12 or 20 (second series) questions with Dale Tracy
Dale Tracy is theauthor of the chapbook The Mystery of Ornament (above/ground press,2020), the chapbook Celebration Machine (Proper Tales Press, 2018), thechappoem What It Satisfies (Puddles of Sky Press, 2016), and themonograph With the Witnesses: Poetry, Compassion, and ClaimedExperience (McGill-Queen’s, 2017). Her first full-length poetry collection is Derelict Bicycles (Anvil Press, 2022). Her poetry has appeared inpublications like filling Station, Touch the Donkey, and TheGoose: A Journal of Arts, Environment,and Culture in Canada. She is afaculty member in the English Department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University andlives on unceded Coast Salish territory.
1 - How did yourfirst book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compareto your previous? How does it feel different?
The process of selection for thesepublications helped me know better which sorts of my own poems I like best.Through that process, I think that I’m increasing my precision when I write.
2 - How did youcome to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I think that I process the world in away that is like reading and writing poems. My memory is not great in terms offacts and chronology, even for my own life. I seem to remember around things (pattern,mood, and relationship) more than the things themselves.
3 - How long doesit take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initiallycome quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close totheir final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I don’t often have a project in mind.I write and see what happens, with many returns for revision.
4 - Where does apoem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combininginto a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the verybeginning?
I think in short pieces. A longerproject only comes into being when enough short poems call together.
5 - Are publicreadings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort ofwriter who enjoys doing readings?
I like the communal listening ofpublic readings. It’s a form of attention that feels, to me, uncommon.
6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?
I’m trying to answer the questions ofhow to live and what sorts of things living can mean.
The theoretical concerns involved intrying to answer those questions are something like these:
-what meaning is
-what kind of knowledge poetry canmake
-how reading and writing areexperiences
-how expectations held in form andpattern shape meaning
-how much to directly express and howmuch to indirectly enact the ethical responsibilities of entering publicdiscourse
-how experience (idiosyncratic) fitswith communication (shared conventions)
-how environments shape theenvironment of my mental life
-what it is one aims for when itisn’t mimesis (is it ornament?)
-what the relationship between lifeand art is (since art is part of life)
-what self-reflexive art performs
7 – What do you seethe current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one?What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I think writers have as many roles aspeople in general do, in that we need people doing all kinds of differentthings so that we can each get a more complete idea of the world throughcollected efforts.
8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I wish I could have an editor for allmy actions. It’s comforting to have someone else confirm that what I’m doing isworking out before it carries on in its life in the wider world.
9 - What is thebest piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I can’t remember if anyone told methis advice, or if I learned from watching: the best way to write poetry andhappen upon poetic opportunities is to be around other poets. (In-person eventsaren’t the only way—online, on radio, and in the mail have been other ways thatI’ve felt part of poetry community.)
10 - How easy hasit been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do yousee as the appeal?
I’m trying to answer the samequestions in poetry and in critical prose, so I don’t feel the move in thatway. Writing in critical prose took a lot more training for me because theconventions are more standardized and because I think in a spiral rather than alinear shape. Spirals are great for poetry.
11 - What kind ofwriting routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does atypical day (for you) begin?
I write for poetry, for teaching, andfor research, so I usually have multiple documents open to move between. I’mwriting or reading something for most of the day, most days.
12 - When yourwriting gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?
I learn about something new, usuallyabout biology or physics.
13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?
The smell of the pulp and papermill—not a desirable smell, but it’s a truth of how encompassing industry canbe, especially in a small town.
14 - David W.McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other formsthat influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Nature and science influence my workthe most. I think this is because I use writing poetry as a process tounderstand things I don’t already understand.
15 - What otherwriters or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside ofyour work?
The answer to this question isdifferent all the time (I need different writers at different moments). Facedwith questions like this one, I panic, and I get the urge to list everythingI’ve ever read. I think that the truest answer to this question is that I need ahuge diversity of writers and writings for work and my life more broadly morethan I need any particular ones.
16 - What would youlike to do that you haven't yet done?
I can’t think of anything! I mostly approachthe world with an open curiosity instead of goals. I think that not havingspecific goals in mind helps me to notice exciting opportunities when they getnearby.
17 - If you couldpick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, whatdo you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I would like a job that lets me bemoving around outside, like a mail carrier. Unfortunately, my body wouldn’thave put up with that work very well. I’m lucky that I have the job I have andthat I can walk to work.
18 - What made youwrite, as opposed to doing something else?
I feel best when I am reading orwriting. I need that kind of disappearance of myself to recharge for being inthe world.
19 - What was thelast great book you read? What was the last great film?
Books: Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed; Helen Oyeyemi’s Gingerbread; Nick Harkaway’s Gnomon
(I obsessed over what “great” mightmean to people, and then I cheated with three. They’re all novels because I canstraightforwardly tell you if I enjoyed reading a novel, but for poetry andplays I find that my feelings about them have to do with what I do with them inmy mind after I read—I enjoy putting them into new action.)
Film: Swan Song (2021)
20 - What are youcurrently working on?
At Kwantlen Polytechnic University, I ampreparing to teach a course studying life writing and I am working as part ofan interdisciplinary team to foster critical and creative thinking aroundclimate change and social inequalities related to climate.
