Arthur speaks to award-winning poet Jeramy Dodds
On Thursday, November 20, Trent alumnus and award winning local poet,
Jeramy Dodds will be launching his debut book of poetry “Crabwise to
the Hounds,” published by Coach House Books. Ken Babstock, author of
“Airstream Land Yacht” describes Dodd’s work as “exhilarating,
jumped-up, clattering music born in that vibrating gap of pure
potential between perceiver and the world.” Dodds has garnered
well-deserved buzz after receiving the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award
in 2006 and the CBC Literary Award for his poetry in 2007. The Orono
native spoke with Arthur about his time at Trent, his feelings about
scholarship and creative writing and the gothic landscape of Southern
Ontario.
On Thursday, November 20, Trent alumnus and award winning local poet, Jeramy Dodds will be launching his debut book of poetry “Crabwise to the Hounds,” published by Coach House Books. Ken Babstock, author of “Airstream Land Yacht” describes Dodd’s work as “exhilarating, jumped-up, clattering music born in that vibrating gap of pure potential between perceiver and the world.” Dodds has garnered well-deserved buzz after receiving the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award in 2006 and the CBC Literary Award for his poetry in 2007. The Orono native spoke with Arthur about his time at Trent, his feelings about scholarship and creative writing and the gothic landscape of Southern Ontario.
Arthur: You attended Trent University and grew up near Peterborough, in Orono, Ontario. Did attending Trent and growing up in this particular landscape directly influence your work?
Jeramy Dodds: Yes and yes, how could it be otherwise? There is no bowie knife at my back when I say that Trent was utopic for me. I met a group of poets and professors that have been instrumental in my work. Really, the whole English department was extremely supportive. I ended up staying in Peterborough for a few years after graduating due to some sense of withdrawal. Sometimes I would just sit and look at the campus for days, like some sort of creep. I worked for an archaeological consultant and spent a lot of time exploring the local environment on foot with a shovel and the landscape ended up doing what the desktop picture on your computer will do if you don’t turn on the screensaver. It burned. Burned itself into my psyche and in some ways ruined me for other landscapes. The drumlin fields and marshes and leaning cedars of the whole southern Ontario region feature largely in my imagination. There is a real gothic feel to the area which I am especially into. It shows itself in some of the imagery, but it also sets the tone throughout “Crabwise to the Hounds”.
A: Tell us about “Crabwise to the Hounds.” How has this work changed, if at all, from your other earlier works?
JD: It’s everything I have ever done, so far, that feels almost finished. It is both my oldest work and my newest, due to an unrestrained addiction to editing that fueled an intervention by friends, who tore the manuscript from my hands long enough for it to be published. I am still jonesing to move commas and adjectives around, but I guess the poems are out living on their own now. They have families and friends and their own problems without me bothering them.
A: Can you tell us about littefishcartpress and your involvement with it?
JD: The press is run by a bunch of writers, so nothing really gets done, at least in the parameters of space/time. It’s co-edited by Gabe Foreman, Joshua Trotter, Leigh Kotsilidis and myself. We met through Trent and lived in Peterborough for a number of years. We were really, really popular and loved by everyone, even people in East City. But that didn’t stop us. We still are the best of friends, edit each other’s work, and sometimes publish other people’s stuff that we really, really like.
A: There is an ongoing debate regarding the validity and necessity of creative writing within academia. Do you feel creative writing is something that can be, or should be taught?
JD: There is more than enough room for a number of creative writing methodologies. It seems to be most important that the writer writes good writing. And that it’s grammatically correct. What we need is a government that controls it, a good government, you know, that gets writing out of the hands of academics and hobbyists and into the hands of doe-eyed bureaucrats. Who wants strict pedagogical approaches to creation when you can have strict pedagogical approaches to creation and other things too? Yes, writing can be taught. Some of our most prized writers have come out of writing programs. A freebased economy of writing is what seems most fitting, given the depression we’re in. A bit of this and a bit of that, goes a long way, somebody once said. Politicizing your writing methods before you’ve tried a variety of styles and flavours is like firing a gun with your tongue in a diving bell. Plain dumb.
A: As a young writer who has garnered some press and buzz within Canadian literary circles, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
JD: Nothing that would be of any use to them unless they are highly motivated shut-ins or terrorists. And that, unfortunately, has to remain between me and them. But they should read anything they can get their clammy little hands on. Forever.
A: Can you tell us about a few contemporary writers that excite you?
JD: Frederick Siedel, David Berman, Linda Bresner, and Michal Lista are my eye candies at the moment. But I never really leave my bed without an Emily Dickinson book by my side. But she’s older, I think.
A: What is your next project?
JD: I’m translating the “Poetic Edda” from Old Norse to English. W.H. Auden did it too. I’m not fluid in Old Norse but I’m trying to pretend like I am. It should take quite a few years, but I imagine that it will take longer than that, really.
Jeramy Dodds will read from “Crabwise to the Hounds” as part of the Trent University Writers Reading Series on Thursday, November 20, 8:00 p.m. at Alumni House.
Arthur: You attended Trent University and grew up near Peterborough, in Orono, Ontario. Did attending Trent and growing up in this particular landscape directly influence your work?
Jeramy Dodds: Yes and yes, how could it be otherwise? There is no bowie knife at my back when I say that Trent was utopic for me. I met a group of poets and professors that have been instrumental in my work. Really, the whole English department was extremely supportive. I ended up staying in Peterborough for a few years after graduating due to some sense of withdrawal. Sometimes I would just sit and look at the campus for days, like some sort of creep. I worked for an archaeological consultant and spent a lot of time exploring the local environment on foot with a shovel and the landscape ended up doing what the desktop picture on your computer will do if you don’t turn on the screensaver. It burned. Burned itself into my psyche and in some ways ruined me for other landscapes. The drumlin fields and marshes and leaning cedars of the whole southern Ontario region feature largely in my imagination. There is a real gothic feel to the area which I am especially into. It shows itself in some of the imagery, but it also sets the tone throughout “Crabwise to the Hounds”.
A: Tell us about “Crabwise to the Hounds.” How has this work changed, if at all, from your other earlier works?
JD: It’s everything I have ever done, so far, that feels almost finished. It is both my oldest work and my newest, due to an unrestrained addiction to editing that fueled an intervention by friends, who tore the manuscript from my hands long enough for it to be published. I am still jonesing to move commas and adjectives around, but I guess the poems are out living on their own now. They have families and friends and their own problems without me bothering them.
A: Can you tell us about littefishcartpress and your involvement with it?
JD: The press is run by a bunch of writers, so nothing really gets done, at least in the parameters of space/time. It’s co-edited by Gabe Foreman, Joshua Trotter, Leigh Kotsilidis and myself. We met through Trent and lived in Peterborough for a number of years. We were really, really popular and loved by everyone, even people in East City. But that didn’t stop us. We still are the best of friends, edit each other’s work, and sometimes publish other people’s stuff that we really, really like.
A: There is an ongoing debate regarding the validity and necessity of creative writing within academia. Do you feel creative writing is something that can be, or should be taught?
JD: There is more than enough room for a number of creative writing methodologies. It seems to be most important that the writer writes good writing. And that it’s grammatically correct. What we need is a government that controls it, a good government, you know, that gets writing out of the hands of academics and hobbyists and into the hands of doe-eyed bureaucrats. Who wants strict pedagogical approaches to creation when you can have strict pedagogical approaches to creation and other things too? Yes, writing can be taught. Some of our most prized writers have come out of writing programs. A freebased economy of writing is what seems most fitting, given the depression we’re in. A bit of this and a bit of that, goes a long way, somebody once said. Politicizing your writing methods before you’ve tried a variety of styles and flavours is like firing a gun with your tongue in a diving bell. Plain dumb.
A: As a young writer who has garnered some press and buzz within Canadian literary circles, do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
JD: Nothing that would be of any use to them unless they are highly motivated shut-ins or terrorists. And that, unfortunately, has to remain between me and them. But they should read anything they can get their clammy little hands on. Forever.
A: Can you tell us about a few contemporary writers that excite you?
JD: Frederick Siedel, David Berman, Linda Bresner, and Michal Lista are my eye candies at the moment. But I never really leave my bed without an Emily Dickinson book by my side. But she’s older, I think.
A: What is your next project?
JD: I’m translating the “Poetic Edda” from Old Norse to English. W.H. Auden did it too. I’m not fluid in Old Norse but I’m trying to pretend like I am. It should take quite a few years, but I imagine that it will take longer than that, really.
Jeramy Dodds will read from “Crabwise to the Hounds” as part of the Trent University Writers Reading Series on Thursday, November 20, 8:00 p.m. at Alumni House.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 September 2009 10:46
