an interview with Tanis MacDonald (excerpt)

CV2: How would you encourage less experienced writers to overcome the emotional barriers to writing what needs to be written in order for them to continue to grow as poets?

Tanis MacDonald: Writers need stamina, the ability to write even as fate buffets them about the head and shoulders. Writing poetry is not for the meek. I refer to poetry as a craft in order to access the idea that it’s a hands-on, mud-to-the-elbows kind of endeavour. I understand why people seek out poetry, because its power to alter energies is formidable. In Irish culture, the ancient tradition of the poet as someone who could redeem you or strike you down with a word is still extant, and a trace of such power runs through all good poetry. That head-exploding, breath-stealing, dizzying aspect of language is not to be taken lightly. Learning a healthy respect for poetry is vital. The best writing advice I was ever given was: “Develop an appetite for revision.” I think that, contrary to popular belief, writing poetry makes you tough and observant, not weak and self-indulgent. Goldberg says her writing hand is powerful enough to punch through a plaster wall, and I love that metaphor. Poets who want to work at their craft to continually improve, or who understand the concept of endless play within the genre, develop resilient minds that crave solutions to poetic puzzles. It takes a perverse kind of audacity to keep writing, to continually admit ignorance, to revise and revise and still not be satisfied, and to find pleasure in the chaos.