Trillium Book Award Author Readings June 16

rob mclennan's 12 or 20 Questions, with Claudia Coutu Radmore

 
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By rob mclennan

Claudia Coutu Radmore’s lyric and Japanese-form poetry has been published in CV2, The Bywords Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, Paperplates.org, Gusts and Grain among other Canadian publications, as well as internationally. Her work was included in the recent collections, 2008, 2009, 2010 of Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka (worldwide), Pith & Wry, (2010), Carpe Diem (2008) and Rogue Stimulus: the Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology, (2010). Her recent collections are Your Hands Discover Me/ Tes mains me découvrent (Éditions du tanka francophone, Montreal, 2010), a minute or two/ without remembering (Two Cultures Press, 2010) and Accidentals (Apt. 9 Press, Ottawa, 2011). She is on the editorial boards of Arc Magazine, The Bywords Quarterly Journal and Gusts, Canada’s Tanka journal. Claudia is the managing editor of Tree Press (new press under the Tree Reading Series) and owner/editor of Bondi Studios Press. See other aspects of her publication, literary and art projects on the website: claudiacouturadmore.ca

rob mclennan:

How did your first book change your life?

Claudia Coutu Radmore:

My first book published in Canada was Arctic Twilight, the edited letters of a Hudson’s Bay Post Manager and a friend of mine. That was a long-term project, 17 years from beginning to end. It was a relief, and a debt paid to my friend’s magical writing skills and his fund of historical material and his storytelling.

The first poetry book, Your Hands Discover Me / Tes mains me découvrent, a sequence of erotic tanka, validated my work in that poetic form. It just felt damn good to be out in the so-called ‘real’ poetry world as concerns poetry publication. It made me want to see publication of my work in lyric poetry also, whatever lyric poetry means. To me it led to forging ahead to have another long-term project published; a minute or two/ without remembering took only about 14 years beginning to end. When that happened thanks to Two Cultures Press in North Bay, it was time to go ahead and be inventive, be risky, see what I could do.

rm:

How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

CCR:

My most recent poems are what I call crazy poems. They seldom tell coherent stories, though some do. They are juxtapositions that come from my notes, relying greatly on the chaos theory. Their roots are in the Japanese form of renga. I recently completed with Grant Savage, a series of 500 linked tan renga which may or may not ever get published though we had a great deal of fun writing them. In linked poetry you bounce off your partner(s), linking your sections of poem, but also shifting the next verse so it shoots off somewhere else, hopefully in a surprising direction. I started by taking a lot of my own verses from that collaboration and put them together in different ways, in the spirit of everything being connected one way or another.

rm:

How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

CCR:

It’s no accident that my latest chapbook is called Accidentals. I got sucked in. (One definition of accidentals: small animals that get sucked into the mouth of a cave.) Most things in my writing history cave have happened accidentally. I thought I was going to write a novel, but when I started that process by keeping a journal, I saw that parts of what I wrote the first year looked like poems. That happened more or less subconsciously, but it made me consider why that had happened and led to my wanting to do more of that compression, more tightening up of words and ideas. Up to then, as I had no background in literature, (my degree is in Fine Arts), it was as if I had no right to write poems. That was for people who knew how to do it. I’m way behind all of you who have been involved with the literary scene since you were young. I don’t feel that way any more.

rm:

How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

CCR:

I write all the time, and about anything. It begins with being uncomfortable, psychologically, even physically. I get edgy. Something has to pop. Some ideas hover for years. Some poems have to get out, whether good or bad. That was the joy of self-publishing. Doing Ode to a Rubber Duck; An Explanation of the Whole World was a blast. I still get a charge out of reading those poems, explaining how they came about. I still like the germs of ideas in those poems. Again, that was a long-term project, collecting poems without thinking about a collection until it existed.
My slowness is in editing. I will edit a poem a lot, think about it over extended periods. A poem might change very little. At other times it will take a wide swing and go where I never expected it to go. I do keep copious lists of things that interest me. Sometimes just reading that list will spark exactly what I need in a poem.

rm:

Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

CCR:

I’m not telling too many stories these days, at least not unless something I’ve spotted in my aforesaid copious notes gets me going on a story or into a new voice that seems to have something specific to say. At present, the lists are prodding me into poems I didn’t expect to write. Having said that, my lists have got me going lately on some longer quieter, more thoughtful poems based on my growing up. Even those poems get started because of some weird notations that I’ve scribbled on scraps of paper, notes that get retranslated when I can’t read my own handwriting. I don’t think in terms of a manuscript or book until I have so many poems that they sort themselves into species that might become manuscripts for books.

rm:

Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

CCR:

I love doing readings. Maybe it’s just hearing my own voice. I love microphones. A bit of a show-off lies beneath this exterior. Ever since I had the lead part of choirboy in the grade five Christmas production, "The Story of Silent Night." I enjoy reactions. It doesn’t take much to make the situation satisfying. The look on someone’s face, a question, a show of interest. Readings do show whether you’ve done your homework. If the poem doesn’t come through at the mic, if you’re stumbling or the rhythm is off, it’s time to take the poem back and work on it again. If I’m satisfied that a reading went well, then I’m pumped and primed for more, more writing, more readings, more time spent with other writers, more critical comments.

rm:

Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

CCR:

My concerns are about keeping up with what’s going on in the world of poetry at the moment, Canadian poetry and international. There isn’t enough time to do all the reading, and there isn’t the money to buy all the books, the magazines. There’s a lot online, the online journals like Jacket, Jacket 2 and Ditchpoetry. Questions like "what is life all about/ what is death all about" are unanswerable, and thought can get wandery and vague on subjects like that; I’m concerned with the environment and the evils/ ills of the world, but it’s not my place as a poet to hammer heads with what little thoughts are in my own head. Poets don’t know any more than anyone else; few have extraordinary insights. What I can do is slip concerns into poems so they hit subliminally. Every once in a while I say it outright. Not often. I like poems that sit in corners and think about things before they go anywhere.

rm:

What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

CCR:

A writer just has to be, nothing else. A writer’s role is like many others; you do what you have to do, and hopefully you have a passion for what you’re doing. It’s true that some poets can affect their environments or social situation. That’s not always to the good; it scares me more than anything.

rm:

Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

CCR:

I like input from an editor or from writing peers. I like having it right up there, analyzing from another point of view how elastic I am, or can be or want to be, how open I can be, finding where/when I want to pull back, argue a point or work with an experienced critic’s insight. Sometime I might not like the emerging picture; that’s good too.

rm:

What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

CCR:

I think the best advice is what I told a group of teenaged girls who were in a special school, kids who had been in trouble with police or been abused or are on the streets. When I left them I said that whenever they see a great pair of boots, they should do what it takes to buy them. The best advice on poetry was to read, read, read and to realize that understanding means different things to different people.

rm:

How easy has it been for you to move between forms (lyric to haiku)? What do you see as the appeal?

CCR:

I got into haiku accidentally, (is anyone surprised?), because I thought its disciplines would be useful in lyric poetry. Then I found out that the disciplines concerning haiku were many and varied, and each contradicted the other. But I enjoyed figuring my way out of those mazes, or rather, puddling around inside them. It does teach you how every word can count, even the choice of an article can make a difference. It teaches to prune, cull, consider the value of a line. Haiku is a form to use when it’s the form to use. The big, or the small questions, you might say, require responses in various forms. Experience in one genre is a help in any of the others.

rm:

What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

CCR:

I’m not too disciplined except when I’m disciplined. I don’t have a specific daily writing routine, but might spend six hours writing to the exclusion of everything else. The parrot squawks for attention, the lights are off all over the house, and I "wake up" to the fact that I should pay attention to some other aspects of the day. The beginnings of my days are too mundane to talk about. It takes a while to get going. I’m lazy in the morning.

rm:

When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

CCR:

I usually turn to my notes, my lists, some project I’m working on. There’s a series about my parents, some prose about my family that I’m writing for my son, or I read a mystery novel, something about what’s going on in the world of science. Sometimes I go back and edit. That’s good for a few hours. Not to mention what’s going on in the world of the Yahoo home page, what the "stars" are wearing or doing, pick a set of words out of a dictionary, what’s happening in the world, weird or interesting and so forth. Today the news is that the Arizona legislature has passed a bill to make the Colt Single Action Revolver an emblem of that state. It gets you thinking.

rm:

What was your last Hallowe'en costume?

CCR:

Madame Pirate of the Carribean….

rm:

David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

CCR:

Yes, all of the above, add research to that. The Montreal Gazette from 1790 is a great source for all kinds of ideas. A stack of newspapers from the '60s. Mystery novels are good. I came back from Australia with a new passion, the crime novels of Peter Temple; they that give me both a great look at Melbourne society and a whole new vocabulary. Photographs as records. What else will I do with 300 photos of the bark on Australian trees.

rm:

What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

CCR:

Our library in Carleton Place is small, and without financial funding from bigger centers. They buy books somewhat randomly. And I choose randomly, in and out of the library with about eight books in about five minutes. If by luck, they have a Vasanji or Atwood, I’ll read that. But a mystery novel by Reginald Hill is writing as good as it gets, so I’m not focussed on reading the "greats." Trying to figure out what makes certain poets write poetry, why it’s considered great. Karen Solie. Neruda. Tim Thorne on political poetry.

rm:

What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

CCR:

I’d like to get a PhD one day, and I’d love to be able to afford to go to Banff for a Writers’ Workshop. I hope I haven’t written my best poetry yet, and I’d like to work towards that. Spending a month or two in Italy, (Tuscany would do it), or roaming southern England would be fine too.

rm:

If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

CCR:

I worked in education for many years. I was good at it, and loved it. The questions get answered backwards then. I came close to giving everything up for Art. I’ve found that I love research; an academic’s life might be okay. Historian.
Photographer. Nothing that requires physical skills or co-ordination, and nothing that requires bravery. I can’t see myself surfing the big waves, for example. Or looking as muscular and/or as cute as Serena Williams. Ever.

rm:

What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

CCR:

I was driven to it. Nothing else makes me feel this good. Well, almost nothing else.

rm:

What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

CCR:

I’m not sure about it being a great "book" in the general sense of the word, but I’ve spent quality time with Jorie Graham’s Never and John Tranter’s Starlight: 150 poems, as well as essays about his work in The Salt Companion to John Tranter.
Again, I don’t know if these two qualify as "great" films, but Basquiat (Life of NY artist Jean-Michel Basquiat) and The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine, the work of Louise Bourgeois, mother of the Maman spider guarding the National Art Gallery, were both fascinating.

rm:

What are you currently working on?

CCR:

Grant Savage and I are editing the final manuscript of those 500 tan renga. We are finishing up a 36 verse renga with Sandra Stevenson. As editor, I’m putting this year’s Haiku Canada Anthology to bed, as well as a new surprise project coming out from Tree Press, with me as editor and managing editor. I also design the books, and create the covers and graphics for them. I’m keeping up with one of those online prompt websites, writing a poem a day for Poetry Month. I’m in the process of judging the Drevniok Award, Haiku Canada’s annual contest, and preparing a workshop on Visual Haiku for the Haiku conference being held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, over the Victoria Day weekend. I have been adding to the "crazy" poems series; there’s no end, it seems, to the craziness I can come up with. And I am, slowly but surely, working on that novel. Another long, long-term project.

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