12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kāyla Geitzler

Kayla Geitzler is from Moncton, New Brunswick, whichis within Siknikt of the Mi’kma’ki. Named “A Rad Woman of Canadian Poetry”,Kayla was Moncton’s first Anglophone Poet Laureate (2019-2022). Organizer andhost of the Attic Owl Reading Series, she is also co-creator of Poésie Moncton Poetry, a video poetry archive of Mi’kmaq andMoncton area poets, and co-editor of Cadence:Voix Feminines Female Voices (Frog Hollow Press, 2020). Her first book ThatLight Feeling Under Your Feet (NeWest Press, 2018) was a Calgary Bestseller andfinalist for two poetry awards.

Kayla has performed her poetry withaccomplished NB musicians, the NB Youth Orchestra, and Tutta Music Orchestra. She composed, and performed, threeoriginal poems for the Tutta Musica Ovation project. Other notable collaborationsinclude CraftNB's Atlantic Vernacular and Fundy projects, and broadside with Hard Scrabble Press.

Kayla holds an MA in English,Creative Writing (UNB, Fredericton). She has worked as a technical editor on someof Canada’s largest infrastructure projects and designed courseware for AirTraffic Controllers. In 2021, she received a Top 20 Under 40 Award from theGreater Moncton Chamber of Commerce for her dedication to the literary arts.She works as an editorand writing consultant.

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

My first book, That Light FeelingUnder Your Feet, was actually my MA thesis (University of New Brunswick).It examines the two years I worked on three different cruise ships and theexploitative nature of that industry (racism, misogyny, neoimperialism, flagsof convenience). In 2016, it won the WFNB Alfred G. Bailey prize for BestUnpublished Manuscript, and NeWest Press also selected it as an inauguraledition for their CrowSaid poetry serieswhich honours poetry in vein of Robert Kroetsch. A year after its publication, Jean-PhilippeRaîche and I became Moncton's inaugural Poets Laureate (2019-2022).

As a narrative poetry collection, ittook me five years to publish; I had to rewrite it twice. My goal was to pen acollection that could be enjoyed by general readers, but anyone interested inclose reading would be able to pick out finer, theoretical points. The poemswere more a part of a whole than individual pieces.

My most recent work is stillnarrative, but I am interested in narrative's relationship with itself as wellas the page and performance, so story and form and sound. I like to experiment,and I tell a good story. I feel I have a gift to create an immersive experience.

Perhaps my recent work feelsmysterious, freer, yet more condensed. I'm interested in inheritance, incantation,and surrealism. How space and image refocus text. Many readers have told me ThatLight Feeling feels as though they are absorbed into one long story, toldin vignettes, and that it doesn't feel like poetry. A few fellow writers havetold me that my recent work has a known yet otherworldly quality, like I ambringing them through a strange yet inherently familiar place.

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

Poetry was my first love. My mothertaught me to read when I was two. My father read poetry to me and taught me torecite, so poetry and story have been with me since the beginning. I wroteshort fiction for about ten years and perhaps I'll return to it, or finally getaround to drafting my first novel. I also enjoy lyrical prose and the personalessay. For a time, I was a writinglife advice columnist for the Miramichi Reader.

3 - How long does it take to startany particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or isit a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape,or does your work come out of copious notes?

Good question. I believe I just startthe project and usually within the first year, something shifts the originalfocus, but not the concept. I am not a fast writer; during university I madepeace with the fact that I wouldn't be publishing a collection every two years.I'm still working on my second book, so I'll let you know how long that projecttook me when I'm done ;).

Things usually gestate for a whileand then rise to the surface when I'm ready for them (this could be days oryears). Sometimes things just come to me, suddenly, and I must write them down.

An old friend of mine says that I"puke down the page", so my first drafts rarely look like the finalversions. Depending on my subject I do sometimes write from copious notes, but Itry to trim those down, as they can distract from my original concept.

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?

Poems usually begin with an openingand ending line, or a concept that has its own rhythm or language. Typically, Iwrite longer pieces and experiment with line breaks, space and form.

Honestly, I'm not sure as I'm stillworking on my second book. I can say that overarching themes are important forme, both for structure and inspiration, but my poems are a random bestiary. So,I would say that my concepts, interests, and experiments inevitably build acollection.

5 - Are public readings part of orcounter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doingreadings?

I like to read publicly, and I loveto read with writer friends. (I run the Attic Owl Reading Series with my friendDrew Lavigne, Moncton's current Anglophone Poet Laureate.) Readings can begreat test runs for works in progress. Audiences are usually responsive to mywork, and at a reading I can hear if the poem is working—does it flow, is therhythm on-point, are my ideas carried through well, is my work connecting with theaudience? An audience will generally trust an author, so I have to be sharp indiscerning if more clarity is needed, or if something is too heavy, doesn'thave the reaction I intended, etc.

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 first book looked at simulacra but I'm more interested in theoriesabout "doing things to" language. For example, Jan Zwicky's conceptof gestaltand metaphor, exploring and reinterpreting traditional styles and forms, poetry of the female grotesque, where visual art intersects withwriting etc.

I would say I am not trying to answerquestions so much as find peace, forge meaning, create a narrative aroundexperiences that have indefinable answers. In my work, I don't think there's ananswer, just a story, and I have observed that when I forge meaning, it carriesa resonance that goes far beyond me. I feel the most valuable thing we can doas writers is to connect with a reader or an audience, to move them.

Perhaps the most current questions, orconcerns, are about survival and identity, the individual and the group.

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?

In the larger culture, I would saythe writer's role is awareness, and art. The value of both is often in questionand undervalued. When I make school visits, I tell students that writing hasvalue, that we, as writers, create culture, report on injustice, and we canchange how people think and act.

Some writers feel they have a roleand others do not want one.  I feel thatquestion is different for every genre and author. And the idea of a role, Ithink, goes back to who is seen and heard, and why? Perhaps the role of awriter is wonder. And from wonder, equality, equity and justice. Also art. Manyof us write because we love to, and writing, in many ways, heals us, frees us.

8 - Do you find the process ofworking with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I am an editor, but I don't have aneditor. I prefer to mentor with a more experienced poet, such as Anne Simpson,or take workshops with skilled writers. I do, however, belong to a ratherexceptional writing group. Their feedback plays an essential role in my work.

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

Max Ehrmann’s "Desiderata."

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

My writing routine has never been a disciplinedpractice; I prefer to sit down and write when the piece comes. When the ideathat has been gestating inside me seems to find its words and bubbles up. But whatworks best for me now is to write in the morning when I am fresh, and edit atnight.

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

I usually have to leave the piecealone for about three weeks and then return to it when I've "forgotten"it. Then, it can usually speak clearly to me from the page, without meoverthinking it.

12 - What fragrance reminds you ofhome?

Wild roses and cold Atlantic wind.

13 - 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?

For me, poetry distills life,distills a life, and therefore is not a one-dimensional expression either. Ilove ideas and experimenting, asking "what if..." and "whatwould that look like or sound like if..." which includes folding imageryand documents into my poetry. I have a busy mind, so many things interest meand can influence my work—language, culture, archiving, nature, sound, science,history, philosophy, theory, music and visual art all have their unique role inwhatever piece I'm working on at the moment.

14 - What other writers or writingsare important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Forugh Farrokhzad, Kim Hyesoon, AnneSimpson, Khaled Khalifa, Elena Ferrante, Safia Elhillo, Zeina Hashem Beck,Layli Long Soldier, Sei Shonagon, Ocean Vuong, Jake Skeets, Alden Nowlan, Emily St. John Mandel, Mahmoud Darwish, the Brontës, Tanith Lee. My friends' writing,too, which is at various stages of publication: Shoshanna Wingate, Elizabeth Blanchard, Drew Lavigne, Margo Wheaton, Judy Bowman, Nancy King Schofield,Carol Steel, Rose Després, Jean-Philippe Raîche.

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

Swim (respectfully) with wildcreatures. Travel Central Asia. Start an affordable writing retreat. Write afew novels.

16 - If you could pick any otheroccupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think youwould have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Psychology in some form, most likelywhere it intersects with criminology. Forensic psychology and behavioural analysisfascinate me. Or art conversation/restoration.

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

I was five years old when I told myfamily I wanted to be a writer. Even then it felt like a vocation. While I haveworked various jobs, the past five years of my life working as an editor andwriting consultant, and as Moncton's first Anglophone Poet Laureate, have beenthe most fulfilling of my life. There is a draw in my life that has returnedme, again and again, to writing.

18 - What was the last great book youread? What was the last great film?

It's a tie: My Brilliant Friend byElena Ferrante and In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa.

Solaris (1972), based on the book by StanislawLem, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, starring Natalya Bondarchuk and DonatasBanionis.

19 - What are you currently workingon?

I'm working on my second poetrycollection and two chapbooks.

My second book looks at how familiesmythologize themselves, what stories they tell, what was "forgotten"and recovered, historical influence, what is inherited (in many forms, such as predisposedillness, mental illness), and how we are, or are not, nurtured.

One chapbook examines femalerelationships and the deconstruction of dominate European patriarchalnarratives (in literature and history) through a queer diasporic protagonist asshe travels Europe and Canada.

The last chapbook project, which maybe amalgamated into the second poetry collection, examines the sudden death anddifficult life of my late mother.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;