Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 29

Lisa Fishman, World Naked Bike Ride: Stories

 

Magic

Here it is summer andElse has forgotten something. She knows she has forgotten something—it is adistinct feeling—but she does not know what she has forgotten. The distinctfeeling is a sureness shaped around a gap.
            Another time, she was remembering what hadn’t happenedyet. Andre had not yet pulled a hat out of a rabbit’s mouth but he would do sowhen she forgot. Now there was black silk sliding along the rabbit’s pinktongue. Hat coming out! Else put her hand to her head.

I’mbehind on my prose reading, so I’m just now getting into Wisconsin-based poet Lisa Fishman’s debut work of fiction, World Naked Bike Ride: Stories (KentvilleNS: Gaspereau Press, 2022). The author of a handful of poetry titles, including Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (Wave Books, 2020) [see my review of such here], the stories assembled in World Naked Bike Ride hold ablend of contemporary and timeless fable, offering a distance around a gap,writing sly and sideways and delightful. “It was the summer we turned againstheat and light,” opens the story “Starting as Someone Else,” “against daylight,the outdoors, sun. We were too hot and sought the night. Becuoming winter we thoughtwe were, put to sleep by the sun, awake only in crisp cold air, light withoutheat: forest light or indoors or the moon’s. We weren’t picky but we needed tocool down.”

Thestories throughout hold a variety of lengths, purposes and shapes, as Fishman’sfiction debut is built as a collection of moments, composing familiar storieswith magical turns, providing a remarkable freshness to both prose and narratives,especially once echoes begin to appear, providing threads that begin to wrap inand around each other, linking moments between stories, between pages. Some storiesare uniquely surreal, some rather straightforward, each of which allowing ableed into the other. Some stories suggest a meandering, but one that is purposeful,slow. These are some very fine stories assembled into a very fine collection,with every moment held in its exact space, such as the story “Mean Sun Time in Halifax,”that begins:

I was thinking about EdnaO’Brien and a sentence she wrote: “Everything began to be better for Mrs.Reinhardt from the moment she started to sleepwalk.” At the time that I wasthinking about Edna O’Brien’s sentence about Mrs. Reinhardt, I was walking fromone winding path to another and crossing unexpected footbridges over streams. Someof the paths lead to fountains and some to a large pond where people used toskate all winter when the pond still froze in the Public Gardens. All of thepaths are shaded by towering trees, so many that it is really a garden oftrees, carefully tended so as not to become a forest.

Touch the Donkey : new interviews with Gould, Dean, Jenks, Doller + Inniss,

Anticipating the release next week of the forty-fourth issue of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], why not check out the interviews that have appeared over the past few weeks with contributors to the forty-third issue: Henry Gould, Leesa Dean, Tom Jenks, Sandra Doller and Scott Inniss.

Interviews with contributors to the first forty-two issues (more than two hundred and seventy interviews to date) remain online, including: John Levy, Taylor Brown, Grant Wilkins, Lori Anderson Moseman, russell carisse, Ariana Nadia Nash, Wanda Praamsma, Michael Harman, Terri Witek, Laynie Browne, Noah Berlatsky, Robyn Schelenz, Andy Weaver, Dessa Bayrock, Anselm Berrigan, Alana Solin, Michael Betancourt, Monty Reid, Heather Cadsby, R Kolewe, Samuel Amadon, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Miranda Mellis, kevin mcpherson eckhoff and Kimberley Dyck, Junie Désil, Micah Ballard, Devon Rae, Barbara Tomash, Ben Meyerson, Pam Brown, Shane Kowalski, Kathy Lou Schultz, Hilary Clark, Ted Byrne, Garrett Caples, Brenda Coultas, Sheila Murphy, Chris Turnbull and Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Stuart Ross, Leah Sandals, Tamara Best, Nathan Austin, Jade Wallace, Monica Mody, Barry McKinnon, Katie Naughton, Cecilia Stuart, Benjamin Niespodziany, Jérôme Melançon, Margo LaPierre, Sarah Pinder, Genevieve Kaplan, Maw Shein Win, Carrie Hunter, Lillian Nećakov, Nate Logan, Hugh Thomas, Emily Brandt, David Buuck, Jessi MacEachern, Sue Bracken, Melissa Eleftherion, Valerie Witte, Brandon Brown, Yoyo Comay, Stephen Brockwell, Jack Jung, Amanda Auerbach, IAN MARTIN, Paige Carabello, Emma Tilley, Dana Teen Lomax, Cat Tyc, Michael Turner, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Colby Clair Stolson, Tom Prime, Bill Carty, Christina Vega-Westhoff, Robert Hogg, Simina Banu, MLA Chernoff, Geoffrey Olsen, Douglas Barbour, Hamish Ballantyne, JoAnna Novak, Allyson Paty, Lisa Fishman, Kate Feld, Isabel Sobral Campos, Jay MillAr, Lisa Samuels, Prathna Lor, George Bowering, natalie hanna, Jill Magi, Amelia Does, Orchid Tierney, katie o’brien, Lily Brown, Tessa Bolsover, émilie kneifel, Hasan Namir, Khashayar Mohammadi, Naomi Cohn, Tom Snarsky, Guy Birchard, Mark Cunningham, Lydia Unsworth, Zane Koss, Nicole Raziya Fong, Ben Robinson, Asher Ghaffar, Clara Daneri, Ava Hofmann, Robert R. Thurman, Alyse Knorr, Denise Newman, Shelly Harder, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Biswamit Dwibedy, Emily Izsak, Aja Couchois Duncan, José Felipe Alvergue, Conyer Clayton, Roxanna Bennett, Julia Drescher, Michael Cavuto, Michael Sikkema, Bronwen Tate, Emilia Nielsen, Hailey Higdon, Trish Salah, Adam Strauss, Katy Lederer, Taryn Hubbard, Michael Boughn, David Dowker, Marie Larson, Lauren Haldeman, Kate Siklosi, robert majzels, Michael Robins, Rae Armantrout, Stephanie Strickland, Ken Hunt, Rob Manery, Ryan Eckes, Stephen Cain, Dani Spinosa, Samuel Ace, Howie Good, Rusty Morrison, Allison Cardon, Jon Boisvert, Laura Theobald, Suzanne Wise, Sean Braune, Dale Smith, Valerie Coulton, Phil Hall, Sarah MacDonell, Janet Kaplan, Kyle Flemmer, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, A.M. O’Malley, Catriona Strang, Anthony Etherin, Claire Lacey, Sacha Archer, Michael e. Casteels, Harold Abramowitz, Cindy Savett, Tessy Ward, Christine Stewart, David James Miller, Jonathan Ball, Cody-Rose Clevidence, mwpm, Andrew McEwan, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Joseph Mosconi, Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy, Oliver Cusimano, Sue Landers, Marthe Reed, Colin Smith, Nathaniel G. Moore, David Buuck, Kate Greenstreet, Kate Hargreaves, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Erín Moure, Sarah Swan, Buck Downs, Kemeny Babineau, Ryan Murphy, Norma Cole, Lea Graham, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Oana Avasilichioaei, Meredith Quartermain, Amanda Earl, Luke Kennard, Shane Rhodes, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Sarah Cook, François Turcot, Gregory Betts, Eric Schmaltz, Paul Zits, Laura Sims, Stephen Collis, Mary Kasimor, Billy Mavreas, damian lopes, Pete Smith, Sonnet L’Abbé, Katie L. Price, a rawlings, Suzanne Zelazo, Helen Hajnoczky, Kathryn MacLeod, Shannon Maguire, Sarah Mangold, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Aaron Tucker, Kayla Czaga, Jason Christie, Jennifer Kronovet, Jordan Abel, Deborah Poe, Edward Smallfield, ryan fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Robinson, nathan dueck, Paige Taggart, Christine McNair, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Nikki Sheppy, Kirsten Kaschock, Lise Downe, Lisa Jarnot, Chris Turnbull, Gary Barwin, Susan Briante, derek beaulieu, Megan Kaminski, Roland Prevost, Emily Ursuliak, j/j hastain, Catherine Wagner, Susanne Dyckman, Susan Holbrook, Julie Carr, David Peter Clark, Pearl Pirie, Eric Baus, Pattie McCarthy, Camille Martin and Gil McElroy.

The forthcoming forty-fourth issue features new writing by: Miles Austin, J-T Kelly, Naomi Cohn, Alice Burdick, Melissa Eleftherion, Jennifer Firestone + Catriona Strang.

And of course, copies of the first forty-two issues are still very much available. Why not subscribe?

Included, as well, as part of the above/ground press annual subscription! Which you should get right now for 2025! Our thirty-second year! Gadzooks!

We even have our own Facebook group. It’s remarkably easy.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Caroline Topperman

Caroline Topperman is a European-Canadian writer,entrepreneur, and world traveller. Born in Sweden, raised in Canada with arecent stint of living in Poland, she holds a BFA in screenwriting. She is aco-founder of Mountain Ash Press and KW Writers Alliance, and currently runsMigrations Review, and Write, They Said. Her book, Tell Me What You See, servesas a toolkit for her writing workshops. She has written articles for HuffingtonPost Canada, Jane Friedman’s blog, was the Beauty Editor for British MODEMagazine, and served as managing editor for NonBinary Review. Her hybridmemoir, Your Roots Cast a Shadow, explores explosive intergenerationalhistories that link war zones and foreign shores with questions of identity andbelonging. Her next book, The Road to Tang-e Gharu, integrates Afghan folktalesand family memories with the story of one of the greatest roads ever built.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How doesyour most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?I don’t know if my first book changed my life so much since it was more of aworkbook. What did change my life was immersing myself in the publishingprocess and learning what it really takes to write a book, have it be acceptedfor publication, and then do most of the marketing. Your Roots Cast a Shadowis a very different book because it’s a memoir. It is also coming out in a timewhen the literary world is especially divided.

2 - How did you come to non-fiction first, as opposed to,say, fiction or poetry? As a kid I wrote fiction. I was learning to find myvoice. As I got older, I realized that there were real stories out there thatdidn’t need to be fictionalized, and in fact, I believe that it would do themand audiences a disservice if I didn’t stick to the truth. 

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writingproject? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Dofirst drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work comeout of copious notes? Well, it really only takes a second to start. I sitdown and start mapping out my ideas… voila! I’ve started. I would love to meeta writer who is able to sit down and write the perfect first draft. My writingprocess is not linear. Sometimes, I have a lot of ideas and the words just flow,and other times, I write a sentence which then has to marinate for a week. Ido, however, use letters and old documents when I’m working so that is also apart of the process. Often I am “writing,” but it involves a lot ofreading. 

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction usually beginfor you? 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?I have a notebook where I keep short pieces. Mostly these are bits and piecesof a larger idea. For now, I am working on a book-length project from thestart. That isn’t to say that I won’t ever write short pieces. Often, my longwork does start out in bits and pieces, but none of them are standalonework. 

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to yourcreative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?While I am not particularly interested in reading my works in progress (toomany unwanted opinions before I am ready to hear them), I do love publicreadings. I used to perform, and being on a stage feels natural. 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind yourwriting? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? Whatdo you even think the current questions are? My book takes a personal lookat what it means to be Jewish today, especially for those of us who don'tnecessarily fit the traditional mold. I ask questions about how our familystories and cultural backgrounds shape who we are, even if we're not superinvolved in the Jewish community. I also dive into the things we don'tknow about our past and how that affects our sense of identity. Even thoughit's about my own experiences as a Jewish woman, the themes of family,identity, and belonging are something everyone can relate to, no matter theirbackground. It's a book that will hopefully get people thinking and talkingabout how we find meaning and connection in today's fragmented world.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer beingin larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of thewriter should be? I come from a long line of artists who used their work asactivism. My Jewish grandfather ran an underground press in pre-WWII EasternEurope, my father worked with a political Polish theatre company that foughtthe communist government, and my mother wrote articles condemningantisemitism. 

As such, I believe that writers are artists. Not only is itour job to add to the cultural fabric of a society, but I think that, should wechoose, our work can be provoke wider conversations and challenge the statusquo. 

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outsideeditor difficult or essential (or both)? I wouldn’t dream of not workingwith an editor; they are indispensable. I am an editor myself, and I know howmuch work I do when I am helping a writer. I hired an editor before I submittedmy book for publication. Then, it had another developmental edit, a line editand then several rounds of proofreading after it was accepted by my publisher.There is no way that I could have done all of that work alone. 

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (notnecessarily given to you directly)? When I originally thought that I wantedto be a theatre director, a well-known director told me that I would need toknow a little bit about everything. I took this to heart and try to apply it toevery project I am working on.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, ordo you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin? I like tostart my day by moving whether that be a long walk or rowing. This helps meclear my head and start my day with a fresh outlook. I used to like writingearly in the morning, but now I prefer working later when the world quietsdown. If I’m working on a book, I do check in periodically throughout the dayjust to stay inspired. 

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn orreturn for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? Well, funny you shouldask this question, the response is exactly how my first book, Tell Me WhatYou See came about. I was in the middle of a huge writing and creativeblock when it suddenly hit me: I have a degree in film. This means that much ofmy training was based around visual work. Staring at a blank page is hard forme. So, I grabbed my polaroid camera and started taking photographs. Then, Isimply wrote what I saw on the images. Pretty soon stories started flowingagain. When that happens now, I might read a book that is related to myproject, go look at art, or see a play. 

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home? Home hasbeen so many different places that it doesn’t have a representative fragrance,but Tresor has always reminded me of my mother. 

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come frombooks, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature,music, science or visual art? Absolutely. I am always inspired by visualart, dance, working out,  and even a long hike in the mountains. I like tothink of it like cross training for the brain. I take my mind off of myproject, focus on something different but equally creative, and the ideas comeback. 

14 - What other writers or writings are important foryour work, or simply your life outside of your work? I am constantlyreading, and I’ll read almost anything. My favourite author outside of thecreative nonfiction world is Haruki Murakami, but lately I’ve also startedreading scripts. My current obsession is Prayer for the French Republic. 

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?This will be a boring answer, but I don’t love the word commitment. Itend to see an opportunity and seize it, so I will know what it is when I wantto do when I least expect it. 

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt,what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended updoing had you not been a writer? Haha, well I have managed a rock-climbinggym, danced, worked in a library, owned a Pilates studio frequented by athletesand A-list celebrities, worked in fashion and beauty, sold after marketautomotive products, sold insurance, worked in real estate development, and now,I co-own a hybrid press. If I was to do anything else, it would probably beworking in the theatre in some capacity. 

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing somethingelse? I have never not written. I majored in screenwriting at university,so I think that this is what I was always meant to do in some capacity. Foryears I resisted writing. After trying so many other things, it was natural tocome back to it. 

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was thelast great film? I have read a lot of fantastic books lately, but one thatmade me think about how I want to present my work to the world was Not aNovel: A Memoir In Pieces by Jenny Erpenbeck. This movie is a bit older,but I really enjoyed, Belfast. I saw it on a recent flight, and it hasstayed with me. 

19 - What are you currently working on? I have juststarted working on my next book, The Road to Tang-e Gharu: Family Stories, FolkTales, and the Limits of Memory, which is centered around my family’s timein Afghanistan during WWII while my grandfather was building the road fromKabul to Jalalabad. The book explores the power of memory and storytelling toconnect generations and illuminate the past. 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

happy thirty-fourth birthday, kate!

somehow my eldest daughter, Kate, turns thirty-four today; what? happy birthday!

A ‘best of’ list of 2024 Canadian poetry books

Once more, I offer my annual list of theseemingly-arbitrary “worth repeating” (given ‘best’ is such an inconclusive,imprecise designation), constructed from the list of Canadian poetry titlesI’ve managed to review throughout the past year. See my fourteenth annual list over at the dusie blog here, along with links to all of my prior lists. Can you believe it has been fourteen years sincedusie-maven Susana Gardner originally suggested various dusie-esque poets writeup their own versions of same? Once again, I thank her both for the ongoingopportunity, and her original prompt.

Thisyear’s list features a small handful of non-fiction/prose titles, and more thanfifty full-length poetry titles by Fawn Parker, M.W. Jaeggle, RobertColeman, Chimwemwe Undi, Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi, Rob Manery, Allie Duff,Nicholas Bradley, Chuqiao Yang, Johanna Skibsrud, Matt Rader, Sarah Burgoyne& Vi Khi Nao, Kim Trainor, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Faith Arkorful, BrenSimmers, Hamish Ballantyne, Michael Turner, Sylvia Legris, Shō Yamagushiku, Concetta Principe,Margaret Christakos, Dawn Macdonald, Simina Banu, Domenica Martinello, TiaMcLennan, Jennifer May Newhook, Michael Goodfellow, Britta Badour, R Kolewe,Tonya Lailey, jaz papadopoulos, Ben Robinson (twice!), Clare Goulet, ChrisTurnbull, Stuart Ross, Melanie Siebert, Keagan Hawthorne, AJ Dolman, DaleMartin Smith, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Zoe Whittall, Kevin Stebner and JaclynPiudik. Go take a look at my amazing list! With direct links to each of the publisher's page to order direct, as well as to my original review as well.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Bianca Rae Messinger

Bianca Rae Messinger is a poet andtranslator living in New York State. She is the author of pleasureisamiracle (Nightboat, 2025) and the most recent chapbook “parallel bars”(2021). She has published translations of works by mauricio gatti/comunidad delsur, Juana Isola, and Ariel Schettini among others. Alongside poet Toby Altmanshe co-edits the journal What Happens.

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

pleasureis amiracle is my first full length work of poetry. My first chapbook was published, verymuch on a whim, for a strange art project in Switzerland; and was more of anovella, a rip-off of Story of the Eye, compressed into the form ofcouplets. I guess pleasureis amiracle sets out to do more—the work canbe seen as less “narrative” though I of course love to pull from that strangeway of dealing with event which we call narrative. pleasureis amiraclealso includes a version of my chapbook “parallel bars” (2021), which attemptsto address the structural problems of events and the feelings around them—so weget into a bit more of the visual space in it, through textual depictions anddiagrams. The “visual space” here being a thing which Leslie Scalapino refersto as the authoritarian space. The work attempts to push against the supremacyof the visual field. The book is also different in that it attempts to addressphilosophical or aesthetic questions more specifically, directly.

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

Great question! Well, I’m not quite sure ifI did come to poetry first, though it definitely was the thing I startedpublishing first. I have always thought of the two (poetry and fiction) sharingso much space. The first poem I ever published was in honor of National DonutDay, and was put up on the wall of the local Krispy Kreme. But I’ve always beenwriting what you could call fiction, a particular response to images. Poetrycame to me because of its flexibility I guess. Of course in high school I foundGinsberg and wanted to be a beat poet, but everyone does that. But at the sametime I was writing these terrible short stories with overly elaboratedepictions of mundane things, or just baroque-like descriptions of fireplaces,and thought there’s no way anyone will read this—so poetry seemed like a spacethat made more sense. I’m not sure if it still does.  

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?

I wouldn’t say I’m a writer who necessarily knowshow they work on a complete level. But I think I’m a writer who starts manythings and needs a lot of time to find out where everything goes—pleasureisamiracle in particular came out of a process with many many versions. Theinitial writing comes quite quickly but goes through a large revision processto find the form I’m looking for. Poems can get chopped up or moved arounduntil the language I want appears, maybe it’s a bit barbaric.

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

In terms of the beginning of pleasureis,it’s largely a response to a serious bout with depression that began in2018, though who knows when things really begin. But it was a moment when themental and physical could not be separated—I was unable to control my heartrate—things spiraled out of control. The book begins with claustrophobia, and“chronophobia” as Hejinian calls it, about mental illness (but also the larger colonialorder) as an inability to let time pass. So the book really became a way togive back to time, which is also a way of giving back to memory,and a way for me to start letting it pass, which I’m still bad at. What led tothe experience of pleasure, which is the second part of the book, was music andmasturbation, specifically Joanna Brouk and her looking for the space betweennotes, some metaphysical fabric which made sound possible. I’m not sure shenecessarily found it though as she left music entirely and dedicated her lifeto transcendental meditation. The book also began as I was beginning my medicaltransition and having to relearn how to do a lot of things that I realized Inever knew how to do in the first place.

pleasureis amiracle is a bit different than my past work in that it is more of a set of shortpieces that talk to each other. I might have a general sense that the workscomprise a “book” but it’s more of a loose term that generally takes the shapeof something. Many of my poems begin as letters, or as prompts that friendshave made, or specifically dedicated to an artwork or a lover or a piece ofmusic. For instance, Joanna Brouk and Pauline Oliveros are major influences inthis one, and Laraaji. It’s hard for me to be rooted in language, specificallyfor a poem, without it being attached to a more concrete situation, even ifthat means the concreteness of a finger plucking a string. I don’t know,somehow that feels more concrete than writing about a cloud, to me at least.Having said that many of my poems start out as dreams, but that’s because weoften talk about dreams as narratives.

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

I find them a nerve wracking but I writepoems with my friends in mind so reading them out loud, to people, feels like anecessary element.

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?

Hah. This could be a long question. Well, Ithink it’s part of what I’ve said before, breaking free of the supremacy of thevisual aspect, I guess specifically in a trans sense, because of how damagingit can be. The book sees music, sound more particularly, as the tool with whichwe redefine the limits of love, language and the “visual space.” I have alwaysbeen very interested in the question of what is a priori and what is a posteriori—but that’s getting bitfarther afield.  

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

Hmm, I guess it would depend on what wedefine as larger “culture”—and I think it means something very differentdepending on the genre one writes and the place one writes. For poets, I thinkit is a focus on trying to find the language you need to find—and hopefully inthat search the language you find serves as a lens or a light which can piercethrough “larger culture.”

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

Well it depends on the editor…My editors atNightboat were absolutely incredible. 10/10.

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

About writing? Or life? For writing, ore onepiece of advice might be something Shiv said to me once, a while ago, or to agroup I was a part of; that you need a foil, someone you are sparring with inyour writing. For instance, Catullus writes to Cornelius Nepos, disparagingly,but it provides the emotional backdrop for what would otherwise be a ratherboring description of some rolls of papyrus. This is an example of a real foil.But it could also be a metaphorical foil. Bernadette Mayer’s poems often containfoils, even if the foil is herself. I guess you could also call this a sense ofintertextuality, but I think the term foil is more fun.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move betweengenres (poetry to translation to critical prose)? What do you see as theappeal?

I always have at least one translationproject going. My critical prose is the thing that needs more work at themoment. I think the two of them are modes that poets find themselves in forwhatever reason. I kind of wrote about this in my editor’s note for the PoetryProject Newsletter, when we did the translation issue last winter. It’s a wayto keep going despite the big voice of poetry in your ear. One needs to keepwriting regardless.

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

Oh, I wish I had a good response for this. Itry everything, minus the Kathy Acker writing while masturbating method. But Iprobably like writing in the morning best, I don’t know, some days are good andsome days are bad. I like waking up in the middle of the night and writing, butit is usually just to jot down some dreams.

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

Walking. Going into the world, taking thetrain to the beach alone—anything that will get me out of the apartment. Butit’s true that one does need to spend a lot of time in one place in order towrite. I mean, in a general sense. When my writing gets stalled I read also,reading is so much of my writing process.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Hmm I don’t have a good sense of what homesmells like. I would say it smells like a person I am in love with. But I loveperfume, flowery, frutal perfume mostly. The smell of old flowers, wet roses. Thesmell of moisture. There is a particular smell that you get in NorthernVirginia (where I grew up) in the summertime that is hard to find in otherplaces, but it’s a weird place to call home. There you get the heat of theSouth but not the piney smell of North Carolina, it’s a sticky, wet, hot smell.

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?

I think I’ve mentioned music above. That’sfunny he would say that because books come from trees! Specifically new agemusic was what started me off on pleasureis amiracle, which I know isembarrassing but I had to start somewhere, where the space between notes andletters stopped having so much rigidity.

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

A lot of them are in the back of pleasureisamiracle. But Judge Schreber’s Memoirs of MyNervous Illness is a key text, Rousseau’s Confessions, in terms of“non-fiction.” Fiction-wise Mackey’s From a Broken Bottle…which I amalways in the process of finishing. Scalapino and Hejinian are two biginfluences for me, and especially in my new book. I feel as though Scalapinoisn’t as read as she should be. Simone White turned me onto her, when we read waytogether—and I didn’t know anyone could write like that. I’m stillsearching for what it is that she does to language which renders it novel likethat. Oh, Joey Yearous-Algozin’s A Feeling Called Heaven also hada huge impact on this current book, another meditation on time.

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

Visit and or live in France.

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?

Hmm anyone who knows me would probably sayan automobile mechanic. I think that’s true. I don’t know, I love carsunabashedly. I could also work on train engines, but they’re almost too big.Small plane engines could be fun too. It’s a terrible business though, for carsat least, no one can make any money fixing them anymore. I am also a teacher,does that count as a separate occupation?

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

It is just the thing I have always beendoing, regardless of whatever else is going on in my life. What else would Ido?

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

Mark Francis Johnson, Diary of a String;Edward Berger’s Conclave (2024)

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on a forthcomingnovella involving two lovers trapped in a penal colony, sleeping with eachother, reminiscing about their pasts, and trying to escape. It’s a kind ofDelany-inspired 18th century epistolary novel, or at least that’sthe direction it’s headed. And who knows maybe there will be some poems inthere too. Scalapino’s novels have this great lack of solidity which allowsthem to be poems, to me at least. But I have a feeling this project might belonger than novella length so I might have some major editing to do. Sometimesit’s hard to figure out where one thing stops and the other starts. Oh, I amalso writing a collaborative fan-fiction novella of Xena Warrior Princess butthat is much farther afield. For another day.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

new from above/ground press: Heroux/Straumsvåg, McKenzie, Spinosa, Novak, Cohen, Gevirtz, McEwan, Smiley, Houglum + The Peter F Yacht Club #34, 2024 Holiday Special,

The Peter F Yacht Club #34, 2024 Holiday Special, with new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars and irregulars, including Frances Boyle, Ellen Chang-Richardson, Jason Christie, David Currie, Michelle Desbarats, AJ Dolman, nina jane drystek, Amanda Earl, Laura Farina, ryan fitzpatrick, Cara Goodwin, Chris Johnson, Margo LaPierre, IAN MARTIN, Karen Massey, rob mclennan, James K. Moran, Pearl Pirie, Colin Quin, Monty Reid, Joan Rivard, Stuart Ross and Grant Wilkins $6 ; A Further Introduction to Bingo, Jason Heroux and Dag T. Straumsvåg $5 ; The Book of Fire, Carter McKenzie $5 ; A Mean, Mean Thirst, poems for my friends and their books, Dani Spinosa $5 ; Une Couronne Cassée Pour Ma Sœur, JoAnna Novak $5 ; A Love Poem While the Children Sleep, Julia Cohen $5 ; DOCTOR SHAMAN, Susan Gevirtz $5 ; And Absurd Cycle, Drew McEwan $5 ; The Winter Circus, Conal Smiley $5 ; ANTHRONOISE, Brook Houglum $5 ;

keep an eye on the above/ground press blog for author interviews, new writing, reviews, upcoming readings and tons of other material; oh, and you know that 2025 subscriptions (our thirty-second year!) are still available, yes?

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With forthcoming chapbooks by: Gregory Crosby, Gwen Aube, Nada Gordon, Lydia Unsworth, Andrew Brenza, Brook Houglum, Nathanael O'Reilly, Orchid Tierney, Andy Weaver, Catriona Strang, Penn Kemp, Alice Burdick, Maxwell Gontarek, Noah Berlatsky, Ryan Skrabalak, Terri Witek and David Phillips; and probably others! (yes: others,

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Olivia Cronk

Olivia Cronk is the author of Gwenda, Rodney(Meekling Press, 2024), WOMONSTER (Tarpaulin Sky, 2020), Louise andLouise and Louise (The Lettered Streets Press, 2016), and Skin Horse(Action Books, 2012). She teaches Composition, Creative Writing, and Literatureat Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. She is also Vice President ofNEIUPI, the union representing faculty, librarians, and advisors.

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

When I found out that the very generous Joyelle McSweeneyand Johannes Göransson (Action Books) would take my first book (2012), I waskind of shocked–but, of course, insanely excited that what I’d been working onwould have a more tangible physical body than my pile of print-outs AND that itwould come from Action Books, an unbelievably cool and expansive and smartpress. Actually, what I sent them was a little too thin, and I had to keepwriting some more, and I did, and huge chunks of the manuscript were untitledpages (kind of posturing as in media res and fragmentary)--and when theywere editing it, Joyelle suggested that I either buff it up with clearer titlesto contain/frame each piece or–here is her stroke of genius, something Isometimes forget even happened but believe me it’s CRUCIAL to my whole writinglife–simply cut all the titles. (!!!) Holy shit this move shaped all ofmy writing and thinking thereafter. 

So, the first book certainly helped me feel more confidentabout trying to send work into the world and, because it was from a press muchcooler than I, gave me some more character/credibility–but the real thing thatchanged my life was Joyelle’s editorial moves! After that, I stopped thinkingof poems as precious singular gardens with nice fences around them. I suppose Ididn’t completely write like that, anyway, but the notion that the book ofpoems could explode into a book book, like a spell, like a movie (I wasdelighted when they let me request that the title page get held off until afterthe last page of poems), like something else . . . really, truly shapedmy whole way of composing.

In fact, the new book is my attempt at a “poetry novel” (NOTa novel in verse, btw), and I wanted to make something that “gulps” like anovel but “sips” like poetry: like, is it possible to rapidly move through it,have the “effect” of reading a novel but none of the real weight, feel astoner-style attention to small particles as a space for psychedelic un-selfingwhile still vaguely sensing, like a pebble in the shoe, a narrative? Anyway, Inever could have tried to do that if not for what happened in the editorialprocess of my first book.

One last piece of your question: it is different, though:I’m smarter, now, and have read more and listened to more songs and looked atmore paintings and had a baby who has turned into a teenager and have taughtabout 1200 more students and been alive for more things and thought more, etc.So, the book is different because I am different but of course also thesame. 

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

I have probably told this story in other spaces, and it iskind of silly but represents a real piece of my interiority.

In second grade, I was taught about poetry and then assignedthe writing of a poem. I came up with an idea about snow (it was probablywinter, in Chicago, when we still had real winters) AS a broken open pillow. Iblew my own damn mind. I couldn’t get over the narcotic, psychedelic pleasureof metaphor dropped like elixir into language and thus producing a new image. Iwanted to write poems over and over again, to get high.

I’m also quite committed to what we often refer to as“hybrid-form,” and I love writing reviews and paragraphs and even, honestly,some/most work documents. I love writing. Love it, truly. In all forms.(I love writing responses to these questions.)

But I remain committed to poetry because of its availabilityto multiplicity/to proliferating shadow-meanings, because of its smallness as asite of explosive possibility, and because it can contain the whole world andthe beyond-world.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writingproject? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Dofirst drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work comeout of copious notes?

I get a feeling for what I want to write, as a wholeproject (which usually gets imagined as a manuscript, which means that I amimagining projects AS books, and sometimes they’ll never get picked up as“books”): 

The “feeling” is a kind of constellation of: other pieces ofart that I want to directly or indirectly ekphrasticize, ideas that I want topursue (usually, these ideas are form-based inquiries but are sometimes moreconventionally delineated “ideas”), bits of language (read, heard, spoken,randomly generated sometimes in exercises with my students or as a result ofpreparing seemingly unrelated texts for classes), visual art pieces at which Iwish to gaze, music to which I want to listen, TV shows or movies I have beenthinking about . . . and basically, all of my notes and fragments accumulate(as bits and pieces) in my notebook until I have time to write. 

(I’m NTT at a regional public university that has beenwildly defunded for twenty-five years and newly VP of my union, my husband isNTT with a 4/4 load, and we have a thirteen-year-old, so there is NO time toactually sit down and write during the school year. I can usually steal aboutthree days of my winter break, but all the big writing time happens in thesummer). 

It takes me about two years to “finish” a project (bywriting, sporadically, into a digital document with my notebook next to me,over a period of about a year, then tiring of the conceit and thus “concluding”the work, then revising by reading aloud and reading silently from printeddrafts, then revising by asking my husband the poet Philip Sorenson for notes),but of course I’m only 46; I’m sure many other habits and ways of thinkingabout writing-time will evolve. 

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose 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?

See above.

Because of many factors, including the editorial acumen ofJoyelle McSweeney and my own drive to pleasure, I do indeed write in “book”form.

For now!

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

I actually do LOVE to be in readings (even though I am kindof averse to too much social time). And, because I know that I wrote about thisvery clearly already and because it was written during the time of NO-public(Winter 2021) and thus with some critical distance, I’m going to repeat what I said in an interview with Logan Berry:

At readings, which I did (do?) enjoy for the possibility offlexing a muscle that I don’t regularly tend to, I like being a kind of actresswhen reading my work. I don’t mean to imply that I’m very good at that, justthat it’s a kind of playing I enjoy. When I perform my poems I have in mind theproducing of a kind of feeling in a listener/reader—not so much a meaning,of course. Much more like kids humming while also making dolls talk in adollhouse. And I hope that when someone is reading the book alone they can havethat same weirdness.

So–yeah–I do use readings to understand what’s happening inthe writing–and either that causes revision (not very often, though; I am tooanxious to share something aloud that I’m not already very happy with) or thatcauses MORE writing because I get some more “feelings”-info from theperformance.

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

Always. Yes. Probably the primary thing I am always thinkingabout is: How does poetry’s condensed nature/its condensation yield an outsizedMEANING? What does it mean (for my experience of time and space) to prop thoseeffects up in a kind of shadow box?

A couple books ago, I was obsessed with the impossibility ofa coherent self and what it MEANS to control the flow of information on thepage.

Right now, I’m thinking/writing about the gaze, infection,vampires, the tone of ordinary suffering, rage as a holding of the line . . .

In the work of other contemporary poets (and other types ofwriters) who are much bigger in their thinking than I (btw I am totally coolwith being B-movie-ish, a petty tinkerer), I feel like some of the bigquestions of now are related to what the inside (terrorizing, terrorized) oflooking and being is, how language and art $erve capital in ways within andbeyond our knowing, how writing with and from sources can be an ethos thatmight help to de-center whiteness, how Literature can facilitate an expansionof collective knowledge . . .

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

The writer can help proliferate community and thus (quiteactively or even very remotely/impressionistically) stabilize the fragilethreads of solidarity between the many people needed to collaborate inservice of surviving the horror of Now; 

can create literal or figurative occasions for what is alsomy current fave teaching strategy, “small explosive art situations”;

can narrate/express/compose/sing for the purposes ofwitness, observation, or mere preservation of the ephemeral–all of which can bemeaningful to any single reader; 

can, because Literature is a shared experience and requiresmany types and modes of stewardship, be “a person for others” (I went to aJesuit high school LOL); 

can offer a momentary or lasting un-selfing for anotherhuman, which might act as salve or as awakening;

can do what Grushenka (in Brothers Karamazov)suggests is as important as full devotion to goodness: at least once givesomeone an onion when they need it.

That’s what I can come up with right now. I’ll think on thisagain in ten years.

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

I’ve literally never had a negative experience with any ofthe editors of my book-length works. 

& shout out to the quite brilliant, thoughtful, andincisive work of my most recent editor, the writer Anne Yoder! She is essential.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (notnecessarily given to you directly)?

I still believe in the Golden Rule. I’m an atheist, but Ihonestly still think about a self-sacrifice that was narrated in a certainhomily, in a Catholic mass, which I attended during the school week and onSundays.

In art-making realities, I was deeply impressed, as a gradstudent, by a teacher who told us to say yes to EVERY art-making occasion, sothat we’d know more and be bigger in our thinking.

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

I cannot write anything that would be widely understood asFiction.

I can definitely write lyrical prose.

But, in general, I find it difficult to write without poetryas my shoulder-demon/-angel.

Ultimately, though, any writing occasion is appealing to mebecause I might learn more about writing itself.

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

See above–notebooks that accumulate material &twice-a-year down time to actually compose.

My day begins with coffee and toast, and then our kid and ustwo adults go off to our responsibilities. My new role in the union allows meto only teach two classes, but my hours are otherwise packed withcorrespondences and member organizing duties.

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

I read more.

I find new music, film, and TV that pleases me.

I do watercolors.

I sew curtains.

I truly don’t worry about it all.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

My current home: incense and garlic.

My childhood home(s): wet dog, spilled gasoline and woodshavings on a garage floor, Kirk’s Castile Soap.

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

See above; literally EVERYTHING is of use to me.

Right now, I guess I am most wrapped up in looking itself.I feel like, for reasons unknown to me, about five years ago, I got much betterat looking, even though it’s always been one of my most favorite pastimes.

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

Again: everything.

But, when I was younger: Lucie Brock-Broido, Joan Didion,Carl Sandburg, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Wright. Sometimes I miss that youngreading-time of being completely unfocused and finding pleasure and informationin every single book you find.

I read constantly, obviously–and anything can strike me aswonderful or informative! I love the books and writings of my friends andstudents. My husband’s work is very influential to me. The books I assign, evenif I’ve read them many times, are influential. Some recentfavorites/re-favorites include this and this and thisand this. 

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

I wish I could write cleanly about pedagogy and thecollective act of Literature.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt,what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended updoing had you not been a writer?

I could have been, possibly, a park ranger. I thought a lotabout studying that and then living alone-ish in a big public forest. I alsoquite seriously considered being a plumber when I was young. In my twenties, Ialways assumed that I would be some sort of copy editor–before that worlddisappeared and before I wound up in teaching, which suits me quite well. 

I love teaching almost as much as I love writing.

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

It came easy to me, and I love doing it.

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

Oh–something I mentioned above: OnBeauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry. I don’t at all agree with herpremises, but I’m crazy for the way she writes/the little moves and gestures.

& this Truffaut movie called The Green Room(not the contemporary movie of the same title); it’s a little shadow box kindof thing, somewhat based on Henry James’ stories, and it’s wonderfully quietand weird.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Probably another “poetry novel,” this one a “vampirethriller” about the gaze, infection, suffering, rage . . .

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Joel Katelnikoff, Recombinant Theory

 

The limits of languageseem incomprehensible because we are. Unexpected associations resistassimilation, and thinking is unconscious and almost unfathomable. In this way,poetry becomes the limits of language. (“‘take then these nails & boards’(Charles Bernstein)”)

I’mintrigued at Edmonton writer and critic Joel Katelnikoff’s RecombinantTheory (Calgary AB: University of Calgary Press, 2024), a collection of essays,of responses, to and through works by Lisa Robertson, Fred Wah, Lyn Hejinian,Steve McCaffery, Sawako Nakayaso, Johanna Drucker, Charles Bernstein, Annharte,Erín Moure and Christian Bök, each of which are done by repurposing the authors’own words. Set as chapter-sections, Katelnikoff repurposes each writer’s wordsas a response to those same works, offering a way across the work that is, infact, through. In his own way, he turns their words back as a mirror tothemselves. “In short,” he writes, to open the Erín Moure essay/section, “howcan we be true to the way the brain works?”

Katelnikoff’sprocess has echoes of the way Klara du Plessis has been composing essays overthe past few years, specifically through her I’mpossible collab(Kentville NS: Gaspereau Press, 2023) [see my review of such here]: the critic isnot removed from the material but an essential part, offering the critic a wayinto the material comparable to the creative non-fiction explorations through the1970s and 80s by writers such as Myrna Kostash and Brian Fawcett. Whereas du Plessisplaces the critic directly into the material, Katelnikoff, instead, places thecriticism directly into the material, and the material discussed directly intothe criticism. Poets have been working elements of essay-poems for years—poets suchas Phil Hall, Erín Moure, Laynie Browne and the late Barry McKinnon, forexample—swirling across theory through the lyric, but Katelnikoff offers critiquethrough repurposing the language being critiqued, taking the process a wholeother level, writing essays from the inside. As he writes as part of theacknowledgments: “All of the essays in this collection are written with thepermission of the writers whose textual materials have been recombined. In eachessays, the title, the section headers, and the sentences in the first sectionare direct quotations from the writer’s textual corpus. All other sentences arespliced together from diverse materials found throughout the corpus.” It’s afascinating process, and a fascinating read.

“my words keep meaningpictures of words meaning tree”

As I am slow in myexperience of myself (a man who is a tree and rivers and creeks), I can’t stoplooking at the site of this poetics. Landscape and memory as the true practiceof thought. Pictures of words meaning something of themselves.

Among the spruce I admitthere is a moon at night. Somehow these pieces of driftwood are everywhere,foregrounding the materiality of the Kootenay River, the most important cipherin its dry branches of driftwood. There is a moon among the spruce.

The more I write, themore meaning has slipped, whirling through a green blur of moving trees. The mindwanders in green mountain valleys, a mountain dispersed in a scatter. To write inpoetry is to move among the spruce, foregrounding the materiality of a mountainrising to the moon. (“‘where you are is who you are’ Fred Wah”)

Han VanderHart lists my World's End, (ARP Books) in their "Ten Remarkable Small Press Titles I Read This Year" list!

American poet, critic, editor and publisher Han VanderHart was good enough to include my World's End, (ARP Books, 2023) on their "Ten Remarkable Small Press Titles I Read This Year" list! Thanks so much! I'm so rarely on lists, so this is even further exciting, certainly (and I clearly need to catch up on the other nine titles included). And if such intrigues, you should check out when VanderHart interviewed me earlier this year for an episode of the On Poetry Podcast, yes?