The Poetry of Possibility: Creativity, Craft & Magic with Micheline Maylor

Welcome to Naut For Everyone, hosted by the incomparable Sheri-D Wilson! In this episode, Sheri-D engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Micheline Maylor—Poet Laureate Emeritus, award-winning writer, sought-after editor, and passionate educator.

📖 From the transformative power of poetry to the intricate craft of editing, Micheline shares her deep insights into the creative process. Together, Sheri-D and Micheline explore:

🔹 How poetry is an architecture of words, emotions, and rhythm
🔹 The hidden magic of line breaks, silence, and word choice
🔹 The truth about editing—why great poetry is never just broken-up sentences
🔹 How poetry can be devotional, a transmission, and a form of prayer
🔹 The secret to unlocking creativity through movement, meditation, and dreams

This episode is a must-listen for poets, writers, and anyone intrigued by the alchemy of language and imagination.

✨ Don’t miss this illuminating conversation with one of Canada’s most brilliant poetic minds!

🔗 Follow, subscribe, and share! Stay tuned for more inspiring guests and profound discussions that explore everything—and nothing.

#NautForEveryone #Podcast #MichelineMaylor #SheriDWilson #Poetry #Creativity #Writing #Editing #Storytelling

Transcript

Sheri-D Wilson: 0:06

And today's guest is michellene mailer, poet laureate emeritus of Calgary, a wonderful woman, poet, friend, educator, publisher, editor. She is a gentle woman and a scholar. She is a Doctor of Literature, and she's someone I respect a great deal. I think if you read her work, one of her five collections of poetry, like were and click or little wild heart or the bad wife, you'll love poetry, and you will love her. So I highly recommend those books. All of her books, just do it. Don't not do it. Just do it. And she is a teacher. She has taught at many universities. She lectures at many university she brings to her students, not only the academic, but also the highly spiritual, charged point of view. And for that reason, she has it all. She has it all. And she is an editor. She is an editor for Frontenac house. She helps to select the five poets that they do every year, and she edits most of those poets. Most of the poets she has edited are award winning poets, and she is much sought after as an editor, she only does a few books a year, so you're lucky if you get in and she is also the editor and co founder of free fall books. So this is, this is a woman who has done so much. She's a force, she's an energy, and she's also a great mind and a great woman. Check out her website, and today's guest, michellene mailer, welcome everyone, and today we have a special treat for you. Michellene mailer is with us. I've already done the intro, but you know, she's my friend. She's a brilliant, poet and and a brilliant, brilliant editor, I should know, because she has edited several pieces, both anthologies with me, but also my new on Aruna. And I really love her wisdom and her intelligence and her spirit, her soul and her honesty. Welcome. Michellene mailer,

Micheline Maylor: 2:50

hi everybody. Hi Sherry D

Sheri-D Wilson: 2:53

Hi. I'm so glad you're here. We both just got here from the West Coast, and we're landing in Calgary beside the fire,

Micheline Maylor: 3:02

thankfully, because it's quite shocking outside. Yeah,

Sheri-D Wilson: 3:06

it is, it is. And, you know, I'm just going to kick right in. Please do because, you know, and I'm interested in this answer, as much as the viewers and listeners will be interested in this. I'd like to know who are your influences, who are your mentors, the people who have either guided you as people or intellectually guided you like Aristotle, or who are your influences, your mentors,

Micheline Maylor: 3:46

the living ones, the poetic ones, the teachers, all of them, it's hard to say. I would say that my first mentor was probably Dr Seuss, just because I I have a memory of recognizing my first word. I have a memory of recognizing that first word. When I was a kid, I was reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and I remember reading the word the and understanding that it said the, and that there was going to be a noun that followed the the, and that was like an explosive moment of excitement, because I remember that. I remember the first word that I read and recognized, and it was immense. I even, even, you know, I think back, it's It's you, it's 52 years now, when that happened, and I still remember it feeling monumental. So Dr Seuss was one of the first, but I would say that another Touchstone was reading Shel Silverstein, because in. It was 19. I'm gonna say 7919 77 somewhere in that range. Star Wars had just come out. This book arrived. I had this really cool teacher who had a long rat tail in her hair, and she would come with her guitar to class, and she'd open up that Shel Silverstein, and she'd start strumming her guitar, and she'd start singing. And I remember thinking she was the coolest person I had ever met in my entire life. I was like, Wow, I'm gonna be like her when I grow up. And then on top of that, Shel Silverstein had a way of saying the thing that I was thinking, but saying it better than I could say it. And then I wanted to unlock that puzzle, because his first opening lines in his poem sick went like this. They went, I cannot go to school today, said Little Peggy. Ann McCay, I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash, the purple bumps, and it goes on and on for two pages, and then he ends, what's that? What's that? You say? You say, today is Saturday. Goodbye. I'm going out to play. And it was the first time that I'd realized that poetics was the art of saying something that everyone was thinking but saying it better saying it with style, music, rhythm, linguistic consideration. Although I didn't know the words linguistic consideration at that time, I just thought that sounds cool and and then I decided to start reading as much poetry as I could out of the library. And I'd always been most interested in contemporary work. However I was exceptionally seduced by Robert Frost his the way that he could create the again, the rhythm and the cadence in the words Sylvia Plath was an early influence, because she said things in a way that was disconcerting. It's nothing about her work was expected, and it because of that it always felt like a little bit off center. And then that off centeredness was meant to be there, and of course, was the result of an unreliable narrator with a mental illness, and of course, she would be writing in this skewed way. Seamus Heaney was an early influence. The first poem I read of his was the one about his his little brother being hit by a car and dying and his the words were a four foot box, a foot for every year. So that particular poem was very influential. And and then the contemporaries, AGM Smith, Dorothy Livesay, I went all the way through then later on. Patrick lane, Lorna Crozier, the I didn't read so much. Al Purdy, but you know the Canadians definitely Tom Wayman. He was, he was definitely someone that I'd read his catalog, from front to back, anything that I could read of his I was going to read it. He was. He is an exceptionally, underrated Canadian poet, absolutely, yeah, he's an exceptionally, his ability to write emotion, landscape work like he's just an exceptional brain and

Sheri-D Wilson: 9:09

spirit. He's an amazing how he lives, even is interesting and and unique and exceptional. Yes, absolutely, I'm nodding because I'm I'm with you on all of this, right?

Micheline Maylor: 9:25

And then later, there was Chris Wiseman, Don Coles. Don Coles was my favorite poet for the longest time because of his works. One was called K in love, and the other one was called forests of the medieval world, and he had, he had one of the most interesting poems. He had, he has, he created. How do I say this? He create. He created a poem. It was one of the most interesting surreal poems that I've ever read in in Canadian literature. And it was one it's my death as the wren library. Oh, so he imagines himself deceased, and he's speaking from the position of a window pane in a library, watching his family coming and going, the comings and goings of his family, but he's this incarnated as this window pane, telling the story, oh, and it's, it's, it's beautiful, it's heart wrenching, and it's, again, it's so unexpected, yes, because, you know, even, like, I love the way that he situated himself as something, that there was a living and a dead, and he becomes this permeable barrier where, well, it's both you're permeable and you're a barrier. Like, there's something that is very paradoxical, wonderful, surreal, unexpected, disconcerting, that, again, it just enlivens your perspective in in which I would say, How is that possible?

Sheri-D Wilson: 11:17

How is that possible? And I think that's exactly when I think of you, your work, how you work, your teachings, what I've received from your teachings, exactly that enlivens your perspective, because that kind of describes how you See poetry and and how you work with poetry?

Micheline Maylor: 11:42

Yes, the older I get and the more I move through my relationship with poetics. I'm not going to say understanding, because that's how do you understand poetics. So I'm going to call it my relationship with poetics, because it's like that, and I know that poetics is the love of my life. It's started before, before puberty, and it's going to last until I'm in my grave. I'm sure someone will be reading poems at my funeral after I'm dead. So you know this. This is my the love of my life as poetics, and the more that I understand, because when I first started, there was a feeling, right? There's a feeling in a poem. It makes you feel something that Shel Silverstein thing was like, I feel like that, and I want to know how to say the thing that I feel like that,

Sheri-D Wilson: 12:48

because

Micheline Maylor: 12:49

there's an art here. There's an art in the words, yeah. And then what happens after that was I started thinking a lot about technique and craft, because how do you put this thing together? If a poem is an architecture of words, which I believe it is. If a poem is an architecture of words as a book is an architecture of poems as a novel is an architecture of chapters, then the minuscule architecture matters the most. So if we think back to the most wonderful architects over time in history. You know, they would do things. They would do dovetail joints, or they would use mathematics to make things stand up like there's a microscopic element that exists at the very structural level. And for the longest time, that fascinated me, and I tried to learn as much as I could about structure and craft and technique and sound and sound sound came with that absolutely the invisible and the the invisible. What do you mean by the invisible? Could you broaden that,

Sheri-D Wilson: 13:56

um, the structure of the invisible life within the poem? Or let's call it maybe it isn't silent. Lots of people call it silence of the poem, the quietness of the poem. I don't think it is, but it's the space where something else lives, some something else is enlivened. And you learn by that space, as much as the words or what is missing from the poem is also. Ah, the poet decided to leave that word out, therefore it's really significant because poets are so

Micheline Maylor: 14:46

microscopic. Good poets are microscopic. Yes, good poets are microscopic. So I'm going to say that one of the stepping stones to growing apart. Poet is moving into that understanding of that microscopic so for example, I have a lot of poems in a slush pile. For example, when I'm editing, they'll come in and they're broken up sentences, and I think to myself, this poet hasn't understood yet about enjambment or about the efficiency of words, because it can't just be a broken up sentence. Poetry is not broken up sentences. It has a line level craft, and then the line level craft has to because that's the technique, but then it has to be imbibed with a heart. So the heart has to come in, the disruption has to come in, the rhythm has to come in. And the more you can manage all of those pieces, the more symphonic and harmonic and elaborate and beautiful a poem can be right, but it's about man like you've got to learn how to manage your horn section. Then you manage the flute section, and you put it all together, and you start creating that symphonic Mm hmm. But those techniques in poetics add up to that symphonic Mm hmm. So then, after got a grip on it, okay, here's how the techniques work, then I started thinking very deeply, and still think very deeply about the spirit of the poem, because the spirit of the poem is something you can never grab it's not something that anyone can teach you, and it has to come from some sort of vibration, either within you or without you, that uses you as a conduit. But there's got to be something that's resonant and resonating, and in that construct, I think of poem as prayer. I think of poetry as devotional, even if it doesn't look devotional, even if the topic is not devotional. I think of poetry as the synchronous as, as in Jungian synchronicities, where you know, sometimes you'll pick up a book and you'll flip to a page and it'll be exactly the right poem that you needed to read right at that moment. And then there's other times when you're the writer, and you sit down and the poem seems to come from someplace, and it's like, and it uses your body like a conduct, like a tool, to arrive here, transmitter in the Earth space, Yes,

Sheri-D Wilson: 17:49

yeah. Transmissions, yes. I had a teacher once who taught me about writing, yes, but she taught me through the oral tradition, through through theater. Mickey moncell And I agree with her, in the sense of the study of magic, that it is about transformation, transmogrification, and it is the study of that and when, and you can translate, there is no religion that goes along with that. There is no belief system. There is none of that. It's just magic, and it has to do with the body, the mind, the Earth, the stars, the relationships between them. And I think you know, for that reason, a lot of the poets that I have been lucky and lucky enough to meet and to hang out with and be edited by, and to party with and to cry with and to dance with. They all had a deep, resonating relationship with poetry as it relates to magic and transformation. So

Micheline Maylor: 19:28

in your opinion, in your experience, how do you best access that magic?

Sheri-D Wilson: 19:38

This is a very good we all wonder that, and everyone's different. I think, yeah, you know, I had teachers when I was young. I maybe, maybe I partied my way into it. Maybe I drank and did drugs or whatever I did to get to that place. And. Remember Allen Ginsberg saying to me, that's great, that's fine, that's cool. But and meditation can take you there too, and prayer can take you there too, and trance can take you there too. And getting into trance and getting into dream and getting into lucid dream, you can go these other ways, and there are other ways to enter into that vortex, and now, well, I can walk my dog and feel that sense of connection. And I can look out the window and, you know, it's sort of that, that thing where you're when you're first a student of Buddhism, like I was at one point, you're looking for those epiphanies. And, you know, you're thinking of these big epiphanies. They're so far apart. And, you know, like, oh, they were life changing. I remember that moment bong and the bong, and they're like, and everybody thinks of epiphanies as these big bongs. However, welcome to the shisha shop. Well, now that it's legal, why bother but and then you realize, as you get older and as you start really working with this, that there you're experiencing epiphanies every second, every nanosecond of your day, that it is one connected epiphany, and So then you start living it in that connected way, because you're no longer living in these bonds, and you're no longer waiting for those moments of glory, let's call them. There is no moment of glory. There's one breath at a time to the next breath that's all connected, and then it's an erotic epiphany every waking moment. But it's not a bong, it's more of a hum. And so, you know, how do you get there? How do you get that's the dog. That's Willow. For those wondering where the dog is, the dog is and the dog is, I don't know, usually never barking, ever. And so it's really strange to to have the dog barking. Willow, I'm

Micheline Maylor: 23:09

sorry, did I bring my no friends, I think me, I maybe

Sheri-D Wilson: 23:14

it's like, there, maybe the a ghost has entered. And possible, you know, the dogs see the paranormal way more than

Micheline Maylor: 23:21

Oh, sometimes my friend Richard Osler has been visiting so, oh, he could have come by because he thought this was interesting. Oh,

Sheri-D Wilson: 23:28

that would be lovely. Hello, Richard, if you're here,

Micheline Maylor: 23:32

yeah, if that's you, how do I get there? Easy for me, walking. Walking will do the trick, walking outside, much, much walking, swimming, transcendental meditation. I use transcendental meditation at least three or four times a week, not every day, but at least three or four times a week. Hypnagogic dreaming, prayer, I don't, you know, ascribe to any kind of formalized prayer, but definitely devotional. Like I think poetry is just devotional by itself. So it's definitely, you know, diving in, diving into some other works, paying attention. You know, at times, you know, as you say, there's a hum, and at times there's a moment, and you just, it's not even a second long, even if you said One Mississippi, that would be really long time. But all of a sudden it's there, and it's like a little fairy flick or something. And then all of a sudden, you're like, that's a that's that's a thing. And then to the page, it goes some

Sheri-D Wilson: 24:59

but if. Physicians call it Pon, po

Micheline Maylor: 25:03

n, Pon. Where did you learn that?

Sheri-D Wilson: 25:08

Well, you know me. I've who knows Pon, the words that are associated with it. Think it's interesting that your first word was the

Micheline Maylor: 25:23

first red word, yeah, first red

Sheri-D Wilson: 25:25

word, yeah. It's just so I'm going to think on that for a long time. I'm going to look for your book of poetry called the, the, the anyway, sorry to segue there, but yeah, pawn, um, it is, it is a definite Spark, yes, is it the spark of poetry? Spark of poetry, you know, I was thinking recently and, and, you know, I was thinking about the poems that we carry with us that live within us. We've, we've spoken of this. We have, I'd like to say endlessly, but I we never speak endlessly about anything. We're very busy. We're very busy. We got things to do, and we do talk a lot about lots of things we do, like hypnagogic dreaming and and we we talk a lot about these things, but not a lot. We just mention them. And it goes on. But we have spoken about the poems that live within our bodies and the poems that we choose to know and to continue to get to know. And so I would ask you, what poems would those be that michellene mailer chooses, this is poems by heart. I was

Micheline Maylor: 27:05

thinking about this on the drive over. And my favorite to recite is, of course, this be the verse by Philip Larkin. This a very good poem to know at any dinner party. It's a very good dinner party poem, they fuck you up your mom and dad. They don't mean to, but they do and fill you with the faults they had, throw some new ones in just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn by folks in old style, hats and coats who half the time were soppy stern and half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf. So get out as early as you can, and don't have any kids yourself.

Sheri-D Wilson: 27:53

Okay,

Micheline Maylor: 27:55

I tell you why that's the best dinner party poem, because it doesn't matter who's sitting at the dinner table, somebody either has trauma from their parents or trauma from their kids every time, and it brings up a lot of conversations about that fucked up idness That just gets inherited, ode

Sheri-D Wilson: 28:17

to the fuckery, ode to the fuckery that that's a great one. When did you like, when did you discover the poem, and when did you memorize? Like, how did that happen? Well,

Micheline Maylor: 28:32

I read Philip Larkin early in my BA because Chris Wiseman was my mentor and he, Philip Larkin was his favorite poet. So I thought, Oh, I better read that. Then, yeah. So that's, that's when it all happened. And then, yeah. And then the more I read Philip Larkin, the more I just loved him, because his he writes in beautiful form, absolutely exquisite form, you know, I would say on par with Dylan Thomas, you know, easily one of the best Formalists. And then he writes with that heart as well as the heart is in the poem, the sarcasm is in the poem, like he's both biting and tender at the same time, and just timeless in a way

Sheri-D Wilson: 29:29

that's that's very true. There's

Micheline Maylor: 29:31

one of his that I really love, that I've started working on memorizing, which is called the mower, but I'd have to cheat.

Sheri-D Wilson: 29:39

Well, cheat,

Micheline Maylor: 29:41

all right, the mower, the mower stalled twice, kneeling. I found a hedgehog jammed up against the Glades killed. It had been in the long grass. I'd seen it before and even fed it once. Now. I had mold its unobtrusive world, unmendably. Burial was no help. Next morning, I got up and it did not the first day after a death, the new absence is always the same. We should be careful of each other. We should be kind while there is still time.

Sheri-D Wilson: 30:25

Oh, that's another good one.

Micheline Maylor: 30:27

Phil is pretty good. Yes,

Sheri-D Wilson: 30:30

thank you, Phil. That's

Micheline Maylor: 30:32

why he had two lovers at once. Even though he kind of looked like a frog.

Sheri-D Wilson: 30:38

Needed two at once, of course, in the same bed,

Micheline Maylor: 30:41

or, well, I'm not sure about that.

Sheri-D Wilson: 30:45

I just wondered how interesting.

Micheline Maylor: 30:51

That's a poem you know, off by heart. Missy,

Sheri-D Wilson: 30:55

oh, that's a good question. Well, I do love thee. When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies. See, I love this poem, if I can. I mean, I haven't. I haven't even really said it for years and years and years, but it lives within me. So I guess, beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers plucked from the garden all the summer through and winter, and it seemed as if they grew in this closed room, nor miss the sun and showers. So in the like name of that love of ours, take back these thoughts, which here unfolded too, and which on warm and cold days alike, I withdrew from my heart's ground. Here's Eaglin time. Here's Ivy. Take them as I once take took your flowers and put them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true and tell thy soul their roots are left in mine. It's so hot. I mean, it's Elizabeth, Sarah Brown, oh yeah, well, but I just

Micheline Maylor: 32:30

she was definitely love struck.

Sheri-D Wilson: 32:32

She was love struck. Well, she knew how to write about love in a very hot way.

Micheline Maylor: 32:42

I also know a poem about a blow up doll, but we shan't talk about that.

Sheri-D Wilson: 32:48

Why not do

Micheline Maylor: 32:56

when I was low and lonely and couldn't sleep a wink, and I could only get unconscious if I'd had too much to drink. There was somehow something wrong somewhere, and each day seemed gray and dead. Seeds of desperation were growing in me head. I needed inspiration, a brand new start in life, somewhere to place affection, but I didn't want a wife, and then, by lucky chance, I saw in a special magazine, an ad that was unusual, but likes I'd never seen, experience something different with our new imported toy. She's loving, warm inflatable, a guarantee of joy. She came all wrapped in cardboard or pink and shriveled down. A breath of air was all she needed to make her lose that frown. And so I took her to the bedroom, and I pumped her with some life, and later, in a moment, that girl became my wife,

Sheri-D Wilson: 33:56

just the person you want to marry, someone who can blow you Oh, but blow you up.

Micheline Maylor: 34:09

That's funny. What is that? It's just, it's actually a very it's a song by the police, is it? But I thought it was really radical. And so when I was 17, I used to do that so that if I got invited over to my parent, if my boyfriend's parents house, that I could offend them, and then get out of there and have a really nice time.

Sheri-D Wilson: 34:36

Something else. Yeah, you can always offend people with certain palms.

Micheline Maylor: 34:40

Oh, absolutely. And then you have the night free to do it. You are.

Sheri-D Wilson: 34:44

Poetry is very useful. It's very useful. I was once pulled over by by some cops, and I had poets in the car and and so I that was back in the day when you would get out of the car if you wanted to really. To talk to the cops. So I got out of the car and and they just wanted to know why we all look so weird and, and so I said, Look, here's the thing, we're poets. And they were like, oh. And I was like, Yeah, we're all poets, and that's that's why we look weird, and that's why we behave weird, and that's why I'm driving this old crate of a car, this old jalopy, and let us off, because some of us, yes, you'll look in the car, and some people might have alcohol, some people might have drugs, some people might have been arrested before. But please know we're just poets going to a poetry reading. And they were like, all right, ma'am. And they just let us go, because we were poets. And I was like, see, poets always come. If you say you're a poet, it will always come in handy.

Micheline Maylor: 35:56

One way or the other, one way or the other, that's for sure. It's either attractive or repulsive, but it's never in the middle. It's always useful. It's never a mediocre sort of thing. True.

Sheri-D Wilson: 36:11

It's very, very, very true. Now, I have a question for you, which is, you know, say you have a beginning student of poetry, and they're just beginning. And what are the what? What could you tell them to do in order to proceed?

Micheline Maylor: 36:36

Well, first off, if someone is writing poetry, it probably means it's because they're already feeling something. Because people who have any logic whatsoever don't say, I'm gonna go be a poet, right? So if that assumption can be made, then I'm going to tell them to read a lot and read widely, because, as I've said to my students on many occasions, poetry is a genre that's enormous. It's as big as the word music. The word poetry is huge. The word music is huge. In the olden days, you would go into SAM the record man, and there would be a country section, and there would be heavy metal, and there would be, there would be pop, and then there would be the top 40 on the board, and there would be all these sections of music. There would be classical, you could there would be jazz, you could go in there, and you could play like, what kind of music do I like? And that's kind of a beginner poet. Is that person who walks into that, that particular space and and you've got to go try, you've got to go see if you like. George Brooks. Is that his name? Garth Brooks.

Sheri-D Wilson: 37:59

I was thinking George powering

Micheline Maylor: 38:02

Beethoven, you've got to go try and the same thing happens with poetry. You've got to go try and figure out where, where the heart sings to you, where the heart of that poet sings to your heart. And some poets will never sing to you. They just won't. And, and that's all right. And then there's some other poet who will, I mean, the thing is that when people say, I don't like poetry, I think, to myself, was because you haven't heard the right record. You know you haven't heard the right poem, because certainly there's something that will speak to you within, within the enormous body of poetry that exists. And so I would tell that that person who enters into this space is to go, try everything, try this, try that, try the other thing. Go to the library and do the old fashioned thing that we used to do, which is you put your finger on the stacks and you go, that's what new when you put and there's this thing, I'm taking this one out, and then all of the sudden, you own a copy, and it's dog eared and it lives in the glove box of your car, because you love it so much so the it's trial and error at first, and it's trial and error what you write at first, it's so both reading and writing are a matter of trial and error at first, and and and stick at it, because the more you read and The more you try, the more you'll understand yourself. You'll understand your own artistry, you'll understand your own voice, you'll understand how things speak to you, or maybe you'll just not even understand because that's intellectual, but just feel the things that speak to you, and then and then you you end up with love. Loves and cherishes and beloved things, and it's quite possible that something you love you'll never write like, and that's okay too. You're not meant to be a replica of the person you love. You're meant to be your own speaking embodiment.

Sheri-D Wilson: 40:21

I think that's that's really, really great advice. And I'd say also read what you know when you're going along those shelves, and then you pull out something that intrigues you, go deep into that rabbit hole, because poetry discusses so many other things beyond itself, and that's and then start observing yourself, Which is always lots of fun.

Micheline Maylor: 41:01

Okay, here's a question for you. Is poetry therapy?

Sheri-D Wilson: 41:07

Oh, I think it can be Yeah, but I I think that's yes. I think I don't know. I mean, maybe it started out like that. And I think maybe it does start out like that sometimes, but then, then I have to go, Well, what about that? Is it therapy? I think it's healing.

Micheline Maylor: 41:43

I think it can be healing. It can be healing. You know, I know one of the things I don't know if this is appropriate, you might have to cut this, but one of the things you and I have talked about before, it was about how we both felt like there was a point in time when spoken word had sort of become a lesser version of itself, because it became like this suffering contest on stage, and how that that didn't elevate the poem to its completion, how that poem should always have a turn or or a volta, or a revelation, or that, or a moment of

Sheri-D Wilson: 42:25

understanding one day, yeah,

Micheline Maylor: 42:27

that's yes due. That's perfect word, yeah.

Sheri-D Wilson: 42:31

And that's that can happen. Because what was, you know, getting the highest scores was the most widely expressed opera version of pain and and it in it for that reason, lost its sense of humor and also stopped laughing at itself and stopped being silly and And there was, and it just kind of bursted that bubble for a while. Think things are changing now. It's coming back to people being interested again in the poetry, into the possibilities, like you say, of all the different possibilities of rhythm, even because it got into one rhythm as well, which became very repetitive and ultimately boring and, and I'm not saying everyone who did slam is like that, but that when you go to a slam, you expect lots of poetry by lots of people, and so if most of it is is Super hurt and and in within the same rhythm, with everyone doing the same facial expressions, just becomes the same poem over and over. And I, you know, personally, I'm I'm sick of hearing the same poem. If I go to a poetry reading and I hear a poem that I once wrote, then I go, Oh, well, I'm sorry I wrote that poem, and I won't do that ever again. And I think poetry should be remarkable. It should be startling, and it should have and it should do something different and say something different in a different rhythm and the rhythm of the person. Yes, because we all have our own rhythms. We all have our own soul. We all have our own music. What's your music? What's your music? Not someone else's regurgit music. What is your music? Yeah,

Micheline Maylor: 44:32

well, I do think that that's one of the major flaws with academic creative writing programs, is that many of the teachers who are teaching want the students to replicate what they know how to do, because they've only been in the jazz section of the music store and they haven't gone outward. And I see that there's a limitation, and perhaps. That has to do with the nature of time and space itself, where one can't be working at a full time job and being a full time artist. And, you know, who knows what raising kids on the side like, it's just too much. So then there's this sort of limitation in this funnel where it becomes the very first essence that I talked about, which was that of the heart becomes constricted just by the nature of its environment.

Sheri-D Wilson: 45:32

Yep, that's also an issue, although with the government these days and the problems that they've created within the writing departments of universities, where departments are closing down. I've always thought that of the creative writing, and now that everything's closing down, I I feel also like we're going backwards. And so there's this strange feeling that I have with that, and maybe it will make less writers and more people who are really focused on the writing rather than the than the ego. Well,

Micheline Maylor: 46:11

maybe I feel a little bit less distressed about it, because a creative writing program in a university is actually a relatively new thing. It is. You could probably put it back about 100 years. I'd say it's close to 1936 close to the Iowa workshop, one way or the other. It's, it's within a decade of that regardless. And then you know, what does that mean, that that Robert Frost did poorly because he didn't have an academic degree. He was just fine. You know, the study itself comes from within. You know, it's, it's from within. So if, if, if you're going to be a writer, and if that's the thing that's driving you, you're going to know it from the inside out, not the outside in. Yes, I actually think that creative writing departments would be better served and better operated under an arts university, yes, not an academic university, not a research university, but an arts university, yes, where you can couple poetry with publishing programs, visual arts, music, sculpture, Film, Dance. If poetry resided over there, that would be fine with me. Yes, it's just, I feel like maybe poetry needs to just move across neighborhoods and it'll be fine.

Sheri-D Wilson: 47:50

Absolute, more absolutely, yeah, absolutely, thank you for that, because that was well articulated. Now you're doing exactly what I loved, saying things that I'm thinking better than I could. Oh,

Micheline Maylor: 48:08

you've done that to me. Of course I have.

Sheri-D Wilson: 48:16

Okay, what are you working on now?

Micheline Maylor: 48:21

I have a manuscript in the works, and it's currently titled A Short History of everywhere, and it has a real contemplation about citizenship and what it means to be a good citizen, mostly at the individual level, but also kind of at the city level, like, what does it mean to be a good citizen? So, and this question arose from, of course, reading another influence, who's al Moritz. I love reading al Moritz, his work, the sparrow, I think, is one of the best books, you know, it's in my top 10 Canadian books, for sure. This Barrow, yeah, you know, beautiful. And he articulates like he he asks the question, like, what does it mean to be a citizen? And the sparrow is the citizen on which he answers the question. And you know, his his leanings come from Octavio Paz and his questions about citizenship, and it's a really interesting kind of question to ask, what does it mean to be a good citizen? And I also would like to point out that it probably means the same thing as to be a good poet, is that it's not all about you, it's about the people around you, the readers, the community that you engage within. It's also about about those things,

Sheri-D Wilson: 49:52

yes, and it also deals with the intention

Micheline Maylor: 49:57

of being a citizen, right? I. Right? I think that a narcissist is probably the worst kind of citizen.

Sheri-D Wilson: 50:05

Yes, right, yes. It makes very difficult

Micheline Maylor: 50:09

people. If you want to have a better society, quit being a fucking narcissist.

Sheri-D Wilson: 50:14

Yeah, stop it. Stop it. Right now. It's not all it's not all about you. Yes, yes, that's a really good question. I look forward to seeing that book.

Micheline Maylor: 50:25

Yeah. Well, of course, I didn't read anything like almarez. And of course, his is all elegant in nature, and mine is like, I'm just gonna be a weirdo, you know? Because I think that as a general rule, I kind of live in the fringes of the counter culture where, you know, I say weird things in a weird way at times in poems, and

Sheri-D Wilson: 50:50

it's beautiful way. Yes, that's okay with me well. And also, I think that's an interesting idea of of deriving a an impulse from another writer and then giving it your own voice. Well,

Micheline Maylor: 51:05

don't, don't we all? I mean, anyone who's a reader is having a discussion with that author, whether they be living or dead. I mean, they could be dead for 600 years and you're still like, oh, you know Sappho. Whoa. You know you can, you can sing to Sappho in in the night, and you're having this conversation with this author. Or the author can be sitting side by side by each as we are in our little meat bodies in the same time space continuum, going, hey, here we are. We're right here, right now. Baby, we

Sheri-D Wilson: 51:37

are. Baby, we're making it spin and the and the real thing, the real thing comes in, never stopping. That never stopping. And I think you know what happens sometimes with people, as they get older, they stop. And I think that there's something to be said for senior Rita.

Micheline Maylor: 52:11

Are you gonna explain that?

Sheri-D Wilson: 52:12

No, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna explain it. I'll leave that to your imagination. You know, if you would like another challenge, you know, I have given one challenge, and maybe I'll give another challenge. Figure out what that means and put it in the

Micheline Maylor: 52:31

email to miss Charlene

Sheri-D Wilson: 52:35

from Siri. It's all easy to understand, if, if you don't understand it, because then you get to create your own understanding. So silly, so silly. And next, michellene will also be editing my second book of the oniro, not series. There was not one, and she's editing, not two, starting next week, and you'll also be doing that.

Micheline Maylor: 53:08

Oh boy, bring it on.

Sheri-D Wilson: 53:10

I can't wait. I love working with michellene and when she edits, but at one time, she almost, you know, I'm just gonna tell the truth to you, she I couldn't even believe she goes, Oh, this bit, oh, this is super boring. That's what she said. This is super boring. Stop it. And I was like, oh. And I said, Well, I think that's a little harsh. And she goes, No, it's not harsh enough. And I was like, I love working with you, because you call it as it is and and you stop me from being boring. Well,

Micheline Maylor: 53:54

I am faithful to the book. The book is my mistress. You're just the cab driver, like the book is my mistress. So what I want is, I want to feel the reader's experience. And I know, okay, this is a part where the book falls on the chest and like, and it's like, I don't want you to have that. You know why? Because 10 pages ago, you just showed me what you're capable of, and 10 pages ago I was rolling, I was jabbing, I was jabbing. I was like, what's gonna happen next? I can't wait. Yeah, I'm feeling that. Ooh. I can see it pop and pop it right? And there's all this stuff that's going on, that's, that's, it's a club scene, and then you bring me outside, yeah, and it's like, I don't want to be freezing with my stilettos on. I want to go back in there. I want to be jazzing and driving and. And the experience of the book, that's what I'm responsible to as the editor, right? I'm ex. I'm responsible for the reader's experience. That's

Sheri-D Wilson: 55:09

absolutely right. And I'll tell you too, when I returned to the book, to the part where you were like, barring I was like, Micheline is right. I was being self indulgent.

Micheline Maylor: 55:23

And it's okay to be self indulgent. It's just if it's good, if it can't stay in the book, yeah? Like, sometimes if you're self indulgent, I mean, there's nothing like a good wank, really. Come on. Now, everybody's a little self indulgent sometimes, but come on. Like, what you want to do is you want to keep that in your room.

Sheri-D Wilson: 55:40

Yeah, right. Keep it

Micheline Maylor: 55:41

in the back room. You're not doing that outside on the stage, so you just keep that in your room. And then you come out with the good stuff. You come out with the polished energy. You come out with that vivid experience. You come out with the life, the joy, the juice, the sorrow, the grind, the upset, the suspense, the secret, the whisper, the

Sheri-D Wilson: 56:13

orgasm. Finally, we got to the orgasm I was waiting.

Micheline Maylor: 56:18

But what? But that's But ultimately, as an editor, if you're going to be a good editor, then you are responsible for the reader's experience. Beautiful that that's your job, and that book is your mistress and that author, they'll get over it. I promise. They'll thank you for it, but I promise, and I've had many an author be offended. Off put huffy. I say, think about it. Get back to me. If you get back to me in two weeks and you have a different opinion, I'm ready to hear it. But you go think about that for two weeks and tell me what you think then. So you see, yeah, and so then what happens is it almost never happens at the others, like, I'm going to keep that even if they say this part is important because, but I'm going to rewrite it. I'm going to do I'm going to make the character deeper. I'm going to fulfill the promise that the dialog makes to evoke that suspense, I'm going to enliven the imagery so that you feel what the character is feeling like. There's always a rewrite that comes, even if the part itself remains, because the rewrite will always encourage something else after that kind of thinking. And that's right. And the other thing is like, let's say you put a book out. Let's say you put a book out. What does that what is that book supposed to do? The book is supposed to go and announce itself to the world. Hello, I'm a book, and I'm among the 500,000 other books that were published this year. Pay attention to me, and believe me, you're not gonna get any audience. If you're boring your audience, you're not you know, there's 1000 other books to read, as a matter of fact. Look, if this book is boring, look, look behind you like you have so many books to choose from. You walk into a bookstore, it's like many, many books, right? So those parts, they all need to work together. They all need to to reside because they've got a lot of competing to do. And then once they come out and they're like, pay attention to me, then maybe what you'll get one review. Maybe, you know, if you get a review and the reviewers like, meh, because reviewers don't care who you are. Reviewers do not care who you are. As a matter of fact, they're not supposed to care who you are, and if a reviewer knows the author, they're not supposed to be writing the review. Does that happen all the time? No, but that's what's supposed to happen, and in the great tradition of reviewing, which seems to be greatly diminished over the last 50 years, that was the tradition. The tradition was, was that the reviewer was quite typically, a frustrated artist or writer who wanted to be able to do the thing but just couldn't access that particular resonance. So then became a fan boy or a fan girl of the work, and then dived into the technique so that they could articulate with every potential beauty and every potential flaw, the exact nature and detail within those books that tradition is greatly diminished. Yeah,

Sheri-D Wilson: 59:54

it's true. Yes, well, there is. Much to say, and there is much to discuss with michellene mailer, she has to blaze off right now because, as she said, as we have said, She's super, super crazy busy and and I am honored, and thank you for the time that you have taken today to come here and to do this, I'm sure everyone will enjoy this, and they will read your work and and they will look for you if, if they are getting a book published because you are, I think the best editor I've ever had, remarkable, thoughtful, deep and resonant with lots of humor, and you do not go easy. And I think we need more writing that doesn't go easy, that calls it on as bullshit and makes people go deeper, wider and more bionic in every way. And so thank you very much for being here and taking this time. Michellene and I hope to interview you again about other things like paganism and your own joke and your own book, oh, and my own book. Yes, well, well, you can, you can give me an interview after the next one comes out. I would love that. I would love that too. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, Ryan. Nice work. You guys, beautiful. Great conversation. Later. Agitator, in a while. Bibliophile,