Adrienne Gruber : part one

Adrienne Gruber is the author of three books of poetry, Q & A (Book*hug), Buoyancy Control (Book*hug) and This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), and five chapbooks. She won the Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron poetry contest in 2015, SubTerrain’s Lush Triumphant poetry contest in 2017, and her chapbook Mimic was awarded the bp Nichol Chapbook Award in 2012. Originally from Saskatoon, Adrienne lives in Vancouver with her partner and two daughters.

How do you know when a poem is finished?

I don’t necessarily ever know. My latest collection, Q & A, probably contains some of the most ‘finished’ poems of all my collections, but even those poems could be tinkered with forever. I think it depends on your definition of finished. Sometimes a poem is finished when I’m tired of it and I know if I keep working on it I’ll ruin it. Sometimes it’s finished because life is moving on and if I don’t call it done then it will never move forward. Sometimes a poem is finished because it feels right every time I read it.