Sennah Yee : part five

How does a poem begin?

From a place of anger, delight, or confusion – and sometimes a mix of all three. Oh, and always from a place of procrastination!

Sennah Yee : part four

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

Off the top of my head, and in alphabetical order because I cannot possibly rank them: Franny Choi, Canisia Lubrin, Morgan Parker, Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, A. Zachary, Jenny Zhang. They have each, in their own way, challenged both the medium and the reader. I had only ever known traditional forms of poetry shown to us in grade school; while I liked some of it, I mostly appreciated them on a technical level – emotionally, I had trouble connecting to them and/or seeing facets of myself. These writers have all shown me the potential of the personal, and of the critical.

Sennah Yee : part three

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

My poems often start off as something else! Usually a tweet, a quick note in my phone, or a film review. I don’t share poems while I’m working on them, or even prior to submitting or performing them – I admit that this is out of both shyness and impatience to quickly move on once I’ve written something.

Sennah Yee : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

I wrote my first “book” of poetry for a fifth grade assignment – it was called “The Poetic Plump Pig,” and had tons of cheesy poems that all rhymed and were about animals and food. I drew pictures for each poem, too. Then my beloved sixth grade teacher had our class throw a “poetry cafe,” where we had to dress up like hippies/poets (ha!) and read a poem of our choice. I dressed in all black and lit a candle for an extremely overdramatic reading of “The Raven.” I actually didn’t really engage with poetry much after that for awhile – I got more interested in prose, and eventually, screenwriting. I’m happy to have returned to poetry, though!

  

Sennah Yee : part one

Sennah Yee is from Toronto. She writes poetry, writes about films, and writes poetry about films. Her debut poetry/non-fiction collection, How Do I Look?, was published by Metatron Press in 2017. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Cinema & Media Studies, focusing her research on gendered robot design in media and technology. She is the arts editor at Shameless Magazine, and co-edits/contributes to The Fuck of the Century. Find her @sennahaha / sennahyee.com

Photo credit: Alice Liu

What are you working on?

I’m currently attempting an outline of my first novella. I’m trying to keep it secret, which is also just a roundabout way of saying that I’m not actually too sure about all the details haha. But it’s a soft sci-fi; something I’ve always wanted to write. I haven’t really written anything like it before, so I’m both excited and terrified to actually start it!