Ariel Dawn : part five

Why is poetry important?

I see poetry as an offering to Spirit, a response to life, an eternal conversation that divines the pattern and essence in what may seem to be overwhelming chaos.

Ariel Dawn : part four

How do you know when a poem is finished?

After leaving the poem in the dark for a month, I’ll read it as a spell to open a gate to another dimension. If it won’t open I will revise and hide away for another week or month and so on until I’m inside and nothing is altered.

Ariel Dawn : part three

How does a poem begin?

For me a poem begins with a memory, moment, vision, and the desire to divine, recreate; then, gathering its energy, material, and writing, a phrase or sentence leads into that new time and space.

Ariel Dawn : part two

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

The poetic prose of Elizabeth Smart, Marie-Claire Blais, Virginia Woolf, Leonard Cohen, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Andre Breton, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Lawrence Durrell, Dylan Thomas, they write from the borderlands of reality and dream, and the narrative as well as the poetry is immersive.

Ariel Dawn : part one

Ariel Dawn lives in Victoria, British Columbia with her son and daughter. She spends her time writing, reading, studying Tarot, and working on her first collection of prose poems. Recent work appears in Guest, Train, and Litro.

How did you first engage with poetry?

I grew up in the country, rather a misfit, tormented by mental illness, but sometimes my mother played Leonard Cohen, and there were fireplaces and walls of books; so I began to listen, read, write, in order to live.