Always writing: In conversation with master storyteller Joseph Dandurand

BY MEAGHAN HACKINEN

Joseph Dandurand is a storyteller, poet, playwright, and member of Kwantlen First Nation located on the Fraser River about twenty minutes east of Vancouver. Dandurand is the director of the Kwantlen Cultural Centre, artistic director of the Vancouver Poetry House, and current FBCW Ambassador. He hates rhymes and is fascinated by Sasquatch. Dandurand was awarded the prestigious 2022 Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize. His most recent collection, The Punishment, is available from Harbour Publishing.

FBCW staff member Meaghan Hackinen met with Dandurand over Zoom to learn more about his artistic practice, approach to revision, and reflections on his new release.

Meaghan Hackinen: Can you describe your artistic practice?

Joseph Dandurand: I’m up at 5:00 am every day. I go and get a coffee, go to my office, and sit down. If I’m working on a manuscript of poetry, I’ll usually write one poem a day; if I’m writing a new play, it’s usually one scene a day; and if I’m writing short stories, it’s usually one short story. What I like about writing so early—getting it done—is that if I’m having a really crappy day, I can always reflect back on what I accomplished in the morning. I’ve done that for about fifteen years now. […] When I’m about to finish a book, I begin thinking about my next project.

MH: Has your perspective or focus shifted over the course of your career? If so, how?

JD: Yes, I think so. When I first started writing, I’d always come home to where I live now, the village where my mom is from. And thirty years ago, I was coming home to fish—I was actually on my way to Mexico to live on the beach and write bad poetry—and our chief, she gave me this thing called salary [laughs]. And so, I’ve been working for my people for thirty years now. […] Not truly growing up here as a young person, I really didn’t know a lot about my people, but over the thirty years I’ve learned so much. And one of the tragic things about our people—and most Indigenous People—is that there’s nothing written in a book for us, or for me as a writer to pull from, because everything was based off oral traditions and all that was lost for my people. Our elders lost it; my mother was five years old when she was put on a train in Fort Langley and sent to a residential school, so she lost it. But language and stories had been lost a generation before that. And so now I have—I like to think—this gift to be given or shown stories and to get them down as stories or poems or plays.

MH: How do you approach revision, and is your approach different depending on genre?

JD: Definitely. Poetry, I write once. I might do a spellcheck, but that’s it. I never go back to revamp or rework poems—I leave it up to the editor. […] For plays it’s much more of a process: once it’s written, it needs to have a workshop with actors. What that does for me as a playwright is I can truly hear the characters speaking, whereas before it was just inside my head. You can really pick things out when actors are reading it—what works and what doesn’t—so it’s always good to workshop plays. Short stories are the same as poetry: minor edits and spellcheck. MH: That’s interesting, especially what you said about poetry. JD: I don’t know if I could go back and rewrite a poem. It’s like a painter when the painting is finished—you might go back and touch it up, but I don’t even go back and touch it up. Just onto the next one.

MH: Your most recent collection The Punishment just came out with Harbour Publishing. Did you learn anything while putting together or revising this work?

JD: I didn’t realize how tragic it is until I started rereading it. My mom, even though she has Parkinson’s, and her memory is starting to go […] you mention the word residential school to her, and she just starts crying. And that’s how inherently abusive her time there was: just the word triggers that. I used her a lot [in The Punishment], and then my own experience with drugs and alcohol is in there. I’ve been writing a series of books about my experiences in the Downtown Eastside and I think The Punishment has quite a bit of that in there too. What I love and hate is there’s so many characters and stories passing me by. I’ll stand at East Hastings and Main just watching people, and you sense the tragedy and wonder where these people came from. And for me they come from somewhere: a village upriver, or on the island.

MH: You’ve had a long and prolific career as a poet, playwright, and storyteller. Can you share a transformational experience that you’ve had along the way?

JD: It’s through my spirituality, which I’ve been part of for twenty-four winters now. […] That saved me. Now I spend my winters in longhouses at gatherings and ceremonies. It’s like our church, that’s what I teach children when they come into our longhouse. And what I’ve found about my spirituality is that it’s a safe and I’ll stand true place to be in. I’d never seen at East Hastings that before while being raised a Catholic, or living on the streets, or being a drug addict and an alcoholic—there’s no truth to it. And that’s what I’ve found through my spirituality is truth.

MH: What would you say to someone who’s beginning or struggling with the revision process?

JD: Procrastinators, just island. stop procrastinating. I meet a lot of them and they’re so funny when I pick it out. Like this interview, you’re probably doing because you’re procrastinating.

MH: You just called me out—I’m procrastinating on an assignment!

JD: Early on as a writer, I found reading was so important because I didn’t read a lot in high school. Reading books opened all these doorways to different types of styles and people. […] If you are a writer, or you want to be a writer, the most important thing is to just keep writing. Even if it hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. Or even if it’s not what you want—at least you’ve got it out of yourself, and you can always go back and work on it some more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Meaghan Hackinen is a bike-obsessed bookworm on a lifelong hunt for exceptional cycling routes. Her debut travel memoir, South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels is available from NeWest Press. Meaghan has an MFA in Writing and lives in Kelowna, BC.