Natasha Sanders-Kay : part five

How does a poem begin?

As a feeling. I’ll see something that pisses me off or something that puzzles or inspires me and that feeling will follow me around until I’ve externalized it, propelled it onto the page and into plain sight.

Natasha Sanders-Kay : part four

Why is poetry important? 

Poetry’s important to me because there are things I can’t say in any other way. My poetry is where I’m at my most honest, most authentic. Speaking my truth out loud has always been a tumultuous challenge for me, but in poetry I find my voice. I speak my truth with power, with conviction, without making myself small, without interruption or interference, without being silenced. I am coming to see my work as a sacred record of my resilience. It fills me up, connects me to something bigger, and helps me survive.

Natasha Sanders-Kay : part three

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

I thought I was afraid of poetry ‘til I read Amber Dawn’s How Poetry Saved My Life. I used to think poetry had to be abstract, painstaking puzzles to be solved. But that book showed me poetry can be fresh, accessible, contemporary, can be working-class and gritty, it can dive boldly into the feminist conflict raging in my head, it can be therapeutic and personal and political. Her following collection Where the words end and my body begins, a book of glosas, opened my eyes and ears to other queer poets writing along these lines.

Betsy Warland taught me the importance of scoring a poem, working with text, breath and empty space so that the piece reads accurately, rings true.

I always see new and beautiful possibilities of form through the genre-bending and blending work of Dawn, Warland, and others like Chelene Knight and Daphne Marlatt.

And works by Dina Del Bucchia, Daniel Zomparelli and Jennica Harper have shown me pop culture is a legitimate poetic subject, and that poetry can be great fun.

Natasha Sanders-Kay : part two

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Letting go of the urge to control everything, capture everything, include everything. When I’m writing a poem I need to remind myself it’s not an essay.

I’m also learning to write the difficult personal stuff I often don’t want to write or think about or share, which is sometimes the most compelling material. I’m finding it’s gut-wrenching to write through anxiety and fragmentation and fear, but so far it’s worth it so long as I protect myself and remember to breathe.

Worrying about offending people is always difficult, too. In life and in writing, I’m trying to break my tendency to explain, because in poems there’s little room for explanation. So I need to detach from my instinct to clutter the text with context.

Natasha Sanders-Kay : part one

Natasha Sanders-Kay is a writer, editor and activist residing on unceded Coast Salish territories in Burnaby, BC. Recent work has appeared in Poetry Is Dead, subTerrain, PRISM international, and Spacing. Her chapbook poem Postmodern Mutt is part of a travelling migration project from Vancouver-based artist Lois Klassen; see ReadingtheMigrationLibrary.com. Natasha is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at SFU, where she was mentored by Betsy Warland. She is a member of subTerrain magazine’s editorial collective and team of reviewers, and previously served as managing editor. Over the years Natasha has worked, organized and volunteered with numerous arts and social justice initiatives. She is working on her first collection of poems.

Photo credit: Trista Baldwin

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

Poetry can create a container of words to hold an experience or emotion, and can do it in a way that offers the reader enough to go on, but with mystery as a major element, plenty for them to unpack and interpret in their own terms. You know how as writers we’re told show, don’t tell? I believe poetry is the ultimate form of showing.

It’s also language at its finest. Every word, space and line break can be loaded with meaning, full of craft and care. Poetry engages with language in its own magic way.

Because poems are usually shorter than other forms such as fiction, nonfiction, drama and the like, they can be more accessible to people reading on the fly, yet their power can stay with you, whirling within you, forever.