One Year Since Blades
My book is exactly one year old!
For a long time I’ve wanted to collect some thoughts about what I’ve learned through the process of writing and releasing a book. It’s the kind of process where once it’s over you’re like ‘god damn I learned a lot through this and by god I think I may even have changed.
I always hoped that if I ever did get around to collecting those thoughts if they were any good I would share them.
Well, I am happy to report the following two pieces of news:
1) I have indeed finally gotten around to collecting those thoughts;
and 2) They are good.
I did it by interviewing myself. That’s right. During the interview, not only did I share thoughts about writing my book, I also stumbled upon sharing a bunch of other thoughts, too. It ended up being a big ol’ orgy of thinking. Except it was just me, so it was more of a thinking masturbation. But in the end, instead of feeling tired and ashamed like with real life masturbation, I felt energized and smart.
The interview is below.
I stole these questions from a poetry website I was looking at one day. I want to make it clear that nobody actually interviewed me. On the website poets get interviewed about books they’ve written. I copied and pasted the questions from those other interviews. And then I came up with answers all by myself.
This is a nice long post. So settle in, get comfortable, and I hope you enjoy the scroll. Here we go.
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{{{This pause intentional as we vibe-transition from the light friendly intro to the deep dark middle}}}…
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(Poetry Website): How did you first start writing? How did you come to start writing poetry?
(Bryan): I was a closet writer for many years. I come from a small town and in places like that people get put in their boxes pretty quick. People get placed in their lanes. I risked judgement if I stepped out of my lane. I risked an ass-kicking if I stepped out of my lane. I wasn't courageous enough as a youngster. I got called a pussy for playing basketball. Poetry? Are you fucking nuts? I just needed to be socially accepted. As a matter of survival. I spent the first 25 years of my life trying to blend in. I eventually come to learn that all of that judgement was just voices in my own head. Fear-based voices that told me if this, then that. It was all nonsense that I had to get over in order to grow up. So I began working on quieting those voices and once I did there was space for boldness and speaking up and being different. Writing was the perfect outlet. I started as a shitty blogger. Now I'm a shitty blogger with 15 years of experience.
I’ve written lots of dumb shit and I’ve shared things that I no longer believe. I’ve said things publicly in the past that I’m embarrassed by today. That’s part of the beauty in being a public thinker. Writing is like marking my height on the wall. Time passes. I come back and it’s like; wow, look how much I’ve grown.
A person who can write well is a person who can think well. And that's really all I care about: I want to think clearly. Writing is like going to the gym for my mind.
As for poetry, that started 7 years ago. I always loved song lyrics. That's why most of my poems rhyme. I generally think poems that don’t rhyme, suck. I feel like there is a responsibility on the writer to entertain. The recipient of the work should enjoy what they’re getting. Even if it’s sad or tragic, they should enjoy the sadness, enjoy the tragedy. That’s just what I think. If I’m going to say something, if I’m going to grab a microphone and get on stage, if I’m going to put a book in your hands; I feel a responsibility to entertain you. Rhyming is one of many ways to do it. I got into poetry by way of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and John Prine and Joni Mitchell. Entertainers who rhymed. There’s people who say poems that rhyme are somehow juvenile or basic. I know people say this because someone said it to me. I said Leonard Cohen wrote poems that rhymed. You tryna tell me that Leonard Cohen is a basic bitch? Well. I won that argument. When I hear a song I like I always Google the lyrics and I study them. After a few years of doing that I found myself writing about my own life in that form. Next thing I knew I had enough poems to make a book.
“Writing is like marking my height on the wall. Time passes. I come back and it’s like; wow, look how much I’ve grown.”
PW: Do you remember the first piece of which you felt particularly proud? Why is it so memorable?
B: I wrote a poem called Skating on Christmas Day (it’s in the book) and I cried every time I read it. The first time I read it out loud in front of someone I kept breaking down in tears. I couldn’t even get through it! And I'm not someone who cries, so this shocked me. I realized I didn't create the emotion, because the emotion was always there. But I did create the channel which allowed me to access the emotion. Previously I had all this emotion isolated on an island I couldn’t get to. Writing the poem was like building a bridge to the island. It blew me away to discover I had this kind of creative power. I was like, shiiiiit. This is powerful! And I am powerful, too!!
^Early drafts of "Skating On Christmas Day"
PW: What do you consider your first “success” regarding your creative work?
B: Adopting a "successfully unsuccessful" mindset helped me when it comes to success-measuring devices like money, compliments, and publicity. If you make art that is not commercially successful, but that lack of success doesn’t stop you from making more art, then you’re successfully unsuccessful, and therefore, you’re successful. Follow? haha.
I stole this mindset from Jeremy Sroka, a BC based blogger friend of mine. Of all the lessons I've learned in life, my attitude towards success might be the area that has evolved the most. My definition of success as a 37 year old would be unrecognizable to my 20 year old self. To me, today, success means contentment. The most successful people in my eyes are the most content people. You've never heard of them, on purpose.
PW: Has the process of writing changed for you over time? Do you need designated time to write or are you able to work on projects in the moment?
B: A couple years ago someone asked me “Bryan, when is your book coming out?” And I said “I’m not writing right now. I’m too busy living. Once I’ve lived enough, I’ll tell about it.”
Live, then tell. Getting it backwards would be a fuck-up. Tell, then live. Or just “tell” and no “live” at all. Tragic.
Live, then tell is a great life philosophy. I’m proud of myself for cultivating it. I don’t burden myself with the pressure of feeling like I always have to be saying something. I don’t have a writing schedule. I only speak up every now and then. The result is that some of my ideas find space to grow into something bigger. I’m not constantly choking myself and my ideas to death. I let stuff breathe.
^This photo was taken on Christmas Day, 2020, in Kimberley, BC. My cousin Sara to the right, stickhandling the puck. This scene was the inspiration for the poem "Skating on Christmas Day" which is the centerpiece of the Blades collection.
PW: How much influence has living in British Columbia had on your work? What makes it unique from other places you’ve either lived or visited?
B: BC was hugely influential! Mostly by way of the people I met who massively influenced the way I see the world. I had to break out of my Newfoundland bubble. It took me 29 years to do it, but BC was the perfect place to do it.
What still strikes me to this day about BC is how passionate everyone is. Newfoundlanders are proud, but I wouldn't call us passionate. It seems like everyone in BC is passionate. There are so many different groups or subcultures of people within the broader society. Groups like hunters, environmentalists, recreationists, first nations, loggers, miners, hippies etc etc. They're all equally passionate and very opinionated and very well informed and smart and educated and care so much. I don’t necessarily think this societal sub-culturing of the population is generally unique across human societies, but it is unique when compared to Newfoundland. In Newfoundland there are basically two groups; the people and the government. Most of the people feel the same about almost every issue so there isn't much social division. It was formative for me to live amongst that BC passion for awhile. I know I'm not naturally wired that way. Passion. I respect it, but I don't have it. I care less. It might be a Newfoundland thing, I don't really know. It might be a Maslow’s Hierarchy thing, I don’t really know. It might be a case of the Something 2 Lose Blues (more on that below).
And I also might be completely full of shit. I shared the above thoughts with a friend of mine and she told me I was full of shit. She also disagreed with me about Newfoundlanders not being passionate and Newfoundlanders not being divided. She said, what about the seal hunt? She said, what about Muskrat Falls? I said: fair enough. I’m probably full of shit.
PW: Could you explain where the title of the book comes from?
B: Good question because when people hear "Blades Beneath My Feet" they think I wrote a hockey book. There is certainly hockey in the book, but it's not a hockey book. The blades beneath my feet are referring to blades of grass. The title comes from a line: how lush the grass still looks on the other side of the street / then again, what about the blades beneath my feet? It's all about gratitude and contentment. Because I'm a classic "grass is greener on the other side" person, and the book is all about realizing my weakness and using the awareness to make better choices.
Also, Walt Whitman's book was called Leaves of Grass so in a way I am honouring (copying) him.
PW: Has publishing Blades and other works allowed for any opportunities you didn’t foresee?
B: Yes. The advice that comes to mind is "risk being seen". You find your people that way. Or they find you. You don't find your people holed up in the basement. I've been invited to poetry circles and people have invited me out to dinners and events. I was invited to speak at a thing. It's opened up new conversations with old friends. All this cool stuff and wonderful new experiences.
^Risk being seen.
PW: Were there any difficulties with publishing that you didn’t expect?
B: Yeah, after I finished the book it took me another year to figure out how to get it printed. No publisher was going to touch it because I'm a nobody, so I knew it would be a self-publish situation. I had to wrestle with how much money I was going to invest in bringing the book to life. In the end I decided to use a local print shop and print the book minimally on the cheap, and I love how it came out. It feels like a win-win. Seth Godin's blog post Advice for authors really helped me with my mindset on this journey. Especially point # 17 which was about the difference between publishing a book and printing a book:
“Publishing a book is not the same as printing a book. Publishing is about marketing and sales and distribution and risk. If you don’t want to be in that business, don’t! Printing a book is trivially easy. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. You’ll find plenty of printers who can match the look and feel of the bestselling book of your choice for just a few dollars a copy.”
I probably would not be here if I hadn’t stumbled across Seth’s advice. All I did was print a book - and he is right: it was easy! Sometimes we get stuck in boxes thinking things have to look and be and feel a certain way in order for them to work or be respectable. But it's a lot of egoic nonsense. Nowadays with technology anyone can do anything they want. There is nobody to stop you except yourself. Take this very blog post for example: I'm interviewing myself for a book I wrote and sharing it on a website I run. The fuck? There are no rules, man!
PW: What drives you creatively?
B: Almost everything I write comes from a place of suffering. That sounds depressing but it's true. The writing is just a processing tool. There's the Bon Jovi lyric: The roses need the rain like the poet needs the pain. That's been the case for me. Peace and happiness don't make good art.
And my life has changed a lot since moving back to Newfoundland in 2023. I’m happier now. Which means I’m writing less.
Our daughter was born in September so I’m trying to write some happy poems for her. But I’m finding that even the work that comes out of this insanely happy time is still tinged with darkness.
^Becoming a family man has inspired my writing in new and challenging ways
I love my life and I’m amazed with what I have. How is this influencing my creative work? I’m writing about the fear of losing everything!
Here’s a preview from my next book. It’s a poem called Something 2 Lose Blues:
On a lighter note, another poem that will be in my next book is this one I wrote called Oh, Tricky Universe! It also has a dark side but a happy ending.
PW: If you could offer a younger version of yourself any sort of words of wisdom, what would they be?
B: Make an intentional effort to be around people who think differently than you. I always hear people talking about "like minded people". Fuck that! Find people who think differently and find out why they do. Be curious and let your mind, heart, and life grow from there. How a person is with “unlike minded people” is the true measure of human character.
Don’t be a spineless, smiley nice guy. Be bold, and principled, and masculine. Be all that, but also be very very curious. Because the world is colossal and there is so much out there, so the minute you start thinking you have shit figured out, you cut off your learning. And you don’t want to do that. You want to be a student, forever.
There are always going to be the chaotic extremes of every person, place, and thing. Mingle in the chaos as a means to understand it. Even enjoy it. Touch the curb. Then come back to the middle path when you’re ready for peace.
By the way, re-reading my answer here, I can already see that this advice is not for my younger self, it’s for my current self. What would I say to my younger self??? God. I need more time for that question.
^Asking people to review my book was hard and awkward. I made this graphic to commemorate the shit load of praise I received.
PW: What sort of advice would you offer to aspiring poets?
B: hahaha. Just write about your life and don't try to please anyone but yourself.
PW: What are you working on next?
B: I really want to turn Blades into an audiobook and get it on Spotify. I’d be really pleased if I could make that happen.
I’m also gathering the material for my next book. The Blades Beneath My Feet, volume 2, or something like that.
I wrote a bit about working on my next book in this blog post from August.
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And that concludes the interview! Thanks for checking it out.
