TtD supplement #308 : seven questions for Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi

Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi is the author of DISINTEGRATION MADE PLAIN AND EASY (Piżama Press) and THE BOOK OF KANE AND MARGARET (FC2 / UAP)

His poems “magical morning,” “more,” “pillow” and “arrival” appear in the fiftieth issue of Touch the Donkey.

Q: Tell me about the poems “magical morning,” “more,” “pillow” and “arrival.”

A: These poems are such an odd sampler platter! It feels a bit like someone is holding a tray of mozzarella sticks beside a teacup of ayahuasca beside a prosthetic leg. What an odd meal! Thank you for showing them some love. 

“magical morning” is a speaker trapped with their strange and violent intrusive thoughts. The voice feels masculine to me. I’d say it’s a man witness to another man’s love and admiration of a cat. Why does this unsettle the speaker so? Why is this threatening? Is it because speaker can’t show the same sort of love and affection? Because of his loneliness, isolation? Whatever the case, his mind is off and running, and the first place it goes is grotesque violence. The speaker is not a violent man. Actually, the opposite, even his violent thoughts make him ashamed, make him feel he must make amends for them. But then when he tries to (secretly) compensate for his violent thoughts, his intrusive thoughts become even more wildly violent. So where did the impulses come from originally? Is it something primordial? Something cultural? There’s something strange and scary and also funny about them. 

“more” came from some floating thought, some voice saying something like, “the more you want, the more you have dreamed of in this world, the more you ultimately lose.” Speaker is chasing that idea. Every thought leads to loss. The shepherd loses their sheep. The person with love loses their sixteen souls. To try and touch something leads to being numb and tangled. But then, it’s not an unhealthy mind, at least I don’t think. I think to lose desire, to renounce desire, is unhealthy. So they’re looking to claim their desires, no matter the barbs they’re going to feel. Either path seems a little depressing though, no? 

Oh “pillow” this one is meant to be part of a series. The series starts out with a mother offering some advice, “if you want something done right, you do it yourself.” But then the advice takes a scary turn. The thing I was thinking about here was depictions of post-apocalyptic cannibalism, a mother encouraging her children to go ahead and eat a murdered person’s body. This is a mother who is ride-or-die, fiercely loyal no matter the cost. She is going to put meat on her child’s plate if she has to throw a stone at a neighbor’s head to do it. But in this scenario, the scene is not post-apocalyptic. It’s a child who is caring for a sick man. Still, the mother has the same post-apocalyptic cannibal attitude. “Slice this man’s December off, and get on with your life.” 

“arrival” is maybe my favorite of all these poems. The most personal. I was writing with a lovely person, the nonfiction writer and poet Noam Dorr, at Western Washington University where we work together. He had just brought my family the most delicious sauerkraut in the world. I told him I was working on writing a sort of everyday spell. Something that I could say that would help me cast off the work thoughts that keep spinning long after work is supposed to be over. Something that I could say to help me reorient the mind, remind myself that my day does not begin at work, it really begins when I return home, and I’m back with my family. That was the goal, to say it upon returning home, and have those work thoughts “close like an incomprehensible dream.” And upon getting to the dinner table with my family, greeting the most meaningful part of my life with more humor and energy. So it’s something of an experimental everyday spell I’m trying on myself! I’ll let you know how it goes . . .

Q: How do these poems compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing lately?

A: These poems are pretty different in content and vibe (at least I think so) though they were written around the same time. There’s something in all of them about recovering from an unsettling sentiment. Trying to recover. Throwing some ideas at the wall. 

The poems I’ve been writing lately are so oddly populated with creatures. Donkeys and witches and moths and dogsharks and ghoul-headed lambs. I’m not really sure what is happening here. Also a lot of speakers getting lost in a fog or a trance or some foggy woods . . .

Q: Do you have any models for the kinds of work you’ve been attempting? 

A: So many folks doing innovative thrilling work at a level higher than I will ever dream or know or achieve. Maria Bamford. Allie Brosh. Raphael Bob-Waksberg. Anne Sexton. Diane Seuss. Tomaž Šalamun. Réka Nyitrai. There are a couple songs that have recently really inspired me. A haunting and beautiful spell-like song by Loma called “Black Willow” And Daniel Norgren’s song that is a dialogue between parent and child, “Why May I Not Go Out and Climb the Trees.” 

Q: I’m curious in how both poems and songs have influenced your work. How important is music in the way you compose lines?

A: It’s such a great question, because I’m sometimes unaware of the way my ear is leading the poem. Ok, what comes to mind for me. I tend to compose a line to be short. They’re sometimes a sort of impulsive declaration. Like a rock coming down hard and fast against a piece of high-carbon steel. Something like a song lyric. Will this shoot sparks or not? One line is trying to hold the heat and light of the previous line, so it’s often using some of the same kindling. Maybe it’s the repetition of a sound. Maybe it’s a slant rhyme. 

I’ll also say that with some poems, I am trying to get back to the joy I had when I was fifteen and playing in a garage band. Hearing what my distorted guitar sounded like striking against / dissolving into another distorted guitar. There is a little of the same impulse there, thinking, what will I sound like today? What if I turn this up really loud?

Q: With your full-length debut, as well as your current works-in-progress, how do you feel your work has progressed? Where do you see your work heading?

A: I was going to say that these new ones are really weird to me, and I seem to be preoccupied with existential dread and murder and suicide and dreams of horses with big erections. But saying that aloud, I realize, o that’s not weird for me at all. The new visions and obsessions are also the old visions and obsessions. 

One freedom I’ve been feeling though, and again, maybe this is not so new, is I feel a new freedom to let myself leap in and out of the surreal. One moment the vision will seem concrete and tight to me, and then it’s a leap into rabid dog flesh and a head of ash. I’m not sure what this is. As I get older, my old memories feel fuzzier, more dreamlike to me.

Q: Do you see a connection between memory and your engagement with the surreal?

A: Yes, definitely. Sometimes I’m looking to recapture and wander through a feeling I haven’t experienced in a long time. I feel a little bit like the Ghostbusters trying to do this, channel the feeling, bait, it, stand in awe of it, contain it, observe it, almost like I’m trying to put a ghost in the Containment Unit. I guess the equivalent for me is I have to be careful not to let these old feelings run too rampant in my body. I have a gut feeling there’s something dangerous about some of them. 

For example, there’s this old memory I have of sitting in the middle of this grass field at an elementary school I attended. But in the memory I’m older, maybe 19, and I’m waiting in this field for hours, watching the sun go down. And I get kind of scared, because in the back of the school’s grass field, there was a chain-linked fence, the only thing containing some unchecked wildlife back there, not sure, probably just some raccoons? Anyhow, my young brain was a little worried of being near there in the dark. 

When trying to recapture the feeling of being in that dark field, all kinds of strange wildlife emerges in the written work. Sometimes it’s a talking fox with a really large head. Sometimes it’s a moth that’s made of a kind of cream. The line in the poem is something like, “moth mad cream flummoxed under the moon.” 

Ok, I haven’t answered your question very well. I think for me, the connection between memory and the engagement with the surreal is a number of self-destructive thoughts I had, some I still have, and a sort of knowing these thoughts are very natural and unnatural. They feel like a visitation from a creature both very natural and unnatural, like a talking fox or a bit of cream that has taught itself to flap around like a moth.

Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What particular works can’t you help but return to?

A: I just reread Ben Niespodziany’s book No Farther Than the End of the Street over the summer. Every time I read it, I come out with a new favorite poem. This time, it was his poem “Neighbor” where the characters go to a funeral and the ghost is there, it’s funny and also ominous. Ben is a wonderful friend, person, collaborator, and I’ve asked him to come talk with poetry students I’ve worked with, and I know from talking with him that the reading and creation of poetry is an everyday ritual. When feeling artistically drained I go back to his advice to “read 5 poems in the morning.” Or, “put on a Jon Hopkins song and just start writing.” Or, “find a poem you love and respond to it, line by line.” And I imagine Ben creating poems the way that some folks practice prayer, making time and space for it no matter what. I feel like this energy touches me when I read his book. The poems are short, funny, often strange, surreal, and taste good in mouth if you read them aloud. After I’ve read five of them, I often have the sensation that I’ve refueled. 

O and I just want to say I loved the poems in TOUCH THE DONKEY 50. Especially those by Elena Zhang and Jason Heroux, but really everyone in the issue was inspiring. 

Since becoming a parent, and since getting older, the time and energy to read and write has gotten smaller. But I have found reading with my kids can be highly inspiring and reenergizing. And I love books by Jillian Tamaki, Daniel Handler, Laura Knetzger, Aron Nels Steinke, Raina Telgemeier, Wolf Erlbruch, Kazu Kibuishi, Angela Johnson, Ben Hatke, Mo Willems, Mac Barnett, Dav Pilkey, Roald Dahl, so many more . . .

TtD supplement #307 : seven questions for Eve Luckring

Eve Luckring is the author of Signal to Noise (Ornithopter Press, 2025) and The Tender Between (Ornithopter Press, 2018). She lives in Los Angeles. Ig: @thetenderbetween / BlueSky: @thetenderbetween.bsky.social

Her poems “ENTERING THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE IN ONE SENTENCE,” “ALMOST SYMMETRIC TANKA,” “WHEN AN ANGEL BECOMES A POEM,” “INSOMNIA” and “AFTER MORANDI” appear in the fiftieth issue of Touch the Donkey.

Q: Tell me about the poems “ENTERING THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE IN ONE SENTENCE,” “ALMOST SYMMETRIC TANKA,” “WHEN AN ANGEL BECOMES A POEM,” “INSOMNIA” and “AFTER MORANDI.”

A: Most, if not all, of these poems were drafted several years ago in a writing exchange with my friend John Levy. At the time, I was struggling to shift out of habituated conceptual and metrical patterns that had accumulated from years of writing extremely short (1 to 5 line) poems. Meanwhile we were in the midst of the pandemic and, like so many others, I was overwhelmed by the extraordinary circumstances of loss upon loss, both in my personal and professional life. Being in a rather humorless and disillusioned place, it was a gift to fill the ruts in my ear with John’s lighthearted conversational tone and unobtrusive craftwork. I committed myself to replying as quickly as possible out of respect for the dialogue, even though I was typically less than satisfied with what I had to offer. And since we most often directly responded to what the other had written, there was this curious voice singing back to me through the endless dark allies and dead ends I wandered into. Recently I decided to revisit those earlier sketches because I am once again in a transitional space after finally escorting Signal to Noise into the world, a book that was achingly difficult to write. It’s always fascinating to trace the connective tissue in work over the years.

Q: How do these poems compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing?

A: At this moment I am mainly scribbling observations, making notes and image sketches, poking around in some inchoate and slippery musings I didn’t have time to fully pursue while working on Signal to Noise. I am in deep listening mode, reading mode, follow-the-glimmer mode— a winged juncture in no hurry to ground. I am beginning to sense a slight stirring in the body that through the years I’ve come to reliably recognize as the creative force of something new; it has a physicality that gradually increases in pressure, demanding more and more focused and disciplined attention until it can start spilling into some kind of tangible and comprehensible form. It takes it own course in its own time.

Q: Is the process of “making notes and image sketches, poking around in some inchoate and slippery musings” the usual way poems, or poem-clusters, or even manuscripts, tend to begin for you? How do you get from such notes and sketches to finished pieces?

A: Individual poems begin in a multitude of ways. Often a line or two or three arrive in the midst of day-to-day encounters or a memory or a dream or while reading and experiencing art made by others. If possible, I follow the impetus right then and there, though more often than not I need to attend to something else in the moment; and so I try to scribble down what I hear and then return to it later (often while walking) to conjure up the initial impulse again and see where it goes. Much of the time it only goes so far before I let it go. For those lines that have staying power it usually takes me several drafts to figure out where they might ultimately lead and then lots of revising to get to a finished piece. For those experiences that feel especially compelling, but hover beyond language, I return to them regularly until the words arrive… or don’t! The bodily sensations I described in my reply to the previous question are related to this “waiting for words” period, as well as the larger process of envisioning a manuscript—I love imagining what can be constructed using the whole of a book as a structural scaffolding. Lately I’m thinking about the particular scale of chapbooks.

Q: Scale in what way?

A: Primarily in terms of length, though there is a broader range of size and shape in published chapbooks which also offers potential to play in different ways with the page.

Q: Do you have any models for the kinds of work you’ve been attempting? 

A: Not yet, no. I am roaming right now. When I wrote Signal to Noise, C.D. Wright’s DeepStep Come Shining and Anne Carson’s Plainwater became helpful models in terms of figuring out structure.

Q: With two published collections-to-date, as well as your current works-in-progress, how do you feel your work has progressed? Where do you see your work heading?

A: I wish I could tell you where my work is heading, rob. I feel such fundamental structural shifts in the larger forces of culture right now that I’m a bit of a deer in the headlights. One thing that’s been on my mind for a long time is the way generative Ai, for about a decade or so now, has been developing its own languages indecipherable to human beings, rendering its behavior beyond our comprehension (and ability to control.) As Ai increasingly explores all the things language can do when it is not tied to “packages of meat walking around on planet earth,” as historian Yuval Hariri puts it, I think even more about how I use language. Since Ai is not sentient (and thus incapable of emotions) Hariri suggests that one of the most important discussions for humans now is to dig deeper into the ongoing question of the relationship between language and feelings; and I would add, between the visceral language of complex emotions and their manifestations in behavior. Poets and philosophers have been exploring this interplay for eons now, so one question to myself is how can I reach further into what I’ve already been investigating. And with Ai’s critical relationship to the surveillance state, I am thinking about the formal structures of camouflage, inscrutability, nonsense, and erraticism. I have no idea how, if at all, this might manifest.

Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What particular works can’t you help but return to?

A: Currently the writers and artists I’m engaged with/re-visiting include Agha Shahid Ali, Laurie Anderson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Fanny Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Joyelle McSweeney, Ozaki Hōsai, Graciela Iturbide, Cornelia Parker, Noah Purifoy, Doris Salcedo, Dianne Seuss, Richard Siken, Kara Walker…

TtD supplement #306 : seven questions for Jason Heroux

Jason Heroux lives in Kingston, Ontario. His recent poetry collections include Like a Trophy from the Sun, A Further Introduction to Bingo (with Dag T. Straumsvåg), and Unfinished Wilderness (Anvil Press, 2026). He was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022.

His poems “Midsummer,” “Memorial Orchard,” “November Email,” “Aubade” and “Eventual Harvest” appear in the fiftieth issue of Touch the Donkey.

Q: Tell me about the poems “Midsummer,” “Memorial Orchard,” “November Email,” “Aubade” and “Eventual Harvest.”

A: These five poems are part of an upcoming collection, called Unfinished Wilderness and they share a spare, reflective, changeful mood. I like the room in these poems, the spaces between some of the lines. They feel a little incomplete to me, in a good way … ongoing … searching. One of them, “November Email,” is a “found poem” taken from an email from Dag T. Straumsvåg. The “Tom” mentioned in the poem is the American poet Tom Hennen.

Q: How do these poems compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing lately?

A: Lately, I’ve been writing a single poem a month, so those poems are usually longer, or multi-layered, or sequences. These five are very minimal and concentrated in comparison. They almost feel like lyrical blueprints, structural framing plans, showing where the poem’s beams are positioned. But it all interconnects in the end. I suppose what I’m writing now is like an addition, an extension, to these earlier plans.

Q: Do you see your writing-to-date as a single, ongoing project, or is this an idea that has been more recently appeared in your work?

A: Yes and no. It feels connected together, looking back. But usually seems pretty disparate and scattered in the moment. It’s a little like the weather. Sun. Rain. Cloud. Snow. Hail. Fog. Different temperatures every day, different conditions, but all part of a single, ongoing ecosystem. 

Q: Do you have any models for the kinds of work you’ve been attempting? 

A: I’m always searching for open, patient, curious models of composition. These days, I’m following the Charles Rafferty model of writing, which means spending “a month writing down whatever comes into my head” and then “after a month, I take all these pages and start distilling them down …  whittling a poem out of the mess.” I like having pages and pages of words and phrases to play with. I enjoy the challenge of trying to shape a basket of random ingredients into an associative, harmonious meal.

Q: Does this process feel akin to one of stretching one’s muscles, pushing the boundaries of what might be possible, or one of attempting further into the unconscious? How are you finding this Charles Rafferty approach? Have there been any surprises, or even repetitions?

A: Yes, stretching one’s muscles, becoming more flexible, the ability to reach a little further. My favourite part about the Charles Rafferty approach is how it’s inspiring me to slow down, and be more attentive to associations. Previously, my approach was more impulsive, immediate. If a poem didn’t work, I’d abandon the piece and write a fresh one. Now, if a poem falls flat, I’m curious why, and enjoying tinkering with the ingredients to see what changes. One pleasant surprise is being able to sit at the heart of a poem-in-progress. Many of my earlier poems resembled relay races, with the start of the poem handing the baton to the end of the poem. These days I hear some of the humming from the engine room.

Q: With a handful of published collections over the years, as well as your current works-in-progress, how do you feel your work has progressed? Where do you see your work heading?

A: My earliest poems consisted of an assembly of images, and trying to capture those images in bold, unexpected ways. I’m not as interested in “capturing images” these days. I’ve noticed a gradual shift over time where my poems have become less of a product and more of a process, and I see that continuing forward. A recent work-in-progress was inspired by two things: a painting from one of my high school teachers, and an exploration of a bilingual English-Swahili phrasebook. In the past, I would’ve written two separate poems for these distinct topics, taking deep vertical dives. Now I prefer mixing things together horizontally, blurring the boundaries, and integrating elements together. It’s the idea of “integration” that fascinates me most at the moment. 

Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What particular works can’t you help but return to?

A: So many poetic Superchargers help keep me on the road. Don Domanski comes to mind for his ability to balance the earthly here-and-now with the universal everywhere-and-always. Each of his books, from The Cape Breton Book of the Dead (1975) to the posthumous Fetishes of the Floating World (2015) continue to teach me things. I also return to Mary Ruefle often. I love how her work manages to frame the most everyday human experience into something spectacular. Y.S. Lee once gifted me with a mug displaying the words: What Would Mary Ruefle Do? I drink from it daily. Plus I return to Tomas Transtromer on a regular basis for his clarity and associative leaps. His work has been endlessly regenerative for me, and I can see how the poems in his final collection, The Great Enigma (2004), inspired the five poems appearing in Touch the Donkey. The spare concision. The wounded spirit. The stoic acceptance of the inner mystery of it all.

TtD supplement #305 : seven questions for Laura Farina

Laura Farina is the author of two books of poetry, This Woman Alphabetical and Some Talk of Being Human, as well as the picture book This is the Path the Wolf Took. Her third poetry collection, Behold!, is forthcoming from Coach House Books. Laura is the recipient of the Archibald Lampman Award, and has been long-listed for both the Relit Award and the CBC Poetry Prize. She’s very temporarily the associate director of the Writer's Studio at SFU.

Her poem “Sometimes, a Lake” appears in the fiftieth issue of Touch the Donkey.

Q: Tell me about the poem “Sometimes, a Lake.”

A: I wrote this poem at a writing retreat on the side of a lake. Each morning, there was an hour where participants got together to write and many prompts were offered. The one that sparked this poem was “What does the term ‘sense of adventure’ mean to you?” I wanted to work on other things at the retreat, but I kept returning to this poem, and as the days wore on and I became more and more homesick its images kind of took a turn. I like the idea that a lake monster has nowhere else to be but in a lake.

Q: How does this poem compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing lately?

A: I’ve been reading and writing a lot of nature poems lately. I think this might be the best one I’ve written so far. There’s something about the line “Fuck it/ This lake is just going to do lake stuff” that really delights me. 

Q: Was there anything in particular that prompted this shift towards nature poems? Who and what have you been reading?

A: A poem usually starts for me with something that’s going on around me (or inside my head). Lately, I’ve come to the realization that I am calmer if I spend time outside, so I’ve been trying to be better about going for walks. In terms of nature poems, Strike/Slip by Don McKay is awesome.

Q: Have you had any other models for the kinds of work you’ve been attempting? What else have you read lately that has caught your eye?

A: I love it when two dissimilar things nudge each other into some sort of strange meaning. The Trees, The Trees by Heather Christle does this so well. My copy is dog-eared from the number of times I’ve read it for inspiration. I just read Dad Era by Jordan Abel and was blown away. I don’t often recommend poetry books to my non-poet husband, but I told him he has to read this one.

Q: With a handful of published collections over the years, as well as your current works-in-progress, how do you feel your work has progressed? Where do you see your work heading?

A: This is such a tough question. I think I used to see the various ways I write as quite distinct – this one’s a weird poem, this one’s a poem about all my complicated feelings, this one’s a poem about something I saw that I thought was beautiful, etc. I’m really interested in how these various ways of writing can be in the same poem together, and I think as my work has progressed I’ve been able to do that more often. 

I’m not sure I can predict where my work is going. The nature poems I’ve been writing have taken me completely by surprise. It will go where it goes, I guess?  

Q: I’m very pleased to see you’ve a new book forthcoming! Is this piece part of that manuscript? How has the process of putting together a manuscript shifted for you, if at all? 

A: Aw, thanks rob!  This piece isn’t part of the forthcoming book – maybe it’s part of a future manuscript?  I think the thing that’s shifted for me in putting together a manuscript is that the time where I feel like I’m floundering around in the dark, wildly casting myself in one poetic direction and then the next has shrunk. Not to nothing. But definitely shrunk. I think, as I’ve grown as a poet, I’m more able to follow the trail of my own interests, more able to identify when I’m up to something that might sustain me for a while. 

Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What particular works can’t you help but return to?

A: To re-energize my work, I read Stuart Ross, Jason Heroux, Jaime Forsythe and Kayla Czaga. I return over and over again to Goat in the Snow by Emily Pettit, Lunch Poems by Frank O’Hara and Come on All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder.

TtD supplement #304 : seven questions for Steven Ross Smith

Steven Ross Smith enjoys muddling with words and books in Victoria, BC. His writing, swayed by experimenters in early Toronto days, juxtaposes disparate threads, as in his seven-book poetic series Fluttertongue. His decades-long westward migration through Canada’s landscapes implanted continuing amazement and many poetic influences. His fourteenth book is Glimmer: Short Fictions, from Radiant Press, 2022. Most recently, The Green Rose, a chapbook collaboration with Phil Hall appeared in 2024. Smith was Banff Poet Laureate, 2018-21. He is currently absorbed in a rappy-spoken-word album project, as SloLo Smithy, streaming on BandCamp. Also, he’s at: fluttertongue.ca and stevenrosssmith@me.com

An excerpt from his Petal & Fracture, section “sp/lt nds” appears in the fiftieth issue of Touch the Donkey.

Q: Tell me about Petal & Fracture, section “sp/lt nds.”

A: Petal & Fracture. This three-part work captures three longish poems, wherein the structures and content of each vary considerably. Each has allowed me to explore language and ideas beyond the edge of my zone of familiarity. I like to think of the works as poetically adventurous. I’m playing with meaning and expectation, personal and political musings, references and prompts, poetic form and structure. These notions seem to be consistent through my writing career of over five decades, though I try to make each visitation go – for me – through a new door. My approach to language as material is heavily influenced by associations in my formative years with other ‘experimenters’ including bpNichol, Fred Wah, and Robert Kroetsch; and by reading such as e.e. cummings, Lyn Hejinian, Roland Barthes, and others; and by the historical movements of Dada and Surrealism; and finally, by movement and sound. In Petal & Fracture I have initiated each section using different starting points and modes. The poems experiment: with verbal and syllabic fracture, play, and meaning; with line and phrase structure; with logic and disjunction; with the concept of verse; with the authorial “I”; and with rhythms that flow and bump. 

The selections submitted to Donkey are from section ii, “sp/lt nds”, which explores, among other things, the fragmentation and breakdown of language, of words and phrases in a leaping kind of way, while still holding or suggesting some form of ‘meaning' or association, coherence within incoherence – how they could link or disrupt, and create a jagged rhythm. It is meant to trouble the reading process, while inviting the reader into a form of self-created – or at least collaborative – play. That’s my summarizing glimpse, though a reader might see other windows.

Q: How does this piece compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing lately?

A: It’s hard to say how this work – a couple of years old now – compares to current work. The poems from Petal & Fracture that we’ve selected here, for a ride with the Donkey, seem to reflect several of the elements that run through my work, regardless of the poetic forms and textures I explore – language’s materiality, nature, music, concerns of the day. My attention and my mind seem not to be single-focussed, but rather, carry simultaneity. Otherwise, and regardless of content and form, I find, as I think I’ve said, I write by ear, with attention to the sounds and rhythms of language. Those are what propel me into content (such as it is.) I like mistake and thought’s errant capacities, and I lean to irregularity and a mode of improvisation as compositional drivers. These bents seem to have been with me in some form or other since my start as a poet. My newer work seems to be more prosaic, documentary – I call it “un-diaristic” – but it seeks to hold compositional elements mentioned above.

Q: How do you see this work in relation to, say, the multi-book Fluttertongue? There’s a similar element of the ‘catch-all’ to what I’ve seen of the Petal & Fracture manuscript. Do you see this as an extension to Fluttertongue, or entirely separate? How does one work on something so expansive, and then attempt to move beyond it?

A: Each of the seven Fluttertongue books has a guiding concept or series of prompts – constraints or frames – though with more or less latitude depending on my intentions/unintentions. That work was, yes, expansive, but as said, there were some operative nodes that ‘held’ each individual book. I stopped the series and its uber-title at the 7th book, so I could stop being so self-conscious as I moved along. And I have an affinity with the number ‘7’. So, I made that a punctuation point. A full stop. I wanted new, ‘open’ explorations. I wanted to be – in a newer or different way – more open to ‘receive’. 

I’d not thought of my work as “catch-all”, but I can see how that term might fit. To me “P&F” is separate from the ‘flutters’, but might still be a net; however, I’m not working with pre-set constraints or forms – such evolve now as my ‘pen/mind’ moves. Emanations: Fluttertongue 6 was already moving in that direction. 

Yes, moving beyond one kind of expanse into another is …. expansive? …. unnerving…? How to gain confidence in the work that is unfamiliar? Of course, that’s always a question with new work.

But, back when Fluttertongue began it was a response to a flash in which I felt that all my poems were just one poem, and that ‘one’ poem just intermingled with my previous work, and with all the other poets’ poems drifting in the poetry river, as I thought of it. So, in that sense, I’m just continuing my ‘one poem’ …and rivers are dynamic, absorbent, and constantly changing, but are still water.

Sometimes I feel I’m writing un-poems. But I flow and flutter on.
 
Q: With numerous published collections, as well as your current works-in-progress, how do you feel your work has progressed? Where do you see your work heading?

A: Well, I half answered this in my previous comments, but to elaborate: Who knows? Is it progress or just change? Is it wheel-spinning? Where do I head? … into the unknown. I’m always starting again. To quote from Fluttertongue Book 3: disarray: 

“In the un is where to begin. I beg un.”

Q: I’m curious: have you any models for the kinds of work you’ve been exploring? Are there any particular writers or works at the back of your head as you write?

A: I don’t have any ‘hard’ models, those to imitate in the forms and flows my poems take (I’m not into imitation anyway), but there are writers, always hovering in my creative and compositional sphere – should I say ‘in my head’ – who inspire and challenge me as I write. I’m thinking of bpNichol who boldly explored modes within and without poetic convention, and who, in friendship and poetry, mentored me. I think of e. e. cummings, (or is he E. E.?) whose shapes and breaks sit in my eye. Gerard Manley Hopkins’ sonics and rhythms ring in my ear. Paul Celan’s intentional play with opacity, with ambiguity, gives me the courage to work in, around, and outside clarity. Fred Wah’s, and Gerald L. Brun’s, and jazz musicians’ notions of improvisation push me. And there are all the other writers I admire – Marlatt, Kroetsch, Barthes, Hejinian, Lilburn, Willis – whose narratively adventurous nodes beckon me. Then there’s Dada, sound poetry, John Cage, and Blues. I could go on. But a final tip of my flat cap to Phil Hall, to the influence of his distinctive work, to our friendship over a stretch of time, and to our recent collaborations over the past four years, which have refreshed and re-set me in my poetic explorations.

Q: Had you attempted collaboration prior to that project with Phil Hall? Obviously, you’d worked with Richard Truhlar, Michael Dean, and David Penhale as part of Owen Sound (1975-1984), although that was some time ago. How do you approach collaborative work in terms of your larger writing process? Is it a way to help expand muscles once you return to your own solo works, or is it something else, something other? Were there any surprises while working this project with Hall?

A: My work with Owen Sound, in creating collaborative performance compositions for almost ten years (1975-85), taught me about collaboration – how one contributes, accepts, yields, and weaves the work of several minds. That has stuck with me and been further revealed through several projects: in “DUCT” with five musicians; with Hilary Clark and Betsy Rosenwald (Pliny’s Knickers, JackPine Press); with Ted Landrum, Jennifer Still, Colin Smith, (Table for Four, Jackpine Press). I love to collaborate – it pushes me beyond my own ego. And in most cases the authorial “I” is given up as lines or verses, or spoken elements become communal, not individual. It creates not a bounce back and forth, but a blend. In fact, even if I’m going solo, I’m collaborating, in a sense, with all the other voices in the poetry air – whether I'm aware or not.

To me, the collaborative work and solo work are almost seamless – there might be differentiating concepts or constraints or processes in each mode, but all the acts/actions draw on and develop my poetic and compositional modes. Sometimes a collaboration will draw me into a method – phrasing, subject, structure – I might not have probed otherwise. And in collaboration I bring some solo moves into the pool, but they will likely be shifted too. As for my poetic muscles – yes, stretching and flexing in response to another’s ‘prodding’ has expanded my palette, giving me more to draw on as I set down my arrangements of the alphabet.

Phil Hall and I have, for a long time, been on what I might call a simpatico wavelength, even though our works have been quite different. We met in Toronto in the ‘70s, or maybe the early ‘80s. We’d had off and on contact over the years, but I always kept an eye on his work, and he, I understand, knew of mine. A few years ago – perhaps a decade back – I can’t recall exactly what prompted it – I suggested the idea of collaboration. We finally began such in 2023 when we were each in separate parts of Costa Rica. We initiated a kind of call and response creation over the mountains and jungle canopy by email. We’ve rolled along on a couple of projects since. 

Surprises … I think they came with every line. My method in that Costa Rican collab, in responding to Phil’s lines, was to act quickly on receiving his email, to capture my ‘thoughts’ suggested by his lines, without overthinking or even striving for continuity. I reacted quickly, intuitively, keying in my responses, with the censor turned off, kind of like quick-sketch. Then there would be some refinement. The surprises were the unpredictable notions and words, references and lines that popped in the poetry popper. The result was The Green Rose which you, rob, published with above/ground in an extended chapbook. In it, one fun thing is that no lines are attributed to their creator. The work stands; our names are on it; but there is no individual ‘claim’. You could say the work is by Steven Phil Ross Hall Smith.

Phil’s friendship has become indispensable to me and my poetic gestures nowadays. Our collaboration renewed, reset, propelled, and lifted my poetic impulse from a trough. Our colleagueship expresses community, where poets labour together in their often thankless role. Collaborations also show me there is room for fun – whether light or dark, punning or singing, leaping or following, serious or not, sensible or non. I like a bit of fun.

Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What works can’t you help but return to?

A: I’ve already cited many of the writers I read and return to, but here’s a re-visit. Some years ago, to get back on track, I read eagerly through Jerome Rothenberg’s huge multi-volume anthology Poems for the Millennium. This may be my most-returned-to collection, though I reread Celan a lot too. I read PftM to discover and remind me of the scope of possibilities that can be called poetry. It is an astounding and enlightening gathering, and it swings the poetry door wide open. Otherwise, and to find energy, I rely on reading – along with ‘older’ work by writers noted already – new work I stumble upon – often as a reviewer. (I have a piece in the Saskatchewan Writers Guild’s upcoming Freelance issue called “The Riches and Challenges of Reviewing“.) Among the interesting new books I’ve read and written about (often for British Columbia Review) are Eimear Laffan’s (about)ness, Neil Surkan’s Empties, Kaie Kellough’s Interpositions, Jan Zwicky’s Say It, Michael V. Smith’s Soundtrack, the Costa Rican poet Luis Chavez’ Equestrian Monuments, David Martin’s nightstead, and Tim Lilburn’s Numinous Seditions. I’ve read a lot of Lilburn. I’ve mentioned Phil Hall. These writers and books, and many others, for me, expand the scope of poetry in new and different ways, exploring and exploding its potential. They open my own thinking about poetry. 

Most recently I’ve been thinking about poetry as a community – a community extant and forming since the first utterances, even those not called poetry, and now identified as such, and that have taken many shapes that in themselves define “poetry.” It embraces and forms one of the oldest human communities linked through time. It has unfurled myriad expressions, textures, modes, emotions, concepts, representations, and activities. I wish I could engage in the impossible act of reading, seeing, or hearing it all. This community’s creations – ancient, old, younger, and current – all offer and enable discovery. Such are essential nutrients for my own poetic effort, my own engagement and contribution to and within the community that I have somehow found myself a part of. Therein is my re-energization. 

TtD supplement #303 : seven questions for Elena Zhang

Elena Zhang is a Chinese American writer and mother living in Chicago. Her work can be found in HAD, The Citron Review, and X-R-A-Y, among other publications. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and was selected for Best Microfiction 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Her poems “The Pantry,” “Neighbors” and “Just Like in the Movies” appear in the fiftieth issue of Touch the Donkey.

Q: Tell me about the poems “The Pantry,” “Neighbors” and “Just Like in the Movies.”

A: “The Pantry” is part of a chapbook manuscript I’m working on inspired by fairytales. It actually started as a longer prose poem that I wasn’t very happy with, but as I whittled it down more and more, it started to shape itself into something more satisfying. 

Both “Neighbors” and “Just Like in the Movies” came about after I learned about the nonet form, which really appealed to me in its brevity. “Neighbors” is inspired by a Chinese folk tale, while “Just Like in the Movies” began as more of a prayer.

Q: How do these poems compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing lately?

A: When I wrote these poems, I had mostly just been writing prose poems and microfiction, so it was the first time I was experimenting with line breaks of any kind. It was also the first (and only) time I tried out a formal poetic form in the nonet. Since then, I’ve become a little bit more comfortable with lined poetry, although I still feel most at home with the prose poem.

Q: What is it about the form of the prose poem that appeals? What do you feel the form allows that might not be otherwise possible?

A: I think it’s all about expectation. When you see a chunk of prose, you go in expecting a story, some sort of straightforward narrative. But within a prose poem, you’re kind of allowed to upend that expectation, to insert surreal imagery, to not necessarily have a story arc or anything really that makes sense, and it just takes the reader onto a strange journey that might feel disorienting, that might make the reader want to read the poem over again in a new light. That kind of unsettling feeling that might evoke surprising and hidden emotions is what I aim for, because it’s the kind of journey that I go on myself when I write the poem.

Q: Do you have any models for the kinds of work you’ve been attempting? Are there particular writers or works in the back of your head as you write?

A: I think Ben Niespodziany’s writing has been a huge influence on mine, in terms of introducing me to the absurd and surreal in very short forms, so I always like to go back and read his work to see what is possible. And then Sarah J. Sloat’s erasure poems have also been very inspiring to me, in terms of rhythm and imagery packaged into a tiny, tiny poem.

Q: At what point do you see your work meeting both prose poetry and microfiction? Is there a difference in the way you approach or even attempt to place a piece? Is the difference context, beyond any elements of form?

A: Ah, it’s always been tricky for me to differentiate between prose poetry and microfiction. In the very beginning when I was first starting out, I would read a ton of examples of both and try to figure out what made editors/writers categorize them into each genre, and I could never come up with a clear answer. Some micros read more like a poem, and some poems read more like a micro. There are times when I am trying to write one or the other, and for micros I might try to have a specific character we follow throughout, whereas for a prose poem I can just run with disparate ideas and images. But more often than not, it’s really just a whim whether I submit my writing as a micro or prose poem. I kind of leave that up to the reader to decide.

Q: With two published chapbooks, as well as your current works-in-progress, how do you feel your work has progressed? Where do you see your work heading?

A: Working on those chapbooks was such a fun and eye-opening experience for me. It pushed me to write around one central theme or character, to try and extend a somewhat loose narrative arc over a series of poems. As much as I like writing standalone poems, I really enjoyed focusing on a certain image, and just reiterating on that over and over again in different ways. So I definitely would like to write more micro-chapbooks, or maybe even a full-length chapbook, in the future. The problem is that it takes a long time to come up with a theme I’d want to stay with for a while. I kind of just have to sit with what I’m writing until I’m struck with an urge to continue exploring a character or image further.

Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What particular works can’t you help but return to?

A: At the risk of sounding cliche, I think about David Lynch’s work a lot. I don't necessarily rewatch his films very often, as they’re often a bit hard to stomach, but I do think about his philosophy and approach to art, and the few images of his films that stick with me, in terms of dreaminess, atmosphere, and internal logic that is obscure to the audience but is very clear to the creator. Relatedly, I think about the fairy tale form a lot, and how fantastical elements are rarely explained and are simply accepted, and how the violent can occur with such nonchalance, and how archetypes function to pull in the reader. 

Recently, I find myself weirdly drawn to horror films. I’m a huge scaredy-cat, so I’m not delving into the hardcore stuff, but I feel such a connection to the visceral, inexplicable, and surprising elements that can come from horror movies. 

And finally, when I’m feeling really stuck, I always tend to return to Jon Boisvert’s collection BORN, as his prose poems always tend to strike the exact chord of what I want to achieve with my writing.

Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] : FIFTIETH ISSUE,

The FIFTIETH ISSUE is now available, with new poems by David Miller, Jason Heroux, Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, Laura Farina, Elena Zhang, Daphne Marlatt, Eve Luckring and Steven Ross Smith.

Eight dollars (includes shipping). Until now, this was the only way to get juice from an orange.