Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 25

Katie Ebbitt, Fecund

 

To start
here is
invisible

changeable
borders

a threshold

the vessel
the stomach

see what you
come out of
came out with

now bloodied
by consummation(“HYSTERICAL PREGNANCY”)

I’dbeen looking forward to Manhattan poet Katie Ebbitt’s full-length debut for sometime, her Fecund (New York NY: Keith LLC, 2024), a collection made up ofa pair of long poems—“HYSTERICAL PREGNANCY” (which previously appeared as a chapbook through above/ground press) and “FECUND”—two sequences that showcaseher ability to stretch a long thought, a long line. The poem opens, begins andfurther opens, writing of birthing, absence, physiological change, birth’sparadoxes, female agency and reproductive choice. “I opened / a cabinet / tofind / a rotting / bird,” she writes, early on in the opening sequence, “I lied/ about / the sympathetic // I couldn’t / take back / time [.]” “Fecund’sthematic resonance grapples with autonomy and positioning itself in space andtime,” Ebbitt offers, as part of an interview last fall at Hobart, conductedby Nadia Prupis, “and maybe the fascia of the book is trying to positiononeself in time and feeling unable to do so, and how time relates to biology orhow biology can steal time away, or gift time.” The two pieces side-by-sideexist as a pairing, a duo, almost as counterpoint. “we want / the body / even /if it’s just / dead skin,” she writes, in the third numbered section of thetitle poem (a poem that works all the way up to forty), “we look at / all thelittle / fetuses // we say / that having / a child / is to take / your heartout // to put that / heart inside / someone / else’s body [.]” Her poem, herpairing, is set in the body, the heart. With remarkable pacing, steady, slowand unbroken, the poem is set in agency, a long, articulated lyric thread thatsits at the heart of that very moment, that choice and that becoming, being. Thisis a remarkable, and remarkably complex, debut, one that needs to be read repeatedly,and in good time. In the same interview, as Ebbitt continues, further on:

This book began really inresponse to Brett Kavanaugh being placed onto the Supreme Court. I’ve alwaysbeen really interested in reproductive rights and access to abortion, and I’m ahealthcare worker myself. When this project started, I was in a school-basedhealth center working in their mental health department, but it waspredominantly focusing on teen sexual health and access to various resources,and one of those resources was abortion services. And I’ve been following theway in which abortion rights have been stripped away. And with BrettKavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, it seemed like this concertedpolitical campaign from the Right was taking hold in a way where there would bethe potentiality of Roe V. Wade being reversed. The first poem writtenfor this project, which actually isn’t even included in this book, was thisprayer of fecundity I was writing as I was reading the news and feeling reallydisembodied and fearful.

It’s a strange thing whenyou are fearing for your body because of an external force. You’recontemplating the possibility of needing care that you will not have thepotential to access and ways in which the state strips away such basicautonomy. So the book started thinking about that. At first, it was all kind ofprayers directed at potentiality and fecundity and choice, and reflecting onwhat choice means and kind of the limitations of choice and the things wedecide for ourselves versus the things that we don’t.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kathleen Lippa

Kathleen Lippa is a Canadian journalist, born in Toronto and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Kathleen trained as a professional dancer at The Quinte Ballet School and The School of the Toronto Dance Theatre before embarking on a journalism career.

At Memorial University, from which she graduated with a BA (English) in 1998, she worked on the student newspaper, the muse. Following graduation, she worked at a number of Canadian newspapers including The Express (St. John’s) where she won a Canadian Community Newspaper Association award for arts reporting, The Hanover Post (Ontario), a number of newspapers under the corporate umbrella of the Northern News Services, 24 Hours (Toronto), and the Calgary Sun.

For Northern News Services, after a short stint in Yellowknife, Kathleen served as Bureau Chief in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

Her experience includes writing, editing, page layout and design, and photography. Her Northern experience was in a cross-cultural setting primarily reporting news from Inuit communities.

After spending many years in Iqaluit, Kathleen now lives with her husband in Ottawa and St. John’s.

1 - How did your first book change your life?
Arctic Predator (AP) is my first book, and it changed my life considerably, first and foremost by making me an author - not just a newspaper journalist writing “the Ed Horne story.” The writing was very different than newspaper writing. It took time. There were dozens of very difficult interviews with victims of childhood sexual abuse. I had never taken on such a major story before. And when Ed Horne agreed to be interviewed, I knew my life had really changed. I had never interviewed such a devious criminal before. I had to be stronger. My writing had to be clearer and bolder than it had ever been. And I’ve had to give interviews to journalists - something I’m not used to at all, I’m serious! - about AP. So yes, my world changed with Arctic Predator.
 
2 - How did you come to journalism first, as opposed to, say, fiction or poetry?
I was always much more interested in writing non-fiction as opposed to fiction or poetry. I read widely and secretively as a child, because the books I liked were mostly adult, non-fiction books – the ones I’d get from my family’s bookshelves in my home which were, much to my parent’s credit, at child-eye level, close to the floor. My mom had a particularly good collection of books on the Kennedy presidency, his assassination, and I was absolutely drawn to those at a young age. She also had books like Go Boy! by Roger Caron and books by humourist Erma Bombeck, and the fabulous The Tomb of Tutankhamen by Howard Carter and Arthur Cruttender Mace. I was in heaven with those. As soon as I could start working for a newspaper I did because I wanted to be close to non-fiction stories every day. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love fiction and poetry. I studied great works when I did my English degree at Memorial University. But my heart is in reading and writing non-fiction work.
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
Normally I write quickly then go back and edit a lot. I am not so afraid to “kill my darlings” or that sort of phrase I hear fiction writers use sometimes. I write in notebooks with a pen. I use yellow legal pads too to get out big ideas and write long passages that may or may not make it into a book. I record many interviews as well, and then painstakingly transcribe them. Then everything goes into WORD on my computer. Shaping and re-writing and editing – that all took years for Arctic Predator. When I was a newspaper journalist I could write stories quickly and I was good at it, I believe. For this book, I had collected information from many different sources over the course of several years. Then I had to hear the story in my head and then write it. The final version of Arctic Predator took four years of solid work before I was ready to send it to a publisher. And I’d first started thinking about the story 20 years ago.
 
4 - Where does a project usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
With Arctic Predator I was working on a book, and only a book, from the beginning. People would say “You should do a podcast! People love True Crime podcasts!” I was like, No. AP is going to come out as a book first. That was my focus.
 
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I’m not sure I enjoy doing readings. But I will do readings if I am asked to. This story, Arctic Predator, is true crime, so it’s not easy to read aloud. It’s emotional. It can be very upsetting for people to hear a reading from this book.
 
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I had one big question that guided me for 20 years : WHAT HAPPENED? In the case of Arctic Predator, it took a long time to answer that question. And it took a long time to answer simple questions, like, WHO HIRED ED HORNE? WHERE DID HE WORK IN THE NORTH, and WHEN? HOW DID HE GET CAUGHT? IS HE STILL ALIVE? These questions are just some examples of simple things that took me years to sort out and get AP to a place where I felt OKAY, I have a book here that is of interest to the Canadian public.
 
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
A writer digs inside of themselves, knows what they can do, has a real feel for that, and then gets it onto the page somehow. That’s my view of a real writer.
 
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I love working with an editor. I guess it would be terrible if your editor didn’t have a feel for you and your work and its value. I had editors on AP that got me: They were very astute, very hard working, and really believed that AP should get out into the world. I am very thankful for them.
 
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Don’t let the bastards get you down! I saw this written across the Whitehorse Star’s building in Whitehorse, Yukon, and thought YES. Thank you!
 
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
The earlier in the morning the better. When I wrote AP I was up at 4 a.m. every morning writing the book until I had the bulk of it done. I left the last chapter until the bitter end and agonized over every word. I mean, I agonize over every word anyways, but for AP the last chapter was tough to write.
 
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I’ll pick up Joan Didion’s The White Album and read some of that. Or George Orwell’s essays. These people just strike a match for me and my writing. Then I’ll do some stretches (I have a yoga mat stretched out on the floor in my home office) and drink some green tea and go back to work.
 
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Lavender and pine.
 
13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I agree with McFadden. I also listen to a lot of classical music when I’m deep into writing – Mozart, and big Hollywood movie score-like stuff. And the Icelandic group Sigur Ros.
 
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I’ll get into the authors of a place I’m in – like if I’m in Newfoundland for a longer stretch than usual, I’ll make sure to refresh my knowledge of Newfoundland writers and what’s going on, like – read some Lisa Moore I haven’t read, some more Michael Crummey, some more Wayne Johnston.
 
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Travel to Japan and soak in the hot springs there and explore their amazing cuisine.
 
16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I could have been a dance choreographer. That would have been fun I think. But the writing completely took over my life, and I’m fine with that.
 
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Well, the writing always won out because I’d do it whether I was getting paid or not. If you do something no matter what; if you do something all the time that’s actually really hard and painful at times, and no one is watching and patting you on the back, and there is no guarantee of money? You know that’s real. That’s love! That’s what you’re about. Arctic Predator, the book, reveals the real me out in the world, doing my thing.
 
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great book I read was Childhood, Youth and Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen. The last great film was Conclave .
 
19 - What are you currently working on?
Writing Arctic Predator was very emotionally draining for me, so I’m taking a break from all writing projects at the moment, and focusing on my health by taking pilates and yoga classes.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Monroe Lawrence, About to Be Young

 

A wish to die, forever
          like Orpheus

Flaking the truth of my
young mouth.

What are the things I—

Nothing, not
family or romanticfriends, only

The golden hold of poetry

Golden like a fad
of caring. A bowl ofpottery.

I’mvery taken with this full-length debut, this book length poem, by Vancouver Island-born Rhode Island-based poet Monroe Lawrence, About to Be Young (The Elephants, 2021), a book that only recently landed on my doorstep. Goingback through my files, it is curious to realize that I’ve mentioned Lawrenceonce before, as one of the winners of The Capilano Review’s sixth annualRobin Blaser Poetry Award [see my note on such here], although there doesn’t seemto be an acknowledgments of poems published elsewhere in the collection, so I’munable to tell if that winning poem included here. About to Be Young iscomposed as a small, compact, fragmented and expansive book-length poem, set asmore accumulation than narrative, offering a fresh way of approach both thelyric and the line through which the long poem is held. “Please, I felt broken/ away, / Resisting to write out / in the other room,” they write, a third ofthe way through the collection, “I could / held my book at my side, leaned /Back / and cried [.]” There’s something of the larger structure, the syntax, ofthis book-length lyric that leans closer to the French long poem tradition;American poet and translator Cole Swensen is thanked in the acknowledgments,which makes me suspect that the influence on Lawrence is a conscious one. Thelyric of About to Be Young seems far closer to the work of Emmanuel Hocquard than to, say, the work of Robin Blaser, Robert Kroetsch or Jack Spicer. “I cannot fit         inexpressiveness / Snowing my mouth,” Lawrence writes, offering momentupon moment of sparkling grace. There’s a blend of abstract, large canvas andlyric declaration he offers through these poems, one more focused on tone andaccumulation than straightforward thought. Each moment, stands; andaccumulates, into the sum of something greater, other. Or, as one page offers,singularly:

            the curled elegance        of a receipt

Thecollection sets itself in a frame of experience, of listening, of seeing, andbeing seen; the poem frames itself through familial love, including a repeatedfragment used to close the collection, set after the acknowledgments, theauthor biography:

Oh I love my mom
And dad so much uponwaking:
& my best friend Lee       upon waking

 

David Phillips (1944-February 10, 2025)

Sadto hear through Vancouver artist Pierre Coupey that BC poet David Phillips, whoturned eighty years old last August, died on February 10 in Sechelt, after abrief stay in hospital. Born in 1944, the same year as his pal Barry McKinnon [see my obituary for McKinnon here], hisselected poems, The Kiss: Poems 1972-77 (Toronto ON: Coach House Press,1979), “seen through the press by bpNichol” (most early photos of Toronto poet bpNicholwere taken by Andy Phillips, David’s brother), was his only full-length collection,although it followed a flurry of chapbooks and pamphlets, including those publishedthrough Talonbooks and McKinnon’s Caledonia Writing Series. Phillips’ other titlesinclude The Dream Outside (Coach House Press, 1967), Wave (TalonBooks, 1970), The Coherence (Talon Books, 1971-1972), The Book ofSnow Poems (54 40 Press, 1972) and Wild Roses (Preston John, 1976).With Hope Anderson, he edited the anthology The Body (Tatlow House,1979). His poems appeared in The Capilano Review, Iron, Ant’sFore Foot as well as the chapbooks, WAKE ME WHEN TH DANCING STARTS(Caledonia Writing Series, 1978) and Wild Roses (Preston John, 1977).

David Phillips and bpNichol : photo provided by Maggie Guzzi
Onmy overflowing shelves, Phillips’ Talonbooks titles are so early they werestapled, most likely done by the cast iron Talonbooks stapler that rests in ourbasement. “what is this / writing / written toward, attempting.” he wrote, toopen the poem “fragments: the broken passage.” Further on, “hand on my wrist,soft voice / in my ear / guiding this to a completion / an ending / only youknow/ the way of, / out of // there is no way / out of it // i could simply getup / & walk away [.]” He wrote poems that questioned the poems and thewriting of poems, offering his own self-aware step after step through theprocess. Through my years of reading tours and scouring used bookstores, I mostlikely picked up my copy of The Kiss through Janet Inksetter’s Annex Books,back when she had her storefront on Toronto’s Bathurst Street, just south of Dupont.Her familiar handwriting, the pencil-mark of price and publisher notation, onthat first page. For years, she was my best source for early Coach Housetitles, as well as lively conversation. I looked forward to our visits.

Thereis such an immediacy to Phillips’ poems; poems aware of themselves as poems andheld to a high standard of placement, breath, even through such casual tempo. “teachme / what i know // i have / forgotten,” he writes, to open the poem “theteaching,” dedicated “for bp,” the first poem in his collection thecoherence (1971), “forgiven myself / so many times // the trying / is harder// the forgiveness / less than [.]” Oh, his pacing, his pacing. I attempted astretch of my thirties to echo his timbre, his tone, with only minimal success.There is something of Philips’ pacing that really struck, and one comparable towhat David Bromige was working during the same era [see my review of his posthumous selected/collected poems here], such as his Birds of theWest (Coach House, 1973), another title I know I picked up from Inksetter’sshelves. Across my early thirties, attempting poems, The Kiss became oneof my touchstones, heightened through conversation with McKinnon and others onhis work. Phillips’ piece “Poem For Barry McKinnon,” for example, responded toMcKinnon’s infamous I Wanted to Say Something (1976), a prairie longpoem that sent ripples across Canadian writing, despite its lack of wideravailability. As it begins:

‘i wanted to saysomething’ the
right thing

then you would talk to me

beyond this self
seeking,       just then

i was trying to talk toyou
& don’t have to
know why

i know it makes you
some one else
in this

Poet and editor Al Purdy included Phillips in the first of his infamous Storm Warninganthologies in 1971, eight years prior to the appearance of that Coach Houseselected. The anthology, one held as an assemblage of the next generation ofCanadian poets, includes a photograph of Phillips as a young man in workgloves, winter coat and toque, sitting on a step smoking a cigarette, staringstraight at the camera. Most of the author photographs included offer thecontributors as serious young people, young poets, but Phillips’ adds thatextra layer of no nonsense, and a sense of work that includes both literary artand physical labour, a consideration shared by a couple of the contributors—KenBelford, Patrick Lane, Sid Marty, Andrew Suknaski, Tom Wayman—as well as theeditor himself. Phillips’ bio writes: “Born 1944, Vancouver, B.C. Four years atU.B.C. Has lived in bush cabin in northern Ont., and worked in apple and cherryorchards. Now in North Van.” His short statement on poetics, included as partof the anthology, reads:

Perhaps writing is likerunning down or up a hill; an activity. i also agree communication is involved.i like the idea of the poem being a means of transport – as if it is, at thesame moment, the telegram & the means of sending it. its messages. whoseideas are these? are all these ideas merely in the way of our seeing the poem? itseems a matter of access to the poem & each of us has access to certainpoems at certain times, & some poems have to be left until yu suddenly findyourself reading them.

Imet Phillips in Vancouver back in 2004, when McKinnon and I were in town tolaunch new Talonbooks, including his The Centre: 1970-2000 (2004). As McKinnonread via the Kootenay School of Writing, someone at the back of the packedhouse kept talking throughout. Shush, I kept turning around. A man I didn’t recognize,whispering repeatedly in Pierre Coupey’s ear. Later, finding out it was DavidPhillips, able to fumble to him my long appreciation for his work, oh and how Iwould love to produce a chapbook, if he had anything. Why did you stop writing?I asked him. I found out: he didn’t stop writing, he just stopped publishing,not seeing the point, pushing a boulder up that same hill. He became acarpenter, and focused on that, although he did continue writing, he told me. Andas he described, eventually losing four complete and unpublished poetrymanuscripts due to a basement flood. There were poems, and then there weren’t poems.Oh, the heartbreak.

David Phillips : photo provided by Maggie Guzzi

I’ve been in the midst of producing a chapbook of previously-unpublished poems of his for a while now, attempting to shape a handful of typed poems into amanuscript. He mailed me a file folder of poems moons back that I was attemptingto hammer together, and was sent a further file folder of poems more recently,from his wife, Maggie Guzzi, who also put together the small chapbook DavidPhillips Poems (Tatlow House, 2022). What I’ve been putting together, anarray of his poems for and after his dear friend and clear influence, bpNichol.I have been taking too long. Or, as his small chapbook-poem WAKE ME WHEN THDANCING STARTS (1978), one of his rare publications that appeared since theassembling of his selected poems (and a title that perhaps began that lengthy publishingsilence), writes:

no word, i wait

foolish ache

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Matthew James Jones

Matthew James Jones is apoet, novelist, storyteller and veteran who has published in Arc, F(r)iction,and many other places. His novel, Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures,is forthcoming from Double Dagger Books. Today, Matt writes and teaches inParis: leadership at the Écolemilitaire and creative writing at SciencesPo. He edits prose at TheWrath Bearing Tree, co-hosts the WriteTime workshop, and organizes fitnessenthusiasts who use trees as barbells: the Log Club. Subscribe for a free wordgiftand track his path. 

1 - How did your first book or chapbook changeyour life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does itfeel different?

I remember my chapbook, White Flowers and Landmines,which I published at In/Words Press back in 2014. Like every early publicationor reading, the chapbook was a green light from the universe to keep creating.I was still in the military then – stable job, good pension, despite the oddchance of dying in a fireball. Even after coming home from war, it requiredcourage to transition into writing, so precarious.

It took me a decade, years of therapy, countless poems, a fewkilometres of journalling, to process what I’d seen, and distil it into myupcoming book. In both works, I wanted to write to write something that washalf light and half shadow. Like then, I’m still an old garment, well-worn,stained.

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

Easier to write a poem on long watches at sea, than to keep awhole book straight in the mind. But these lines have always been blurry forme, since I like a poem with a story, and prose that sparkles. Zoom out –everything is storytelling: a dress, a painting, a body. Especially a body.

3 - How long does it take to start any particularwriting project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slowprocess? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or doesyour work come out of copious notes?

The only time I’ve written an entire book, without discarding50,000 words and mashing my face on the keyboard, was when I planned eachscene, systematically. Then it was a question of discipline.

Sometimes the poems came near fully formed – I was the meremidwife. Other times I edited until they were either fixed or irrevocablybroken.

I read; I research; I sing in the shower. Writers are justmagpies building nests. I remember on basic training polishing boots. Withprose, after ten or more coats of polish, you can finally see your smilereflected.    

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

A poem begins with a feeling. Sometimes there’s an imageconnected. Sometimes that image is captured in words, one line that circlesround with the addictive quality of a television jingle, or crack. Pull theearworm out with tweezers. Splatter it.

A book begins with themes. Since every character is a puppetof the psyche, universal themes connect us to others, bring us beyond the ego.We may not know the themes at first. We may confuse trauma for themes. On onelevel I believe that writing is a path to healing the self. On another level, Iknow a lot of broken writers, caught in their own mazes.

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

Public readings were how I reminded myself I wasn’t justscreaming into a hole in the sand. I was an extrovert caught in an introvert’spassion. On the stage, you can see when a line works, or when a piece flops.Starved for attention, you might like the backrubs that come after a strongperformance. In time you’ll learn to bluff lines that don’t work, with thestrength of your voice alone – like a pop musician. Finally, you’ll be teachingpublic speaking to business professionals, and you’ll move an entire classroomto tears by reading a recipe for pizza dough. Accept at last the voice is justanother lie, but it’s one you’ll keep on telling.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behindyour writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?What do you even think the current questions are?

For Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures it was alwaysthe theme of dehumanization that drove me. Not only the dehumanizing quality ofthe drones themselves (the technological distance, the blurry cameras, the wayit all felt like a video game) but a hierarchy that deliberately blurredresponsibility for “strikes” and watered down the language itself. That’s howhuman beings became “targets.” Unlike the many victims of drone warfare, thewords we killed could be brought back to life. I wasn’t actually a machine theway they said; the language spills off the page because it must.

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

Canary in the mine. A sensitive satellite, pointed at outerspace. Jeremiads. Someone to scream “the sky is falling” when the sky isfalling. People who dream hard, who grew imagination like a muscle. People whodance on the rooftops as the meteors crash. Tricksters, pranksters, healers,wizards, fools.

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

Some of my favourite published pieces achieved their finalstate through the help of insightful editors who pushed me. My best editorswill not be bluffed by half-assed efforts, even as I bluff myself. Working asan editor was one of the ways I sought to grow in craft – I think it’s beennearly ten years now. Currently editing prose at Wrath, I deal with manyveterans seeking to cross the same bridge I did. Mostly the game is ego management,like teaching, like learning a language, like marriage. I ask questions thatare actually statements: a bit more showing here? For grammar, I allowsarcasm to do its work: are these two hyphens masquerading as a dash?Writers wonder how I got like this: your quotation marks are not curlyenough. Or, you’ve added a double space here when a single suffices.They say I’m pedantic; I say every religion needs priests.

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

“Don’t be ashamed of your monster.” CM Taylor, at a writingconference in York.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move betweengenres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

I co-host The WriteTimeWorkshop with an American writer, GraceBialeckie, held monthly on Zoom. Here, and in the creative-writing classesI teach in Parisian universities, I prescribe poetry to prose writers, andprose to poets, like medicine. In terms of the study of craft, one has much tolearn from the other, on the level of the line and beyond.

Pragmatically? In terms of writing for the marketplace?Sometimes, it chafes. Looking for blurbs for my novel, I quickly realized Imostly knew poets in Canada, though there were a stalwart few who helped me. Interms of grant applications, it can be problematic to cut a wide swathe throughart: some grants will only consider you a poet, for example, if you’vepublished ten paid poems, but what if you’ve published eight, and a handful offiction short stories, two chapbooks, and a few creative non-fiction?

Awkwardly, there is usually someone behind a desk who gets tochoose which one of us is an artist. Grant writing is where the rubber meetsthe road. Still, being awarded a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures, was a life-changing, maybelife-saving moment that arrived just as I giving up on art, on the cusp oftrading in my fountain pen for an ugly tie, and grinding my way towardscubicle-death.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend tokeep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Writing is one of several daily disciplines that alsoincludes cardio, weights, French training, reading, and wrestling Clawdia. Itry to write every day for at least an hour, though a book will occupy morethan this, particularly in the editing phase. Sometimes I’ll work on a poem, orwrite a beautiful spam for my mailing list. Other times I’ll journal. Whateverwe can do to preserve sanity will help us make art in the long run. Tragically,these daily disciplines have to contend with a full workday, editing, a sociallife, a love life, making healthy food, visa drama, and domestic chores. I usedto say, “A writer is someone who writes every day.” Now I say, “Do your best.”

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

Usually the biggest issue for me is too much money-work orlife drama. For example, this term I’ve refused a few teaching gigs, knowingI’d need more time for marketing the book and writing the follow-up. Burnout,heartbreak, death in the family: all provoke a return to self care. Therapy.Reading for pleasure. Walking in nature. A return to the garden of friendshipswith roots of trust, mutual respect, and laughter. Slide into the tub andscrape the callouses from your heels with a stone.

It’s normal to turn inward when we’re in pain. Sometimes weuse our skills to entertain others, but it’s OK to use them to frantically holdonto ourselves. Stop running from the shame, and feel it, I’d say. Or, thisdry spell is nothing a little loneliness won’t fix.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Boiled cabbage

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books comefrom books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whethernature, music, science or visual art?

All of these, definitely, and add television, movies, videogames, bodybuilding, conversations with artists, bathtub stains in the shape ofJesus, the sound of a cat chasing a pen lid at three in the morning when youdesperately need to sleep. No matter your inspiration, the key is watchingclosely, with an aware mind, not distracted, not anaesthetized, to be presentin a full and honest way, even if excruciating.

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

Constantly exploring in prose: just read Percival Everett’s Erasure. Working on Nafkote Tamirat’s The Parking Lot Attendant. I’d liketo read the latest Rushdie, after the stabbing. Salman, if you’re reading this,let’s get a coffee.

I meet multi-disciplinary artists in Paris through a varietyof not-for-profit associations. Sometimes I read books on craft. Sometimes afamous writer. More and more frequently, people I know. I take inspirationwatching writers develop in workshop. I take inspiration from the many veteranswith whom I interact, at the ecole militaire, at The Wrath-Bearing Tree,or my publisher, Double Dagger Books. Every writer must find his/her people.And while we veterans might all be murderous scum, even among killers there isan underlying honour code, and shared principles of leadership, that invoketrust. We also always show up on time.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven'tyet done?

Take if from someone who spent his twenties well overthree-hundred pounds: part of us will always be ruled by the unlived life. Iwanted so hard to be beautiful, desired. That’s how I became the magician whoseonly trick was to transform. I’ve been all over the world and I’ve drank asmuch of the cup of life as I could without drowning. Seems like everything Ilearned was the hard way. Seems like I was always a train stuck on the tracksof trauma, or a ping pong batted back and forth from one unlived life toanother. Peter Pan’s crocodile ticks because it ate the clock – an easymetaphor of mortality – but perhaps we have finite heartbreaks, too. So long aswe are ruled by internal forces we don’t understand, we will bruise ourselvesand those around us. The next journey is inward; all I need is peace. 

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

Even in the military, bosses would eventually figure out thatI had certain skills and would shape the job to exploit them – this is how Ibecame the personal editor/ass-wiper of several high-ranking officials. Wecan’t escape who we are. Moving forward, beyond books, perhaps I’ll chase amore perfect artform, a Gesamtkunstwerk,that incorporates visual art, fashion, dance, architecture, music, writing,poetry. Add tactics, strategy, avant-garde forms of storytelling… looks like myfuture will be to write video games. Any why not? I’m not snobby about themedia, and it might lend some stability; see my above answer about peace.

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

I did do something else. Many other things. But the boomerangkept coming back to my hand, as it does for everyone: “what do I do with mybrain?”

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

It seems a good time for a shout out to Ottawa’s own, DavidO’Meara, newly embarked into the world of prose after writing and publishing alot of exquisite poetry. His book, Chandelier,will make you cry and hug your parents.

For films, let me recommend a French classic that I watchevery Christmas: Le Pere Noel est une ordure,” translating to “Santa Claus isgarbage,” but named for English audiences: “Santa Claus is a stinker.” This isthe only true story written about Christmas: depression, loneliness, suicide,alcoholism, murder. 

20 - What are you currently working on?

After teaching leadership for five years in France’s ecolemilitiare, I’d like to assemble my thoughts (and thousands of conversationswith some extremely impressive meta-humans) into a book on leadership. Set inthe Parisian bohemia. Rooted deeply in the body, with the edges blurring intoFrench. Long-suffering English-Second-Language students lay siege to anentrenched bureaucracy. Soldiers become artists and artists become soldiers.Golden glints the rooftops in fair Paris; the rats gorge on day-old croissantand cheese. Skeleton armies animate and crawl from the catacombs. A cynicalParisian smokes a cigarette that never burns low. 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Tea Gerbeza, How I Bend Into More

 

. . . . . . . . . . . …..                  beginning

1999
a walk-in clinic

 

 

                  four years after
  escape from       Yugoslavian
Civil War               four years after
                               confrontations
  with death.

 

                  My parentsbelieve
                    mysurgery worse
. . . . . .                              . .

                        than war

FromRegina, Saskatchewan poet Tea Gerbeza comes the full-length debut How I Bend Into More (Windsor ON: Palimpsest Press, 2024), a collection that curvesinto multiple articulations around childhood scoliosis, reminiscent of similarwork I’ve seen by Gatineau, Quebec filmmaker and poet Jennifer Mulligan, a poemor two from her chapbook …like nailing jello to a tree… (above/groundpress, 2007). Through Gerbeza, much as Mulligan’s poems, a staggered line runsdown the centre of pages, of poems, composing a line of bent spine with text oneither side, offering visual approximations of “parentheses,” as Gerbeza’s poem“glossary of parentheses” visualizes, “around my spine [.]” Constructed asintimate notes on childhood illness, family response, suffering, privacy anddisability poetics, the poems are built on the foundations of the narrative“I,” occasionally as curved or curled, writing a sequence of notes on effect,response and experience. “I take a photo to post / instead find myself readingpamphlets / about girls with Scoliosis. Images / tell me     │ (   )ing helps the right / kind of patient, the right / patient will avoid /surgery, this the body’s goal.” Across swirls and scatterings of cut-ups,photographs, clippings and a staccato of scars, Gerbeza collages fragments oftext and image, leaning into the text-laden photographed object so prevalent inthe work of Toronto-based poet Kate Siklosi [see my review of her first book here].Her lean might be visual, but the foundation of the collection sits in text.“If I don’t exist Scoliosis doesn’t either,” she writes. Further on: “I exploreterritory I’ve long kept private / in crescents curled with no open centres[.]”

Whatis interesting about Gerbeza’s line, the visual of which runs through thecollection as an approximation, a textual stand-in for her own spine, is how itholds as foundation through the collection, both through subject matter andtext: everything within the collection is set in relation to that singleelement. As the poem “Clearing Up the Question about ‘My Suffering’” begins: “Ifsuffering is private │ then why should I explain? / if I explain, do I startfrom my head │ to my toes [.]” She offers notes on the spine, so that she mightwrite through it, into it.

Oana Avasilichioaei, Chambersonic

 

Fellow Statements, FellowMurmurs

Fellow statements, fellowhungry mouths, fellow introverts, fellow inner voices, fellow dynamic duets,fellow quiet revolutions, fellow unheroic holograms, fellow calls to justice,fellow pacts, fellow linguistic migrants, I call on you. // Fellow bonds,borders, and bodies that won’t be silenced, bellow bones that won’t bedisappeared, fellow fierce rattling and unshackling, fellow divergent voices,fellow dissidents and discordants, I call on you. // Fellow tantrums andepisodic madnesses, fellow imaginary voices that refuse to be forgotten, fellowphantoms, fellow ghosted and silenced, fellow unsung marginals, fellow musicalmastodons struggling against extinction, fellow rejects, fellow ephemera,fellow notes, notations, marginalia, magic markers, fellow believers andnon-believers and disbelievers and beyond-believers, I call on you. // Fellowmurmurs and fissures, whispers and cracks, rumblings and time gaps, fellowarticulations and disarticulations, fellow thoraxes and tongues, fellowdreamers, mystics, and visionaries, I call on you. // Fellow mispronounced,mistreated, misunderstood, misengineered, misallocated, misinformed,misrepresented, I call on you. Pronounce your part.

Furtheringthe evolution of Montreal poet, translator and performer Oana Avasilichioaei’sexplorations around sound, language, meaning and performance comes Chambersonic (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2024), her seventh-full length poetry title overthe past twenty years. Beginning with her debut, Abandon (Toronto ON:Wolsak & Wynn, 2005), and continuing with feira:a poempark (Wolsak& Wynn, 2008), Expeditions of a Chimæra (with Erín Moure; TorontoON: BookThug, 2010), We, Beasts (Wolsak & Wynn, 2012), Limbinal (Talonbooks,2015) [see my review of such here] and Eight Track (Talonbooks, 2019)[see my review of such here], Avasilichioaei’s work has moved from origins oflanguage, translation and between-ness into a poetics deeply engaged with the intersections(within the between-ness, as well) of text, sound and performance. “It beginswith desire.” the section “Chambersonic : Soundpace // Eavesdropping / on theProcess of a Dilettante Composer,” subtitled “(on the making of Chambersonic :Episodes for an Absent Film),” begins [with back-slashes set here as includedin the text, not as line-break notation], “A longing for what is yet to beconceived. Faint and fragmentary glimmers of ideas, sound heard in the mind’sear: elongated resonances, long drawn-out frequencies advancing and receding inwaves, layers, reverberations // static, silent extensions // sometimes sparse,sometimes full // a sea of glass, a more active, rougher sea of surf and foamand wind // plucked chords // long vocal vowellings fading into breathlessness.”

Chambersonic is constructed as a long poem acrossfifteen sections/scores, two bridges and an opening breath, “ChambersonicIntro: Fellow Statements,” a poem subtitled “(an audio work & lathe-cutvinyl / imagined from Fellow Statements, Fellow Murmurs, 04:48),” a fivestanza/prose block text that begins: “Breath The closing of the doortransforms the sound studio into a cocoon. / Soft light demarcates the edges,while at the centre stands a simple install- / lation: a small table, chair,recorder, and two vocal microphones. The outer / world seems unfathomablydistant in both time and space.” The scale of this project is impressive, incorporatingintervals, echoes, sound scores and layerings, as Avasilichioaei’s Chambersonicnot only holds the full-length collection as her field of composition but onethat incorporates sound and breath as foundational, echoing off the boundariesof the physical object of the book. “Voices will one day ignite and spill over,”she offers, to open the section “Chambersonic : Echoes,” “fill in new fractures.They will not / retract but keep on spilling.”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Josh Denslow

Josh Denslowis the author of Not Everyone Is Special (7.13 Books), Super Normal(Stillhouse Press), and the upcoming collection Magic Can't Save Us (UNOPress). His most recent short stories have appeared in Electric Literature's TheCommuter, The Rumpus, and Okay Donkey, among others. He isthe Email Marketing Manager for Bookshop.org, and he has read and edited for SmokeLong Quarterly for over a decade. He currently lives in Barcelona.

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

My first collection was plucked from theslush pile at 7.13 Books, and it changed my life for sure. Because after yearsof trying, it showed me that it was actually possible to publish a book. So I continuedwriting them. In that first collection you can see the formation of how Iemploy humor in my writing, and nothing sounds less funny than using the words“employ humor.”

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

I came to fiction in general first becausethat’s all I knew growing up. There were tons of novels in our house, and Iread them all. I didn’t come to short stories until much later when I startedwriting my own stuff and was excited to learn I didn’t have to dive directlyinto a novel! For me, they were like novels with training wheels. But ofcourse, short stories became much more profound for me later.

3 - 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?

Starting a short story can be the hardestpart because I will rewrite the first paragraph dozens of times until I findsome magic alchemy that gives me the tone of that particular piece. Then ittends to flow much faster after that, though I do rewrite quite a bit as I go.

Everything is about flow for me so I’mconstantly rereading, especially that first crucial paragraph, to keep me ontrack. Tweaking is happening throughout so by the time I get to the end, it’spretty close to what the final will be.

That’s for short stories.

For novels I do something similar, but thedifference is that when I finish the first draft, I basically start over and writeit again with what I learned in the first pass through. My second publishedbook was a novel, and I wrote it from scratch four times until I got to theversion that Stillhouse Press published.

4 - Where does a work of fiction usuallybegin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into alarger project, or are you working on a "book" from the verybeginning?

For my newest collection, MAGIC CAN’T SAVEUS, I purposely wrote each of the stories with the idea that they would formwhat I was calling a “thematically” linked collection. Every story features acouple whose relationship is falling apart in some way, and then a magicalcreature comes along and makes things worse. It was a really exciting way towork, and I would do it again! In fact, I already have some ideas for a“science-based” collection of stories.

5 - Are public readings part of orcounter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doingreadings?

I don’t enjoy doing readings. I don’tnecessarily enjoy going to readings either. But I’m very supportive, and I candisregard my own personal enjoyment as long as the reading is not hours long.Then, as it turns out, I had other plans that night.

6 - 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?

No matter how fantastical things become,I’m always in search of ways to make the characters more human. More real. Morerelatable. And I want to carve out a bigger slice then just my limitedworldview. The questions I want to answer are the questions that plague humanbeings no matter the background. I’m looking for that ooey gooey center core.And a lot of the time, those questions are the ones we ask ourselves regardingour place in the world and how we can do better on an individual level. To be abetter mother or father. A better daughter or son. A better friend. A bettercitizen. Better.

But I typically make things prettydifficult for my characters. Maybe now is a good time to apologize to them!

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

This is tough because I don’t think writersare necessarily obligated to do anything other than write. But then on theflipside of that, I think as humans we have an obligation to learn more aboutthe world. To be curious about life outside our circle. And one way to do thatis to read. And if all the writers are tasked with this when they write, andthe readers are looking for this when they read, then it’s a pretty amazingcircle where the writer helps the reader build empathy.

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

I think having an outside editor is a giftand should be cherished. In all my publishing experiences (MAGIC CAN’T SAVE USis my third book), the end product is infinitely better because of the timespent with my editors. It’s the best way to see where you’re falling short.Where you can dive deeper. Where you can find hidden treasures. And I haven’tonly edited my work. Some of the notes I’ve received have given me the tools toedit myself. To become an actual better person and a better writer going intothe next project. It’s amazing.

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

I think if I paid attention to advice Iwould not have ended up where I am now, and that would be an epic tragedy.

10 - How easy has it been for you tomove between genres (poetry to music to film)? What do you see as the appeal?

Music takes up a lot of real estate in mymind. I’m obsessed with finding and listening to new music. I also have beenplaying the drums for decades now (!!!) and had a bit of local success with theband Borrisokane which I started with my wife and her brother. I think my loveof music is what gives me that obsession with “flow” which I literally can’tdefine but I spend most of my time trying to capture in everything I write.

I also have a degree in film from ColumbiaCollege Chicago, and I spent ten years in LA working on film sets and writingand directing my own short films. I hear a lot that my stories have a filmicquality, but I have no idea what I’m doing to give that impression, other thanI just steeped myself in film and now it’s coming out in my dialogue. On a sidenote, whenever anyone says that about my work, I take it as the highestcompliment even if it wasn’t intended as one.

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

I have no writing routine. What I haveinstead is a full-time job as the email marketing manager for Bookshop.org aswell as three children and an incredible wife and we all live an incrediblelife that I don’t want to miss. I just write when I can! Luckily for me, I haveno shortage of ideas and things slowly find their way out into the world.

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

Reading. Always reading.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

A cake in the oven.

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

I’m incredibly influenced by music andfilm, but as I said, it’s an immersion in those forms and then that manifestsitself naturally in my work.

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

My life experiences influence my writingthe most. But, of course, reading is why I love writing. Here is a smatteringof writers who have been important to me in one way or another over the courseof my life to now: Ellen Raskin, Kazuo Ishiguro, George Saunders, Ursula K. LeGuin, Fernanda Melchor, Olga Tokarczuk, Margaret Atwood, Kelly Link, Charles Yu, Marlon James, Isaac Asimov, David Foster Wallace, David Mitchell, and Yōko Ogawa.

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

I would like to direct a feature lengthfilm and play drums in a band that goes on a world tour.

17 - If you could pick any otheroccupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think youwould have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I would have loved to be a professionaldrummer doing session work and playing shows every week.

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

If I don’t write, I feel like somethingmassive is missing in my life. And that feeling can loom heavy over everything.So I write to keep the beast away! Writing make me feel like me. 

19 - What was the last great book youread? What was the last great film?

The last great book I read was It LastsForever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken. One of my favorite movieslately was that Dungeons and Dragons one with Chris Pine. My wife and I saw ittwice in the theater and then watched it again at home!

20 - What are you currently working on?

I have a completed 540-page beast of anovel that I’ve been shopping for the last couple of years, but sadly, I thinkeveryone is scared of it. I’m doing a fourth pass on a middle grade book thatI’m really excited about that might have better luck in the next few months.Also, I just started two new novels, one leans more science fiction than I’veever done and the other is a bit more existential and influenced by some of thestuff I’ve been reading lately. I’m waiting to see which one finds its flowfirst. As for short stories, I have just begun a series of small storiesinfluenced by physics and some of my science obsessions.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Mónica de la Torre, Pause the Document

my review of Mónica de la Torre's Pause the Document (New York NY: Nightboat Books, 2025) is now online at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics.

Em Dial, In the Key of Decay

 

Mamestra Brassicae

In the early spring,cabbage moths bloom,
a likely target of coosfrom my students,
whose hands I hold as I reachthem the word
pupae. What anagent of evil I am, to dash
their hopes of the swarmdrifting across
drafts of love, likeMonarchs. The white
flock has descended onour broccoli,
our brussel sprouts, ourcollard greens,
to unleash a tsunami ofhungry mouths
and I can’t lie to them. Theyaren’t butterflies.

I’mjust now seeing a copy of Toronto-based poet Em Dial’s [see their ’12 or 20 questions’ interview here] full-length debut, In the Key of Decay (Windsor ON:Palimpsest Press, 2024), a collection of lyrics held in monologue, gesture. I’dseen Dial’s poems recently in Permanent Record: Poetics Towards the Archive (New York NY: Nightboat Books, 2025) [see my review of such here] and wasimpressed, although I’d even think their poem included in that particularanthology a direction I’d like to see further. Their poems in this collection area narrative blend of performative and meditative, offering elements of beautyand decay and everything between, amid and through, a collection, as the backcover offers, that “pushes past borders both real and imagined to attend tothose failed by history.” “In my worst nightmares,” the poem “On Beauty”begins, “I am pregnant / my body swelling out / with a demon        but a small task to country. // Just aswhen awake, I am begging / myself into a somewhere        thumbing / my ribs for the definitionof country / other than the two blue passports / kissing in the desk drawer.” Thepoems in In the Key of Decay are declarative, considered. In the Key ofDecay is a solid opening, and I’m intrigued by Dial’s formalconsiderations, pushing against the boundaries of lyric constraint, but one opento further possibilities (such as their poem in Permanent Record, whichdoes move into some really interesting structural territory). The poems are smartand wild and restrained, offering elements of fantastic monologues and shortscenes and lines that lean into the musical, as “Lost in the World” offers:

My chest ticks          to the rhythm

of a frenziedcompass.          Where are we again?

Maybe all thegenerations          dressed in

Immigration becauselost         and          love

are as universal as          a drum beat.