12 or 20 questions: with Chris Robinson

Chris Robinson is an Ottawa-based author and the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF). A noted animation commentator, curator, and historian, Robinson has become a leading expert on Canadian and international independent animation. In May 2004, Robinson was the recipient of the President's Award given by the New York chapter of animators for contributions to the promotion of independent animation. He is also a frequent contributor to The Ottawa Citizen and The Ottawa Xpress. His writings on animation, hockey, and all facets of culture have appeared in many international publications including Salon.com, Animation World Magazine, Stop Smiling, Take One, and Cinemascope. His books include: Between Genius and Utter Illiteracy: A Story of Estonian Animation(2003/republished in 2006), Ottawa Senators: Great Stories from the NHL's First Dynasty (2004), Unsung Heroes of Animation (2005), Stole This From a Hockey Card: A Philosophy of Hockey, Doug Harvey, Identity & Booze (2005), Great Left Wingers of Hockey's Golden Era (2006) and The Animation Pimp (2007).

Robinson lives in Ottawa with his wife Kelly and their sons Jarvis and Harrison.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

It gave me a bit of confidence. Before the first one (which was a book on the popular topic of Estonian animation!), I was scared of the idea of writing a book and didn't think I had the energy or focus (since I'm ADD) to do it...but I did it.

2 - How long have you lived in Ottawa, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

Ottawa is all over my work because I've lived her my whole life (40 years). It's especially present in Stole This From a Hockey Card and The Animation Pimp because I write very personal experiences..and they can't help but come from Ottawa. As for race and gender, they definitely come into play on the two books I mentioned above. Stole This delves into masculinity and some Pimp columns talk bluntly about sexuality, gender and race--and how they are portrayed and mishandled in many animation features (notably Disney films). And naturally my own race and gender can't help put inform my views!

3 - Where does a piece of fiction or non-fiction 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?

I think that with the exception of Stole This and my two hired gun hockey books (Ottawa Senators, Great Left Wingers), my other books started as smaller pieces. The Animation Pimp was just a series of columns. I would write one a month never knowing if it would be the last. I certainly never thought they'd be a book...but in the end it made sense that they were a book because they formed a view by a person of a specific time and place.

Stole This From a Hockey Card was a book from the get-go, but I was never sure what path it was going to take. Would it be straight biography? That was initially the plan until I learned that there was a biography of Doug Harvey being published. That turned out to be the best thing that ever happened because it forced me to come up with a new approach. I think that saved my ass from writing some generic hockey bio.

But you know Stole This went way back to the late 1990s and a desire to write about another hockey player Ted Lindsay. I loved Nick Tosches' biographies and wanted to take his approach to hockey players...mix it up with fact/fiction (but with the fiction saying more truth than the fiction)... But then I found that Lindsay wasn't so interesting off the ice. At the same time, I grabbed some files on Doug Harvey and boom...instant connection.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

Boy...I'd say they are counter to a degree although in the case of The Animation Pimp, I'd written many of the columns to be read aloud. I always read each one to myself to check the rhythm and tone... So it's been really nice to get a chance to read from the book.

Stole This was more awkward. It's such a personal book that deals--among many things-- with addiction and alcoholism-- and my first reading was at a bar. That was pretty damn strange. It was also somewhat painful to read Stole This aloud to strangers. In general, I don't like readings. I find most of them quite dull and tedious. But I guess it's necessary for book signings/sales.

5 - 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'm in a constant state --whether I'm writing a hired fluff book about the Ottawa Senators (which I've done) or with more personal books-- of finding myself...of trying to figure out just what the heck I'm doing here and what I think of what I experience around me. I'm also so fascinated with the people I write about...with animators I'm less concerned with their work then with what kind of people they are..BUT I have to find a connection...a door that I can enter..something that I recognize about them. So, with Stole This, I'm basically using Doug Harvey's life to sort my own shit out. So, really, identity is a common theme throughout my writing. How do we define ourselves? How do others define us? Is identity even possible? It seems to me that it's a constantly moving entity that's always changing. Who I was last week, I am not this week.

Heraclitus, my fave philosopher once simply said, "I am as I am not." I love that contradiction.. the idea that the world is not black and white..that it all flows from the same vat. People are not THIS or THAT..they are THIS and THAT... We can all be good and evil.. BUT it's up to us to choose which will guide our life. In that sense, I think it all comes down to taking responsibility for your self, your life (This is a theme I'm exploring deeply in my next book)

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

I've had all sort of different scenarios here. With Stole This and The Animation Pimp, I had great editors and there was always constructive dialogue going on, give and take on both ends. With the hockey fluff books, I had to write in a house style and just didn't give a shit what they did to the writing. With Unsung Heroes of Animation and Between Genius and Utter Illiteracy: Estonian Animation, I had no editor! That was a pain in the ass because I can't edit/proof my own work. I need someone to really challenge me --even if I get pissed off occasionally. Fortunately, I did find a friend to edit/proof the books...but in short...my happiest experiences has been working with editors on Stole This and The Pimp. You're working with people who like you're writing and support your work. They're on your side so it really helps knowing that and keeps me from taking things too personally.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

Creating the book always seems easier than actually getting the damn thing published. That being said, I've been pretty damn lucky because I've attained a bit of a status in animation and found publishers...publishers who let me get away with writing books that are and are not about animation (like The Animation Pimp). But, I do feel I'm getting pigeonholed into the animation corner and I will put an end to that soonish.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

Hmm...well I just bought pears today--but havent eaten one. Hold on...okay...I'm currently eating a pear.

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

Richard Meltzer once told me that writing is for dogs. There's nothing romantic about it. So many people (including myself at one point) love to believe that writing is some drunken romantic adventure. It aint. And one of my favourite lines is from William Faulkner where he said something like "I don't want know what I think about something until I read what I wrote about it."

And Nick Tosches has repeatedly told me to keep fighting and not let the bastards get to me. --but that's my approach to life in general.

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

Very easy because I don't even consider the two genres. I just freely move back and forth between the two. Sometimes I think my non-fiction is better fiction than any fiction I could devise.

What I love about fiction --within this creative non-fiction genre- is that it can convey more truths about a subject than any amount of facts can. That's what I adored about Nick Tosche's Dino (about Dean Martin)...the fictional dialogue that Tosches wrote for Dino said so much more about the essence of the man than any standard fact tomb could.

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've got no routine. I do get most of my writing done during the morning...but then sometimes it'll happen later in the day. I used to get so frustrated because I couldn't get focused...but I just learned to incorporate that into the process. So when I'm making coffee, watching Columbo or going for a jog, it's all part of the process...it's the period where the ideas are percolating. I find that jogging is amazingly helpful. I can write pages in my head or solve problems. Running really helps me get the muck out of my system and see more clearly. But beyond that I'm a lazy sod. I've written about six books in 4 years (and have contracts for 4 more books) and I don't know how the fuck I've done it. Granted, being sober helps a lot!

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

I think I answered this above. Running, boxing, xbox, tv... Just something to clear the head for a bit. Even a good dump can generate a satori.

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

This was much looser. The Pimp pieces were done with a smile...but I really had fun writing them. I remember that there were one column where I spent hours reading Immanuel Kant and Pierre Bourdieu just so I could write a 'gonzo' thing about taste and write it in everyday language. In other cases I just fucked around with formatting. I was bringing in dada, beat, gonzo, concrete poetry... Just testing out all these new things. It wasn't all that original but within animation --a surprisingly conservative world-- it was all quite radical and different... Anyway, it was just so much fun writing these pieces.

Stole This was certainly not fun. I was writing about my addiction, my childhood, my fears...I was bashing Canada's beloved sport..and I was writing a very different kind of hockey book. It was all very intimidating...and really Stole This was my first REAL book...something written for the literary crowd....

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

Nick Tosches and Richard Meltzer are the two biggest influences. I love the writing they did in the 1970s...this crazy music criticism that stood out from all the generic stuff being written. William Faulkner is another one. I just love that guy's run on sentences. Absalom Absalom has some of the most mouth watering passages I've ever come across in writing. There are others like Hubert Selby, Paul Auster, Philip Roth, but Tosches, Meltzer and Faulkner are my big three. Someone who read my Pimp pieces said that I was doing gonzo writing. I knew of gonzo and Hunter Thompson, but hadn't really read any of it. I have now and I yeah, I guess I've got some of those gonzo and beat (Kerouac in particular) genes. Oh so typical guy stuff.

Outside of literature, the philosophy of Heraclitus ...and the Gospel of Thomas have really helped me shape my life. I really want to be a philosopher when I grow up. I'd say though that music is all over what I do. I grew up loving music, playing in local bands, wanting to be a musician...so it makes sense that music touches my writing. These days Robert Pollard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bob Dylan (I used to hate him as a youngster), and, yes, Ol' Dirty Bastard are what I listen to obsessively. Jackson Pollack is another distant influence and hell, animation is around me all the fucking time whether I want it or not. There are many animators who've had a big influence on me...

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

Meet my half brother who is 4 months younger than me.

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 a writer?

Hmm... A cab driver (cause I could then drive like an asshole and get away with it) or homicide detective.

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

Boy...i dunno..it was just there...it's just an itch that had to be scratched. It's so strange to me that animation (I never cared for cartoons) led me back to writing (something I did have a love for when I was a kid). I still don't even always believe that I am a writer. But the fucker just wont go away..wont let me be. I just have to. I'm a bit of awkward person socially and this is the only way I know how to communicate with the world..and maybe even myself.

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

Last great film was an animation short from japan called Kafka's A Country Doctor. It deservedly won the Grand Prix at the Ottawa Animation Festival this year (my other job). Stunningly original adaptation of the Kafka short story. Beyond that most of the great films today are television shows. Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire and Deadwood. Great stuff.

As for books... Boy.. Great ones... Been a while since I read a book that I really wanted to read again. Maybe Elaine Pagels' book on The Birth of Satan. She's written a number of books about religion and I find her take on things quite rational and fascinating.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I'm working on a handful of projects including a script for a short animation being produced by the National film Board of Canada. It's inspired by the rather somber of life of experimental filmmaker Arthur Lipsett. Again, it's a story where I've worked my own shit into the equation. Basically it's about mental illness/suicide and identity.

I've also started on a second script about marriage and relationships and how twisted, tragic, absurd and hilarious they can be. Both of these projects are in collaboration with Montreal animator, Theodore Ushev.

Looking for a Place to Happen: On The Road with Canadian animators is a consciously gonzo take on the current state of Canadian animation. I traveled the country earlier this year and interviewed many Canadian animators. The book will fuse these casual interviews with my travel diary. And again...all the usual themes reappear in it. The book will be ready for Fall 2008

Ballad of a Thin Man: animation, fathers and Ryan is a project I've worked on for a few years now. It's a bit of a sequel to Stole This From a Hockey Card in that instead of dealing with my childhood and my parents...this time I recount my encounters with my biological father--who I met the same week I met the troubled late animator Ryan Larkin (who went from star animator to drunk living on the streets of Montreal). Through these two figures I explore issues of certainty, saviours and responsibility. Also entering the story are Bob Dylan (who was seen as a bit of a saviour himself in the 1960s--an era that informed my biopops and Ryan Larkin) and Jesus (through the Gospels of Thomas and Philip). It'll be a crazy book but I think it could be the best thing I've done. This should be out next summer???

There are also a couple of other more 'normal' animation books, but let's not think about those for the moment.

There we have it. Thanks for asking.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with KI Press

Bio: I was born in the hospital in Peace River, Alberta. For most of the years until I was 14 I lived on an acreage near the hamlet of North Star and went to school in nearby Manning (for those of you not in Alberta who don't know where I am talking about, Manning is about a 6 or 7 hour drive north and slightly west of Edmonton). I moved to Edmonton the same year I started high school and went to the U of A, then the U of Ottawa, then the U of A again, then Simon Fraser for a year, then I moved to Toronto and worked mainly in the "big-time" book publishing industry there. It was during that time I published my first two books of poetry. Pale Red Footprints (Pedlar, 2001) is a re-telling of my grandfather's private memoir (it's a pioneer narrative, mostly). Spine (Gaspereau, 2004, shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award) is a collection of poems around the theme of being a reader. I moved to Winnipeg in 2005 where I now pay the bills by working in the glamorous field of arts administration (at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, which kicks butt by the way). My most recent book is Types of Canadian Women (Gaspereau, 2006, shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award and for the ReLit Award). It is poetry and short prose fragments and archival photographs pretending to be an illustrated biographical dictionary from 100 years ago. I live in Winnipeg's River Heights area with my sweetheart and our dog.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

"Change your life" is a pretty strong phrase for something like publishing a first book of poetry. A few people perhaps started to take me more seriously, but only a few people who cared about that kind of thing. Some people maybe started to take me less seriously for all I know.

2 - How long have you lived in Winnipeg, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I have lived in Winnipeg for two years. I don't think its geography has impacted my writing. I don't often write about my surroundings directly, and I don't think I do it indirectly, either. Race and gender, yes, well, but do you mean mine or everybody else's? My own race and gender do clearly impact my writing. Types of Canadian Women is all about the secret lives of boring white chicks.

3 - Where does a poem or piece of fiction 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?

Occasionally I will write a poem out of an experience, or idea or feeling or opinion that seems like it ought to be a poem. But more often I start with a larger idea that I think of as, if not book-length to begin with, then at least longpoem- or series-lenth. Partly this is just because I don't often get those ideas that I want to latch on to and write about - so I have to milk the ones I get as much as possible, doing variations on a theme. It also has to do with having written too many grant application project proposals.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

Neither, they are just separate.

5 - 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?

Theoretical concerns: not exactly, not in a way that other people might define "theoretical." I am interesting in trying to escape convention; I can hardly stand to read books that I find too conventional anymore, in poetry and in fiction, and some of them are critically acclaimed, award-winning blah blah blah, but I get part way through and go "what, that's IT, haven't I read all this heartfelt lyricism before?" Not to say that I don't also fall victim to convention; it is not easy to be original. And there are plenty of other conventions to be wary of other than heartfelt lyricism. But I would say that is the number one "concern" behind my writing.

A question I am trying to answer: what are the effects on the present of the way in which history was recorded and has been passed down? This can apply to our personal/family histories or to broader history. I've only defined this question recently but I think I have been working at it through all my books.

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

I think it is essential, but I wish that editors would be harder on me, they seem to ask so little! I don't think I have ever caved to an editorial request that I didn't agree with. Even the relatively small amount that I have been edited, sometimes I just come back and say "no," but I only do so if I can articulate my reason for keeping something. In that way even the comments that don't get used are useful, because I have to articulate my reasons for doing something a certain way.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

Book-making, as in publishing, is the same. There is no mystery in it for me, though, since I have studied book publishing and worked in it professionally. I find writing books harder at present. After having published a few, I feel like I need to go for gold so to speak and write something bigger, more ambitious. But then I have also gotten to the point in my life where there is a mortgage and a dog and shingles practically falling off the roof so it is exactly the time when I can't afford to not be gainfully employed!

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I didn't eat a whole pear, but the other day I used some pears that were getting mushy along with the last of the rhubarb to make a crumble with oats and almonds on top, I ate some, it was pretty good, but I put too much orange blossom water in it (it was an experiment).

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

The only piece of advice I can remember at all right now is "Take everything seriously, but nothing personally." There's a guy at work who is always complaining to me about stuff and that is his way of softening the blow. Still, I guess it is good advice, but only in certain contexts. I can think of a lot of things that don't deserve to be taken seriously at all.

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

Not too easy, but in the end I would prefer to work between genres, in the land of no genre. A lot of the pieces in Types of Canadian Women I don't consider to be poetry at all, but they certainly aren't short stories. I would like to do more in that direction. (A book I read last year that I liked for its between-genre-ness was called VL (Vera & Linus) by Jesse Ball and Thordis Bjornsdottir.) In the end you just have to call it something - poetry, usually, because the name is more elastic than "novel" or "short fiction" -- for official purposes. Part of why I am stuck on the novel I talk about in question #12 is because I am SO bored with the regular old novel structure it currently lives in.

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 rarely write when I have a proper job. I might get a burst of writing energy one weekend here or there. Mostly I write in bursts of a few weeks or months at a time when I get a grant or a residency. As such, years can go by with my hardly writing anything, then all of the sudden I will produce a draft of a new book. If I do have a good draft, though, I find it much easier to work on revisions on a regular basis. It is the creating new work that I find takes a lot of concentrated energy.

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

Usually I have several projects going at one time, until I get to the period I describe in question 11 where I choose one and write the heck out of it. So if I get stalled I figure it is because I am not working on the right project, and I move on to a different one, possibly coming back to the other one later. Actually that happened to me recently, during my last writing period (almost a year ago now) I finished a draft of a novel, but I am stuck on it so I have started a new project for now. (I have a very short attention span, which is why I may never finish writing a "novel"!)

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

I get a different feel off of each of my three books. The first was maybe slightly peculiar and passed through the world without much comment, so it gives me the feeling of untapped potential, or the poor little book that could. The second book was my most conventional so far and I think about it, "Man, I should have worked harder to do something more original there." The third one is different because of the whole faux-1903 concept and in that it got a lot more reviews that the other ones, so I think about it, "I guess a couple more people paid attention. But is that an illusion? Was it just kind of goofy? Now what?"

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

Man, that is a tough one, because my books come so directly and transparently from other books that it is hard to make room for other stuff. I would have to say photography is the runner-up, then music. Popular music.

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

A.J. Levin is pretty important to life outside my work. (Hi!)

Kristjana Gunnars' books have been important to me, it's funny, I studied with her at the U of A but her writing didn't hit me until after. I did my M.A. on Lola Lemire Tostevin, her books influenced me a lot, especially my first book, which I wrote at the same time I was doing my thesis.

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

Win the lottery.

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 a writer?
Since I do have to have another job, and I am writer only part time, the question kind of doesn't make sense. But I do often think that I missed a calling as a librarian. I love organizing things, and data entry! And if it has to do with books, so much the better!

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

I had a lot of arty hobbies as child, and I read a lot, so writing became one of them. I think I found out early on that I was better at writing than, say, drawing, or music, or theatre, and so it became the most reliable and rewarding way to express myself. Nothing like positive reinforcement.

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

"Great book" is a strong phrase. There are a lot of books I have liked, but few that I get blown away by. A few years ago I read Ciaran Carson's novel Shamrock Tea, which I never stopped raving about. It's in 101 short chapters, each named for a colour of paint. The book is about time travel, Irish nationalism, drug use, Wittgenstein, the Lives of the Saints, and the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait. I adore it.

With movies, I usually just watch whatever is on even if it is terrible. It's all kind of a blur, I watch a lot of movies (on TV or DVD, not in theatres). I can't think of a great movie I watched recently for the first time, but the other night I did watch Psycho, which I hadn't seen for a long time. Anthony Perkins is so great!

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am in a strange burst of quasi-writing right now, in all my spare moments I am working on planning a project that has to do with travelling around the world and through history. It involves pouring over timelines and atlases and a complicated Excel spreadsheet. It's an insane project that would take a massive amount of research to complete and which I may never actually write, but it's a heck of a lot of fun to organize all the information (see what I mean about being a librarian?).

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Michael Dennis

Born in London, Ontario, 1956. Published several books, most recently Arrows of Desire, General Store Publishing House, 2006. Lives and works in Ottawa.

Photo courtesy John W. MacDonald

1 - How did your first book change your life?

It didn't. Not really. It went virtually unnoticed except by thoseI forced it on. Like everyone else I had totally unrealistic fantasy type notions about what might happen. Of course the poetry wasn't that great either.

2 - How long have you lived in Ottawa, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I've lived in Ottawa for over twenty years. It is a surprise to me. When I moved here it was reluctantly. But over the years I've come to love living here. It's changed quite a bit over time.

Geography isn't something I consider. Neither is race or gender. Not in any direct way.

3 - Where does a poem 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?

Any number of places. A phrase from another poem, song, book, movie, conversation. It's never the same thing. I wish I knew what the trigger was.

I rarely write "related" poems although it's not something I avoid. I don't have a big plan at work most of the time. Generally I work on one poem and then the next without much thought of what came before or what is to follow.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

I like the contact with the audience at readings but I don't think readings are a barometer of much.

5 - 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?

Nope. I want to write good poems. Good stories.

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

I don't find it difficult at all. Every editor I've ever worked with has made my work better. I like the process.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

I worry about it less and less.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

Never. Don't like pears. Love the shape, love the colour. Don't like the fruit. It's like eating sugary sawdust.

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

The American poet Donald Hall said "don't ever do anything you don't want to do". That may not be the exact quote.

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?

Don't really have a routine. More like cyclical periods. I don't panic about fallow times as much as I used to. When I talk to friends who write it always seems like I'm producing a reasonable amount.

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

I like to read Auden when I get stalled. Or Bukowski. I watch a lot of movies. Listen to music.

12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

My latest book, Arrows of Desire, is a book of erotica. Or at least it is supposed to be. I don't usually have a fixed theme to my books. This one was special. But it doesn't feel any different. It was as ignored as any of the others.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Hard to argue with David McFadden. I agree with Stuart Ross in his assessment of David. He is our most under-appreciated poet.

So he is entirely right. Books come from books and then also from everywhere else. It is all influencing you all the time. The news, music, art, friends.

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

I'm a big fan of Canadian poets. Just reread Karen Solie's most excellent Short Haul Engine.

There are so many more out there. I love the big guns Purdy, Cohen, Layton, Birney and that whole gang.

Toronto poet Stuart Ross is a big influence.

Auden, Bukowski, Szymborska. I could make a big list.

Sharon Olds is someone I've been reading lately. She writes perfect poems.

Raymond Carver.

I wouldn't know where to stop. There are so many writers I quite simply love.

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

Learn piano.

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 a writer?

I enjoy driving. I've worked as a cab driver, chauffeur, drove truck. In my fantasy world maybe I would have been a racing car driver.

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

I wanted to live an interesting life. All the writers I admired seemed to do the most wonderous things.

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

The Road, Cormac McCarthy. Riveting.

Pans Labyrynth was a hoot. So was The Last Mimzy.

19 - What are you working on now?

A book called You Must Remember Beauty When They Point The Gun. More poems. Go figure.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa was raised in India and Nepal. Tsering received MA’s from University of Delhi, University of Massachussetts and her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her first book of poems, Rules of the House, published by Apogee Press in 2002 was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Awards in 2003. Her most recent book In the Absent Everday, is also from Apogee Press. Other publications include two chapbooks, In Writing the Names (A.bacus, Potes & Poets Press) and Recurring Gestures (Tangram Press).

Tsering works for a San Francisco based non-profit foundation that provides humanitarian aid to people of the Himalayas.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

It made me think more about the action of writing – to be more committed to thinking a little bit more about what and how I write. Some days I forget. Some days I remember.

2 - How long have you lived in San Francisco, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I came to San Francisco in August 1996 so this is the longest length of time I’ve lived in one city. The shape and smells of this city is slowly becoming recognizable; for a long time I felt I was in Asia even while being physically in America. My body was still thinking of the other places. Race and gender do make an impact on my work because being a woman and being a Tibetan refugee has meant I had to adhere to some guidelines in society especially with regard to citizenship, language, rights, order. As a child in a boarding school, I was often reminded by some teachers that I was a Tibetan refugee (they were trying to convert me to Christianity I suppose). I recognized shame then, for being a Tibetan refugee and being poorer than other students. The other students never cared and slowly I learned to ignore the teachers. I don’t write with race and gender in mind but it informs the life I’ve lived and the choices I’ve had so far so it is there.

3 – Where does a poem/piece of fiction 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?

I begin with an image or a thought. I write when I can which means ten minutes during a break at my desk, or for a longer period of time at home in the evenings. I follow no project or idea, just what is available in the moment I sit to write. Only recently, while looking over what I’ve written so far this year, I began to feel that I need a framework to see the work and for the work to see each other. I am now thinking of the notion of a “book” from the very beginning. It is a new concept for me and I cannot see very far. I am unsure about what I’m doing but that is all right with me.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

I read when I’m invited and it is helpful to hear the words out loud. Often I delete lines after a reading because I don’t like how it sounds, how the breath is unable to accommodate the words or thoughts of that line. I enjoy hearing others read. And better, still, if they read each poem twice.

5 - 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?

There are always questions and sometimes I’m hoping the poem to approach these questions that seem unrelated to the poem. Much of the time I cannot even articulate the question properly – thoughts on impermanence, meaning in language which supposes meaning in everything, what comes after and before a thought, an act. So many questions so the poems begin to sound alike to me. Maybe that is because I haven’t reached the heart of the question.

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

I am not sure I understand the question and that must have to do with my habit of not sending my work out to other writers. I tend to be a hasty editor and don’t know who I’d send my work to as my closest friends are not poetry readers. They’re supportive but they are not sure they understand my work. The editors for my books are very supportive and extremely generous so my experience with them is good.

7 - After having published a couple of titles over the past few years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

The process of writing remains laborious but having work already published is an encouragement to continue. I am not a fretful person so I try and write and if I can’t then I do something else, cook for friends, go walking, read.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I definitely remember eating a green pear at work. A few months ago?

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

My mother would tell me often that I would suffer less in life if I kept my expectations from people and life to the minimum. She was a wise woman. She meant I should expect myself to do and be capable of anything but not expect others to fulfill my wishes. I think on this all the time.

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?

I have a cup of chai and then walk four miles to work. Yes, even in San Francisco I can pretend I am walking in the Himalayas. I try to write during the day for ten minute chunks if I can but generally I write at home in the evening. An hour, or at best two, if I am fortunate. On weekends, I like to write in the mornings.

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

I go to my bookshelf and read the words of Myung Mi Kim, Michael Palmer, Wordworth, Keats, Charles Olson and quite often, I’ll open a page, any page to Michael Ondaatje’s In the skin of the Lion. And I go for a walk. I do a lot of my thinking during my walks.

12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

Geographically I felt more distant from “home.” My breath was shorter which was reflected in my language.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, Science or visual art?

Yes, books from books. From flowers, jungles, music but very often from words.

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

The poets I read as a child – Wordsworth, Keats – and as mentioned earlier Myung Mi Kim, Michael Palmer. I love fiction and I am indebted to many novels for my interest in language.

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

Oh, so many things I’d like to do. Right now I’d love to take a month to walk – go backpacking somewhere, so many places I’d like to be walking.

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 a writer?

A doctor. I was all set to study to be one after I graduated from high school and my mother and my aunt dissuaded me – something to do with all the animals I would have to kill and dissect. I don’t know why they focused on that but they did. They forgot I’d be able to help many animals and people too once I was done with dissecting animals. Silly me, now that I think on it.

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

I am working full time for a non-profit organization but yes, I know what you mean. I don’t know, I just wrote. It was something I fell into when I was about eleven and I kept a book and filled it every year with poems.

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

Most recently I’d have to say (there are others that came close enough) Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta. La Haine – the film stayed with me for days.

19 - What are you currently working on?

For the last four years I’ve been writing a non-fiction travel/memoir on Tibet. The book focuses on a nomadic region in Eastern Tibet. I really enjoy working on it. I’m writing poems with the idea of a “book.” I have no title but have a sense of what the book is questioning.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Pattie McCarthy

Pattie McCarthy is the author of bk of (h)rs (2002) and Verso (2004), both from Apogee Press. She did an M.A. in Creative Writing—Poetry at Temple University. She has taught literature and creative writing at Queens College—CUNY, Loyola College in Maryland, Towson University, the University of the Arts and Temple University. She lives in Philadelpia with her husband, Kevin Varrone, and their 9 month old son, Emmett.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

When bk of (h)rs was published, I felt supported. I felt like someone took me seriously. No small thing, that. & I found the book—as an object—very pleasing. I didn’t think I would ever have such a good idea again (this fear hangs around still).

2 - How long have you lived in Philadelphia, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I grew up (from the age of 3 until I left for college at 18) in the Philadelphia suburbs. I lived in Philadelphia again from 1996 - 98 while at Temple for the M.A. Then we moved back to Philly in 2004. Geography— meaning here the physical features of Philadelphia— is very important to my work if only because this is a very walkable city, and I spend an awful lot of time walking it. Walking is a kind of thinking toward writing. Also, there are so many poets who are important to me here— Chris & Jenn McCreary, Frank Sherlock, CA Conrad, Sarah Dowling, Jena Osman, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Ron Silliman, hassen, Tom Devaney— I should also add Kevin Varrone (since we’re married, I’d hope we’d live in the same city regardless). The poetry community here is fabulous & of great value to me. Also, I find Philadelphia to be quite beautiful. Though I was born in Baltimore— a city I have now left 3 times for Philly— I am truly from Philadelphia.

3 - Where does a poem 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?

I confess that I am always working on a book from the beginning. This makes throwing something out very painful— because the project gets very big & then I realize it’s terrible. Since my son was born 9 months ago, the chunks of writing I get done at any one sitting have gotten much smaller. I suppose it is going to take me much longer this time to finish the book (& I think I was a very slow writer before). I thought I might work on shorter pieces after he was born, but I immediately started thinking about how to make those shorter chunks into a larger project. There is a great deal of research involved in my writing process, & the research structure of a book— or sometimes even just an area of research I have been wanting to do— usually takes shape very early in the writing.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

Readings I attend (not those I give) are important because I am addicted to books & I think I need to hear poetry more often. Readings that I give— ? I don’t know how to answer this question. I never write anything new for a reading, but I do revise & rework poems for readings. Readings are often quite instructive when I realize I would be embarrassed or anxious or lukewarm about reading a particular poem or section in public.

5 - 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 am trying to answers questions about history, about sources, about dictionaries, about etymology, about the use & disuse of words. There are theoretical & practical concerns— lately the practical are more pressing.

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

I show my work to Kevin first. & then usually I show it to Jenn McCreary & Barbara Cole. Their ideas & opinions & questions are important— if they have time to comment in that way. Perhaps I have internalized their voices & they— along with Rachel Blau DuPlessis, from whom I learned so much— form a little imaginary chorus I hear in my head as I edit, trying to imagine what they would think or say or advise. It is nice & good to get the work in front of other eyes, for me, whether or not this results in some kind of editorial commentary.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

Easier.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I can’t say. In fact, I couldn’t swear that I have eaten a pear ever.

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

In her new manuscript ab ovo, Jenn McCreary quotes Rachel Blau DuPlessis :

“I’m going to tell you something Frances Jaffer told me, just before my daughter
arrived: ‘It’s going to seem like you’ll never think another thought. But you will.’”

I think they are all lying.

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?

I used to write in the morning— coffee, cigarettes, lovely. The day typically begins for me around 5:00 or so, nursing Emmett. He determines the day’s schedule, really. There is no set time for writing. Kevin & I are going to try setting aside Fridays (when neither of us teach) for writing & other like work, dividing the day in half. I confess : I miss cigarettes.

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

I re-read Susan Howe’s The Europe of Trusts. Or I read some history. My current manuscript had stalled (this is years ago, 2001 maybe, I’ve been working on this one for ages) & I came across the book Wonders and the Order of Nature by Lorraine Daston & Katharine Park in St Mark’s Bookshop. I’d been writing a piece called wonder. Very lucky. Or another lucky time— I was flailing around, looking for an organization principle for a manuscript (this is right around when Verso was published) & I came across a facsimile of Robert Cawdrey’s 1604 dictionary A Table Alphabetical of Hard Usual English Words. I found it in the library at Towson University, where I was teaching at the time. I don’t know what I was looking for originally. Suddenly the dictionary as a guide to organization made perfect sense— & I stole his title, abridged.

12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

Verso was looser than bk of (h)rs. More expansive. I missed the narrow focus of bk, but in the end I think Verso is more even because of its broader range. Someone said that Verso is more “personal.”

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

My books do mainly come from books. They also come from city walking. They also come from visual art. I’ve tried (too hard) to have musical forms influence my work, as yet to little success.

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

All of the writers already mentioned. Williams, Loy, Ugresic, Sebald, Markson— these are all in a stack beside me because I am teaching them currently. This morning I wrote a course description for next semester— I think I’ll use its tentative reading list to answer this question :
Charles Bernstein, Anselm Berrigan, Jules Boykoff, Laynie Browne, Barbara Cole, Brenda Coultas, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Tonya Foster, Noah Eli Gordon, Fanny Howe, Susan Howe, Jenn McCreary, Mark McMorris, Semezdin Mehmedinovic, Carol Mirakove, Erin Mouré, Paul Muldoon, Harryette Mullen, Claudia Rankine, Lisa Robertson, Kaia Sand, Eleni Sikelianos, Cole Swensen, and Karen Weiser.

During the semester, I don’t get to read much ‘for pleasure.’ Fortunately, as the writers named above demonstrate, I am fortunate to be able to teach writers whose work interests me & is important to me. Since it is currently during-the-semester, this is the only way I can answer this question.

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

In relation to writing ? I’d like to write a place-specific series in Prague or Warsaw. This has been kicking around my head for a while. This means I have to go there, bonus.

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 a writer?

I thought for a long time that I would be a lawyer. The study of law appeals to me— the practice of it, not so much. Besides, my brother is a lawyer & so the family is covered in that respect— clearly we needed a poet.

I love teaching & wouldn’t want to do anything else. I feel particularly devoted to Temple & my students there. I am currently an adjunct, which is not a long-term workable system. So I guess I am going to have to think about what other occupation I would like to attempt. I used to want to be a libranian too— but I’ve heard that job market is as tough as the academic market. No sense trading one madness for another that’s much the same.

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

The short— but a bit too cute— answer is that I have always written— I have no memory of not thinking about myself as a writer, even when I was a little kid. Clearly, though, this isn’t a reason to do anything. When I realized I didn’t want to study law (this was, say, my first year of college) I decided to do the other thing I thought I was good at— so here we are. Seriously, though, my teachers at Towson (where I did undergrad) were amazing— Clarinda Harriss, Edwin Duncan, just to name two— & I wanted to write & I wanted to do what they did, be a really great teacher.

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

Lisa Robertson’s The Weather, which I just read last year. Cole Swensen’s The Glass Age. Vollmann’s Europe Central. I haven’t been to the movies in a long time. I haven’t even watched a movie at home in a long time— with the baby, movies seem like a big commitment. But I have watched tv shows on dvd & would like to propose Deadwood & The Wire as my last great films.

19 - What are you currently working on?

This might be redundant, but I’ll quote a recent jobletter-type thing I had to write:

My current manuscript, Table Alphabetical of Hard Words (which takes its title from the 1604 dictionary by Robert Cawdrey, often called the first English dictionary) is a book-length poem sequence which continues my interest in etymology and history, but has a much wider historical scope and a greater focus on the contemporary and urban landscape than my previous books. I am particularly interested in how language changes through use, disuse, amelioration and pejoration.

More specifically, I have been working on the ‘k’ section (kopernik, a reading of On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) & the ‘s’ section (spaltklang, which is a kind of sonnet sequence— the squareness of the sonnet has really appealed to me lately, has seemed approachable to me— I am thinking about a square of 14 square sonnets, the baby has a starring role in this sequence).

I wrote this all in one sitting, which is a kind of miracle. Thank you.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Monica Kidd

Monica Kidd grew up on the rural Alberta prairies, did a B.Sc. at the University of Calgary and an M.Sc. at Queen’s University, and now makes St. John’s, Newfoundland her home. She is the author of the novels Beatrice (2001) and The Momentum of Red (2004), and a collection of poetry called Actualities (2007). Her short experimental films have shown in Atlantic Canada and in Amsterdam; her most recent project, praxis:Twillingate, will be screened at the 2007 St. John’s International Women’s Film & Video Festival. She has worked as a seabird biologist and as a reporter for CBC Radio, where her news items and documentaries won numerous awards. In 2007, she is in her final year of medical school at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She writes a regular column about being a medical student for medscape.com.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

My first book was Beatrice, published by Turnstone Press in 2001. I didn’t expect it to be my first book. I had been writing poetry for many years, and in 2000, a reputable Canadian publishing company (which shall remain nameless) had agreed to publish a collection. I worked back and forth with an editor for more than a year, and the publisher asked for a photo of me for their catalogue. Then they dropped me, with no satisfactory explanation. Being totally naïve about publishing, it hadn’t occurred to me to get a written contract. I probably would have packed up my pencil then, if a few months later Turnstone hadn’t rescued my faith in the world and offered to publish my novel.

Beatrice was my first real attempt at fiction. I began writing it one summer when my boyfriend at the time was going to be away on a music tour, and I was at home freelancing for CBC Radio with a lot of time on my hands. I spent six months on it, sent it out, and Turnstone picked it up. I know many people struggle to get their first book published, so in that respect I was lucky. I had already started on a second novel before the first was published, but I doubt I would have finished the second if the first hadn’t been published. Having Beatrice published made me feel like a “real” writer. And it made me want to be a better writer.

2 - How long have you lived in St. John's, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I moved to St. John’s in 1998 from Kingston, Ontario, after having spent the two previous summers working on the coast of Labrador as a seabird biologist. From the first time I came here I have been struck by the similarities between the Atlantic coast and the prairies where I grew up. The openness, the raggedness. Communities totally at the mercy of weather and commodity prices, but peopled with fiercely self-reliant women and men. I write about people with a quiet kind of power, and I think that comes from living in places outside the traditional gaze of history – small towns, marginal places. That’s geography. I also consider myself a bit of a landscape writer. Without really meaning to, I tend to anthropomorphize landscape; it’s how I explain my ample emotional response to earth, water and sky.

As for race, I am a Caucasian woman writing largely in Canada about Canadian things. I’m the product of English and Irish ancestors, adopted into a family descended from Slavic homesteaders. All of that frames my understanding of the world, but I don’t think I examined race deliberately through my writing until my latest project, which is a manuscript of (mostly) non-fiction portraying the lives of women who came from central Europe to marry coal-miners and have babies and generally build the communities of the Canadian Rockies at the beginning of the last century. Gender has – unintentionally – shaped my writing from day one. My female characters are always the heroes.

3 - Where does a poem or piece of fiction 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?

I began Beatrice with the intention of writing a novel, but I ended up writing it as short pieces I later knit together. That’s because I wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen in the story before I began. The Momentum of Red also started as a novel; that one came out in a chronological fashion that my editor later – very wisely – suggested we mess with. Actualities, the new collection of poetry, was definitely not a book from the beginning; it is a sample of little pieces I wrote as life-lines to myself over the period of about a decade. Any Other Woman, the working title for my next book, began as a novel and became a little changeling of history, journalism, travel-writing and prose poems in the spirit of Eduardo Galleano’s Book of Embraces. Nothing ever turns out the way I expect.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

I love doing readings, although I’m always really embarrassed. I find it hard to imagine a group of people would want to sit and listen to me for half an hour or an hour, plus maybe even buy a book. I really appreciate learning what does and does not move people, which tends to come out in the questions they ask.

5 - 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’d like to have a smart answer for this, but I don’t. I have no idea why I write about the things I do. Some things just cry out to be written.

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

My last two experiences with editors (Kate Kennedy, at Gaspereau Press, and Lynn Henry, previously at Raincost Books) have been stellar. Before Kate, I hadn’t had any constructive criticism of my poetry. The only feedback I’d had I drew from whether or not a poem would be published in a literary magazine. But that’s a terrible metric because lots of poems rejected by one publication are accepted somewhere else with no changes. (I keep all my rejection notes in a shoebox on my bookshelf. I’m not sure why.)

Lynn ate and slept and metabolized Momentum, and with a few suggestions, turned it into a proper book. The original manuscript had a “before” and “after” the introduction of a major character. The second portion had less depth but more action; Lynn suggested we shuffle the two parts together, which gave it much more tension. I haven’t begun to edit the next manuscript yet.

As an aside, to date, I’ve never met any of my editors. Our correspondence has always been written. Before I got into this racket, I imagined long cups of tea and glasses of wine with my editors. After all, that’s how it works for Woody Allen’s characters!

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

Easier, I guess. But maybe (with the exception of the poetry) less satisfying. As I write more, I have greater expectations of myself, which leads to greater disappointment when I don’t achieve what I set out to do.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

Last summer. It was dried. I was on a canoe trip. I have a complicated relationship with pears. And peaches, for that matter. I find them both beautiful, but a nuisance to pack in a lunch. Now dried pears, on the other hand…

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

My friend Emilie told me to ask people what they’re most afraid of.

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

Pretty easy, I guess. Poetry is my first love, but having made my living as a reporter for several years, non-fiction became my practice. Fiction finds itself somewhere in the middle ground.

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?

Today – on a plane from St. John’s to Toronto – is my first dedicated writing day in so long I can’t remember. When I was writing my novels, I was working for CBC, so I’d write news all day, then come home and make myself write 1,000 words every night until I had a draft. The non-fiction manuscript was my first attempt at giving big chunks of time to a writing project. I took time off of work to do research trips to Alberta, and in 2004 when I quit work to start medical school, I had a few weeks to dedicate to it then. In 2005, I made a trip to Slovakia for research.

My writing these days comes in fits and starts. I scribble words and phrases in the margins of my notes at work, then return to them at the end of the day. Lately, I’ve been setting aside an hour once in awhile to finish a poem or write an essay. I want to arrange my life in order to take at least a few hours per week to write. And of course, one day take a year-long sabbatical, live in a cabin or a van and generally just bum around writing my great manifesto. Right after I pay off my student loan. Which should be sometime in 2073.

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

Poetry. Always poetry.

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

The most recent book always feels the best and most important, right? But I’m actually very, very proud of Actualities. I love Gaspereau’s books, and I think I can truthfully say I won’t care about the reviews on this one. Poetry has saved my life on more than one occasion, and this book is like a little breathing thing to me.

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

Definitely nature. Photographs often seem to beg for words. And medicine, because it’s my window on people’s lives.

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

I am a complete sucker for writing from Latin America. I love its elements of magical realism and political struggle and desert and chili and the music of Spanish. I’m also a big fan of Jeanette Winterson because she speaks so directly to what matters.

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

I’d love to learn to paint. Learn how to play the banjo I got for my birthday. Have a child. Work for Doctors Without Borders. Do a triathlon. Spend a week in Utah and a month in Nepal. Do a bike trip along the Pan-American highway. Figure out the sourdough starter recipe in the Pan Chancho Cookbook. How much time do we have?

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 a writer?

I wouldn’t call writing my occupation; right now it’s more my guilty pleasure. But I think if I could have made radio documentaries full time, I might not have needed to write, and I might not have gone to medical school.

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

When I was working as a reporter, I needed to write to say the things that don’t fit inside a news story; ironically, now I find myself writing all that is not said inside a medical encounter. Always, and still, I’ve needed to write in order to remember my life.

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

Book – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Movie – Babel. Or anything with Cate Blanchet.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Finishing medical school. And that non-fiction-journalism-travel-writing-poetry project I mentioned above, for now named Any Other Woman. NeWest plans to publish it in the fall of 2008, likely with a different title.

12 or 20 questions archive

12 or 20 questions: with Andy Weaver

bio: Born in Saint John, NB, in the early spring of 1971. I think it was overcast and cold that day, but my memory isn’t great. Like a lot of people in the Maritimes, my family moved to Alberta in 1977; we stayed there until 1983, when we moved to Ontario. Weirdly, I repeated that motion for university and beyond: back to Fredericton for master’s degree, then to Edmonton for doctorate, then to Toronto for a job (finally!). I’ve been an associate professor of poetry and poetics at York University for just over a year now.

Random facts:
Married with no kids, but with two illegitimate cats.

Life-long fan of the Boston Bruins, which makes life seem very long, indeed.

An Aries, which means nothing to me, but perhaps that defines me on some unknown level to people who understand the motions of the spheres.

My first book, were the bees, was published by NeWest Press in 2005 and was nominated for an Alberta Book Award.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll—my first book convinced me that poetry would bring me none of those. It made me feel more legitimate as a writer in some ways, and it was nice to be able to show relatives what I do. But I don’t think it changed my life.

2 - How long have you lived in Toronto, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I’ve been in Toronto just over a year. I don’t think geography directly impacts my work, though it does affect my day-to-day life, just like everyone else. I think social geography plays a much bigger role in my writing—who I’m talking to about poetry and ideas, who I’m listening to at readings, etc. All of those things are determined to a large degree by where I live.

Race and gender are often in the back of my mind, because I’m constantly made aware of certain privileges that go with hand in hand in Canadian society with being white and having a penis. I can walk alone at night in places where my wife can’t; I walk into a classroom and students seem to grant me more authority than they do some other instructors. Completely undeservedly. I don’t think race and gender are major aspects on my writing, but I try to make sure that those undeserved privileges don’t creep in as ideological blind spots.

3 - Where does a poem 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?

It changes. I used to write only lyric poems, and I still write some discreet poems, which usually come from encountering or thinking of some interesting line, or metaphor, or idea. But more and more I’m writing pieces that directly come out of an interaction with a specific text or prompt. I’m a little embarrassed at times by personal lyrics (my own and sometimes other writers’); why should I expect anyone to care about my pronouncements on anything?

This change has made me more interested in longer projects. Not necessarily book-length projects, but pieces that often run 20-30 pages.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

I love giving readings, but I don’t think they’re really part of or counter to my creative process. I generally don’t read a poem until I’m pretty satisfied with it. Every once in awhile I’ll discover a problem with rhythm or sound when I’m reading a poem, so I guess readings can act as an occasion of intense attention to minutiae, which is useful for craft. But I’ll work to fix any problems that I find later, on my own.

5 - 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’m interested in how language shapes the world for us, which means that I’m interested in thinking about news ways that language can work; hopefully, new language patterns can help us think about the world differently.

I’ve also developed over the last few years an interest in anarchy as a political and social practice. I think that there’s a way that anarchy can help us remove the restrictions placed on language in order to help create those new language patterns. Lots of other poets have had similar concerns, especially Robert Duncan and John Cage, but I think the language writers do similar things as well.

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

I haven’t had a lot of experience working with an editor for a press (Doug Barbour, my editor for were the bees, is very hands-off in a good way). But I do have a group of friends that I pass things to for their thoughts and suggestions, and I think that’s essential to my writing. I often won’t agree with a suggestion, but even so, that makes me really think about things that I might have overlooked before. And Kelly, my wife, is my first reader and best editor for everything I write. I know she’ll be blunt, and I trust her to be brutal when necessary.

7 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I ate a pear just a few days ago while watching some bad tv show; it was mushy and awesome (the pear, I mean... but also probably the tv show). But the question piques my curiosity: why ask about pears? Are pears inherently poetic? Did Roy Kiyooka know something about pears that the rest of the poetry community doesn’t?

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

Keep your stick on the ice.

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

I only write poetry and academic papers. Writing fiction baffles me (and besides, people just make it up). Way back when, I had to take a screenwriting class as part of my degree at UNB, and that class just about killed me. The prof (Bill Gaston, prince among men) was merciful and realized that I worked very, very hard on that lousy, lousy screenplay.

I haven’t figured out how to be creative in my academic work, so my essays tend to be a bit stuffy. I’d love to write essays like Fred Wah does, but I can’t. Not yet, at least.

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?

Writing routine? What’s a writing routine?

I usually write when I find the time, which is probably also a reason I’ve tended to write in response to prompts or other texts.

A typical day usually involves breakfast, checking my e-mail and reading Silliman’s blog, prepping classes and/or teaching classes, lunch, more of the same, and pleasure reading (usually poetry) on my hour-long commute to and from York. Evenings are usually for hanging with my peeps, as the kids these days don’t say. Whatever free time I can carve out in a day I try to spend writing and editing.

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

I generally turn to a prompt or a text and write from that. For example, I recently finished a serial poem in which I took the first and last lines from each page of Herbert Asbury’s The Gangs of New York, wrote down those all those lines as couplets, and then removed words until some weird sense emerged. I’ve used base texts in that way a fair amount, really, because I’m dubious of notions of inspiration and personal voice.

12 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Mostly I’m influenced directly by other books (though influenced might not be the right word for the interaction between a writer and a base text). I have to be careful not to write poetry about visual art anymore, because that’s a prompt that I’ve used a lot in the past and want to avoid (or at least keep to a minimum). I’ve lived in big cities for the past 10 years now, so any experience I have with nature—usually instances of nature inside the city—often makes its way into a poem (I have lots of references to songbirds, raccoons, skunks, bats, etc.).

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

If I had to choose a favourite poet, it would probably be Robert Duncan, but John Cage, Robert Kroetsch, Jan Zwicky, Erin Mouré, the language writers, and lots of others are important to me. I’m still fascinated by Pound, Stein, Williams, too.

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

Learn to swim. My squat little body sinks like a stone.

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 a writer?

If my marks in high school science classes had been better, I probably would have been a veterinarian. Years ago, a friend asked me why I wanted to be a vet and not a doctor. Easy. Because I actually like animals.

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

After my problems with high school sciences, I thought I’d become a visual artist, a painter. I had some natural ability, my teachers told me, and it was fun. But I could never think of anything interesting to paint. So I switched to writing because I love playing with words. If I couldn’t write, I’d probably like to try to paint.

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

On Adam Dickinson’s recommendation, I read Juliana Spahr’s This Connection of Everyone with Lungs (U of California P, 2005). Terrific stuff.

I love films that most people consider to be... what’s the word... bad. I loved Pan’s Labyrinth, but so did everyone else, right? Less people share my undying love of Ishtar.

I don’t watch a lot of live theatre, but I recently saw Evil Dead: The Musical and loved every second. It made me appreciate the subtleties of the movies even more.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I’m pulling together the final draft of a manuscript that should be my second book, fingers crossed. I’m also slowly writing two other poetry manuscripts. One is a series of experimental reworkings of a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the other is a book-length (or possibly longer) series of poems in a sort of post-language writing style that take the idea of glass and texts about glass as a prompt. The only rule with that last poem is that the word glass can’t appear.

12 or 20 questions archive