Vallum! Interview!

A few months back, I saw that Montreal lit mag Vallum had this rather fascinating call for submissions:

"VALLUM 9:2 - INVISIBLE 'CITYSCAPE' (HIDDEN URBAN LANDSCAPES)
The 'Cityscape' has fascinated people since the flâneurs of Paris and beyond. But what is unseen, underground or hidden eludes us. What are some of these hidden aspects of the 'cityscape,' the hidden urban landscape?"

As you might have noticed, what with all my burbling of late about creative non-fiction, about writing on the intersection of the urban/nature writer and the naturalist, I've been trying to actively articulate my ideas about the invisible cityscape...

Where I fit in. Where nature fits in. Because more and more, I realize I am most comfortable in spaces that neither completely urban nor completely natural.

Winnipeg's elm canopy makes me intensely happy, right? But so does the Korean resto down the street. 

Looking back, I've been writing poetry to the invisible city, specifically this faded grandiose city, for years.

First in my poetry/photography project with Jon Schledewitz on Winnipeg's derelict buildings, where we focused, literally and figuratively, on the softened edges of abandoned commercial and residential spaces.

But then later in Hump, where there's has a pile of what I called urban/nature/love poems, specifically poems set in Spence neighbourhood. A smaller clutch of poems were set in other Winnipeg parks / parking lots / brownfields. And my beloved forest, of course.

And my as-yet-untitled ms. will also likely contain a HEAP of urban/nature poems.

So it was a pleasure to cook up an interview on the subject with canny Winnipeg poet/publisher Sharon Caseburg.

My thanks to Sharon and to Vallum's editors for their work with me on this. I'm looking forward to having a good gnaw on the work in this issue!

Yay! Fun!