Interview
with Edward Carson
1) Please tell us about your most recently published
book and also a little about any other books you've had that "saw
print."
Over thirty years ago, Porcupine's Quill published my first book of
poetry, Scenes. In that period, I was publishing quite regularly,
was working on my doctorate, and had won several prizes, including the
E.J. Pratt Medal in Poetry (twice), as well as the St. Michael
College Medal for English.
By the late 70s I was working in book publishing, and went on to work
closely as an editor with dozens of new and established authors, and
eventually to serve as publisher, and then president of several large
Toronto-based publishing houses, including Random House of Canada, HarperCollins
Canada, and Penguin Group Canada.
But for over 25 years I found myself unable to write. Then, suddenly
in 2007, my writer's block lifted and I've been writing ever since.
More to the point, I completed a new poetry book of linked poems . .
. Taking Shape . . that Porcupine's Quill accepted for publication
in Spring 2008.
Taking Shape is about love, its powerful personal history, its
public geography and geology, how it changes, how it shifts itself into
different forms and temporalities, and how love profoundly alters an
individual's point of view and the world at large.
Through love we belong to, and are separate from each other in ways
like no other parts and phases of our existence; through it the language
of our imaginations are nourished and transformed. Like nature's elusive
electrons, the paths love takes are continually altered and given new
direction by the knowledge, questions and feelings we bring to it.
The structure of the Taking Shape poem cycle is based upon the
five parts of rhetoric. The rhetorical five-part/five-poem structure
also has its counterpoint in the dialectic of the two-line stanzas.
The use of the two-line stanza within a poem enacts an intellectual
and emotional debate or dialectic whose purpose is to test the words,
to force them together in ways that will give birth to new shades and
shapes of meaning and understanding.
Finally,
Taking Shape also is about the nature of shape - which also takes
us back to rhetoric - how the very form or vessel, like language itself,
persuades us to take on as well as escape from the many breathtaking
landscapes and mysteries, clues and possibilities of our shared lives.
My next book of poems, Birds Flock Fish School, is due to be
completed this year.
2) What are your thoughts about reading your poetry in Cobourg at
the POW! Festival?
I'm quite looking forward to reading at the festival. Poetry needs a
public audience to really come alive, and reading aloud to that audience
brings forth and accentuates its tonality, the way its words surprise
the ear and blend together in sound and meaning. Emotion is very important
in poetry, and reading sets much of that free through the poet's voice
and the contained energy of the poetry itself.
3) Please tell us about your most recently published book and also
a little about any other books you've had that "saw print."
Taking Shape is about love, its powerful personal history, its
public geography and geology, how it changes, how it shifts itself into
different forms and temporalities, and how love profoundly alters an
individual's point of view and the world at large.
Through love we belong to, and are separate from each other in ways
like no other parts and phases of our existence; through it the language
of our imaginations are nourished and transformed. Like nature's elusive
electrons, the paths love takes are continually altered and given new
direction by the knowledge, questions and feelings we bring to it.
Finally, Taking
Shape also is about the nature of shape - which also takes us back
to rhetoric - how the very form or vessel, like language itself, persuades
us to take on as well as escape from the many breathtaking landscapes
and mysteries, clues and possibilities of our shared lives.
4) At POW!, do
you plan to read pieces from your book (or books)?
Yes, from Taking Shape
5) Do you plan
to read new, unpublished work?
Yes, from Birds Flock Fish School
6) Will your
reading be a mixture of the two?
Yes
7) How would you describe your poetry?
Sensuous, lyrical, structured
8) When did you start writing poetry?
1968
9) What prompted
you to start writing poetry?
A brilliant teacher in High School
10) What inspires you to put pen to paper / fingers to keyboard?
Metaphors, ideas, love, sex
11) Can you describe
(a little) your writing process in creating a new poem?
If begins with an image or short phrase, which then gradually adds to
itself, multiplies and finds its direction. It's much like when a flock
of birds begins with a few who leave the roost, who are then followed
by dozens more, and the flock grows and swoops in multiple directions
before finally settling upon its true direction.
12) The POW!
Festival is built on the notion that poetry should not be relegated
to an existence as "a niche art form" that the average person
doesn't care about. How do you respond to that?
Yes, I agree, but poetry can't be a passive entertainment. When listening,
you have to work hard to keep up with what it is reaching for. The dialect
of most poetry needs the two-way street of poet and audience.
Edward Carson websites:
www.takingshapepoetry.com
www.photographicart.ca