Volunteer Stephanie Erickson talks with the issue #229 contributor about engaging with grief, the medium of imagination, and writing that holds multiple experiences at the same time.
SE: Is there something in the medium of poetry that allows you to hold multiple experiences at the same time? For example, Nôhkom seems to be friendly with the coyotes but have a vaguely adversarial relationship with the bear. Elsewhere she shares of the lights in the sky over Candy Mountain and her version of the valley hoodoos relative to a science teacher. What do you think of poetry’s capacity to hold space for multiple and sometimes contradictory ways of knowing and being in the world, and how does this serve Indigenous poets specifically?
JG:
As a medium, poetry can be used in various ways—I like to use it as a storytelling (or re-telling) device. When your goal is to descriptively convey aspects of life to your reader, then it’s necessary that your writing be able to hold multiple (human) experiences. I favour freeform poetry for conveying short strokes of information in a flowing story format. I used this format to hold my grandmother’s varied experiences: she was chummy with the coyotes and in a turf war with the bears; she valued fresh air and smoked a pack a day; she weighed about 99 pounds and exuded toughness. These contrary facts are essential in painting an accurate portrait of her, and poetry is the creative framework in which they can be painted. This framework might prove especially valuable to Indigenous poets in communicating the polarity of knowing and being from within a culture shaped, for many years, by colonization.
SE: How do you hope Métis readers will engage with this poem?
JG: I hope that readers with Métis ancestry, like myself, might see aspects of their own experience growing up in a tiny Canadian town on unceded territory. Maybe a reader will be reminded of their own grandmother who wore deerskin moccasins and smoked like a chimney in her trailer. My main, and original, hope for anyone who reads this poem is simply to meet my nôhkom, Loretta, as I feel like I’m sitting down for a visit with her every time I re-read it.
Read the rest of Jennifer Gossoo's interview as well as her poem, "Loretta Lee (Nôhkom)."
Shauna Deathe,
#229 poetry contributor
Work Study student Kennedy Halwa talks with the issue #229 contributor about queering religion, the symbolism of the scarecrow, and identities that don’t obey.
KH: Themes of fire, desire, and rebirth also surface in your work, with references to Exodus 20:3 (“You shall have no other gods before me.”) and Mizuta Masahide’s poem “Barn’s burnt down” (“Since my house burned down / I now own a better view / of the rising moon.") I love how your poems explore not only one’s active queerness, but also their relationship towards their queerness itself. Queerness as not only a celebration and rebellion, but as a reimagining of the self. If this resonates, can you tell us about this process?
SD:
Years ago, I stumbled across the term “pyrophyte” for the first time. Simply put, a pyrophyte is a type of classification given to plants which have adapted to tolerate fire. There are two types of pyrophytes: passive and active. Passive pyrophytes are fire-resistant and are able to survive fires, and active pyrophytes are plants that have adapted to use—and sometimes even depend on—fire for their existence. I became thematically obsessed with this concept of these gorgeous plants—giant sequoia, banksia, manuka, for example—and their relationship with something that should destroy them. Mix that in with the notion of healing/cleansing from the Bible and the Indigenous concept of a “good fire” and we’ve got a metaphor I can run with. Just don’t ask me if queerness is the flower or the flame—I haven’t decided yet.
All this preamble is to say that I love identities that don’t obey, that are unruly and adaptive, that dance and rebel. I’m in awe of the force that queerness is and all the forces it has endured, thrived in. If you’ll excuse one more self-reference, the title of my thesis was “Pyrophyte: A Field Guide to Burning Alive” because I loved the concept so much. The survival. The reveling. I want my poems to celebrate that, too. I’m not actually sure if this answers your question or if I just used it as an excuse to geek out for a bit, but here we are.
KH: Who are some authors you pull inspiration from?
SD: The list is infinite and ever-growing. I’d say my biggest two are Louise Glück and Ocean Vuong; when I need inspiration, I find myself flipping through their collections the most. Glück just has such a stunning, reverent way with words, and Vuong’s poetry is so gutting and raw while still being remarkably beautiful. The way he plays with the words on the page, too, is something I’ve definitely pulled inspiration from into my work. As well, Jordan Abel was, I think, the first poet to make me fully realize the power of words and really stoke my interest in poetry. The first time I read Injun, I couldn’t stop talking about it—apologies to those around me at the time. I was floored by his creativity but also how politically powerful his work is, how clever and pointed his projects are.
Read the rest of Shauna Deathe's interview as well as her poem, "New Psalms 8:12."
