DP: You say that in The Commentaries  the conflict
can't be resolved. That leads me to a pet peeve of mine
about current Canadian poetry: that it's too shallowly
affirmative; that it will twist itself out of shape in
order to avoid offending or upsetting. Instead of insight
we get cliches. Your poems have insight, but they are
uncompromising. For example, "If middle age is not hollow,
then it is certainly 95% empty, like the universe itself"
("Accelerating Time") or "The American Puritans were
haunted by a vast internal emptiness. Not much has changed"
("America, The Beautiful"). Do you feel any pressure to
lighten up? How do you maintain your edge in a society
that's conditioned for bland consumerism?

KN: I don't feel any pressure at all to "lighten up." If
you don't have an edge that can cut anything, then usually
you don't have poetry. I think it's probably significant
that my big Canadian influences are poets like Layton,
Dudek, Cohen, and Webb. I don't think their poetry is
inclined to make anybody feel comfortable. There's
certainly pleasure to be had in reading them, but it isn't
necessarily safe pleasure.

I think poets like the ones I've mentioned, plus poets like
Bowering, Nichol, McFadden (my older brothers) have always
understood that they stand in opposition to the dictates
of their society. None of them are particularly inclined to
affirm what they think is bullshit. And I see myself as
being in the tradition of those writers. There are
certainly affirmations in bp's work, but they have
certainly been earned. He didn't believe in easy salvation,
and neither do I.