12 or 20 (second series) questions with Bruce Hunter

Bruce Hunter is an active writer, speaker and mentor. His award-winning novel In the Bear’s House was just rereleased by Frontenac House. In 2024, as Nella casa dell’orso, it was published in Italy as was his 2023 poetry collection Galestro, following in 2022, A Life in Poetry, all by iQdB edizioni. 1n 2021, his memoir essay “This is the Place I Come to in My Dreams” was shortlisted for the Alberta Magazine Publishers’ Awards. In 2024, his eco-poem “Dark Water” also originally published in Freefall won the gold prize for poetry for the same awards. Bruce’s poetry, fiction, reviews, interviews, translations, and nonfiction have appeared in over 100 publications and in seven languages internationally.  www.brucehunter.ca.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? 
My first trade book Benchmark was released by Thistledown Press in 1982 in my second year at York University. It included a long poem about government military action against Canadians I wrote in bp nichol’s class and published as a chapbook by Chris Faiers’ Unfinished Monument Press. CBC Radio broadcast a section and Benchmark received positive reviews across Canada.  The title refers to the starting point of a survey or mapping. Indeed it was.  In the forty years since, so much of my prose and poetry came out of the seeds planted in that first book.  I still use nichol’s teachings on the breath line in near everything,

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?  
After listening to many lofty sermons at our tiny local Anglican Church and much reading, I wrote a lofty long epic love poem. I was thirteen. I knew little about poetry and even less about love.  Suddenly, I now existed.  At least  on the page. As a deaf kid, it was a kind of hearing aid. Before others can hear us, we must hear ourselves.  I could hear myself now.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?  
It depends on the project.  In the past, I’m just wrote,  then gathered poems or stories until I can see a narrative arc that brought the gathering together. Now that I’m I’m in the grandfather years, I make lists or a fictional table of contents and go to work.  I’m profoundly aware these are the legacy years. Life is so brutally swift and short.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Poetry especially often starts with a word, a musical note like a high C hum, or a discovery in another’s poem or in random research and reading, or daydreaming.I have many points of departure. It seems different every time.  There are many paths to the waterfall, as Raymond Carver once said.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?  
When I started out, readings were essential sounding boa.  I still enjoy hearing and meeting other writers.  As a mature writer, I work in relative solitude and read in many genres and topics including the earth sciences, a lifelong passion.  I’m more content in solitude now. I find workshops tend to distract me from my quiet routine, my mad method.
 
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?  
I shy away from theory and prefer experimentation outside the lyric, including the anti-pastoral,  the dystopian, the noir, and mixing lyric with then dramatic, with “dirty” or documentary realism, or even magic realism . The Italian call me a jazz poet.  I bring as much of the world into my work as I can. My work is not cloistered, so I hope.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?  
I d believe my role as a writer is to expose the secrets of unacknowledged truths.  Other times, the voice is simply a quiet exaltation or exhalation.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?  I’ve always sought out editors. I enjoy the process.  
A good editor amplifies the work.  I make a distinction here between a proofreader and  a substantive editor. I wish more writers sought out a substantive editor who can take the work to the next level.  I very much enjoy seeing the work grow as we  edit it.  A good editor is a coach who challenges us to do better.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?  
B.C.’s Ron Smith was my very first writing teacher and told us, no matter what anyone says  about your writing, just say thank you.   I believe it’s best to be gracious even if it means gritting your teeth.  It’s not about you but about what capacity someone brings to your work.  And that is beyond your control.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to essays)? What do you see as the appeal?  
I was naturally drawn to longer poems which led to longer narratives so short stories and novels seemed an inevitable step for me.  When I started publishing my pants were baggy and my poems were skinny — all lower case, two words to a line. I’ve come to love the expansive poems that bring in all the world’s rhythms, cacophony and euphony. 

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?  
I need my caffeine, often a workout  and my best time is between 2 and 4 pm. I’m awake, energized and ready to sprint. Then it’s time for supper prep as my wife is still working.  Work/life balance is critical in the long haul. 

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?  
I garden, do research to jog my mind and extend my range.  Our minds need breaks and it’s often doing something away from my desk or home, that gets the brain’s light flickering again Overthinking and anxiety restricts risk taking which is essential for creative leaps that bring our work alive.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;