Jenna Jarvis : coda

I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do know that ‘coda’ is a musical term. I have questions of my own. What comes after graduation? If I missed half of the Y2K revival era’s Y2K bug–if I missed half of the COVID-19 pandemic because I was in Taiwan, where community transmission wasn’t a thing until the rest of the world’s fourth wave–have I missed my chance at relatability? Would people like to do poetry karaoke? Did poetry karaoke happen without me?

Jenna Jarvis : part five

How important is music to your poetry?

Call me sophomoric, or call me Manahil Bandukwala’s evil twin. Pop music helps me figure out popular sensibility. Specifically, pop music lyrics attune me to that pop sensibility. What do people like? How do people read, listen, consume? Not to contradict Jarvis Cocker, whose lyric sheets ask audiences to compartmentalize reading and listening, but, when it comes to pop music and karaoke renditions, I and most people I know read the words and listen to the song simultaneously. When Manahil launched MONUMENT, I followed along with my copy. Reading her words and listening to her intonations and pauses stuck the poems in my mind. I dream of doing a karaoke-styled reading with poems scrolling through a display. 

(I really don’t mean anything by contradicting Jarvis Cocker. I have been a Pulp devotee ever since my elementary school teachers banned me from searching for my first name on Google because of Jenna Jameson and suggested that I Google my surname.)

Jenna Jarvis : part four

How do you know when a poem is finished?

I don’t. I outsource that decision-making to friends (er, ‘peers’). When they run out of feedback to offer, I’m done. When my attention runs out, I’m done. I write in an abbreviated medium and call the habit pithy instead of inattentive, but I don’t hold editing for conciseness to be the only kind of editing. I don’t think that ‘additive’ is a dirty word.

Jenna Jarvis : part three

What are you working on?

Singles. Individual poems, although I’m following a life line: academia, expattery, (un[der])employment… at this stage, I should develop a manuscript. Should develop my internet presence on LinkedIn and Twitter (that is, LinkedIn for writers).

Jenna Jarvis : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

My extrinsic motivation is a decade-old vestige of belonging to In/Words’ writers circle and reading series – and, eventually, its editorial board – throughout my undergraduate degree at Carleton University. I meant to get involved in projects as an undergrad because ‘being involved’ is the mark of a dedicated and talented student in any discipline. The co-curricular record told me so. Secondary school guidance counsellors told me so. My writing work is adolescence protracted. My ‘real world’ is a protracted version of university. Maybe ‘town and gown’ is an irrelevant distinction. Maybe ‘literary indistinction’ is the default setting. The campus pub turned into a 7-Eleven in Taiwan. The 7-Eleven turned into a summertime backyard barbecue outside of Ottawa’s 9-to-5.

Jenna Jarvis : part one

Jenna Jarvis has appeared in These Days (Horsebroke Press) and deathcap (Coven Editions). She has published three chapbooks: year of pulses (above/ground, 2018), The Tiger With the Crooked Mouth (Bywords, 2013), and Juvenilia (In/Words, 2010). Her poem “syndical not synecdochal” won an honourable mention for the 2014 Thomas Morton Prize, and her poem “untoward” won the 2012 John Newlove Award. She completed her MA in English literature at Carleton University in Odawa/Ottawa.

How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you work ideas and poems with?

I’m a reactionary! I’m very responsive! I’m being pointlessly provocative! The point is that I’m driven to write for live readings and calls for submissions. Extrinsic motivation (or optimistic opportunism?) leads me to develop headspace-squatting phrases into full-length poems.