Author of ‘Radio Weather’ talks to Sabyasachi Nag about her craft
1. You have listed Paul Celan as one of your key influences. And through Celan you discovered Rilke and Heine. How would you say the direct or influences play out in Radio Weather?
Paul Celan was a pivotal influence on me when I started seriously writing poetry. As the preeminent poet of the Holocaust, a Jewish survivor, his poetry shifted how I saw my own family’s history, the Jewish side of my family, the family that we lost in the Shoah. His poetry changed the way I understood my family’s story and, in turn, how I located myself.
But more than that, Celan’s poetry excited a reverence in me for the power of language, of accountability. Each word must carry its weight. Celan’s economy of language put stress on the poem, charges each word with force and exactitude. The reader is forced to pay attention.
He also showed me how a poets’ perspective on the world and their place in it carries unique fingerprints and unique responsibility. Celan viewed his poems as a conversation with the reader. I took up this responsibility. His poems are famously difficult, as times impossible to parse, but he insisted they were not hermetic, not out of reach. And so, I read them closely, over and over. I read his influences. I read biographies. Letters. Critical works. I stretched myself to gain access to his poems. Over years, I was in conversation with his poems, just as he said. That poetry could demand this much of me made me want to commit myself.
I would not say Paul Celan directly influenced Radio Weather. My book is not a response to his works. But he was a formative influence of me. (word count: 252)
2. How do the four sections of Radio Weather converse with each other?
Radio Weather, in the most basic sense, is about the forces that shape us, the kaleidoscope of memory, and how our relationship to the living and the dead are ever evolving.
The first section searches for a sense of belonging in a new place—Newfoundland—where the speaker is unsure if they are up to the task of living in such an extreme landscape. Ice floes, snow squalls, floods, invasive plants. The landscape is unyielding, both in its beauty and its brute force.
The second section collects poems that reckon with growing up in the margins of society, poverty, social isolation. It then brings in family silences and secrets and the pressures of conformity.
It brings in the present, the adult speaker, who grapples with the pressures to conform, adult losses, and sorrows.
The third section is a series of interwoven found poems crafted from letters written to my father from soldiers during Vietnam. I found the letters in the boxes my father left to me when he died. He was a conscientious objector counsellor during the Vietnam War. The letters are first-hand chronicles of young men who are bereft, desperate, terrified, and disillusioned. They are all seeking a way out of the war, of the madness, a way home.
The final section brings in the voices of the dead. My loved ones and those whom I grew to care for, in a cacophony of voices, that I carry with me. A prisoner we visited when I was a child through a leftist abolitionist program, who was eventually executed. My father’s death from AIDS. My own loneliness and grief; but also an acceptance of grief, to allow it to settle into one’s life might divine a way back into the world of the living.
As a conversation, the four sections of the book ask: what if we hold all our opposing truths at once and commit ourselves to allowing the disparate elements of our lives to co-mingle? How might that shape us? (word count: 332)
3. Time in Radio Weather seems to move in waves. Radio Weather seems to be in present time, Neighbors seems to be situated in near past, Family Album in distant past followed by The Other Mother in present, followed by section three in distant past and AIDS Ward (1991) in section four in near past. What were your considerations in respect to time in organizing this collection?
Time is like a kaleidoscope for me. I don’t experience memories as linear. My early years were punctuated by loss—of home, of friends and family, of my relationship to the society grew up in due to the AIDS crisis—so that memory for me is an ever-shifting landscape.
I’ve come to recognize, as well, that as I mature my relationship to the past shifts. I think this happens for all of us. We learn new details about ourselves, we resolve old conflicts, and we gain perspective on our past. When it comes to loved ones and our own history, these shifts bear down on our stories. They must. The narratives we carry in our minds are not static. They evolve. What happens when we let them all in? When we refuse to force them into neat and tidy boxes and instead allow the chorus of contradictions to sing through our work? (word count: 152)
4. Decline (City Dwellers, The Cotton Mill, AIDS Ward, etc.) and Renewal (Spring, The Other Mother, New Year’s Day) seem to be like pulsating yin-yang themes in each section. How did you decide what poems to include/leave out in this collection?
I worked on this collection over many years. I didn’t throw out many poems because I wrote poems to fit in with the collection and what didn’t work, I crafted until they did.
I wrote Radio Weather while living in St. John’s, Newfoundland. As a transplanted American, I was an outsider struggling to find my place. I was newly married, then buying my first home, having kids. But in my former life, I moved dozens and dozens of times, across great distances. I didn’t have fixed idea of home. Home to me simply was a collection of places, people, and memories. Suddenly, I wanted to build a home. Only I didn’t know how. I hadn’t had this experience. So, the search for home, or the meaning of home, became a thread in my work. Again, I had to let in all the disparate memories and voices I carried in me. Because home had become more of an ideal or an idea and in order to find it, I had to first commit myself to the process of searching.
I wrote about what destroyed me. I then wrote about what sustained me in the aftermath. I was writing about what forces shaped the person I am, and how I am not bound to them. I accept that my idea of myself, home, love, family, will shift and shift again. Isn’t writing always about the search?
5. Can you reflect on any (inescapable) social contexts that might have been inspiring or generative (or conversely, harmful, or inhibitive) to your writing practice at some point?
Yes, lots! In my twenties, I lived very simply on very little money. I worked waitressing jobs, service industry odd jobs here and there, and wrote. I was politically active and engaged with the communities where I lived (and I moved often). These times were up and down for my writing, but I remember my poetry then was born out my present life. I wrote observations, questions I had about places I visited, a black and white view of the world one has in youth. In my late 20s, I enrolled in an MFA program in New York City and landed an internship at a magazine, then full time job there while I took night classes. I worked all the time! I often had to take home proofreading work for the extra money, on top of a full-time job and a graduate program. While I was supposed to be focused on my writing and on learning my craft, I was exhausted. The work I produced was flat, as I searched for the elusive voice or style I was expected to find, but I was too exhausted to have much imagination.
It wasn’t until I moved to Newfoundland in my early thirties that I began to write poems I believed in. For the first time in my adult life, I had time (I couldn’t work for the first year due to immigration policies). I read everything—high, low, realist, fantasy, poetry, fiction, memoir. I visited art galleries, lighthouses, concerts, and the sea and hiked for hours every day. I’d put in the work, over years and years, learning the craft of poetry but I hadn’t developed an artistic life that could feed me. I didn’t have the resources to do that in my youth. I learned this later in life. It’s a fine balance. I struggle with it still. I have to force myself to go on art dates, spend an unstructured day outdoors, leave the work behind and fill my cup. I think long walks in the woods and by the sea did more for my writing development than punishing stints at the computer. For writers who come from impoverished backgrounds, time is luxury.
6. Do you train your subconscious in certain ways to deal with success or rejection?
Absolutely. Success is temporary, fleeting. It is of the moment. You must work hard to keep up the momentum. Rejection is the fire we all walk through. Writing grant applications has become a critical part of the development of my projects. I’ve learned not to let grant rejections rattle me too much. I applied for Canada Council grants for the memoir I am writing for three years to no avail. Each time I received a rejection, I called the program officer for the jury feedback, then used that to tweak my next application. Finally, I got a Canada Council grant for the project, after four tries. The jury feedback helped me refine my idea for the book. Sometimes their comments didn’t help, but mostly they did. Unfortunately, the Canada Council doesn’t provide feedback anymore, which is disappointing.
I had a lot of rejection from journals when I was starting to submit as well. But I’d been writing for decades at that point I asked myself, well what difference does this make? I knew I wasn’t going to give up writing. You must put your ego away and get back to work. Training your subconscious means keeping several projects lined up. If I fail with one, I pull the next one out until I have had sufficient time away from the first and can see it objectively. Then I go back to the first and put the second away for a time. Nothing is discarded or abandoned. I believe in taking breaks, however much one needs. Then refill your cup. Go out into the world and appreciate all kinds of art. Open yourself to the world. I like to sew or crochet to keep my hands busy. Let your mind wander. For me, it’s about consistently cultivating an artistic life that can support the ups and downs. (word count: 306)
7. How do you deal with aspects of writing that provoke negative emotions such as self- doubt, failure, exasperation? Is there an emotional ritual/practice you follow to deal with that?
I’ve experienced a lot of self-doubt and exasperation with the memoir I’m currently writing. I’ve been writing it for five years now and sometimes it feels like it’s more of a mess now than it was two years ago. Sometimes I worry I’ve lost the thread of the book, that it’s gotten away from me, that I’m not capable of wrestling the material into something good. These are just worries. They aren’t true. It’s when one is in the thick of a project that it seems impossible at times.
My writing group keeps me in check. Having a close sounding board helps me because I am asking craft questions and receiving considered craft responses. The conversation isn’t about whether I am a worthy person or if I can ever overcome the jerk I’ve been at times in my life. They acknowledge me as a writer, as I do them. More importantly, we approach each other’s work with care. We critique, but also know when one of us is struggling, personally or in their work, and we are careful with our language. We respect the process. If you need to bring the same chapter in three meetings in a row because you’re dealing with money stress or kids or ageing parents and your mind is frazzled, no one is going to judge you. We all respect the process.
8. How do you become conscious of the craft in your work?
Much of Radio Weather is written in form, so I was very conscious of craft. I don’t know how you can write poetry (or anything else for that matter) without paying attention to craft. It’s the backbone of the writing. When a poem isn’t working, changing the form or the voice or shifting the lines around is what can lead to the aha moment. I write many drafts. Dozens sometimes. I am tempted to revise the book again, even though it’s in print. I see things I would change and I think I will rework them at some point. The craft never ends. It’s a process of reshaping and fine tuning until it feels done, but even then you can return later to find a new entry point that you’d like to play around with or a line that is bothersome that you want to fix. For me, these are the joys of writing. I enjoy revising when the poem is in good enough shape that I am no longer tearing my hair out over it.
9. What is your definition of a successful piece of writing? Who decides that?
I don’t think about these questions anymore. I did. Now, I am more interested in whether I think my work is successful as a piece of writing or not for my own requirements. Does it convey what I am trying to achieve? Is it terse enough or clear enough? Is the rhythm overdone or do they metaphors work? It’s enough work to meet your own demands and I demand a lot of myself. As for others works, I read poems that interest me, challenge my view of the world or excite a new perspective. I reread them over and over. I’m grateful for the opening, a surprising welcome into this new space where I can get lost in the experience. I don’t need to know what other people think about the work or the poet. I don’t follow trends. There’s too much clatter in our world. I’m grateful for poems that tune out that chatter and gift me a space that disrupts and disturbs my sense and sensibilities.
Author Bio
SHOSHANNA WINGATE is the author of the poetry collection Radio Weather (Véhicule Press) and the chapbook Homing Instinct (Frog Hollow Press). Founding editor of Riddle Fence, her poetry and fiction have been published in a number of literary journals including The New Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, and Arc Poetry Magazine, as well as the anthologies ibid: a selection of Canadian poetry from All Lit Up, The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology, and Cadence Voix Feminines Female Voices, a multilingual poetry anthology. She is currently working on a memoir. From 2019-2022, she served as Poet Laureate of Sackville, New Brunswick.