In your book, you often write about the various jobs you have held as a labourer at various points in your life. Can you talk about how observations from life make the transition from being a basic autobiographical tale to being ‘a poem’?

That’s a great question. I’m sure all poets, to some extent, edit autobiographical experiences to make poems. Instead of answering the question directly, though, I’m going to use an example. For most of my twenties and early thirties, I was working the kind of jobs you mention—landscaping, roofing, etc. But when I was in my late twenties, I took eight or nine months off work so I could finish my English degree. One day I walked into one of my classes; I think it was sociology. When I sat down I got a whiff of something, grass or oil, that reminded me of, made me reminiscent of, landscaping. I looked down, and sure enough, there was a big smear of grease on my pants, from my bicycle chain. Right there, in about five minutes, I wrote the first draft of “Out of Work,” one of the poems in Seven-to-Five.

In reality, the smell of the chain grease made me think back, made me miss landscaping, even though it had only been a few months; the poem, on the other hand, is about a tree feller who gets laid off. He, too, misses work, but instead of smelling chain grease on his pant leg, like I did, he smells chain grease from some kid’s pants, while waiting in line at the grocery store. (For the record, I’ve sawed down and cut up trees as part of landscaping jobs, and I’ve been laid off many, many times, but I’ve never actually been a tree feller … which, obviously, is taking liberties with my experiences.) I like the idea of smell having transportive power, and I like the idea of missing work … because so many people are fixated on not wanting to work. But I don’t think the poem would’ve worked if I came at it so autobiographically. There’s often a very thin line between autobiographical observation and poem, at least in the way I tend to write. What I mean is I don’t try too hard to make my poems ‘poems’. If I like them but they don’t seem particularly ‘poetic’, I don’t concern myself too much. That being said, I think “Out of Work” is one of those poems that concerns itself a bit more, tries a bit harder to be less autobiographical—as it would’ve been less direct, or poignant, somehow, if it was about a guy in the classroom lamenting the days he used to work with his hands.

Do you have any major influences? Are there writers whose work has emboldened you to write in a certain way or about certain subjects?

There are many, many poets who have influenced me, both stylistically and thematically. These days, on account of moving around and having two young kids, I don’t read as much as I’d like. I’m part of an on-again, off-again Skype workshop with a couple great poets, so that’s most of my reading these days. But because we’re talking about my recent collection here, I’ll stick to a couple blue-collar work poets who have particularly affected me.

The first is Gary Snyder. It was a revelation when I started reading him in my early twenties. He talks about bucking hay and axe handles and chain saws and chain oil. At the time, I was interested in what he was writing about, but I wasn’t writing about work myself, although I would’ve already had a couple landscaping and farming jobs by then. His poem “Hay for the Horses” always resonated with me. It’s about this old guy who’s saying that after bucking hay for the first time, he thought, “I sure would hate to do this all my life.” Of course, that’s what he ended up doing. It resonates with me because the first time I bucked hay, when I was 18, I thought, “I wouldn’t mind doing this my whole life.” I always liked hard labour, always liked sweating and working with my hands.

The other poet is Tom Wayman. I started reading him in my mid twenties or so. While Snyder writes about working-class stuff, but not always about the work directly, Wayman, for many years, wrote almost exclusively about the on-the-job stuff, the day-to-day experiences of the blue-collar worker. The first time I read Wayman, I was like, “oh, I guess I can start writing about work, then.” And I’ve been writing about my jobs ever since. I started writing a linked-collection-of-stories-turned-novel a year and a half ago. I didn’t plan on it being overtly blue-collar, but, somehow, the main character is a roofer. It just happened. What I also like about Tom Wayman is he doesn’t take himself, or the poems, too seriously. I hope that didn’t come out wrong: he’s a serious poet, and a seriously good one, but can be light, be accessible at the same time. There’s value, there really is, in a poem that needs to be read a dozen times to be understood, but I think there are many great, undervalued poems on the other end too.

You spent some time living in New England. Do you have any observations about the difference between the poetry scene there and the poetry scene in Canada?

Honestly, I didn’t get that involved in the literary scene in Rhode Island. I’d always intended to, but it never happened, at first on account of having one kid and then another, then on account of the pandemic. I know that’s probably just an empty excuse. I lived in Providence for a while, where there’s a well-known MFA program at Brown University, but that scene, whenever I snooped around, seemed impenetrable. I went to the odd reading, which was nice, but I wouldn’t say I was part of a scene there. Such a division between the writers inside of and outside of the institutions. Maybe it’s not so different here in Canada. For a while I lived in a small town in Rhode Island; every month there would be an open mic. It drew the usual open mic crowd, but I met a couple people as a result. A bunch of us would go down the street to the dive bar afterwards. Good memories. So in the end, then, the New England literary scene might not be so different than the one in Nova Scotia, or anywhere else in Canada.