Questions Not to Ask While Facing a Blank Page
By Barry Dempster
Is enjambment supposed to be pronounced with a French accent?
What do you do when you unpack a line and can’t figure out where you thought you were going in the first place?
Is a metaphor just a simile with the “like” or “as” taken out?
Is it true that some great poems were written in ten minutes?
How many times have I used the words ”wrists” and “shimmer” over the course of the last 40 years?
Didn’t I already write this a month ago?
Should you really keep reminding well-meaning friends that they’re called stanzas, not paragraphs?
If everything is a metaphor, then what’s a poem a metaphor for?
Why do words like “bucolic” and “trenchant” always blow their own tone?
How come a good poem sprouts flaws the minute you read it loud to someone else?
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What if you did everything backwards: told instead of showed; worst words in their worst order; the void is in the details?
Huh?
The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Open Book: Toronto.
The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Open Book.
Barry Dempster, twice nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award, is the author of fourteen poetry collections, two novels, The Ascension of Jesse Rapture and The Outside World, two volumes of short stories and a children’s book. His collection The Burning Alphabet won the Canadian Authors’ Association Chalmers Award for Poetry in 2005. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Ontario Premiers Award for Excellence in the Arts. He is also Acquisitions Editor for Brick Books.
For more information about Invisible Dogs please visit the Bricks Books website.
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