An interview with Kim Fahner

Kim Fahner lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. She was the fourth poet laureate for the City of Greater Sudbury (2016-18). Her latest book of poems is These Wings (Pedlar Press, 2019). Kim is a member of the League of Canadian Poets and is the Ontario Representative for The Writers' Union of Canada (2020-22), as well as a supporting member of the Playwrights' Guild of Canada. She may be reached via her author website at www.kimfahner.com

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

I’ve been writing since I was very young, but began to write more seriously in high school and in university. I don’t know if this is true of other writers, but I don’t think you have a choice as to how you ‘begin,’ really. If you’re a writer, you likely already have a big imagination and a lot of ideas. You also likely read a lot. Those ideas just need to come out somewhere. Telling stories is something I love to do. Writing is something I’ve always loved.

What keeps me going is my curiosity about people and places, I think. I’m always drawn to new ideas and I always have questions about the world, so that often directs me towards new writing projects. There is always another story to listen to, or to write and tell. Writers never stop, or at least all of the ones I know don’t stop.

What poets have influenced the ways in which you write?

Two of my most important poetic influences are Seamus Heaney and Mary Oliver. I spend a lot of time out in the natural world, so their work is rooted in landscapes that I can relate to, even if I’ve never really been to some of the places they’ve written about. Lately, though, I read very widely—mostly contemporary Canadian poetry—and love writing poetry book reviews for a variety of literary journals. I’m keen on seeing what new and emerging poets are doing, but I also love to read and study the work of veteran poets because I can learn from their work.

Have you noticed a difference in the ways in which you approach the individual poem after you began publishing full-length collections?

To be honest, I don’t write collections to a central theme or question to be answered. I know this is the more common with poets these days, but I have always just written poems as they come to me. Having said this, they tend to come in waves—thematically and stylistically—so grouping them into an arc within a collection always seems to work. I’m not really into creating numbered or titled sections within a book of poems. I like a more holistic approach, with the connections of poems being a bit organic in nature. 

My poetic style has changed over the years. When I was in my 20s, I wrote very long poems. Now, in my late 40s, my poems tend to be more succinct and crystalline. This is not always true, but it seems to be happening more often, certainly. I play with various poetic forms a bit more frequently now, and I’m largely focused on eco poetry and ekphrasis. These are things I’ve always been fascinated by, but now they tend to be my poetic touchstones.  

I like that I’m at an age where I can see such a large chunk of my writing career behind me, and then I can trace what’s changed and evolved in my work. It’s interesting, to look back, and then to wonder where your work will take you next.

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

Mentorship has been key to my development as a writer. I live in Sudbury, which is in Northern Ontario. It can, at times, feel at a great geographic distance from more urban centres where there tend to be larger writing communities and connections. I’ve spent time away at writing retreats—during my holidays from teaching English at the secondary level—to further my own work. I learn from being around—and workshopping my work with—other writers.

When I was in my twenties, I was mentored by Timothy Findley through the Humber School for Writers for my short stories. We sent letters back and forth in the late 1990s. He was the person who first made me realize that I could write in a variety of genres. Prior to working with him as a mentor, I really only saw myself as a poet.

Since then, I’ve been lucky to have been mentored by Lawrence Hill, Ken Babstock, John Glenday, Jen Hadfield, Tanis MacDonald, and Marnie Woodrow. I don’t have an MFA in creative writing, so I’ve made a purposeful choice to apply to short writing retreats through places like the Sage Hill Writing Experience, Moniack Mhor (in Scotland), and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. It’s also helped me to create a community of writers and friends from around the country, with quite a few of them living in England, Scotland, and America.

I hope I’m of help as a mentor to newer, emerging writers, but I don’t think I’ll know that until much later in my life. I do believe that we need to lift one another up, though, in the writing community across Canada. If we can support one another’s work, and encourage one another, I think we’ll end up building a stronger community of writers.

You were poet laureate of Sudbury. How did you approach that role, and what did you learn from the experience?

For me, being Poet Laureate was a great honour. My goal was to make poetry more accessible. I got out into schools and worked with students and teachers, using visual art to inspire poetry. I also just really wanted to put poetry in places where it isn’t often found. I called it ‘poetic graffiti,’ for lack of a better phrase. I created projects where I called for local poets to submit poems. Mostly, I wanted people to see that they could write poetry, even if they didn’t actually think they were able to. I worked closely with Jessica Watts at the Greater Sudbury Public Library, who was a huge help to me throughout my term. She helped me to bring my ideas to life in tangible ways.

With the Street Poetry Project, poems were placed on vinyl posters and put up in windows of local small businesses (mostly in the city’s downtown core). The Rain Poetry Project was fun because it meant using special biodegradable paint on sidewalks, so that stanzas by six local poets only appeared when it rained. It was a bit of magic because the actual project only lasted about a month or so—dependent mostly on weather— and it really got people excited about looking down to find and then read the poetry on the sidewalks while they were walking downtown.

I’m most proud of putting up poems in the windows of Health Sciences North (HSN), though, in the palliative and oncology wards. I believe that seeing poetry in places where you wouldn’t normally expect to see it—especially in places like hospitals, where you often have to wait for difficult news—can allow people to briefly escape their realities for a bit.

Sometimes, we need a break, and sometimes poetry serves as a doorway into a different way of thinking or being in the world.

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

Over the last year or so of reading and reviewing poetry books, I was really impressed with a number of collections by Canadian poets. Some of the ones that are in my head and heart lately include Conyer Clayton’s We Shed Our Skin Like Dynamite (Guernica Press), David Ly’s Mythical Man, M. Travis Lane’s A Tent, A Lantern, An Empty Bowl (Palimpsest Press), rob mclennan’s a halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press), Jane Munro’s Glass Float (Brick Books), and Betsy Warland’s Lost Lagoon/lost in thought (Caitlin Press). The list in my head of other poets is long, though, because I’ve read and reviewed so many books of poetry this year. I feel lucky, too, to be living in a country where the poetic community is so strongly woven—even despite our vast geographic distances.