What are your thoughts about reading your poetry in Cobourg at the POW! Festival?

I've always liked visiting Cobourg. I expect a friendly, lively event.

Your POW! Reading will be part of the book release tour for "Lookout". Please tell us about this new book. Also, tell us a little about any other books you've had that "saw print."

Lookout is partly "a goodbye" to Newfoundland where I lived for 32 years. The book also explores familiar subjects for me: for example, the relationship between culture and nature or between humans and the rest of the world we haven't made and can't control.

At POW!, do you plan to solely read pieces from "Lookout"? Do you plan to read other work as well, whether from your other published books or unpublished?

I'll read from Lookout and probably from Helix and That Night We Were Ravenous.

How would you describe your poetry?

My poetry is oriented toward the world, toward experience. I try to use language to break-down and break-out-of customary patterns of thought and feeling, to re-connect with the world and with people, and as well as with the story of my own life.

When did you start writing poetry? What prompted it? You also have a novel published, are the answers the same for you starting writing in general (prose)?

I started writing poetry in my early teens. I was prompted by powerful personal experience and by the deep excitement I felt in reading literature. I didn't take up prose writing in a serious way until much later.

What inspires you to put pen to paper / fingers to keyboard?

Many different things. Other poetry, music and art. The physical world. Ideas. Language. Working with language itself is a main inspiration.

Can you describe (a little) your writing process in creating a new piece?

I try to conjure an excitement of language to match and convey the excitement of the experience I want to depict or explore. Rather than fitting an experience into a literary form, I try to find a form and voice or language-energy to embody the thing I'm writing about.

You are now one of three Parliamentary Poets Laureate of Canada Emeritus. Can you tell us a little about your time in the appointment between 2006 and 2008?

It was intense. I travelled a lot, corresponded with countless people, gave lectures, readings, workshops, interviews, organized readings by other poets, ran a poem-of-the-week program, kickstarted an online audio archive of Canadian poets, did what I could to promote Canadian poetry and literature. It was a great honour, and now I'm glad it's over and my life is more my own again.

One of the strong sub-themes of this year is Poets Laureate, past and present. This is because, after 12 years, our Town is witnessing "the passing of the torch" between our first Poet Laureate to the 2nd person to hold the position. Your Reading will be an "All Laureates" presentation, including Giorgio Di Cicco and our own Eric Winter. From your experience, how is a Town (or a country or a culture or a society) enhanced by having a Poet Laureate?

Having an official Poet Laureate enlarges a community's identity. It broadens the community's identity to make a place for an ancient and deeply important art. It is a tribute to the community that it makes a place at the civic table for poetry. In poetry we reflect most honestly and accurately who we are. Honouring poetry shows we value self-knowledge, shows we value looking deeply and honestly at ourselves and the world we are making around us. The Poet Laureate makes people aware of the value of writing and art and encourages new writers to believe in themselves. If a community thinks enough of poetry to give a poet an official position, young poets are able to think of poetry as not just a self-indulgence or marginal hobby.

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?

That's a great idea. Poetry is at the root of all literature. It's at the heart of language and at the centre of what is most valuable in our lives.