| Responses
to Journalists on:
The Work of Snow
You’re on 8 or 9 boards and committees. When in the
world do you have time to write poetry?
Mostly between midnight and 4 a.m. After all, The Work of Snow is a thin book, 80 pages.
Many of the poems go back to the mid-90's when I was still relatively unburdened
with volunteer work. These latter are “revivals” from my "hope" chest, that
is the file of unfinished poems I hope I can salvage. These older pieces
take relatively little time to rework compared to writing a new one from
the ground up and taking it through dozens of drafts. When Thistledown announced
their contest last year, I gathered these pieces up, added some recent efforts,
polished as best I could, and shipped them off. My life is a series of interruptions
constantly interrupted by a series of interruptions. Poetry fits best into
the small spaces between commitments.
How do you feel about winning the John V. Hicks Memorial
Award?
I’m delighted to be the first winner of this competition because it honours
a friend and a superb poet who died three years ago. Hicks was a pioneer
in the field of poetry in Saskatchewan simply because as far back as the
1940s he was being published in newspapers, and literary magazines when the
few Saskatchewan poets trying for publication were being neglected. Yet he
was 72 when his first book of poetry Now Is a Far Country was published
in 1978. That’s partly because he refused to leave Prince Albert and make
the sort of personal contacts required in those days to get a book on the
market. John was a talented poet and a gentle man with a wickedly wry wit
and a great facility with words. I was very honoured that a few years before
his passing when the province’s writers held a tribute night for him and
I got to read a poem for him there.
What are the the themes of the book?
The book has a number of counter-pointed thematic strands: remembering and
forgetting; loss and compensation; adjusting or maladjusting to the passage
of time; friendship and alienation; the experiences of love and the discovery
of solitude; beginnings and endings, death and grief the intensity
and the numbness they lend to life, the tensions of belief and doubt, and
the relation of writing specifically poetry to all of these.
Recurring images of snow, flight, sky, weather, song, dance convey the themes.
I have a tendency to write companion or response poems to earlier pieces
in an effort to create balance and counterpoints.
And if you had to say the ONE thing the book was about?
I probably wouldn’t. These poems were composed over six or seven years and
follow the headlights of my varying attention over that span. Maybe I could
say, in a tentative way, the book is about time. Several of the poems deal
specifically with time, its problematic nature and the ways we perceive it.
These include “Lateness,” “Barbados,” “Berries,” “Learning Time,” “Nothing
Is Burning,” “Winter,” “The Work of Snow,” “False Spring,” “Arrangement,”
“Evening Launch,” “Beginnings,” and “Horizontal Rain.” Some of the other
poems also deal with the topic of time but less directly.
What is the title meant to suggest?
The work of snow is multifarious-- a blurring, a forgetting, a loss, sometimes
death, as in avalanches and, often, amazing beauty, freshness, transformation,
opportunity and challenge. In many ways snow is a leveler. There are human
phenomena, which like snow, blunt and level experience and bring us beauty
and opportunity. Of course, snow as a seasonal phenomenon is also a manifestation
of time and subject to the effects of time. Snow is also a feature of winter
and this book deals with wintry themes -- loss, advancing age, dwindling
time.
What do you want readers to get from your book?
A good read, whatever that is for them. I would be most delighted if people
who don’t normally read poetry can find at least some of these poems accessible
and meaningful. I remember reading an Auden poem called “The Unknown Citizen”
when I was in first year university and thinking, “That’s it. He’s nailed
it. That’s it exactly.” Well, it would be great if there were some readers
who thought I’d put at least a few nails in the right places.
What’s next?
Mostly more poetry. A couple of nonfiction books, if I get the time. There’s
another poetry manuscript that needs plenty of attention right now.
Back to the top
For related information, see:
Interview with Gary Hyland by Doris Hillis in Plainspeaking
(Coteau Books, 1988)
Responses to Questions
by Students
Has living in Moose Jaw your entire life played a major
role in your pieces of work?
Yes. I have lived in Saskatoon (five years), Toronto and Barbados for shorter
periods, but I have spent most of my life in Moose Jaw. Where a writer chooses
to live is still a crucial matter, even in the on-line world of today.
It's impossible not to have your vision of the world and of life affected
by your surroundings, the streetscapes, the landscape, the people.
Who inspires you the most in your writing?
The people in a writing group I belong to called The Poets' Combine are
a big encouragement to me. They all have published books and are very insightful
about poetry. They are Bob Currie, Byrna Barclay, Judy Krause, Bruce Rice
and Paul Wilson. Lorna Crozier, also of Swift Current and one of my best
friends, is in my opinion Canada's best poet. She also encourages and inspires
me a lot. She was a member of our writing group for many years, back when
it was called The Moose Jaw Movement.
Some of the poets I frequently read and reread are Alden Nowlan,
Wallace Stevens, Rumi (as translated by Coleman Barks), Robert Frost, William
Butler Yeats, W. H. Auden, Lorca, Leonard Cohen, Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier,
William Blake, Robert Browning, John Newlove, Sharon Olds, Charles Simic,
Robert Hass, and Billy Collins.
What advice do you give to young writers hoping to follow
in your footsteps?
Read tons of poetry, old stuff and new. Never stop reading poetry. Read
it all the time. Read all kinds of poetry but try get the best of each kind.
Read. Read. Read.
Poetry is dangerous stuff. It's designed to shake-up your
mind. Read enough of it and you will become that dangerous entity—the thinking
individual. Listen to pop music or watch a popular movie you are one of millions
in a mass audience. Read a few dozen poems by different authors and you will
have had one of those rare one-of-a-kind experiences.
What was the thought development or theme behind the
poem " First Death"?
W. H. Auden described death as "the sound of distant thunder at a picnic."
But when the thunderstorm breaks and people I love die, in addition to sorrow
I often feel anger that our lives are so short and our dreams take so long
to realize. See p. 285 of Sundog Highway (which you appear to be using)
for my other comments.
The year I wrote the poem I lost two people very dear to me,
my father and a close friend. In the poem death is associated with winter.
I hope you can see why. Revulsion produces the wish that Death were some
wealthy person who travels south for the winter thus leaving us alone.
After the age of 50—we begin to die little by little in the
deaths of others. Our parents move from the front ranks and suddenly we are
the next to die. Death might be, as Herodotus said, "a delightful hiding-place
for weary men" but I'm too much in love with life, and not at all weary or
looking to escape.
What was the thought development or theme behind the
poem "Local News"?
See page 284 of Sundog Highway for the story behind the poem. I used
to work as a radio deejay who had to read the news every hour. This is a
mock-news item in which the forces of spring are likened to a band of rebels
attacking a city where some people hardly notice its arrival. Even those
who awaken to spring can't do much about it when their work and other obligations
keep them indoors.
To you, what is the most enjoyable part of writing/literature?
Writing poetry is work. But it is work that I love, which means it isn't
drudgery. When things are cooking and a poem I’m excited about is taking
shape under my pen or on my monitor I am so intensely absorbed, so inwardly
delighted that hours go by without me noticing. It's a definite high. Getting
published and winning awards are very pleasant but nowhere near the thrill
of writing a poem that pleases me.
Many of your pieces deal with coming-of-age
themes, growing up in small town, Saskatchewan. Where did you get the idea
for this genre of writing?
I wrote the book Just Off Main in the
early 1980s when I was teaching high school in Moose Jaw. I have always liked
and enjoyed working with teenagers and have keen memories of my teen years.
The agonies and the ecstasies of adolescence were a very important part of
my life.
But back then, and still today, there were very few poems,
let alone books of poetry, about teenage experiences. Yet there were many
novels and books of stories and many biographies that dealt with those
years. And there was lots of poetry about all the other stages of life.
When I commented to teachers and other writers about this, they mostly responded
with put downs of adolescence implying that it was a time of silliness,
irresponsibility and immaturity that they would rather forget about.
This near-prejudice bothered me as much as the absence of
the poems. Still not aware that I would be writing poetry about the topic,
I started to think and read about it and reached some of the following
conclusions:
1) Adolescence and adolescents are no less or more important
than any other age group. To ignore this period is to ignore a vital
and wonderful part of human life.
2) Teenage hood, by which I mean a lifestyle associated with
that age group including music, entertainment, fashions, customs, language
etc, is very much a development of the 20th century, especially
the latter half of the century. In short, teens are a very new invention,
as history goes. In earlier times, at least in western cultures,
people just moved smoothly from pre-adolescence into adult social and
work roles. People often started work at 12 or 13, married young and died
in what we would call mid-life. It wasn't unusual for 14 year-olds
to be in the army.
3) The main factors contributing to the development of adolescence
were prolonged education, especially the evolution of the co-ed high
school (which began, in its present form, in the early 1900s);
the acceptance of the idea that girls were as worthy of educating as
boys (something that took until the 1960s to be fully accepted);
the development of mass media-- recordings, movies, books, television; and
the gradual growth in teen affluence.
4) The two world wars and the depression slowed the evolution
of the teen phenomenon.
5) As soon as teens had some money to spend (and at first
it was no more than $2 - $5 a week), adults began to calculate ways
to get that money. The first mass singer deliberately marketed
with teen appeal was the young Frank Sinatra in the 1940s. The first serious
made-for-teens clothing styles emerged in the late 40s. The first teen radio
shows were "Ozzie and Harriet," "Henry Aldrich" and "Our Miss Brooks" (late
40s, early 50s). The first teen appeal TV shows were "Your Hit Parade"
and "Ozzie and Harriet" with Ricky Nelson. The first genuine
teen rock and roll song was "Shake, Rattle and Roll" by Bill Haley (1953).
The first teen market movie was "Blackboard Jungle (1955) in which
another Haley hit became famous—"Rock Around the Clock." Disc jockeys
playing music for teens emerged from around 1956 on when rock music
started to take over the popular charts.
6) The way teens behave and think is crucial to their later lives.
The indicators of who they will be are there and are being developed. Some
activities and roles will be tried on for size and adopted, adapted or discarded.
The thoughts and actions of teens are worthy of attention because they are
often in the forefront of social trends and because, in spite of their often
less sophisticated forms of expression, they are often as sensitive,
intelligent and provocative as the thoughts and actions of adults.
Why should a monologue placed in the mouth a 15th century Italian nobleman
by virtue of that fact be any more meritorious than one placed in the mouth
of a 17-year-old Canadian teen?
7) When people I met asked me what I did for a living and
I said I was a high school teacher, there some who expressed sympathy or concern.
How could I stand working with these wild, weird, irresponsible, loud
creatures, they wanted to know. Because they aren't any more "strange" than
any other age group, I told them. Besides, I enjoyed being around them and
working with
them.
All of these influences eventually led me to write a few poems
and those triggered others and I was soon on my way to a book.
A challenge was to present language that has an authentic
"teen talk" ring but is also torqued beyond the usual glibness of guys
goofing around.
As some friends warned, literary magazine editors rejected
almost all of the poems about teens . The book got a few nice reviews but
was mostly ignored, although it did eventually sell out of its small
press run. However, many of the poems in this book have been included in
anthologies for schools, on state and provincial tests and for use on internet
sites. One of the poems alone has brought in nearly $1000 in reprint payments.
I still get many positive letters and e-mails about the book. So, over all,
I'm very pleased with how it turned out.
I was wondering why you chose these types of characters
and situations for your poetry. Are the characters 'real', in the sense that
they are very similar to actual people? Or, are they purely fictional?
If they are 'real', is one of these characters you (if so which one)?
I wrote about boys because, for obvious reasons, I knew the male mentality
far better. I modeled some of the characters on former friends of mine but
never exactly and never with their names. The nicknames Scrawny and Deke
were real. Zip was the nickname of a guy I hardly knew. Magoo, Fet and Bumper
were names I made up. No one character is real in that I just reported about
an actual person. No one character is purely fictional in that everything
about him is straight out of my imagination.
Writers steal from life and from each other and adapt the
products to their ends. In the end each poem and story is a mixture of the
"real" and the imagined.
Some modern poetry is very difficult to read and understand,
while I seem to be able to read yours quite easily. Am I missing something,
or did you intend to make your poetry accessible to a wider audience (such
as students like me)?
I intended to make the poetry in Just Off Main accessible although there are
some poems more subtle than most of the others. What good is a book about
teens if teens can't read it and see some of themselves in it? Did I succeed?
You can sample one attempt here.
Regarding the difficulty level of many contemporary poems,
there are several excellent reasons for this. I don't understand over half
the poems I read the first time through. Poetry ain't fast food.
In defense of the complex poem, let me say that poetry is
one of the highest forms of mind play. Can you imagine enjoying a computer
game you can totally master in two minutes? How often do you go back to play
that game that was such an enjoyable challenge to you in grade six? Many
poems are written with layers of meaning and with gaps that a discerning
reader has to fill. When you accomplish this, you light up just as if you
finally "cracked" a difficult challenge in a game, only here the pay-off
will be more long-lasting. This is the poet's compliment to your intelligence,
making you a participant in creating the poem's meaning. No writer dares
to honour readers more than the skilled poet or rewards them more when they
persevere.
Who has made the greatest impact on your writing career?
That's not easy. I have had some good teachers, worked with some great poets
and read many fine books on poetry. I guess my close friend Lorna Crozier
has had the most impact on me. She was a member of the writing group
I belonged to for several years-- the Moose Jaw Movement, she and I
have had many discussions about poetry and we have worked together on a few
projects.
What does the word " Literature" mean to you?
Literature is not just any type of writing, not the newspaper or the manual
for your computer. Literature is writing that aspires to be art. It
might not end up being considered great or immortal, but it tries.
I also understand that you were involved in the formation
of Coteau Books. How important have local publishers been in developing
your career, and the literary scene is Saskatchewan?
Three friends (Bob Currie, Barbara Sapergia and Geoffrey Ursell)
and I started Coteau Books (named after the hills south-west of Moose Jaw)
in 1975. We worked out of our homes for the first few years. Shipping was
done from my place. Coteau is now one of the largest literary publishers
of several on the prairies. Back in the early 1970s there were none.
Many times, very knowledgeable people advised me and my friends
to move to Toronto if we wanted to make it as writers. My friends and I may
have lost something for staying here in that we may not be as well known
nationally as we would have been had we moved, but we preferred to develop
in our own place in our own way and to help others do the same.
I stayed with Coteau for 12 years. In that time the literary
scene has grown from a few isolated individuals getting published in a few
small do-it-yourself booklets into one of the most vibrant in Canada. For
a fuller explanation of how this scene grew read the essay "By Way
of Background " at the back of the book A Sudden Radiance (Coteau,
1987).
Local publishers give a writer hope that his or her work will
find a receptive and responsive ear. There are now over 200 published writers
of books working in Saskatchewan. In 1970 there were four or five. The main
reasons for the difference are the work of the Coteau Books and Thistledown
Press, the support of the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the activities of
the Saskatchewan Writers Guild.
What's next for Gary Hyland? [asked in March
2000]
For the last several years I have been what they call "an arts activist,"
trying to get our leaders and politicians to improve this province's arts
and entertainment scene. I've started over half a dozen organizations and
am still active in most of them. As a result of doing this volunteer work
(usually 14 hours a day, seven days a week), I've not had much time for my
writing.
I've never lacked for writing projects. I have drawers crammed
with ideas. I'm hoping to cut back on the volunteerism and get back to writing
for at least half a day, five days a week. I have plans for two or three
books of poetry, two nonfiction books, a play, a collection of stories and
a novel. If I live to 100 they might all get done!
Back to the top
For related information, see:
Interview with Gary Hyland by Doris Hillis in Plainspeaking
(Coteau Books, 1988)
Responses to Questions from Writers
1. For years, you used to publish a column of advice for
writers called "Becoming a Writer" in the Saskatchewan Writers Guild journal
Freelance. What advice do you have for those of us in
the early stages of our careers.
It’s seems presumptuous of me, never having made much of a
national reputation, to give advice to writers. But maybe you can learn as
much by failure as by success; some would say more. I undertook the column
at the request of April Davies, the editor at the time, as a learning experience.
In researching the pieces I was learning the business myself.
There were something like thirty-six of these things about
1400 - 1600 words long. I have had inquiries from a few publishers about
putting them into book form. That would take some revising, updating and
reorganizing. I may do that some day if my life ever slows down. Such a book
might give me something to pass on to those people who approach me for help.
It invariably surprises me that people look to me for help.
In the meantime, I still feel like I am a neophyte myself.
I’m more comfortable sharing views, impressions and tips with other writers
than giving advice. In the FAQ section “Responses to Students” elsewhere
on this site there is some advice.
2. Will writing change the world?
Whew, I don’t know. I assume you mean imaginative writing,
literature, as opposed to the more practical kind we find in acts of government
and treaties, which has definitely changed the world, not always for the
better. In aggregate, I think imaginative writing has helped to advance a
humanistic vision, to provide readers with valuable insights into the human
condition. Reading, after all, is a very individual experience and the impact
of it is so subjective, it’s hard to make more than a few vague claims on
behalf of books. Are writers “unacknowledged legislators”? Along with
the whole gang of art and media creators writers influence the climate of
the times and to that extent, as a group, we can be agents of change.
3. Has being a teacher affected your writing?
I suppose being a teacher limited my output. I loved teaching
and poured myself into it. Some would say it consumed me. I was also fully
engaged in raising three sons. As a result those novels, plays and short
stories that entered my fancy I chased away. So poetry, which I could bring
to fruition in shorter periods of commitment, was the genre best suited to
my long working hours.
I suspect there are some readers who will add that being a
teacher has given some of my writing a didactic tinge. I’ll let others decide
that.
4. Will you read and comment on my work?
I used to work as an editor and I still participate in an
exchange workshop with a few close friends, but with a hugely demanding series
of voluntary commitments I just don’t have any time for assisting other writers.
Fortunately, since I began, there has been a proliferation of sources for
help— writers-in-residence programs, books of advice, all sorts of courses,
websites with chat rooms, interactive courses and the like. Referring people
to these is about all I can do. Most of these are very helpful but as with
all expenditures you have to exercise your own judgment about what is best
for you. These programs can be a more efficient way of learning than thrashing
about in the darkness on your own.
See the article Creative Writing Courses
5. Can we book you for a workshop, classroom visit or a
reading?
It’s possible, though lately I have been so busy with other
commitments I haven’t had much time for my own writing. I only do occasional
workshops or classroom visits. Readings are easier to fit into my schedule
so I tend to do more of them. These engagements are based on Canada Council
or Saskatchewan Writers Guild fees. The Guild (at 1-800-667-6788) can help
schools with the fee provided they plan far enough in advance.
6. Are writers more competitive than cooperative?
Both. Writers compete for publishers’ and editors’ slots,
for key appointments, for recognition and sales, and in various contests.
Some have been known to be tremendously catty and aggressive. After all,
writing is an egocentric undertaking. You spend a lot of time preparing for
then courting the attention of readers and listeners and I think most successful
writers relish the public attention, again with some exceptions and with
some poseurs who profess to find it all too frivolous.
On the other hand, particularly here in Saskatchewan, writers
can be enormously supportive of each other. I have seen numerous examples
of writers helping writers. I think local writing groups, where writers of
similar abilities and interests get together once or twice a month for critiquing
and discussions of craft, are worthwhile under the right circumstances.
Back to the top
For related information, see:
Interview with Gary Hyland by Doris Hillis in Plainspeaking
(Coteau Books, 1988)
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