The Writer as Collaborator, with Anita Lahey
As writers, we are driven by inspiration. But a common question we face, both from ourselves and those around us, is, “where does the inspiration come from?”
There are a million ways to answer this question, because the answer is different for all of us. But inspiration isn’t enough for just anyone to create a project unlike any other.
Anita Lahey, poet and nonfiction writer, found that hers was enough. But she didn’t create her new graphic novel in verse alone—as she’ll tell you in this week’s episode.
Listen to learn:
- Where Anita’s writing inspiration comes from
- What it’s like to work with the same editor for multiple projects
- What it’s like to collaborate with another artist on a book
- The perennial question of what makes a good poem
Here’s a sneak peek of this episode:
[10:26] It was really fun, and I don't really know what the end result means, but people seem to like them, and maybe that has something to do with how fun it was to make them.
[14:00] I don't know why, but maybe somehow if I put the poem in that shape, I'll figure something out.
[16:34] But that's interesting how you sort of hope, after having written a couple of books, that you know by now which stuff is worth keeping and sharing, and which stuff you just need to set aside.
[26:16] I said, “you know, you wanted me to take that poem out.” And he said, “really? <laugh> Well, I was wrong.”
[28:18] I think I was marked by the knowledge that this could happen, that a fire could come through the woods and burn your house down for real, not just in a storybook, but this could really happen.
[33:30] We each also had our own relationships with the characters, which was interesting, and our own ideas of who they were.
[42:05] So, it's my job to make sure the perspectives shift, and that we bring in someone who is passionate about doing this work.
[45:41] That's something that I would stand by 100%. If I don't feel that something happened when this poem was being written, then it doesn't feel like it matters to read it again.
Links from this week’s episode:
Fire Monster (Palimpsest Press)
While Supplies Last (Véhicle Press)
The Writer as Collaborator, with Anita Lahey: The Resilient Writers Radio Show -- Full Episode Transcript
Intro:
Well, hey there, writer. Welcome to the Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas, and this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. Because—let's face it—the writing life has its ups and downs, and we wanna not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books, and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who wanna learn and grow in their craft, and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books, and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them, writers who wanna spend more time in that flow state, writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community in this crazy roller coaster ride we call “the writing life.” We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives, and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, writer, I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda Douglas:
Hello there. I'm excited today. We have Anita Lahey with us. So, Anita is a poet and creative nonfiction writer. Her latest poetry collection, While Supplies Last, was just recently published by Véhicule Press in April 2023. And she's also got a graphic novel-in-verse that's just come out, that she worked on with her friend Pauline Conley. It's called Fire Monster, published by Palimpsest Press in May 2023.
Her memoir, The Last Goldfish: A True Tale of Friendship, came out with Biblioasis in 2020, and it was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. And her previous books include The Mystery Shopping Cart, Essays on Poetry and Culture, and two previous poetry collections with Véhicule Press as well. Spinning Sidekick, which came out in 2011, and Out to Dry in Cape Breton, which came out in 2006. Out to Dry in Cape Breton was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for poetry and the Ottawa Book Award. She's also the series editor of the annual anthology published by Bibliosis called Best Canadian Poetry, which she's done since 2018. Welcome Anita, so glad you're here. Yay.
Anita Lahey:
Thanks, Rhonda. That was very thorough.
Rhonda:
It's very thorough, right? And Anita and I have known each other for years. It feels weird to be sitting in front of her reading her bio, but I didn't wanna miss anything. And of course there's more, because you've also done work as a magazine freelance writer, journalist, communications specialist. You’ve done a little bit of everything. I wanted to start with the poetry, though. You've got a new book out, While Supplies Last, and—I love the cover, by the way. You've really had great covers. All three of your books have been amazing.
Anita:
They’ve all been designed by the same guy who does covers for Véhicule, which is David Drummond, and he's a genius,
Rhonda:
David Drummond. Does a nice job, eh? Really great. So, I've read the book, but tell me a little bit about, for you, where these poems came from.
Anita:
Oh, <laugh>. Well, these poems span about 10 to 11 years of life and writing. They came from a lot of different places, I would say. Some of them come from feeling a bit disordered from lots of moves during that period in my life. So we see some of the poems in here come out of Toronto. Some of them come out of Victoria on Vancouver Island. There's a little bit of Fredericton, a little bit of Ottawa, a little bit of Montreal <laugh>, and a little bit of me, not knowing where home was anymore. There's some of that going on.
There's a lot of me engaging with the urban… What I call in my head, the urban wilderness, following and noticing birds, and learning about rivers and buried rivers, and how we intersect with the wild world in our urban spaces. It's kind of become a fascination for me. And it just feels really important, because, paradoxically, there is actually lots of diversity in ecosystems in urban spaces, partly because of people working hard to create environments that are welcoming to different species.
I find that stuff really interesting, and this idea that you don't have to go far from home to be in nature. You can just step outside and remember that the squirrel is nature, and the robin, and all of the things that we take for granted. There's lots of that in there. There's lots of anxiety in there about where we're going as people on this planet. And looking back at things, like, there's a sequence I wrote that was prompted by visiting—several times—this exhibit at the Royal BC Museum when we were living in Victoria, that contained a baby mammoth fossil.
And there was something about this completely intact mammoth fossil, which was found literally because of climate change, because it was in the permafrost in Siberia, and things are coming up out of the permafrost because it's melting, and it's the most intact such fossil that was ever found. And tons of research was done on this, if I remember correctly, three month old, essentially infant, mammoth <laugh>, to the point where they knew what it had eaten before it died because they examined its stomach contents. It was preserved very well because it was in this sort of acidic bog permafrost environment. And something about the fact that it still exists, but doesn't, and we're finding it because the planet's changing again, in a very dramatic ways, as it did, and somehow that resulted in the mammoths going extinct just played on me for a long time, and I did a lot of research and thought a lot. I don't know what the result of that is a sequence of poems. And I still think about that mammoth quite a bit, <laugh>. So, just the idea of staring at something that old, you know.
Rhonda:
I love the sequence in here. That's the pandemic traffic reports. Can you talk about that a bit? And I saw on Facebook that you sent the book to Doug Hempstead, right?
Anita:
I did. In fact, I dropped it off at CBC in downtown Ottawa, way back when I first got copies of my book in early April, maybe. And you sort of have to leave it with the security guy downstairs <laugh>. And I didn't know what was gonna happen to it, and then nothing happened for a really long time, so I thought either he never got this book, it fell in a black hole or he did receive it and was kind of creeped out by the fact that I was turning his traffic reports into poems, so <laugh>. And I couldn't bring him another one in case the latter was actually true.
Rhonda:
Totally awkward. Yep <laugh>.
Anita:
So I just sort of let it go. And then, lo and behold, last week someone delivered the book to Doug, and I had a text on WhatsApp from a friend and fellow poet in town at 6:38 Friday morning, saying, “Doug Hempstead was just talking about your poetry on the radio” <laugh>.
Rhonda:
During the traffic report, I hope!
Anita:
Apparently he was quite delighted, and I missed him talking about it on the radio, but he made a Facebook post about it, and it was so interesting that he completely understood this weird collage thing I was doing with things he says in his traffic reports that are often unexpected and goofy and colourful, and kind of give a picture of the city that you wouldn't expect to get from simply the traffic report. And this all happened because we got a kick out of his traffic reports here in our little household, and something made us start writing down quotes from Doug. I think my son and I thought they were funny and would let each other know if we missed something, and he started writing things down.
And I realised at some point, in the midst of the pandemic, I had weird quotes from Doug Hempstead all over my house, like in the kitchen, on notepads, and I thought, “I should try and do something with these, there's something interesting going on here.” And so I made a poem that was kind of a collage of different things he'd said at different times, completely out of order. And then it turned into six poems. It just kept going <laugh>. It was really fun, and I don't really know what the end result means, but people seem to like them, and maybe that has something to do with how fun it was to make them. I don't know.
Rhonda:
And is that a really good example of your process generally, both the mammoth poem, and I guess all the poems in the collection, just kind of feeling taken by something like, “oh, that's interesting.” And then sitting with it and doing some research, and coming back to it and coming back to it. Is that generally how you work with a poem? How do you go from “oh, isn't that interesting” to a finished poem?
Anita:
It’s hard to answer that. I mean, definitely I know that I'm following my nose, I'm following some instinct. Something's troubling me, or just really interesting. And I guess I'm curious where it'll go. And I don't know when or how in that process—I mean, the pandemic traffic poems are different because they're actually all Doug's words. I didn't create any of the phrasing in those poems. I just shaped them and moved pieces around. It's more like a curation <laugh>. But in other poems, I've thought about this, and I don't know how they start, like, how it goes from something following me around to me writing about it. Somehow, suddenly, I'm doing that.
I'm in a phase right now where that hasn't happened in a while. There's other things going on, and I know when it needs to happen, it will happen. But I guess when I'm walking, something will come into my head and I might feel the need to write it down. I think that's often how the poem starts.
Rhonda:
Did you find yourself with lots of notes in different places?
Anita:
I do have notes in different places, and sometimes, well, I'm well aware that that's not a very practical method. 'Cause I'm sure I lose things <laugh>. There's at least one poem in this book, actually, that came from me stumbling on notes I'd written a long time ago. The poem, there's a couple, that comes to mind, there's a poem about hydro pylons.
Rhonda:
Oh, yes. Okay.
Anita:
And I had made lots of notes about that a long time ago. In fact, even started writing the poem—
Rhonda:
Hydro pylons all in a row, hydro pylons all in a row.
Anita:
Yeah. It just wasn't working. You know, I had this long draft of something weird and I had completely forgotten about it, and then I stumbled on it in my files years later and thought, “oh, maybe I should try and do something with this. I feel like there's something here.” And it was really a lot easier after all that time away from these weird random lines and notes and way too much stuff to see what might be interesting.
That one is actually a, like a shape poem. What's… I'm losing the word for it…
Rhonda:
Concrete.
Anita:
Thank you, concrete poem <laugh>. And that just sort of was an impulse, like the traffic collages. That was an impulse. Maybe there's something about the shape of these things that has always caught my eye. I don't know why, but maybe somehow if I put the poem in that shape, I'll figure something out.
Rhonda:
Right, right. Yeah <laugh>. I like that word, impulse, that you use, like this aesthetic instinct, right? And you just get curious and you follow it, and who knows what's there.
Anita:
And that's only the beginning, right? That's a lot of letting things sit, and peeling away layers of junk, and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. It doesn't land with the impulse <laugh>, you know?
Rhonda:
Absolutely. So, here's another question that's hard to answer, because you and I have talked about this before. You have all these poems. How do we get to the point of a curated collection that holds together as a collection from a set of individual poems?
Anita:
That is something we talked about.
Rhonda:
What's your process on that?
Anita:
It’s interesting because sometimes I end up, when I am following this impulse or following my nose, with a suite of poems on a certain theme or subject. In my first book there's a whole section of poems that have clotheslines in them, and really in behind the scenes, I didn't know this while I was writing them, it was actually about a relationship falling apart. And it was like all of these clothesline poems led me somewhere.
In all my books, there's little groupings like that, but then there's also random poems that don't really fit into these thematic groupings. And in this book, I would say there's more of those than, or it felt like it, than in my previous books. And I wasn't sure, I just felt like it's time I put this together in a book. “I have a lot of stuff here. I have 10 years worth of poems. I need to piece them together and see what it looks like,” and <laugh> funnily enough, there was a whole suite of poems that I thought were the core of the book that my editor talked me into taking right out <laugh>.
Rhonda:
Really? Wow, okay.
Anita:
And he was right. But that's interesting how you sort of hope, after having written a couple of books, that you know by now which stuff is worth keeping and sharing, and which stuff you just need to set aside. And the lesson in there is we never stop needing a good editor. We never stop needing <laugh> another eye. I firmly, firmly, deeply believe that. It's really important. 'Cause you can sort of get caught inside your own ideas of what you're doing. And those poems, I felt quite attached to them psychologically because they had to do with my feelings about winter, which are weirdly complex. I mean, <laugh> not that anyone else aren’t.
Rhonda:
The most Canadian statement ever <laugh>.
Anita:
I'm sure many people would say that. I mean, many people just hate winter flat-out, and it's very simple. I'm one of those people who's drawn to the hunkering down of the season, and I love the way the landscape flattens and simplifies. And again, I think it is something about lines. You see all these bare tree branches, and somehow I've started to see this recurring—like somehow that's connected to clothes lines, that's connected to hydro pylons.
There's something about these lines, and lines in the sky, that I'm obviously attracted to, for whatever reason in a creative way <laugh> now. So winter has that. And it also has things I like to do, like skating and cross country skiing. And so the four years we were living on the west coast felt a little strange to me, because winter is generally rain and clouds.
And so I started writing these poems, and also at the same time, becoming keenly aware that the seasons are changing and there's some loss associated with that. And so I thought these were really important poems <laugh>. But the other thing I did when I was writing them is, I was trying really hard to write an idea I had in my head of a poem that I wished I wrote more of, something more simple than what I normally do. I don't know how to explain it, but I had this idea in my head of what I was trying to do. When we were talking about the poems, Carmine said to me, “you know, the thing is, when you're trying to write a poem, <laugh>, when you're trying to be a poet, the poems you're writing aren't all that interesting. When you're writing just as you, as Anita the journalist and all these other things, that's where the poems are alive.”
So it was almost like I was working too hard to—I mean, at the same time, you need to push yourself. I thought I was pushing myself, and maybe I was, and I just didn't get there yet, you know? To try and not be writing the same poem all the time, to be doing something like not falling into my patterns, that's important. With those poems, I didn't quite get there. It doesn't mean I shouldn't try again, but there's something interesting there about how you have to get out of your own way. And I think I was in my own way, 'cause I was thinking too hard about what I was trying to do, and that's like a weird alchemy.
I've completely gone off your question, which is, “how do you create a manuscript out of all these different poems?”
Rhonda:
So, what happens now? What happens to those poems now? They'll just sit in a folder, will they?
Anita:
I may go back to them someday and see what's there. I don't know. I've just set them aside for now. One thing that happened is there’s a poem in here—I mean, there is some winter in here still. And there is a poem in here that I wrote in the midst of that process with my editor to try and convey <laugh> why these poems are so important to me. And that's the poem that worked <laugh>. And that's the poem that's in the book. And it's called Life Without Winter.
Rhonda:
Life Without Winter. That's the one.
Anita:
So, that poem only exists because I have a good editor who won't let me just get away with what I wanna get away with. And it was actually part of a conversation in my own head with him.
I take all these things and I lay them, I literally take all the poems, print it out, and lay them out, and group them and start looking at like, is this a little family of poems? Are they talking to each other in some way? And some of it is obvious, like I have a whole section in here that’s inspired by a wildfire that happened when I was a child. So, those poems obviously all go together. But there's some poems with shorelines and oceans, and there's poems to do with the seasons, and there's, you know, urban poems. And somehow, I just start playing around and seeing what happens, you know?
Rhonda:
And you've worked now with your editor—this is your third book of poetry.
Anita:
Yes.
Rhonda:
What's it like to work with an editor, over that much of a body of work?
Anita:
It's great. I even really feel really fortunate to have that continuity, and someone who knows my work so well and obviously cares about it. It's wonderful. My next book, I may not get to work with him because he's actually passing the torch. He's been editing signal additions for Véhicule for about 20 years, and over the next few years, gradually—that's Carmine Starnino—and gradually Michael Pryor will be taking over. If they still want me <laugh>, that's the other thing. Things change, right?
Rhonda:
Yep.
Anita:
So regardless of that, what happens in the future, it's been great. I also, I know, defend myself if I want to. 'Cause I know how he thinks a little bit as well, and I find it a really constructive relationship around the poems.
Rhonda:
Did you feel that way with the first book? When you were kind of newer to… That was your first book, you're getting feedback from a professional editor of poetry for the first time?
Anita:
I was really nervous. I was really nervous. I remember, we talked about this not that long ago, in fact, that we met in person for the first time at the Manx. I think it was like a Saturday or Sunday brunch time. And Carmine was in town for Montreal, and it was our first meeting over my first draft of my first manuscript. And I didn't know him very well. I knew him by reputation. Somewhere in there, we'd done some journalistic work together, and I can't remember if that came first or not, because I was, he was editing at Maisonneuve Magazine, and I was doing some writing for them. I didn't know what to expect. And I very quickly found myself at great ease working with him and feeling I could mostly trust his judgement, and being pushed already out of my comfort zone a little bit, like out of ideas that I thought were sacrosanct.
He was questioning. And I thought, “well, yeah, why do I think that's sacrosanct?” It was really interesting. And the other thing about working with an editor is you also still need to listen to them and think about what they're saying, and you also need to listen to your own instincts and what you know. And there was a poem he thought I should take outta that first book. At first I thought, “okay, fine.”
And then I realised I'd done a couple of readings by that point, and I'd read that poem, and people really liked it. People really responded to it. And I thought, “I think he's wrong about this poem.” And so I told him <laugh>, and he said, “fine.” And the other thing is, you realise every editor's different, but there's very few editors who, whatever they're suggesting to you, is the law. They're interested in working with you and helping you make the best book, but they're not interested in imposing their vision of the book on you. So I said, “I think I wanna keep this poem.” And he said, “fine.” And years later <laugh>, I said, “you know, you wanted me to take that poem out.” And he said, “really? <laugh> Well, I was wrong.” So it's important to know that editors aren't infallible either.
Rhonda:
There's a lot of give and take in that process, and that's the fun part, you know?
Anita:
Yeah. Yeah.
Rhonda:
So, Anita, I'd love to talk about Fire Monster, because, as you know, I'm very fond of that project. You guys worked on it for a long time. So, tell us a little bit about it, for anyone who doesn't know about it. 'Cause it's a rare bird. Like, not many of these things exist in the world.
Anita:
Well, I don't think anything exactly like this exists.
Rhonda:
The graphic novel in verse.
Anita:
We call it either graphic novel in verse, or the other term we came up with was “poetry comic book.”
Rhonda:
I like that.
Anita:
This started with a little suite of poems. I started writing some poems related to a wildfire that swept through the village in Cape Breton where my dad grew up in 1976. And he wasn't living there anymore. We were living in southern Ontario, and his parents' house burned down in the fire, along with like 16 or 17 other homes in the village and the church, which was like a hundred years old. It was a big deal. I was four years old, my parents left us with my aunt on my mother's side in Ontario, and went to Nova Scotia to be with the family during this crisis. And this fire and the aftermath of this fire kind of followed me through my life, even though I wasn't living there.
We would always hear stories about what happened. Of course, as a very young child, I think I was marked by the knowledge that this could happen, that a fire could come through the woods and burn your house down for real, not just in a storybook, but this could really happen. For some reason, some 40 odd years later, maybe not quite that, almost like thirty-five years later maybe, I started writing poems.
And Pauline Conley, who's the artist, who is basically the genius behind the book, she and I had worked together at Arc Poetry Magazine. She was our managing editor there for a long time, and she's also a visual artist. We had both recently stopped working at Arc and missed working together, and she was also looking to kind of kickstart her art practice in a different direction.
So I said, “well, I've been writing these poems about this fire, and maybe you wanna do something with them, or have a look and see what you think.” And we had also, when we were at Arc, done things like, every issue, we would take a piece of art inspired by one of the poems that was gonna go on the magazine, and we'd put the artwork on one side of a postcard and the poem on the other, and it would be like an insert in the magazine. We, I remember, were galvanised by this idea of meshing and crossing over between disciplines and seeing what would happen.
So Pauline jumped on the idea of doing something with these poems. And at first we thought some art, similar to the art card, you know, but very quickly it turned into something different. And themes came up that we both found interesting, and Pauline also became interested in something because there's lots of voices in the poems. I think she became interested in people talking and turning it into comic strips. And that led us to the idea of narrative. And that led us to a 10 year project that became Fire Monster.
Rhonda:
Amazing. Amazing.
Anita:
Which also has songs in it <laugh>, and it's all fiction. The facts about the fire are real, and a lot of the lingering stories and rumours about the fire are things I've heard and been told, but all the characters in the book are fiction. And the actual plotline of our book is fiction.
Rhonda:
And can you say something about, I mean, it's such a heavily collaborative project, right? Like, you would do something and then she would push it, and then she'd do something and you would push it. What was that process of engaging so deeply with someone on your own poetry?
Anita:
It was really interesting because once the idea of a story unfolding began, sometimes we would think,” okay, well we need a poem for this character when they're in this situation.” And we would talk about it, and then I would go away and write the poem, and then I would send it to Pauline and she would sort of mock-up potential artwork to go with it. She would start with a script, just like, there are these frames that go with these lines, and this is what's happening in them. And very quickly she started doing this thing where she wasn't just responding to what was overtly in the line in the words themselves, but kind of adding plot elements through the images.
She would say to me, “well, what if she's doing this while that's going on in the poem?” And that's fantastic. That's great. And so suddenly it's layering different things, and you're getting part of the story through text and part of the story through image.
This is not illustration. This is not artwork illustrating poems. This is the two things telling a story together in tandem. And each thing is giving you different layers of information. That would happen in reverse, as well. Like, sometimes I would put things in poems that then became part of the plot that we hadn't anticipated, because things happen while you're working, right? So we were both kind of following our instincts, and often as not those instincts led somewhere useful, and every now and then it didn't, and we would go, “no, no, no, that doesn't make sense. We can't have so-and-so doing that, or so-and-so saying that, so-and-so wouldn't,” you know, Pauline would say, “he wouldn't say that 'cause he's like this.” I'd be like, “yeah, I guess you're right <laugh>.”
We each also had our own relationships with the characters, which was interesting, and our own ideas of who they were. And that had to come together as well. It was really interesting. It was always unexpected things happening, and in a different way than what happens when you sit down yourself to write. Unexpected things happen then, too, but different kinds of things because they're coming out of your own head. So, when someone else's head is involved, it's like, “oh, I never thought of that. Or that. Wow, yeah.”
Rhonda:
So the book is out in the world now. Were you surprised by the object? What was the experience of—I know how a standard book where you're working on it yourself and you get the cover and then it's being printed, and then you unbox it and there it is, but here's something that was yours and someone else's. How did that feel, to unbox that book?
Anita:
I don’t know. It has the same sort of strange feeling that I've had with other books, which is, by the time the box of books arrives at your house, you are so intimate with this, and you've spent so much time going through it page by page, and in this case, on screen and on paper—I have to proof things on paper or I miss things. But printing these pages on my home office printer really didn't do them justice.
I was also looking at it on the screen a lot. But we have been working on this for so long, and we were so close to completion for so long that it just felt like, “okay, here it is. This is what we made. Here it is now, an actual physical object that you can pick up and open and hold.” But it wasn't all that different from how it would feel with a book that…
Rhonda:
Where you were the only author.
Anita:
Yeah. Except that, I right away got in touch with Pauline when my books arrived <laugh> to see if she had hers yet, you know? <Laugh>
Rhonda:
Yeah, yeah. <laugh>. So you get to do some fun parts together.
Anita:
Yeah.
Rhonda:
Let's talk about Best Canadian Poetry. So, Best Canadian Poetry is an anthology that's culled from all of the poems that are published in magazines in Canada throughout the year. And I love it. I get my copy every year. And there's a sense of, I don't know, I'm gonna say like, canon-making, right? Like, of all the poems, these are the ones that yourself and another editor feel should be collected and anthologized in this way, and it's got that tag “best” on it. So we're kind of in that space. How do you feel about that? What kind of thinking do you bring to that? And, do you ever have conversations with poets who, whether they're in it this year, previous years, whatever, that kind of reference that idea, or am I the only person that ever thinks of that <laugh>?
Anita:
No. Many people think of it. We have a different guest editor, who I would work with each year. And they all have different feelings and ideas about the idea of “best.” Some of them write about that in their introductions. Some of them don't like the word best.
Rhonda:
Oh, I love John Barton's essay this year, this past year. So good.
Anita:
I mean, it's an interesting question. Obviously, a different editor would pick different best poems, which is exactly why we have a different person do this every year. And if you called it something else, an annual survey of memorable Canadian poems or whatever, the problem wouldn't go away. It's still, whether you use the word best or something else, it's still a selection of poems that an editor believes we should hang onto from this year, and we should look at again, and, they may seem to have staying power at this moment in time. And so part of the idea of having a different person do that every year is that you're just shifting the gaze.
And so there's a different perspective being had, and there's obviously chance involved because if John Barton was editor this year, and Bardia Sinaee, who’s editor this year, was editor last year, each of those anthologies would look different than they do based on the sensibilities of each of those editors.
The comfort I find in the way this series is designed is that over time, when you bring in all these different eyes on contemporary Canadian poets, you're getting a fairly full picture. It's not perfect , but I think it's pretty good <laugh>. I think it's pretty broad. I think the editors really take the task to heart and are very careful with their selections. And so at the basic level, you know that these poems have been deeply, deeply considered, by the guest editor, by myself, sometimes by other editors who sat down with us when we were discussing.
So, you know, there were a couple years where I had someone else working with me. There were several years where I was assistant series editor with Molly Peacock, who was series editor. There were three of us going through the long list every year. It's not a slapdash process at all. And that doesn't mean really good poems aren't missed. But something Molly and I used to talk about was, if there's somebody who's really good poem was missed this year, that's a really fine poet, and they're gonna come up at some point, right? Under the eye of a different editor, in a different year, that poem's gonna wind up in the end-all, or something by that poet will wind up in the anthology.
Over time, you're getting a pretty good picture. And the other thing that is happening that's interesting, I think, is because it happens every year, you're also getting this shift in what poets’ concerns are, and the way they're engaging with their craft. In the years that I've been involved in the anthology, I've seen that change. I've seen what editors at magazines are interested in publishing. I've seen that evolve. And it's really interesting. It's not a perfect record, but it's a record that does tell some stories about Canadian poetry, what's happening there, what's going on. And because the survey is so broad, I have faith in it, and because the editors who are willing to take it on are people who care so much about the craft, I have faith in that as well.
And because part of my role is to move around who those editors are in terms of what the kind of sensibility they're bringing, their idea of poetry to the actual geographic space they occupy in the country, which also has an impact on their concerns and what interests them and what catches their eye, and all these different…
So, it's my job to make sure the perspectives shift, and that we bring in someone who is passionate about doing this work. And then they do the work, they do the reading, and they come back with a long list of their favourite poems from the year, and then we tackle that together. And then in that process, what I bring is a longer view of what's been in the anthology over the years, where we might wanna make room for a new voice because this poet's appeared quite a lot, and we'll probably turn up yet again <laugh>, and this poem we love just as much as this poem, and we have room for one. So there's considerations that I bring to the table just because I am the stability, if that makes any sense.
Rhonda:
Interesting. No, it does. And a lot of what you've said echoes kind of why I come to it as a reader all the time, you know, it's that new perspective.
Anita:
As a reader, the things I love about it are the introductions. I mean the poems, obviously, but the fact that we ask the editors to write an introduction, and the fact that we ask the poets to share whatever words they want about their poem. And so sometimes you get these really awesome glimpses into their process, like what led them to write this poem or how they pieced it together, and you find that some poets think really carefully about their form and what they're trying to accomplish in a way that, for example, I don't. In the early stage of writing, I follow my nose and I bring that stuff in later. But some people start with the idea, and you see all that in the back pages of Best Canadian Poetry.
Rhonda:
That's great. You're right. So, a final question, and I feel like <laugh>, you might be cursing me for this one 'cause it feels like it might be a harder one to answer, but let's take a stab at it. For years you were the editor at Arc Poetry Magazine, you shepherded and curated so much there. And then your work with Best Canadian Poetry, your own work as a poet, your work as a reader of poetry. Now, at this point in your life, do you feel like you know the difference between a good poem, and a poem that's almost good, or—
Anita:
I think I do.
Rhonda:
—Has a ways to go. What would you say the difference is? <Laugh>
Anita:
I think I know the difference when it's not my poem, but I don't—
Rhonda:
When it's not your poem <laugh>. There's something so sad about that, but I totally get that.
Anita:
It’s the outside eye. It's the reader's eye, it's the outside eye. But I don't know if I could articulate it.
Rhonda:
So, when it's not yours...
Anita:
Yeah. I don't know if I could articulate what the difference is, except that I think one thing that rings true for me as a reader, in terms of whether I think a poet is—how did you describe it, a good poem or almost good?
A good poem has surprised its writer, and you can feel that as the reader. That's something that I would stand by 100%. If I don't feel that something happened when this poem was being written, then it doesn't feel like it matters to read it again. Does that make sense?
Rhonda:
Right, yeah.
Anita:
Something had to happen. It had to take the poet somewhere different. And in doing that, when I'm reading it, it's taking me somewhere, and it might not be something I can articulate, but something's happening in there that wasn't predetermined, that wasn't part of the plan <laugh>.
Rhonda:
Right.
Anita:
And the poet not only let it happen, but figured out how to manage it. So they're bringing in the ability to let go with the ability to wield their tools as a craft person, as a poet. They're bringing those things into balance. It's not always easy to see when that's happening, but it's often when there's something in there that you don't quite understand, but you feel yourself wanting to, as a reader. It's like, “there's something here. What's going on?”
And also it's making, even if you can't explain what's going on, it's making you feel, it's acting on you. So there's that as well. A poem has to act on you in some way. And I mean physically or emotionally, mentally as well. Somehow the whole, but if it's just acting on me intellectually, then it's over. That's not enough to make me wanna go back to it.
Rhonda:
I hear what you're saying.
Anita:
And I know there are poetry readers out there for whom that's enough, and that's fair. That's not me as a reader. And I would argue those aren't the poems we're gonna be looking for in 40 years, 80 years, 120 years if we're still here. You read them, you figure them out, you're done, you move on. But the ones where it's like, “what's going on here? Why is this happening when I read this poem?” That's something that's touching somehow on the human condition, right?
Rhonda:
Absolutely. Wow. Well, let's leave it there. Thank you so much, Anita. And congrats on the books, both While Supplies Last and Fire Monster. They're so good. and just really encourage everyone to grab copies of those if you don't have them yet. Just enjoy them so much, and thanks for being here today.
Anita:
Thank you, Rhonda. This was really fun.
Outro:
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. Your ratings and reviews tell the podcast algorithm gods that “yes, this is a great show. Definitely recommend it to other writers.” And that will help us reach new listeners who might need a boost in their writing lives today as well. So please take a moment and leave a review. I'd really appreciate it, and I promise to read every single one. Thank you so much.
