12 or 20 (second series) questions with Aaron Boothby
AaronBoothbyis a settler poet of European ancestry from Riverside, California in thetraditional lands of the Cahuilla, Tongva, Payomkawichum,and Yuhaaviatamand people. The author of Continent (McClelland & Stewart, 2023), as well as two chapbooks, he lives inprimarily in Montréal, also called Tiohtià:keby its caretakers, the Kanien:keha’ka people.
1- How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your mostrecent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Myfirst chapbook felt pretty natural to put together and I was lucky to haveKlara du Plessis and Jim Johnstone as editors. They’re both very astute andrespectful of what you’re trying to do as a poet in a way that was quiteaffirming at the time. I’m embarrassed by the rather awkward title, which I’vebeen known to mix up myself, but it did set the tone for my work in many waysbeing longer form, fluid, and disinterested in contained poems. I like thingsspilling over and around. It’s an excessive work, and if there’s a bigdifference now it’s that I’ve learned to work against my own tendency tooverwrite. I also presence myself more in the work, whereas before I activelyobscured and took distance from the speaker. There was feedback from Dionne Brand then later Canisia Lubrin, the editor of my first full-length, thathelped immensely in doing so.
2- How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’venever been a competent or fluid storyteller, like do not ask me to tell a funnystory! My humour is observational, spontaneous, and in many ways so is mypoetry (which, sadly, is not funny). I’ve never been interested in motivationsor characters or people in the way that tends to make fiction interesting.Anyway, I wasn’t drawn to it. Non-fiction would have been too easy, whichsounds absurdly presumptuous and I’m sure someone will think, “Oh sure, write agood essay then!” but what I mean is it comes too easily, and I benefit frommore resistance. Line by line, poetry makes you dig deeper, listen harder. Ialways feel like I can hide in paragraphs of prose, say any old shit andconvince myself and maybe others there’s something valuable in there. Maybethere is! When I do write essays I certainly try. But I like that in poetry youcan’t do that, not really. It’s like standing in a desert landscape, feelingwind wear down the phrases around you until necessary forms remain.. I adorethe desert, obviously.
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?
Ispend most of my time not writing, though I spent many years writing all thetime. If I’m writing all the time I’ll feel like what I’m writing is differentbut it’s actually all the same. I need time and silence and reading to letwhatever I write next become different. I have at least three full projects I’dlike to actually finish and one I work on only when I can go outside and bewith grasses. When I actually sit down to write everything moves quickly. Itake notes and then ignore them. I used to write from fragments and stoppeddoing that. I have contradictions and un-interrogated habits. As for drafts, Irewrite a lot, sometimes drastically, and each is a different shape along theway. I’d say most of the time the core of the poem is already there and it’s amatter of getting rid of everything I’ve put in the way of it speaking.
4- Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short piecesthat end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a"book" from the very beginning?
Aphrase, a line, a sensation, maybe a kind of pleasurable irritation that doesn’tgo away. I’m not always working on a book from the beginning, but poems seem toaggregate themselves pretty quickly into architectures with their own tones andshape.
5- Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you thesort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
They’vecertainly been a large part of my development as a writer, since without aregular reading series like Resonance, that Klara du Plessis ran for years, I’mnot sure I’d be writing now and am completely sure I wouldn’t be writing theway I do or have made the relationships that sustain something as comparatively(to anything that makes money and even much art) marginal as poetry. I likereadings, I’ve been going to more regular series and open mics lately, just tolisten or chat with people who are often doing poetry more as hobby thanvocation. I love to be reminded that people just get together to share poemssometimes and have a community around that.
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 thecurrent questions are?
I’mfirst of all a lazy poet, which sounds unserious, when I’m actually a bitserious about being lazy. I am curious about theory and get a lot from it, butwhat I get is tangled up in my own feelings and concerns, not a grounding oftheory. I dabble, and anyone who actually adheres to anything would probablyfind it all messy and delinquent.. I really avoid any sense of having answersand don’t trust myself to have any. I’m also clear about things, like we livein ruinous landscapes populated by ghosts where we are intensely disconnectedfrom each other and desperately need to listen, and be neighbourly in a waythat goes against the whole capitalist-settler-colonialist apparatus of livingwe’re caught in. But that’s just happening, that’s not theory. Poetry is a wayto imagine otherwise and perhaps how to do that is the question.
7 – What do you see the current role of thewriter being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think therole of the writer should be?
I’mnot sure there is one, to be honest, not in the larger culture. I think,outside of writers whose influence is directly tied to wealth, writers have amarginal influence. I’m not sure that’s bad, even if it’s materially bad forthe idea of making a living from writing. I am personally more comfortable inthe margins.
8- Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult oressential (or both)?
Ohabsolutely essential, it’s way too hard to see everything I’m doing, especiallysince I don’t often really know what I’m doing! I mean I do, of course, but a practicededitorial eye is always going to catch things and a good editor will havesuggestions that strengthen a poem or book immeasurably. I haven’t found itdifficult, far more often delightful, abundant.
9- What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to youdirectly)?
“Itwas always you who stopped you,” said by someone who knew me very well a longtime before I really did, and it wasn’t intended as advice. It functions asadvice because it’s accurate, I never forgot it, and it gets me to overrule myown hesitation when it comes to actually doing anything. Yes, I am an excellentprocrastinator, it’s a way of life I do not disagree with! But reminders arehelpful.
10- What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one?How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Ihave something like a routine when I’m writing, which is pretty much a normalday of trying to read for a while in the morning and perhaps be outside for awhile and then write in the afternoon, and another one when editing or moreintensely rewriting, which is more like a free-for-all breakdown of routine andusually involves rather late nights where trying to get a line right evaporateshours at a time.
11- When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack ofa better word) inspiration?
It’snot an interesting answer, but reading, always. The writer Sofia Samatar put itas being a “pleasure animal,” when reading and I relate, it’s entirely tangledwith thinking for me, and thinking with others is intimately tangled with anydesire I ever have to write.
12- What fragrance reminds you of home?
Woodsmoke,both from the seasonal fires familiar to living in California and the smell ofcreosote, a bush that flowers in the desert after monsoon rains, which is likeoils mixed with petrichor.
13- 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?
The artist Andy Goldsworthy might have as much influence on me as any poet, becauseotherwise I might think there’s no point in making anything when there’s theripples on sand in dunes or near the sea, or water flowing across stone. I don’treally differentiate between forms, a position Goldsworthy also has come tolate in his work, not differentiating between art and nature or civilizationand nature, simply recognizing that we’re always in nature, and always workingwith those elements whether we recognize them or not. I am not a scholar ofliterature, let alone poetry, but to me the origins of any poetic form existingor future are in things like birdsong, the movement of shadows, the shape ofstone, our voices and laughter when we walk through a city with each other. Themusic I like sounds a lot like these things too, and I find a lot of music bypoets mentioning music in their work. Jason Sharp, who frequently collaborates with the poet Kaie Kellough, is making music that just floors me and I always wantto write differently with.
14- What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply yourlife outside of your work?
Thisis an enormous question so I’ll try to make it the shortest answer: Dionne Brand, Renee Gladman, Brandon Shimoda, John Keene, Zoe Todd, AM Kanngieser,Alice Notley
15- What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
That’ssuch a dangerously open question! Visit Mexico City, touch the ephemeral lakethat forms in Death Valley in some very rainy winters, participate in a poetryreading in California, because somehow I’ve never done that in the place I’mfrom.
16- 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?
Fieldgeologist or park ranger, the latter is still my backup plan. Give me a dayoutside and I’ll pick up garbage, I really don’t mind, it’s just nice to beout.
17- What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Itwasn’t ever in conflict, really. I had an impulse to write and kept doing it,alongside doing other things. That’s still what I do. Mostly I do other things,even if I’m often thinking about writing in the background. I chose to pursuepublishing and participating in literature as an event, but even that wasmostly going with things as they happened. If things had gone otherwise I’dhave done something else, maybe I would have met people really into sailing, orgardening, and done those things. Sometimes these questions are as much amatter of community as anything else, and writing has led me to many people Ienjoy thinking with, talking with, making with, who do a variety of differentthings. If I had another art or profession, I think it would still be likethat.
18- What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Tone, by KateZambreno and Sofia Samatar, and Perfect Days, by Wim Wenders.
19- What are you currently working on?
Abook in conversation with grasses and a mountain.
