Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 21

Dag T. Straumsvåg, The Mountains of Kong: New & Selected Prose Poems, trans. Robert Hedin and Dag T. Straumsvåg

 

DEBTS

We owe Tomas and Elisabethdinner. We owe my grandmother a visit to her grave. We owe my brother Christmaspresents for the last two years, and Lars a solid win at bridge. We’veneglected our garden for years, not to mention Mrs. Hansen next door. We oweour cat fresh sand, $22,000 in back taxes, and the wife’s boss a beating fromlong ago. We owe the changing weather several weeks of flu. In the neighbour’s pool,the yellow rubber duck has capsized, its legs sticking straight up in the air. Weowe it a resurrection. And now, down the block, the mailman comes with a heapof new bills. We owe him so much. We’ll never be able to pay him what hedeserves.

I’veseen bits of his work, whether through journals or chapbooks (including one through above/ground press), for a while now, so it is good to see a largercollection by Norwegian poet and translator Dag T. Straumsvåg, his The Mountainsof Kong: New & Selected Prose Poems (Picton ON: Assembly Press, 2025).Translated from the original Nynorsk into English by the author himself and Minnesota-based author and translator Robert Hedin, the book also includes an introduction by Canadian poet, editor and publisher Stuart Ross, as well as a foreword by co-translator Hedin.As Hedin’s “FOREWORD” begins: “The Mountains of Kong presents sixty-oneof the rich, evocative prose poems of Norwegian poet and translator Dag T.Straumsvåg. A bilingual edition, it includes a generous selection of poems fromhis previously published volumes as well as a gathering of new poems that havenever before been translated into English and appear here for the first time.”Hedin continues:

            For those who prefer poetry to be prudent andwell-behaved, the poems of The Mountains of Kong will come as asurprise. They are not well-mannered, restrained, or fastidious in any way, nordo they follow a traditional narrative path. Instead, they are quirky,quixotic, and, above all, endlessly inventive—brief, jazz-like riffs thatthrough their deft phrasing and many unexpected turns travel a constant courseof discovery, often voyaging off the map into worlds where nothing is as itseems and “not a single landmark is where it should be.”

Itis interesting to hear Hedin’s framing of Straumsvåg’s work as being outside a “traditionalnarrative path,” as Stuart Ross’ introduction, “A NORWEGIAN POET IN NORTHAMERICA,” describes the poems assembled in this collection as having afoundation well set in North American poetry and poetics. “His sole bookpublished in Norway,” Ross writes, “back in 1999—Eg er Simen Gut (IAm Simen Gut)—was primarily a collection of nature poems, but his interests—includinghis immersion into the works of Russell Edson, Daniil Kharms, and James Tate,among others—eventually took him to wildly different poetic territories afterthat debut publication. And Dag has since been championed by a good dozen prominentpoets in the US and Canada, where he has attracted a modest but devotedfollowing.” Ross then offers a list of further North American poets that Straumsvåghas engaged with, including the late Canadian poets Nelson Ball and Michael Dennis,Montreal poet Hugh Thomas and Kingston poet Jason Heroux, with whom he has beencollaborating with for some time now, as evidenced through A FurtherIntroduction to Bingo (above/ground press, 2024). Certainly, Straumsvåg’spoems are oddly surreal, and I certainly wouldn’t know anything of the literarycontext from which Straumsvåg (and his first collection) emerged, but one easilysees this current selection of prose poems setting firmly and comfortably in atradition of poets such as the late American prose poet Russell Edson [see my review of his posthumous selected poems here] and American writer Lydia Davis[see a note I wrote on her work here], for example, for their shared appreciation for the slightly askew and surrealself-contained lyric prose narratives. “I’m sure it’s possible to accumulatesome wisdom in this life. There are a couple of mistakes, for example,” Straumsvåg’spoem “THE LITTLE TYKE” begins, “I’ll never repeat. But basically wisdom servesno practical purpose, and the added weight only leads to back pains, headaches,balance problems—a condition dumped in your lap like a baby you didn’t know youhad.” It would be interesting to be able to discern the more obvious Norwegianelements Straumsvåg weaves into his prose poems, but as yet, these are elementsof which I am otherwise and completely unaware.

Straumsvåg’spoems very much lean into what Edson spent decades crafting, an aesthetic andstructure of the short narrative with surreal edges, an aesthetic that alsotouches upon elements of the work of multiple other contemporary English-languageNorth American poets such as Stuart Ross himself [see my review of his latest here], Hamilton poet Gary Barwin [see my review of his latest poetry title here], Wisconsin poet Nate Logan [see my review of his latest collection here], and Chicago poet Benjamin Niespodziany [see my review of his latest here], among so many others.“The place was empty. No scissors, no combs or half-empty bottles of dye,” thepoem “ABANDONED DOG GROOMING SALON” begins, “no dog hairs on the floor, noposters of poodles. I turned the small room into a study, slept on a couch inthe back. The first year I dreamed of dogs every night. By the fifth, pets wereno longer allowed, and I stopped dreaming.”

Toplace that in a bit larger context of the North American prose poem, Straumsvågapproach seems marketedly different to the more lyric offerings of poets suchas the fractals of Toronto poet Margaret Christakos [see my review of her latest here] or Salt Lake City poet Lindsey Webb [see my review of her debut here], or thedirect statements and experiments by Canadian poets Lisa Robertson or Anne Carson [see my essay on her latest collection here]. There’s a directness to Straumsvåg’slyrics, working narratives that pull in and out of deliberate focus, unexpectedlyturning left or right or even across, never ending up in a place one mightexpect. His poems begin with a solid narrative foundation, heading in onedirection and then swerving elsewhere, either gradually or suddenly oraccumulatively, managing to exceed all expectations, with one step and thenanother towards truly odd corners and surfaces. Honestly, this is a delightful collection;is that something reviewers even say anymore? This is a delightful book, and I hopethere are more of them. “There has to be a mountain range near Tembakounda inGuinea that stretches east to the Central African Mountains of the Moon,” the titlepoem begins, “James Rennell thought. The source of the White Nile. So heintroduced it on a map he sketched for Travels in the Interior Districts ofAfrica by Mungo Park (1799), dividing the continent in two, and named itthe Mountains of Kong.”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tea Gerbeza

Tea Gerbeza is a neuroqueer disabled writer andmultimedia artist. She has an MFA in Writing from the University ofSaskatchewan and an MA in English & Creative Writing from the University ofRegina. She is the winner of the Ex-Puritan’s 2022 Austin Clarke Prizein Literary Excellence for poetry, and has published widely in magazinesincluding ARC magazine, Action Spectacle, The PoetryFoundation, Wordgathering, and Contemporary Verse 2, amongothers. Tea resides in oskana kâ-asastêki in Treaty 4 territory (Regina, SK)with her spouse, three dogs, and cat. How I Bend Into More is her firstbook. She hopes you spiral art from its pages.

How did your first book change yourlife? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feeldifferent?

My debut, How I Bend Into More,changed my life in many ways, the biggest being that I finally articulated the experiencethat shaped who I am the most and learned so much from that process. This bookwas transformative for my style and voice as a poet because I discovered blendingverse and art and making them work together is integral to my poetry. I’vefervently been sketching in my notebook the possibilities of paper quilling andverse for one of my projects that is concerned with using the paper strips asmodes of memory (postmemory, intergenerational trauma, cellular memory frommother to child) and reaching toward a past self to understand the aftereffectsof war on a family.

How did you come to poetry first, asopposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

This is a funny question because Iactually came to poetry last in my writing journey, despite it being the firstgenre I published in. I wrote only fiction while in high school and earlyundergrad, and I dabbled with creative nonfiction in my Master’s program at theUniversity of Regina, but once poetry seeded itself in me, I realized that theform that held the most space for my playfulness and experimentation waspoetry. The rules were as I made them so long as the poem taught its reader howto read it.

How long does it take to start anyparticular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is ita slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, ordoes your work come out of copious notes?

Everything I do is slow; I create inqueer crip time. The writing happens gradually—I usually have a grasp of anidea for a poem and then I let that idea percolate until I’m able to get myjournal out and write the first draft by hand, which then I’ll transcribe to mycomputer to continue working on it. I make copious lists in my notebook whentrying to work out a poem, but typically after a few drafts on my laptop, itsshape is usually figured out; though, sometimes the shape changes drasticallyif I have an epiphany while I’m paper-quilling and thinking about the poem. Assomeone with an unpredictable body, I invite unpredictability into my poems,too.

Where does a poem usually begin foryou? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a largerproject, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

My poems usually begin at the end. Theending line or feeling is the charm I hold close when I start, even if the originalending changes in revision. Endings make me consider “what needs to come first”before I can reach my desired destination. To answer the next question, I’d sayI’m typically a project girlie—much of what I write is usually connected to anoverarching idea or narrative, so I guess you could say I’m working on a “book”from the beginning. I am a long poem poet, so this tracks.

Are public readings part of or counterto your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I love public readings. While I getintensely nervous and nothing brings out my imposter syndrome more than beingin front of a crowd, the energy of a room really moves me. Once I get my rhythmgoing, I’m good. I adore hearing people’s cheesecake mmms when a poem resonates.Readings are intimate spaces, especially when I meet a writer I’ve never metbefore but get to read with—that is such a rich ground for friendship. I metone of my good friends, Spenser Smith that way when Spenser launched ABrief Relief From Hunger in Regina.

Do you have any theoretical concernsbehind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with yourwork? What do you even think the current questions are?

Oh this is a tough one! Yes, Iabsolutely have theoretical questions behind all the work I do. I’ll letreaders of my book determine the theoretical underpinings of How I Bend IntoMore, but I’ll give insight into some of the theoretical questions I’mworking with in my current projects. I’m working on a few different projectsright now—one is about my family and our experience during/after theYugoslavian Civil War (a.k.a Bosnian War of the 1990s) and this work, so far, isinterested in memory, notably intergenerational trauma and postmemory. Thisproject’s current theoretical concerns explore what memories become stories inthe child’s body from the mother and once I become a mother, what stories willbe passed from me to my child, and all the complexities that live there.Another question I ask is: what traumas are imbedded in my body, in my mother’s,in my father’s, and how do these traumas affect us as we make a life here inSaskatchewan? How did/do we survive under so much pain? My other two projectscenter their questions around friendship and care, particularly queer disabledplatonic friendships. I ask: what happens when spoons are low and our carenetworks aren’t expansive? What are the tensions in these friendships? Whatdoes care look like in a disabled queer context?

Do you find the process of workingwith an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Definitely essential! A well-trainededitor can pick out the places in a manuscript where the poem(s) don’t sing asstrongly as those around them. It’s also especially helpful to be able tobounce ideas off of another person that has thought about your work intimatelyand thoroughly. I also love a good, ruthless cut. Revision is my favourite partof the writing process.

Working with my editor, Jim Johnstone,was magic. He was so attuned to my work that he helped me cut chunks of thelong poem, in turn making the poem tighter, and lifting my voice to thesurface. I couldn’t have done that without him and his keen editorial eye.There’s a richness in the relationship between writer and editor, and often thecollaboration brings out the poetry in a whole new way that only strengthensthe manuscript. It’s all very gratifying work.

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

My favourite writing advice came fromJes Battis, who told me to “write within my own rhythms,” and this transformedthe way I thought about routine and practice. I actually have Jes’ advicewritten on a sticky note plastered to my wall beside my desk. As a disabledperson with an unpredictable body, writing every single day is not possible. Sowhat do I do? I figure out my own rhythms and work within them. I resent theableist notion that to be a writer one must write everyday—that’s simplyuntrue. I think writing within your own rhythms and practicing softness is muchmore beneficial.

How easy has it been for you to movebetween genres (poetry to fiction to visual art)? What do you see as theappeal?

I find it particularly easy becauseI’m constantly thinking in poetry and visual art and their intersections. Mypaper quilling is interconnected to my poetry in many ways (my conceptual work,especially, often explores similar themes to my poetry, so they are oftenworking together to convey the message, as seen in How I Bend Into More).Fiction is harder for me and takes me much longer to finish a piece. I’mintimidated by fiction—and therefore less confident about the stories Iwrite—but the genre excites me, and gives a different kind of space to exploresome themes I’m interested in (like friendship, for example).

What kind of writing routine do youtend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Again, my routine often is reliant onwhat my bodymind is like on any given day. What I try to do is useFriday-Sunday mornings as writing days, however the writing becomes. A Fridaymorning begins with making coffee, going to the couch in my pajamas and havingmy cat lay on my chest as I read a book. Coffee gone cold, I’ll get up and gomake more and sit at my dining table or desk and write in my journal (or get towork on a poem that I’m in the middle of). Other times, after the coffee hasgone cold, I’ll go to my favourite café and have an americano and work therefor a couple hours. On Sundays, I meet with a group of friends to write for anhour in the morning (bodymind allowing) over Zoom. During the week, I work myday job and usually come home exhausted, so no writing gets done in theevenings; however, if I get inspired throughout the day I’ll make a note in myjournal or email myself.

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

I consume stories, whether that be abook, a TV show, or a movie. If I’m particularly moved by something, thatusually sparks me. Sometimes, it’s as simple as I need to do something else, soI’ll go and make paper-quilled shapes to make my brain work itself out.

What fragrance reminds you of home?

That very specific smell that dogguardians will understand of when a dog comes inside after being outside duringa particularly cold day.

David W. McFadden once said that bookscome from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work,whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Oh absolutely. Visual art definitelyinfluences my work, but so does music (I’m always listening to music when Iwrite). Nature impacts me because I feel the most calm when outdoors. I workthrough any of the day’s anxieties when on a walk, a bike ride, or sitting ingrass under the sun. In the spring/summer, I begin each day in my backyard withmy dogs and cat in the morning sun reading poetry. Friendship, as a form, is alsoa huge influence on my work.

What other writers or writings areimportant for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Oh, there are so, so many people thatI admire and whose work was important for this book and beyond. I’ll do my bestto name some whose work really helped inform my book and my understandingsaround poetics, disability, pain, memory, and the bodymind. Among them: RaymondAntrobus, Courtney Bates-Hardy, Roxanna Bennett, Elena Bentley, Victoria Chang, Leanne Charette, Chen Chen, Travis ChiWing Lau, Meg Day, Sarah Ens, Therese Estacion, Laura Ferguson, torrin a.greathouse, Carla Harris, Johanna Hedva, Leah Horlick, Karl Knights, Diana KhoiNguyen, Amanda Leduc, Molly McCully Brown, Arianna Monet, Walela Nehanda,Emilia Nielsen, Dominik Parisien, Nisha Patel, Jason Purcell, Rebecca Salazar,Jennifer Still, Jane Shi, Lauren Turner, Daniel Scott Tysdal, and JillianWeise. There are numerous others that there’s just not enough room for me toname everyone!

What would you like to do that youhaven't yet done?

I’d really love to put together astand-up comedy piece and perform it.

If you could pick any other occupationto attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would haveended up doing had you not been a writer?

I think I’d always be a creativeperson, so I’d probably find myself as a hair stylist or florist, or perhaps, adog groomer.

What made you write, as opposed todoing something else?

A feeling of immense joy followed by asigh of relief. I also really love being playful in my interrogations andwriting allows that. Writing also gives me the excuse to do ample research onrandom topics I’m interested in.

What was the last great book you read?

How to Tell When We Will Die by Johanna Hedva. Everyone should readthis book.

What are you currently working on?

I’m working on two poetry projects: one is about mine and myparents’ experience during/after the Yugoslavian Civil War (partly acontinuation of How I Bend Into More, but more focused on memory,trauma, and relationships), and the other is about disabled queer friendships(essentially love poems to my friends, haha). Then, I’m working on a fictionproject that also explores friendship between disabled queer friends. All ofthese are in pretty early stages.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Tolu Oloruntoba, Unravel

 

RE-CLAIM

I am the city fallinginto the sea.
but there remain acolytesin me,
singing in thecathedrals,
voices sanded withphlegm,
Though he slay me, yet
will I trust him. Theyare wrong
to trust me. If I knowwhy
their world is ending, orwhy
it began; if I know thereason,
or the consequence oftheir lives;
if I know thespin-direction
of their dwindlingcosmos,
I have nottold them.
I have notrevealed myself.

Thethird full-length poetry title by award-winning poet Tolu Oloruntoba, following The Junta of Happenstance (Windsor ON: Palimpsest Press, 2021) and EachOne a Furnace (Toronto ON: McClelland and Stewart, 2022), is Unravel (McClelland and Stewart, 2025). There is a powerful navigation Oloruntoba worksthrough his lyric first-person narratives, offering deeply thoughtfulmeditations on all that might be called location. “Shrill bullets, sheepballet, this hobble:,” he offers, as part of the poem “OF PASSPHRASES STRONGERTHAN 4 WORDS WITH / 1,000 ITERATIONS,” “I still cannot pronounce shibboleth. / Iwanted into the cult of ikigai like nothing // before or since. If I had beenso punished, / then I must have been righteous, and my reward / must havewaited.” These poems attempt placement, attempting to best situate histhinking, and articulate how he sees the chaos and beauty of the world throughhis engagements through, as Reginald Dwayne Betts suggests, as part of his backcover blurb, “the intersections of identity, migration, fatherhood, and history.”These are poems about how best one might move through the world, despite andeven because of all it contains, both without and within. These are poems onperspective: “You’d consider that map / upside-down,” he writes, as part of “MAGICLAND OF THE SHADOWS,” “but only because / you believe Europe belongs on top.”

Oloruntobaoffers deep attention to the smallest moments, small things, which allow for largerrevelation; the only way, perhaps, to get there from here. “I have beentroubling / the shoreline,” he writes, as part of the poem “EKPHRASIS,” “ascryptids do.” There is an informed and steady progress of thought acrossOloruntoba’s lyric, deeply considered and gestural; wise and empathetic, even ashe unravels—as to reveal, and not to pull apart, damage or dismantle—his ownobservations for the sake of further insight. “We / who are at our most humanwhen / we are yearning.” he writes, as part of “DEMONSTRO,” “My Cain-mark, your/ Cain-mark, shows even, especially / in this gropesome dark.”

Therewas, at least to my eyes, a curious way that Oloruntoba appeared, seemingly outof nowhere with a debut collection that quickly landed multiple awardnominations, with a second title even before his first won both the GovernorGeneral’s Award for Poetry and the Griffin Poetry Prize. Impressive, certainly,and this collection holds not only a weight of expectation but manages tosurpass it, setting down new markers across a familiar landscape of lyricthinking, offering a freshness of thought and speech. “to be both flammable and/ inflammable,” he writes, to open the poem “CONTRONYM,” “valuable andinvaluable / is to understand that one can buckle / a thing down so it does notbuckle, / can be a sharp stone under / the ravaging heel of gravity.”

Ongoing notes: late March, 2025 : Neil Surkan, Katherine Alexandra Harvey + Jamie Kitts,

You know that the fifteenth annual edition of VERSeFest:Ottawa’s International Poetry Festival began last night, yes? I know you’vealready purchased tickets for our remaining days. You wouldn’t believe the roster wehave for this one. And the above/ground press Canada Post increase sale is still going on, don’t you forget. Did I mention forthcoming chapbooks by Meredith Quartermain and R. Kolewe, among others? That is prettycool.

Calgary AB/Nanaimo BC: British Columbia poet Neil Surkan’s latest, following the full-length On High (2018) and Unbecoming(2021) [see my review of such here], both from McGill-Queen’s University Press,as well as three prior chapbooks [see my review of one of them here], is thechapbook Die Workbook (Calgary AB: The Blasted Tree, 2024), a shortsequence assembled through self-contained and accumulated fragments. “Like asteaming cup in a shaking room,” the poem begins, “unmoored, your life belongsto chance. / Attend the damage. Our purpose is damage. / Once the earth revealsits restlessness, / the dead can’t protect you. / You mustn’t defend the dead.”The detailed sketch of his lyric is compelling, offering dense lines of lyricthat extends into sentences, combining structures in a way I’d be interested tosee him push further.

Drafting in my little shorts when I got home,” he writes, “my focus turned to adie: I began to experiment with corresponding each trapdoor with the die’s sixsides, with precisely six options, so that a reader might roll a die and find oneof six words filling in a given gap. In turn, they would come up with aparticular poem in a particular moment (a riff, I suppose, on bibliomancy).” Hewrites of endings, of chance, writing a randomization process comparable tosome of the sound work Ottawa poet Grant Wilkins has been doing lately, for example;he writes short bursts that assemble into something larger, more ongoing, onestep after another.

The dead can’t protectyou
once the earth revealsits relentlessness
like a brimming cup in ashaking room.
Sacred, your life belongsto chance –
you mustn’t defend thedead.
Accept the damage. Ourlot is damage.

Toronto ON: Having heard her read a couple of years back through the Ottawa International Writers Festival, I was curious to see a copyof Let Me Evaporate (Toronto ON: Anstruther Press, 2024), the debutchapbook by novelist Katherine Alexandra Harvey, who, according to her bio, “splitsher time between Newfoundland and Montreal,” working to complete a second noveland a full-length poetry debut. Harvey’s poems are first-person observationaland gestural, comparable to monologues one might hear from a stage. “When youthink of me in LA,” she writes, to begin the opening poem, “Hollywood HappenedDifferently For Me,” “think of Hollywood Hills // recovering from that deathflu, my cough rattling across the wrap / around deck, how it was all paintedwhite and I listened [.]” There is a clarity to these poems, these narratives,akin to lyric diary entries, working a narrator-character across a range ofexperiences. “All I really wanted,” she offers, as part of “Your Father’sReputation Never Got You Anywhere,” “was for my father to know his lessons /resonated.” There are times I would like her lines to be a bit tighter,certainly, but I would be interested to see where she might land with a firstfull-length poetry collection; I suspect such an announcement isn’t that faroff.

The Wake

I removed my belly buttonand paid attention to the healing process. No one believed I could feel thehole closing over, that it reminded me of being born. My mother was laid out onthe kitchen table for a week. Formaldehyde high, you never noticed when my skinblackened. I felt undesirable. You called me a perpetual victim. I plucked outmy eyelashes and pencil curled my hair so you wouldn’t see my edges. I watchedthem dig holes for all the women. Your only comment was that dress is tootight for a funeral put something else on for the love of God. My waterysilhouette shadowed the tombstone. I swallowed dirt by the fistful. Found aworm and fed it crabapples for a calendar year. Get off on the cleanup. I pocketedones all over town. I never bought the flowers after all this time.

Fredericton NB: From Ian LeTourneau’s Emergency Flash Mob Press [see their periodicities note on the press here] comes Frederictonpoet and editor (qwerty magazine and Gridlock Lit) Jamie Kitts’ GirlDinner (2024), an assemblage of poems composed as a curious mix of purpose,lyric styles and exploratory shapes. “I’m clay, sand, and limestone, / threeparts,” Kitts writes, to close the poem “I’m at the Global Climate Crisis,” apiece subtitled “after a skeet by Juno Stump,” “three names / Bill andBlaine and Pierre / marked-up Sharpie my square body / the sudden nearestsoonest violence / not the first, never / the last to serve cunt / at the globalclimate crisis.” There’s a swagger through Kitts’ explorations, politically andsocially engaged and self-aware, composing poems attempting different elementsaround the first-person narrative lyric to see what works, what fits, whatplays. There’s a confidence here, and an openness, seeking out what might bepossible. “You over heaven, me in your eyes,” Kitts writes, as part of theplayfully serious “This is not a poem, it’s a meme,” “Girl, I’m sofucking glad we’re not guys / Gender’s fake but we are not / IF SHE BREATHS,SHE’S A THOT [.]”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.

Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. is a poet, translator, critic, andcorporate consultant. Previous collections of poetry include Salient(New Directions, 2020) and Series | India (Four Way Books, 2015). Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season (New Directions, 2022), hertranslations of Iran’s major modern woman poet, Forough Farrokhzad (1937-1962),were a finalist for the 2023 PEN Prize for Poetry in Translation. The GreenSea of Heaven, a 30th Anniversary Edition of her translations of Iran’smajor medieval mystic poet, Hafiz (d. 1389), appeared from Monkfish Publishingin 2024.  She currently serves on theBoards of Kimbilio Fiction, The Beloit Poetry Journal Foundation, Friends ofWriters, and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. She wasa Founder and Managing Partner/CEO of Conflict Management, Inc. and AllianceManagement Partners, LLC, boutique corporate consulting firms. She holds a BAand JD from Harvard University and an MFA from Warren Wilson and lives in NewYork City.

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

My firstpublished book was The Green Sea of Heaven, translations of 50 ghazalsfrom classical Persian, from the Díwán of Hafiz of Shiraz (d. 1389),Iran’s most famous lyric poet. Some had appeared in small literary magazines,and the collection was originally going to be published by the Imperial Academyin Tehran in the mid-70s. The Iranian Revolution happened and I went to lawschool and into business. Twenty long years later White Cloud Press reached outlooking for the manuscript and published it in 1995.

I had noidea, at the time, the effect it would have on my life. I thought I was donewith Hafiz, Persian, and Iran. But Hafiz introduced me to scholars andtranslators of Rumi and other classical Persian poets, and New Directions askedme to translate a selection of poems by Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967), whichwere published as Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season in2022. And I’ve served on the boards of two NGOs documenting human rightsviolations in Iran since the 1979 Revolution. The Green Sea of Heaven, nowwith 80 ghazals, was issued in a 30th Anniversary Edition inDecember 2024.

My firstbook of my own poems, Series | India, a lyric sequence centered onhippie pilgrims to India in the 1970s, came out from Four Way Books in 2015,and formally owes a debt to John Ashbery’s Girls on the Run. Salient,geographically centered in Belgian Flanders in 1917, came out from NewDirections in 2020.

These areboth very different from my most recent book, After the Operation(2025), which grew out of my experience of brain surgery in 2021 to remove abenign tumor. Assembling ATO was an excruciating process: not only did Ihave to revisit drafts I’d written during the months of dread and recovery, butit was a “first person” book. I generally dislike writing in the voice of anidentifiable “I,” but this book demanded to be written, such evasions were “offthe table,” and here we are.

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

I’vealways been a poet, for as long as I can remember. My mother read me nurseryrhymes and poems, and they were magical. I figured a poet was the only thing tobe. When I was six, she made a “Collected Poems” edition out of everything I’dwritten so far. Clearly I was an aspiring formalist.

3 - How long doesit take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initiallycome quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close totheir final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I try towrite daily, I try to resist instant revision and polishing. My unit ofcomposition seems to be the book-length series or sequence, so I go in searchof something, in some direction, not quite sure what will appear. I writelonghand, type up that draft, and put it into a box. When I have 50-60 draftpoems in the box I open it up and see what, in fact, I’ve been writing.

Salient, built from WWI British military field manuals and medieval Tibetantexts on protective magic, required somewhere between 5 and 40 years ofobsession and research, depending on how you count. After the Operationrequired none—just me and my brain tumor and a pen.

4 - Where does apoem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end upcombining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" fromthe very beginning?

Poemsusually begin with a piece of language that seems incandescent, plus somelong-standing interest (or obsession). I often begin writing by mimicking theformal moves of another poet using my own material. For example, Series |India began because I was trying to reverse-engineer Ashbery’s moves in hislate book Girls on the Run. The collaged texts in Salient owesomething to Rosmarie Waldrop’s Curves to the Apple and Rachel BlauDuPlessis’s Drafts.

SometimesI have a sense for a “book,” but what I thought I was going to write is usuallynot what heads to the publisher. I thought Series | India was going tobe about The Boyfriend, it turned out to be about Mothers, and the Hindupantheon, particularly Durga and Shiva.

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

I enjoydoing readings. I learn (and take energy from) the reactions and questions andenthusiasms from fellow-poets and readers. Readings require that one select andconnect poems that will work for listeners. That ordering, and theinter-poem commentary that’s permitted, offers opportunities to open the workto an audience. It forces me to frame or look at the work in a different, andoften new, way. It’s also a constraint, especially for those of us who work inlarger units of composition: a poem that picks up resonance as part of asequence may be less engaging out of context.

6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?

I amalways interested in what can be done with and to language. How at the level oflexicon, syntax, sequence, constellation, can maximum pressure be placed onlanguage in the service of whatever the poem seeks?

I neverthink of my poems as trying to answer anything. They are engaged with seekingand asking. And the question I am always focused on is: How to use languageto express or conjure—directly or in some space created by language—somethingthat cannot be said? A lot of poets are working in that rich vein, bringingto light much which has been (or remains) silenced or unspeakable.

7 – What do you seethe 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?

Song,poetry, and tale-telling have been “brain stem” activities for humans for tensof thousands of years. The (hopeful) idea was that “if we get the words justright, then the gods must do as we ask.” The role of the singer andstory-teller has changed in different contexts and eras, but perhaps thesubject matter hasn’t.

Writerscelebrate, lament, console, spin stories and histories, relay the news, soundalarms—these remain important. In our current moment of algorithms andconcentrated communication channels, the creation and exchange of songs andstories in communities is of vital importance.

8 – Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I havebeen blessed with great editors for both translation and my own poetic work, andthey used a very light touch. Their questions and insights have been a gift tome and to the work.

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

Health. Food.Friend(s). A safe place to live. Everything else is gravy.

10 - How easy hasit been for you to move between genres (poetry to translation)? What do you seeas the appeal?

Curiosityabout poems by Hafiz drew me to learn classical Persian. Translating Persianwas an intense education about English, about poetry, and about writing my ownpoems in English. To bring something into your own language forces you to pushyour assumptions about what your language can and might do. It forces you toconsider innovative syntactical or lexical moves you might never haveconsidered.

Intranslation you push your own language, and it pushes back. For example, inPersian, there are no gendered pronouns and no capital letters. This forces youto make, or evade, difficult choices in your English translation—and these discoveriesenrich your own repertoire.

Translationis also a way to train and exercise your “writing muscles” in a fallow time. It’sthe ultimate close read of an author’s work. It opens a world.

Whilethere is the danger that the voice of the work/author you’re translating canenter and overwhelm your own, I’ve only found that intrusion to be valuable,expanding the range of possibilities in my own work.

I lovemoving back and forth between them.

11 - What kind ofwriting routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does atypical day (for you) begin?

Themorning, early morning: coffee plus an hour or two of quiet time is when I ammost creative, most able to absorb difficult poetry or critical work by others.Revision, corporate work, the administration of daily life, that can all bedone later in the day.

12 - When yourwriting gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a betterword) inspiration?

I readliterary criticism, preferring brilliant readers/critics on complicated ordifficult writers. I find constraints or procedures that may provoke interestingwork—in a fallow time I used pairs of random Tarot cards as a prompt, or linesfrom other poets. I translate, or pore over someone else’s translations fromlanguages I know slightly or well.

13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?

Since mybrain surgery I have no sense of smell. What I miss most is the scent of asouthwest wind coming over the Atlantic in late August, laden with honeysuckleand the promise of fog on the New England coast.

14 – David W.McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other formsthat influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Archaeologicalartifacts and the excavated ground from which they came, the drawings fromthose expeditions. Megaliths, as on Orkney or in central Turkey. Visual art,largely sacred in nature, preferably Tibetan. The music that interests me mostis improvisational music from India or Iran.

15 - What otherwriters or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside ofyour work?

Oh gosh.What a list that would be after 50+ years of reading and writing. I truly don’tknow where to begin. It’s possible that the writer who most recently (ten yearsago) blew apart my assumptions about what writing can do is W. G. Sebald,especially Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn. Poets RosmarieWaldrop, Rachael Blau DuPlessis, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Nathaniel Mackey, ReneeGladman, have also been important recently. Heimrad Bäcker, Eugene Ostashevsky,Donna Stonecipher, Uljana Wolf. Critics DuPlessis, Norman Finkelstein, PeterO’Leary, Joseph Donahue.

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

There’snothing left on my bucket list. Somehow my ferocious self got all those boxesgot checked… I feel pretty blessed.

17 - If you couldpick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, whatdo you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I lovethe law, I love negotiation and complex decision-making. I loved being anentrepreneur and corporate consultant. I still work with individuals and theirorganizations to develop and implement strategy, to help them reorganizethemselves or their operations, or to manage a collaboration with anotherorganization.

18 – What made youwrite, as opposed to doing something else?

Writingpoetry was the most important thing, I had to do it, regardless of talent orproduct. It was a spiritual practice. Of course, I needed a day job…

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

I justfinished the first two books of Danish author Solvej Balle’s On theCalculation of Volume, in which the speaker finds herself trapped in an daythat endlessly repeats—but that doesn’t begin to explain the book, or why I’mcompletely drawn into it. If I could explain, I would.

20 - What are youcurrently working on?
I am picking up the various threads (sequences/series)of poems I was working on in 2020, before the decision to have brain surgery.Once that decision was made, the poems in After the Operation appearedand shoved all of this late 2010s work aside. Neolithic archaeology,divination, and the loss of an imaginary beloved who in fact never existed. Ihave no idea what will come of it all.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

VERSeFest begins tomorrow! & interviews w Dial, Avasilichioaei, Weaver, Hiemstra, Paige, Hall + Whittall,

We already know you're excited about the fifteenth anniversary edition of VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival, which begins tomorrow night at Club SAW . Eileen Myles! Zoe Whittall! Kimberly Quiogue Andrews! Rebecca Kempe! King Kimbit! Chelene Knight! Pamela Mosher! Terese Mason Pierre! Bridget Huh! Sara Berkeley! Stephanie Roberts! etc etc etc. As part of such, we've been working a series of pre-festival interviews with an array of performers for this year's event, all posted online at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics (with a whole slew posted last fall and last spring as well, as part of prior festivals; scroll back here to catch them all).

rob mclennan : 2025 VERSeFest interviews: Em Dial ; nina jane drystek : 2025 VERSeFest interviews: Oana Avasilichioaei ; rob mclennan : 2025 VERSeFest interviews: Andy Weaver ; Amanda Earl : 2025 VERSeFest interviews: Jessica Hiemstra ; Jen Jakob : 2025 VERSeFest interviews: Salem Paige ; rob mclennan : Doubt is Form : 2025 VERSeFest interviews: Phil Hall ; Amanda Earl : 2025 VERSeFest interviews: Zoe Whittall ;

and tickets are still available! and there are even some free events, including Friday noon, when Eileen Myles reads at Carleton University, or Saturday's reading at The Manx Pub! donations welcome, also.

Jake Byrne, Daddy: Poems

 

But I do try. I try sohard.
That’s why I bus to seemy therapist mid-winter.
I am seeking hisassistance with a complex project. (“PARALLEL VOLUMES”)

Itis good to finally see a copy of Toronto poet and editor Jake Byrne’s second collection, Daddy: Poems (Kingson ON: Brick Books, 2024), following their full-lengthdebut, Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin (Hamilton ON: Wolsak andWynn, 2023) [see my review of such here]. Across a loop and reloop of articulated,traced and repuporsed trauma, Byrne’s poems offer a curious blend of sexualswagger, explorations through and into “patriarchy, intergenerational trauma,and queer desire” (as the back cover offers), and a degree of tenderness, includingthe very fact of the author dedicating the collection “to the memory of alittle cat / named My Sweet Princess (2018-2023).” The poems assembled here areexpansive, allowing for this large project built out of intricately-craftedsmall parts, opening with a poem of short lines held aloft by such wide openspace. “My father calls to talk about my poems,” Byrne writes, offering afour-line stanza at the top of an otherwise empty page, “and seamlesslyincorporates my words into his paranoid delusions. / He says I ought to be morecareful what I write, implies the poems / come from a demon birthing itselfthrough the vessel of my body.” This is Byrne in a further step of movingbeyond composing poems to composing books, something already evident in the umbrellaof Celebrate Pride with Lockheed Martin, a structure that encompassedthe entirety of the poems in that collection, but Daddy: Poems providesa more overt and more coherent book-length structure; and the coherence isfurther impressive through the assemblage of a variety of lyric shapes andpurposes. “My parents taught me many things the hard way.” the poem “A POEMABOUT MY PET CANARY II” offers, “But I cannot for the life of me recall / whatthe moral of this lesson was. // Do poems require moral lessons?”

Daddy: Poems is constructed in two roughly-equal halves—thetitle section, and “gnostic iambic pre-exposure jockstrap jukebox prophylaxis”—eachof which offers poems that accumulate in swirls and sweeps, emotional gesturesset with a precision that holds what otherwise might flail. There might beexcess and messiness, but Byrne’s lyrics explore with such deep and empatheticclarity.

A baby is born betweenshadow and crevice

The baby cries out forthe touch of a hand

The hand delivers thesting of authority

A man doles out; a boy receives

 

 

 

Splitting between blackand white

I have not resolved myDADDY issues

I bring them to my bed tosleep with

Not terribly uncommon, isit (“II OF RODS”)

There’sa vibrancy to Byrne’s lyric, whatever the subject matter; an energy that can’t bedenied, making for a powerful collection on trauma, desire and how one might moveforward, even through the flailing, a flailing that might hopefully find itsway toward something more stable, certain. “sometimes you know / by the crackleof static in the air,” begins the poem “event coordinator moving into / projectmanagement,” “the vibrations in the puddles / on the sopping sauna floor. / ihad so rarely felt the virtues of a / tall white man before marco.”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jessica Sequeira

Jessica Sequeira’s books of poetry, novels, and essays include Taal (Pamenar Press, 2024; Pez Espiral 2024), Chacal Dorado / Golden Jackal,tr Diego Alegría (Buenos Aires Poetry, 2022), A Luminous History of the Palm (Sublunary Editions, 2020), Other Paradises: Poetic Approaches to Thinkingin a Technological Age, tr Felipe Orellana (Zero, 2018), Otros paraísos (Editorial Aparte, 2020), A Furious Oyster (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2018),and Rhombus and Oval (What Books, 2017). She has translated more thanthirty books by Latin American authors, including Augusto Monterroso, DanielGuebel and Winétt de Rokha. She holds a PhD in Latin American Studies from theUniversity of Cambridge and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at theCenter for Asian Studies / Institute of History of the Pontifical CatholicUniversity of Chile, studying the influence of India and China on Chileanpoetry and music. She also is a member of the band Lux Violeta.

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

I wrote my first book (Rhombus and Oval) inBuenos Aires, under the influence of a certain poetic mixture of narrative, non-fictionand fantastical literature. It is a very Latin American book that happens to bewritten in English. It "changed my life" in the sense that myidentity was already that of a writer, specifically a poet, because I'dpublished things in magazines, and was an editor and translator of books, and aboveall, was an obsessive reader (which can make you believe you are the writer of everythingyou read). But now I had a book to my name. I'm very fond of it but not overlyattached. Many people I knew in Argentina thought about the "work"more than specific books, and I think that I always have, too. A book reflectsa certain moment in time, and if you keep writing books, you will have a work.There's no need to become anguished over creating a great monumentalworldchanging text as some people do, thus blocking themselves from creating.Probably most masterpieces are created by accident, in the sense of emergingfrom intentional artistic decisions at a moment that could not have beenanticipated.

I've never cared too much about genre divisions,and love writing that moves freely between poetry and essay, incorporatingvisual elements and music. I'm now making songs with poetic lyrics,experimenting with conceptual art, playing with rhythm . . . My most recentbook Taal is explicitly musical. "Taal" refers to the rhythmiccycle in Indian music. But it also refers to Gabriela Mistral's book Tala,which plays on the Spanish meaning of the word talar, to cut down atree, and furthermore is a nod to the Chilean poet's interest in India.

The difference between the first book and now? I'man older person, with more experiences, happy and otherwise. And I'm in Chile,and don't think of leaving—I consider myself to be a Chilean-Indian diaspora-noneoftheabovepoet, in deep engagement with local sounds, speech patterns, folklorictraditions and history.

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

Poetry is at the heart of everything for me, as aform of personal expression and a way of speaking with communities of poetic existencepast and present. An anthology called A Book of Luminous Things, editedby Czeslaw Milosz, was formative for me, along witha bilingual edition of Enrique Lihn's La pieza oscura, Jean-PaulSartre's Les mots, the novellas of Clarice Lispector, and many otherbooks, but also the poetic lyrics of countless singer-songwriters. Quite early on,I discovered both poetry and translation, and the playful possibilities ofwords in relation to emotion, which remain vital. For me, fiction andnon-fiction emerge from the same profoundly lyrical impulse—of course poetrydoesn't have to be lyrical, but what I write tends to be.

3 - How long does ittake to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I usually start from an idea, sometimes narrative, othertimes imagistic or musical. Concepts like a palm tree, or a passage of music, orthe idea of dignity, go about developing secondary, tertiary, polyphonicassociations. The initial thought comes quickly and develops at the back of themind, assembling through notes over months. Which isn't to say that I'm alwayswriting. But even at times of pure being or experimentation, there are ideasthat can relax, unfold, develop. I like the moments when speculation pushes theboundaries of reason.

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

I've worked both ways. As I said, usually I start froman idea, which can be quite broad, with what emerges along the way a surprise. If I gather miscellaneous texts, I try to give thema meaningful sedimentation and narrative flow. Since I write a lot of bookreviews and criticism, if I want to turn those into a book, by nature it willbe a poetic exercise to give these eclectic texts a unifying label. Usuallyit's the other way around.

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

Yes, I really love public readings and performances!Of poetry and music. There's a theatrical element to it all that is soenjoyable. I'm fascinated by the possibilities of the "performingarts", and the ways that the same text or song can take on differentmeanings and textures in different places and contexts. I've written pieces inresponse to a "pie forzado", or prompt. The opposite case has alsobeen true; I've found new ways of understanding existing texts by reading orsinging or playing them in front of others.

In the past few years, I have turned more towardmusic—I am part of a trio that composes songs on the basis of poems, most ofthem from Latin America and Asia—and am more attentive to this element. ButI've always been attracted to the composition of written works for contexts Iwouldn't have thought of myself, and to performance poetry. Relatedly, I alsoreally love to collaborate.

6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?

The world is full of violence, suffering and a lackof compassion. I don't have an easy answer about what poetry should be or do,or what the current questions are. Poetry is perhaps a special kind of attentionthat takes the time to lovingly explore aspects of life and culture that escapethe daily news cycle, and a means of connecting with other human beingsdifferent from oneself, with shared concerns.

For myself, the act of writing, language as a verb,helps me to form thoughts and express emotions that I wouldn't have otherwise,not necessarily about my own life. Paradoxically, I often best understandmyself by reading, writing or imagining myself as other selves—getting out ofthis limited skin. I also enjoy reading others' work to enter into other formsof knowing and feeling, other social worlds. All this is a necessity, somethingintegral to my existence. Acts of imagination and associations happen in poeticwriting in very specific ways, using parts of the brain that would nototherwise be activated.

Of course, writing often has preoccupations thatconnect to worlds beyond the text. I am interested in the power of art tochange emotions, the influence of historical colonial processes, and the ways thatcertain ideas like "dignity" change and transform across contexts. I alsoenjoy the work of many writers with more specific projects, like Jacinta Kerketta, who shows the inner lives of the Advasi community in Jharkand whereshe grew up, and the resource extractions inflicted upon this community in thename of progress. The journey, the anecdotes, the pleasure in language, and theconnection between inner self and outer landscape remain at the centre of thework. Journalistic writing can often present a good complement to poetry as aspace to present more urgent and linear arguments.

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

I think making any kind of art is a vulnerableprocess where you are showing deep parts of yourself to others, even if youaren't talking directly about your own experiences. I don't have any grandclaims about the moral power of writing to improve the world, and theexperience of making and experiencing art often happens in solitude. But inpoetry communities and art communities more generally, I've found so manylovely creative people and friendships that I really treasure, which give me asense of hope and joy. Humor, playfulness and just letting your hair down areso important. Creating feeling doesn't have to mean writing saccharine things,but making work that conveys a depth of thought and emotion, entrusting it toothers in spaces where creativity and meaningful conversation exist, and inturn receiving others' creations and giving them time.

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

I love working with editors who offer sensitive,thoughtful suggestions. Of course there are butchers out there, and people wholimit themselves to copyediting. Those with advice for good structural editsare rare and precious.

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

"Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the samething as prayer", the Simone Weil quote, often comes into my mind. Theidea seems related to fanaa, the Sufi idea of self-annihilation. Whenthings don't work for some reason, it tends to be an issue of dispersion ordistraction, a lack of care for something or someone. True attention canrequire consciously putting other things aside to achieve a certain level ofdedication, permitting oneself to be absorbed in what is not the self.

10 - How easy has itbeen for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to translation tonon-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

Oh, I think it's easy to move between styles. Life,experience and thought work like that—sometimes they exist more in sounds, othertimes in images or words. Art perhaps accompanies these emotional and cognitiveprocesses, and to mix styles is an appealing way of conveying different modesof understanding.

11 - What kind ofwriting routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does atypical day (for you) begin?

I don't have a routine. I'm always writing, in thesense of taking notes and developing ideas, whether that be at 2pm or 2am.Which also means that I'm also always not-writing. There is no fixed hour to dothis or that, even if every day I make something. Academic funding andfreelance translation work have given me the opportunity for unbroken blocks ofsolitude, for which I am very grateful, and the ability to absorb myself deeplyin whatever project I am working on.

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

Inspiration comes from everywhere. I don't believein that idea of the blank page, because if you are reading, studying, talkingto people, and playing with other forms of art the possibilities are endless. Iespecially love talking with creative friends who are excited about their owndiscoveries and ideas, and transmit that enthusiasm. Collaborative work is alsoexciting because ideas emerge that couldn't have come from a person on theirown.

13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?

The pungent coconut oil my aunt (father's sister) usedin her hair has a very particular set of associations for me. Now in Chile,which has been home for over a decade, I have to mention merkén and the scentof blooming jasmines in summer, and the smell of the excellent Negronisprepared by my local barman.

14 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I think the obvious answer is music. Especially vocalmusic by poets of the world's folkloric and rock songwriting traditions, and instrumentalmusic from South Asia and Latin America, along with jazz.

15 - What otherwriters or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside ofyour work?

In Santiago, Chile there is a very strong communityof writers, musicians and artists, in which I form part and which alwaysinspires me to keep working and collaborating with others. This is just asimportant to me as the books I read. I truly believe in the importance of theliving tradition, of keeping poetry alive through current interpretation andconversation.

The internet has been important in discovering thework of writers from other places. Nowadays social media is more politicallyfraught and I've stopped participating so much on twitter and other platforms.I hope there is a way for a dynamic of kindness and curiosity about otherpeople's work to continue to exist internationally, as it does in the citywhere I live.

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

I would like to write a kind of inverted biographyof Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan), the Portuguese explorer, not talkingabout him directly but rather about the places he visited, and the communitiesthat received the influence of Portuguese influence in India and South America.He would be a kind of ghost inside the book with the focus turned to the soundsand stories of other less famous people.

I also want to record an album of songs with my ownpoetic lyrics—until now I have worked with lyrics by other poets such asGabriela Mistral, Stella Díaz Varín and Pedro Lemebel. It is such a pleasure tofind the music in the poetry of others, a pleasure very much analogous for meto the pleasures of literary translation. But I'd like to try out my own poemstoo and see what happens.

Also, I want to continue publishing more books ofpoems and novels, and improving my abilities as a tabla player and singer. Thepoem is, for me, always a "canto".

17 - If you could pickany other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Like many of us, I already do practice otheroccupations. My day jobs are postdoctoral researcher at a university, andliterary translator. I also make music. To answer your question—and maybe itwill happen—I can imagine myself plunging into the musical life more completely.Writing, but with the rhythms and textures of music. Violeta Parra, Akiko Yano,Flora Purim, Elizabeth Fraser, Jeff Buckley, Victor Jara, Mercedes Sosa, LataMangeshkar, Joni Mitchell and so many others are people I admire very much. Andtheir lyrics are poetry. Instrumental music can also speak. I think of peoplelike Anoushka Shankar and Keith Jarrett, or above all, the truly great tablaplayer maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain.

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

As I said, I do other things too. I will say thatwriting has tended to be the most complete way to give my thoughts and feelingsexpression. To create a poetic narrative, and really work on the precision oflanguage and structure, helps make sense of so many things, even if thematerial isn't autobiographical. This is perhaps because I was trained in averbal and analytical tradition, and lack the tools still to express myself ascompletely in other arts.

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

The word "great" rears up like a specterbefore me. I'll tell you two things I just read and watched, both of which Irecommend. The last book was Manto azul, poems by Verónica Zondek based onthe history of the Valdivian gold mine Madre de Dios, told from several voices.The last film was a short documentary by Indranil Chakravarty of the Konkani-language writer Damodar Mauzo, which is on YouTube.

20 - What are youcurrently working on?

I am working on several things. One is a book forBloomsbury on the basis of my doctoral thesis, about the influence of India on nineLatin American writers. Also, I am finishing up a few books of poetry,including a set of poems that dance around the history of Chinese slave labourin the north of Chile and Perú, and another set of poems texts written inresponse to music. Some interesting translations are in the works— you'll seeanother Argentine novel soon . . .  Andmy group Lux Violeta is working on a new album of music. I could keep going, butnow I have to get to work on all this! Thank you for the questions, rob.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

On Kendra Sullivan’s Reps

My review of New York poet and academic Kendra Sullivan’s latest, Reps (Brooklyn NY: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2024), is now online at Seneca Review.

Anna Veprinska, Bonememory

 

I rode an escalator intoa Kyiv
metro station just beforeemigration
in the summer of 1993. Iremember
because it was my firstescalator,
my first metro station.Now,
on the news, I watchUkrainians huddle
in the metro station,birth children
from the privacy of thewomb
into war’s pubic, hairyarms. Every year
since turning fifteen, Ihave longed
to return to Ukraine, ifonly
to lay stones on thegraves
of my grandparents. WhatUkraine
will be left for me, orfor those
who still call it home?
Who, now, will witness
my grandparents’ graves?(“Vignettes for Ukraine”)

Thefull-length poetry debut by Calgary-based poet and academic Anna Veprinska is Bonememory (Calgary AB: University of Calgary Press, 2025), a collection of firstperson lyric observations dealing with conflict, heartbreak and intimate loss. Asthe back cover of the collection writes: “Memory is stored in the body. Memorysprouts in families and is transmitted from one generation to the next. Memoryimprints at the level of bone.” This is a book of questions, and prayer,composed as poems with clear, sharp edges that write of generations, distanceand the body, working through losses deeply felt, including that around immigration,colonialism, chronic illness and other upheavals. “Gravesite / suggeststhe dead are a site to behold,” she writes, as part of the poem “A goose layseggs on the side of a highway,” “and aren’t they?” Further on, the poem“Testimony” offers: “Somewhere / there is a mouth generous // with opening. /Each lip stirs // in service of its own / secrets.”

Referencingthe discovery of unmarked graves on multiple sites across Canada of formerresidential schools in the poem “Shoes,” she offers: “How much of this countryis an unmarked grave?” She ties these recently-held memorials and acknowledgmentsto similar memorials at the Auschwitz museum, writing: “What comes from the reificationof metaphor?” She writes of pain, and the bewilderment of patterns, repeating, allof which is held in the body. “Empathy,” the same poem concludes, “the lie withwhom wee sit making small talk / until decorum dictates we can depart. / 215Indigenous children. Makeshift memorials / of children’s shoes coast to coast./ How much of this country is an unmarked grave?”