12 or 20 (second series) questions with Khashayar Mohammadi

Khashayar Mohammadi is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translato. He is the author of poetry Chapbooks Moe’sSkin by ZED press 2018, Dear Kestrel by knife | fork | book 2019, Solitude is an Acrobatic Act and The OceanDweller both by above/ground press 2020. His debut poetry collection Me, You, Then Snow is out with Gordon Hill Press.

[Mohammadi will be presenting a lecture online this Saturday, alongside Amish Trivedi from 1-2pm Eastern, as part of The Factory Lecture Series at Ottawa’s annual VERSeFest Poetry Festival; click here to register to attend via zoom]

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 had already published 4 chapbooks before my debut, but there was something so definite and final about having a full length book published. It taught me organization and coherence on a larger scale, taught me how to manage concept and tone throughout various poems, and how to chisel a book out of a manuscript with the help of my editor.

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

I grew up in a fiercely literary family, but I have to admit I didn’t read or write any poetry until my late teens. At the time I was getting into poetry Rupi Kaur was getting quite popular, so I picked up Milk and Honey and realized I like the format. I moved on from her to Warsan Shire and Deborah Landau, then slowly William Carlos Williams and Rilke. My first encounter with Canadian Poetry was Phil Hall and BP Nichol, and after getting into the local scene, I picked up every book I could find and read everything that came out vehemently until I got to where I am.

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 always have different projects of different genres going at the same time. The Low and Slow gets accumulated over time and in a different work frame, and there are times when I feel I just need to produce work, so I translate, or write an essay. Depending on which type of piece I’m writing, the amount of editing varies. But I’d say my poems emerge quite close to how they get published. I write relentlessly so I’d call myself an overall fast writer.

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?

even though different poems always start differently, my favorite way of beginning a poem is taking a line usually taken from misheard and misused words in conversations I hear during the day, e.g. when I misheard “Dressed to go” as “Dressed for a poem” and treating it as a kernel or seed for an entire poem to take shape around it.

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

I am incredibly social and I’ve always loved readings and interacting with my audience, whether virtual or in person!

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 written quite a lot about language and what it means to write across cultures through writing across languages and linguistic disciplines, but I’d also say recently I’ve been quite heavily gravitating towards Islamic mysticism and Islamic culture and the Arab Conquest in general. I’m trying to explore questions like “what does Islam mean in the Diaspora as opposed to Islamic nations?” and trying to demystify the monolithic Islam of North American media into its intricate working parts.

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?

well I was quite lost when I came to poetry. I had no sense of belonging, no sense of purpose or self-respect. Poetry gave me a warm place in a corner of this cruel world where I could comfortably express who I am. And my expression will hopefully provide a new home for another estranged soul. I believe in the power of poetry and have no interest in anyone who devalues and deems it inessential.

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

writing is often quite lonely, and its solitude can drown one in one’s own ego. Its absolutely essential to have one’s work looked over and altered to the point of comprehension. poets can be too precious about their own lines and wordplays that may not be relevant or Jermaine to the point. I’ve never taken a piece to an editor and emerged with an inferior poem. to me poems are always improved by a second pair of eyes.

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

“never underestimate how little people care about your work”.

may sound harsh, but it’s the single most motivating thought in my mind whenever I feel too invested in my own poetry

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (your own work vs. translation or collaboration)? What do you see as the appeal?

to me the appeal is mainly the fact that I can switch my workflow when I need to. There are times when I just don’t feel innovative enough to begin a thought from scratch, and translation can tone my poetry muscles without straining my intellect too much.

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?

lots of walking, lots of reading, very little writing. I believe the more time I spend thinking and reading, the better I can work and the more efficient my words become. my personal recommendation to a new poet is always to read more and to think more. giving your body time to process reading is as important as giving yourself time to read. so I usually read for an hour or so, walk for an hour or so, and then begin my writing only after.

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

the answer is always translation. I love how many possibilities translation poses, while not being so overwhelmingly open as to paralyze me intellectually. translation is immensely creative but its beauty is its limitations, and limitations are always what makes one create the most clever tools for comprehension and conveyance; which later come in handy while writing your own material!

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Orange Blossoms. that is all.

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 love many art forms and I’ve written in great length on, about and influenced by Cinema, but I have to admit that nothing inspires my work more than Standup comedy. I listen to an ungodly amount of standup comedy every day and the tricks comics use in their language, in performance, in tricking the audience’s perception; nothing ever comes close to it.

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

At the moment I think my biggest influences for my work are great Sufi thinkers like Ibn ‘Arabi, Rumi, Ghazali and Hafez; but overall my greatest influence is always what I’m reading at the moment, especially books by my friends.

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

make more music. I wanna make some spoken word, Hip-Hop, experimental album and it is the next item on my list.

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?

well… I’m a chef by profession and I absolutely love cooking so I’ll always have that going for me!

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

necessity.

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

Ooh! my favorite question! last great film I watched was Pedro Almodovar’s latest film Pain and Glory. I’ve since watched it more than 5 times. It’s a true delight. Midsommar and Portrait of a Lady On Fire round up the top 3.

my favorite books I read this year have been Hoa Nguyen’s A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure, Bardia Sinaee’s Intruder and Amanda Berenguer’s Materia Prima

20 - What are you currently working on?

So much… but mainly some more translations of some of the great modernist poets of Iran as well as writing more poetry on Diasporic West Asian culture.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part three,

[Marilyn Irwin's shreeking violet press]

See the first of my notes from our most recent fair here and the second of my notes from our most recent fair here.

Windsor/Toronto ON: I’m very taken—charmed, even—by the seventeen-poem sequence TEST CENTRE (Windsor ON: Zed Press, 2019), a chapbook by the collaborative MA│DE. As the author biography attests:

MA│DE is a collaborative gesture, a unity of two voices fused into a poetic third. It is the name given to the joint authorship of Toronto-based creators Mark Laliberte and Jade Wallace, artists whose active solo practices differ quite radically from one another. MA│DE’s collaborative writing formalizes a process that began as an extended conversation between two people newly discovering one another. over a number of months, the pair messaged, texted, emailed, telephoned, conversed in person, left links on social media for the other to find, and mailed letters; their long, exploratory conversations opened up a language-space all their own.

With each poem, in the table of contents, named after a particular test—running from the Apgar Test and Bechdel Test to the Turning Test, Emergency Broadcast System and Rorschach Test—the poems in the body of the collection appear with number only, allowing for a smooth flow of sequence, even as an accumulation of self-contained pockets. As the third poem reads:

If coal is white / are some books black / words

cut with a knife / flow up a hill / as avalanches

do indeed descend mountains / and illiterate men

read romances for the Devens Literacy test

[Matthew Walsh]

Kingston ON: Anyone paying attention to Michael e. Casteels’ Puddles of Sky Press will be well aware of his occasional illiterature, a journal of small poems. The latest issue is “eight and a half” (June 2019), edited and beautifully hand-printed (hand-stamped) by Casteels in an edition of one hundred and twenty-two copies, it includes wee poems by Kemeny Babineau, David Alexander, Cameron Anstee, Justin Patrick, Angeline Schellenberg, Conor Barnes and Charlotte Jung. His publications are very graceful, understated and carefully put together. You should be paying attention.

A narrow bridge

in the middle of the nigt

fanged (Conor Barnes)

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part two,

[Zed Press]

See the first of my notes from our most recent fair here.

Windsor/Toronto ON: The second chapbook by Toronto poet and self-professed “peach enthusiast” Terrence Abrahams is the peach poems (Windsor ON: Zed Press, 2019), a chapbook preceded by a wish (Penrose Press), and to be followed, according to his author bio, by “a forthcoming collection of prose poems, published with baseline press.” the peach poems is an assemblage of confident lyric hesitations, halting and exploratory, furthering the line and the line-break in tandem, through prose poems and the more traditional shapes of the lyric poem. These poems are physical, and subtle, yet striking in their posture, even amid uncertainty. “Your language was one I couldn’t speak yet,” Abraham writes, in the prose poem “May,” continuing “and yet I could / see it all over your body.”

riverbank

I sit thinking of all the little deaths

as if I haven’t thought already

of yours, worrying over

what hands might find you

when my hands

leave yours

nearby the dog

is sniffing out rabbits

like him you are wondering

how you can get in on the hunt

In a recent interview with Abrahams on Train: a poetry journal I found this bit particularly interesting, as he said:

I only recently read something Mary Oliver wrote in her essay collection, Upstream. She said, “attention is the beginning of devotion.” If that’s the case, I’ve been beginning my whole life, and I don’t plan on stopping. That keeps me going.

[Anahita Jamali Rad and David Bradford]

Montreal QC: From Anahita Jamali Rad and David Bradford’s House House Press [see their “12 or 20 questions” on the press here] is Stacey Ho’s Green Lines (2019), a chapbook consisting of the fourteen-part essay, the “Anti-Invasion Ecologies,” as well as “HOW TO DRAW A LINE,” a pair of lyric essays on ecology, refugees and metaphor, and how language is used to describe the migration of plant and human. As they write: “Sometimes the cultural categories that divide plant and humans dissolve to form a single class called foreign. This is a minority world anxiety evidenced in all forms of cultural production.” As the opening to the essay “Anti-Invasion Ecologies” reads:

This past summer I was trying out this art experiment which was roughly focused on land-based and intersectional feminist art practices. It happened on Mayne Island, Coast Salish Territories.

We were camping on a site that had previously been an old mill and informal dumpsite, which was in the process of remediation by its current inhabitants. Responding to aspects of this environment that had been impacted by humans, Syr Reifsteck dyed paper using materials introduced to the site through human intervention: rusty bits of metal dumped on site with Scotch broom and Himalayan blackberry, two plants often considered invasive to the region. Megan Gerbrandt pulled metal, broken glass, and garbage out of the ground, marking objects with protective symbols to create an installation that led into the forest. Seeking to “unsettle” so-called invasive species, Anthony Meza-Wilson broke down specimens of Scotch broom, separating the plant into pods, leaves, and stems to mirror colonial practices of deconstruction and classification.

I often overheard participants express their distaste for invasives,” whereas I’d always felt a deep affinity for such hardy, weedy plants.

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part three,

[Aoife and Rose, colouring during post-fair clean-up]

Here’s another batch of items I picked up at the most recent ottawa small press book fair [see part two of this list here; see the list from the prior fair here]; and you saw I’m doing same recently as well from similar gatherings from Toronto’s Meet the Presses [see my most recent post on such here], right?

Windsor ON: I am intrigued by Toronto poet Hanan Hazime’s debut poetry chapbook aorta (ZED Press, 2018), moving from the paced lyric poem to a more rushed, and even breathless, prose style. A poem such as the full page single stanza prose poem “holding my breath in seawater” is a wonderful rush of words, threatening to overcome and even drown, especially against the three-line fragment on the following page: “across muddy fields, / their dismembered hearts ached, / still longing for peace [.]” Composed as, quite literally, a book of the heart (the poem “eat my heart out,” for example, or “he arted heart strings”), there are parts of this that do feel a bit uneven, and in need of further editing/tightening (as well as the removal of the occasional cliché), but there is enough in the writing here to make me want to see what else she is capable of.

kintsugi or the art of repairing broken hearts

lately I see my reflection better in shattered mirrors as I’m searching for the fragmented pieces of me of I of myself of you of us but a hole can never be whole again and I can’t line the fractures in my atrium with gold or repair the tears in my tendons the way the Japanese decorate their broken pottery because my heart is no ornament and it cannot be remanufactured and my wounds are not wilted flowers to be watered back to health and even though the heart is one of the first organs to form it still takes nine months to fully grow a human so why was I born at six then what a miracle they said why she’s as tiny as a doll but I was no porcelain figure no I was soft tissue malleable bones barely functioning lungs and sometimes I wish I never learned to breathe on my own never left my mother’s womb but that’s not the point no when my favourite tea cup cracked in half I could not mend it I could not glue the ceramic back together with gold lacquer because I’m too broke to afford precious metals to afford lavish therapy and people like us from broken systems broken families broken bodies and broken brains cannot be fixed because humans hearts are not manufactured but grown

Kingston ON: It is always a pleasure to see what Michael e. Casteels is up to in his Puddles of Sky Press, and one of the items I collected was illiterature, issue eight, with the tag-line “a journal / of rubber-stamped poems.” Produced in an edition of one hundred copies, there are ten small publications in the envelope of this issue (I’ll let you begin the math on the impressions he would have had to hand-stamp), with new works by Conor Barnes, Ben Robinson, Kate Siklosi, LeRoy Gorman, Michael e. Casteels, Robert R. Thurman, Conyer Clayton, Gabriel Bates, Zane Koss and Robin Wyatt Dunn. As Dunn’s poem, produced in a black slice of paper, folded, reads:

some swan

doubted

the black deep

Brooklyn poet (and Canadian expat) Zane Koss’ poem exists in an even smaller envelope, titled “STATEMENT OF POETICS,” with a quote by the late American writer Joe Brainard on the front that reads: “Sitting here only a few feet away from the ocean it’s hard to think of anything to say (except ‘ocean’) so I guess I’ll stop.” His poem has an enormous amount to unpack in such a small space, and reads:

nature poetry is impossible

because where would all the

words come from, and be

sides? its always got to get

            to the people somehow

There is an enormous amount of care that comes through a publication such as this, both through editorial and production (akin to jwcurry’s offerings, or Cameron Anstee’s Apt. 9 Press) that make this item, especially through the limited edition, one of the more intriguing from this year’s event.