An interview with David Alexander

David Alexander is the author of After the Hatching Oven from Nightwood Editions (2018). His poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, The Rusty Toque, The Humber Literary Review, the Literary Review of Canada, Big Smoke Poetry and other journals and magazines. David volunteers as a reader for The Puritan and works in Toronto’s nonprofit sector.

How did you begin writing, and what keeps you going?

In grade seven we all had to write poems for class. It was a good way to get laughs; I was a shy, insecure kid. My family moved a lot growing up and it wasn’t always easy to make friends. In high school, I started to write songs because being in a band seemed like the coolest thing in the world. To become famous was my nerd-revenge dream, but it was not to be. I was undone by my failure to progress beyond mediocre three-chord guitar talent or to take whatever step one ought to after declaring one’s intention to start an actual band. The only lasting result of the whole endeavour was a bunch of scribbled verse.

High school writer’s craft sparked a deeper interest in poetry. It was all very emo, but my teacher was encouraging. She taught the course in a way that positioned writing as something done by living people. Young people, even. The course also introduced opinion writing and I have at times confused the two forms. The poems in my book, for example, interrogate the politics of animal exploitation. With jokes sometimes. So I guess I write for laughs, fame, revenge, and radical political change. The normal stuff that keeps poets going.

Have you noticed a difference in how you approach writing poems now that you’ve published a full-length collection?

I can think of a few ways that writing After the Hatching Oven changed my approach. All the poems in the book are about chickens. The flexibility to write to a similar set of concerns over and over meant less pressure to perfectly say everything to be said about something in one poem, a trap I sometimes fall into. In writing the collection, I experimented with form and incorporated a range of chicken-related source material such as poems, lines from movies, technical guides, news articles, and encyclopedia entries. As ambiguity crept in, the polemics eased up and the poems got more interesting. I came out of writing the book with more ideas for how to start new work and a nice variety of poem end states. 

Putting the poems together at the end of this process shed some light on the recurring symbols, themes, and imagery of the collection. After this started to clarify, I was able to consciously work these elements in and arrange the sections of the book in a way that might highlight some of the links. So the result is that now I feel more ease writing long and linked poems and have a better handle on symbols, imagery, formal techniques, etc.

What poets have influenced the ways in which you write?

Hard to fully understand one’s own influences. Specific poems seem to carry a lot of influence. I was recently reading Dennis Lee’s “400: Coming Home” for the first time in years and the diction felt very familiar to my work. Frank O’Hara’s “Why I Am Not a Painter” (which I riffed on in my book) is another one like that. I read Raymond Carver’s poems at an impressionable age. Sonnet L’Abbé had written a “How Poems Move” column on a Carver poem for the Globe & Mail, which led me to his collected. Who else? Karen Solie. Sarah Lindsay. Jeff Latosik. Stuart Ross. The Weakerthans.

How important has mentorship been to your work? Is there anyone who specifically assisted your development as a writer?

After graduating, I took a continuing education course at taught by Sonnet L’Abbé and a couple by Ken Babstock. Both were energizing teachers who provided useful feedback. And of course both write compelling poetry so I was in good hands. A few years later, I worked with Stuart Ross as part of his coaching program and attended some of his workshops. At one session, he introduced a bunch of poetic translation techniques—things like n+7, centos, erasures, etc. There are many ways to write a book of connected poems, but I seized on some of these strange translation methods and invented some of my own. Perhaps because I was writing for creatures we share no language with. The poems quickly moved from earnest and straight-laced toward absurdism, remix, and other experiments. Not all of the poems followed the translation path, but I eventually developed a standard structure for the collection—four or five three line stanzas the a couplet—and had a set of common thematic elements and imagery to riff on.

I had a lot of help from my friend Annick MacAskill. We formed a writing group together and eventually proceeded through a lot of first book stuff at the same time. Annick was first reader for a lot of my poems and her feedback on my manuscript was incredibly sharp and insightful. I’ve also learned a lot from the editors I’ve worked with, Blair Trewartha, who edited my Anstruther chapbook (Modern Warfare) and Carlton Wilson, who edited my full-length. Both were great, especially in terms of helping me understand how to deploy things like line breaks and punctuation to vary the flow within each poem and within a collection.

You are currently a reader for The Puritan. Why do you feel this work is important, and what have you learned through the process?

At university I organized readings and edited an annual poetry journal. But then for several years after graduating, I didn’t have much interaction with other writers. Eventually I started meeting people through readings and courses. And then I started to get published. Anything that brings writing out of your journal and into the world is a blessing. When the opportunity arose to play a small part in this process for other writers, I was very interested. I like the idea of literary tithing, of devoting creative energy to other writers, and reading is a nice way to do that because your role in the process is pretty simple. 

The Puritan publishes a nice mix of emerging and established writers and I usually find a diverse, surprising set of submissions waiting to be considered for each issue. It’s definitely reinforced the value of spending time with poetry, rereading, and having patience to let a poem move you. It can take a few readings for a poem to do its work, and reading work by unfamiliar writers is a nice reminder of poetry’s possibilities.

What are you currently working on?

Trying to have a writing life in the moments between full-time work at The Word On The Street and a busy family life with two young kids. I’m not particularly prolific, but earlier this winter I wrote seven sonnets on fascism that I’ve been meaning to spend some editing time with. A lot of my poems seem to start as moody dramatic monologues or as frantic pinball games, but I’m trying to break those habits and write more sparsely. I was reading Stevie Howell’s I Left Nothing Inside on Purpose recently and I really admire how carved down the poems feel and how as a reader you’re invited to move through the lines.

Can you name a poet you think should be receiving more attention?

All poets should receive more attention. One book that stands out from last year is We Like Feelings. We Are Serious. by Julie McIsaac.