Called a
blog tour, the ideas/questions are on tour across many literary persons and canpo
blogs: a virus of poetics, a literary contagion.
You can
read Sandra Stephenson and Christine Miscione, Gary Barwin and Rob McLennan, and all the branching poets
participant as mentioned on the various sites, reflecting upon these same
questions.
Julie Mahfood and BrandonCrilly are my
littermates, check out their responses, too. Check the bottom of this post for
the next poets/whistlestops.
What am
I working on?
In the
moment I am immersed in published and unpublished manuscripts by other writers,
reading and reflecting and researching, in order to write something sensical
that the authors may then use in support of their works, moving them on to the
next stages (the lives of written works). I am promoting my new book and my
newer one, my first set of twins.
Plus
many inspiring collaborations, moving toward front-burner status: Public art in
Richmond, Reconciliation Through Poetry in Vancouver, and something in Toronto
(too soon to tell).
Impending,
I have guest appearances on diverse blogs, promoting my new book, Halfling spring.
I will add the addresses and eta when these are compiled.
With images by Leo
Yerxa, this is a compilation of love poems that will not
cure you of cynicism, but will remind you to celebrate the sweetness of life.
On the
backburner, I have many books in many stages, from republishing out-of-print books
to a fantasy romp, exploring polyandry (it seems tiring) through the whimsical
inspiration of a medieval Persian adventure epic.
Also,
it’s tax time, which I handle through an annual deer-in-the-headlamps freeze:
How does my
work differ from others of its genre?
There’s
a handy question.
Primarily
i write poetry, also essays: I would say that my approach is conversational,
highly intimate, and includes a great deal of wordplay: language-sensitive, earthy,
sense of humour, heavy-lifting (in the sense of engagement with big collective
as well as wee personal concerns). Perhaps the works fit more closely in traditions
of balladeering and country songs, or storytelling and oratory, than the more
cerebral poetics. But. Iconoclastic is another word I’ve seen, directed at my
work.
There is
a demand for embodiment and affect, alongside intelligence: if these are not
handled with sureness then the work is not done. Song principles govern
everything: energy patterns are most important; large or small, complex or
mundane, the pattern and path of ideation through the course of a work must
bring a person along for the ride, or it’s not going anywhere. I have low
tolerance for ideas piled on ideas in towering towers: I won’t read 19 Europeans
to “get” a single Canadian poem.
Why do I write what I do?
Another
good question… these arise as feelings that need to be discharged, an
intellectual itch or an emotional wobble, an imbalance in the world that
somehow lands upon my desk, and must be dealt with. Through writing I explore
the world, my inner world and my realms of relatedness, as well as the global
and ageless, for fun or from deeply serious motivation. An assignment from
without becomes an inner process, through the ethics of “it’s on my desk.”
Lin
Yu-tang’s The Importance of Living was
one early directive, James Baldwin’s Another
Country, another.
How does my writing process work?
As
noted: when a job has been identified, whether an accepted assignment, an
assertion from within, or what have you, I wander around and gather items from
the world which will help me complete the task.
These sometimes have a
straight-forward connection.
One instance: I was recently tasked to write about
reconciliation, so I watched many Chief Robert Joseph videos online, examined
etymologies, talked to specific people (in this case Jane Marston should be
mentioned, was quoted). I researched poetry and reconciliation as companions in
other countries, in this country, in this province (who else has linked
poetry, reconciliation, in Canada, everywhere else?). I had many irritable
thoughts about everything, processing through feeling and visitation (my
family, old friends).
Other
times: I will find myself repeatedly studying a subject and I don’t know why,
until voila! some new thing arrives
in the world (birthing, disgorging). The subliminal assignment is revealed.
I move
back and forth between pen/paper and word-processor. I read aloud and come to
understand direction more deeply through this circuitry. When it sounds right,
it feels right, and it withstands the question of relevance (revisiting the
original request), I move it along to the next stage: performance, submission.
If
something is very challenging, I may send to a friend, “does this make sense?”
I use the reader responses to offset the incorrigible worrier, to tap into that
confidence trickster/word warrior.
Sometimes,
as in this particular piece, I copy and paste others’ words directly into my
own work [above questions from above-mentioned blogs], and thus, carry a bit of others’ energies and genii into my own
passages.
All hail
reciprocity!
Next stop: