Margot Van Sluytman is a poet, writer, and teacher. Some of her books include: Feeding Dreams, Alba the Spanish Woman, Of Dark Night and Studying Love.
Van Sluytman is a Canadian pioneer in the field of mentoring and teaching poetry as both art and healing. She is also the founder of Palabras Press, which is a small poetry press and eZine. Her latest books are Dance With Your Healing and morning tasting whispers. I reached her in Calgary, Alberta.
Gerry McCarthy: It's been said that poetry is equipped to bring the inner and outer worlds together to rehabilitate modes of perception that have been undermined by a non-contemplative society. What are your thoughts?
Margot Van Sluytman: What you said there is coming from a negative perspective. In other words: It's saying the world is terrible and the poet's duty is to fix it. That's not accurate for me, and my relationship to writing and teaching poetry. There is something to what you've said. But as poets it's not our duty to necessarily inspire and show that we're so much more contemplative than other people (because we all have the same capacity).
For me poetry is a subjective, personal, forgiving, and kind act of representing my relationship to my reality. When I put poetry out there it's saying: Here I am. This is the imagery, metaphor, and language that speaks from my soul, foundation, creativity and imagination. I offer it to you and say: Take a little bit of time and dialogue with it, just to see if you feel and recognize something else. The world is always troubled and difficult. Poetry simply reflects and tries to re-define and re-flesh. It's also authentic. So it speaks the truth.
GM: In your poem "Slowly" from Alba and the Spanish Woman you write about "Visions of a different world." Can poetry help us re-imagine a different world?
MVS: Poetry saves my life, because it's a way of experiencing certain feelings and thoughts and representing them --not using a paintbrush-- but in a similar manner of representing possibility and strong hints of reality. It tells us that we can break down barriers. That there are visions, and those visions can become reality.
When I teach I say we can re-shape our reality with language. The language of poetry is immediate, salient, and succulent and every single soul has this capacity whether reading or writing it. They can shift the reality and make a difference, because life is bloody hard. There is no question about this. Poetry gives insight, hope, clarity, and authenticity even with all the dark we know.
GM: The Canadian poet Patrick McGuinness recently wrote that: "Canadian poetry has tended to define itself as a poetry of open spaces, grand landscapes and extreme temperatures, but these subjects became, in their own way, artificial fallbacks, mere markers of Canadianness." But in his review of the recent book The New Canon: Anthology of Canadian Poetry, he says there has been an advance on this. "Many poets here are preoccupied with the fragility of nature, no longer the measure of permanence, but of precariousness, depletion, tipped balance" he says. What are your thoughts?
MVS: To define and express what poetry is for a Canadian, Guyanese, American or British person is an interesting and fun thing to do. But it does not speak to what poetry is. I'm working on a book entitled Breathe Me: Why Poetry Works. I have a writing group on the Internet that is close to 250 members from around the world. The land of poetry is boundary-less land, and not shaped by a specific culture. This is my subjective view. When I first started a writing community by publishing poetry through Palabras Press, it was to say: At one point Atwood, MacEwen, and Ondaatje (all these amazing poets) were speaking about "Canadian culture." But I put that in quotation marks, because they were all in downtown Toronto.
For me poetry is boundless and country-less. It's universal language. I've never been sold, inspired, or convinced by the idea that poetry is in the field, space, or the purview of any one land or language. Poetry is the language of soul.
GM: Do you like doing public reading of your poems?
MVS: I don't love it, but I like it. It's great for the publicity of the press and the poetry. That's the aspect I love. On a certain level, it's such a space of private encounter. But sometimes I'm not thrilled about it, because I'm performing like a monkey (and I'm not crazy about this). But I understand the requirement for public readings.
The best reading I ever had was just before I left Peterborough, Ontario. I read with two other poets and our kindred energy informed the night. It made it splendid.
But every time I'm invited to read it gives me pause. I ask myself: Can I be honourable to my work and press? Or do I have to go and be the poet-woman?
GM: Can you talk to me about the genesis of your poem "Starry Night?"
MVS: I adore Van Gogh. It's a love poem, but not to Van Gogh. I had written it to an individual who I had fallen in love with (non-platonic love). I wanted to take that painting and translate it with my pen to something that would speak to a pulsating, nourishing, fired, sensual, erotic energy. For me that's what Van Gogh's paintings represent --especially the later ones.
GM: Who are the poets that influenced you?
MVS: Margaret Atwood's poetry. When I was 16 I came across her work. I still adore The Circle Game and The Journal of Susanna Moodie: Poems. Her poetry in those two books is astounding. I feel this language go right through my soul, arms, and gut. Also: Michael Ondaatje. His book The Cinnamon Peeler is beautiful, sensual, philosophical, and spiritual.
There are two other poets who are not well known yet (but who should be) that have influenced me. Eric Ashford is a poet who lives in England. He's working on a book entitled Speaking Through The Opening: Allowing Your Life to Be Your Poem. This man is brilliant.
Another poet who published with us is Tracey Gainforth who lives in Peterborough, Ontario. Her book is called Poems From a Year in a Life. She is a huge fan of Margaret Laurence, and her poems reflect the beauty and intensity of nature.
Gerry McCarthy is the Editor of The Social Edge.
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