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

If I had time to have thoughts these days, I would probably be thinking that it is a rather exciting and pleasurable thing, this reading at the POW! Festival. I hasten to add that I've had to tell friends that this is NOT a Prisoner of War Festival.

Please tell us about "The Darker Edges of the Sky" and also a little about any other books you've had that "saw print."

The Darker Edges of the Sky came into existence because Mike Johnston was in touch, I believe, with Richard Grove and arranged for several members of the Cobourg Poetry Workshop to have interviews with him. It meant work on the part of the authors to get the material together but, at least in my case, had I not been shoved into the water, I would never have got my feet wet. After some casting about, I decided that I should confine my choices to those poems that had direct inspiration from life in our place near Stirling, ON, where for nearly 25 years we fled from the city when time allowed.

As for other books that "saw print," those devoted to poetry are either translations from Chinese or other of my own verse, and for the most part these take the form of chapbooks.

At POW!, do you plan to solely read pieces from "The Darker Edges of the Sky"? Do you plan to read other work as well?

At this point I feel I shall read pieces from a broader selection than Darker Edges alone, that is if time and the flesh permit me to forage through my notes as I would like.

How would you describe your poetry?

I would say that I write about personal experiences, both inner and otherwise. This is usually in the form of the lyric and does not include much narrative type verse. I also write about things that bother me and in these cases I usually write imitations of earlier poetic forms which may or may not become parodies. Finally, translating poetry has been for me a fascinating pursuit as it is never easy nor in fact ever finished.

When did you start writing poetry and what prompted it?

Let us say, I thought I was writing poetry as early as my college days, especially after I took the poetry writing course in the English department. The prompting came from a wonderful life in that small and most accommodating liberal arts college. I don't believe I thought so at the time, but I see it now as one of the most interesting and fulfilling times in my life.

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

These days inspiration seems to come more rarely though it is still largely as it was before. As I said, there are sometimes things that bother me, but the roots of that are more often in society. My greatest inspiration these days and indeed for some years now, is nature, and my recollections of my experiences of it in my early youth. Beyond this there is always the chance melody of phrase that poets often hear without trying, and this sort of thing quite often has enough momentum to sustain the effort of writing of a whole poem.

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

This varies considerably. A parody may be centered upon a particular idea but the form of the lines, the rhyme scheme and lengths of sentences play a very obvious part in making the poem. On the other hand, more casual forms, though they may require just as much shaping of line and choice of word, allow freer play with the ideas and how they are expressed. Translation, as I suggested before, is another sort of challenge; one is often required to attempt writing as another person.

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?

I think that is a noble idea, one which fills me with enthusiasm when I am at the meetings, the festivals, the readings and all that has to do with writing poetry and reading it in public. But when I step outside the door, the realization that the world is still there, much as it was before, comes back until the next poetry occasion. Still one is able to take consolation in the fact that events like the POW! Festival has had so much success in spreading the good word.