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

I'm excited to be reading in this beautiful town. The festival sounds amazing, and I'm delighted to join the other poets to kick off this event. While I enjoy the poetry scene in Toronto, in my experience, poetry is happening everywhere and this is a wonderful thing. I also know what a vibrant poetry community you have in Cobourg. I'm looking forward to talking to other poets and exchanging our books and ideas. I picked up the anthology of Cobourg poets at a bookstore in Picton this summer and really enjoyed reading it.

I'm also very happy to participate in the Poets in the Schools program. As a poet/teacher/actor, I believe in the importance of creativity and creative writing for students. Poetry is such a leaping off place for writing: images, compression of ideas, emotion, form. Young writers do very well with poetry, and I'm happy to share my work with them, and introduce them to some new exercises and forms of writing. I've taught creative writing courses at the high school level, and marvel at what can be written in a short workshop by enthusiastic poets writing in community together!

New Book:
Like a lot of poets, I'm constantly sending out work to journals for publication. Collecting your work in a chapbook is a great way for people to read a cluster of your best poems. Last year, I published Last Fall Showing. In 2009, my work was put forward to a publisher, Maclean Dubois, in Edinburgh, Scotland. I'm thrilled to have that book, Between the Houses launched at POW! . I will be reading poems from both of those books and a couple of new ones as well.

How would you describe your poetry?

I would say my poetry is in the narrative/lyric tradition. Nature, history, the complexity of love, and the wonders of the everyday find a place in my work. I enjoy writing in traditional forms also, and pushing boundaries in my own work. I read a lot of contemporary Canadian and U.K. poetry.

When did you start writing poetry and what prompted it?

My mother and grandmother loved poetry, and I was read a lot of poetry as a child. I wrote poetry as a child and teenager as many people do, and I always derived joy from the process. I took a degree in English at Queen's University. Training as a classical actress, I read and said a lot of poetry. I really like reading and acting Shakespeare, and enjoy teaching it too. As a lover of language, I relished my years acting at The Shaw Festival where Christopher Newton encouraged me in my writing and I started a reading series there called The Belle Rose Ladies Guild.

My serious writing of poetry started about five years ago. I'd been knocking my head on the short-story wall for a decade, and I realized that poetry was where I needed to be. I've done readings of my work as a featured reader at The Art Bar and Plasticine reading series. I've also studied at The Humber School for Writers, and the Antigonish Blue Heron Poetry Workshop. I'm a believer in writing with groups too, and have written with The Algonquin Square Table out of Hart House for three years under the direction of A.F. Mortiz. I've also studied with poet Margaret Christakos in Influency: A Poetry Salon through Continuing Studies at University of Toronto.

What inspires you?

I try to keep my writing going. In fact, in the past two years I've written a poem a week on average. They seem to be spilling out of me! That's not to say they are all "keepers", but I believe in making time for my creative life as a writer. It is very important to me.

I'm inspired by my reading, by thinking, by walks in nature, by observing the world. I live on the Scarborough Bluffs over Lake Ontario, and this breathtaking and perilous landscape has served for inspiration. I grew up in Brockville, and water, especially the St. Lawrence River figures largely in my work. Memory, images, small scraps of conversation caught in the web of everyday life can start a poem in my head.

Writing Process: I will scribble on almost anything. I carry a notebook to catch ideas when they surface. Often I write longhand to grab the essence, but then hurry to the word processor to get the poem down and start working it. I like the chewiness of the writing process. I like to reduce, tighten, tweak. A lot of poems have to be abandoned, but I keep working, sometimes saving a fragment of a line that will lead to a whole new work. I need to write and feel driven at times to use the time I have.

Poetry for All: I feel Poetry is alive and well in our century. It is so accessible, because it often taps into our deepest wishes and desires, secrets and celebrations. We often turn to poetry in times of joy, birth, marriage, bereavement. Language poets stretch our thinking and push the boundaries of language, spoken word has opened up a world of self-expression. There is room for all styles and schools of poetry. Poetry took centre stage for a few minutes at the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, and Priscila Uppal was writing poems for the Canadian Team! I can't tell you how many people talked about the Spoken Word poet after the opening ceremonies. Perhaps poetry can unite us as a country in a web of words that is as strong as the net at the end of the hockey rink!

I think that the Poet Laureate of England, Carol Ann Duffy, is immensely popular because her work is easy to understand but also profound. I credit Scott Griffin for doing so much for Canadian and International poetry. Poetry workshops are a great idea. It's an exciting time for poets and festivals. Kudos to Cobourg!