An interview with Catherine Graham

Catherine Graham is a Toronto-based poet and novelist. Among her six poetry collections The Celery Forest was named a CBC Best Book of the Year, appears on CBC Books Ultimate Canadian Poetry List and was a finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Michael Longley praised it as “a work of great fortitude and invention, full of jewel-like moments and dark gnomic utterance.” Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Award for Poetry and her debut novel Quarry won an Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for Fiction, “The Very Best!” Book Awards for Best Fiction and was a finalist for the Fred Kerner Book Award. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award at the University of Toronto SCS and was also winner of the TIFA’s Poetry NOW competition. Her work is anthologized internationally and she has appeared on CBC Radio One’s The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers. Visit her at www.catherinegraham.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @catgrahampoet

How did you begin writing, and what keeps you going?

The loss of my parents turned me to the writing life. My mother died on Christmas Day during my first year at university and my father, the September of my last year. Introverted, shy and overwhelmed with sadness, I was consumed with grief. A worried family friend suggested I see a therapist. The therapist suggested I keep a journal to “write out my feelings.” Journaling provided some sense of relief, an outlet for the confusion, anguish and guilt that accompanies loss, but it wasn’t a cure.

One day I started playing with words—memories of my parents, images of the limestone water-filled quarry we grew up beside. This engagement with language, so different from journaling, was energizing and exciting, it led to discovery and surprise. Although I was writing about sad things I was absorbed so deeply time disappeared. When I worked up the courage to show that same family friend, she told me I was writing poetry. I knew what poems were of course, but to my mind poetry was written by old men with white beards, not young women steeped in grief. From that point on I wanted to know as much as possible about the art and craft of poetry. This took me to Northern Ireland where I completed an MA in creative writing in poetry. What keeps me going as a writer is the act of poiesis—making—when the outside world disappears and I’m immersed in language and the imagination.  

What poets have influenced the ways in which you write?

Influence is something I can’t say I’m completely conscious of as a writer. I began my poetry journey in Northern Ireland so poets from both the North and South have impacted me: Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, Joan Newmann, Paula Meehan, Louis MacNeice to name just some, plus UK and American poets. Only when I returned to live in Canada did I start connecting with the work of Canadian poets on a deeper level.

Have you noticed a difference in the ways in which you approach the individual poem, now that you’ve published a handful of books?

The blank page is still the blank page. Facing the unknown through the twitch of a line or image encased in music never goes away. Having published six collections of poetry, I’m (somewhat!) better at trusting the process, the leap of faith creativity demands.  

How important is mentorship been to your work? Is there anyone who specifically assisted your development as a writer?

Looking back I never had that English teacher to connect me with what seems so obvious now, the love of poetry. As mentioned earlier, loss led me to what language can do in such a condensed rhythmic form.

My journey as a published poet began in Northern Ireland. My first chapbook The Watch received positive reviews in Poetry Ireland Review, Books Ireland and led to my inclusion in The White Page / An Bhileog Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets and The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol IV & V, truly an honour. When I returned to Canada I knew no poets or writers. Eventually I made my way into Toronto (from Burlington where I was living at the time) to a reading series created by Paul Vermeersch: The IV Lounge Reading Series. On instinct I asked Paul if he might have a look at the manuscript I was working on, my first full collection. He kindly said yes. A week or so later we met at Kilgour’s on Bloor Street. Page by page we went through the poems chatting collaboratively about what worked, what didn’t, what needed work, etc. When finished, Paul looked at me and said, “You know, I’d like to publish this.” Until that moment I had no idea he was the poetry editor of Insomniac Press. Five collections later, our relationship continues. Paul is now Senior Editor at Wolsak and Wynn with the imprint Buckrider Books. I am eternally grateful for Paul’s continued belief in my poetry.

You published your first novel in 2017. What is the difference between working on poems to working on fiction? Are you able to work on both poetry and fiction concurrently?

Quarry was published the spring of 2017 with Two Wolves Press. There were things I couldn’t do in poetry that I realized could only be done in fiction. That’s what led me to the form. The first draft of Quarry actually began with poems. I wrote prose passages between them, linking the narrative, to find my way into the story. Looking back the poems were like training wheels. I needed them to start. Then, once my skillset was strong enough with what fiction requires—character, dialogue, plot, setting, and so on—I took them away.

I’m able to work on both forms with prolonged chunks of time. For example, if I work on poetry in the morning, I can work on prose in the afternoon or vice versa.

Can you name a poet you think should be receiving more attention?

All poets should receive more attention, the dead and the living. There is so much to gain from reading poetry—engagement with language, mystery, ambiguity, emotion, thought, musicality, imagery, humour, madness, beauty—the rewards are endless. There are so many poems out there waiting for readers to find them. It’s the intimacy of the form I love most, the one-on-one experience—soul-to-soul, dare I say, in this mass-marketed, consumer-driven world.

Poems have the ability to rip your heart out with their word-force and aural energy then put it back in before you know what happened. They can take you out of yourself, give you a fantastic buzz, and leave you without any hangover. And they’re free (libraries and online), though poets love it when you buy their books (bookstores too!). The League of Canadian Poets has started a poem-a-day program called Poetry Pause. Readers may find more info here: http://poets.ca/poetrypause/

Train : a journal of investigation

Issue #2 : Michael Aird Chris Banks Erin Bedford Shannon Bramer Aidan Chafe Allison Chisholm Daniel Cowper Catherine Graham James Lindsay Dominik Parisien Constance Schultz Isabella Wang

A limited amount of copies will be available for free at the following locations:

Open Books: A Poem Emporium (Seattle WA), Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop (Brooklyn NY), knife| fork | book (Toronto ON) and the ottawa small press book fair, November 24, 2018 (Ottawa ON).

includes shipping

Canadian $4.00 CAD American $6.00 CAD International $8.00 CAD

Michael Aird lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. He recently completed his first full-length manuscript, Something to Eat and Drink on Every Page.

Chris Banks is the author of four previous collections of poems. His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors’ Association in 2004. Bonfires was also a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry in Canada.  His poetry has appeared in The New Quarterly, Arc Magazine, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Malahat Review, Prism International, among other publications. He lives and writes in Waterloo, Ontario.

Erin Bedford’s work is published in William Patterson University's Map Literary, Flash Fiction Magazine and The Temz Review. She attended and won a Certificate of Distinction for her novel Fathom Lines from the Humber School for Writers. Currently, she is acting as shill for her second novel, Illumining, and has just completed a manuscript of poetry. Follow her to find out more @ErinLBedford

Shannon Bramer is the author of four books of poetry, most recently, Precious Energy, with Book*hug. Her plays The Hungriest Woman in the World, The Collectors and Monarita were all produced thanks to the dramaturgy and support of the Women’s Work Festival in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Shannon has a children’s book forthcoming from Groundwood in March 2019.

Aidan Chafe is a writer and public school teacher. His debut collection of poems Short Histories of Light was published with McGill-Queen’s University Press (2018). His work has appeared in literary journals including CV2, Event, PRISM international and The Maynard. He lives on the unceded territory of the Qayqayt First Nation (Burnaby, BC).

Allison Chisholm is an award-winning pie baker. She lives and writes in Kingston, Ontario. She played glockenspiel in the Hawaiian-Dream-Pop band SCUB. Her poetry has appeared in The Northern Testicle Review (Proper Tales Press) and The Dollhouse (Puddles of Sky Press). Her chapbook, On the Count of One, was published in 2017 (Proper Tales Press). Her forthcoming book of poetry, On the Count of None, will be released this fall through Anvil Press. She is the curator of The Museum of Tiny Objects.

Daniel Cowper’s first book of poetry is forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s University Press. His chapbook, The God of Doors, was published by Frog Hollow Press as co-winner of its chapbook contest. Daniel and his wife serve as the poetry editors for Pulp Literature, and live mostly in a small cabin on Bowen Island, BC.

Catherine Graham is a Toronto-based writer of poetry and fiction. Among her six poetry collections The Celery Forest was named a CBC Books Top 10 Canadian Poetry Collection of 2017 and appears on their Ultimate Canadian Poetry List. Michael Longley praised it as “a work of great fortitude and invention, full of jewel-like moments and dark gnomic utterance.” Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Award for Poetry and her debut novel Quarry won an Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal for fiction. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award at the University of Toronto and was also winner of IFOA’s Poetry NOW. Her work is anthologized internationally and she has appeared on CBC Radio One’s The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers. Visit her at www.catherinegraham.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @catgrahampoet.

James Lindsay is the author of the poetry collection Our Inland Sea (Wolsak and Wynn) and the chapbook Ekphrasis! Ekphrasis! (Anstruther Press). He has a regular column for Open Book where he interviews poets about their work. He is also the owner of Pleasence Records, a Toronto-based record label. 

Dominik Parisien’s work can be found in The Fiddlehead, Wordgathering, Plenitude, Exile: The Literary Quarterly, as well as other magazines and anthologies. His poetry chapbook, We, Old Young Ones, is forthcoming from Frog Hollow Press. He is also the co-editor, with Navah Wolfe, of The Starlit Wood, which won the Shirley Jackson Award, and Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction with Elsa Sjunneson-Henry. Dominik is a disabled, bisexual, French Canadian. He lives in Toronto.

Constance Schultz has often been stopped by trains although now she doesn't see them much.  She has writing in various journals and literary magazines including Figroot Press, The Seattle Star, Empty Mirror, Stonecoast Review and some are forthcoming in Them Dam Writers.

Isabella Wang: I am an emerging Chinese-Canadian writer living in Vancouver B.C. My poetry and prose have appeared previously in The New Quarterly and Looseleaf Magazine. At 17, I am the youngest writer to be shortlisted for The New Quarterly’s 2017 Edna Staebler Essay Contest. I will be studying English at SFU in the fall of 2018, while serving as an intern for Room Magazine.

Yet Another Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Catherine Graham
 
 
In this version, father is Icarus.
Daedalus, daughter, the quarry, Crete.
The sun-rust light—his need to escape—mother’s
 
red hair, she visits them daily in the blades that set nightly,
highlighting the water into fall colours.
No feathers or wax, just a widower eager

to test new boundaries, to flag his wide arms
in a New York bar, to soar into alcohol’s sky
of lost self and achieve flight.
 
But the daughter is fearful with red
thought alert. She whispers behind him
before he goes out: Father, be careful.
 
The sun is the deer on the dark road home.
The flight is the car as it flips.
Father as Icarus soars into sky—
 
 
 
Catherine Graham is a Toronto-based writer of poetry and fiction. Among her six poetry collections The Celery Forest was named a CBC Books Top 10 Canadian Poetry Collection of 2017 and appears on their Ultimate Canadian Poetry List. Michael Longley praised it as “a work of great fortitude and invention, full of jewel-like moments and dark gnomic utterance.” Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Award for Poetry and her debut novel Quarry won an Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal for fiction. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award at the University of Toronto and was also winner of IFOA’s Poetry NOW. Her work is anthologized internationally and she has appeared on CBC Radio One’s The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers. Visit her at www.catherinegraham.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @catgrahampoet.