Catherine Thompson talks to Sachi Nag about her album Wild Cat, about poetry and song-writing.
1. Your body of work as a singer-songwriter, recording artist, and performer includes Celtic Cat (2015), Cool Cat (2017), Papa’s Photo (holiday single 2018), and Wild Cat! (2021)? What is the overarching thematic in these works? How are these works related to each other and in what way are they different?
My EPs Celtic Cat (2015) and Cool Cat (2017), the holiday single Papa’s Photo (2018) and my album Wild Cat! (2021) are a collection of my singer-songwriter works. They represent my collaboration with arranger and producer Chris Birkett, which began in 2013. Because I am a multi-genre songwriter, it is difficult to nail down an overarching theme. However, these song projects group the works by genre – Celtic-ish folksongs, jazz-y on Cool Cat and Papa’s Photo, and broadly Rock on my full album Wild Cat. Four singles were released in 2020 and 2021, prior to the album launch. I was the recording artist for all except 4 songs on Celtic Cat. We wanted a younger clearer Celtic voice as recorded by Emily Brady. However, I do sing Breathtaking Gown. These songs were written over a long period of time – as early as 1976 and as recent as 2018. I have written many other songs which might never be recorded, but I do perform them at times.
2. You have said “Like Winnie the Pooh, a little hum may become a poem or a song, or both. How do you decide whether an idea is a song or a poem? Has it ever happened that you wrote up a “little hum” as a song that turned into a poem or vice versa?
I was a dancer, not a musician. Taking BFA Dance at York U, I wrote my first song at 28. Poems have come to me since I was a child. Both begin with a phrase or a melody rattling around in my head – like Winnie the Pooh’s little hum. I finish poems on paper. They have rhythm but rarely melody. Songs have both melody and rhythm. I could share a song only if it was complete enough to sing, listening intently to internal music. I do have poems that become songs and vice versa. Once I typed a poem but didn’t save it. The first line stayed with me and the song Dancing to the Neverland evolved. It’s on Cool Cat, verses and choruses alternate 4/4 and 6/8. On Wild Cat! the track I Drive Away is a rap. I invite audience members to improv beatbox as I recite. For the track, Chris Birkett added beatbox and car sounds – revving and roaring away. It’s great fun! Finally, A Time for Dying, an elegiac song written six months after my mom’s death, has lyrics that read like a poem. I send it to friends who’ve lost a parent.
3. Music, dance, storytelling, and education have been the dominant threads in your career. How do they inform your poetry?
Music and song, dance, storytelling, education, drama, and poetry – all are facets of who I am. Three poems: Alienation, My Father’s Daughters, and The Subtle Chauvinist, were separate pieces. While at York U for a BFA Dance in the late 1970s, a dance company residency used voice in dance. The vocal coach helped me weave the three poems into one Choreopoem of voice and movement. I used Laban’s notion of energy in the movement and echoed it in the vocal recitation, eg: separate apartness was Sep/ret Apaaartttnesss. It was a solo. I performed it years later at the dedication of a studio in Grant Strate’s name. While teaching dance at Niagara District in the nineties, I set Choreopoem on six females and one male dancer who recited the words in their own time to accompany their movement. I moved to Toronto and the TDSB in 2006. At Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts to run and makeover the library, I hosted poetry and songwriting clubs once a week, ran coffee houses once a month, and held a Poetry Cafe every spring. In 2010, we published a literary magazine – favourite poems and lyrics paired with visual art created by students.
4. Do you remember any experience around learning to write that became formative for you in the later years?
After retiring from education in 2011, I focused on taking my songs to the highest form within my budget. I’d had a casual relationship with songwriting since 1975 when I’d told my husband I’d written a song. He had a session musician come to hear it. I sat down, closed my eyes, and sang. My husband asked, “Where did that come from?” I responded, “I told you I’d written a song!” Our visitor said, “Indeed you did. And it’s all there – the form, the structure, it’s complete.” I am not prolific with either poetry or songs. I don’t have a method or practice, nor do I challenge myself to write a certain way. But that experience told me I was a songwriter and should pay attention to those little hums. In 2012, Blair Packham suggested I come to SongStudio for the weeklong intensive. It changed my life. There I knew I was a singer-songwriter. In SongStudio (2012-2021) I learned the value of co-writing, writing on command, and singing unfinished phrases. I wrote and sang She’s a Wild Cat! with D. Michelle Gold. I love the recordings I’ve made with Chris Birkett. However, my song deadline is approaching with my 75th birthday at the end of October 2022. At that point, I intend to shift my focus to my poetry. And that is another story. (227 words, I will edit)
5. What stories do you have (perhaps generative, perhaps constraining) about yourself as a poet? (i.e., What you’re good at or bad at, where you are in your writing journey, etc.)? How have these stories changed or remained the same over time/across different experiences?
I began to write poetry when very young. As a child, I was what was then called a tom-boy. As the fourth of six sisters, other than my school best friend, I ran with the boys. Outdoors most of the time, in the fields, the ravines, and the trails along the pond – we skated and tobogganed in the winter, replayed movie scripts in the summer, always surrounded by nature. My earliest writing is about nature – the clouds above the flats, daisies, mountains, the power of the almighty displayed in the world. As time went on, personal experiences and emotions crept in – rarely anything of broader world view, politics, or strong statements. I often doubted myself as a serious writer for the lack of depth in my works. Many are amusing or have an amusing twist at the end. Good for a laugh or for avoiding the inevitable darkness that might be lurking there. However, given the opportunity in university and even in graduate work, I would turn a paper to a poetic expression. I wrote a Social Science paper on the Mackenzie pipeline as a collage of articles and clippings about the pipeline and its effects interspersed with poetry regarding the first nations and its impact on them. (208 words)
6. Poets, writers or artists in other forms or media sometimes influence the way one writes. Can you recall or reflect on a similar influence in your case that might have been proven to be formative over the years?
After my coming 75th, I’ll shift my focus to publishing my poetry as I recorded my songs. I have participated in poetry communities for many years, such as Tower Poetry in Dundas, the Oakville Literary Café, Poetry and Prose, TOPS, and various poetry gatherings in Toronto from time to time. I love sharing my poetry and songs (often requested) and listening to what other writers offer. When I heard Brandon Pitts at the Lit Café, I was spellbound by his writing and presentation. Brandon is published by Mosaic Press and others. We became familiar with each other’s writing as members of a small invitational group of poets. Our writing is very different – my poems tend to be fairly brief; Brandon’s are epic in many cases. However, he agreed to edit my poetry for the publication of a chapbook. He took my initial file of poems and made very few suggestions for edits. That was several years ago. My songs have had my attention since. But I do hope that he’ll be willing to take up the task again in the fall. Poems keep turning up in old journals and folders and may still be viable with some attention and edits. And perhaps, as happened with my songwriting, the creative genie will still be present when I’m seventy-five for any new poems that want to be written. I fully trust Brandon and dearly wish that he will have the time and interest to help me get my poetry collection to press.
7. Is your writing practice influenced or in any way informed by a sense of writing to or for others? Do you have an audience in mind when you write?
My childhood imaginative play was full of dramatic renderings of stories invented or gleaned from movies and television. I began studying dance at the age of seven. While dance attempts perfection in line and form, there is also an emphasis on connecting with the audience. This remained true as I ventured into songwriting and storytelling. It’s wonderful to feel as if you have the audience in the palm of your hand, truly connected to them. One story emerged as a prose poem, bookended by song. Spellbinding for an audience. However, most of my poetry is written in solitude, is introspective, or at least written without an audience in mind. The odd thing is that I often find myself performing the pieces when sharing in a group. As an old hoofer and aging singer, my storytelling skills come to the fore when I recite my poems for an audience. I do think it’s more fun that way.
Catherine M Thompson, singer-songwriter, recording artist, performer and poet. Her multi-genre Song Projects are arranged and produced by award-winning Chris Birkett: Celtic Cat, Cool Cat, Papa’s Photo, and Wild Cat! Songs have placed finalist or semi-finalist in International Acoustic Music Awards, Canadian Songwriting Competition, and World Songwriting Competition. Her poetry appeared in TOPS Verse Afire and anthologies. Catherine performs with backing tracks or bands at open mic, festivals, and house concerts, and her weekly livestream Cat’s Meow! Like Winnie the Pooh, a little hum may become a poem or a song, or both. Art is life!