IAN MARTIN : part one

Known primarily for leaving dishes in the sink “to soak”, IAN MARTIN is a multidisciplinary artist living in Ottawa. IAN’s work has appeared recently in paintbucket.page, small poems 🍓, the DUSIE blog, G U E S T, BAD DOG,  ➰➰➰, talking about strawberries all of the time, chaudiere books, and Half a Grapefruit Magazine. IAN has published four chapbooks, most recently YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO KEEP THIS UP FOREVER (AngelHousePress, 2018) and PLACES TO HIDE (Coven Editions, 2018). When not writing, IAN makes small video games and complains online. [ www.ian-martin.net ]

What are you working on?

I have a couple manuscripts on the go right now. Not sure in what format they’ll eventually appear. One is about futurity and one is about games. Both are about alienation and identity. I’m excited about these manuscripts because I’m trying out lots of new forms and ideas and getting messy and just having fun with it.

This is the first time I’ve started a manuscript with the concept first and started developing new poems specifically for it. Usually I just take a bunch of existing work and try to make it fit together. I think it’s neat. I think I’m a bit nervous because sometimes when I intentionally set out to say a specific thing, I think too hard and the poetry comes out bad. But I think it’ll all work out.