How did you first come to poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
I can’t recall the first poem I read that threw me into poetry, but I suspect it was probably a piece by someone like Shel Silverstein. I remember the grip his poem, “Almost Perfect” had on me. The rhyme and rhythm is playful and absorbing and then there’s also a message that was impossible for me to ignore. The piece is about a neurotic perfectionist, Mary Hume, who we first meet in the poem as a seven-year-old and follow through to adulthood and to older age. Her desire to have everything her way results in her being alone, and then there’s the last line…which really drills home a truth: none of us are perfect, but being able to recognize the perceived shortcomings of others and our own weaknesses is necessary. I was a kid who would write over the messy penmanship (pen-person-ship?) of my friends in the birthday cards they gave to me. I couldn’t breathe if my room was not clean. I would have full-on meltdowns when my family members left messes. I’m not saying that this poem changed me immediately, but it offered a counter balance to my frantic mind and reciting it would help me calm down.
I began writing poetry for much the same reasons as I recited it: to help me make sense of my world. And if I couldn’t make sense of it — because I don’t think it’s poetry’s job to provide answers, and in fact, a lot of my favourite poems simply pose important questions — to at least help me feel less alone. Because poetry does not demand answers I think it appeals to me. I live with existential OCD, which is a kind of neurodivergence that focuses detrimentally on questions of existence and morality and time. And you really can’t outthink this line of obsession. When it comes to why we are here, how long we are here, and where we ultimately go, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Many dark nights of the soul. Poetry provides a certain meditative calm in the chaos; a way to grapple with these questions without having to answer them. More directly than many other art forms, I believe poetry allows us to tap into the nature of our existence by transgressing the limits of language.
How does a poem begin?
Unlike when I write prose, which might begin with a character slowly coming into focus or a story, my poetry begins with a feeling. A swelling at the back of my chest. If I pay attention to that feeling, I can usually tease out what it’s trying to tell me.
How did publishing your first book change your writing? What have the differences been since?
My first book was a memoir, Fuse, which explored the documented prevalence of eating disorders in biracial women, among other tangentially related things. I’d like to think I was pretty realistic before that book was published but publishing a book that was so deeply personal humbled me further. I am not saying that the book did not do well because I think that it did. It won a 2023 Canadian Book Club award. It has had multiple reviews and printings, and is currently being taught in universities. But I don’t think I realized how much work I, as an author, would have to do to get the book out there. And I did not understand how people would form relationships with the book that had nothing to do with me, and how some of these people would conflate me and the book. Suffice it to say I had to involve law enforcement.
I realize this answer isn’t so much about my writing as my thinking about a book after it is written, though. How it affected my writing was that it reinforced that I should write what I love and write uncompromisingly of what interests me because I am going to need to be prepared to be devoted to it, long after it is published.
Between poetry and fiction, do you see your writing as a single, extended project, or a series of disconnected threads? How do you keep the genres straight?
I see it as a single extended project. I consider myself a poet before anything else because that poetic impulse to get right into the icky, sticky, wonderous ether of the universe is always what drives me. And I’m not a very plot driven prose writer. Still, any given piece will automatically lend itself more to poetry or prose, and within prose, fiction or nonfiction. It’s a decision that’s often made in a split second, unconsciously. For instance, I’m working on a poem now about the first time I was offered the senior discount. I’m in my mid-forties. I knew immediately that experience would be a poem: the way the moment shattered around me as I was living it and fragmented into dozens of different feelings and memories. It felt starburst huge, but also on a cosmic level, so insignificant. Perhaps it speaks to my limitations as a writer that I cannot imagine a story or personal essay being able to hold so much in such a small space, and that’s what the experience felt like: massive and infinitesimal. That’s poetry.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
I don’t really have a daily schedule for writing. I fit it in when and where I can. Sometimes I may not finish anything concrete for months and sometimes I finish something every week. Deadlines also keep me focussed so if I’m working because I need to have something finished for a grant or if I’ve signed a contract with the publisher, then I will be regimented about blocking off entire days for writing. But when I don’t have this kind of pressure driving me, I tend to be fairly relaxed. I’ll jot down lines or ideas in notebooks and when the burden of all those lines and ideas becomes too much — when my cup starts to spill over — I’ll deal with them. I’ll complete the poem or story or write a first chapter or finish an essay.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
Present company excluded, l love long con magazine, The New Quarterly, Grain, The Literary Review of Canada, Room, The Fiddlehead, Plentitude, and The Malahat Review. I’m sure I’m forgetting some and I’m going to kick myself later.
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
Patrick Rothfuss. I feel like everybody but me knew
about him and I only read his book, The Name of the Wind, relatively
recently. Now, I am immersed in the almost one thousand page sequel. There is
something about his writing that feels like home. It opens the world I believed
in as a child and reminds me of why I fell in love with reading. I also read
and loved Whitney French‘s novel-in-verse Syncopation. Armand Garnet
Ruffo’s The Dialogues is one of my top recommendations of all time.
Beautiful. I just finished Brandi Bird’s new collection of poetry, Pitiful,
which was face-meltingly good. Whenever I want historical fiction, I turn to
Lucy E.M. Black. Her newest book, A Quilting of Scars, is set in rural
Ontario and was unforgettable. I also adore Gothic literature and have really
loved Lindsay Wong’s Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies and
Brit Griffin’s The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien. Short stories: Alison
Gadsby’s Breathing is How Some People Stay Alive and Jaclyn Desforges Weird
Babies are both excellent. Nonfiction: Andrea Gunraj’s Go-Between-Girl:
My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present, blew me away. I could go on, but
I will stop here and limit myself to books I’ve read or revisited very
recently.
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Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, is due out with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Regional Chair of the League of Canadian Poets and a co-chair of the League’s BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.