Fear, Success, Momentum: A Conversation with Robin Richardson

Award-winning poet Robin Richardson is working on her third book of verse.Robin Richardson released her book of poetry Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis this September. Richardson has been shortlisted for CBC’s Canada Writes prize in poetry, and is awaiting further news. Puritan intern Madeline Lemire asked Richardson about this exciting time in her life, and how her work will evolve from here. Town Crier: The last few years have been a prolific time for you; you’ve published two books of poetry (the latest, Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis, came out in September with ECW), and you are already making steady progress on a third. Why do you think this has been such a creative time for you? Has this momentum in any way influenced the work itself?Robin Richardson: My productivity of late is due to a few factors: the first, and most boring, is that I’ve been lucky enough to receive funding over the last few years, and, as I'm sure you know, there's nothing better for getting work done than time away from the blue collar grind.The other reason is a bit more difficult to pinpoint. It’s not something I’ve often asked myself, gift horse and all that. If I really think about it, though, I think the answer is that to me writing isn’t a slog, it’s not something that happens in spurts, or when I’m particularly “inspired.” It's like eating; I have to do it daily to survive, and most of the time I derive great pleasure from it.Has this momentum shaped my work? Maybe in the sense that it keeps me on my toes. I mean I’m grateful for the momentum, but am perpetually in fear of losing it. It’s a pretty common hang up of mine: whenever things go smoothly I pace myself for disaster, reasoning that the gods never let me get away with too much of an easy ride before they rough up the path a little.TC: You’ve stated before that you are interested in exploring the alternative forms of fiction and essays, but that you still plan to focus on poetry. What is it about the medium that keeps you so faithful to it?RR: Poetry simply comes the most naturally to me. It’s the muscle I’ve flexed the most in the past half-decade, yet the more I do it the more of a challenge it becomes. There are so many new layers to peel back, and each time I get deeper/think I have a better handle on it, I find a whole new, massive and fascinating layer to deal with. That being said, I know prose will operate in the same way once I delve in. I’m on the cusp of writing some non-fiction—mulling things over right now, working up the nerve, and soon, hopefully, I will embark.TC: You completed your MFA at Sarah Lawrence College. What was it like being a Canadian poet in New York? Did that at all shape some of the poetry in Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis?RR: I can’t speak highly enough about New York; admittedly I’m doing everything I can to get myself back there long-term. It was a life-/work-altering experience, and it did indeed have a huge impact on Knife Throwing. Being in New York freed me from fretting over the small social climate that had been affecting my work while I was living in Toronto. There are so few working writers in Canada that it’s difficult not to get entangled in the national or even municipal trends in ways that impede one’s own growth. I have no doubt that merely stepping outside of that for a few years has helped loosen me up, and helped me grow as a poet. I also think that Americans have a very different approach to poetry. I found, at least with the poets I studied with at Sarah Lawrence, that there was an emphasis on clarity of content, the ballsy straightforward statement was favoured over the cryptic, lyrical gymnastics. I've tried to blend the two, and think the poems in Knife Throwing are a clear illustration of this merger.TC: For your next book, you’ve said that you will include some rhyming poetry, and that while it’s a challenge you look forward to, it’s also a prospect you find frightening. Can you elaborate?RR: Yes, I have some pretty blatant rhymes in my next book, and yes it scares me. The thing is rhyming in this day and age is read as either archaic, or comical. I think I've successfully dodged the archaic bullet in that the form and content are about as contemporary as it gets, it's the comical interpretation that worries me. I don't want my readers to think I'm making a mockery of my subject matter, because I’m not. However, I do like the playful, strange, childlike element the odd obvious end rhyme creates, as if to suggest that the content is so severe one must revert to a Seuss-esque playfulness to process it.Robin Richardson’s Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis is published with ECW Press. She has been published in anthologies and journals such as Best Canadian Poetry 2013, Tin House, Arc, Fjords, Witness, The Berkeley Poetry Review, The Malahat Review, and The Cortland Review. She has been awarded the John B. Santoianni Award (awarded by The Academy of American Poets) and the Joan T. Baldwin Award.