The art of writing #68 : Carla Barkman

 

How did you first come to poems? What is it about the form that resonates?

I started writing poems with a friend in high school. We wanted to be Tennyson, Sylvia Plath, and Duran Duran. We wrote stream-of-consciousness, finished each others’ pieces, read aloud. Later, Natalie Goldberg’s books challenged me to write with abandon. Gradually, I’ve worked to form and craft what I dig up. Poems are little ethereal objects, enveloping significant moments. Lined up behind each other they can tell the story of a life.

How does a poem begin?

Usually sideways. I recall a dream or follow a writing prompt and words begin to spill onto the page. Eventually an idea might take shape, or a series of images emerges, and I discover what I am writing about. Sometimes it comes to nothing, but sometimes it is the beginning of a poem.

Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?

Writing is a hobby, albeit an important one. It has become part of my practice of self-care as I’ve gotten older, in the guise of narrative medicine particularly. I attend workshops and readings as a way of forcing myself into the groove. I have a medical career and two children so I have never been able to make it my number one priority, but I hope to do that in nine or ten years when I retire.

What are your favourite print or online literary journals?

There are so many good ones. Recent discoveries include Words Without Borders and Catapult. I found subTerrain magazine delightfully shocking at one time. In print, I like Literary Review of Canada and The NewYorker, if that can be considered literary. For narrative medicine, Intima and The Examined Life.

Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?

In no particular order: Erin Mouré, Anne Carson, Dorothy Wordsworth (yes, the sister), Randy Lundy, Billy-Rae Belcourt, and my writing group partners: Bernadette Wagner and Shayna Stock. Also, my son wrote a couple of poems this past year that absolutely thrilled me!

 

 

 

Carla Barkman is a family physician based out of Regina, Saskatchewan, currently practicing in the north. Her poetry has appeared in Vallum, Grain, NeWest Review, Contemporary Verse 2, prairie fire, Stanzas and other literary journals, and was included in the anthologies apart - a year of pandemic poetry and prose (Saskatchewan Writers Guild) and Line Dance (Burton Books). She recently completed a BA (English) at the University of Regina.

A selection of her poems appeared in the eighth issue.