Lisa Young

Sometimes you get to a certain point and you just don’t know what to do with a poem.  You might have many drafts and you don’t know what’s working anymore. You’ve lost perspective. And on top of that, maybe you’re surrounded by a whole bunch of other discarded poems that aren’t working either and you’re getting different critiques and you don’t know who to believe and you’ve kind of lost your mind. I’m going to give you an exercise to help you deal with that situation. Many people say one of the best ways to deepen your craft is to read in your genre, so in this case, go out there and read poetry. But I’m going to make it a little more specific in order to help you be your own best poetry editor. Exercise: Read three different literary magazines and find a poem in each one of them that you’re absolutely crazy about. Now, what can you glean from these poems? How does searching for favourite poems help you? 1. These poems hold a key to what you’re aiming for in your own ...

“I found myself in an Akashic Wood.”  Sonia Di Placido's poems, essays, and other writings have appeared in blogs, literary print and online journals such as   The Toronto Quarterly ,   Carousel ,   The Puritan ,   The White Wall Review   38,   Jacket2 , The California Journal of Women Writers , and the  Canthius Journal . Two anthologies worthy of mention:   Walk Myself Home, An Anthology of Violence Against Women   (Caitlin Press), and   The Poet to Poet Anthology (Guernica Editions). Sonia’s first full-length collection of poetry,   Exaltation in Cadmium Red , launched in 2012 with Guernica Editions. Her second book of poems with Guernica Editions is forthcoming in 2018. Sonia's also currently working on an epistolary series about poetry and writing.  Sonia's latest chapbook, The Akashic Wood ,  was published this past spring by LyricalMyrical Press. The opening quote by Emily Dickinson (from...

“ I didn’t have to challenge myself. Numerous challenges emerged on their own. ” BIOGRAPHICAL INFO: Michael Fraser has been published in numerous national and international anthologies and journals including:   Paris Atlantic ,   Arc , CV2 , and   The Caribbean Writer . He won   ARC ’s Reader’s Choice award for 2012, and was included in the Best Canadian Poetry in English 2013 . He won   FreeFall ’s  2014 and 2015 Poetry Contests. His latest book is   To Greet Yourself Arriving (Tightrope Books). He is the creator and former director of the Plasticine Poetry Series.  Michael’s second collection of poetry   To Greet Yourself Arriving   was recently published by Tightrope Books. As the title suggests, this collection explores self-awareness, fragmented selves, and the best self. Some of the poems are portraits of people who have accomplished rare achievements, such as Bob Marley, Joe Frazier, Maya Angelou and Barack Ob...

Poetry editing is such a huge topic that I’ve been procrastinating writing about it. Where to begin? What to cover? Well, let’s start with a poem I’m editing that has some ants in it. Editing Session to Figure Out What to Do with the Ants: Usually, when I come across a poem that includes ants, I think, oh no, not ants again. The writer was sitting in the grass and saw ants and had nothing else to write about, so the ants got in there. Plus, ants are such a cliché  —  we're like them: small, exposed to all kinds of twisted fates. Find Poems that Cover Your Subject Matter What I like about the poem  —   Failing in the Presence of Ants   —  is that it does the unexpected  —  it reveres the ants  —  not to mention it’s just well written  —  and if something’s working, whether it’s about ants or not, it doesn’t really matter  —  all is forgiven. Finding poems that cover your...

There's a certain urgency to share my work as soon as I've written it. My first reader is my husband, Mike. I'm looking to see whether he thinks it works overall. He'll point out any weak spots and do a quick proofread for me too. Sometimes I read my work aloud to him in the kitchen while dinner is cooking. The work I show Mike might still be in its early stages, but it feels complete in some way – enough that I think I have something. I need to have a first reader who appreciates that it's still a work in progress. Mike and I are a team. If something's off – I'll go back and fix it up and then have him read it again. We'll go back and forth this way. A first reader should have good judgment. Is a first reader a kind of gatekeeper? I think so. They're the ones who stop you from going forward when you're headed for disaster. Who isn't a good first reader? Someone who can't articulate what's wrong with a certain phrase or...

Everyone has a different writing process. Over time, of course, some methods grow stale and new "systems" take over. Poetry I like to write first drafts of poems in the company of other poets. We read our favourite poems and then dive in and write for 45 minutes or so, and then we share what we've written. It also helps that these writing sessions take place early in the morning, before the inner critic is awake. I usually write whatever I feel attracted to write about...and I don't worry too much about the result. That comes later when I transcribe what I've written and have a look to see what material I have. Sometimes the very things that I thought were working during the writing process are flat, while other bits and pieces that I wrote that I thought weren't working become the actual material that seems to have some energy in it. In terms of editing, sometimes it doesn't work to just keep moving the original words around. I have to basicall...

The launch is not too far away for my LyricalMyrical chapbook, This Cabin . Read what two fabulous poets have to say about it: This Cabin , by Lisa young, is a collection of spare and striking poems that jump right in, investigating the tension between being in the moment, and being in the mind. As the title implies, the poems are rich with specificity, detail, and the struggles between getting away and coming home. In a Rumi-esque manner, the narrator "welcomes whatever comes," be it encountering the personalities of caterpillars, or washing a small pot; be it rushing with a "mad-hatter to do list" or "seeing the sunrise / for the first time in a year." Young keeps the reader searching as well, punctuating images of the mundane with spontaneous questions, "How do you fall in step ... Without forcing something?" The reader is invited to pause with the narrator and ask, "How do I live enough ... Without scraping my knees." Young...

A June launch for my chapbook is nothing short of fortuitous. Getaways are what summer is all about, and This Cabin definitely pays homage to the great escape. Some of the poems were written over last summer and fall, when I had the chance to soak up some sun and gear way down. There are some winter poems in there too. You can’t forget winter. It’s no good launching alone. It’s no fun. Happily, Pat Connors and Brenda Clews will also be launching Lyricalmyrical chapbooks on the same night. I’m in the process of experiencing some serious anticipation of the event. Luciano Iacobelli, who’s the publisher at Lyricalmyrical, will be hosting the evening at Q Space. Q Space is not only home to many reading series in the city, it’s also home to Quattro Books. Yes, their office is in the back. Yes, Q Space is a café, a bookstore and (depending on the night) also a bar. I couldn’t ask for a better place to launch a chapbook. Lyricalmyrical chapbooks are all handmade...

River rocks - pick one and tell its story. I was recently away at a poetry retreat in Burnt River. A wonderful getaway that turned out to be the best vacation I've had in a long time  –  thanks to the finest and purest river in Ontario and great poets for company and inspiration.  After so much immersion in poetry, I came home feeling refreshed and oddly gung-ho to switch gears and start writing some fiction. In what ways do poetry and fiction overlap?  Here are some poetry tools and ways to transfer some of these tools into the world of fiction.  Some Poetry Tools Some Fiction Tools  Make sure you include concrete objects.  Concrete objects expand to amount to a setting.  (Some poets say: location, location, location! So the difference here is perhaps a matter of magnitude.) Try to write about an "occasion"  –  however small it might be. Oc...

There are no travelling adventures in my future. But while I stick at home  –  friends are preparing to go to India and beyond  –  and one is already on a year long trip around the world. This is when the imagination must kick in, so that I too can have a taste of other worlds. I was editing an art book this weekend, and many of the photos that will be included in the book are thought to be some of the most sacred works of art in the world  –  they are said to contain hidden knowledge for anyone who is open and ready to receive it. The Sphinx is one such work of art. Staring at a photo on a computer is not going to cut it. You have to be there in person to feel the impact of the Sphinx  –  or so I've been told. People have been known to weep in front of great art  –  like Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. The Chartres Cathedral is another work of art that I've been told I have to see before I die. Exactly when do my travel a...

 I know my book launch isn't until November, but it's starting to feel like it's getting very close all the same. I don't usually make collages  –  however  –  I decided I'd "get out" all my anxiety about the launch by putting it into picture form. It was a great relief somehow. So here it is for your general entertainment. I continue to be taken by Julia Cameron's writing. The book I have of hers now is called, The Sound of Paper. She's the one who "believes" in collages. She has interesting exercises in her book including one where you write about yourself in the third person  –  distance yourself and write yourself as a character. I've done this exercise once before. I tried it again today and I seemed to be just a little more honest the second time around. It's amazing how I edit myself as I write  –  well I can't say this or that  –  and let's not get maudlin or overly dramatic,...