12 or 20 (second series) questions with Cristalle Smith

Cristalle Smith [photo credit: Ryan Lee] has been published in ARCPoetry, CV2, subTerrain and more. She won the Lush TriumphantAward for Creative Nonfiction in 2020 and has a chapbook with Frog HollowPress. She lives in Calgary, Alberta with her son. Invisible Lives isher debut poetry collection.

1- How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent workcompare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Thisis my first book, so excited! At 37, I think I’m a bit later to the game thansome of my peers.  That’s okay though, Ifeel like I’m on a different timeline.

Theprocess of writing my book really changed my life.  I grew up in a lot of upheaval and poverty.  We moved frequently—including large movesfrom Airdrie, Alberta to Water’s Lake, Florida (moves too numerous tolist).  Like my mother, I dropped out ofhigh school and worked.

Asan adult, I went back to school to get away from working minimum wage at Subwayas a single mom.  I had just left anabusive marriage and felt lost.  I wokeup each day and did what was in front of me, placing one foot in front of theother—making moves myself from Moscow, Idaho to Kelowna, British Columbia.

InKelowna, I had no furniture and made a bed for my son out of my clothes andsome blankets on the floor. I slept on the bare floor.  I eventually got some furniture through thehelp of a women’s shelter.  I kept goingto class and kept going no matter what. Each day, one after the other.

Inever thought someone like me could be a writer.  Practical concerns and the practicallyoriented world told me I shouldn’t bet on art for liberation from poverty.  However, I signed up for a creative writingclass on a whim and then I got introduced to the world of writing by MattRader, Michael V. Smith, Nancy Holmes, Anne Flemming, and Margo Tamez.  My life clicked into place when I spent myenergy on writing creative nonfiction and poetry.  Lyrical experimentation allowed me theintellectual and artistic freedom I needed so desperately.  I applied to the MFA at UBC Okanagan and Iwrote under the supervision of Matt Rader. 

MyMFA manuscript became my book.  Theprocess made me learn that I could be an artist.  It was life changing to go from beingcloistered in silence to solidified in lyrical expression.

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

Istruggle at times with genre conventions and stricter boundaries between poetryand creative nonfiction.  I think I workin a hybridized space of creative nonfiction and poetry—maybe I’m anexperimental lyricist.

Toget it out of the way, I’m not a fiction writer because I just gotta respond tothose poets I love so much.  I want to bein that long and ongoing poetic conversation even if I’m just a quietcontributor from the sidelines.

Sometimespeople tell (what are to me) very funny narratives about what povertymeans.  You might hear someone saysomething like, “Poor people can’t understand such and such academic jargon…”and I have to chuckle to myself.  I grewup poor in Alberta, Canada and then later rural Florida. Living poverty as asingle mom myself felt almost natural, but my world was always full of poetryand conversation.  My stepdad got meinterested in W.B. Yeats as we drove backroads to the tent where we lived innorth Florida. These conversations led to my love of Yeats, Langston Hughes,Countee Cullen, Sonia Sanchez, and many more. I remember my stepdad explained in detail “Cuchulain’s Fight with the Sea” and to this day it’s still one of my favorite poems.

Poetryis a vignette that folds on itself.  Amoment of time I can revisit over and over. I always wanted to learn to time bend like Yeats or Hughes.

Biginspirations include Alicia Elliott (A Mind Spread Out on the Ground)and Chelene Knight (Dear Current Occupant). (It might be time forpeople to stop saying that class divides preclude people from lyricism andintellectual pursuits).

3- How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does yourwriting initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appearlooking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copiousnotes?

Alot of my writing process happens when I’m walking or doing similar kineticactivities (even driving, shout out to John Keats and negative capability!)  An image appears in my mind and then mythoughts shift laterally between seemingly unassociated memories, sensoryinformation, and “school type” knowledge. A poem forms in the spaces connecting everything.  The process is lightning or a dripping faucetthat stains a bathtub red over years and years.

Sometimesdeadlines motivate me to move thoughts onto the page, but generally I writeafter sequences and patterns of images have sufficiently developed.

Mydrafts are often close to the final shape, but I spend time paring downsuperfluous language and ideas.  Then Igive the work a lot of room and revisit it with fresh eyes and change what Istumble over.

4- Where does a poem or work of creative non-fiction usually begin for you? Areyou an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, orare you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

WhenI was a teenager, I had a huge collage of punk rock pictures, Polaroids, andephemera all over my walls.  Flyers from shows,discarded drumsticks, patches, stickers, pieces of fabric.

Ithink when I work on writing, I work in the same collage style.  The work is a collection of ephemera andconcrete items associated with music duct taped to the wall.

5- Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you thesort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Performancehas always been a part of my writing process, but with the amount I work latelyI don’t get to engage with readings like I used to.  I think I’d like to change that in the futureand reprioritize my own writing process through readings and community.

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

Fortheory, I’m looking at negative capability, lyric philosophy (Jan Zwicky),lyric inquiry (Nancy Holmes and Lorri Neilsen Glenn), scholartistry (Lorri Neilsen Glenn), poetic methods/methodologies, confession (Melissa Febos), andekphrasis.  Pages could swell withtheories.  Let me try brevity: whathappens when lyric expression meets memory to defamiliarize difficult and tabootopics? How can you sing domestic violence, leaning trailer houses, a tent andan abandoned station wagon in the woods? 

It’sall the same well-worn grooves from William Blake’s musings on poverty inLondon to Alicia Elliott’s invocation of allusion to concretize upheaval.  What’s my contribution to it all?  A collection of poems that are tannins in theSuwanee River and dust on the Coquihalla.

7– What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Dothey even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Writersare important for process.  People arecollectively forgetting process.  Processis slow and creative and unending.  Ithink my role is to hold onto process for myself and my poetry.

Idon’t know what the writer’s role should be ideally.  I really like when Mary Ruefle writes in Madness,Rack, and Honey about taking a vase and putting it on your head and thenyou’re an upside-down flower.  Maybewriters should be/do that.

8- Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult oressential (or both)?

Ilove it! I’m not precious about my work.

Oncemy former supervisor, Matt Rader, took a poem I was struggling with and brokethe lines into tercets.  My world shiftedwith each line and new enjambment. Outside perspectives are fun and interesting.  Learning how my work is perceived andreceived gives me information to incorporate into my lyrical patterns.

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

Thatwriting improves with time and practice. Sounds simple, but it’s helpful for me to remember that I’ll get betterthe more I read, write, and practice over and over.

10- How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to creativenon-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

Idon’t view them as divided and sometimes struggle to fit my work intocategories.  Maybe CNF can be dividedinto fiction-like CNF and poetry-like CNF. Maybe my CNF is just a bunch of really long prose poems.  And for appeal, I suppose it’s not everyone’staste.  Collages of fragmentary vignettesare lovely to me though.

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?

Iteach a lot! Composition, critical reading and writing, literature, creativewriting, interpersonal communication. For 3 years, I commuted from Calgary to Red Deer, often waking at 4.00AM and getting back at 10.00 PM.  My lifehas revolved around teaching and paying the bills as a single mother withskyrocketing costs of living.  I writewhen I can: when I’m not burnt out from grading, emails, and emotionallycomplicated problems.  Seems to work okayenough. 

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

Igo for a drive, a walk, tidy up the house a bit.  Then I read “The Lady of Shalott” and “Skunk Hour” and will usually be good to go.

13- What fragrance reminds you of home?

Mudand palm fronds on a hot Florida day.

14- David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there anyother forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visualart?

Punkrock, TV shows, Warren Zevon, brands of shoes, history, roadways, abandonedbuildings, philosophy, movies.  You nameit.

15- What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply yourlife outside of your work?

Matt Rader, Michael V. Smith, Nancy Holmes, Margo Tamez, Suzette Mayr, Alicia Elliott, Chelene Knight, Molly Cross Blanchard, Mallory Tater, Melissa Weiss, Robert Lowell, Rosanna Deerchild, Sonia Sanchez, W.B. Yeats, Lord Tennyson, Rita Dove,Joy Harjo. I could go on, but these are very important ones.

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

Seethe Grand Canyon. Go on a writing retreat where childcare is not an issue. Gainstability and permanence in my employment. Pay off my student loans. Get a Canada Council grant.  Through-hike the Appalachian Trail. Re-watch Krulland maybe Ladyhawke too.

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 awriter?

Iused to apprentice with a lay midwife. My great grandmother was a midwife too. Maybe I would have liked to follow that path. 

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

Writingwas easier on my body and mind.  It was away out of extreme poverty.

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

Book:Molly Cross Blanchard’s Exhibitionist
Movie:(I know it’s a part of the military industrial complex…) Top Gun: Maverick.

20- What are you currently working on?

Ahybrid CNF and poetry collection using ekphrasis to explore domestic violence.

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