Nisa Malli : part one

Nisa Malli is a writer and researcher, born in Winnipeg and currently living in Toronto. Her poems and essays have been published in Arc Poetry, Carte Blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, Grain, GUTS, Maisonneuve, Policy Options, and elsewhere. She holds a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria and has held residencies at the Banff Centre and Artscape Gibraltar Point.

Photo credit: Alex Tran

What are you working on?

I am working on a book of haunted poems that offer benedictions, incantations, and instruction manuals for sick bodies.

Crystal Stone : part four

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

I just finished reading The Babies by Sabrina Orah Mark. I’m currently working my way through MOTHERs by Rachel Zucker and then I’ll start Blue Lash by James Armstrong, and Ghost Fargo by Paula Cisewski. I try to read a new one every Sunday.

M. Wright : part four

How important is music to your poetry?

Music is pivotal to my life and by extension, my poetry. Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, Blind Willie Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, John Coltrane, Buddy Guy, The Rolling Stones, Charlie Parker, Screaming Females, Joni Mitchell, Dawes, and Laura Marling.

Canisia Lubrin : part four

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

Dionne Brand (all of her work).

Dominik Parisien : part one

Dominik Parisien's poetry chapbook We, Old Young Ones is forthcoming from Frog Hollow Press through its Dis/Ability series and his recent work can be found in Quill & Quire, The Fiddlehead, Plenitude, Train: a poetry journal, as well as other magazines and anthologies. He is the co-editor, with Navah Wolfe, of The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, which won the Shirley Jackson Award. His latest project is Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, with Elsa Sjunneson-Henry. Dominik is a disabled, bisexual, French Canadian. He lives in Toronto.

What are you working on?

The latest round of edits on my poetry chapbook, We, Old Young Ones, forthcoming from Frog Hollow Press. The chapbook explores disability, ageing, and intergenerational dynamics. The occasional non-fiction piece. I’m also co-editing an original anthology of retold myths from around the world for Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press. 

Shaindel Beers : coda

Why is poetry important?

I think that anything that can save your life is important. For some people, that’s poetry. For some people it’s painting or another art form. For some people, it’s nature or working out. You have to find the thing, for you, that makes you want to keep on living, and cling to that.

Catherine Graham : part one

Catherine Graham is a writer of poetry and fiction. Among her six poetry collections The Celery Forest was shortlisted for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry, named a CBC Best Book of the Year and appears on their Ultimate Canadian Poetry List. Michael Longley praised it as “a work of great fortitude and invention, full of jewel-like moments and dark gnomic utterance.” Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Award for Poetry and her debut novel Quarry won an Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal for fiction, “The Very Best!” Book Awards for Best Fiction and was a finalist for the Fred Kerner Book Award. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and was also winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors Poetry NOW competition. While living in Northern Ireland, Graham completed an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies around the world and she has appeared on CBC Radio One’s The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers. Visit her at www.catherinegraham.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @catgrahampoet
 
How do you know when a poem is finished?

You don’t, though sometimes you hear (faintly) that “click like a closing box” sound W. B. Yeats talks about. Otherwise, it’s when your intuition signals: done. The craft is there and the poem holds. It’s alive and ready to live on without you.