Poet Laureate Podcast – Episode 2

Guest: Hollay Ghadery
Host: Kyeren Regehr
Recorded at Haus of Owl Creation Lab, Lekwungen Homelands
Supported by the generous spirit of Munro’s Books

Opening Poem by Hollay Ghadery

“Braids”

* I don't know if we're meant for the stars, but I still like to hear his voice, see pictures of him, maybe his wife now, and then a handful of things to wake me, like sun stains. I used to like to hear his voice, see pictures of him lying with his hair and braids than using his wife now and then. A handful of things to help me.*

Here, I'm alive. I'm static. I'm lying with his hair and braids. Then using the sun, depart the trees and the trees to help me. Here. I'm alive. I'm static. I'm not listening to him breathe. I've designed the sun, depart the trees and the trees to give way. Sure, he may pull through, but I'm not listening to him breathe.

I've designed an answer. The answer to everything is to give way. Sure he may pull through, but I'm not meant for the stars or braids. I've designed an answer. The answer to everything is to hear his voice, see pictures of him maybe.

Brief Intro

KYEREN:
Welcome to The Poet Laureate Podcast, a luminous sanctuary for poetry and reflection.
Recorded at Haus of Owl Creation Lab in Victoria, BC on Lekwungen homelands.
I'm Kyeren Regehr, and Episode Two of The Poet Laureate Podcast is supported by the generous spirit of Munro’s Books, a literary landmark in downtown Victoria. Munro’s has been a sanctuary for readers and writers alike for over 60 years. Their poetry section is unrivalled—and holds 20 years of memory and meaning for me.

We just heard Braids by Hollay Ghadery, who is the Poet Laureate of Scugog, Ontario.

Q & A

KYEREN:
Welcome, Hollay, and thank you for being here. That poem just now arrived in our ears. Where did it first begin for you?

HOLLAY:
It began, uh, in a MFA class at the University of Guelph. It was a while ago. I mean, actually it was just mere minutes ago. I was in my MFA, but it—it was a while ago. It's one of the first poems. It's a pantoum. And I was in a workshop and we were asked to write a structured poem and I chose this and it just came with, um—I, it just came out pretty much fully formed, which never happens to me, ever. I usually have to edit poems within an inch of their life. To get them to be halfway publishable or just for me just to wanna look at them again.
And this one came out almost fully formed and it was just laying in bed, really hung over, looking at the sun set in the trees across the road, and I was involved with someone who I found out was actually married. So that's where that comes from.

KYEREN:
Wow. Is there something in this poem that continues to unfold for you? Perhaps a sound or an image or an emotional center that anchors it for you?

HOLLAY:
I think just for me, it's a reminder that when I feel lost about anything—it could be something like that experience of finding out someone you were in a relationship with was not being fully honest—or in this case, just I have to write this poem and I don't know how to express what I want to express and feeling lost...
There, there's maps and there are ways to do this. And I find form poetry in general to be this wonderful way for me to find my footing when I'm lost for how to find expression, because it—it's a map. It forces me into a pattern, which sometimes I can break free from.
So sometimes I'll start something as a form poem and then it breaks free of that, and the edited final version is not form anymore, but at least provides me with a sense of solidity while I figure that out.

KYEREN:
I love the way you're describing form as a map, particularly when you are not able to catch a hold of the idea or the thing that you're wanting to write about.
Do you find that changes the way that you come to the heart of the poem?

HOLLAY:
No, because I don't feel beholden to the form structure. So if, again, if it's not working for me, I will abandon it. I think I'll—the heart will be uncovered whether I'm writing form or not. Form is just very useful for me in the times where I'm feeling too frenetic.
When I feel frenetic, I don't feel free. I feel very uptight, like a kind of spiritual bunched up, and having a form makes me feel freer somehow because I don't feel like I have all this, you know, infinity worth of possibility because of this form. I feel safe and I can only do certain things.
So I usually will arrive where I'm gonna arrive to regardless of the form or not. And like I said, if the form I find is limiting me and I'm finding my way and I don't need it anymore, it's like training wheels—kick 'em off. You don't need 'em.

KYEREN:
Form as training wheels...

HOLLAY:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're useful training wheels. I mean Braids sticks pretty well to a form. And Rebellion Box, the title piece of my collection is also a form—it’s a sestina. So sometimes I stick fairly close to the form. And I think the form creates this meditative state in the poetry that can be very useful.
But there’s other poems where I think that the form no longer serves because of what you’re trying to express or what you’re trying to do or where the poem is taking you. In which case, like I said, I’ll kick off those training wheels and move freely.

KYEREN:
Rebellion Box was an occasional poem too, right?

HOLLAY:
Correct. Yes.

KYEREN:
And I believe you won the Nick Blatchford Contest.

HOLLAY:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, for anyone listening, that poem was rejected dozens and dozens and dozens—probably over a hundred times over the course of 14 years—and then it won this award. So don’t give up.

KYEREN:
Oh, that’s wonderful inspiration for those listening.
Thank you, Hollay. I've heard you describe poetry as a means to take control and also to let go. How do you navigate that duality in your writing process?

HOLLAY:
Well, I think there's nothing more distilled and precise than poetry—or at least the best poetry—but I also feel like because it can be so ephemeral, and existing beyond exact definition, or it’s not—it’s not a... it’s not, again to use the word “beholden,” it’s not beholden to logic necessarily, but there is an intrinsic sense to it.
I think that it—it will tell you what it wants from you more than any other form.
When I write poetry, I feel like it's—it doesn't exhaust me. Whereas writing a collection of short stories, or when I finished my novel, I felt just exhausted by the whole experience. I felt like I was existing in a world that wasn't my world and I was consumed by it, and I needed to return to my world.
Whereas poetry is, for me, more of like a lifestyle, and it's just at the core of who I am. So, you know, some people say they are novelists who write poetry occasionally. I'm definitely a poet who writes other forms.

KYEREN:
Right. Yeah, I was wondering about that because you do have, I think, every other type of book almost coming out at the moment.

HOLLAY:
Yeah, yeah. Except playwriting—I haven’t done that yet.

KYEREN:
I do want to ask you a little more about what you said about poetry not being beholden to logic.

HOLLAY:
Yeah, I mean, because it's not beholden to logic—and I certainly am not beholden to logic on my best days—it’s going to be interesting for me to explain this.
But what I mean is, if you listen to poetry, sometimes it does not make logical sense. The words, the images that the words paint—it’s very abstract. It doesn't make logical sense.
But like abstract art, it creates a very solid internal sense of feeling, where you feel what you feel in response to these words. And it makes that intrinsic sense—that kind of preverbal sense—using words to tap into something that's pre-language, if that makes sense.

KYEREN:
Absolutely. Can you tell me more about that preverbal feeling? How do you know when you're there and everything's lining up? What does that feel like for you?

HOLLAY:
Well, when I'm writing—when I'm the author of a poem—I don't know if I ever feel like I get there. It's usually other people who tell me I've gotten there.
When I'm reading a poem, I know when it's happened because it's something I just feel. It's on a cellular level. Things are rippling.
To take, for instance, the poem Full Blown by Patrick Grace from his collection—he's a BC poet and Victoria poet—from his collection Deviant.
This is a poem that, if somebody said, “Is there a narrative story to this poem?”—absolutely not. But it's a poem that absolutely paints a picture and shows you a feeling of longing and belonging and loneliness.
The last lines, and Patrick, if you ever listen to this, I’m sorry if I'm not getting them absolutely right—but it’s something about:
“This is heaven, all this burning.”
It’s impossible not to walk across hot tar and think: “This is heaven, all this burning.”
And it's just this really gorgeous, gorgeous poem.
He said he just kept taking away words, really paring it down until it was in the state it was in. And that is something I find aspirational.

KYEREN:
That’s really beautifully said.
I'm wondering whether you would read us a poem that kind of flows out of what you've been talking about?

HOLLAY:
I can certainly try. I’ll try to choose one of my more—not abstract—but one that just is a nugget.

Second Poem by Hollay Ghadery

“Walk It Off”

Not Doing This Again.
 The sky fat with lakes and lakes fat with skies.
 Hot parallax mimicking a sky fat with lakes
 and lunatic ivy in my veins.
 Mimicking the plummet of stars down to the lake.
 A fistful of obsidian ivy.
 A hawk mimicking heart parallax.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

KYEREN:
Oh, that's gorgeous. Thank you. Thank you so much for that poem. I wanted to ask you, Hollay—
You've been involved in so many literary communities and initiatives as a poet. How do these engagements shape your writing and also your understanding of poetry's role in society and in people's lives?

HOLLAY:
I don't think they shape my writing too much, other than making me feel encouraged to write at all—to write poetry at all. That people care. People are interested. People are curious. So that's helpful.
I would say what shapes my writing the most is reading other poets. That is certainly influential to me. If I don't know where to start a poem, I will pick up any book of poetry and read any poem, any book of poetry. It doesn't have to be someone who writes in my style, but it's like a dam is loosened in my head and it's like: okay, this is the way that poetry thinks.
The way that poetry moves is very different from the way that, at least I think in my everyday life when I'm on the job and working. So going from, you know, my day job mode to writing a poem—I mean, it's two different ways of thinking.
And I can't write poetry when I'm being a publicist. Like, it's not the same way of thinking.
Although there is common core—relationship building and empathy and all of that—but it's not really the same muscle being used. So to kind of warm up that muscle, I’ll often read poetry.

The community work on the other hand that I do, in that involvement, it does make me more aware of, more appreciative of, and more inspired to do more community work—and keep building this community work and keep building momentum around poetry in hopes that more and more people are kind of sucked into its whirlpool. And all the things that it is, and all the things that it could be for them.
 And that—you know—it’s this completely under-celebrated but pivotal art form.

I mean, I’ve said this a million times before, but when somebody tells me they don’t like poetry, it’s like:
 “Well, have you ever been to a funeral? A wedding?”
 And they’re like, “Yes.”
 “Well, did they read poetry there?”
 “Yes.”
 And I’m like, “Yeah. So if it’s the form that’s being used to express emotions at some of the most commemorative moments in our lives—whether that’s joy or grief or whatever—that is, I mean…
 Why do we dismiss it every single day?”

So I think the more community work I do, the more I'm out there in the community talking to people, it's just this kind of slow unfastening of the outdated—well, I mean, they're not even outdated, they're just false—beliefs people have about poetry.

Now, if you're talking about doing community work with people who are already in the poetry community, it's preaching to the choir. They're already in the whirlpool. They're already swimming around doing their thing—or drowning—depending on where they are.

Yeah. And so like, you know, I don't really have to do anything. I find a lot of my job as a poet laureate is just spent trying to justify my existence at all. Which, you know, yeah—forget about being a poet laureate—I probably do that in general.
 To be fair, other poet laureates may not have that experience, but when you tell someone you're a poet laureate, at least where I am in this largely rural area, it's always like:
 "What's that?"
 It's a foreign concept to most people.

So a lot of my work—especially 'cause I'm the inaugural poet laureate of Scugog Township—a lot of my work is just explaining to people what my role is.
 Which is:
 To create and celebrate our community through poetry.
 To create an awareness of the art—but use that art to celebrate people and help the community see how poetry can enrich our lives, and again, our community.

KYEREN:
Wow, that's—it's important work. It's like you're saying: taking away or breaking down those myths and just really incorrect ideas about poetry that have mostly been taught in school.

Do you see poetry as a place that people can rest in and feel and heal and all of that sort of thing?

HOLLAY:
Absolutely. I have poems memorized because they help me slow down and rest and just uncoil my mind.
And I have books of poems all around the house that if I'm feeling frantic or anxious—or, as usual, over-caffeinated—I’ll just grab a poem and read it slowly.
And if I'm not reading it slowly enough the first time, I take a deep breath and read it properly and slowly again.

I mean, I think that poems demand to be read slowly because there's a lot packed in the placement of words. The way that poems take up the stage of the page—I mean, everything matters and everything informs it.
 And for most of us—I think for poets that truly practice with mindfulness—they're not arbitrary decisions. About word placement and spacing and all these things.
 It's not just like we've thrown words on a page, although there might be something to be said for that as well. I don't just throw words on a page. Maybe if you're writing a poem about randomness and an unfeeling universe, then throwing words on the page might be exactly the thing to do. But even that placement is intentional.

The random placement is intentional.
 I mean, every piece of punctuation—and poets will spend such a long time:
 "Is it a colon? Is it a semicolon? Maybe it's an em dash?"

KYEREN:
Absolutely.
Hollay, what does poetry require of you?
I mean, you've spoken about what you need to write and what inspires you—but what does it require of you?

HOLLAY:
I would just say: openness and receptiveness. And—this one's hard for me—but to silence the inner editor during the first outpouring.
I find it very unhelpful for me to be editing as I'm going when I'm trying to get the initial draft out, whatever that is. No matter how bananas what I'm thinking or where I'm going feels—to me—just to not jump the gun on the editing.

Because I really am a completionist and I love something being done and I love something being tidy and packaged and neat and checked off my list.
 But poetry forces me not to think of it in those terms—as something to be checked off. It’s something to really just engage in, as it comes, and not push it or rush it along.

KYEREN:
How do you talk to yourself about the inner editor when the inner editor appears?

HOLLAY:
So far, not very nicely.
But I don't have a particularly kind inner voice to myself, period, in work-in-progress.
So I don't recommend other people talk to themselves like I talk to myself.
The way I talk to myself is like the way my 13-year-old actually talks to me—like she's my inner voice.
And having a young teenage girl as your inner voice is not the inner voice, you know?

Like:
 “Bitch, slow down.”
 Like something like that.
 No, like, that's not the way I need to be talking to myself.
 But it makes me laugh.

And humor usually disarms me.
 Like, if I talk to myself like my daughter does, when I disarm myself, I'm able to relax and receive the message.
 Which is: slow down.
 And you know, while I'm writing this poem, 90% of it might be complete and utter garbage—but that's okay.
 Because if you can get 10% of it that's solid, then you can build on that.

And just embrace the garbage.
 Embrace the 90% garbage.
 Because it is taking you somewhere—or it's taking you nowhere—but at least it's out of your head now.

I mean, a really good example is I recently wrote a poem that has been in my head for 20 years.
 And it took 20 years of trying and failing and not knowing where to start and not knowing my way into it, to just one day write one line.
 That was the way in.

Of course, for the first draft, there was a lot that got changed and moved out and moved around and the structure was played with and all of this stuff.
 But I finally, after two decades, got a poem out.
 I mean, I think that is a testament to trying to be patient.

KYEREN:
Yeah, yeah. And persistence.

HOLLAY:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, well—the image, the thought, the experience wouldn’t go away.
So even if I wanted to abandon it, I really couldn’t because it—it was persistent.
I may have not been as dedicated to the idea as the idea was to me.

KYEREN:
Now that you’ve written it, do you find that it’s not bugging you anymore?

HOLLAY:
Absolutely. And I’m really happy with it.
I’ve read it at two open mics that I’ve hosted for poetry month so far, and I’ve definitely caught myself editing as I read.
Which open mics are wonderful for—because you’re aware, you’re reading for an audience.

And one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received about performing anything—whether it’s poetry, prose, nonfiction, whatever—is to put yourself in the seat of the audience and think about how you want the audience to feel.
 How you want them to receive the work.

And that helps remove any jitters, number one, because suddenly I’m not on stage—I’m in the audience, which is a nice, safe, innocuous place to be.
 And it also helps me think about how I’d be hearing this.
 So I can edit and change a word here and there, realize a line is actually sounding clunky.
 So I’m actually quite pleased with how it turned out.
 And pleased that it’s finally out of my head.

KYEREN:
Hollay, do you find that you write for an audience at times, or are you writing for someone in particular?
Or do you write for yourself?

HOLLAY:
Primarily it would either be myself or writing for this kind of romantic notion of—
I don’t know—something I would have wanted as a kid.
Like writing toward an enchantment.
Writing toward an enchantment of the world.

Writing toward an idea of enchantment, which—I mean, enchantment or anything can only exist by acknowledging its opposite, right?
 Like the contrary.

So it—I mean, anyone who’s read my work knows I definitely don’t shy away from darkness.
 But I think it’s…
 Poetry is a constant exercise in trying to re-enchant myself with the world.
 Because I feel sometimes very bitter and I feel very angry and I feel just like I want to burn it all down.
 And poetry is the opposite of that.

But I have to acknowledge it, to move toward this perpetually re-enchantment of myself.
 Because I’ll be in this enchanted state and be like:
 “Oh, this is wonderful.”
 And then the world comes in and crushes that.
 And then you have to do it again and again and again.
 Until it’s… until I feel better.

It’s a constant…
 As an addict, I feel qualified to use this—it’s like a bump.
 A hit.
 A constant hit.
 Another hit.
 Another hit.
 But poetry is not that instant.
 It can take a while to get there.

Reading other people’s poetry is almost instant.
 So for me, the reading and writing of poetry are not completely two separate things.
 It’s feeding the same tank.
 It’s filling the same vessel.

KYEREN:
Amazing.
I'm just hearkening back to that other poem you were speaking about.
I'm wondering whether you'd be willing to read it for us—whether you have it there?

HOLLAY:
Oh, the new one?
Yeah.

KYEREN:
Or if you have another one, that's fine too.
But I want to thank you, Hollay, for your presence and your words today.
And I want to let our listeners know that books by Hollay Ghadery are available at munrosbooks.com for international shipping, or at their iconic downtown Victoria storefront—alongside a selection of poetry that invites you to linger, explore voices from across the country and around the world, all gathered under the timeless arches of Munro’s Books.

Hollay’s impressive biography can be found on the podcast website and in the notes, as well as appropriate links to her work.

KYEREN:
Hollay, would you be willing to leave us with a final poem?

HOLLAY:
Sure. I will read the poem I was talking about—being grateful that it’s finally out of my head.
Pending doubtlessly more edits, but this is my first podcast open mic kind of feel here.
The title is:

Final Poem by Hollay Ghadery

“Tour of the Universe, CN Tower, 1985”

It's a soft sneaker stroll through the city. At night,
 Mom's pleated khakis, a floral waft from her wrists,
 a hand around mine.
 She has tickets to a star show in a place
 there's no stars.
 And still her face turns to sky,
 my eyes to her face.
 Retinas of streetlight full to periphery,
 and this now is already stars.
 Shine when she asks if I'll remember all I've learned,
 if I'll stay awake on the drive home,
 if I'll love her forever,
 I want to mean it when I promise
 somehow.