a type of intellectual wallpaper

What I noticed above all in seeing over 100 “Younger” Canadian Poets interacting was a disconnect between a number of poets’ work and their actual selves. Ambitious projects dominated many poets’ ideas of themselves. I could talk to a poet but then see nothing of them in their work. This isn’t always a problem but it is a problem as a trend.

It seemed to me that particularly the younger poets were suffocated by the ambition that comes from this notion of joining something as abstract and meaningless as “the new canon.” Many young poets are so busy trying to prove how brilliant they are in every syllable that their poems have no breathing room and they cease to be about something... their poetry isn’t about the world but instead uses esoteric details of the world as a type of intellectual wallpaper.

- Brad Cran, discussing his Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference, in response to Carmine Starnino's CV2 interview. You can read the whole thing here.

poetry becomes a negative force in people's lives

A liberating thing happened to me a few years ago: I stopped giving a shit about the production of writing. I no longer see poetry as a commodity, whereas in those first years of writing I was so excited by poetry I bought into many of the lofty dreams that poets are expected to dream. I found that this type of strategic and ambitious thinking made me unhappy and for many years I hadn’t realized it.

I began to see how poetry becomes a negative force in people’s lives. The business of poetry can easily ruin a poet. I think now that if a poet gets publicly upset about a literary prize shortlist or the contributor list of a “best of” poetry anthology then the Canada Council should mandate that they spend at least 25% of any grants they receive on Jungian therapy.

- Brad Cran, in interview with The Toronto Quarterly. You can read the whole interview, and a few poems from Cran's new book Ink on Paper, here.

a skill I don't want to waste on a projection of myself

When it comes to public discourse on poetry, the poems themselves need to rule, not the poets. This is often hard when the pinnacle of literary achievement is a book prize, which is often less about promoting a piece of writing and more commonly about promoting the narrative around a writer's career. Celebrating writing is healthy. Lionizing writers is generally absurd. Most of the writers I know who strive for praise are either deeply damaged by it or at best coping in spite of it...

I had to ask the question: what is the point of this thing we do? What is the point of writing?

If the only answer I could come up with revolved around a dream to give an acceptance speech at some podium then I would have quit writing. But there is a lot we can do as writers. Writing is a skill that I don't want to take for granted or waste on a projection of myself. If I can see a purpose to a piece of writing, whether it is political or to express love for my family, or to make people laugh, then I keep it. If the intent behind a poem is to show someone how well I can write, how smart I am, or how muscular my language can be, then I hit delete.

- Brad Cran, in interview with Brian Kaufman in the latest issue (#64) of SubTerrain.