Diana Fitzgerald Bryden : part five

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?

I love Wislawa Szymborska. She makes me feel there's no shame in being human. Especially her poem Four a.m. If you've ever suffered from insomnia I would recommend it. Elizabeth Bishop's poem, One Art, always moves me. And Derek Walcott's book White Egrets has a number of elegies in it that mean more and more to me as I get older.

Diana Fitzgerald Bryden : part four

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

Sonnet's Shakespeare, by Sonnet L'Abbé. Bantam, by Jackie Kay. Love in the Chthulhucene (Cthulhucene) by Natalee Caple. I've also been reading tons of individual poems, as I'm teaching a course, Foundations of Literature, at Humber College. Poets we've been reading and talking about include Dionne Brand, Philip Larkin, Terrance Hayes, Gwen Benaway, Harryette Mullen and Ann Shin.

Diana Fitzgerald Bryden : part three

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

In chronological order, as I came across them:
Derek Walcott, Marina Tsvetaeva, Anne Michaels, Paul Durcan, Les Murray, Sonnet L'Abbé.

Diana Fitzgerald Bryden : part two

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

It requires an entirely different kind of concentration than prose, a kind of attentiveness to silence. Poems absolutely cannot be forced, whereas I can write my way into a piece of prose, no matter what its length, even if I end up cutting most of what I start with.

Diana Fitzgerald Bryden : part one

Diana Fitzgerald Bryden is the author of two collections of poetry, Learning Russian (Mansfield Press) and Clinic Day (Brick Books). Her novel, No Place Strange was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel award and longlisted for the Impac/Dublin. She has published numerous poems, essays and short stories in journals and anthologies in Canada and the U.S., including, most recently, The Malahat Review and Praire Fire.  A collection of short stories, Sorry Darling is close to completion. Diana lives in Toronto, where she arrived as a teenager from London, England.

What are you working on?

A collection of short stories, with the working title Sorry Darling.