Interview with Poet Sarah Tsiang: “Everything, He Said, is a Way of Remembering”

Yi-Mei Tsiang (also known as Sarah Tsiang) was kind enough to answer some questions about her debut book of poetry, Sweet Devilry. I first read it a few months ago, and I find it is a book I often go back to while writing.

Tsiang has compiled poems that make the reader want to live more intensely, with a greater awareness of life. The variety of ways in which the poems struggle free of convention and simple reformulation is impressive. With an emphasis on individual experience, this collection speaks to a world wider than it creates, to a world whose coherence can only be approached through man made gestures: poetry, an experience beyond thought.

Can you tell me a little about your new book of poetry?

It’s called Sweet Devilry and it covers a range of subjects, from motherhood to dealing with death. I don’t know why I find this question so hard—sometimes each poem seems so separate it’s hard to find the common thread that runs through it all. Whenever I think of what I’d like to do though, I think of Susan Musgrave urging her students to write with tenderness. That’s what I’ve tried for.

Can you tell me a bit about your editorial process? How important is a writing group to the process?

My husband is almost always my first reader, and he’s the best, most intense reader I’ve ever had. I’ve grown as a writer at the same time that he’s grown as an editor and so we waste no time on niceties. He may be my harshest critic, but he’s also my greatest support and my biggest fan.

My writing group is my lifeline to sanity. When I first moved to Kingston, not knowing anyone, I decided that I could really use a writing group. So I made up some posters and stuck them in the public library. That was 5 years ago, and my writing group has now flourished into an amazing tight-knit group of great writers (and fantastic editors). The group, christened The Villanelles, doesn’t hesitate to have a ten minute discussion on an individual word in a poem. There’s no cosseting or false praise, but the group is very supportive and always aims to help the writer find a way into the poem they were trying to write. I have poems I never would have written if not for the deadlines of my writing group. We hold each other to account and that’s a great thing; it’s rare to find this kind of mixture of love and no-holds-barred critic outside of a family unit.

Your work seems to suggest a strong engagement with your environment rather than uphold the Romantic notion of the solitary writer. Is the reciprocal movement in your poetry attempting to address certain persons or a community?

I’d like to think that poetry is more dialogue than soliloquy, though I don’t know how true that is. When I first fell in love with poetry I had that sense of recognition, the tingle you get when you meet someone and you know you’ll be good friends. There’s this great poem by Roo Borson in which she’s arguing with George Bowering about why she loves a poem by his dad.

"...after dinner we all went over to the reading, where George read a wonderful poem about his father and a bowl of tomato soup. When I told him I loved the poem he said everyone has memories of a father eating something, even if not tomato soup: that is, the poem could be lovable only if people made their own substitutions...whereupon deep inside me a miniature person stood up and shouted No! -- not so loud as to disturb anyone, mind you, but No! -- because love won't abide substitutions, and what the poem made me love was his father, not to mention tomato soup." -- "George Bowering" By Roo Borson

So in that way, I think, most of us writers are trying to reach out and connect with others through our own experiences; experiences which are simultaneously shared and unique.

What was the motivation behind the devastatingly beautiful fairytale poems?

Disney. They do such an awful job of removing the philosophical from children’s stories. The original telling of The Little Mermaid, for example, is so much about sacrifice and the promise (or desertion) of the eternal. As a mom, I find myself reading these original tales and then seeing the mangled corpse that Disney movies leave behind. So I think it was part a indignant reaction to Disney and partly just because we’re naturally influenced by what we’re reading. I’m not the first to re-write fairy tales (by a long shot) but I couldn’t resist engaging with the beauty and terror of fairy tales.

What book of poetry do you most often go back to while writing?

I’m going to cheat and name two books: Earth After Rain by Sheri Benning and Common Magic by Bronwen Wallace. They’re books I’ll never get over.

Tell me about some of your current literary influences?

I’ve been exclusively reading poets named Sue. You know, Sue Macleod, Susan Elmslie, Sue Sinclair, Susan Musgrave. I am currently working on putting together an anthology for Oolichan books called “Desperately Seeking Susan (poems)” due out in 2012. I’m passionate about encouraging more people to expand their Sue-based reading.

What role do you think art/poetry plays in a childs development? I ask because you frequently mention how much motherhood has sparked your creativity/desire to write poetry.

I think art, poetry, literature, and bug study are all essential in a child’s development. I often think it’s funny that so many people find poetry inaccessible since we’re weaned on it. Our first introduction to language is in the beautiful lines from Margaret Wise-Brown and Dr. Seuss. Children understand that poetry is meant to be felt before it’s understood. I love that about kids.

You also write children's books. Can you tell us a little about that?

My first published book was A Flock of Shoes with Annick Press. It was actually inspired by a line in the last poem of my collection Sweet Devilry. That seems to be a bit of a pattern because I have another picture book coming out in 2012, Stone Hatchlings which was inspired by a poem from the always brilliant Jason Heroux. Picture books and poetry are inexorably linked for me, they’re simply two sides of the same coin.

I’m launching Dogs Don’t Eat Jam and Other Things Big Kids Know at the WritersFest this year. It’s a book that celebrates the amazing accomplishments of young children, as well as the bond between siblings. I feel very lucky to be paired with the amazingly talented Qin Leng. It’s a strange and wonderful thing to see your thoughts painted for you. I’m really looking forward to the launch because there’s simply nothing better than reading to kids.

Recently your daughter held a fundraiser for famine victims in east Africa. Tell me more!

Abby constantly makes me feel unproductive! She’s 6 and this summer she held an art show/lemonade stand/cookie sale to raise money for famine relief in the horn of Africa. She decided on Doctors Without Borders and got all of her friends (as well as children we didn’t know) to donate art for the show. The people of Kingston were incredibly generous. In a few hours she had raised over $1,500, which was matched by the Federal government. We’re thinking of doing another one next year!

(This post, now modified, first appeared on the Kingston WritersFest website in 2011)