Poetry Parlour

See what Leaguers have to say about poetry, pandemic, and online events

Thank you to everyone who responded to the most recent Poetry Pause questions! Check out our new batch of questions.

How has the COVID-19 Pandemic affected or influenced your poetry?

Claudia Radmore: Life has become more like a river, a small one like our Mississippi without swimmers, without the pressure to join in group activities, family gatherings, visits and visitors, all of which I like but did not miss too much. My mind can float undisturbed, slowing down to a time when it’s peaceful long enough to write or pick strawberries, the latter a little more difficult thing to do in a mask.

Louise Carson: Not at all. Not yet, anyway.

Merle Amodeo: I’ve written very little since the start of the pandemic, so it’s hard to fathom how my poetry has been affected. Maybe it’s because I seem to write more when I’m feeling light hearted and open and right now I’m down hearted and pensive. It’s what I like most about writing, the feeling that I’m creating, and I miss it terribly. ed my poetry on a positive way. My regular work was closed as non-essential business. So, locked for two months at home while I went outside for essential shopping and daily walking, I got surabondant time to write more. That’ s why i have written three poetry book collections during my “poetic” retreat to the noise of the world.

Carol MacKay: It put me in waiting mode. Instead of writing new material, I worked to revise, hone, re-work pieces I wrote pre-pandemic. I’m gradually coming out of that phase now. I needed to allow some distance from the overwhelming first days of COVID to begin to understand its impact.

Isobel Cunningham: I write more about my neighborhood and my garden.

Anne Burke: Since Joe Blade’s passing, I have turned to the elegy as my primary poetry form. I have gone inward (more so) and deep (much more) because a world-wide lockdown has reduced us to the spirit world to backyards and laneways. Neighbours pass by, with sudden detours but polite acknowledgements.

Elana Wolff: I’ve avoided using the words COVID-19, corona, and pan-

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demic in poems, but the virus is in the white space of a number of my new pieces.

Have you attended any online poetry/literary events? Tell us about the event(s) and what you did or didn’t enjoy.

Amanda Earl: i’ve attended three or four. one was a House Party Reading series in Ottawa, organized by Margo LaPierre and featuring Natalie Hanna, Frances Boyle, Manahil Bandukwala and Nina Jane Drystek. it was well-organized and each reader did a wonderful job. i didn’t like that seeing everyone and hearing the poets read made me miss seeing everyone in person.

Anne Burke: I have enjoyed zoom meetings and google Hang Out but miss the hugs (still virtual) the breath and warmth of reading(s).

Isobel Cunningham: Yes, I participated as a reader in a poetry event sponsored by la sala in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. I observed another such event last weekend. I was interested in the rehearsal process which was quite long. I loved hearing poets from several countries.

Kamal Parmar: I enjoy every online ZOOM event on poetry/literary. In fact one gets to connect with numerous poets from different regions. This is something which was not possible in in-person meetings as travelling from distances was not possible. it has strengthened our bonds and got us closer. A great learning experience! navirus, monthly, I attended poetry readings and other events. Right now, poetry readings did not come back. So, I am focusing on the launching of Coeur de plumes, my literary magazine welcoming emergent writers and debutant poets.

Carol MacKay: I’ve attended writing workshops online, brainstorming sessions for competitions and other more business-y aspects of writing. I enjoyed the opportunity to see and hear other writers--I didn’t mind meeting this way at all.

Elana Wolff: Many. If one wants to stay plugged in and active, virtual is the only way to go. Although I much prefer live events, I’ve had good online experiences. The writing group I’m part of--the Long Dash--has been meeting weekly and productively on Zoom since April, despite the occasional glitch. I featured on Zoom, along with Kate Marshall Flaherty, at Word Up, Barrie in May and very much enjoyed the experience--including the Q&A and the opportunity to see friends and colleagues from other parts of the country: people who wouldn’t have been able to attend a live event. I’ve also had good Zoom outings at Draft, curated graciously by Maria Meindl, and at ArtFest Kingston (prerecorded), generously organized by Bruce Kauffman and mounted online. I’ve attended several live Facebook events as well, most recently an excellent presentation by author/ poet/publisher Michael Mirolla.

Claudia Radmore: Yes, and I particularly enjoyed the one for Copper Canyon Press with Arthur Sze, Ellen Bass and Jericho Brown. Each poet had enough time to read a fair selec-

tion, and to show who they were as people behind the words.

Louise Carson: Many more events than I would normally attend as I live out in the country. It has been a bonus! I like presenting virtually, and when I’m not presenting, like to switch off the video and relax while listening.

What do you think poetry does for the world?

Sonia Di Placido: Poetry allows for people to slow down and reflect, to use their brains and language uniquely and think more succinctly by way of the 5 senses and describe the sensations or experiences that pervade that human conversation within. This allows for people to communicate and dialogue with one another through poems from all countries and share the internal life/experience of other nationalities, other landscapes and other political engagements that include war and issues of identity in various remote areas of the world that can be accesssed by other people online and considered deeply while being read and felt.

Vladimir Nicolas: Poetry carries quietness in our lives. We forget life routine and focus on the words. Poetry invites to diversity of opinion because all interpretations of poems are not the same, but equal. Poetry connect people, friends and strangers: the feeling to belong to the same community.

Claudia Radmore: It’s like that fungus underground that unites and nourishes tree roots. Most people don’t realize how impostant such hidden things are, yet the system nourishes our lives.

Amanda Earl: poetry makes people take a closer look at the use of language. like other forms of art it can comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. right now, during a pandemic and political turmoil, it can serve to remind people that they are not alone, it can articulate experiences that people are feeling but not able to necessarily articulate or communicate themselves: grief, sadness, despair, hope and love. it can help to point out inequality and injustice and serve a function of activism and solidarity, amplifying voices that are often not heard.

Elana Wolff: Poetry, like all art, invokes and enlivens the imagination, and by using our imagination, as Turkish author Orhan Pamuk writes in Other Colors, we can free ourselves from our own identities, expand and transform our given cultural horizons. Poetry has the capacity to be a liberating and liberalizing force.

Louise Carson: Poetry examines the world. It is needed by non-poetry readers when someone dies and human mortality comes into view, something most people like to pretend won’t happen to them. But poets know...death stalks the bird, the flower.

Merle Amodeo: It’s been observed that Poetry is the only art form where the receiver can replicate the form and reproduce it. So after reading The Merchant of Venice, I can speak the wisdom of Shakespeare

even alone in my room. I can’t do that with Van Gogh’s sunflowers. Also poetry allows the writer to express, preferably with as little artifice as possible, what it is like to be living in the world at this moment.

Carol MacKay: Poetry is a connector. It reveals, in very few words, universal truths. Poets shine a light on human vulnerabilities and ideas often hidden or unexpressed in the world. At the very least, poems open up discussions, which can ultimately lead to better understanding.

Isobel Cunningham: It lets air in between the dense and sometimes heavy ideas that are in the world. It’s like the white in a painting. It gives rest and meaning. It defines shape.

Anne Burke: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” —Percy Bysshe Shelley

Kamal Parmar: It heals the body, mind and the spirit. It is a most effective therapeutic tool , especially in these trying times

JUST FOR FUN: How many poems do you think you have written in your life?

Isobel Cunningham: Oh, who’s counting!

Amanda Earl: i have been writing long poems and poem series for the last 15 years or so, so that’s a hard one to answer. my long poems are often at least sixty pages long and i’ve written about ten of them. i began making poems as soon as i could speak. apparently the universe has a quadrillion stars. Thomas Aquinas asked how many angels could fit on the head of a pin. There’s your answer.

Louise Carson: Several thousand.

Merle Amodeo: I started writing poetry in grade two where I was encouraged by a wonderful teacher. I continued to write in to my teens, but then I began to worry about one of my brothers (I had three) reading my work, so I stopped. That was a mistake! I got caught up in living and didn’t write much again until I retired. I think I’ve written about 100-200 poems.

Anne Burke: 1000, 2000

Elana Wolff: I’ve never counted. Probably between four and five hundred.

Claudia Radmore: Thousands, loosely.

Sonia Di Placido: It really depends on what one defines as a poem. A poem can be just a word or a list. A poem can be a line, an observation, a quote. I’ve definitely written over 450 poems. Many have evolved into other longer poems or pieces.

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