12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tonya Lailey
Tonya Lailey (she/her) writes poetry and essays. Her first full-lengthcollection, Farm : Lot 23, wasreleased this year by Gaspereau Press. Her poem, “The Bottle Depot,” wasshortlisted for Arc Poetry 2024 "Poem of the Year". Her poems “BatLove” and “Love on the Rocks” won first and second prize in FreeFallMagazine’s Annual Poetry Contest 2024. She holds an MFA in creative writingfrom UBC.
1 - How did your firstbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?How does it feel different?
My first book has notchanged my life materially – ha! It has given some confidence, and somesmall sense of place in the big open field we call writing. I now know it’spossible to have a manuscript accepted and published. I also know that the publishingexperience can be good. Andrew Steeves, at Gaspereau Press, was lovely to workwith – clear, kind and respectful in his approach. The book always felt like mybook in his hands.
My second manuscript (mymost recent and not yet published) deals with more charged material, namely,addiction and codependency. I don’t know how different the writing is, exactly.I play with form as I do in the first book. A single thread of colour – yellow– runs through this second collection. It felt very different to write thesepoems since I didn’t write them to belong to a book. The poems took shape over10 years, in various workshops and with writing groups, friends.
2 - How did you come topoetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
At King’s College inHalifax, where I did my undergrad degree, I took a French Feminism course withProfessor Elizabeth Edwards. She was the first person who told me that mywriting was poetic, that I had a sense for metaphor. Whether or not that wastrue, I believed her. I think that metaphor happened to me from readingKristeva and De Beauvoir and being swept up by their prose. I wasn’t much of areader or writer as a teenager. I mean, I won the English award when Igraduated high school, but I didn’t write much beyond school assignments. I spentthe bulk of my time outside of school training as a competitive swimmer, thenalso a runner. Growing up on a farm and doing sports had me living an intensebody life. I think that’s a solid prelude to writing poetry, being deep in thebodies of things, deep in one’s own body— its pains and pleasures. And I’vealso always been a day dreamer, space-cadet as we called it when I was a kid. Ithink poetry is kinder to dreamers than fiction might be. I’ve always felt moreat home catching poems than telling stories.
3 - How long does ittake to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I always have many writingprojects on the go. I think that’s not unusual for writers. Starting projectscomes easily. Developing these ideas and getting them to a point I feel goodabout is not such a snap. It’s rare thata draft appears looking close to its final shape. I take it as a good sign whenit does. I live for the poems that “flow from the hand unbidden”, to quoteDerek Mahon. More often I write by hand frantically to capture what feels mostalive on paper and then I spend hours working with the juicy material, tryingto coax it into something without killing it. It’s not all that different fromwinemaking.
And often, yes, I start with research and many, many pages of notes until Ifeel at home enough in the content to play with it and have a say.
4 - Where does a poemusually 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 do both. I write thepoems that arise out of daily living. I write them to write them. I believe inthose poems. They keep me going, the way perennials keep me wanting to garden,and seeds that germinate keep me wanting to plant seeds.
That said, I also likepiloting projects. There’s a thrill in imagining a book then working to pull itoff, especially if I’m open to “it” becoming not what I thought it would be.
5 - Are public readingspart of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer whoenjoys doing readings?
Hmmm. I’m not sure yet.I haven’t done enough of them. I’ll say I learn a lot about my writing byreading it out loud to people. I hear more clearly where the writing trips overitself. I hear where I may need other words I haven’t found yet.
I have both enjoyedreadings and not enjoyed readings. The biggest barrier to enjoyment is typicallymyself, my insecurities. If I prepare myself in a loving way and read from thatplace, lo and behold, I find I can love the reading. I try to remember topractice what Richard Wagamese writes in Embers:
When my energy is low,meaning I don’t feel at my best in terms of creativity, inspiration, attunementor rest, I let Creator have my flow and ask only to be a channel. My deepestaudience connection has always happened when I do this. So, on my way to apodium nowadays, I say to myself, ‘Okay, Creator, you and me, one more time.’When I surrender the delivery, along with the outcome, the anxiety and theexpectation, everything becomes miraculous. It’s a recipe for life, really.
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?
Oh, yeah. I’m alwaysasking about love and relationships, how to love, how to have betterrelationships, what that looks like, how it’s done, what the actions are,whether the desire for sustainable, deep, caring love (not caretaking love) isa pipedream or an attainable, generative foundation for living. I’m betting the latter. And by relationships,I mean all of them—to the self, to each other, to difference, to all the otherlife on the planet, to technology, to work, to eating, to aging, to death.
So, that’s also to saythat I’m concerned about the social and economic systems within which we conductour collective selves and that shape our imaginations for what is and whatcould be. I don’t like how we tend to define our choices, limit them. It’sstrange because in so many ways we scoff at limitations, particularly when itcomes to the exploitation of natural resources. At the same time, ourimagination for public wealth and well-being is gravely constrained. So, yeah,I’m concerned about concentrations of wealth and power and how limiting anddeadly they are / we know them to be.
I am also concernedabout the degree to which women continue to be held in contempt in our culture.
7 – What do you see thecurrent role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? Whatdo you think the role of the writer should be?
I’m not one for“should”. And, I don’t know about writers having a defined role in largercultures. Something about attempting to define that makes me uncomfortable. Idon’t think writers are a special class of people. Writers are people who writeand share/distribute their writing in public places. I want to live in a worldwhere people do that. And I want to live in a world where people are interestedin reading what other people are writing about, especially if those otherpeople live very different lives from their own. I want to live in a world thatthrums with imagination. Writing can be one way to cultivate imagination.
8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Again, my experience islimited. To date I have had only positive experiences with outside editors, butI know writer-editor relationships can be fraught with difficulties.
9 - What is the bestpiece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Don’t write to be loved.
10 - How easy has itbeen for you to move between genres (poetry to essays to children's fiction)?What do you see as the appeal?
I find it a challengeand a relief to move between genres. My move is most often from poetry tocreative non-fiction. I find the scale of CNF intimidating – it tends to happenover so many pages whereas I can contain a poem on one page. Since I writemostly poetry, when I go to write a poem I can drop into a certain state. Idon’t have that as reliably with CNF. I definitely don’t have that yet withfiction.
11 - What kind ofwriting routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does atypical day (for you) begin?
I tend to resistroutine, but I like commitment. So, I commit to a certain number of hours eachday. That number changes, almost daily. Alternately, I commit to finishingsomething, which doesn’t mean I won’t work on it again but rather that I’llsubmit it for publication and see what happens.
The one constant is thatevery day begins with an hour of spiritual-type readings and a brief free writeor “noticing poems” as Patrick Lane called them.
Early morning is my bestwriting time. I tend to wake up with a thin skin, alert and sensitive. This canwork well for writing.
12 - When your writinggets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?
I go for a walk. Iclean. I make food.
13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?
Parathion. Woodsmoke.Rotting peaches. Fermenting grapes. Diesel. Cedar. Yew.
Willow. Kerosene. Brownbread and baked beans.
14 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Yes : Plants. Paintings.Photographs. Music. Science – botany usually. Sculpture.
And the fabric arts arenot to be overlooked! And the prompt – a poetry prompt is an art form I tellyou.
15 - What other writersor writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of yourwork?
I tend to freeze whensomeone asks me this question, so I’ll just start writing the names of thewriters that feel most present with me these days. Emily Dickinson / Ross Gay /Claire Keegan / Sarah Moss / Ocean Vuong / Alice Oswald / Seamus Heaney / JaneHirshfield / Marie Howe / Ada Limón / Richard Wagamese / Richard Powers /Susan Musgrave / Sue Goyette / Joan Didion / Rainer Maria Rilke / Anne Lamott /Bronwen Tate / Lorna Crozier / Bob Hicok / Gregory Orr / Aimee Nezhukumatathil/ Karen Solie / Naomi Shihab Nye. And so many Canadian poets not already namedwhom I work with or have shared work with like, Juleta Severson-Baker, Mary Vlooswyk, Erin E. McGregor, Kimberley Orton, Bren Simmers, Barbara Pelman,Barbara Kenney, Micheline Maylor, Lisa Richter, Richard Osler, AndreaScott…this list is much longer but this is a start.
16 - What would you liketo do that you haven't yet done?
The Biles II.
Write a novel that getspublished and then read by at least a handful of people.
17 - If you could pickany other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
In no order: mastergardener for hire, vegetable/flower farmer with a market stall (you know, evenjust a folding table would be great), winemaker with a market stall (but withno sampling, I’ve been that woman and it wasn’t fun).
18 - What made youwrite, as opposed to doing something else?
The flexible schedule: Ihad kids. I’m not great with my hands. I was encouraged to do it on a fewoccasions that remain vivid for me – felt like a lightning strike. Writing cantake place in bed, in a car, on a log, with a frog. Farming is bloody hard work.
19 - What was the lastgreat book you read? What was the last great film?
Book? Books:
I’ve read both booksthree times. I’m not even sure why I find these books so affecting but I do.The writing comes close to the bone while feeling deeply mysterious. I find ituncanny.
Film? Films:
The Cathedral
Good luck to you, Leo Grande
20 - What are youcurrently working on?
An essay about traffic,driving, the end-days of cars, with the working title: “Palliative Car”.
A couple of poetry bookreviews.
A commonplace book onthe Black Ash Tree that I hope is the foundation for a hybrid form book withthe working title: “In Light of the Black Ash”
A drawing practice – Iwant to draw regularly.
Italian; learning it.
I need to write apantoum that incorporates things near and things far; it’s for a writing group.(So far, it’s gotten no further than the back of my mind.)
Everyday poems that comeup, as they do.
Revisions to shortstories I wrote two years ago.
