughout the book, he moves between person and place, subject and geography. In the introduction, he writes that each of his essays begins first with curiosity, as he tries to learn, through their writing, some aspect of an author or subject that can’t be understood otherwise. By starting with this pearl of curiosity, and enlarging his understanding through writing, mclennan provides a series of snapshots, each one focused on a figure or aspect from Canadian or American literature.

The essays in this collection are as diverse as they are personal. The first piece, “Reading and Writing Glengarry County: writing the Long Sault hydroelectric project”, describes the St. Lawrence Seaway project of the 1950s, tracing its indelible mark on the landscape of the region, and how entire communities were created, destroyed, or relocated by the project’s ambition. Weaving in recollections of his father’s life with Don McKay’s out-of-print long poem “Long Sault” and other sources, mclennan describes how the project’s scope changed Glengarry County forever. At the other end of the collection, in the penultimate essay, mclennan delves into his family history, tracing the McLennans from Scotland to Glengarry County, through to northern Alberta, British Columbia, and California. “Genealogy,” he writes, “really is akin to archaeology” (299), closing the piece with a note about his grandparents’ first child, named only as “Baby girl McLennan” in the newspaper obituary. Those who would have known her name, he writes, passed away years before he started his own inquiries. Despite our desire for understanding, for a full knowledge and accounting of ourselves and our histories, mclennan shows there are limits to how far we can ultimately dig.

Between these essays, the writings turn between geographies and the writers that inhabit them, often in the same piece: Douglas Barbour, an Edmonton poet mclennan feels was never given his full due; the poets and poetry of Vancouver and the west coast, including Roy Kiyooka, Meredith Quartermain, and Sachiko Murakami; essays on Lisa Robertson, Sylvia Legris, the American poet Sarah Manguso, and others; and “A note on Miss Canada”, on a piece by mclennan himself, describing how the sequence of voices in that work was partially informed by his trips between Toronto and Ottawa, where the dead played out in missing person posters taped to, then removed from, diner walls along the way.

mclennan is generous with the work of others, but the strongest work in the collection is autobiographical. In “The green-wood essay: a little autobiographical dictionary”, mclennan uses eight short sections to connect his family history to discussions of the pastoral, notes on the changing urban/rural landscape, poets whose lives began in farm country, and whether it is possible to be pastoral in a deeply urban landscape. The work shifts between sentences and fragments, in and out of poetry, working in mclennan’s distinct poetic style:

Instead of recess, played my scales. Another lesson. A further removal from bonding with my peers, already quiet, shy. Out on the farm, with barely a neighbour my age. Thirteen years of lessons, told to practice instead of wasting, wandering time. I wasted time. I put my head down. Played. I suppose, then, this was discipline. Certain notions set aside. (75)

“green wood”, a journey through mclennan’s foundations, allows the reader a view into his core tenets and beliefs – and foundations, mclennan writes, “rarely change, no matter subsequent constructions” (77). mclennan’s foundation is Glengarry County, and the red brick house where his father still lives; it is the move so many of us have made within the last few generations, leaving farms and villages for towns and cities; it is how he “absorbed books, consumed them” (75) – and how he still does. That was his life, and that is his life.

“How do books begin?”, mclennan asks (209). In Notes and Dispatches: Essays, the beginning and the end are geography: physical and human, intertwined and inseparable. We can never remove ourselves from the physical world; we are a product of our childhoods and upbringings, and the lives we choose for ourselves. The personal is the physical. Each of us are necessarily a part of where we live, and as mclennan deftly demonstrates, where we live, where we’re from, form an inseparable part of ourselves as well. “We already live in the world,” mclennan writes. “Why pretend to be apart?” (78)

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Michael Murray

When Michael Murray was a child he could fly. Now that he is a man, a man who cannot grow a beard, he rides a bicycle, as riding a bicycle is the way that people in the city live. Michael is of the city. He has won The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest and is so good-natured that he was once mistaken for a missionary while strolling the streets of a small Cuban city.

He currently lives in Toronto where he works as a journalist and creative writer. Michael has many talents, some of which include floor hockey, being a genius ad guy and blogger, as well as totally dominating social media and his fantasy sports leagues.

He has written for the National Post, the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen, Hazlitt Magazine, CBC Radio, Reader’s Digest, The Grid, The Toast, and thousands of other prestigious publications and companies that pay obscene sums of money.

He has a book coming out in the spring of 2016 called, A Van Full of Girls, published by Insomniac Press.

His Blog has been studied in North Korea and read by Ryan Gosling.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
A Van Full of Girls will be my first published book, and I imagined that this event would envelope me like a beautiful, validating cloud, and lifting me up, I would forever forth float forward through the world, anointed and wonderfully fragrant, but no. It's been nothing like that, more like getting on a bus and taking that bus to another bus stop where there, I wait for another bus, slightly worried that I lost my transfer along the way.

My first novel, which is unpublished for reasons both prosaic and thrilling, was a collaborative work, written during a period when I had cancer, and it was a truly transformative experience. It was falling out of one thing and into another, a wholly immersive experience that was shared—a little bit like binge watching a TV show that only the two of you know about. It was having a great and romantic secret, and it was very validating.

2 - How did you come to journalism first, as opposed to, say, fiction or poetry?
Poetry is hard. It's for scientists and masters. Way too hard for the likes of me. Fiction, the idea of fiction, was vast. Creating a plot? A coherent narrative? Are you kidding me? I wrote in bars to give myself something to do while drinking, but as fate would have it, one day I submitted something—it was on why we watch the Academy Awards—to the Ottawa Citizen and it was accepted. Presto! Just like that! I wrote a few more for them, and eventually a position opened up (TV critic, sort of) and they asked me if I would like to do that, so I did. I have thank Peter Simpson for that, as I had zero journalistic credentials and have never thought of myself as a journalist, as I'm sure nobody else does either.

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 quickly, like a mongoose strikes. I keep very few notes (I do keep them for journalism or observational pieces), and actually do my thinking as I write. Writing is how I think, I guess, it's how I work things out, and so it always takes place on the page. My first drafts are very, very close to the final draft and I type very loudly, as if I am damn well committed to whatever I am typing. The noise actually makes my wife angry.

4 - Where does a work 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?
I am very much a writer of short pieces that might become something longer. The truth is, and this applies to film and most any medium, I am not that interested in narrative. I never care who the killer is. You can shower me with spoilers. I am solely interested with how something feels at the time, at the cinema of prose and don't much care about it whether it resolves particular questions or moves the reader from point A to B to C and so on.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I have only done one public reading in my life, beyond clumsy wedding speeches, that is. I felt kind of stupid doing it, although as I am excitable, I also enjoyed talking with my hands.  My feeling would be that readings are more for the author than the audience. They're about creating a tiny aura of celebrity, and they rarely add anything to the experience of poetry or prose, which are designed for the most part, to be read alone. When I'm listening to a reading, I always have a hard time keeping track of what's going on, and after a few poems fatigue has set in. That's a personal tic, though, and I must say, I very much enjoy those who are really good at it and can control a room, but most can't, and so it's usually awkward for everybody concerned, like suddenly seeing one another in a thong.

Ideally, a reading or performance would have nothing to do with the particular work that's being sold. You might all go bowling or sing a Bowie song, something spontaneous and interactive, just about anything that breaks down the reader/audience dynamic. 

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 that the way people are communicating is changing very rapidly, as is the role of literature. Clinging to the decaying belief that the novel is the greatest, most prestigious expression of artistic achievement is absurd, damaging, even. We communicate in a much more visual, almost hieroglyphic way, digesting things in smaller and smaller installments. All of media are being combined, and I think work should reflect that, that artists should take advantage of it rather then feel confined by whatever the traditional structures of their form were.

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 a writer is a canary in a coal mine, an entity that articulates what everybody is thinking or feeling, crystallizing a cultural sentiment, so to speak. How they do it is immaterial. It could be a graphic novel, a poem, a TV show, newspaper column or video game. I mean to say by this, that for me an author is somebody who must work in many media, or at least think in many media. A conceptual artist who works with words?

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I am horrible at spelling and grammar, so from that point of view I find them essential. However, the editor serves an institution rather than an individual (Well, they try to strike that noble balance), and are looking to best fulfill the duties of their job, not the desires of the author. There will always be that friction. That being said, editors are awfully nice and smart people who see things you wouldn't see, hear things you didn't intend, and can be a tremendous, inconceivable benefit.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
When you go out each day, expect to like the people you meet, expect them to like you, and try to create  light rather than consume it.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (journalism/non-fiction to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
It's very easy for me to move between the realms because I've always combined them. As a journalist I was never reporting fact, but opinion, and I always wanted to couch that opinion in a fictional, quotidian kind of setting. So, I would write about the experience of watching a TV show rather than just the TV show, so the journalism is found within the fictional shell, if that makes any sense.

Journalism, such as it is, is changing like mad, too, and it has never been an objective, flat presentation of an unaltered truth, but has been filtered through many, many lenses. I remember David Eggers writing, “The truth is round, not two-sided,” and this is very important to remember at all times, especially when approaching something of a journalistic nature. Journalism is a curated point of view, and sometimes it's propaganda or advertisement. I trust the distinctive voices and documentary/conversational style of podcast more than I do most of the traditional media forms we grew up with.

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 get up around ten in the morning and sit at my desk looking out the window. I drink green tea because I read somewhere it's healthy. I am mostly wasting time on Facebook playing WordCrack and Lexulous, but I often get some writing done in there. This goes on for an hour or two, and then when Jones (my six-month old boy) and my wife get up from their nap, the day explodes into a million shining directions. I then might write late at night when everybody is back in bed, or in the older days, bars. For whatever reason, perhaps not wanting to appear needy or desperate, bars focused me like nothing else and I always got a tremendous amount of work done there, at least for the first 90 minutes.

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

As if!

I just stop, I think. Move on to something else (unless I am on a deadline in which case it's just grind away), and then return to it several hours or a day later. I find getting out into the world and fleeing social media helps. The world, and the people in it, are crazy, and when you step outside all sorts of weird and lovely and impossible stuff is going to happen to you—it hugely influences everything I write.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Prime rib of beef roasting in the oven.

That's always been my favourite dinner, and when I returned to Ottawa from university to visit my family, they would always cook that for me and it would be the first thing I smelled when I opened their front door—and it was then that I knew I was safe and at 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?
I disagree with David W. McFadden. Books come from everything, and yes, absolutely everything influences what I do. Imagine what a dry and loveless place it would be if literature only came from existing literature. Novels are a niche art form, and it's more appropriate now to say that books come from visual art or virtual reality or the theatre of life. I mean, c'mon!  What a dry and loveless place it would be if books only came from books. I'm all for intermarriage!! Let's strengthen the literary gene pool! And really, everybody knows that books came from drama, right? Didn't everybody's grade 10 English teacher tell them that while waving Shakespeare or Sophocles about?

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I am not going to list just writers, because writers are probably not the major influence on my work. Let's say Nick Cave, Terrence Malick, Garry Winogrand, Dave Eggers, Tom Hardy (actor!), Raquel Welch, Battle of the Network Stars, Podcasts like Home of the Brave or On Being, Joan Didion, the Coen Brothers, Tina Fey, Mallory Ortberg, raccoons.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I would like for the Montreal Expos to return to existence, and I would like my little family to move to Montreal where we had season's tickets and attend every ball game for one magical summer. Also, a blue routes tour through the US, including a visit to Dollywood.

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 would have very much liked to have been a baseball player, and then later in life a noble detective, like Magnum P.I. If I had not fallen into writing, I would probably be unhappily and bitterly working in the service industry, or unhappily and bitterly trying to finish a PHD which would never, ever be finished.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I was drawn to writing at a young age, and I think it became a means of seduction and expression. I could never attract the pretty girl with my looks or tight spiral, so I wrote to her, employing an age old tactic of making the invisible visible.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I haven't read a book since the internet emerged into the world. I'm completely serious by the way. It's been said that reading is a shield we use to protect us against loneliness, which makes some sense to me, and if that is the case, once the internet came along I was never alone. There was always somebody to talk to, some life to participate in or observe, and I began to consume media through that apparatus. Much has been lost through this, but unimaginable gains have been made, too.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on a collaborative novel about love and illness, It will change the world.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jacqueline Valencia

Jacqueline Valencia is a Toronto-based poet and critic. Jacqueline is a senior literary editor of The Rusty Toque and a CWILA board member. Her debut collection There's No Escape Out Of Time will be out with Insomniac Press Spring 2016.

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 think it was 2008 when I decided to gather up some of the poems I'd written for the past few years and self-publish a chapbook with them. I called it Tristise. I'd say it changed my life because before then I'd sporadically submitted poems, but the rejection got to me and then I suffered many years of writer's block. The time came where I felt like I needed to shake myself into action.

I'd say it changed my life because I haven't stopped writing and/or submitting every day since then. It's been a long road to getting my work out there in publications, but it's been worth it. My new book, There's No Escape Out Of Time (Insomniac Press, 2016) will be my first full poetry collection. It's comparable to Tristise because it is back towards feeling rather than technique, but it feels more raw because I'm writing about very confessional stuff in it.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Most of the women in my mother's family write or have written poetry. My grandmother Ruby is constantly reciting new things whenever I visit her. As in, "Grandma! We're just watching television. Can we just watch the show without you praising how miraculous the sky look in it right now? Geez."

I'm kidding. I don't stop her because she is my grandmother after all.

My mother's greatest gift to me has been a library card. My first trip was to the library-mobile and I took out a Raggedy Ann and Andy book and a  book interpretation of Disney's Alice In Wonderland. My mom's English was still a bit rusty so she'd read a bit of it and expand upon it by retelling parts of the movie. Eventually she had me read the whole to her and I remember one night writing some of my thoughts down on how I wanted to be Alice. They were in point form, but from that I created my first poem without knowing it. School rhymes and songs always stuck with me and I'd write them down and make my own versions.

Fiction feels like an extension of that though. I'm still trying to parse what the difference is between poetry and fiction in my writing.

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 a lot. I drink too much coffee. Also, I probably drink too much, but I don't think it helps. Booze, while not a muter of truths, it isn't a motivator.

I actually have several things due right now. They'll get done, I swear.

The only time I really put my foot down is when I have deadline or when inspiration takes me over. I find my greatest strengths for pushing myself are when I'm working through a crisis or need to react out loud in some way. I'm a horrible editor of my own work. I have no patience with myself.

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?
Usually an event or something I've seen provokes a poem in me. It will also ferment for a while in my mind before I set it down to paper and when I do, it's in my moleskine without any context whatsoever.

I work from smaller ideas and build a book, poem, or essay from there. I once wrote a poem about erotic clowning just because I wrote "There was a clown and a lobster. Erotic?" Don't ask. I don't even know. Pass the coffee.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I used to hate readings, but for some reason or another my readings have taken on a stand up comedian format. Sometimes I introduce props. Andy Kaufman is huge influence on me when it comes to public speaking in any way. His ability to take an audience somewhere completely unexpected is something I hope to cultivate and acquire. I guess, it has to do with the defense mechanism whereupon I'd rather self-deprecate than elucidate anything to do with the poem itself.

I currently looking for a good mime routine to bring to my repertoire.

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 struggle with the idea that language is unique to everyone, that colours look different to everyone, therefore there aren't enough words out there to describe the universal experience of every day. That and the fact that I'm using and thinking in a language by my ancestor's colonizers is a huge concern for me. I rarely think in Spanish and even Spanish is a colonizing language to the people my parents' came from.

Right now I'm trying to learn some of the methods the people in my parents' family have used language and what was there evolution with the Spanish language and how my brain processes Spanish versus English.

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 is to report. No matter what a writer writes about, they are journalist of sorts first and foremost. You can be a reporter of your own ideas and your own expressions, but even our minds are foreign to us. Using language is like have a universal translator like in Star Trek. We don't know exactly how it works, but we use oral and written language everyday as if it was a part of us since birth. Was it? Where did the rest of our expressions go when we started writing? What are our hands doing? What are our faces doing?

Oral and written language are translators of the inner workings of brain. The current job of the writer is to strip it to the basics and figure out how the hell we can get to the root of those inner workings.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I love every editor I've ever worked with. I wish book publishers or journal publishers would put the name of the editor on the front of the book or on the article beside the author's. They're part of a collective voice in how we transmit our voices to the world.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Liz Worth once said to me, "Write your truth. Write it now and don't edit it until it's done." I know it sounds cliché, but it works. Liz is a good friends and one of the most important writers in Toronto, if not the world, that I read and listen to.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I love writing about film and books. I love finding connections because if you meditate on two things long enough, you'll find everything connects somehow. Everything is always influencing everything else, especially in art. Poetry is no different than critical prose because it's a commentary on expression or on situations. You can separate a work from an analysis of it, but you can not keep poetry from being ingested and analyzed. That's what it's there for.

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 used to have no writing routine, but lately I've setting aside time in the day. I've felt it necessary for novel writing.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Conceptual writing or rewriting texts. They could be anything, like a receipt, a piece of mail, a book (hi James Joyce), or a poem. From there I'll find myself cutting it up or using a word or phrase and I get unblocked that way. Experimental writing moves me to create something if my mind is blank.

Of course, I find conceptual writing to be like any other type of writing, and in the right and now, it is very necessary for experimentation to be a part of a poet's work. Even with the continual controversies in poetry with lyric versus conceptual, it's all experimental. It's how you use it to decolonize or reveal truths that is important.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Blue Power laundry bar soap. My mom used to scrub stuff before putting it in the laundry and the scent is huge in the outdoor laundry patios in Colombia. I keep a bar in the bathroom for stains and such.

And petrichor. I learned that word the other day. Petrichor is the smell of earth after rain. It reminds me of love for some reason and there's not greater home than love.

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?
Music influences my writing a lot. My dad used to be a dj and after that I became a dj and I play music constantly at home. Nature inspires me as well during my runs or cycling. Riding or running through Leslie Spit at 6am to watch the sunrise over the lake is probably one of the greatest things someone in Toronto can do to get inspired.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
James Joyce is huge, but I talk and write about him all the time. As well as, Anne Sexton and Mary Shelley. Science fiction fantasy has been an escape for me in the past, but it's only recently I've tried my hand at writing it. Robert E. Howard's Conan The Barbarian series and Larry Niven's Ringworld series have both been high up there for me in terms of importance. Oh and comic books. Too many to list.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Complete the novel I'm currently writing and getting it published. Climb Mount Everest, which I would never attempt to do because I have kids and can't die. I love watching documentaries or films on Everest climbers. I might go to the base camp one day though. I'd also like to do indoor skydiving because I've always wanted to fly to Superman or surf like the Silver Surfer.

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?
a) A spy.

b) An international spy.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Reading. I've been writing in my journal since I was a kid because of reading and don't know how to think in anything, but words.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I've felt speechless about Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts for a while now. When I finished reading it I was just so impressed I couldn't find the words to say how good it was. There's reading-writing modes: either you read something so good you want to write an essay on it, or you read something so good, and wonder if there's someone else who has read it so you could just rejoice in the afterglow of it.

As for film, there are lot of films that I've thought were pretty good this year, but nothing that has blown me away. I think the latest has been Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa. It's a short animated film that hit me right in the gut. I mean, Kaufman has a way of articulating the embarrassing parts of our psyche, especially as a depressive. Some of us live entire worlds inside our brains and Kaufman captures that sense of disconnect and isolation like very few directors out there. The fact that the film animated gets forgotten and even in the middle of the most despairing moments in the film, there is a tiny sense of hope to grab onto.

I love when artists hold no bars back when it comes to the black dog. Kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight, as the Bruce Cockburn song goes.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I'm putting together the Toronto Poetry Talks: Racism and Sexism in the Craft (http://torontopoetrytalks.wordpress.com) and I'm writing my first novel set in Toronto. It's a fantasy occult feminist future of sorts.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Notes and Dispatches: Essays reviewed at Maple Tree Literary Supplement

Janet Nicol was good enough to provide the first and only review for my second collection of essays, Notes and Dispatches: Essays (Insomniac Press, 2014) over at Maple Tree Literary Supplement. Much thanks!

Why Poetry Sucks, fitzpatrick and Ball, eds.,

My review of Why Poetry Sucks: An Anthology of Humorous Experimental Poetry, eds. Jonathan Ball and ryan fitzpatrick (Insomniac Press, 2014) is now online at Arc Poetry Magazine.

"Marcus McCann: two new poems," at Jacket2

My 16th 'commentary,' "Marcus McCann: two new poems," is now online at Jacket2.

"A short interview with Armand Garnet Ruffo," Jacket2

My 11th 'commentary,' "A short interview with Armand Garnet Ruffo," is now online at Jacket2.

Notes and Dispatches: Essays (Insomniac Press, 2014)

My collection of literary essays, Notes and Dispatches: Essays (Insomniac Press, 2014) has landed, with much celebration!

Enormous thanks to Mike O'Connor and Dan Varrette at Insomniac for seeing the book through.

This is my second collection of literary essays, after subverting the lyric: essays (ECW Press, 2008), and collect a variety of pieces composed since 2010, a number of which appeared, individually, in locations such as Open Book: Toronto, Jacket magazine, we who are about to die, Moira, Rain Taxi, ditch: the poetry that matters, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, The Capilano Review blog, The Globe and Mail book blog, Prairie Fire Review of Books, seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics, Lemonhound, filling Station, Jacket2 and The Town Crier. My thanks to all the editors and publishers for their encouragement and support, specifically Amy Logan Holmes, Clelia Scala, Julia Bloch, Spencer Gordon and Jenny Penberthy! Either order a copy directly from my lovely publisher, or check out some of my upcoming readings or book fair appearances over the next little bit (see sidebar for link list), including tonight's 21st anniversary above/ground press reading/launch/party, where I would be happy to sell you a copy!

The table of contents for the collection is as follows (with a couple of teaser/spoiler links):

1.    Reading and Writing Glengarry County: writing the Long Sault hydro electric project
2.    How to love everything: thoughts on rereading Sarah Manguso
3.    Douglas Barbour at 70
4.    The Chelsea Hotel, New York
5.    On Pearl Pirie’s “word chain umpteen-eight”
6.    Notes on Robert Kroetsch’s David Thompson
7.    Anticipating The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
8.    ‘a gentleman collector of sentences’: notes on rereading Lisa Robertson
9.    The green-wood essay: a little autobiographical dictionary
10.    Notes on writing, writing
11.    Writing the new (Vancouver) Geography
12.    A short interview with Ken Sparling
13.    The Peter F. Yacht Club: a miscellany,
14.    Notes on the confessional: Lynn Crosbie’s Liar: A Poem
15.    A short interview with John Lavery
16.    Notes on Natalie Simpson’s “similar fingers”
17.    Call and response: a note on Phil Hall, and 52 flowers (or, a perth edge)
18.    On Reviewing: an interview
19.    O bittersweet black sheep: Camille Martin’s Sonnets
20.    A brief note on (reading, writing) short fiction,
21.    A short interview with Michael Blouin
22.    Insect hopes: Jay MillAr’s accumulations
23.    A note on “Miss Canada”
24.    There is something about the body: Sylvia Legris
25.    There is no falling: Robert Hogg
26.    Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970
27.    Collaborating with Lea Graham
28.    Roy Kiyooka’s “Pacific Windows”
29.    Shorthand: eleven short essays on fiction
30.    A halt, which is empty: 402 McLeod Street, Stewarton
31.    Some notes on Lisa Jarnot’s “Sea Lyrics”
32.    Letter to Norma Cole (some notes on the prose poem)
33.    Some notes on Christine McNair’s Conflict
34.    On “from Hark, a journal: 1864-1967”
35.    An informal talk on compiling McLennan/MacLennan genealogies in Stormont and Glengarry
36.    Some notes on Mark Truscott’s Form, A Series
37.    Author Notes: rob mclennan

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Dina Del Bucchia

Dina Del Bucchia was born in the Trail Regional Hospital, grew up in the village of Fruitvale, BC and now lives in Vancouver.  She is a creative director of the Real Vancouver Writers' Series and has coordinated and hosted numerous other literary events and performed a one-woman show at the Vancouver Fringe Festival and is editor of the Humour issue of Poetry Is Dead. Her short story, “Under the ‘I’” was a finalist for the 2012 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and has taught creative writing to young people. She is the author of Coping with Emotions and Otters (Talonbooks 2013) and the upcoming Blind Items (Insomniac Press, 2014) and her work will be included in Why Poetry Sucks: Humorous Avant-Garde and Post-Avant English Canadian Poetry edited by Jonathan Ball and Ryan Fitzpatrick (Insomniac Press, 2014).

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
This first questions is so personal. Life change! Scary. I don't know if anything has changed. I'm still writing and my life is still mostly the same. Where are the cashmere blankets and convertibles I was promised? I'm trying to focus on fiction right now, but the genre switch doesn't feel as jarring as I thought it would. But it does feel more difficult. The fiction muscles are weak.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
As a writer I didn't come to poetry first. I'd been learning about and writing both fiction and poetry for the same amount of time. Now, non-fiction. That's too intimidating. That is serious shit where if you lie about something then Oprah yells at you on television.

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 initial writing comes quickly. And depending on the piece some things look very similar to their original first drafts and others get serious plastic surgery. I like to free-ball it for a while before I really start editing and getting things into their final shape. Notes come when I force myself to get serious.

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?
Poetry-wise I like a big project. I like a series, a sequence. Exploring an idea in different ways, just pushing and pushing a concept. Usually I'm not finished with an idea until I've sucked all the drops I can suck out of it. I'm sure this stems from a super healthy obsessive quality.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
For me public readings are a part of my creative process. I read things aloud while writing. I like an audience's reaction. I enjoy planning literary events that are both traditional and also more unusual. The entertainment value of listening to people tell stories and read their work is underestimated. And I like attention and readings provide me with that. When people try to use attention-seeking as an insult I feel like they're probably really bored.

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?
Much of my writing stems from pop culture and our engagement with it, but I don't know that I'm providing any answers. I’m questioning and hopefully providing a shred of insight. There are never-ending current questions.

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?
Write stuff.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I've found it enjoyable. Working with Garry Thomas Morse on Coping with Emotions and Otters and Sachiko Murakami on Blind Items were two really wonderful experiences. They were essential.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Listening to advice is a sketchy game. There’s so much of it. It's an avalanche of everyone knowing what's "right." But, I'd say the best advice I've heard is to know/figure out what works for you.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to performance to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I like to move between genres. The appeal is variety. Being able to play with different forms, different ways of using language. That’s interesting to me and keeps me from boring myself.

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 have a somewhat unpredictable schedule and I don't have a routine. I have writing goals and I take those seriously. Typical day: Find time. Don't mess around too much during that time. Reward(s).

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

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Nothing! I am terrible with smells. Only when I'm surprised by something familiar, really caught off guard do I register that there is some memory attached to that smell. And it doesn't happen very often. I used to get a weird, uncomfortable nostalgia from a whiff of ck one. Good old high school dances.

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?
TV, movies, comedy, magazines, memes, fashion, visual art, animals, advertisements, memes, YouTube. 

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
The writers that are truly important to my work and life are the ones in my life. My writing group, people I've been with for over nine years. All of my other friends who are also writers. And people like Leonard Cohen and Lena Dunham. These are my people. Also, a Cohen-Dunham production needs to happen. Now.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I'd love to write for a teen drama. Degrassi, and less serious ones like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars, are a delightful addiction. The story lines are so outrageous and fun and often nonsensical. They're the best.

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've always said that ice cream tester seems like the best job. I mean, you get to test and taste ice creams. Also on the list: lipstick namer and personal stylist. Of course I’d love to run my own television network for teens. Teen TV all day long!

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Well, as a writer I do lots of "something else" so I can be alive and buy dresses and food and drink. The something else allows for the writing. The simple answer is that I've always loved stories. If you're not great at anything that actually makes money then you should do what you love.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I'm currently reading Gary Shteyngart's Little Failure and loving it. That man is a treasure.

The Lego Movie. Great story, great characters, great voice acting and great jokes. So many greats.  I guess I thought it was great.

20 - What are you currently working on?
Many things. I just finished a draft of a collaborative project on rom coms with Daniel Zomparelli. And I've guest-edited the Humour Issue of Poetry Is Dead. I've been working on finishing a collection of short stories since I felt young enough to be IDed. Novel dabbling. Co-creative directing the Real Vancouver Writers' Series. Jotting down notes for other unformed projects. I like to mix it up.

12 or 20 (second series) questions,

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Dennison Smith

DENNISON SMITH is a poet, playwright, actor and novelist whose work has been performed and published in England, Canada and the U.S. Her recent novel, The Eye of the Day, will be released by Harper Collins Canada in February 2014. Her first novel, Scavenger, was published by Insomniac Press and presented in play form as Desert Story. Smith is the author of two books of poetry: Anon Necessity and Fermata. Originally from Chicago and Vermont, Smith is now a Canadian citizen and splits her time between a small island in British Columbia and Norwich, England.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
At the 2013 Worlds Literary Festival, we briefly discussed the subjects of integrity and courage. It seemed to me that a writer shouldn’t be too quick to ascribe a fixed meaning to either word. Every phase in one’s life demands a different variety of the two. What is courage in one phase might be cowardice in another. In Scavenger, I attempted to literally transcribe the way I thought: writing that’s reckless and scattershot on the surface, elliptically cohesive deeper down. In The Eye of the Day, I’ve reached for greater transparency, with the intention that novelistic convention might discipline my idiosyncrasies. (I don’t use convention in the pejorative sense here. I mean rather the creative tension in which the individual voice encounters the weight of history.) Presently, I’m working on my third novel, Seeds. Both Scavenger and Eye lurk behind this new novel. Here, I hope there is a wedding occurring between world views, form and truth.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I didn’t. I began with poetry and playwriting. I still do both, a little. Fermata, a collection of my poetry, came out with Quattro Press in Oct 2012. In 2013, I wrote a five minute play for a UK conference on writing and climate change. Sure, five minutes isn’t much after so many years away from playwriting, but it was enough to give me the itch again.

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?
No notes. Not anymore. Just write. And rewrite. I can’t really tell the difference between writing and rewriting, because rewriting happens simultaneously to writing, and I would never be able to count the number of drafts. That said, however, Seeds began as a couple of disconnected short stories, which hung around a few years, while I was finishing The Eye of the Day, and is only now emerging into a novel.

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?
Oops, I think I just answered that.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I was originally an actress, so I’m very comfortable with readings. Also I’m committed to sound.  There is a strong aural quality to my writing, and I get to explore that viscerally in 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?
Seeds is written like an archeological dig: vertical time. The nature of time, the simultaneity of history, giving rise to the uncanniness of knowing and apparent coincidence, or the intricacies of cause and effect (I could call it ‘karma’, but I don’t like the moral implications of the word). You’ll find those preoccupations everywhere in my writing. What we know, what we don’t know, about others, about ourselves, and whether we can say for certain what anything is. Moral and social ambiguity. The world glimpsed darkly. The violent moment turning on a dime. Like weather. I write a lot about weather. I could say ‘nature’ but that sounds just a little bit too glib. Seeds is set at the point that global warming has caused major environmental and geopolitical shifts. And in The Eye of the Day, Amos crosses Canada on skis spiking trees as he goes (a form of eco-resistance). I think writing can be a form of eco-resistance.

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?
To a certain extent I just answered that, at least as far as it pertains to myself. Beyond my own preoccupations, I won’t presume to speak: there are so many varieties of writers and so many diverse needs.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Not difficult. Fabulous. A god send. A privilege.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
‘Patience, Grasshopper.’

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to plays)? What do you see as the appeal?
Different genres fulfill different needs for me. Short stories only happen in the gaps between novels. Poetry happens in the more general gaps: when there’s suddenly space in my head. Poetry doesn’t have momentum in the way a novel does. It isn’t, for me, what I do every day purposefully and with great diligence. Poetry either appears in the pauses, or I reach to it to write myself back into alignment. But the novel is steadfast. Consuming. Head-eating. Once it has me, there’s little room for a poem to appear.

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’m flexible. I write in the mornings if I can. If I can’t, I write in the afternoon. I’ll write at night when I don’t find time in the day, but I don’t like to, because it disturbs my sleep. I write between 4 and 8 hours most days. But some days I just go riding or walking or spend the day in an art gallery or hanging with my daughter or a friend. Those days I don’t write at all. I’m fine with the occasional fallow day. There’s work getting done, all the same, behind the conscious scenes.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I go for a walk. Or I read a good book. Teaching too is inspiring: say what you know and suddenly you realize you know it.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Pine woods: Vermont. Diesel and gas cookers: London (old London, London when I was kid). Blueberries: Cortes. Stone and lilies: Norwich Cathedral.

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, clearly. But I also read the New Scientist every week, and science is having an ever greater impact on my writing. Visual arts have always been important to me. I think of words as paint.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
While, of course, I have my favorites, instead of naming this writer or that writing, I’ll just say this: the community of writers and artists and academics in my life – those who put in the hours and do the work and create the culture of literature – the community itself is of great importance to me.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Jump horses. I’m riding pretty well now, but I’ve never jumped.  I talk about hang gliding. But I’ll probably just talk about 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?
That’s easy. Sometimes I’m a theatre director, sometimes I’m a writer. Recently, I’m almost always a writer, but I suspect they’ll be another bout of directing one of these days.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Words and their architecture.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Film: on the plane recently, I saw Celeste Rewinds. I thought it was brilliant.

Books: My friend Ruth Ozeki’s new novel, A Tale for the Time Being. Wonderful.

And J.G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur. Masterly.

20 - What are you currently working on?
Seeds. I’ve pitched it to my agent this way: ‘Jesse James meets Grapes of Wrath meets Heart of Darkness.’ Set in three time frames: now (or tomorrow), the Migration Era, and the Reconstitution when the U.S.A has staggered back from environmental collapse. The novel follows a dysfunctional family as two incestuous twins, Tam and Tom, wreck havoc in the new wild west. It simultaneously tells the story of Dorothy, their daughter, now a middle-aged professor in a failing marriage, who retraces her families notorious footsteps back to the Sacrifice Area: what used to be the American southwest.

I’m very lucky to have the University of East Anglia supporting me while I write this novel and – if all goes well – awarding me a PhD when I finish it. I’m hoping to have it finished by 2015.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Aaron Giovannone, The Loneliness Machine

Burnt Offering

You said go to bed.

I’m in bed.

This is my place.

This is me.

It’s hard for me to be in the mood

you need me to be in right now.

You say panzerotti,

but I think Hot Pocket.

I am trying to get at something,

and I want to talk plainly to you.

A single,

slow clapping.

Thank you.

I’m starting to suspect that Insomniac Press poetry editor Sachiko Murakami prefers manuscripts that engage with a particular blend of comedy, social media and wit, and the publication of Calgary poet and translator Aaron Giovannone’s debut collection, The Loneliness Machine (Toronto ON: Insomniac Press, 2013), further establishes this interest (see also: Jason Christie’s Unknown Actor [see my review of such here]). In Giovannone’s debut trade poetry collection, he immediately establishes himself through “Burnt Offering,” the first poem of the opening section, in which he is “trying to get at something, / and I want to talk plainly to you.” There is a straightforwardness and self-conscious awareness to Giovannone’s poems, a way in which he works hard to speak plainly, even when you know that he probably isn’t, such as in the poem “Just Be Cool,” (that might include trace echoes of Stuart Ross’ work, or even that of Montreal poets David McGimpsey and Jon Paul Fiorentino) where he writes:

You?

You’re reading this poem

in my prize-winning collection,

The Loneliness Machine.

Me?

I live on the ground floor,

so there’s no point

in jumping out of the window.

There is the self-depreciating humour, the faux-straight statement lines, and the odd twist at the end. You can really see the Stuart Ross influence throughout the first section, especially in poems such as “Lake Poet,” that echoes some of Ross’ poodle references, opening with: “I am at a Lake. / I am a Lake Poet now. / Giant poodles strut / like miniature bears on leashes.” It’s as though Giovannone is exploring the possibilities of humour as a study of what some other poets have done, to see where he might also be able to go, especially in the back-to-back poem titles “What Am I Supposed to Do?,” “What Does It All Mean?” and “Can I Go Now?” that close out the first section. On occasion, it feels as though Giovannone is struggling so hard through his influences that he becomes trapped there, instead of using those influences to progress further, into something more his own.

On the other hand, the second section, “Pennian Interlude,” bookended by the two untitled sections of shorter lyrics, exists more as a meditative poem-sequence. Compared to the rest of the collection, this poem/section feels more grounded, and settled, exploring a different series of questions around the lyric sentence. Within this piece, he stretches a bit, writing quieter, stretched-out passages, slowly meandering across twenty-one pages:

On the opposite bank of the canal,

their laughter slashes through the willows.

The girl hushes the loudest boy,

who hadn’t seen me.

Now it’s just my feet on the ground.

I liked this collection, but felt as though I wanted far more from it. Giovannone’s poems are sharp, clever and interesting, but don’t always seem to bring something that I can’t necessarily find somewhere else. Still, the most interesting poems in the collection emerge in the third and final section, where Giovannone’s own consideration begins to really flourish. There is such a lovely cadence and meditative quality to poems such as the short sequence “The Trees Bend Towards a Vanishing Point” and the title poem, both of which show off his skills at writing out the small moment, extended. In the first of these two pieces, he writes:

After beating through the sand-coloured waves,

you couldn’t touch bottom.

With eyes clenched, your stomach

bottomed out in shock.

Then toes surprised by pebbles

rolling under you, the waves over you.