How did you first come to poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
I came to poetry in early childhood—by way of a Mother Goose book that I carried around like a favourite blanket. I knew the rhymes by heart and reeled them off nonstop. “Who Killed Cock Robin?” was a showpiece and always commanded an audience. Mother Goose gave me a feeling for rhyme, rhythm, drama, musicality, the incantatory power of the word. I’ve always been a big reader—reading is requisite for writing—but for me, writing poetry in a disciplined, as opposed to an occasional way, came through music. At a critical point in my life, in the early ’90s, I was moved to compose pieces for the piano. Following an idiosyncratic personal method, I composed a sequence of thirteen minimalist—one might say Satie-like pieces: The Mem Compositions—and had them recorded. What was important at the time was the wordless outpouring of musical expression. Yet once the sequence was completed, curiously, I felt drawn to express myself in words, through poems, and have not composed any musical pieces since. I’ve long made it my practice to write daily—though on some days reading has to count for writing. Musicality—in terms of concern for rhythm, internal rhyme, cadence, and phrasing—remains integral to my poetry. Metre and syllabic count are so fundamental to me that I’ll choose a word for its rhythm and timbre over semantic fit. Music in poetry is one aspect that resonates with me deeply. But I also want to be surprised by inventive use of language, moved by feeling, transported by idea and the elegance of brevity.
How does a poem begin?
A poem can begin in any number of ways. A poem is a free spirit. It can be sparked by deep feeling, an odd thought, a challenge, an observation, a dream. It can be inspired by another poem, an inkling, an indication; I’m very alert to signs, signals, and indications that come unbidden through the ethers. A poem can even begin with a misreading, a translation, or mistranslation. In reading Hebrew especially, but also English, my eyes often bounce and I see words in reverse, or as anagrams. ‘Accidental derangements’ have a given rise to a number of exciting poetic beginnings and revelatory developments.
Do you see your writing as a single, extended project, or a series of threads that occasionally weave together to form something else?
I have recurring concerns that, in
retrospect, I see have morphed as they’ve looped across life’s phases. In this
sense, my writing may be viewed as a single, extended project. But each of my
poetry collections—I now have seven solo collections and an eighth forthcoming—has
evolved in its own way. My forthcoming collection is distinctive in that it
began with a title drawn from a key spoken line in one of the poems. The book
will not be released till late next year or early the following year, and some
of the poems are still evolving—I’m a constant reviser—yet all the poems in
some way evince the title, like facets.
How do you see your poetry and
cross-genre works in conversation, if at all?
My most recent work, Faithfully Seeking Franz (Guernica Editions, Fall 2023), is a cross-genre quest work that follows E. (myself) and my intrepid partner and foil, M., in search of traces of Prague modernist author Franz Kafka—in places he lived, work, vacationed, convalesced; where he died and where he was laid to rest. Most of the itinerary comprises creative nonfiction stories that weave travel narrative, biographical detail, commentary, and personal reflection: the fruit of almost fifteen years of fieldwork. There are eleven poems in the work as well, and a large selection of documentary photos. Kafka’s work, which I first read in my teens, has come right up through the centre of my own life and writing, has been, and still is, hugely connective.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
I write daily—not according to any fixed schedule. Notetaking, making, editing, revising. Creativity comes with discipline. If I waited for the Muse, I might never write a line. Many writers, Stephen King and Joan Didion included, have expressed the idea that they write in order to find out what they’re thinking,; they don’t know until they write it. I would add that the unfolding can’t be scheduled or scripted. There’s a revelatory process.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
The Paris Review is a longtime favourite, for its continuous excellence and mix. I also appreciate what rob mclennan is doing in showcasing diverse individual poems at DUSIE, what you are doing at talking about strawberries all of the time, Malcolm, what Lisa Young is doing at Juniper, and what Erin Bedford is doing at Pinhole Poetry. The 22 fabulous editions of the journal Galaxy Brain are still live online, though its brilliant creator, Michael Murray, succumbed to heart illness in March of this year.
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
I’m always excited by Anne Carson’s writing.
Her newest collection of unlinked poetic prose pieces, Wrong Norma, are quirky,
inventive, eminently clever. Apart from the ‘scrap-booky’ format of this work, it
reminds me of her first collection, Short Talks, which remains a
favourite. For upwards of twenty years, I’ve belonged to a writing group, the
Long Dash. We meet weekly (as time permits) to share and workshop our poems. Our
styles and concerns are divergent, but we tap the pleasure of cross-fertilization,
the tingle of surprise convergences. Four members of the group—John Oughton,
Clara Blackwood, Sheila Stewart, and Merle Nudelman—have new collections. It’s exciting
to read these poems, which I’ve seen through development, now bound in books.
Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes has a new collection in the pipes too, as does Kath
MacLean. And Brenda Clews, has a newly released Italian translation, Furis
delle maree of her 2016 collection, Tidal Fury. I just finished
writing a blurb for a new collection by Kingston poet Elizabeth Greene, No
Ordinary Days—a work that reads, to me, like accessible magic. There’s a
particular enjoyment in reading new works by friends. I’ve always got several
reads on the go. Lately, I’ve been rereading the extraordinary seven-book
sequence, Septology, by Norwegian Nobel Laureate, Jon Fosse. A slow,
stunning, recursive read. I just finished Yuko Ogawa’s newest, Mina’s
Matchbox—a charming, quick read. Rachel Cusk’s newest, Parade, is a
slower, much denser read (and I’m not a fan of the sans-serif typeface of her
recent Harper Perennial books). But I’ll read anything new by Cusk, like I’ll
read anything new by Olga Tokarczuk, Patrick Modiano, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Michael
Ondaatje, and Orhan Pamuk—living writers whose work I follow. What Cusk lacks
in warmth and plot, she makes up for in fierceness and ideas. Reading a book by
Cusk is like sharpening one’s teeth on words. I’m impatiently awaiting a new
collection by American poet, Mary Szybist, whose wrestling with transcendence
sustains me, and forever sad that there will be no new works by Louise Glück
and W. G. Sebald. Nor, of course, FK.
Elana Wolff lives and works in Thornhill, Ontario—the ancestral land of the Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat First Nations. Her writing is widely published in Canada and internationally and has garnered various awards. Her poems have most recently appeared (or will soon appear) in The Antigonish Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry 2024, DUSIE, FreeFall, Juniper, Qwerty Best-of Anthology, Pinhole Poetry, Prairie Fire, talking about strawberries all of the time, The /temz/ Review, Voices Israel Anthology 2024, and Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution. Elana’s cross-genre Kafka-quest work, Faithfully Seeking Franz (Guernica Editions, 2023), is the winner of the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Jewish Thought and Culture.
A selection of her poems appear in the twelfth issue.