12 or 20 (second series) questions with Joshua Chris Bouchard
Joshua Chris Bouchard is the author of
Burn Diary
(Buckrider Books) and Let This Be the End of Me (Bad Books Press), the latter of which was shortlisted forthe 2019 bpNichol Chapbook Award. He wrote or co-wrote five chapbooks, and hispoetry appears in Event, CV2, Carousel, Poetry Is Dead,PRISM international, Arc, and more.1 - How did your first book orchapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to yourprevious? How does it feel different?
My first chapbook, Portraits, openeda new world of publishing, collaborating, and sharing the work as opposed tojust writing it for my own edification. It was a feeling of: This what poetsdo, and I feel connected to that tradition. I wanted to be a writer, topublish, to do live performances.
The biggest difference between my worknow and my work then is more focus. The work then was a big release of emotion,experiences, and ideas. The work now is more deliberate with themes and overallpurpose.
It feels different. After the Toronto launchof my first full-length collection, Burn Diary, I felt a very deepmelancholy. I couldn’t figure out why. Eventually I realized it’s because thework changed, and I have changed. And change can be frightening sometimes. Orfeel like some big loss. But it’s also necessary and good and signifiesprogress. It’s best to always move forward.
2 - How did you come to poetry first,as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
My introduction was through music. Lyricsand the feeling of music. We all know that feeling when we hear ourfavourite song. It’s undeniable. I would listen to metal and hardcore and think:These people are saying something that is true and meaningful to them, and Iwant to do that too. I also listened to hymns at mass and was really movedby them. This fervent kind of expression and devotion.
I journaled and wrote lyrics toimaginary songs. I would show them to anyone who gave a damn. Everyone thought,I think, that something was wrong with me. My grandmother found one of myjournals and was very concerned, which made sense. I was writing about traumaand abuse and horrible things. I think that’s why I liked poetry more thanfiction or non-fiction. I didn’t want to construct narratives. I wanted to letit all go – everything I was feeling without rules – and poetry allowed that.
3 - How long does it take to start anyparticular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is ita slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, ordoes your work come out of copious notes?
I think I write new projects at a decentclip. I’ll think about the idea of something for a long time and piece ittogether in my mind. When I sit down to write it’s almost already formed, sothe actual process of putting it on the page doesn’t take very long.
First drafts can take a lot ofdifferent forms. Some of my earlier chapbooks were not changed much from thefirst draft besides minor edits. But Burn Diary was shaped and reshapedfrom the original version quite a bit over years.
When I was just starting out, therewas this impulse to throw caution to the wind: just write, leave it all on thepage, see what happens. Keep everything as is, let it be raw, let it be faulty.But now there is a more deliberate process. I’m older, maybe wiser, life isdifferent. The writing is different too.
4 - Where does a poem 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?
A poem starts with a thought that Ican’t let go. I obsess over it. It could be a word, phrase, or image. Usually,it’s a feeling that I don’t know how to make sense. I work it out on the pageand wrangle it until some kind of path comes from it. Usually, they start asshort pieces that I curate into a larger thematic work. For example, BurnDiary was written over years with poems from different times of my life. Itwas then laid out into a large book, rearranged, heavily edited, paired down toits core.
5 - Are public readings part of orcounter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doingreadings?
I love doing readings and have done afair share. I don’t think about performing when I’m writing and I don’t thinkabout writing when I’m performing, but performing has the same importance aswriting. The poem on the page has a life and the poem read aloud has a life,but they’re both born from the same source.
The poem on the page is read bysomeone alone in their house and they have a specific relationship to it intheir mind. They can take their time, reread it, leave notations in the margins.The experience of a poem at a performance is very different. It’s read aloud asit’s intended to be experienced by the author. They hear their voice and see theirbody. I like to do as many public readings as possible, and I think I cut myteeth in the literary scene at open mics and other live gigs. I wouldn’t be thesame poet I am today if it weren’t for readings.
6 - Do you have any theoreticalconcerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answerwith your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
My goal used to be pure emotionalexpression, even to a fault, even if it meant chaos. I resented anythingacademic or stuffy or pinned down by arbitrary rules. I hated anything that I perceivedas artistically oppressive or authoritarian. Poetry was an act of rebellion.
But now, things are much less clear.My views on myself and the world vary. If anything, I want to elicit a visceralreaction from readers. I want readers to gasp, swoon, cry, laugh, be horrified,glad, complacent, petrified. Again, the feeling when you hear yourfavourite song or read your favourite poem. It’s there, deep down in the belly.What is that? How does it happen? I think it’s the connection between you, theworld, and the artist. Or maybe that’s all bullshit. I don’t know! Mu!
7 – What do you see the current roleof the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you thinkthe role of the writer should be?
I think writers have a very important partin larger culture, even if they sometimes inflate that sense of importance incertain contexts. Many people have said that writers are the political andcultural barometers of any given society, and I think that is very true. A verylarge part of the writer’s goal – maybe their only goal – is to account forwhat is going on in the world in a very concrete way and hold up that unapologeticmirror and say: This is what we are, and this is what are we doing.
There is also the writer who exploresthe more metaphysical and introspective aspects of life: This is what I’mfeeling as a human being. I think there is a place for both and, anyways,those aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Ultimately, I think writers have amoral and artistic obligation to call it as they see it. Be a human and expressyour humanity.
8 - Do you find the process of workingwith an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
It’s nearly always essential. I feel I’mthe best judge of my work but that can get you only so far. When you liveinside your head all the time you get lost in the corridors of your thinking.An editor is there to guide you and be honest with you. They need to tell youthat the idea/word/poem/phrase isn’t good or not doing what you want it to do.
Sometimes an editor can hurt you becauseyour work is so precious that criticism can feel like an axe to the head, but theyalso give you power to make something the best it can be. I have written manypoems that I thought were very good, only to have a good editor (or generalreader) tell me that the poem doesn’t make any sense to them. There needs to bea stable conveyer of meaning from author to reader otherwise there is no pointin sharing the work outside of yourself, and editors will help you build that.
9 - What is the best piece of adviceyou've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
This may not be the best advice – Ihave heard many inspiring things from people about creativity – but it’ssomething my high-school history teacher told me. He was subbing for theWriter’s Craft course, and we were writing poems. He looked over my shoulderand asked: What’s that line break for? Why is it there? I didn’t knowthe answer.
He told me that everything you do in apoem needs to have purpose, even line breaks. That stuck with me. To this day Iremember that when writing poems: Does this line break or word have purpose?What is it I’m really trying to do? I also find music-recording engineerSteve Albini inspiring. Specifically, his lectures on the creative process and howthe capitalist industry impacts artists.
10 - How easy has it been for you tomove between genres (poetry to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?
I’m a visual thinker, so it’s easy togo from poetry to photography. Photography works out a different part of theartistic brain muscle. You see it as a whole rather than lines left to right,it’s a physical object, and it exists outside my mind. I didn’t create it, it’salready there, its meaning subjective based on the observer. I also sing in aband and have dabbled with visual art. Again, a different muscle at work, butit’s all part of the same nervous system. It’s about expression. Photographycan express something that poetry can’t; music that poetry can’t; poetry whatneither photograph nor music can’t. I’ll go back and forth without much trouble.
11 - What kind of writing routine doyou tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you)begin?
I’m fastidious. I write between 5am –9am on Saturday and Sundays. I work a full-time 9-5 gig, so weekends are my bestopportunities to sit and put the words down. I rarely write anything during theweek, except maybe a few notes or lines I think are promising. I think somepeople are obsessed with writing; they are incapable of doing it. They willwrite all day if they could, any chance they get, or they will sit down andwrite a large work from start to finish in nearly one sitting. I sometimes wishthat were me, but it’s not. I love to write but life itself always takesprecedent.
12 - When your writing gets stalled,where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Music is always my first creativepalette cleanser. Music doesn’t demand the same things from a listener aspoetry does from a reader. I can lie there and let it wash over me. Again,music hits a different nerve and stimulates a different part of your emotions.The second thing is just living, which sounds very vague and boring, but ithelps me a lot. Go to the park. Go grocery shopping. Buy an overpriced eclair.Go to the mall, the worst mall you can find. Malls are incredibly inspiring.They are so oppressive and offensive. Go to the food court and just watchpeople eat. Invariably I will get that feeling again and ideas start to come.
13 - What fragrance reminds you ofhome?
I love this question. It’s the smellof fire in autumn. Campfires or from home fireplaces. It’s that smell duringtwilight when it’s kind of cold, there’s a good wind, and the scent of burningwood is everywhere as you walk down the street. It elicits an image of safety,peace, warmth. Or gasoline.
14 - David W. McFadden once said thatbooks come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work,whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Music and movies are huge influences.Music for the feeling and film for the visual. This reminds me of going to amovie theatre in the early afternoon on a summer day. You’re in the theatre fora few hours, it’s dark, whisper quiet, and you may even be totally alone. Youbecome engrossed in the film, the characters, the story. The film ends and youwalk out, and the sun suddenly pulverizes your senses. You feel like you’re ina dream or like you’ve somehow transformed into a new person. You’re a bitwobbly and stupefied. You’re not the same. I love that feeling. I want people tofeel like that after they’re finished reading my poems.
15 - What other writers or writingsare important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Shunryū Suzuki is an important writerand teacher for me. He wrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind which, when I wasyounger, was like a bible to me. To this day I go back to it occasionally andread passages. Suzuki was a Japanese Zen Master, and the book teaches the practiseof Japanese Zen and its basic philosophical tenets. It can be incrediblycomforting when I feel utterly defeated by life. My friend Alex once said abouttherapists: Sometimes you just need someone to tell you you’re not a pieceof shit. That’s what Suzuki does for me. He reminds me that I a human beingwho is flawed but…not a piece of shit.
16 - What would you like to do thatyou haven't yet done?
I have always fantasized aboutbuilding a cabin in the woods and living there for…maybe forever. Have you seenthe Dick Proenneke documentaries? Proenneke went to Alaska in the 1960s andbuilt a cabin by hand and lived there alone for 30 years. He documented thewildlife there and wrote in his journals and that was about it. Not at all likeThoreau or something like that – he was the real deal. I’d also like to write anovel. Ideally a good one.
17 - If you could pick any other occupationto attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would haveended up doing had you not been a writer?
Psychologist, neuroscientist, or theoreticalphysicist. You know, the usual. Or a drummer.
I might have been a miner if I neverstarted writing. I would have followed the path of my father and grandfatherback home. Some kind of skilled trade. Right now, I’m an Editorial Manager at adigital PR company and have been doing that for 8 years. I suppose I would justbe doing that, but not sure if I would have ever got there if it weren’t forwriting. Maybe some other corporate gig. Living life and paying bills likeanyone else.
18 - What made you write, as opposedto doing something else?
Solitude and lack of money. It wassomething I could do completely alone, any time, any place, and virtually for free.If I had more money, I might have gone straight to buying an instrument andtaking music lessons. It was also kind of easy. I didn’t really have to try atit. It came very naturally to write down all my thoughts and feelings. I felt Iwas good at it and later was good at shaping them and later was good andreading them aloud. Was I delusional? Maybe, but here we are!
19 - What was the last great book youread? What was the last great film?
I’m nearly finished reading A CaseAgainst Reality by Donald Hoffman. It’s a non-fiction book by a cognitive/neuroscientistthat theorizes on the nature of objective reality and human consciousness,under a cognitive and evolutionary-psychological context. It basically arguesthat objective reality as we perceive it is not actually there, and is morelike a shadow of an underlying reality we can’t understand, which is requiredto survive as animals. I am not sure I agree (or understand) it all but it’sfascinating.
Some months back I finally watched Aftersun,a UK film by Charlotte Wells. A devasting movie about a daughter and father whois not mentally well. It’s sort of an homage to the director’s late father. Ialso just rewatched Come and See by Elem Klimov. A true classicabout the absolute horrors and brutality of war. Painful to watch at parts butcertainly one my favourites. The actor who played the kid, Aleksei Kravchenko, wasjust unreal.
20 - What are you currently workingon?
I’m working on a new poetry collection, but I just started. I’mnot sure what it’s going to be yet, but I think it’ll be calmer and quieterthan my last collection. So far, it seems funnier. I’m also working on anon-fiction collaborative project. We’re just in the process of outlining itall. I think it will be good to stretch into a different genre. I also sing in aband called LINENS and we’re getting ready to record our first EP.
Overall, I have this sense of terror and dread about the future,but that can also be a good feeling. It propels me forward. Onwards.
