12 or 20 (second series) questions with Meghan Fandrich
Meghan Fandrich
lives with her young daughter on theedge of Lytton, BC, the village that was destroyed by wildfire in 2021. Shespent her childhood and much of her adult life there, in Nlaka'pamux Territory,where two rivers meet and sagebrush-covered hills reach up into mountains. Forthe past decade, she ran Klowa Art Café, a beloved and vibrant part of thecommunity; Klowa was lost to the flames. Burning Sage (CaitlinPress, 2023) is Meghan’s debut poetry collection.1 - How did your first book change your life? How doesyour most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book is my most recent work and my previousand my all and my only. I had never written poetry before; I had filledjournals, yes, volume after volume through childhood and adolescence and into adulthood,but those were never for any eyes but my own (except once, in the subway inBerlin, when I handed over a journal to the crush whose name appeared on almostevery page and then blanched with horror at what I’d done.) I had never writtenanything that I needed to share.
The first book, Burning Sage, the only book, haschanged my life. Writing it allowed me to finally step into the grief of losingour little town, and sharing it has helped me walk through that grief, and tofeel the support and love around me, and to receive the gift of others’vulnerability and emotion in response to my own.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to,say, fiction or non-fiction?
A first answer:
When I was a child, the quotes that were woven into thebooks of LM Montgomery (“Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam / Ofperilous seas, in faery lands forlorn”) led me to Keats and Tennyson andLongfellow.
When I was a teenager, there was a gift from my dad:his copy of Poems in English, an anthology, inscribed with “Lower Mall,UBC” and a date in the 1960s. I read it cover to cover, and then bought The Norton Anthology of Poetry and read its 2,000 pages too.
When I was a young woman, in a dark tiny shop in Cusco,Peru, a tattoo artist inked “on – on – and out of sight” onto the arch of myfoot. I walked into adult life on that line of Siegfried Sassoon’s.
A second:
A year after the fire, I sat at the typewriter on theliving room floor, thinking I would write a little vignette, a memory, for afriend. And the memory emerged as a poem, and it surprised me. And that poemled to another and another and another – they poured out of me – until thestack of poems became Burning Sage, and I still have no explanation forit, except that there was this intense need to write them, and they could onlybe written as poems.
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?
It took forty years to start the first project, butthen there was no stopping it. Poem after poem, day after day at thetypewriter, and my fingers typing wildly to keep up with the words as theypoured out.
Most of my first drafts look and feel similar to howthe poems appear in the book; I edited them heavily, but preserved that firstrush of emotion. Night after night I sat with a pencil and pages in hand, whilemy daughter slept in the next room, indenting a line a fraction of an inch orreplacing a single word a dozen times until it was perfect. Editing gave mecontrol over the process, but also over the emotions, the grief, the experience.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you anauthor of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are youworking on a "book" from the very beginning?
Each poem in Burning Sage began as somethingthat needed to come out, just the flash of an image or the hint of a feeling. Iwould start typing with that emotion-memory in my mind, and often be surprisedby where the poem would take me.
I think I knew almost immediately upon writing thefirst poem that it would turn into a book, though. I didn’t have a vision or aplan, just this feeling of story: how each poem was a piece of somethinggreater, something I needed to tell.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to yourcreative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Prior to the two months of the Burning Sage booktour, I had never been to a literary reading; I was in Lytton, in a differentlife and a different world. But the book tour was amazing, not so much for mycreative process as for my healing. I shared from my book and from my story andfelt the love and support – and saw the tears and the visible emotion – of theaudience. I am full of gratitude for that experience.
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?
I’ve always believed that there will be theoreticalconcerns behind a piece of writing, whether an author intentionally addressedthem or not, and those concerns will be informed by time and place andexperience.
I had no intentions when writing Burning Sageother than to get the memories out of me, but when I went through it afterward,poem by poem, I saw the different currents that run through it. Mediasensationalism, disaster capitalism, the slow-moving cogs of bureaucracy, andhow damaging they each are to survivors of trauma. Love and community and self,even, and how immensely healing they can be. And these currents flow togetherto ask what happens when the climate crisis no longer exists in the abstractdistance – when it moves into the deepest, most personal nearness.
7 - What do you see the current role of the writerbeing in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role ofthe writer should be?
My answer to this question is the same as the last, butin different words. The role of the writer now, as it has always been, is to bringus into others’ lives. At a deep level, all experience is shared experience,and the writer reminds us of that.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outsideeditor difficult or essential (or both)?
I love editing: it is my dearest geeky pleasure, and asI said above, it was the refining and polishing of my poems that let me turn myraw experience into art. In theory, I know that working with an outside editoris essential, but in practice I’ve found it difficult; I think it’s a matter offinding the right author-editor relationship.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarilygiven to you directly)?
This: When anxiety is surging, put a hand on yourchest, breathe into the anxiety, and talk to it. “I see you there. What’s goingon?” Sometimes the answer is profound, and identifying it helps. And sometimesthe answer can be “I’m hungry.”
10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend tokeep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I struggle with routines, even as a single parent. Buton our perfect days, my daughter sleeps a little later than me and I sit in thequiet living room with morning light and coffee and my journal, until,inevitably, we’re suddenly running late and everything turns back into chaos.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turnor return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Because I have neverdefined myself as a writer, nor felt any particular need to write (with theexception of those months of writing Burning Sage), there is no suchthing as a stall; there is just gratitude for the moments when, unexpectedly, Iam writing.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The sweet woody vanilla of ponderosa pine bark (withthe sound of cicadas) and the potency of sagebrush just before a summer storm.
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?
Yes. There is a certain feeling in the heart, and itcan come from anything. The memory of a laugh. The evening sky reflected inbroken glass. The voice of a cello that folds around song (I think of AppendixC by Holy Hum / Andrew Yong Hoon Lee). A charcoal drawing. A crow. Pinetrees swaying in summer wind. Blood-stained concrete. Love. And, always andforever, heartbreak.
14 - What other writers or writings are important foryour work, or simply your life outside of your work?
- Michael Ondaatje in general, and In the Skin of a Lion inparticular, with the way that language and story wrap themselves around eachother
- On Earth We’re BrieflyGorgeous by Ocean Vuong, which showed me that prose, too, canhurt like poetry
- Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Julio Cortázar, in the original Spanish, which feels like dark redwine and low voices and the flash of a lit cigarette in the night
- Where the Blood Mixes by Kevin Loring (someone from home), with its humour and love andheartbreaking truths
- And, not to be overwhelmedby so many men, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot and By GrandCentral Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart, each with its ownbeauty and vulnerability and immense, honest sorrow
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yetdone?
Why does this question feel more challenging than anyof the others?
I think it’s because the fire taught me not to haveexpectations for the future, when the present can be gone in a moment. What Iwould like to do is what I’m doing now: staying present with my daughter.Making choices for our today, not our hypothetical tomorrow. Teaching her tovalue her own self more than any future goal. And showing her love.
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?
The fire brought intense trauma and life-alteringgrief, but it also brought gifts. A chance to look at my old life, tore-evaluate, to choose what to rebuild and what not to. Out of that choice camemy burgeoning career as an editor: trauma-informed editing of poetry, prose,and community-focused communication. It’s such an honour to work with others’words, their art.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing somethingelse?
That day at the typewriter on the living room floor,there was no choice. And maybe, even if I wasn’t a writer until now, writinghas always been my medium, and language my love.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What wasthe last great film?
A few months ago I opened Exculpatory Lilies bySusan Musgrave, and my heart was submerged. I sat down at the water beside herand cried. And when I closed the bookafter the last poem, truth felt even more necessary, and grief more sacred.
And, because the seven-year-old in the room chooses themovies, the answer to the second question has to be The Grinch, shesays.
19 - What are you currently working on?
At this moment,my daughter and I are in New York City for three months. She has never livedanywhere but Lytton and already a third of her life has been spent on the edgeof a burned-up town. So we’re here in Brooklyn, where there are playgrounds andrestaurants and grocery stores – unfamiliar luxuries – and I can see her worldexpanding.
It will be hardto do any writing here, where there isn’t the break from parenting that schoolaffords, but then the heart aches in a certain way and I think maybe, justmaybe…
