Monty Reid is a
poet based in Ottawa. His books include Garden (Chaudiere), The
Luskville Reductions (Brick) and Crawlspace (Anansi) as well as
recent chapbooks from above/ground press, corrupt press, postghost press and
others. Segments from his current
project, The Lockdown Elegies, have appeared in Train, The
Quarantine Review, Noon, Guest and other journals in print
and online. He is the Director of
VerseFest, Ottawa's international poetry festival.
How did you begin writing, and what keeps
you going?
I've never been able to figure out what exactly got me
started. I was a happy, if sometimes
lonely kid. My father died when I was
very young, and we were poor. There
weren't many books around but I read everything in the house. Still, I was more interested in baseball and
hockey. I wrote my first poem in high
school, trying to impress Yvonne, the girl who sat in front of me in English
class. Didn't work, and I should have
learned. I got into law school at the
University of Alberta but discovered that the only classes that held my
attention were literature, and I soon switched out of Law into English. Some profs there (Doug Barbour and Bert Almon
mostly) encouraged me to write. I had a
few publications early on (Nodding Onion, White Pelican, Grain)
that let me think writing would be a sustaining interest. But I have never seen it as a career. or
myself as a professional poet. I just
see writing as one of the most satisfying ways of engaging with the world. Music would be a close second. And the world, with all its wonder and its
outrage, is always there.
What keeps me going is seeing the fresh and provocative work of
other poets. For each, it's a way of
thinking through the world. Maybe I can
still learn something.
What poets have influenced the ways in
which you write?
Influence isn't a strong enough word. I borrow, steal, extend, respond. And there are so many. I've long loved WH Auden and (particularly
the later) William Carlos Williams. Bob
Kroetsch, bp nichol, Phyllis Webb, were all early influences. Bob Hass, with
whom I once had a very strange breakfast in Lake Tahoe, helped me calm my line
down and Leslie Scalapino showed me a lot about hesitation. I continue to
admire the passion and slow-burn fury in Erin Moure's work, but also the
sustained interest in translation, which has become significantly more
important to me over the years. M Nourbese Philip's Zong was an eye-opener. I
was influenced as well by the social committment and generosity of spirit in
Tom Wayman. I'm in awe of the constant production of rob mclennan. There are so
many more.
Have you noticed a difference in the ways
in which you approach the individual poem over the years? How has this evolved?
I almost never approach the individual poem any more. They
always seem to hang out in bunches anyway, like teenagers at the mall. A poem
always seems to be a means of exploration, the trails lead off somewhere else,
the options open up, and as I've gotten older I'm more at ease with chasing
down some of those options with less urgency than before. You realize, eventually, that you can't chase
them all.
You seem to favour the extended lyric. What
is it about the longer form that attracts you?
There's a kind of loose coherence there that attracts me. The
longer form has a bit more carrying capacity.
It can go off in different, sometimes unpredictable directions (see
previous question) and the links that hold it together can be looser or
tighter, as required. I don't believe the self, that lyric generator, can be
lost completely without serious dysfunction, but its hard edges can soften, and
it can be redistributed in various configurations and concentrations in
multiple locales, which is something the extended form makes available. Most of
my recent sequences feature this constantly redistributed self.
You were the managing editor of Arc
Poetry Magazine., as well as the current artistic director of VERSeFest.
Why are these roles important, and what have you learned through the process?
And long before that, I edited NeWest ReView (for a year)
and started The Camrose Review (with Wade Bell and Robert Kroetsch), put
out crudely-made chapbooks as Sidereal Press, helped found the Writers' Guild
of Alberta, and helped establish VERSeOttawa.
I believe in doing the work that makes a community of writers possible. That
work can take many forms and can be approached in many different ways but I do
believe that 'community' is profoundly important to the well-being of writers
(and others). There are those who distrust the notion of community, but most of
them are just part of different communities.
How important has mentorship been to your
work? Is there anyone who specifically assisted your development as a writer?
I've never had a mentor per se. But there are many who have
helped along the way, from university profs to poet friends to patient
partners, for which I continue to be grateful.
Can you name a poet you think should be
receiving more attention?
Sylvia Legris. Rob Winger. AnnHarte Baker.
