How did you first come to poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
A fellow poet I love and admire, Maida Sosa-Velazquez, once said, “poetry is: peeling back the layers until you hit bone.”
To me, that’s what resonates most about this form. I first came to poetry when I was in my teens, then again in my twenties, and again now into my thirties. What started as a place to escape reality to, has become a place of truth and a way to understand (i.e., process) the world around me.
How does a poem begin?
It depends on the poem. With most pieces, it starts with an observation. A single line over here, a little note over there. My life is pretty chaotic so I try to slow down and move through it with deliberation, whenever I can. The lines I jot down, I later piece together.
With ekphrastic poems, however, the beginning is a little different. I land on an artist whose work speaks to me, and I proceed to dive into hours of research – about their work, conceptual drive, inspirations, and collaborations (if any). Based on these aspects, I locate a poetic structure that suits their work best; whether that is erasure, concrete, prose or metre, the poem will develop from there.
Between your solo and collaborative work, do you see your writing as a single, extended project, or a series of disconnected threads? How do you keep each form straight?
Everything is connected. The solo work informs the collaborative work, and the collaborative work shifts and shapes the solo work. My writing is, and will likely always be, a series of connected projects, in the way they speak to each other and/or build from one form to the next.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
Honestly, the latter. I do too much (lol) but that’s why I am deliberately trying to carve out time on Sundays to work on writing, or writing-related tasks.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
I
would be remiss to not plug the three journals I consider myself lucky to be editorially
involved with: Room magazine, long con magazine, and Bywords.ca.
All three are ground-breaking in their own right with Room being our oldest
feminist literary journal, long con being one of our best ekphrastic
ones, and Bywords.ca being the only one that specifically celebrates poets
of (and/or related to) the National Capital Region.
This said, other favourites of mine include Augur magazine, The Fiddlehead, untethered, CV2, The Shanghai Literary Review, sinθ magazine, revue PØST, Vallum Contemporary Poetry, The Forge Literary Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, The Paris Review, and The Capilano Review.
I say “include” deliberately because there are so many fantastic literary journals out there, Canthius and Arc Poetry Magazine for two. Dear Reader, go forth and find the ones that speak to you most.
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
Leanne
Betasamosake Simpson; Christina Brobby; Simina Banu.
Find them online @ehjchang and ehjchang.com.
Photography credit Curtis Perry © 2022
A selection of their poems appeared in the seventh issue.