Shannon Bramer : coda

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

Water Memory by Roo Borson and Magic Animals by Gwendolyn MacEwen.

 

Shannon Bramer : part five

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

I’ve been writing poems for decades, since I was a child. The hardest part is still just sitting down to do it. Writing involves sitting with my feelings, memories, ideas, fears—my confusion, my muddle. So it can be painful and exhausting! Also, finding the confidence to let the language loose, to let the poem off its leash and let it go where it needs to go. To let the poem be its own thing and somehow not mine anymore.

Shannon Bramer : part four

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

I’m not sure poems are meant to accomplish anything except to change how something is seen or understood or felt. Poems are meant to go around touching souls. In a tiny space a poem evokes a universe. The form is simultaneously direct and mysterious. You can’t tell a poem what to do; after you make it has to keep on moving, living, breathing, weeping on the page. Poems love the mundane world as much as they love beauty, horror, injustice, history, swans. Poems want to do everything and nothing at the same time.

Shannon Bramer : part three

How do you know when a poem is finished?

A poem is finished when it stops nagging at me to return to it. Sometimes this takes a very long time. I don’t finish every poem. Some fall apart while I’m working on them. For my last book I worked with an exceptional poet and editor, Jennifer LoveGrove, for several weeks before feeling satisfied with the final draft. Her eyes on the poems, her comments, her questions, all helped me grow and refine the manuscript in ways I could not have accomplished on my own.

  

Shannon Bramer : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

This is a favourite question of mine because it comes with a funny story. When I was in grade six we did a poetry unit in school that introduced me to the work of Canadian poet, Irving Layton. It was a poem called Song for Naomi, and this poem made me feel wild inside. We learned about literary devices using that poem and I vividly recall how I felt, trying to understand how it all worked, discovering how exciting language could be. But I was also really moved by the images in that poem too. I identified with the growing child; I was amazed by the combination of love and sorrow inside it. I wanted the poem to be mine so badly that I copied it down into a notebook and changed the title to Song for Shannon. I told my mother I was the author. It was after telling this lie that I started to try and write my own poems.

Shannon Bramer : part one

Shannon Bramer (photo credit: Linda Marie Stella) is a poet and playwright. Precious Energy (BookThug, September 2017) is her fourth book of poetry. Her plays (Monarita, The Collectors and The Hungriest Woman in the World) have appeared in juried festivals across the country, among them: New Ideas (Toronto) The Women’s Work Festival (St.John’s) and Sarasvati FemFest (Winnipeg).  A full production of The Hungriest Woman in the World premiered at Theatre Passe Muraille in December 2017, with PENCIL KIT PRODUCTIONS. Shannon also conducts poetry workshops in schools and is the editor of Think City: The Poems of Gracefield Public School. An illustrated collection of poems for young children, entitled Climbing Shadows, is forthcoming from Groundwood Books in 2019.

What are you working on?

I am rewriting an important section of a play (The Hungriest Woman in the World) that was recently produced at Theatre Passe Muraille with Pencil Kit Productions. Even though the show has been work-shopped and produced I still don’t feel finished with it. It involves the central metaphor of the play, a depressed octopus. It is like having a giant puzzle in front of me and there’s one large piece that just isn’t sitting inside it properly. I am also working on new poems and another play.