Your new book moves between “apogee” and “perigee,” with “interstitial” moments in between. How did the orbital language of distance and closeness become the organizing principle for the collection?

I feel like there’s two ways I could answer this question, or rather that it should be answered in two parts:

Part 1—Vedic Astrology As Poetic Concept

When I was 25, I rode my bicycle across Canada and then took a 4-day bus to Palenque, Mexico, to work on a farm. While on that farm, a guy named Rob who had ridden his bicycle from upstate New York down to the farm was interested in giving me a Vedic astrology reading. I’m not big into astrology—I’m much more Sartorial in my thinking— but I was interested enough to say yes.

He went through my twelve astrological houses and revealed some things that were true but many that seemed so far from where I was at in my life, they sounded preposterous. Something I found deeply unbelievable was his assertion that I would have a career as an artist. I was very much an emerging writer at the time and worked a basic, low paying job. I was also a struggling alcoholic. During the reading, he predicted timelines of when my life would be in upheaval and when it would be on an upwards swing. While skeptical, I still wrote down those dates for future reference.

In later years, as an uncannily high percentage of his predictions came to fruition and I found myself flung in a direction quite opposite from where I’d begun and somehow ended up as a career artist, it got me thinking about how we are positioned within our lives at any given time—what is fixed, what is fluid, and how we move between states of being. How do we stretch so far from ourselves as we orbit, eventually returning to an origin, some kind of authenticity of self? I wondered what poetic form I might use to visually represent these contemplations on the page.

Part 2—Apogee/Perigee as an Organizing Principle

The 24 poems were previously published as a stand-alone chapbook. They weren’t always the bookends of this manuscript, but eventually I realized that’s how they needed to be placed in order to reinforce the title I chose for this collection, Interstitial. I needed two fixed units so the other poems in the collection would visually and conceptually become the interstitial fluid between.

Each poem in each series relates to a specific astrological house. If a reader pays close attention to the poems in “Apogee”, they will notice how each one orbits around the star chart, with visual tension between the corresponding house the poem which is located in opposition. I wanted each poem to visually represent a state of apogee.

When this work was published as a chapbook, the 12 “Perigee” poems were overlaid on the same star chart as in “Apogee” with each poem located on top of its corresponding house to visually reinforce the term’s meaning. However, the design started to feel redundant as the larger manuscript came together. In this version, I have trusted that readers will figure out the concept without relying so much on visual cues.

The collection moves fluidly between lyric fragments, narrative poems, and almost essayistic sections. Did those forms arise naturally from the material, or were you consciously experimenting with different containers for the story?

Many of these poems emerged during National Poetry Month where I typically write a poem a day, following prompts given online. The prompts often dictate a specific form which accounts for some of the formal variety found in this collection.

When left to my own devices, I almost always write prose poetry. I think this relates to my training as a prose writer—I have two creative writing degrees, and during all those years of schooling, I only ever took two poetry classes. I just didn’t know I was a poet until 5 or 6 years ago. It has been one of the most meaningful discoveries of my life.

Later in the editing process, I started to pay closer attention and began to re-arrange the collection in a way that interspersed these different structures. I wrangled a few into tercets, for example, and turned a few shorter poems into long poems. I find that sometimes content becomes richer when you combine poems that were not meant to be combined. Sometimes, new and meaningful resonances arise in this process.

It feels like there’s a recurring tension between danger and survival, whether in relationships, addiction, or the wilderness. Do you see the book as tracing a movement from risk toward something less dangerous?

Fun fact: in earlier drafts, this book was called Traps + Trappings and the theme of danger/survival was the organizing principle. I wanted to explore danger/survival from the exact angles you mentioned above. The theme is still there and prevalent, but over time, I realized there was so much more going on in the manuscript—the title had to change.

This book is largely about my life, and my life has moved from a place of chaos to one of relative stability. People in my family and close friends have died from conditions related to addiction, and there have been times where I feared the same for myself. Though I have been sober for nine years now, I was careful in the Perigee poems to not oversimplify the recovery narrative. There’s still the possibility of danger, of relapse; there are new deaths and crises to process, and there’s the boredom of stability. Yes, there is a movement away from danger, but even that journey presents complications.

The poems often situate intimate experiences within vivid landscapes: rivers, mountains, northern towns, lakes. How does place shape your work?

Here’s another fun fact: I have an undergraduate degree in Human Geography. I’ve never used it in any tangible career-related way, but it certainly informs my poetry. I can remember using my geography textbooks for found poetry projects during my undergraduate degree, and I still gravitate towards an environmentally scientific lexicon in my writing. There’s something so incredibly precise about that language.

When I write prose, it’s common for me to begin with setting. I just get a feeling about a place, and I want to write about it. Landscapes are storied, textured, metaphorical wonders, often with revelatory political histories. Setting is most certainly my favourite aspect of writing craft.

When I write poetry, the landscape often feels inextricable from the human, from the intricacies of memory, so often these three elements emerge simultaneously, subconsciously integrated.

This is your second book with Gaspereau. What’s next for you creatively?

For the past seven years, I’ve been slowly and steadfastly working on a novel I’m really excited about, and I’m on the final(ish) draft. It takes place mostly in Southern BC where I now live, but also in Vancouver, Montreal, New Orleans and Morocco. It’s about music, complex relationships, female friendship, ghosts, mad mothers, small- and large-scale tragedies, and Cat Power. It’s a book that has stretched me creatively, but it’s going to be SO good when it’s done. I can’t wait to share it with people who love late nineties indie music, ghosts, and books about women behaving badly.