Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 12

#NPM22 – The Intimacy of Preparing A Ledger for Taxes

The Intimacy of Preparing A Ledger for Taxes

dizzyingly detrimental to the soul

quantifying the energetic exchange of creativity 
numbers in a box 
the [sum] of our poems added / subtracted 

divided

deciphering the codes in the black in the red
[unbearable] + [frustrating] + [feel stupid] =

finishing in a heap of hidden tears
anger cleaning to shed the shame

the truth is not in the numbers
{immeasurable/unquantifiable/liquid flow infinite =} 
(love = the intimacy of creative work)

#NPM22 – The Intimacy of Morning Menses

The Intimacy of Morning Menses

I am coming, she says
arriving in the lower back, clawing

Punching holes in skin, rising in reds
her colour spectrum ripe

Pay attention to me, she whispers
crawling in the abdomen, knifing

She grips the mind and stirs it
takes away its clarity

I am here, she exclaims
planting in the ovaries, raking

She steals the breath and heaves it
laughing, swimming in the blood she brings

Her skirts soaking, her hair clumping
her sticky hands reach for my heart

I am miracle, she prides

I am miracle

#NPM22 – The Intimacy of the Pepper Spray Incident

The Intimacy of the Pepper Spray Incident
A hiabun

the knock on the door says hurryhurryhurry
once opened, it is a mouth swallowing fire

two teens, male, one shirtless
eyes bursting angry reds
tears and snot and terror

I take an elbow, skin cold
body shivering
lead him to the bathroom sink

J takes the other
leads a curving spine
to the kitchen sink

E gathers their backpacks
jackets, a thick forest of burning spice
it fills the space with chaos
I bring it all outside

cold water runs out in the bathroom
so he shifts to the other sink in the kitchen
dousing and splashing and coughing and soaking

a mound of wet paper towels in the garbage can
layer of dirt on the back of his pants
green latex gloves from the ambulance attendant
talk about knives, a sling-shot with the police officer

their mother in loud-pitched language – pacing
eyes finally open, throats clear
fearfearfear

after violence
touch is inevitable
his elbow, my palm

This piece is based on a true incident that occurred yesterday afternoon just outside the park. The kids are safe and okay. Thank you to the quick response from Windsor Police and Ambulance. Help was swift and kind. Spread love and kindness…

#NPM22 – The (Secret) Intimacy of the Photograph

The (Secret) Intimacy of the Photograph

it is me and it is not me
I transfix on the profile of An Other
with my legs, covered in rose-garden pantyhose

a shape a size a landscape, unfamiliar
to my mind’s mirror
yet there I am
me but not me

such displacement
or dysmorphia or
such rabid ability to despise
disrespect, such refusal of acceptance
a bizarre reality

it is me and it is not me

#NPM22 – The Intimacy of Crying Alone When You’re Sad

The Intimacy of Crying Alone When You’re Sad

the body afflicted, undoing – shaking
out sorrow
long veins of pain peeling
off the heart
internal hemorrhage abundance

tears like song chorus – redundant
rhinorrhea release – a bath of
rebalance
the exaltation of
animal sounds

the liturgy of sobbing
sadness on her knees,
rubbing your back

#NPM22 Intimacy – The Intimacy of Falling Asleep in an Airport

The Intimacy of Falling Asleep in an Airport

Such decadent trust
eyes closed
body limp
a foot wrapped in a purse strap
then tucked under a seat
suitcase rolled under knees
Silence glides into ears
rests in exhaustion’s bed

But the world concerts life in the round
a child cries for an ipad
teens giggle at images on instagram
the tired attendant calls for a missing
passenger as your dreams take the white
runway lines and turn them into wings

Others stare at you –
passing thoughts criminal or envious
but you are left alone

When your body trembles open
a fast sweat
a tumbling heart beat
helps panic urge you to remember
Where you’re at
What you’re doing
Who you are

Purse strap still wrapped around foot
suitcase still a table for your knees
money in wallet
ticket in pocket
destination possible

These trusts we agree to –
extraordinary

Love Lorna? Lorna Crozier, that is!

Lorna & Margaret & David will be in town!

This is the Pelee Island Bird Observatory annual gala fundraiser. Each year, Margaret Atwood invites a Canadian writer to be the feature reader at the event, and this year it is poet Lorna Crozier. Also in attendance is a birder – and this year’s guest is David Lindo. There’s also a live auction, I believe, hosted by Windsor’s own Peter Hrastovec! It’s a fine meal! A fine reading! A fine event!

To order a ticket(s): CLICK HERE

Mariette and I will be there!

#NPM22 – Intimacy – The Intimacy of Birdsong Before the Sunrise

The Intimacy of Birdsong Before the Sunrise

The way the sounds take shape
sliding through your window
like exclamation marks that
land on your cheeks – kisses
from another dimension you
feel in your bones but can’t
explain in words because birdsong
is the language of eternity of hope

The tender trills and deep-throated
warbles lift the sun like a conductor’s
baton tapping the horizon of
another day…this one better than
the one before or worse – the

Unknowing flits on feathered wings
a melody of pure bliss we miss or
we remember – either way it is there
alive

Intimacy #NPM22 & Menard & Carter Part II

#NPM22 Intimacy Poem A Day

The Intimacy of Asparagus

…the slight bitter of your
green tree-trunk body…

…soaked in golden butter &
nestled among plump rice
szechuan brown syrup –
the heat of hunger & devouring…

…you greet me later
in streams of release
phallic phantom
pungently preaching
a gospel of remembering…

Guest Post Interviews – Part II – With Christopher Lawrence Menard & Terry Ann CarterChristopher with his father, Tom.Q & A with Christopher Lawrence Menard – Part II

6) What is your biggest hope for this book? What is your biggest fear (if you have one)? 

My biggest hope for this book is that it will remind people to hold fast to love, family, everything that matters most. That it will lift some folks who need lifting. That it’ll speak to people, to families, who have faced down or are facing down Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, COPD – these diseases that steal our memories, our bodies, our breath. That it’ll speak to people who are looking for the spot they fit, and to people who are building their tribes… to people considering adoption, who might be wondering what it’s like to create family in such a special way. That it’ll bring some catharsis to my own family – my mother, my siblings – as they navigate their grief over the loss of our father. There are so many stories they’re all carrying around. I hope this inspires them to put some of them down on paper, to share some of them out loud, even if it’s just with each other. That it might inspire some folks to donate to the Alzheimer Society of Windsor and Essex County – to help bring relief and support to families like mine when they need it most.

…to people considering adoption, who might be wondering what it’s like to create family in such a special way.

I suppose my biggest hopes for this book, if I’m being honest, is that it stands as a tribute to my father and his legacy of family and love, that it really captures who and what he was and is to me, and that it stands as a snapshot of the earliest days of my son’s life with us. So that maybe a part of them remains in this world, always, somehow? As for fears… I have a fear that the collection will cause more pain for my family, for my mother. That it might reopen some wounds not even remotely healed. That the grief is still too new, too fresh. That’s a real fear. My biggest fear is that it does none of those things. That no one really resonates with it, or connects to it. It’s a silly fear, I know that. The publisher says it’s important work. The students feel connected to it, drawn in, and they’ve been working with these poems for well over eight months. I know this will have an impact. I know this will have a life. But like with most art, once it’s out there in the world, artists have so little control over its life and its legacy. We just want it to matter, and I think we spend a fair amount of time worrying that it won’t. I know I do. That’s the biggest fear, I think. That it won’t… matter.     

I know this will have an impact. I know this will have a life. But like with most art, once it’s out there in the world, artists have so little control over its life and its legacy.

7) Do you think you’ll continue to write poetry and try to get it published?   

Yes, absolutely. I have loved this experience, from the imagining and dreaming of the poems, to the catharsis and creative energy and jolt of the writing, to being part of this incredible process of watching the words become a story… become a manuscript… become a book… become significant… take up space in the world. People reading it, so far, are connecting with it in really meaningful, important ways. I’ve felt a unique freedom in the writing of this book. I’ve learned things about myself and my own life that I didn’t know before. I’ve tapped into resiliency and vulnerability I didn’t think I had, nor that I was at peace with showing and sharing. I can’t imagine not doing this again.   

I’ve felt a unique freedom in the writing of this book. I’ve learned things about myself and my own life that I didn’t know before.

8) What book(s) are you currently reading? 

I’ve just finished Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and am thinking of diving into The Testaments. I’m reading poetry, and looking forward to opening up Terry Ann Carter’s First I Fold The Mountain. I’m eager to read the words and see the presentation of them in the book that has been the companion to my book as part of this process with the publisher. I’ve got a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel on my Kobo, waiting for me to take a Sci-Fi break and let my imagination have some fun with stories and characters I’ve loved for as long as I can remember. I’m also considering a revisit of Stephen King’s IT – a book I’ve loved since I was a teenager feeling like I was in my own version of ‘The Loser’s Club’.  

Christopher’s reading chair.

9) If you could go on a walk with any writer (living or deceased), where would you walk and what would you talk about?  

No question – Stephen King. I’d want to walk with him through Maine and have him point out the places that have inspired his stories. His mind fascinates me. His writing makes me feel alive. His stories captivate me more often than they terrify me. His characters matter to me. I think about them, about their lives. I’d love to walk with him, and sit down for coffee. I’d love to tell him how his stories have lifted me up when I felt like I couldn’t stand, and how they’ve pulled me through some of my darkest times. I’d want to ask him which stories mean the most to him, which characters, and why. I’d want to thank him. I’d want to tell him how much it has mattered, and to how many. He doesn’t need me to tell him any of that. But man, it would be nice to.  

…Stephen King…I’d want to ask him which stories mean the most to him, which characters, and why. I’d want to thank him.

If there’s any other thing you want to write about/say, please add it. 

I just want to thank YOU, Vanessa, for the incredible amount of time and effort and care you put into this blog and into highlighting and providing a platform to so many writers in Windsor and Essex County, and beyond its borders. You’ve got this amazing sense of what is possible through real ‘community’, and you’re constantly finding ways to build up the people around you. I often think I don’t deserve what you give, consistently, to our friendship. I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for you. And, as I said in the acknowledgments section of my book… you were a huge part of it all for me. You read the poems, the words, long before most did. You understood the grief behind, beneath, and around them. You excavated alongside me to get to the heart of the poems in the collection. You lent your strength when mine slipped. And… you wrote thimbles, which in many ways helped me understand that it was possible and important to tell the sort of story I wanted to tell, and to use the types of poems I’ve written to do it. You modelled bravery by writing things that matter. Thank you. 

(Oof! Thank you, dear friend!)

PURCHASE at the end, beginnings!

CLICK HERE!

Q & A with Terry Ann Carter Part II

6) What is your favourite part of live readings and literary/art events? 

The best part of literary readings/events is seeing close friends…hearing feedback and news about upcoming projects for other writers. I’m always so interested in what my writer friends are up to. Often I meet “new” people at a reading…this is also fun!

7) In your newest book, ‘First I Fold the Mountain’, love is a strong theme. Do you think it’s part of a poet’s/writer’s job to write about love? Why or why not?

I think it’s a writer/poet ‘s job to tackle all the elephants in the room. Love is a universal feeling…by adding our “take” on this subject, we widen the lens for viewing. I think that all good writing, and especially good poetry connects us to feeling more human. 

Love is a universal feeling…by adding our “take” on this subject, we widen the lens for viewing.

8) On your website, you share with readers that the following haiku inspired the writing/work in ‘First I Fold the Mountain’:

book maker
first I fold the mountain
then the valley

Can you talk about using ‘other’ writing to inspire/engage your own creative process? Do you do this often in your writing process?

Yes, that haiku is mine, and on my acknowledgements page I mention that it was published in the Literary review of Canada (winter 2017). This felt a bit like getting a poem into the new Yorker!

…about using other writing to inspire my writing….this is especially so in two different “sections” of First I Fold the Mountain. 

I am quite inspired by the artist work of dada poet/artist/ Kurt Schwitters who lived in Germany before the Second World War. The more I discovered about him the more inspired I became. He was quite an abstract collage artist and I designed several hanging books dedicated to him. His thesis was to use discarded materials in his art, and so I chose an old paint cloth that was in the garage for my canvas. I tore it into four long pieces that I could then collage materials on. The poems in the book are composed in a “dadesque” style.

I chose an old paint cloth that was in the garage for my canvas. I tore it into four long pieces that I could then collage materials on.

In another section I am quite inspired by the wonderful work of tanka poet Ono no Komachi who lived in Japan around the time of the Heian court. My tanka are written in her voice and assembled in a “scroll book” ….very common at this time.

9)  Do you get nervous/worried/emotional before a book release/launch? 

I am always nervous and anxious before a launch…I don’t really know why…I just am.

10) How have you been navigating your writing life during the pandemic? Are you part of a writer’s group? Do you attend virtual events/readings?

I’ve been navigating these covid times by joining in on zoom launches and zoom get togethers with other writers. Although it is not the same as “the real thing” it has allowed me to be “present” for book launches across the country…events that I otherwise would not have been able to attend.

…And the larger one dreams of salons
plum brandy and writers.
The smaller one imagines
Hash brownies…

from ‘In Honour of my Trip to Paris’, First I Fold the Mountain, Terry Ann Carter

Purchase First I Fold The Mountain!

CLICK HERE!

*Excerpt from Tearing Down the Papers Just Before Summer (After Malachi Black). Artwork created by the students in the practicum.

LIVE BOOK LAUNCH DETAILS & SOCIAL MEDIA CONNECTIONS!

Link to register for Wednesday, April 6th event: (8pm to 10pm)

LOCATION: KordaZone Theatre

KordaZone Theater
2520 Seminole Street
Windsor, ON N8Y 1X4
STREET PARKING AVAILABLE

EVENTBRITE LINK HERE

“at the end, beginnings” social media info:

Facebook: https://facebook.com/atthendbeginnings
Instagram: @at_the_end_beginnings
Twitter: @attheendbegin

“First I Fold The Mountain: A Love Letter to Books” social media info:

Facebook: @foldthemountain
Instagram: @firstifoldthemountain
Twitter: @foldthemountain

BOOKS WILL BE FOR SIGNING & SALE!

THANK YOU CHRISTOPHER & TERRY ANN!

It has ben an honour to know and love you more deeply as poets, writers, extraordinary humans! Congratulations on your beautiful new book babies birthing into the world this upcoming week!

Thank you to the students in the Editing & Publishing Practicum and the Black Moss Press family! What fine literature you’ve helped bring into the world! #lovelocal #supportlocal #teamwork

Intimacy #NPM22 & Menard & Carter – poets to celebrate!

#NPM22 – Intimacy Poem a Day

The Intimacy of Laughter

lives in the agreement
that these words
these movements
these emotions
our shared sounds

stir up the blood
hip-check the heart
stutter the breath

on its release of joy

otherwise
one-sided
chided
meant to harm
the negation of agreement
creates trauma

Guest Poet Interviews featuring Christopher Lawrence Menard & Terry Ann Carter

Today and tomorrow I will be featuring a two-part interview featuring the latest Black Moss Press/University of Windsor Publishing Practicum published poets Terry Ann Carter (who currently lives in B.C.) and Christopher Lawrence Menard (local fella!). As it is National Poetry Month and their double book launch is happening next Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at Kordazone (details/links below!), and they’re poetry is pretty damn amazing, I sent some questions to them to answer to better get to know them, their poetry-writing process, and more!

Christopher Lawrence MenardTerry Ann CarterQ & A with Christopher, Part I

“…you’re off again but we’re at your side
still hand-in-hand-in-hand
we lift when you relax your body
when you sit mid-air
let us absorb your weight
swing carefree between us
test to see if you can trust us to carry you…”

Excerpt from ‘Into the Woods’, at the end, beginnings, a memoir in poetry by Christopher Lawrence Menard

1) How long have you been identifying as a writer? When did you first know you were a writer?  

I’ve identified as a writer since high school, for a strange mix of reasons. First, I wanted to get out of a research-heavy history paper about war, so I asked if I could instead write about the life of a soldier in the trenches through a poem. The teacher told me I could do whatever I wanted as long as it was “good, meaningful, and met the spirit of the assignment.” I don’t have the poem now, but I remember it rhymed, and I remember it started with “I awake every morning to the stench of the dead / no place but the ground to lay my head / muddy water to my waist, rats all around / there are lice in my hair / my friends’ bodies all around”. I got an ‘A’ on the assignment. He called me a poet, a storyteller. That stuck with me. Second, I had difficulty paying attention in classes that came easily to me – Religion, History, Science – so when I finished my work, I spent the remainder of my classes drawing a comic strip soap opera. It featured my close-knit group of friends as the main cast of characters, and I put us in storylines that belonged on Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and The Young and the Restless. I’d add to it each day, then pass it around for my friends to read. We all loved it. We looked forward to it. I called it Whispering Winds. It was ridiculous, but it was storytelling, and it was writing, and finding interesting ways to connect with an audience, and using writing as an absolute outlet. I wrote an entire novel called Mirror, Mirror about a young man replaced by his wicked twin. It was campy and over-the-top. My Mom and best friend read it. That was it. But it was real, and it represented an achieved goal, and it showed me that I could really accomplish something when I let myself create. By the time my OAC Writers Craft and Drama classes had me delving into monologues and scene writing, I knew I was a writer. If I look way back, into my childhood… into the paper people I used to cut out, and the stories I made up for them… I thought I was just playing out the kinds of stories I wanted to see and couldn’t find anywhere. I was writing even then. I just didn’t know it. 

I called it Whispering Winds. It was ridiculous, but it was storytelling, and it was writing, and finding interesting ways to connect with an audience, and using writing as an absolute outlet.

2) Your first published solo collection of poetry, at the end, beginnings, is launching on April 6th. How are you feeling about the launch? Do you know what you’re going to wear? What you’re going to read? How is your body feeling with this momentous happening coming up?  

I’m in my head and my heart about the launch right now. For starters, I have no clue what I’m going to wear. I only know that it’ll likely end up being something from my closet that I would typically wear to something ‘like this’ – even though nothing else really feels ‘like this’, and though I know I should go pick something ‘new’ and something ‘important’, I also want to be comfortable and feel like me, so I’m not sure what I’ll settle on. I’ve tried not to think too much about it, which is a mistake – I know. LOL. I’ll regret not giving the whole look of me more thought, I think.

I wanted to wait until I held the finished book – which just happened a beat ago – before deciding what I would read. I’ve been away from the depth of these poems for awhile now. I sat with them so intimately when I wrote them, and in the month immediately following the writing. I climbed back into them during the final edits, but then took a big step back and let the whole process of it all – edits and cuts and layout and design and printing – to take centre stage. Now that it’s real, tangible, this artifact and uber-snapshot of my life in my hands, I feel like it’s time to decide which pieces of it I’ll read at the launch. I want to read about my father and my son mostly. There’s lots of ‘me’ to find in all of the poems about them.

I want to give the audience at the launch a sense of the story, the arcs, which will mean showing them who my father is, who I am, who my son is.

I want to give the audience at the launch a sense of the story, the arcs, which will mean showing them who my father is, who I am, who my son is. I’ve been thinking a lot about the fifth section of my book. It’s called ‘wake’ and that’s such an important word for it. I wrote the bulk of the poems in that section during the two weeks immediately following my father’s death. In the literal wake of that loss. Many of the pieces in that section deal with his actual wake and memorial service, as well as the idea of the wake that comes after the crash of waves, all that gets left in a wake, all that we see through calming waters, the questions we ask, the answers that find us. I know this launch will mean stepping back into the memories that fueled those poems. I’m nervous about that. My body is nervous about that. My husband always tells me that I don’t understand or feel the difference between ‘excited’ and ‘nervous’, that I often mistake one for the other. I don’t think it’s that simple. I think they’re frequently interchangeable for me. That’s often been my experience when it comes to my writing… my creations… my stories… my performances. And all of those things that bring me excitement, that bring me flurries of nerves… those things will all be part of this.  

3) What is the difference in how you’re feeling between an opening night for one of your original plays, and your book launch? 

I’m feeling a vulnerability in connection with this launch that I don’t always – or often – feel on opening night for one of my original plays. The similarities, of course, are that I’ve written the content in both situations. But an original play has been through months of out loud rehearsals, with the words shared across characters, and the story told across scenes, and the emotion brought to life by actors shaped by a director, with my words as the foundation of it all. It’s a loud and interactive process from start to finish, so that by the time I’m at opening night, I have a strong sense of what it is that I’m about to share. Additionally, I’ve always been a main player in my original stage plays. So the writer-me sort of gets left back stage (deep down in my brain, really), while the actor-me takes centre stage and borrows the rest of me for the duration of the performance. That allows writer-me to be removed. He’s still in there. He still feels accepted, welcomed, wanted when the audience laughs at the jokes, cries at the poignant moments. This time around, as a poet, I feel exposed in a very different way. First, this is not a play and I am not a character in it. The writing is primarily in my voice, unless I’m quoting my father, my son, doctors, nurses, etc. And it’s me standing up there speaking the words. No costume but my own clothes. No character but the me I offer every day. And, some of this work, these words, some of it is heavy. I feel exposed. In a way I’m not accustomed to. Then there’s the extra layer of this launch taking place at The KordaZone Theatre, which has been the home site of my theatrical performances for twenty years. I’m not used to stepping onto its stage as myself. That’ll be… new.  

This time around, as a poet, I feel exposed in a very different way. First, this is not a play and I am not a character in it. The writing is primarily in my voice…

4) Has writing this collection of poetry – the process, the editing and revising, the ‘final’ creation being so close at hand – feathered your desire to write anything else?   

The writing of this collection has been a true joy, super challenging, and also incredibly important for me. I’m someone who starts and stops a lot of writing projects. The stories come to me in fits and starts, often. And, I don’t often make the necessary room for myself to tell the stories – neither the physical room needed to sit and right, nor the life / heart / soul room required to really dive in and create. There was a moment, early on in this process, when I told Marty Gervais, my publisher, that I didn’t think this would be the year for this book. My father’s health was getting worse by the day, and I said I wanted to focus on the journey, on being where I needed to be and who I needed to be, and I likely wouldn’t be able to write. He suggested I pay attention to what was happening around me, and that I be open to the moments when the writing would be screaming out at me to let it come. That advice stuck with me when my father took a turn, when he moved into long term care, when he began palliative care. By the time he had passed, and I’d taken time for bereavement, I knew the book had to happen. There was so much I wanted to remember, to capture, to process, to share. I flexed a writing muscle, and found that it was strong enough to lift me through. Knowing that I was able to carve out the time when it felt impossible, and that I was able to turn it into something really… special… it’s left me feeling like I want to write. More. Soon.   

Christopher’s current writing desk/area

5) Can you compare your emotional journey in writing this poetry collection to an emotional journey when writing one of your plays? For example, when writing The Best Man, a play about love, relationships, and family, did you feel the same creative juices flowing? Grief, loss, family – in a different perspective?   

As a writer, I’m interested in what happens to people, what they say to themselves and to each other about what happens, the words they use to say it, and everything that gets left unsaid. As a result, my stage plays, screenplays, and now poems have all required me to spend uncomfortable amounts of time with memories – good and bad. The good ones have the side-effect of making me miss people, places and experiences that have gone. The bad ones have the danger of weighing me down, making it difficult to climb back out of them. Interesting, when I wrote The Best Man, it was on the heels of an intense relationship coming to an intense end. And while it was mostly fictionalized, there was enough truth in the characters and the dynamics that I was writing it while I was processing the experience. The writing was cathartic. I think that’s part of why it resonated with so many people. It felt real, unfiltered – audiences could find themselves in the characters, which made it easy to lose themselves in the story. I wrote this collection in the literal grip of grief. Even the beautiful, positive poems – those focusing on my son – were created through the lens of grief. I think that’s important because grief has a way of stripping life and relationships down to the naked skin and bare bones of it all. I think readers will find many ways into the poems, the stories, the heart and soul of the collection because it’s unfiltered again. Because it’s real. The take away for me is that I’m at my writing best when I’m not shying away from my real life, but rather when I’m using my real life as a jumping off point to tell a story that’s universal, that has something for everyone, that matters because it comes from a place of what matters to me. Love. Relationships. Family. Loss. What we create. What we share. What we take. What we leave. Those things matter to me. 

Even the beautiful, positive poems – those focusing on my son – were created through the lens of grief. I think that’s important because grief has a way of stripping life and relationships down to the naked skin and bare bones of it all.

Stay tuned tomorrow for part II of Christopher’s vulnerable, provocative, illuminating interview!

To order your copy…

CLICK HERE ($18.95)

OR – Come to the live launch on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 – 8pm – 10pm at KordaZone Theatre

LINK HERE TO REGISTER

Here’s a teaser for the podcast interview Christopher did with the #AllWriteInSinCity! Get the full interview at http://www.allwriteinsincity.com!Q & A With Terry Ann Carter, Part I

“…of walking on water (as one does
in love) or a whale’s back
or whatever floats the heart
in shades of red and gold…”

Excerpt from, for my husband, for christo, First I Fold the Mountain by Terry Ann Carter

1)When did you know that you were a ‘poet’ – so, beyond your identity as ‘writer’ and into this focused style? 

I think I knew I was a poet (of some kind) very early…I wasn’t actually writing poetry but I saw the world in a very poetic way. By that I mean metaphor. When I was quite young my father read to me from Robert Louis Stevenson’s ” A Child’s Garden of Verses”…..Windy Nights was a real favourite…

Whenever the moon and stars are set,
whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?

Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then,
By he comes back at the gallop again.

Later I became a high school English teacher and had so many beautiful examples of poetry in my life each day. I was daunted at first, but finally I decided that I wanted to add “my verse” to all the others.

2) When did you become enamoured with haiku? What is it about this form that livens your poetic heart? 

I was visiting a friend in Toronto and we happened to be on the campus of the University of Toronto. We saw a poster for a haiku reading at Hart House. It was a Japanese monk and he actually chanted his haiku. I didn’t know very much about the form (except what I had learned in grade school) and did some research. Later I found my “haiku tribe”. I also had a marvellous experience of meeting William J. Higginson who wrote “The haiku Handbook” while I was attending the basho Festival in Ueno, Japan. Bill became my mentor for several years. It was what he taught me that stays with me even now. A haiku tries to establish the small potatoes (ourselves) inside the larger potatoes (the cosmos). This concept “enlivens my poetic heart”.

“I didn’t know very much about the form (except what I had learned in grade school) and did some research. Later I found my “haiku tribe”.”

3) What do you believe is the relationship between writing/poetry and book-making/paper art? 

Becoming a paper artist only happened later in my life, after I moved out to BC, actually. I had always been interested in making small books to “house” my poems, but once in Victoria, I met so many wonderful visual and paper artists…I learned from all of them, and still continue to do so. I often work on a paper project when I am “stuck” in a poem. Working with my hands seems to help the process.

I often work on a paper project when I am “stuck” in a poem. Working with my hands seems to help the process.

4) ) How does place inform your writing? 

I have been shaped in many ways by the island I live on….I am far more aware of the sea, the pull of the sea, the magic and peril of the sea. I have written many haiku about this place…Vancouver Island.

5) You’ve had many books published, across genres and from different publishers, how do you know when a new ‘story’ is ready to unfold from you, and at what point in the unfolding do you begin to think about submissions? 

I always wait until a project is finished before I submit. I have had copy editors to help with research on some of my collections of essays on women pioneer haiku poets (Moonflowers, catkin press, 2020) and on the History of haiku in Canada (Ekstasis Editions, 2020).

To order a copy…

CLICK HERE

OR – Come to the live launch on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 – 8pm – 10pm at KordaZone Theatre

LINK HERE TO REGISTER

*Terry Ann will not be there in person, but she will be there via video, spirit and her poetry will be read aloud by Windsor’s Poet Laureate, Mary Ann Mulhern.

To watch a video of Terry Ann talking about her passion for books and bookmaking, CLICK HERE! (This is a Facebook video link.)

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Intimacy & The Interview

#NPM22 – INTIMACY – Poem a Day

The Intimacy of Vacuuming the House on a Thursday Evening

The dried clumps of mud on the kitchen floor
make me feel like a bad mother
and the chunks of crusted spinach 
and the rolling tufts of dog hair too

When I open the canister on the vacuum
dirt is overflowing into the long tube beneath it
like a throat congested 
pulling out the build up is both
disgusting and marvelous – there’s just so
much accumulation
I drop it on the floor in a dark heap
sweep it up dump it in the garbage 
and then the canister’s collection too
the black bag in the can turns gray
with dust – the refuse beneath chokes

and then the reconnection of vacuum parts
the plug in the outlet
the hum of spinning parts and working
motors and hard bits smacking against
the plastic tube the power of the suction

I quiet into the noise of cleaning
begin to feel the gentle satisfaction of 
things there and then not there
the kitchen floor glares up in thanks

I am a mother whose threshold for dirt
expands like her belly – the caring about it
waxes and wanes, news and fulls like a tired moon
this relationship with cleanliness is
solitary and in these minutes
my hand on the vacuum head 
guiding this appliance through our home
it is empowering if not provocative

the things my mind thinks when I vacuum
loyal to the dirt to the pieces of us
I’m taking away

The Interview

It’s amazing how time can expand. The poet laureate interview was thirty minutes. Each minute felt like at least five…and, like, heavy, if that makes sense! Not in a negative way at all! Charged. Electric. In a way that just feels different in your mind and body. Energetically. I knew that would happen and so I did a lot of mental and emotional prep. I was having PTSD from the TedX talk I did in 2017 (remember that doozy?). I had the same fears, deep-rooted and confidence crushing wrecking havoc in my mind. But, thankfully, I learned from that out-of-body experience and did my best to make sure I didn’t have the same experience with this interview.

Preparations included writing out my mission statement, my values and believes, choosing what to wear ahead of time, gathering my spiritual totems for the desk, choosing to do poetry on demand and using my favourite typewriter to write the poem, having my notes, key words and application in front of me, and lots of deep breathing.

The desk/altar.All the ladies with me!All set!

And then – it happened! I got all splotchy!!!

Ack! This is how poetry passion shows up in my body!

After, I let out one big sob/cry of relief…

Post-interview desk.

Here’s the poem on demand I wrote (complete with typos!). I was nervous so my typing wasn’t the greatest!

Pretty much right after the interview, I tidied up and went to join my dear friend for a celebratory brunch at Suzie’s Grill Cafe (2565 Ouellette Ave Suite 120, Windsor, ON N8X 1L9).

Delicious avocado toast!

I feel relieved and happy that that part of the process is over. What happens next is that we wait to see what the final choice is. And then we celebrate again, no matter what the outcome!

If you’re wondering, why all the fuss…I’ll tell you that it is a dream to be poet laureate, to even have the opportunity to apply and interview. I care very much about the role. I care very much about poetry! And, I can’t tell you how much I continue to learn about myself, my writing, my passion as this process unfolds. And how grateful I am for the writers and literary loves in my life who continue to teach me and share the glorious glories that are essential to being a writer. It matters to me. It matters to the city. And so, onward, friends! To poetry! To interviews! To avocado toast!