Ashley Hynd : part five

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?

Poetry is so precise … it can be read in an instant but felt for an eternity … it can continue to unfold inside someone’s heart long after it has graced their eyes … in this sense, poetry can shift opinions, it can open minds to things they were previously closed to, it can bridge gaps in communication across different cultures or classes or lived experiences … it is small enough to slip under one’s defences yet large enough to move the biggest barriers  ...

Ashley Hynd : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

What I find most difficult is more about my creative process … I am a percolator … So for me a fundamental part of my process is this period of time between existing in the world gathering the poems in my body and when they have steeped and are pouring out. It’s kind of like how when you first wake and are not awake enough to notice the absence of coffee, you get out of bed, load the coffee machine, fill it with water and then suddenly YOU NEED COFFEE, only you still have to wait for it to finish slowly dripping into the pot … the difficult phase is like that, knowing I need to write, feeling it in my body, but not being able to write just yet … once that phase has passed the poems come easy ... 

Ashley Hynd : part three

What are you working on?

I am currently working on a new poetry project funded by The Regional of Waterloo Arts Fund. It’s an erasure project that uses the United Nations Language Vitality and Endangerment document as a source text to create Traditional Style Anishinaabe Myths about how the language was lost. 

Ashley Hynd : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

I feel it in my body.

Ashley Hynd : part one

Ashley Hynd is a poet with mixed ancestry who lives on the Haldimand Tract and respects all her relations relationships with the land. She was consecutively longlisted for The CBC Poetry Prize (2018 & 2019), shortlisted for Arc Poem of the Year (2018), and won the Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize (2017). Her work has appeared in several publications including ARC, Room, PRISM, Grain, TNQ, Malahat, Best Small Fictions 2019 (Sonder Press), Changing the Face of Canadian Literature (Guernica Editions) and Best Canadian Poetry 2020 (Biblioasis). Her debut chapbook Entropy is available with GapRiot Press.

Founder and facilitator of Poets & Pancakes, a monthly brunch for writers run from her home, Ashley believes in building and fostering community. She sits on the editorial board for both Canthius Literary Journal & Textile KW. Her Hobbies Include trampling the patriarchy, avoiding doing dishes and getting lost in conversations. Follow her on twitter: @ashley_hynd

Why is poetry important?

Poetry is deeply human; it is the language of the heart … it can communicate a world of importance across the deepest distances of cognitive dissonance … our world needs that now more than ever