How did you first come to poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
Like many writers, I’ve been writing since I could hold a pen and string words side-by-side. I remember being quite young lying in the fields where I grew up in Northern Staffordshire. I would spend hours lying on my back, staring at the sky dreaming about being a writer, of course back then I thought being a writer was being a novelist and I used to write lots of little stories, but it wasn’t until high school that I discovered my heart song was poetry. The epiphany came while studying the war poets, in particular Wilfred Owen. I fell in love with his use of alliteration, assonance and how he could put the simplest of words together to make such beautiful and haunting images. I loved (still do) his ability to capture a scene and fill it with sound and image. I fell in love with the way that everyday language, when written next to everyday language, could flow with rhythmic lyricism. I fell in love with how sometimes devastatingly, ugly or sad moments become beautiful. How so few words are needed to create an image, a scene, an emotion, as long as they are the perfect words. I love the way a poet’s language does this, how it clicks together with rhythm, emotion and depth. Since falling in love with poetry and I’ve been trying to write it ever since.
How did publishing your first book change your writing? What have the differences been since?
After my first book, The Marta Poems was published in 2020, my confidence in finding my place within the poetry community was boosted. In both the months before and after the publication, my poetry gained some traction and was getting noticed in some of Canada’s leading journals. Amongst which a suite from the collection had been long listed for Exile’s Gwendolyn MacEwan Award, five poems were published by ARC, a couple by Room and another by Grain. I think each of these feathers helped me see the value of my work. After the book came out, I not only received some favourable reviews, but I was also invited to several different book clubs to talk about the book and my process. The validation solidified my new-found confidence and since then writing and publishing poetry has become a reality of my daily existence rather than a maybe or a one day hope and dream.
How does a poem begin?
The best way for me to start a poem is to feel a poem, and the best way for me to feel it, is to see it. Putting myself into the moment and being able to act or walk through the scene, heightening my senses, helps to round out the picture and add the much-needed layers and depth, whether they be descriptive and concrete or more abstract and emotion-based.
My love for both photography and film has inadvertently spilled into my poetry and I wonder if these influences prompt my poetry to run through my mind as if it were a film reel.
I always begin by handwriting my work, the first revision happens when transcribing from journal to computer. The next step is to print out the page to see how it looks and then reading it for pace and line breaks. I usually share these early drafts with either one or both of the critique groups I belong to and then I tweak and tweak and tweak. Sometimes a poem magically appears in its finished form and takes very little revision, these are usually my favourite poems!
Do you see your work as a single, extended project, or a series of threads that occasionally weave together to form something else?
It’s interesting because my first collection, The Marta Poems was, what I would describe as, a narrative told in poetic verse, and therefore followed an arc. The poems appeared sequentially although they weren’t all written that way, but rather I wrote each piece as it came and then sewed them together.
The creation of all things small, my second collection was much more in line with a traditional collection, where the poems each had different themes, different styles, and in some cases different tones. There were, however, enough poems to flush out five distinct sections that worked together to create the whole and though, in some ways, each piece could stand alone, they seemed to be a small part of a bigger story. I am currently in the thick of writing my third full-length manuscript. I have tended to see this work as a collection from the onset rather than a smattering of poems that may hold together. Mind you having said that, the poems that I have already begun to share with the world are receiving a lot of positive attention as individual pieces.
I have also very much enjoyed writing a couple of chapbooks, The Birthday Party, The Mariachi Player and The Tourist and my latest publication from Anstruther Press, Alice In The City. The cool thing about both these chapbooks is that the events/poems take place over a 24 hour period and together tell a story – hmmmmm I guess while writing this interview I am discovering that I am a poet who tells stories or perhaps I am a story teller who writes poetry J
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in?
My days always start with my journal and my fountain pen. I start by journaling, recording daily happenings, making note of anything that is/was of interest. A moment, a word, a feel, a snippet that could possibly become the beginnings of a poem. After my journal session I usually go for a run, do a workout and percolate either what I have been working on or what could be new. On a good afternoon I spend hours in the zone, working on my poetry, usually editing and revising. At night I read from the stack of poetry books beside my bed.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
As far as print journals go, I love TNQ and ARC Magazine. I maybe a bit biased because they like my work. I do enjoy receiving journals in the mail and holding their glossy perfect bound pages in my hands. And of course, as far as online journals go, I’m a fan favourite of talking about strawberries all the time and also Ink, Sweat and Tears, which is out of the UK.
Who are some of the writers you have engaged with lately that most excite you?
I
am loving a lot of the younger writers working out of Ottawa. Margo LaPierre,
whose second collection, Ajar was published in 2025 and has been
shortlisted for The Ottawa Book Awards 2026. Manahil Bandukwala whose second
collection, Heliotropia, won multiple awards in 2024. Ellen
Chang-Richardson whose follow up collection to Blood Belies, comes out
next year and I’m very much looking forward to Conyer Clayton’s latest
offering, the lake-shaped excuse, which comes out this month. These writers all
have a vibrant, powerful, authentic energy full of fresh imagery and unique
turns of phrase to their writing.
Susan J. Atkinson is an award-winning poet and the author of two full length collections, The Marta Poems (2020) and all things small (2024) both published by Silver Bow Publishing. Her most recent publication is a chapbook, Alice In The City, published by Anstruther Press in 2025. Originally from Northern Staffordshire, England, Atkinson now makes her home in Ottawa, Ontario. Her work has appeared widely in journals, anthologies and online. To find out more visit www.susanjatkinson.com
Atkinson has work in the sixteenth issue.