How do you know when a poem is finished?
When I’m like “dang that’s good” or when I forget about the thing for a few months and come back to it and think “oh shit I’m a writer.” More concretely, when I, in my extreme subjectivity, think that each phrase is next to genius, or when I am surprised by how beautifully I managed to craft the flow of ideas. Is narcissism really a bad thing, or that just how Western puritanism interprets things?
What are you working on?
A memoir told through poetry. Right now it’s called ma I/I am, and we will see if that changes. I’ve always been curious about whether or not it’s possible for a person to truly change, so that is the central theme. It deals with such things as growing pains, God, boys, sexual assault, and blackberry bushes.
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
I was scrolling Twitter in January and I found this sweet little deal of 20 poetry books for just $40 from Canadian publisher Brick Books, and I also recently stopped sleeping, so it’s been fun reading these collections between 2 and 5 AM every night. Since poets like to name drop, I’ve specifically been loving Dennis Lee’s Riffs and Anne Carson’s Short Talks.
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
I first got into poetry because I figured that short = easy & quick to write. My first real commitment to poetry was in my first year of university. I wanted to write every day to improve my craft, but I wanted to take the path of least resistance. So I made the arbitrary goal of writing a poem every day for a year. Figured I could pound out a decent poem in about ten to twenty minutes.
During my undergrad, I was a big proponent of never reading. I had this whole theory that the only way to become a good poet was to have a lot of life experiences, so I’d read the first seven lines of the poems in my assigned readings and then head to the bar.
I’m still a young little shit, but I’ve developed somewhat of a respect for the art of poetry since the beginning of the pandemic. There are no bars to go to anymore. I have hours of uninterrupted time to spend in front of a book of poetry. It doesn’t bother me so much anymore to have to reread a poem to really get it. In fact, I almost enjoy it.
How important is music to your poetry?
It's essential. I come from a musical family and my first foray into poetry was writing song lyrics when I was six years old. My childhood and adolescence were governed by music – piano, French horn, choir, etc. Music’s in my blood, and I make sure that it finds its way into my poetry as well.
There’s a whole host of poems in my chapbook Selected Leavings, which will be out this summer through Montreal’s Cactus Press, that are crafted after the rhythm and flow of certain songs. For instance, I listened to Ludovico Einaudi’s “Fly” at least 382 tiemes while writing the first poem of the book.
