Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 94

Tony Iantosca, Crisis Inquiry

My review of Brooklyn-based writer, poet and educator Tony Iantosca's Crisis Inquiry (Brooklyn NY: ugly duckling presse, 2023) is now up at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics.

Ongoing notes: early April, 2023: Micah Ballard,

Covidstill has me low, so this is all I could get done for today.

San Francisco CA: I’m appreciating theopportunity to go through further work by San Francisco (by way of Louisiana)poet and editor Micah Ballard, through his chapbook Muddy Waters (SanFrancisco CA: State Champs, 2022), a title that notes, according to thecolophon, has poems “written at Muddy Waters coffeehouse / in San Franciscobetween march and June 2022.” The author of a plethora of books and chapbooksover the past dozen-plus years, I’d been wanting to delve a bit deeper into hiswork, as he not only co-edited an issue of G U E S T [a journal of guesteditors], but has work in the next issue of Touch the Donkey [a smallpoetry journal]. Along with a preface by Garrett Caples and postscript byRod Roland, the twenty-five short first-person narratives in this collectionare composed as lines of accumulation, offering scraps of observation andimmediate moments propelled with an electric energy of narrative speed. The poemssuggest themselves as being timeless, but offer anchors to the immediatelycontemporary across fragments, scraps and moments that pose as larger narratives.As the opening poem, “CHILDREN OF THE NEW DAWN,” opens: “Very fentanyl / half aface, the other / diffused of light. Very Avedon / or Penati, a little Modigliani/ & off balance. Laughing gas under suspicion / cracking a nail on your zipper/ Everything I do is underneath.” Or, as the opening of Garrett Caples’ prefacepoem, “Muddy’s Report,” begins: “the coffee in this swamp / tastes much as you’dexpect [.]” These poems really are electric, charged with something I am stillworking to determine, but am enjoying a great deal, either way.

ULTRA DAB

Sensitivity
is my virtue so I morph
into all things
wobbling around
in my wonderful burntskin
talking in innuendoes
to bay with the cadence
of unflattering daylight
& this congregation
of zombies w/ baremidriffs
seeking acquisition
I apply some blush andmascara
& give us some life
prone to vest up I evoke
another vortex and hugthe air instead
then jump back into
this wireless abyss ofpopular opposites
which you’re totally not
but you’re not, not

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Michelle Sinclair

Michelle Sinclair worked as a policy analyst onhuman rights issues for many years. She studied international development andsocial work at McGill University, and completed an MFA at Chatham University inPittsburgh. Her original work and Spanish-English literary translations haveappeared in The Antigonish Review, LindenAvenue Literary Journal, and other journals in Canada and the US. Her firstnovel, Almost Visible waspublished by Baraka Books in September 2022, and received The MiramichiReader’s “Best Books of 2022” award for fiction. She lives in Ottawa with herhusband, three children and three pets.

1 - Howdid your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare toyour previous? How does it feel different?

I’ve only published my debut novelso far. I was nervous about how it would be received, but I’m trying to go withthe flow. I’m also learning how wonderful it feels if a reader connects with anidea, theme or character.

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

I always read fiction and it wasmy first love. I wanted to write like my favourite authors.  I suppose I may have been frightened ofnon-fiction and poetry - it seemed easier to “hide” behind fiction. I like toexperiment and try new styles and genres and there’s so much one can do withfiction.

Ceridwen Dovey said this aboutfiction: “In a secular age, I suspect that reading fiction is one of the fewremaining paths to transcendence, that elusive state in which the distancebetween the self and the universe shrinks. Reading fiction makes me lose allsense of self, but at the same time makes me feel most uniquely myself.”

3 - Howlong does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writinginitially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear lookingclose to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I have bursts of inspiration - acharacter or an image or even an atmosphere, and I’ll write it down. But theplot work is the slowest (and most challenging) for me. I need to know thecharacters well and then I can work out what will happen to them. UnfortunatelyI have to think, plan, percolate (and ask my family for plot ideas) for a longtime!

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

If the idea is to explore a momentor a feeling, or if I’m looking to play with words, then I know it should be ashorter piece. If the idea is to really let characters live a layeredexperience, then I’ll know it’s a book. So far I’ve only written one bookthough, so we’ll see if I can do it again! I think I might be working onanother book, but sometimes it threatens to be a novella. 

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

I am the type of person who hashoped that some calamity will befall me and prevent me from being able to doany public speaking. In my former work I had to do it all the time and it nevergot easier (as they promised it would).

However, public readings haveproven to be quite fun. I was nervous for the first one, but the crowd waslovely and supportive. While I’ll always prefer sitting on the sidelines tobeing the center of attention, in the end readings are good for me to connectwith others and to challenge myself.

6 - Doyou have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questionsare you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the currentquestions are?

I tried to answer this question in my own words, but I thinkGeorge Saunders (in A Swim in the Pond in the Rain) sums it up well when he discusses the classic Russian shortstories:

“The resistance in the stories is quiet, at a slant, andcomes from perhaps the most radical idea of all: that every human being isworthy of attention and that the origins of every good and evil capability ofthe universe may be found by observing a single, even very humble, person andthe turnings of his or her mind.”

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

Writers have many roles - they inform,entertain, distract and educate. They can evoke empathy and compassion. Theyask questions about the human condition. The fact that writers can conveyphilosophical concepts in imagined stories brings us closer to feeling aconceptual issue - rather than thinking about it (I suppose the same could besaid about art in general). I think the role of the writer is to bring us to acloser understanding of ourselves.

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

I really enjoy working witheditors, and appreciate their perspectives. I almost always enjoy working withothers and love getting feedback.

9 - Whatis the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to youdirectly)?

When I was beginning my novel, my mentor warned me that it might take mea decade to finish. He was essentially telling me to chill out, but I washorrified. I wanted to finish the work quickly. He was teaching me that writingwill take the time it takes, and he was absolutely correct. That novel tookeleven years to finish!

10 -What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? Howdoes a typical day (for you) begin?

I have struggled to keep a routineand failed miserably. I write when I can. I have three children, three pets, ajob outside the home and a number of volunteer responsibilities. Sometimes Ihave to remind myself that making it through the day is enough.

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

I read an author I admire and hopethat their words and talent will somehow, by osmosis, make its way into me.Poetry will often inspire me.

12 -What fragrance reminds you of home?

Lilacs.  I’ve never had one home (we moved a lot), butI always seemed to be with my mother whenever I encountered a lilac tree, so Iconnected lilacs and my mother. She passed away almost twenty years ago but sheseems present when I smell lilacs, which is both sad and comforting.

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

Nature and music are probably thetwo most influential (other than books and words). I find great solace andinspiration in nature. Music is tricky because I can’t listen to music while Iwork, but certain pieces of music might inspire an image or an “atmosphere”that I want to evoke through writing.

14 -What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your lifeoutside of your work?

I think this is the most difficultquestion of all! I love any writer who challenges the status quo - particularlyBlack and Indigenous writers.

There are too many to name here,and I keep discovering new (or new to me) writers that give me a newperspective - of craft or sentence structure or theme. Writers who areimportant for my work are those who are courageous or push boundaries, becauseI feel I have permission to try to do the same.

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

I want to write a play. Seeingone’s work interpreted and acted on a stage is an exciting prospect and thecollaborative effort is appealing because it is less lonely than writing onone’s own.

16 - Ifyou 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 awriter?

I worked as a policy analyst formany years and enjoyed my job, but I feel fortunate to be able to focus more onwriting and reading. That said, I want to find a way to further connectliterature and social justice efforts. In my MFA program, I was able to workwith community programs - in one instance at a rehabilitation center formothers with addiction. I want to keep writing and publishing and eventuallyfind out how to partner with others in these kinds of pursuits.

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

I felt compelled to try. I lovereading and I love playing with words, and I knew that it could be somethingthat might become easier with time and practice. I’m also painfully aware ofthe things I cannot do (and there are so many)!

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

I have fairly eclectic tastes, butI really enjoy stories with introspective, perceptive characters. I justfinished Martha Schabas’s My Face in theLight and loved it. Each paragraph contains a lovely, thought-provokingperspective that illuminates some emotion I’ve considered superficially butnever fully contemplated. I didn’t want it to end. I had to read slowly tosavour it.

I’ve been watching a lot of moviesabout musicians lately. I recently enjoyed “Summer of Soul”, about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. It includesinterviews and live footage of performers like Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jacksonand Nina Simone, and is informative about the social and historical context ofthe festival.

19 -What are you currently working on?

A few different projects, and I need to focus!  I had two ideas for novels, but I’m wonderingif one of them could be turned into a play. I also have a few ideas for shortstories and I’m recently coming up with poems. I don’t know where they’recoming from, but it’s fun to work on shorter pieces and closure feels moreaccessible.

My kids have incredible imaginations, and would like me towrite a book for kids. However, they’re such good writers, I’m hoping I canedit their work. That would be the best project!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

[image error]

sick day(s) : covid-positive,

taking a sick day or two:
unable to move/think: headache/foggy, exhausted/muscle sore; Tuesday mid-afternoon, i fell to earth, (+ yesterday morning tested positive for Covid-19,

Christine tested positive as well, which is a bit of a concern, but at least the children are clear so far. Obviously, we'd send them somewhere if we weren't concerned about infecting another household. So far, we're managing, and both each in similar low-energy fogs. And we're keeping the children home from school until Monday, at least. We shall reassess then.

Barbara Tomash, Her Scant State

 

the history of her marriage and its consequence died
three years after the grey American dawn of not believing
a word she said

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________
In life there is love, the moment becomes a single, melted together and into
pain. Her hands raised, clasped, slowly moved his face.
                                                                                        “I believe I ruined you.”

The fifth full-length poetry title by Berkeley, California poet Barbara Tomash, following Flying in Water (New York NY: Spuyten Duyvil, 2005), The Secret of White (Spuyten Duyvil, 2009), Arboreal (Berkeley CA: Apogee Press, 2014) [see my review of such here] and PRE- (Lafayette LA: Black Radish Books, 2018) [see my review of such here], is Her Scant State(Apogee Press, 2023), a book-length assemblage of erasure poems that focus on Henry James’ 1881 novel The Portrait of a Lady. It is curious to think that at least two Apogee-published Berkeley poets have been focusing on book-length poetry projects that rework and even reconceptualize literary works by others, from Tomash’s collection to Laura Walker’s recent psalmbook (Apogee Press, 2022) [see my review of such here] that reworked Biblical text, or even Trevor Ketner’s recent reconceptualization of Shakepeare’s sonnets through their The Wild Hunt Divinations: a grimoire (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2023) [see my review of such here]. As Tomash writes in her “Source Notes” at the back of the collection:

Her Scant State is an erasure of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. I kept strictly to word order but allowed myself free rein with punctuation and form on the page. The first half of the novel runs across the top of each page of Her Scant State. The second half of the novel runs across the bottom of each page. “Note” is an erasure of “Note on the Text” in the Oxford World’s Classics edition of the novel. “Face” is an erasure of James’s 1908 preface to the New York Edition.

“The Portrait of a Lady / was in twelve parts / of thousands of small disruptive / processes, classic reader,” Tomash’s opening “Note” reads, “the / significance of some of these / is discussed [.]” Tomash’s Her Scant Suite works through an array of language erasure, description and disruption that flicks between a language and tone from the contemporary to the nineteenth-century, simultaneously existing in neither and both spaces. Through such, Tomash manages to compose an entirely new almost nether-space from which this new portrait emerges. “squandered      gambled      daughters,” she writes, early on in the collection, “a proof modified / by pain // she danced very well // the choreographic circle constituted / the limits of her own power [.]”

rob’s clever substack : Lecture for an Empty Room

For those unaware, I’ve been posting weekly-or-so over at a substack I began back in November, constructed to prompt further thinking into a potential book-length essay, “Lecture for an Empty Room.” I had started scratching note-fragments somewhere across those first two years of Covid-19 lockdown, thinking upon literary community, reviewing, notions of work, connection, responsibility and various other scattered thoughts. I’m attempting to post something weekly, with every third or so as a paid-subscription-only piece, with the rest offered gratis to anyone who signs up (free subscriptions are the bulk of the subscriptions, which is fine also). I’m aiming to post self-contained fragments of this work-in-progress as I attempt to move forward, interspersing these with occasional other pieces, whether short stories, possible fragments of this novel work-in-progress as well as a chapbook-length essay I worked across the same original lockdown period, a kind of notebook on a call-and-response poem collaboration that Denver poet Julie Carr and I were working on. I had thought back to an essay I saw once by George Bowering, composed as journal entries during a period he was working a novel (I can’t recall which book this was in, or which novel, naturally; was this an essay on/around composing Caprice?), or even Robert Kroetsch’s The Crow Journals (Edmonton AB: NeWest Press, 1980), a book-length journal composed around the composition of his novel, What the Crow Said (1978). I’d always envied that particular form, wishing to echo an element of it somewhere, somehow, and there are some wonderful observations through that particular non-fiction work (I would recommend you find a copy and go through it, even if you haven’t read that particular novel of his, which is actually still in print, by the way).

Here's one of the recent fragments of “Lecture for an Empty Room” I posted over at my clever substack (sign up here for free (or for a wee bit of coin), if such interests). I am curious to see where this project might end up, myself.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

A conversation. All these little echo chambers.

At the end of December, 2022, Matthew Walther’s “Poetry Died 100 Years Ago This Month” appeared in The New York Times. Why is it so important for opinion writers to return, once again, to declaring the death of poetry? Perhaps they wish to claim credit, whether through a kind of critic-assisted end of literary suffering, or wishing to be seen to have the clarity of childlike wisdom, akin to “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Walther speaks of modernism, a contemporary dearth of MFA programs churning out literature professors, and an endless array of chapbooks. Nothing useful since TS Eliot; remember TS Eliot? TS Eliot was cool, right?

Circa 2001, Ken Norris suggested to me that MFA programs throughout the United States had caused the death of American poetry. Given my broader reading experience since, I’d say I disagree with that statement, but I don’t know what he might have seen since 1985, the year he landed to teach at the University of Maine. I’m sure writing programs everywhere churn out an array of unremarkable writers producing semi-publishable work that later end up littering the landscape of journals, chapbooks and trade collections, but I don’t see American programs doing this with any greater percentages than their Canadian counterparts. It might simply be a matter of scale. Layli Long Soldier emerged from a program. Megan Kaminski emerged from a program. Sarah Mangold emerged from a program. Jericho Brown emerged from a program. I don’t think the issue, if there is one to be discussed, is that of the MFA program.

But still: given so much activity, productivity and production, why declare the state of the union, as it were, past tense? Oh, Matthew Walther, literature isn’t there to do what you think it should, or you heard once that it might have. It isn’t there to obey your rules. Literature remains in constant motion. It evolves, just as much as language and culture, from pop to human. We should never think of any of these as absolutes, or fixed. Stagnation, not evolution, is what causes the death you are in such a rush to declare. But I want things to be as they were, they say. This creature is already dead. Instead of bothering to understand the art on its own terms. Matthew Walther, have you a difficulty with an art that includes both Rupi Kaur and M. NourbeSe Philip?

Every article on the death of literature, whether poetry or the novel, exists as a variation on the same: the misunderstanding that any art is not a fixed point, nor is it meant to do, whether solely or otherwise, what it is that you wish. Adaptability, for both the reader and the practitioner, remains key. What was American poetry before Walt Whitman? What was Canadian poetry before bpNichol? What was literature before Dionne Brand? Each of these changing the very foundation of how the literatures they lived in was heard, written and seen. Arguably, every poet writing shifts the foundations and boundaries of literature, even if only a little, so the very notion of the fixed point. Declare your intentions! the traditional poets blast at the avant-garde. They counter: We can’t declare what won’t stand still.

Alice Notley, Jordan Abel. Lisa Robertson. Fred Wah. Anne Carson. Margaret Christakos. Andrew Suknaski. Stephen Collis. Jack Spicer, Lorine Niedecker or Robert Creeley. Ron Silliman. And then those in the nebulous between-states, working experimental texts across more subtle landscapes: Judith Fitzgerald, Kathleen Fraser, David Donnell. The long sentences of between of Monty Reid.

Call this a mantra, if you wish: my literature includes difficult work. To comprehend the centre one has to examine the edge.

Rupi Kaur: she seems an easy and lazy target for literary archers. I don’t care for the lyrically uncomplicated statements of her poems, but she might have allowed more young readers into literature than most of us combined. Maybe?

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kim Chinquee

Kim Chinquee grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, served in the medical field in the Air Force, and is often referred to as the “queen” of flash fiction. She’s published hundreds of pieces of fiction and nonfiction in journals and magazines including The Nation, Ploughshares, NOON, Storyquarterly, Denver Quarterly, Fiction, Story, Notre Dame Review, Conjunctions, and others. She is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and a Henfield Prize. She is Senior Editor of New World Writing Quarterly, Chief Editor of Elm Leaves Journal (ELJ) and co-director of SUNY—Buffalo State University’s Writing Major. She’s the author of eight books, most recently (her debut novel) Pipette .

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, Oh Baby, published in 2008, taught me a lot about the process of book publishing. It also taught me that I can write a book! It made me feel more like an actual writer, too. Pipette, my most recent work is a novel, whereas Oh Baby seemed more like stories with some recurring themes. They are both told in the flash fiction form, though I believe Pipette's chapters are a bit more fleshed out.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I took a fiction writing class in college before taking any poetry or nonfiction classes, and I just fell in love with the genre. I still do enjoy writing poetry and nonfiction, yet I prefer the craft of fiction, and making things up, and seeing how a story can change by just adding/changing a character, a place, or event.
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I guess it varies. Though it's usually a slow process. I tend to write using prompt words and exercises, and sometimes craft various pieces together and write a short series of pieces and string them together and then reshape. First drafts rarely look close to their final shapes.

4 - Where does a work of prose 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?
I rarely work on a "book" from the very beginning, though I've tried, and am still working on a few! I love the satisfaction of writing a short piece, and then maybe building from there.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy readings! I see them as part of my creative process. Sometimes, I'll edit a piece while reading, based on the response of the audience, or deciding I'm bored with certain parts, or realizing maybe a story needs to end a lot sooner.
 
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?
Good questions! I don't see myself as answering questions with my work, as most of the work, as I write, begs more questions. Mostly about character, plot, language, all the elements and how they work together.

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?
I believe roles are different for every writer. Rendering sensory details and brining the reader into the human experience. (And perhaps the experience of nature.) And maybe the beauty of language. And to find the truth. I don't think the role of any writer should be completely subscribed, as long as the intentions of the writer are integral.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I find it pretty essential. I welcome editorial feedback, as it can help look at the work under a different light, and may help the work become stronger. And not every edit needs to be accepted, though it's important to consider.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I can't actually think of one that is the "best." But lots of accumulated advice that adds up. As far as writing, I often return to these 39 Steps by Frederick Barthelme, who I studied with at the USM Center for Writers. https://www.frederickbarthelme.com/nonfiction/the-39-steps/

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (flash fiction to short stories to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
It's a challenge for me. Sometimes when I attempt to write a longer piece, it ends up as a flash--as it appears the story might be done before I never really got to tell the story I had intended in the first place. But then I realize maybe that's not the story meant to be told.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I've been hosting an online writing group on Zoetrope since about 2002--I post five prompt words and a first sentence. I usually just string them together. A typical day for me starts by answering emails and doing the "business" of writing. Editorial duties, reading work by others. I don't have a set time for writing, but I tend to do most of that at night. I like to get in at least some exercise every day, and when I'm in triathlon training, that often takes up at least a couple hours, and often I craft a story based on my prompt words throughout the day. My daily  activities also offer inspiration, and time to reflect on my writing, and once my "chores" for the day are done, I like to settle into the actual writing. I'm currently on sabbatical--when not, my schedule also involves teaching, meetings, advisement, fulfilling administrative roles.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Prompts. Film. I'll return to drafts and continue to revise. Reading work by writers I admire. I rarely get stalled, as I don't really believe in writer's block.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Hay. (I grew up on a dairy farm and would help my family bale hay in the summers.)

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

I love studying plot in films. I'm a triathlete, and often listen to music while running, which sometimes helps me work through story ideas, or move deeper into a story. I used to play piano a lot, and sometimes I imagine the computer keyboard as piano keys. And nature almost always inspires. I used to work as a medical lab technician, and I have written about that experience too--science fascinates me. And I have three dogs. They're always full of surprises!

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
My mentors, editors, friends. Diane Williams and NOON, Frederick Barthelme, Jean Thompson, Richard Powers. Fellow writers in my Hot Pants Writing Group. Kathryn Rantala of Ravenna Press. Lots of others in my writing community.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I'm not sure. Feel like I've already done a lot and I am happy these days just being at home with my dogs and writing and traveling when I can.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I was a med lab tech in the Air Force before becoming a writer. I worked in hospitals and clinics while in college, and again last year, helping during Covid. I also majored in art while in college, but decided on writing--I was more committed to writing, and it seemed the path for me. I've also dreamt of being a pianist, and a competitive athlete.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I took a creative writing in college, and fell in love with it. I don't recall any other activity, besides maybe running, that I was ever as passionate about.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Richard Powers's Bewilderment. Love all the nature in the book, the emotional complexity, the language, the lore, just everything.

I recently saw Everything Everywhere All at Once . Love the absurdity, the emotional range, and the sensory buffet!

Also FRANK .  The 2014 film directed by Lenny Abrahamson, produced by David Barron,

I share it with my students. And watch it repeatedly.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I just finished a round of edits of my novel I Thought of England. Am currently revising my novel Pirouette. Writing new flashes, and another new (perhaps nonfiction) book. And drafting a book on teaching online writing. My sabbatical ends August of 2023 and am trying to make the most of it!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Ongoing notes: even later March, 2023: Maureen Scott Harris + Buck Downs,

Nice that folk have started sending me chapbooks again; why do so few publisher send along chapbooks? I’m looking at you, various (other) publishers I’ve already reviewed titles by. 

Toronto ON: Kirby’s knife|fork|book really does produce some elegant-looking titles, and one of their latest is a chapbook by Toronto-based poet and essayist Maureen Scott Harris, her More Than One Homage (2022). This small collection is halved through a handful of poems assembled from elements of her great-uncle Will’s diaries alongside a handful of poems composed in homage to other writers and/or their works. As she offers in her notes: “My great-uncle Will was born in 1891. I remember he had large hands, calloused and dirt-stained, and a large laugh. He was a farmer, and my favourite person in the world when I was eight or nine. He wore big boots, denim overalls, long-sleeved workshirts, and a train engineer’s cap. He laughed a lot, sitting at the kitchen table, or leaning, foot up on the running board of a neighbour’s truck. […] ‘Will’s Diaries’ arose as an interaction between the diaries themselves and Robert Kroetch’s essays and poems. The italicized lines in ‘How to begin’ and ‘Wood (Winter)’ are Kroetsch’s own words, lifted mostly from his essays.” Her poems from the diaries do have the feel of some of those early Kroetsch long poems, whether The Ledger (1975) or Seed Catalogue(1977) (both of which are reprinted in full in Completed Field Notes: The Long Poems of Robert Kroetsch, published by The University of Alberta Press in 2000), offering a kind of collage of archive and sketched-out notes through accumulated fragment. Writing out her own kind of ledger, she offers a clear cadence of moments and movements through this lyric assemblage. As part of her poem “Will’s Diaries: Wood (Winter)” writes:

each morning      a blank page
a white page
see him     swaddled          in coat
& steam              from his own breath

the days keep going on
conversations
chores
            chores
                        chores
                                    chores

fix stable          fetch hay
milk cows        fetch ice
chop oats         fetch flour
kill pigs            fix hen house
feed & water the stock

(where did the water come from
in frozen winter? that pump
in the yard, its wooden handle
the well, surely frozen too)

There’s such a concrete scene articulated through those short bursts, and I’m intrigued by these homages, these experiments, offering poems for and through her late great-uncle, and similarly, for and through and from poets including Philip Whalen, Sei Shonagon and Lyn Hejinian. The homages, as much as her poems from her great-uncle’s diaries, are wonderfully responsive, allowing the influence and rhythms of her sources to infuse themselves across her lines in a really lovely way. Her poems respond as much as they echo; and echo, as much as they provide homage. As the third of the three-stanza poem “One day before the equinox, or, Walking to work I see,” subtitled “After Lyn Hejinian,” writes:

The trees firmly leaning are not waiting for spring but absorbed busy in manufacturing what will seasonably occur. Reasonably occur. When the goose crossed my field of vision I was musing rabbit with nose twitching, Rabbit stood upright in a field (the grass was dry, beige, bent at the tips) front paws hanging limp, listening and comic peering round one ear flopped over (bent at the tip). I raised my eyes from the field of grass to the field of bare tree branches and beyond that the field of clouded sky. My glance fell upon the long-necked bird at first unknown. The goose seized my eye and carried it along the curve of its slow flight till it was obscured by the field of rooftops or lost in the field of bare tree branches. Even a squint did not clarify the blurred disappearing. I smiled through and kept walking. The cardinals wheeted. As they had for some time.

Brooklyn NY/Washington DC: Given my familiarity with Washington D.C. poet Buck Down’s work over the years, having produced his chapbooks Shiftless [Harvester] (2016), The Hack of Heaven (2017) and Another Tricky Day (2020) through above/ground press, as well as working through a couple of his collections—Unintended Empire: 1989-2012(Baltimore MD: Furniture Press, 2018) [see my review of such here] and OPEN CONTAINER (Washington DC: privately printed, 2019) [see my review of such here]—I was curious to see what Jordan Davis had put together for Downs’ chapbook-length GREEDY MAN: selected poems (Brooklyn NY: Subpress Collective/CCCP Chapbooks, 2023). Since my familiarity with Downs’ extensive publishing history only exists across a relatively shorter span, I would have been curious to see a bibliography of where (and when) the thirty-two poems assembled here had been selected from. I know I’ve compared Downs’ work in the past to that of the late Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert (for a kind of extended, documentary-style ongoingness), or even that of New York School poet Frank O’Hara(for the “I did this, I did that-isms), but there’s something about the overview of this particular collection that paints instead a portrait of a poet comparable to a more pessimistic, even paranoid, version of the surrealisms of American poet Ron Padgett or Canadian poet Stuart Ross. As the poem “MYSELF CONTAINS MULTITUDES” reads in full: “and some / of these fuckers / have got to go [.]” The poems that sit mid-point and beyond in the collection are the structures I’ve become familiar with through Downs’ ongoing work—short bursts that wend across the page through an accumulation of short phrase-lines—so it is interesting to see the left-justification of some of these presumably-earlier poems, such as this:

TURN OFF THE PICKLE

there is a lot
of laughter going
on among the
introductions

beneath the waves
there could be
a steady under
current       as in
the realization
that the boy wonder
is a regis
tered trademark

I found a magic
vessel on the stone
beach and liquor
there inside it I knew
could restore me
to what I had once
been and so I took
off the plastic lid
and poured it in
the water

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tanya Standish McIntyre

Tanya Standish McIntyre is a poet and visual artist based in Quebec, Canada. Her debut collection, The House You Are Born In , published in McGill-Queens University Press’s Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series in December '22 has been called “a stunning debut by a promising new poetic voice, haunting and uplifting in equal measure.” Visit her website at tanyastandishmcintyre.com.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I am about to see! I just published my first book a few weeks ago.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I could never write fiction. Character creation and plot are not my thing. The freedom in writing poetry suits my nature I guess. I also write non-fiction, although it sometimes feels like work, which writing poetry never does. I like mixing the two mediums. Actually, my writing arose out of a practice in visual art, which was my life for many years and continues in part to be.

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?
Once in a while a poem is perfect from the moment of hearing it and writing it down. Very rarely. I use the word “perfection” consciously. The etymology of the word means “complete”. Many poems do not achieve perfection but some do, and I know when I see it. It is an aspiration, an obsession really, and my editing process could not be more relentless. Time is a friend, stepping away and coming back again and again. Of course, sometimes I go back to a first pencil draft and find it fresher and more living than all the heavily edited versions.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Both, all of the above.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I am told I read very well, but I see lots of room for improvement, which I plan to focus on. I adore reading aloud in general and have loved doing dry reads for theater, but poetry readings can make me a bit nervous, especially at the beginning. More a matter of deciding what to read and getting the timing right, which I think I am bad at.
 
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?
How can we learn to see beyond the physical? How can we awaken to beauty? How can we really pay attention? How can we learn to see the macrocosm in the microcosm and vice versa? How can we get close enough to something to know what it really is? How can we hear the living voice in things? How can we honor what has shaped us? How can we act from a sense of responsibility for the evolution of humanity? How can we do the work of angels? How can we learn to know the good, the true, the beautiful? How can we transform rubble into a castle? How can we express our gratitude? How can we simply listen? How can we Love?

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?
I think the role of the writer is to ask all the questions in Question #6, at a minimum.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I very much enjoy the experience, having worked with two very different editors, one a poet, the other a chair of English Literature. I value immensely being shown my blind spots, as well as having to justify my reason for doing a particular thing. It is a process I find both fun and essential.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. - Goethe

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to photography to visual art)? What do you see as the appeal?
Moving between these genres is second nature to me. They build upon, inspire and inform each other. The physicality of art-making is also a very nice antidote to the stillness/stiffness of writing. Learning to really see, as one does in learning visual composition, is an essential asset as a writer, I think.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Cold (ish) shower, make chai, kundalini yoga and/or a solitary walk (not for exercise - in nature or an otherwise beautiful place), then writing (pencil and paper)....later in the day transcribing to computer, preferably in a cafe over matcha, or in bed.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I read philosophy, meditate, rearrange furniture, do laundry (I love laundry, as a lover of cloth and clothes), catch up with friends, make soup, read, work on a beautiful jigsaw puzzle. Walking in nature, alone. Prayer. I ask the invisible world to be a conduit for its expression. I see all of my work as a co-creation with the unseen/spiritual world.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Fresh cut hay, lily of the valley, a woodshed, early spring rain on a field,  fallen maple leaves.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
All of the above and more. I think one needs to work out of direct experience. Reading is great but the soul needs much more than books. I literally feed on all of the arts,

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Rudolf Steiner, Hermann Hesse, Owen Barfield, Wendell Berry, Simone Weil, Rilke, Clarice Lispector, Wallace Stevens, Annie Dillard, Tennessee Williams, Dylan Thomas, Durrell's Alexandria Quartet....so many others.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Collaborations of all kinds, something involving music....a musical maybe, or an opera.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Singer, lawyer, psychotherapist, costume designer, linguist, nun, ethnobotanist, actor, food critic, Waldorf teacher, interior designer, farmer, philosopher, minister….I have felt strongly called to all this and more. Probably poetry is the only thing that allows me to live a small piece of all the things I have longed to be in this lifetime.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I was in a somewhat nomadic phase of life and found the materials of visual art cumbersome.

19 - What was the last great book you read?
Vladimir Soloviev, Russian Mystic, Paul M. Allen

What was the last great film?
Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread

20 - What are you currently working on?
Lots. A second and probably third full length book. Several chapbooks.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

#MarchBreak : Rose and I visit the National Gallery of Canada,

Given she has two weeks of March Break instead of the single week of the public system (she requires further support the public system simply doesn't provide, which is why we switched her once we returned them to in-person schooling in September), Rose and I spent a few hours on Tuesday at the National Gallery of Canada, our first visit there since before the pandemic [see my note on our prior visit during the first week of February 2020 here, including an earlier version of the same photo; the artwork providing context for how much she's grown across the past three years]. We delivered Aoife to grade one and Christine to work and we were good to go. Why does she has two weeks off from school? That is a very good question I haven't an answer for.

Really, Rose is thriving at this new school, so at least there's that. But we spent a couple of hours wandering the gallery's collection, some of which had shifted from the prior time we'd been. I favour the contemporary galleries, and she seems to prefer some of the European galleries. Did I mention we ended up having a conversation en route to the Gallery about Galileo? She knows far more about Galileo than I might have imagined (say: far more than nothing); she gave me a quick overview on his consideration of the universe, how the earth goes around the sun and not the other way around, and how the Pope had him jailed for the perceived insult to the Catholic faith. I mean, she knows her stuff, that one. Perhaps this is through her reading my three Cartoon History of the Universe volumes over the past couple of months.

Always my impulse at the Gallery is to head into the contemporary to see how much Greg Curnoe, David Milne, Roy Kiyooka, Picasso, etcetera (I enjoy considering, also, the colour representation linkages between Curnoe, Milne and even David Hockney, actually) I might find, but, as she did three years past, she focused on the Renaissance painters. She paused by the Dutch painters, the Spanish painters, but wanted to see the British painters. Where are the British ones? I suspect this less to do with style than with simply a country she's heard of a bit more than the others, although that might simply be speculation. And she has her mother's sense of direction, it would seem, looping around that we saw the same half-dozen paintings a few times over until I was completely turned around, and was forced to decipher the map (at least we had one; we did get lost a couple of times).

 

I let her float around as she wished, and I simply followed. She floated across portraiture, and quietly read through numerous of the descriptions. Oh, and we were both taken by the film installation Vertigo Sea by John Akomfrah, a stunning and simultaneously beautiful and devastating three-frame film that sweeps through a conversation around the ocean, including a variety of man-made destructions, from whaling, oil-rig disasters, refugee crises that drive ships into the sea and a history of nuclear testings. We were both mesmerized by it, and I would recommend it highly, simply for itself (beyond all the other amazing things at the Gallery these days).

After that, we wandered over to the Billings Bridge food court for lunch. It was a good day.