12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kyp Harness

Kyp Harness is a singer-songwriter known for the poetry of his lyrics. He has released twelve independent recordings.  He is also the author of three books: The Art of Laurel and Hardy (2006) and The Art of Charlie Chaplin (2007), which were both published by McFarland in the US. In March 2016, he will release his thirteenth album, Stoplight Moon. In May, his novel, Wigford Rememberies, was published by Nightwood Editions.

He performs in Ottawa on Friday, June 17 as part of The Factory Reading Series' pre-ottawa small press book fair event at the Carleton Tavern.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I've written several other novels, as yet unpublished -- this one is definitely the most poetic-feeling of my books, and it feels really good to get it out there.

2 - How did you come to songwriting first, as opposed to, say, poetry, fiction or non-fiction?
I always did write, and to me songwriting is another way of writing poetry that I could get people to listen to - or so I thought.  I guess I wrote fiction before I wrote songs, although I always did write songs in my head.  And before that I wrote and drew comic books and comic strips, way back to my early childhood.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I guess I start writing and see if it grows from there.  It's always different.  This new book seemed to accumulate and simmer. I write mostly just from inspiration - either it comes or it doesn't - and the end product isn't too different from what first gets set down.

4 - Where does writing usually begin for you? Are you an author of short fragments that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" or "song" from the very beginning?
I think the new book came from short fragments, but i find I like to give myself different goals for fun.  So I've written a couple books where I knew just what I wanted to do and bet myself on whether I could achieve it or not.  With songs, it's like I go unconscious to write the music, so it's mostly created when I'm out of my mind.

5 - Is performance part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys performing?
Yeah I do like to perform, or at least it feels natural to me - there's always a pulse in what I do - I'd like to even perform parts of this book.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your work? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I think the current questions are the ones that have been current forever - the ones that get asked in the dark at night - I don't think there's any answering them - except like Rilke said, to live the questions  - better....

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Like the slogan in the ads for the Army used to say - 'Be all that you can be' - and to tell the truth exactly from where you're standing, geographically or otherwise...

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I found that Silas White, the editor for this book, was excellent and sensitive and has great taste.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
"Get out of your way!'

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (fiction to songwriting to comics)? What do you see as the appeal?
To me it's all writing, or creating - some of my songs are like short stories or novels - I try to keep open to the inspiration of whatever might happen, not to label anything - it's good to just keep moving 

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Not much of a routine!  I do stay up late at night & find I do a lot of stuff then, when everything is quiet.  A day begins with me rolling out of bed and drinking a lot of coffee.  I try to grab time when I can, a bit more easier now than when my kids were young.  I might not do anything for a long time and then do a lot.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I walk a lot, I find that I need to do that - I walk long distances, and in the city you can see a lot.  Natural weather and human-created weather -- it's all out there.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
To be frank, no fragrance reminds me of home.......maybe incense?

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I like films a lot and wrote 2 books on films for McFarland in the US, The Art of Laurel and Hardy and The Art of Charlie Chaplin.....Van Gogh, Rachmaninoff, Nelson Riddle, the poetry of Allison Grayhurst, Elizabeth Cotten.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Ecclesiastes, Dostoevsky, joyce, Miller, Kerouac, Wolfe, Woolf, Roth, Blake, Walt Disney, others too numerous to mention.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Make a living.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I honestly have no idea.  I'd like to be a clown or a comedian, but maybe those are as impractical as what I'm doing now.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I think it's the desire to communicate to assure yourself you're not insane and completely out of step.  I don't know if that practically works, though.  But at least you get the sense that even if your ideas are out of whack, you've at least communicated them as completely as you're able.  ultimately I've got no choice, I just can't help myself.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead -- worth tracking down

McCabe and Mrs. Miller by Robert Altman -- hadn't seen it before -- beautiful film.

20 - What are you currently working on?
A couple different writings, one's a short comic novel, and the others about children.  And always with the songs and the music....!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (small press) questions with Joshua Auerbach and Eleni Zisimatos on Vallum: Contemporary Poetry and the Vallum Chapbook Series

Joshua Auerbach and Eleni Zisimatos are Co-editors-in-Chief of Vallum: Contemporary Poetry and the Vallum Chapbook Series, Montreal. www.vallummag.com.

For the first time, Vallum: Contemporary Poetry and the Vallum Chapbook Series will be participating in the ottawa small press book fair, to be held on June 18.

1 – When did the Vallum Chapbook Series first start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?
The Vallum Chapbook Series started in 2005 published by Vallum Society for Education in Arts & Letters (Vallum). As a publisher we have strived to publish a variety of voices, with a focus on Canadian poets, but not exclusively. In the past, we have chosen solicited work by one notable poet and one emerging poet. This year, we have established our first Chapbook contest, open to all. We publish two chapbooks per year, so one will be the contest winner and the other will be a solicited work.

2 – What first brought you to publishing?
Well we love books! We started publishing the magazine Vallum: Contemporary Poetry in 2001, and have been registered as a Canadian Charity since 2003. We decided to broaden our scope and publish chapbooks in addition to the magazine.

3 – What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?
Small publishing is very important in the continuation of literary culture and vital for the promotion of poets and poetry. Although printing costs are often prohibitive, and there is a turn to digital media, I think publishing in print is important. There should be support from the public and other financing institutions for small presses as they are supporting something of value in the literary community.

4 – What do you see your press doing that no one else is?
Vallum publishes on a small scale and is not doing anything that other small presses are not. We try to publish good writers, with as best a publication quality as funding will allow.

5 – What do you see as the most effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world?
The most effective way to get chapbooks out into the world is by advertising them through social media and launches. Launches are great because the poet can also read their work and promote their chapbooks that way. But mostly, it is through forums like blogs or Face Book that information about new chapbooks can be circulated. Distributors usually don’t accept books that are not perfect bound and in quantity, so it has to be done via mail, or word of mouth. Vallum’s magazine has national distribution by Magazines Canada, but the chapbooks do not.

6 – How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?
Editorially, we do not like to change too many things about a poet’s chapbook, unless the poet is emerging and in need of some guidance. A light touch is most often preferred. We have 2-3 editors looking at the chapbooks and a layout designer who also does some cover art.

7 – How do your books get distributed? What are your usual print runs?
We distribute our books through our online store, through subscriptions, at press fairs, and sell them at launches. Our usual print-run is 150, but that may go up.

8 – How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?
It is mainly us, the editors-in-chief, who are involved with editing. The Managing Editor is involved with production and design/layout. This works well, although there are always time
constraints to worry about.

9 – How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?
Being editors has humbled us in that there are so many good poets writing out there. So much poetry to choose from, and so difficult to make decisions. We have been lucky in that Vallum has published many excellent poets like Don McKay, Franz Wright, George Elliott Clarke, Jan Zwicky and others. Also some exciting new talent.
 10– How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?
Vallum has published work by its editors in the past, but it is something we try to avoid, although we’re not against it. Sometimes it’s good to have work by the editors put forth by the same press. It allows a view into the editor’s and publisher’s world, and so, why not?

11– How do you see the Vallum Chapbook Series evolving?
Vallum’s chapbook series is becoming more noticed since we have started to promote it more. We’ve held more launches and advertised more. Hopefully the Chapbook Contest will be fruitful and allow for a wider range of poets to reach us. Maybe one day we’ll publish more than two per year.

12– What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?
We’re really happy with the poets who have contributed to the Series and hope to continue in this vein and to find new, up-and-coming poets to add to our list. I think a lot of people haven’t known about our Chapbook Series, so it’s been a little slow in the past selling copies and getting the word out. It’s more feasible to promote one’s publications with the help of social media. Our biggest frustration is that people are reluctant to actually buy poetry books.

13– Who were your early publishing models when starting out?
Our models have been small Canadian presses, in general, with no specific one. As mentioned, our chapbook series has been slow in evolving, but it’s coming along nicely. Our first models for publishing were university publications at Concordia University while we were MA students there. That's where the Vallum idea began.

14– How does the Vallum Chapbook Series work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see the Vallum Chapbook Series in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations?
We’re making every effort to be in contact with other presses. Recently we had a Toronto launch with Frog Hollow Press, and we’re in exchange with the Atwater Reading Series, and other venues. We go to the Toronto Small Press Fair and Expozine every year, and this summer to the Ottawa Small Press Fair. We’re always looking to connect with other publishers and poets in the literary community. We hold regular launches for the chapbooks and the magazine, and this is very important in keeping in touch with the community, vital even.

15– Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?
We hold a launch and/or readings every time we publish something, be it a magazine issue or a chapbook. These are very important to get the word out and important for the authors who like the visibility and the opportunity to read and display their work.

16– How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?
This year, we’re using the internet and converting some of our print chapbooks into digital chapbooks, for those interested in digital.

The internet is a vital tool for the dissemination of poetry and the like. Unfortunately, this is not always the best way to enjoy poetry. A book in hand and a cup of tea (coffee or beer!)  in a cafe is a much better way.

17– Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?
We used to be open to submissions but now have a Chapbook Contest in place and we like to solicit one of the chapbook authors. So the winner receives publication and promotion. We may increase our yearly chapbook run, if time and resources permit. One of the things that we adhere to is a 25-pp length maximum for contest submissions.

18– Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.
Some of our most recent titles include Mary di Michele’s The Montreal Book of the Dead, Don McKay’s Larix, Vincent Pagé’s Veinte, and Nicole Brossard’s A Tilt in the Wondering, along with Thurston Moore and John Kinsella’s A Remarkable Grey Horse. These are all great chapbooks by accomplished poets. Hopefully we'll be able to publish good poets for a long time to come!

12 or 20 (small press) questions;

On Writing #96 : Mer Brebner

You always swore you wouldn’t…

Mer Brebner

The breaking point comes one afternoon, while you are sitting on the floor of your apartment, half a world away from where you were born.  A stupid song comes on, a song you don’t even really like but that reminds you of her because you think she liked it. Or she would have. And suddenly you’re bawling.

What happened? You never used to cry like this. You never used to sob. Back then, the tears just streamed down your cheeks of their own accord. Back then, tears felt cheap.

It was easier when you couldn’t cry, when the wound was so raw that your system ran on too much adrenaline and didn’t realize that it was slowly killing itself. There was that awful emptiness, but you almost didn’t notice because it was an absence of sensation. There was always that distant whisper in the back of your mind that there wasn’t supposed to be that gaping a hole, that that hole wasn’t a manufacturer’s defect, it was your own carelessness, or clumsiness, or forgetfulness that lost the missing part (piece? peace?). You left it somewhere - discarded as useless - because it was broken beyond repair.

It made no sense to try piecing it back together; it would take too much effort. Easier to just send away for a replacement, for the spare part. For a spare heart.  Eventually, your request is denied: Sorry, that particular product has been discontinued. We don’t make them like that anymore.

You want to go back to find all those pieces, put them back together so that you’ll finally be whole again. But as you collect the shards – and they are shards: ones that slice you open as you fumble to pick them up and sting with unusual intensity for wounds so insignificant – you realize that there are too many missing pieces.

You don’t know where you left them, where they slipped out of your pocket or off your tongue, forever lost because you discarded them like breadcrumbs along the way, certain they’d help you find your way back to yourself. If that was ever something you wanted to be again.

Now, you want to be yourself again, but you can’t because you’ve lost too many of the pieces. That self had a home. That self had a mother and a father and a sister and a whole heart. And you have none of those things.

No one knows how to help you. And you have no idea where to start looking for the answers that seem like they should be obvious.

There’s no manual on grieving, not one that isn’t full of shit or based on some self-interested lie that tries to convince you that you can be whole again, that you can be you again.

How can you be you without them?

No one’s honest. No one tells you, straight up, that you’re never going to be the same again. (You can understand why no one tells you this at first – when you’ve lost everything, the last thing you need to be told is that you’ve also lost yourself… and that you just don’t know it yet.) They tell you life won’t be the same, but that’s just growing up, isn’t it darling? That’s what happens. Things change. That’s life, they say – they still have both their octogenarian parents, and their middle-aged siblings and their perfect, indestructible teenage sons.

They never had to do this.

They never had to lose this.

Their lives were never changed so inalterably in seven weeks as to be unrecognizable.

The irony is that the only person you are convinced would know how to help you is the reason you feel this way in the first place.

You try not to think like her. You try not to be like her. Even if it might help, you deny the inevitable because you always swore you wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t follow in her footsteps. You wouldn’t become a writer. You wouldn’t become your mother.

But you did anyway.  And maybe that’s a blessing, because you sure as hell aren’t yourself anymore.

Mer Brebner is the daughter of celebrated Ottawa poet, Diana Brebner. She studied international politics, technical theatre and paramedicine. Growing up, she vowed never to become a writer. She currently lives in Gatineau where she is working on getting a novel and a memoir published.

We Who Are About To Die: rob mclennan

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan [with baby Aoife at three weeks and two days] currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of nearly thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include notes and dispatches: essays (Insomniac press, 2014), The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry collection If suppose we are a fragment (BuschekBooks, 2014). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books, The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). In fall 2015, he was named “Interviews Editor” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and recently became a regular contributor to Drunken Boat. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

Where are you now?
I am sitting at my desk in my home office, during one of our toddler’s twice-a-week morning sessions at ‘school.’ I have less than two hours, from this moment, to get anything done before I am off to collect her.

What are you reading?
I’m really enjoying Rosmarie Waldrop’s new Gap Gardening: Selected Poems (New Directions, 2016) and about to begin on a whole stack of other titles, including Nelson Ball’s Chewing Water (Mansfield Press, 2016), Laura Walker’s story (Berkeley CA: Apogee Press, 2016), Emily Carr’s Whosoever Has Let A Minotaur Enter Them, Or A Sonnet— (San Francisco CA: McSweeney’s, 2016) and Margaret Christakos’ Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex/Blood/Loss & Selfies (BookThug, 2016). I’ve also been rereading Sarah Gordon’s Rapture Red & Smoke Grey (Winnipeg MB: Turnstone Press, 2003), after finally achieving contact with the author (after more than a decade trying). I’m also reading Brian Michael Bendis’ incredible work over at Marvel, a company he saved from itself a decade or so back, when he destroyed and rebuilt the Avengers (among other things). I’m really enjoying his current run on Spider-Man; the Miles Morales stuff is fantastic.

A month or so back (on the day our new baby was born, actually), I finished reading Jean McKay’s remarkable Gone to Grass (Coach House Books, 1983). I do so hope she writes more books; I seem to have read them all, now.

What have you discovered lately?
American poet Matthew Henrikson has been a recent discovery, after his incredibly striking piece as part of The Volta’s tribute to C.D. Wright. I immediately worked to get my hands on his new book. Another recent discovery has been Inger Wold Lund, via her small chapbook Leaving Leaving Behind Behind (Brooklyn NY: Ugly Duckling Press, 2015). Incredible wow.

Where do you write?
I used to write in public spaces, but, given I’ve been home full-time with toddler for eighteen months now (since Christine returned to work after her year-long maternity leave), I do the bulk of my work from my little desk in my little home office. Given I spent so many years writing longhand in public spaces, it feels a strange shift. Once every month or two I’m still able to get a few afternoon hours of longhand at my favourite watering hole, The Carleton Tavern, but it might be a few more weeks before I can even consider such (given our newborn).

What are you working on?
Remembering to breathe, mostly. We’ve a newborn as well as a toddler, so things are a bit hectic. I’ve been attempting to complete a manuscript of short stories for some time now, and keep poking away, as well, on a manuscript of poems, “Cervantes’ bones.” But the main goal is the stories: once those are complete, I can once again dig into revisiting my post-mother creative non-fiction project, “The Last Good Year,” before finally returning to my attempt to rewrite “Don Quixote.”

I’m also working on a stack of interviews to appear over the next year for Touch the Donkey (with Meredith Quartermain, Mathew Timmons, Luke Kennard, Shane Rhodes, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Amanda Earl, Buck Downs, Kemeny Babineau, Oana Avasilichioaei, Ryan Murphy, Norma Cole, Lea Graham, Colin Smith, Nathaniel G. Moore, David Buuck, Kate Greenstreet, Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy, Oliver Cusimano and Joseph Mosconi), and the usual mound of chapbooks for above/ground press (less than twenty items away from an accumulated eight hundred items), including new and imminently-forthcoming chapbooks by Stephanie Bolster, Braydon Beaulieu, Geoffrey Young, John Barton, myself, Pete Smith, Stephen Collis, Bronwen Tate and lary timewell (among others).

Have you anything forthcoming?
Not at the moment, but that could change.

What would you rather be doing?
I can’t imagine anything better than this.

Two ghazals, for newborn

1.

Map: for she articulates
our new, invented landscapes.

A declaration of staccato kicks
and wails.

A salted, sunny membrane
of gestures, squeaks and snorts.

Exhaustion, multiplied. A cavernous
desire: feral skin, and breath.

Newly birthed, big sister devotes
such rapt attention.

Monopolized: we have not
learned their language.

2.

Toddler’s outstretched arms,
convinced herself bigger

than she still is, asks: Let me
hold her. Two ducks,

three. The western shoal,

swift curl of seagull, her
newborn deep

and impenetrable.
The contours

of a shapeless day.

Their mother, relieved
she finally out.

On Writing #95 : Claudia Coutu Radmore

The Poetry Three

Claudia Coutu Radmore

Jessica Hiemstra, Lesley Strutt and I meet every month, not to critique our poems, but to talk. We bring poems we’ve read, poems we don’t understand, quotes by critics and writers along with our questions, troubles, and thoughts about writing. What drives us to write, what are our histories. Under our arm we carry the wine of collections and writings that we admire. If we admire a poem but aren’t sure why, that discussion is welcome at the party.

For it is a party;  there’s coffee and a pot luck lunch. Cake. We meet in the morning but sessions tend to continue into the afternoon. There are party games of course, trivia on poetic form or word play, and dark corners for words that kiss, or that might play well together, all in a space  decorated with balloons of philosophy trembling at the ceiling.

Guest lists: who have we invited, who do we want to invite, and did that poet come through the door yet. Walt Whitman? Wallace Stevens? Yes, they are here. Jack Gilbert? Yes. Sylvia is a bit late. Might not come until next time.

Conversation mingles, wanders the room. We catch the tail of how the history of a poem lies in all we know and think. What is voice and why do we love it. How poetry draws from us what we did not know was there to be drawn. How beauty in nature and the human-made beauty of poems is not the same.

In another corner it’s about what ‘things’ in the abstract, mean. What is their function in poems, in a particular poem. Examples and debate, fingertips sticky with olive oil. Touch as movement and time; metaphor, and what it offers that we get from nowhere else.

Aspects of sound, kinds of sound, the sounds our language makes, breath and breathing. How our language shapes us. How even a typo may lead to a better poem as in Malcolm Lowry’s ‘Strange Type’:

I wrote “in the dark cavern of our birth.”

the printer had it tavern, which seems better.

But herein lies the subject of our mirth,

Since on the next page death appears as dearth.

So it may be that God’s word was distraction,

Which to our strange type, appears destruction,

Which is bitter.

A poem from Hopkins; we consider I wake and feel the fell of dark not day, talk about the effect of various kinds of pairs in a poem: feel/fell, dark/day, sights/ saw, ways/went, a dull dough. Hopkins has joined us more than once at the table, lounges on the sofa.

A poem by Anne Michaels from Weight of Oranges/Miner's Pond , ‘Women on a Beach’: Light chooses white sails, the bellies of gulls. Spencer Reece’s ‘Margaret’ :“…As you leave Margaret behind and turn the page, listen as the page falls back and your hand gently buries her. This is what the past sounds like.”

How does personality affect our response to writing or Art. Who are we reading, the poet or his poem. Do we appreciate the work less if we aren’t comfortable with her ethics, or even mannerisms. Where does a poem turn, and does it stay long enough for dessert, along with the lemon squares. It’s serious fun, but fun and excitement none the less.

Topics flow one into the other, from wing to feather to father to family. A poem opens the space to something one of us has read that seems to be related or that adds colour, concept or vocabulary to the conversation. Gillian Sze joins us as we’ve been talking about calligraphy, and ink, and mark making, and eyes. Jane Hirshfield has wondrous things to say, Susan Stewart can always start a good thread, follow up with poems to illustrate a point. 

There’s a sense of the rightness to such discussions. The only place some of us get to experience them is at writers’ festivals or VerseFest, when several poets are on stage throwing ideas out and sharing what they have learned about poetry. They are great, but they are up there and shy poets in the audience don’t contribute. In our situation, one of the best things is how comfortable we are with each other. We don’t have agendas. Ego is a word we might discuss linguistically; I don’t know, the subject hasn’t come up.

A quote from Jessica: I like how we sit down and Lesley always makes sure you're comfortable. I like how at the first meeting we all brought desserts. I like how Lesley calls us the Poetry Three.  I've come to think of us as the gamblers. 

Three is the best number of participants. There is plenty of time for each to contribute, time for tangents and comfortable waffling, and there are no concerns about the dynamics changing if there were more of us.  

I once wrote a poem about where language comes from that starts like this:

what’s this slick made thing, worded cornered sky tease

of brilliant shadow, slant of blue-memoried tomorrow

We leave each other enriched, refreshed, having gambled and won. There’s a sense of having touched upon new ideas, of having absorbed more than we can remember right away that may spring into our poems later on. Waiting for our next get together is like waiting for Christmas, the next chance to share thoughts about our blue-memoried tomorrows. I think of Yehuda Amichai’s:

what’s this?

this is an old toolshed.

no, this is a great past love. 

Claudia Coutu Radmore is the author of several books and chapbooks. Accidentals (Apt. 9 Press, Ottawa) won the 2011 bpNichol Chapbook Award.

On Writing #94 : Valerie Coulton

On Writing
Valerie Coulton

When I started writing regularly, I would go to a café with some books and read around in them until a stream of language appeared for me. Then I would try to capture that language in its unrefined state.

Later I would go back to select attractive words or lines from the stream. Not so much editing, more extracting my own language as though found.

-

And then it was about being in a conversation, usually with one person, sometimes another writer, sometimes alive, sometimes “not”.

Maybe that’s the thing I’ve found to be the most interesting aspect of my own writing, the sense of a language stream that comes from and goes to “somewhere else”. Getting in touch with this stream is easier in the context of a long project or series.

-

I put some things away for years, then read them again to see what I think outside the proximity of writing. Other things feel ready to serve. I couldn’t say what makes the difference.

-

In my day job, working with designers, I read a lot about creative process. The same things come up over and over again: find stimuli, get as much stuff "out" as you can, set some constraints to work against, iterate, take on feedback from people who really get what you're doing (and ignore the ones who don't). All of these have been invaluable to me, and I come back to them again and again. Especially stimuli and constraints, two infallible ways of dipping into the stream.

-

It's occurred to me lately that writing is a form of dreaming for me. It bends time. I'm alone and not alone. Familiar elements appear in new guises.

-

After my father died, I didn't really feel like writing for a long time. Now I'm starting again, patiently, without a lot of expectation. It's not a continuation or a beginning; it's like seeing someone again after a long time. Will we feel the same way or some new way? Will we still want to spend time together?

-

we are meeting in the halo
feet in sneakers

his enormous pages
the way blood crowds his face

sea of land of sea
                  little cloud meal

Valerie Coulton is a poet living in Barcelona. She has written Anonymous and Lirio with Edward Smallfield, both from dancing girl press. Her other books are open book, The Cellar Dreamer and passing world pictures, all from Apogee Press. New poems are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly.