Charlene Kwiatkowski : part one

Charlene Kwiatkowski’s debut poetry chapbook Let Us Go Then is forthcoming this December with the Alfred Gustav Press. Her work has been published in Arc, PRISM international, Maisonneuve, Red Alder Review, June 2020: A Pandemic Anthology (845 Press), and elsewhere. In 2020, she won Pulp Literature’s Magpie Award for Poetry. Charlene lives in Vancouver, BC and works at an art gallery. You can find her occasionally blogging at textingthecity.wordpress.com

Photo credit: Yohan Kim

How does a poem begin?

Most of the time there’s a phrase or image I can’t get out of my mind. It niggles at me until I do something with it. Other times I know I want to write a poem about x but need to wait for that phrase or image to strike like flint, otherwise I have no entry point. That spark can come from slogging through, but it definitely helps to have at least a hint of inspiration, some direction to follow from the outset (even if the poem ends up changing course, as it often does). All that to say, I’m not a prolific writer.