Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Chuqiao Yang, The Last to the Party

 

Pompeii

The Lupanar walls speak of a woman,
her art was intercourse.
Here, once, she left lovers to quiet deaths
on hard beds, sharp edges softened,
vestiges of a century of pleasure.
A caged, beautiful bird of prey, a tourist imagines.
But you’d almost think the walls spoke
of a woman whose art was praying,
back turned to a man, knees bent,
body arched, god-searching.
A brave, dying bird of prayer.
Colours, clay, heat, Pompeii’s countryside
burning down her body, the walls speaking
of a woman whose art was pleasure;
exhalations come a long way,
remnants of her existence,
her worship painted on the walls,
les petities morts in the history of lost lives,
little deaths in the history of survival.

There are long-awaited debuts, and then there are long-awaited debuts, such as Chuqiao Yang’s The Last to the Party (Fredericton NB: Goose Lane Editions/icehouse poetry, 2024). Born in Beijing, raised in Saskatchewan and currently living in Ottawa, Chuqiao Yang is a poet I first discovered in the summer 2010 issue of Grain magazine (Vol. 37.4) [see my review of such here] as part of Sylvia Legris’ stunning and maddeningly-curtailed run as editor there. The Last to the Party follows Yang’s bpNichol Chapbook Award-winning Reunions in the Year of the Sheep (London ON: Baseline Press, 2017) [see my review of such here], a number of poems from which have been reworked and folded into this larger collection. In one of the finest debuts I’ve read in some time (tied with Ottawa poet Ellen Chang-Richardson’s Blood Belies, which I’m currently reading as well), Yang writes of a prairie childhood, various travel, family and family roots and youthful adventures, rebellions and reconciliations, her lyrics offering a richness that is confident and subtle, considerations so clearly evident even in those poems published in Grain, fourteen years back. “Sometimes I float backwards,” she writes, as part of the opening poem, “The Party,” “ten times / over the South Saskatchewan / until I’m only kite bones / and promise: watch me, / a mawkish pre-teen pedalling / uphill, licked by rime, / peering into a neighbour’s window.”

Set with opening poem, “The Party,” followed by four numbered sections of poems, Yang has a painter’s ability to evoke a scene, whether landscape or portrait. She writes of moments turned and returned to, or recalled, turned and turned over, to better see, or see differently, attempting a fresh perspective on something that clearly won’t let go. Consider the short poem “Phaethon,” the first half of which reads: “I dreamt my father was alive. // Old, but happy, just // as I had left him. // He was bicycling.” She writes of foreign travel and prairie landscapes; she writes of roads home, and roads that lead away, and the realization that these are but the same roads, even before and beyond the clarification of what home means, and where, from Ottawa to Saskatchewan to Beijing, centred around friends, partners, parents and grandparents.

There’s a thread of wistfulness, and even melancholy, that runs through these poems, as Yang articulates intimate distances, drifts and attempts to connect or re-connect. She writes of a closeness that never quite feels close enough, or is never meant to last, but occasionally, unexpectedly, might or even does. Listen to the lines of the wedding-poem “Epithalamium,” a poem that ends: “And while there may be // years so full of sadness // you will be reluctant to trek // the dogged trail ahead, // you will reach for each other’s // hand, feel the other’s pull, // and you will be at ease.” She writes of a lifelong search for connection and belonging, and of finally landing at a moment that allows itself that comfort. Her poem “Friday,” a piece that immediately follows “Epithalamium,” includes: “Now, we share the same space, and life is a wide, / paved driveway.”

 

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Arlene Naganawa

Arlene Naganawa’s work appears in The Inflectionist Review, La Piccioletta Barca, Whale Road Review, Fatal Flaw, Thimble, Whale Road Review, Barnstorm, Belletrist, Crab Creek Review, Crab orchard review, Waxwing, Calyx, New Delta Review, Poetry on Buses, and in other publications.

Her chapbooks include Private Graveyard (Gribble Press), The Scarecrow Bride (Red Bird Chapbooks), The Ark and the Bear (Floating Bridge Press), and We Were Talking About When We Had Bodies (Ravenna Press). I Weave a Nest of Foil, her full-length debut, is new from Kelson Books.

Arlene has been the recipient of grants from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and Artist Trust and was awarded a creative residency at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, WA, and served as a juror for the 2024 poetry residency.

Arlene has been a Writer in the Schools for Seattle Arts and ectures, instructor at Hugo House, poetry mentor and site lead for the Pongo Poetry Project at Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center, and poetry teacher at Echo Glen Children’s Center in Snoqualmie, Washington.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first chapbook, Private Graveyard, was the winner of a contest. I was stunned that it was chosen and it encouraged me to keep writing. The work in that first chapbook is somewhat different from the writing in subsequent books. I was writing more personally then. My new work is often, but not always, fragmented, ekphrastic, and collage-like. I use a persona almost always now.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I’m not really sure. I have always read fiction–my English degree was much more focused on fiction than poetry. I didn’t start writing poetry until I graduated from college and then almost accidentally. I took a short workshop from a teacher in my high school English department, James Masao Mitsui. He was an excellent teacher, pointing out what was surprising, jarring, devastating, and beautiful in our lines and images. He was very encouraging and I had some work published right away, so I kept writing poems. My thinking is not very linear, so writing short poems without narrative lines seemed more natural than writing stories or novels.

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?

Writing takes me forever. Once in a while, I write a poem in one sitting, but I usually draft over and over, returning to a work many times, sometimes even over a period of years. I do like to write out a first draft quickly, even knowing that it is terrible, so I have something to revise. I love revising. I rarely take notes, but I think my work would be better if I did.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

My poems begin in various ways–with a single image, a line from another work, a prompt, a work of art, or something I’ve seen or experienced. I’ve been working with Marie Howe’s idea of taking notes of observations without using similes or metaphors or any kind of transformation–just record the figure or scene as it is without imposing any kind of interpretation. That leads to some interesting details for poems. I work best with concrete details. I find that using a “concept” for a body of work doesn’t turn out well for me. I enjoy poems that slide in from the corner of my subconscious without thinking about a theme or tying them to other poems.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I don’t like reading in public. I read when it is the courteous thing to do. I believe in helping the presses and organizations we work for, but I don’t like being the center of attention. Most of my poems work better on the page than out loud. I enjoy attending readings very much.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I don’t really have theoretical concerns. If I had a wider audience, I would try to address humanitarian concerns more directly. It’s difficult to write about such topics in original ways in poetry. The current questions include: What can art do to create more humane conditions in the world? How can art encourage people to pressure governments and corporations to put the environment and people before profits? How can art encourage people to “live simply so that others may simply live”? How can art stop killing?

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do  they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Writers help shape behavior and attitudes. Historically, this has always been true. People’s attitudes are shaped by the mythologies, literature, and theatre they see and hear. Often, writers are the best critics of their times, opening the eyes of their readers to cruelty and injustice, both in fiction and nonfiction. Writers also affirm generosity and kindness, as well as provide a moral compass. Currently, social media has taken over the role of literature for a certain segment of the population, and many consumers of social media are influenced by, well, influencers. But the influence individual creators will be short-lived compared to that of great authors. No TikTok influencer can replace such writers as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Shakespeare, and many others. I doubt that the message of any individual influencers will last a hundred years, or even a decade. And many people still read. Readers look to authors for guidance and affirmation of humanity.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

My personal experience with editors has always been positive and enjoyable. I love seeing my work through their eyes, and I will usually revise if they suggest revision, even if I also liked my original words. Editors work very hard, and I appreciate them.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Don’t worry about rejection.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Unfortunately, I have no routine. I write in bursts. I don’t start the day by writing. I usually spend an hour cleaning house in the morning.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

My writing groups and mentors share very creative prompts. Some of my best, and strangest, poems were written in response to prompts. These prompts vary and often avoid the  “write about a time when” prompts. My favorite prompts often utilize erasure or collaging from other sources, including YouTube transcripts or names of paint colors.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Clorox bleach and Vano starch. My mother cleaned and ironed better than anyone.

13 - 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’m often influenced by visual art. Art museums are some of my favorite places to visit. Seeing Picasso’s Guernica at the Reina Sofia was one of the most powerful experiences in my life. I love all periods and styles of visual art. The paintings on the walls at Lascaux, Dawoud Bey’s photographs, Van Gogh, everything.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

There are so many that I can’t choose! I often return to Marie Howe.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

There are many places in the world that I’d like to see, but I find travel so exhausting that I probably won’t see them. I’d like to learn another language.

16 - 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 was a middle and high school teacher for many years, and I consider teaching my calling. I wouldn’t have chosen another career. I love working with young people.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

That’s a question. I would have liked to play an instrument but my early attempts at violin didn’t go very far. I enjoyed drawing but didn’t have an opportunity to learn visual art in school. We didn’t have much art in my public schools, but we did have English language arts, and I loved the literature we studied, so that was an influence. If I’d had fine arts classes, maybe I would have developed visual art skills, but maybe not. I’m not good at sports or cooking.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

“Great” is pretty subjective. A slim but beautifully written book I just read is Foster by Claire Keegan. I also liked Florida and Matrix by Lauren Groff. And Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So. I’m not sure about film. My favorite film is the original Alien, but I can’t say it’s “great.” I’ve rewatched it many times. I like many films, all genres..

I’m looking forward to my copy of Radi Os by Ronald Johnson, but it hasn’t yet arrived.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I’m currently writing poem by poem–no project or special theme.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Monday, March 25, 2024

Elizabeth Clark Wessel, None of It Belongs to Me

 

Pioneer Women

My great-great grandmother Theresa
homesteaded her own acres
after her husband died of a headache.
She sent her children away until
they were old enough to drive a plow.
She was a Christian woman and canny—
the other pioneer women sent for her
when their times were near.
Pioneer women had many babies,
and many babies died. They had hearts
to break. Once I stood on a hill
surrounded by the graves of pioneer women
and their children, throwing handfuls
of my grandmother’s ash into a wind
that is always present; on every side
and below me ran straight lines of crops
in need of more water than the sky can give.
The crops are wrong for the land,
which prefers the ancient grasses.
In the lean years—or so the story goes—
pioneer women ground up grasshoppers
to make their bread.
They had meanness to drive them on.
They could give up almost anything
so they did. They were offered land
if they could keep it, and when they got it,
they put up fences. They must have known
their presence was a fence. While all around them
the dirty work of killing to keep the land went on.

It was through a chapbook produced in 2018 by Daniel Handler’s Per Diem Press [see my review of such here] that I first had the opportunity to explore the work of American-in-Sweden writer, editor, translator and publisher Elizabeth Clark Wessel, so I am very pleased for this further opportunity, through the publication of her full-length debut, None of It Belongs to Me (Boston MA: Game Over Books, 2024). She even has a birthday roundabout now, if the ending of her poem “Mary Wollstonecraft” is to be taken at face value (which could be considered speculative on my part, admittedly): “Today is my birthday / It’s cold and not yet spring / The minutes tick by relentlessly / We can never know where / we’re on our way to / and I will never be content / with this box of words / But I would like to leave it now / teetering at the edge / without tipping over [.]”

I appreciate the clarity of her lines, a lyric that plays with the accumulation of straight phrases and its variations, such as the poem “The Ersatz Viking Ship,” that begins: “I wake up. / I drink coffee. / I take the words of one language. / I put them into another language. / My goal is to keep the meaning. / What I think the meaning is.” There is a practicality to the narrative voice she presents, a pragmatism to these lyric threads: aware of what terrible things might occur but refusing to be overcome by them, simply allowing for what can’t be changed, and sidestepping what can easily be avoided. “my advice to you is / always the same,” she writes, as part of “My Advice,” “check the lock by picking it / leave the scabs on as long as you can stand / avoid whatever you feel / like avoiding for as / long as that’s a workable strategy [.]” There is an optimism that comes through as sheer perseverance and persistence, able to continue through, because of and no matter what. “After giving birth it starts to hurt.” she writes, to open the poem “Love Poem at Thirty-Seven,” “And then there’s no drive left. / Like a spent animal who has outrun / her predator. No energy to / seek it out. The flesh, the breath, / the deflated balloon of skin, the marks.” Wessel offers directions through her accumulation that appear, at first, straightforward enough, instead providing a sequence of turns, sweeps, bends and even twists across the lumps and bumps of her narratives. I would love to hear these poems read aloud, honestly. And the straightforwardness of her lines offer a mutability that can play with expectation, always providing a safe hand to hold through even the darkest places. As the poem “Sticks” ends: “It crashed onto us, crushing what wouldn’t be penetrated. / What I mean to say is the world kept ending, and we kept on / loving each other anyway. Isn’t that dumb. Isn’t that just / the dumbest thing you ever heard.”

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Nicholas Bradley, Before Combustion

 

Parable of the Conflagration

After the fire thundered over the fields
like bison, like horses, like cattle, like
trains and eighteen-wheelers, and the woods
were cindered, and after the thunderstorm fired
itself into a dripping calm of carrot
and melon, after history was left
to smoulder, the creatures who inched out
of the embers were coated in mud. They looked
at each other with colliers’ eyes until
their ashen masks mouldered, and they set to work
like oxen, clearing ground for graves and grass.

I found myself charmed by the heartfelt intimacies of Victoria, British Columbia poet Nicholas Bradley’s [see his 2018 '12 or 20 questions' here] second full-length collection, after Rain Shadow (Edmonton AB: University of Alberta Press, 2018), his Before Combustion (Kentville NS: Gaspereau Press, 2023). Before Combustion opens with a suite of poems that focus on the new moments of parenting, of fatherhood, offering such clear and quiet moments I haven’t seen prior around the subject, one I’ve also had the experience of enjoying three different times, three different ways: “I am the oldest / living thing // you know,” he writes, as part of “In the Beginning,” “an unshaven // bristlecone / bent over // your bed.” While there is an enormous amount of territory worth covering and recovering on parenting generally, the subject matter of fatherhood is still one that emerges with hesitation; a poem or two at most by any new fathers, perhaps, although there are exceptions [something I covered across 2012-3 in my four-part “Writing Fatherhood” essay over at Open Book, which Benjamin Robinson reminded me of recently].

Bradley’s Before Combustion is a collection sectioned into quarters, with the opening cluster of poems focusing on that newness of life, that newness of expansion, becoming and being. As the two-page poem “Waiting Room” begins: “Your third night alive / I drove home // from the hospital / to find sleep // and left you sleeping / those few hours. // In darkness, having / forgotten // everything but food, / water, and how // to keep you fed, clean, / and quiet, // I entered the house / a stranger // and failed to notice / the oak leaves // letting go.” In certain ways, the entire collection is centred around that opening moment of new life, new fatherhood, echoing the way one’s entire world compresses into a single, singular moment at the birth of one’s first child, slowly rippling out a return to the world but with an entirely new perspective, an entirely new lens. The poems of Bradley’s Before Combustion begin with new life, but slowly do edge out into that return, offering graceftul turns of phrase and line-breaks and short phrases, each of which do provide a slowness, requiring deep attention, even through poems such as “There Must Be 50 Ways of Looking / at Mountain Goats on the Internet,” that begins: “Stoned, blindfolded, one /goat dangles above / a second, horns / sheathed, four / ankles bound / and then four more, / rhyming quatrains.” In certain ways, each section provides its own impulse, less leading up to combustion than reacting to a change or changes so life-altering they seem akin to an explosion. Or, as he writes to open the poem “Parable of the Drought”: “Not the end of the world but the onset / of another.”

Saturday, March 23, 2024

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Deepa Rajagopalan

Deepa Rajagopalan [photo credit: Ema Suvajac] won the 2021 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies such as the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, the New Quarterly, Room, the Malahat Review, Event and ARC. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph. Born to Indian parents in Saudi Arabia, she has lived in many cities across India, the US and Canada. Deepa works in the tech industry in Toronto.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Peacocks of Instagram is my first full length book. It’s coming out in May 2024, and I hope it will find its readers. I have been warned about the anticlimactic nature of publishing your first book, but I hope it will change my life in some way.

The writing of the book has been life changing. The way something changes your life slowly, like watching the sun set over the ocean, or clouds drifting away. I have lived with the characters in this book for so long, and their experiences, triumphs, joys, heartbreaks, have given me that ‘something beyond the daily life,’ that Virginia Woolf talked about.

2 - How did you come to short stories first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

I have a natural inclination to say things quickly and concisely. Taking up space, meandering, slowing down, were not part of my South Asian upbringing. So, the short story came to me naturally. I am continually amazed by the challenge that the short story offers: to tell something so universally true, and singularly so. To make the reader feel something in fifteen pages or less.

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?

Typically, the writing comes to me quickly, though I am anxious through the first few of drafts, until I find the bones of the story. I enjoy the revision process, combing through the prose over and over again until I’m satisfied with the words, the sentences, and the shape of them. Nine out of ten times, the final version is nothing like the first draft, except perhaps the opening paragraph.

4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?’

I think I am always working on a “book.” Even while writing short pieces, I am trying to understand how they are in conversation with each other. How different each story can be, and yet be part of the same world.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I love seeing an audience’s reaction to new material, what moves them, what does not land the way you thought it would. However, I typically read something in public only when I feel it is ready.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I think writing is always trying to answer some kind of questions. The questions depend on what you are obsessed or preoccupied with, and what is going on around you, and in the world. For years, I have been consumed by questions about agency, about the powerful and the powerless. How does the world order dictate who has power now, and who has had power for millennia? What do ordinary people do when they are denied agency or find themselves utterly helpless in the wake of cruelties, big and small? How do they take power, or diminish themselves?

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Arundhati Roy said in an interview that she enjoys the way the Russian writers “refuse to stay in their lanes. Especially now that the traffic regulations are getting stricter, the lanes are getting narrower and more constricted.”

The role of the writer should be to say the truth about the atrocities in the world, while not denying its beauty and its joy. To say that which is uncomfortable, as plainly and articulately as possible, without fear.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I’ve always appreciated getting feedback on my work. Most of the time, I comb through the feedback, and instinctively know what I need to take, leave, or tweak. Sometimes, it can be difficult, but the difficulty comes from making sure you retain your voice, while considering edits. I had the good fortune of working with my editor, Shirarose Wilensky, on my short story collection, Peacocks of Instagram, who was gentle with me, and most importantly understood my intentions.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

It’s hard to pick one thing, but there’s something Murakami said about running that is resonating with me today: “Being active every day makes it easier to hear than inner voice.”

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to the novel)? What do you see as the appeal?

It is not easy for me to move between the genres. It takes me some time to untangle myself from one and move into the other. I usually work on one form for stretches of time.

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?

I try to stick to a routine, though it is not always consistent. I usually wake up at dawn or earlier, have some coffee or tea, and write for a couple of hours before the day makes its demands of me. Over weekends, I spend longer periods of time writing. When I am working on a project, I am always thinking about it, so I can write anywhere. At home, in airports, cafes, the hospital waiting room.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I turn to books. I have a stack of books by my desk that I turn to when I can’t seem to keep going. Norwegian Wood by Murakami, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, to name a few.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

The smell of campfire, though I don’t know why.

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?

Being in nature always infuses me with creative energy. It helps me think better, and be more flexible with my ideas, allowing stories to go where they want to go.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Alice Munro, Chekhov, Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Orhan Pamuk, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Hemmingway, I can go on and on…

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Music moves me deeply, and I’d like to take vocal lessons. I’d want to sing, even if I am mediocre at it.

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’ve had a long career in information technology, I ran a business, taught yoga, taught math and creative writing, but the work that makes everything else tolerable is writing. I think I’d always be able to find something to do, but without writing, I’d be a lot less happy, and perhaps insufferable.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I am a sensitive person, deeply affected by everything around me. Writing helps me make sense of life, to ease some of its pain, and to help see its beauty. I’d be miserable if I didn’t write.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I read a story titled My Good Friend by Juliana Leite (translated by Zoë Perry) in the Paris Review last Fall, and since then I think about it at least once a week. It is a love story between the narrator and her good friend who is losing his memory. It is masterful and reveals the kind of everlasting love that withstands decades and spouses and children.

I watched this movie Past Lives recently, and it shattered me, in the best possible way. The film has a singular, haunting texture, that I think would be interesting to explore in prose.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’ve been working on a novel, that follows the lives of three characters, whose lives are inextricably linked by a single tragedy that takes place in a small town in Saudi Arabia.

I was travelling recently and took a break from the novel and started a new short story. I’m attempting to write a love story, which is difficult for me as I am naturally cynical. But this one seems to be coming along well. I think I’m going to give it a happy ending.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;