Monty Reid : coda

How important is music to your poetry?

Crucial.  All poems have their music, sometimes subtle, sometimes brash, and the cadence, tonal shifts, line breaks, etc all contribute to the propulsion of the poem.  And you do want it to move. 

Monty Reid : part five

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?

My fallback reading these days is Anne Carson, Auden’s ‘In Praise of Limestone’ and the William Carlos Williams of ‘Asphodel That Greeny Flower.’

Monty Reid : part four

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

I read a lot of poetry, at least 200 books each year.  Sometimes they engage me deeply, sometimes it’s just a quick scan. Partly it’s my job with VerseFest, where I’ve been largely responsible for the programming for the past few years.  Most of those books are Canadian, but I’ve been reading quite a bit of work in translation as well, and that’s some of the work that moves/provokes me the most these days. I also curate the translation feature in Arc Poetry Magazine and I’m really proud of the range of material we’ve been able to attract.  I also read genre fiction (mostly spy novels) and non-fiction (history, biography, theory, etc). As a result, I’ve had to abandon literary fiction, which remains a serious gap in my reading. 

Some of the work I’ve enjoyed over the past little while are Ursula Andkjaer Olsen’s Third-Millenium Heart (tr. Katrine Ogaard Jensen), Alice Oswald’s Nobody, Forrest Gander’s new material, Bhanu Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart, and the Martinique poet Monchoachi.

Canadian books I’ve enjoyed recently include Donna Kane’s Orrery, Rob Winger’s It Doesn’t Matter What We Meant, Lillian Necakov’s il virus, Debris du Sillage from Gilles Latour (although my French is um, somewhat imprecise) the brand new Masses on Radar, by my Ottawa colleague David O’Meara, and some old work from Anneharte Baker.

Monty Reid : part three

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

The writing part.

Monty Reid : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

I’m afraid I don’t know. They never seem finished to me, but part of that ongoing conversation/argument you have with yourself.  Sometimes you just have to shut up and let them talk.

Monty Reid : part one

Monty Reid is a poet based in Ottawa. His books include Garden (Chaudiere), The Luskville Reductions (Brick) and Crawlspace (Anansi) as well as recent chapbooks from above/ground press, corrupt press, postghost press and others.  Segments from his current project, The Lockdown Elegies, have appeared in The Quarantine Review, Train, Noon, Guest and other journals in print and online.  He is a contributing editor for Arc Poetry Magazine and the Director of VerseFest, Ottawa's international poetry festival. 

What are you working on?

As usual, I have a few projects on the go.  There are several book-length mss getting some touch-ups after their latest round of rejections - a lengthy book on espionage, since CSIS lives just across the street from me, with the usual themes of in/visibility, secrets and betrayals, and a book on parasites, which many poets seem to find profoundly distasteful as actual organisms but charming as metaphor.  And my squeaky little non-parasitical collection of Lockdown Elegies is nearing completion and getting some airplay currently.  And there’s a mistranslation of Nicolas Guillen’s El Gran Zoo still getting its annual upgrade. Plus unrelated poems now and then, songs occasionally, lots of gardening, and putting together the program for VerseFest2021.