TDR: Let’s start with the poet. Who are you? Where did you come from? How did you get here? Give us some of the basic facts.

I come from a blue-collar background of coal miners and loggers. My father is a plumber and a businessman. I’m from Welsh and Irish decent. It’s a mystery as to why I’ve become a writer except that perhaps I felt this sense of my family’s struggle from early on—had an understanding that most lives are about trying to survive in whatever way. I guess I felt those stories were interesting and very Canadian. That sense creeps into a few of the poems, especially in the last section of the book.

My undergraduate degree in English and Writing is from Malaspina University-College. I have an MFA in writing from the University of British Columbia. I teach writing at Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo, and in September/October I teach at the Victoria School of Writing.

I hope the title of the book achieves several of the things you’ve mentioned. I’m often more concerned with what is felt but not addressed between people. I’m interested in the feelings and anxieties we carry around but don’t talk about… how that contributes to who we become and how our relationships play out. I think there is that silence between people. These feelings without discourse become secrets, additions to the mosaic of mythology we make of our lives.

I’m interested in how a country’s wars and political unrest effect the psyche of its generations, how this can change a culture’s perceptions of the world. The idea of a country as a mind was interesting to me, and I think there is a lot of that interplay in the book… damaged countries/damaged minds. It’s hard to grow with those limitations. In each of these instances, the persona is only scratching the surface of the damage done. I was conscious of that, of wanting, as a poet to say, "Here. This is all I know—these are the facts I’ve gathered, the rest is interpretation, an attempt to shed light on this or these lives." Poems like "Small Deaths," "Kim Ill Sung," "Temporary Wives," "Boys in Pieces," and "Everybody was twenty-one" are a few, I think, that illustrate that.

A Canadian poet? Hmmm. I’m not sure I’m that loyal to either the adjective or the noun. Poets earn about as much respect as housewives in this country. I use the old term "house wife" to keep us on the same level. The title of poet has not changed over the years. I’m no "syntax technician" or whatever. I’m Canadian by geography and influenced by many of the old Canadian writers like: A.M. Klein, Cohen, Layton, and Bronwen Wallace, but there is a lot I like about many writers from other countries. I’m sad that Canada’s high schools and universities still lean so heavily on the old British Canon. There is a tradition and a voice in Canada that despite its relative youth is equally valid.

I’m flattered to be mentioned in the same sentence as W.H. Auden. I suppose my work has a no nonsense tone as Auden’s work does, but I’m not sure I’m capable of the emotional restraint that much of his work has. I have been accused of sentimentality.

Lives are full of dénouements and little losses of innocence. They’re everywhere if we are listening, some more and less obvious. In this book, I was subconsciously working toward the notion that fate is a larger part of our experience than we sometimes care to recognize, that even given our superior brains and technologies we are still, at the core, dumb animals functioning at basic levels of lust, rage, sorrow. As far as we know, only the human species is capable of judgment, reflection, and rationalization, yet these poems show how it is sometimes difficult to separate the two. The poems perhaps don’t offer transcendence at first because transcendence is an individual experience. There are really only two choices here: transcendence or departure. "The Marvelous Thing is It’s Painless" is a poem that were it not for it’s lack of musicality, would have been the title of the book. The last lines of the poem said in a way what I felt the mood of the book was: "Your Papa’s life and yours/ how they hung like smoke,/ how fast they burned/ like they don’t want to leave/ anything behind."

TDR: Currently I'm reading an anthology edited by Primo Levi which includes passages from 30 works that shaped his life. If you were going to put together such an anthology, what are some of the passages and writers you would include?

An anthology of works that have shaped my life… good question. You’re really making me work for this aren’t you? Leonard Cohen and Steven King were probably my earliest influences. Are you laughing at me yet?

I’d include the last lines of "A Kite is a Victim": "then you pray the whole cold night before,/ under the travelling cordless moon,/ to make you worthy and lyric and pure."

Something from The Favourite Game. I’ve been influenced by Philip Levine. I’d probably include his poem Getting There. Recent poems by Bob Hicock, stories by Lori Moore and Rick Moody, Diane Ackerman, Jared Diamond, Lee Berger, Adrienne Rich, Amiri Baraka, Ira B. Nadel, Raymond Carver, Pablo Neruda, Jim Smith’s Add Language, many of the contemporary Canadian poets, J.M. Coetzee, Chekhov, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Greg Hollingshead, David Malouf. The list is kind of endless. Some of these people are writers of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry. Some have influenced me with their theories, others, structure, tone, or content. It’s all good grist.

TDR: What are you working on now? What do you feel are you next steps in developing as a writer?

I’m working on another collection of poetry primarily. Although I have several other projects on the go as well… a radio piece, a novel, and a collection of short stories. It’s difficult to juggle everything, each require a different kind of thinking. I teach a lot too which takes time and that’s really important to me. My new collection of poetry is half finished so I’m reluctant to really talk about it yet. It’s still in its early stages of evolution.

POST-INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

TDR: In your answer to the first question, you say “those stories were very interesting and very Canadian.” Why did the Canadianness of the stories interest you?

The struggle was what I was interested in, the stories of struggle. I think it's part of a mythology about what it is to be Canadian. As with all mythologies, there is some truth there, but these are perceptions of what we go through. I don't want to take away from those very real experiences, I just want to suggest that perhaps an individual's view of experience can be exaggerated.

TDR: In Q#3, you seem to suggest that Canadianness is kind of accidental. In your answer to the first question, are you saying you respond to your sense of place? (The Korea poems in your book’s first section might be another example of this.)

It's not accidental for everyone. I'm saying I'm ambivalent about Canada in a many ways. In the Korea part, I was responding to a sense of place in those poems, but that is not to suggest I felt Korea was a better place or my home.

TDR: I don’t think a discerning reader would accuse you of sentimentality, especially when you say things like “we are still, at the core, dumb animals functioning at basic levels of lust, rage, sorrow.” However, you say you’ve been accused of it. Is this something you struggle with?

In my personal life probably.

TDR: Is sentimentality something you’re aware of editing out of your work as you progress? I’ve spoken with writers who refuse to believe that sentimentality is a bad thing. What do you think?

Well, I don't want to edit it out necessarily. I think there is too much modern writing lacks feeling... becomes too clever, too academic. But I think sentimentality in work is a bit of a high-wire act. You have to think about balance. That's the real key.

TDR: Could you expand on your answer in Q#4, where you say: “There are really only two choices here: transcendence or departure.” What does this mean exactly? 

I mean that we either get through things or we give up. Isn't life about transcending things or losing faith?

Michael Bryson is the publisher/editor of The Danforth Review.