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Ottawa writer Sandra Ridley’s recent nomination for the Griffin Poetry Prize, Canada’s most lucrative award for poets, comes at a difficult time in her career: She hasn’t written much for years. The Saskatchewan-born Ridley was nominated for the $65,000 prize for her collection, Silvija, which the judges described as “potent and beguiling.” She corresponded with the Citizen’s Andrew Duffy.
Q You grew up in Saskatchewan: How did that shape you as a writer?
A The prairie gave me a quiet love of open space. I grew up on a farm between Saskatoon and Yorkton. I come from a large family. I was the last to arrive, well after my siblings, and because of that I learned how to spend time alone and how to thrive in solitude. State of mind and spirit come largely from our environment. Being a child alone in the field, even if watched from afar, certainly became a frame for who I am. That kind of daily experience, that environment, gives all the conditions for thinking, questioning, and daydreaming. How else to occupy the mind? Landscape is poetry.
Q How did you get interested in poetry?
A I was completing a Master’s thesis in environmental studies at York University. This is years ago now, but in that paper, I wrote about the phenomenology of place, and asked how can we save our natural spaces. How do we experience them? How do we write about those experiences? A leap to poetry was an easy one, and soon, as part of my research, I was reading Canadian and American poets who had focused their work on these questions.
Q Tell me about Silvija. It was mostly written between 2010 and 2015. What inspired its variously dark subject matter?
A Silvija Barons is the name of a friend of mine who died of a brain tumour in 2011. She was a polyglot, a Renaissance woman, once a head surgical nurse, a Second World War displaced persons camp survivor, and lover of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. She lived her summers at a lake we shared. Over 20 years, we grew close. Silvija would invite me over to her A-frame to tutor me on The Ring, playing and replaying it on vinyl. Our talks kept me writing. I wrote for her and she was my first audience. The best dedication I could give her, to remember her and her life, was to name the book Silvija.
Q Many have remarked on the way you isolate words in Silvija, the silence that the poems inspire. What’s the importance of that silence?
A In our short lives, the unsaid, the unsayable, is the most important thing we need to listen to.
Q Where do you like to write?
A There’s a small lake west of Algonquin Park where you can, from time to time, hear Eastern Wolves and where folks still drink the water. It’s one of the few motorboat-free lakes in Ontario. There are only a handful of cottages around, and I spend as many long days as I can lying on the dock, daydreaming, reading and trying to write snippits of lines.
Q I understand that you haven’t written much poetry since 2015. Can you tell me about that?
A It’s inevitable that a creative process stalls. Or, I’m trying to convince myself of that. Oh, woe for wallowing, laziness, lassitude, stalls, fallow periods, hibernations, and full stops. There are so many incarnations! If I’ve learned anything, it’s that we can’t force the process. And if, as creative types, we do — if we can — well, then we’re not truly frozen or finished, are we? But yes, I haven’t written for a long time: one poem last August for Perth’s “Framework: Words on the Land”, and before that, it has indeed been years.
Q How do you seek inspiration?
A Inspiration is too elusive! It can never be found when we’re looking for it. The rabbit holes of books have always been a source for me, especially archaic surgical manuals, medical texts, and pre-moon landing science fiction. I’m smitten with Coast to Coast AM, a late-night paranormal and conspiracy-themed syndicated radio show that unites scientists, long-haul truckers and shortwave enthusiasts like me. Also, literary journals, art installations, long walks — anything that gives me a reprieve from the same old self. Ah, maybe inspiration, like truth, is out there.
Q Can you imagine your life without writing poems? What would that look like?
A Of course! Writing poetry feels like having teeth pulled! That’s what writing feels like for me most of the time. Without it, my days would fill with river walks and working with the injured and orphaned at the Rideau Valley Wildlife Centre.
Q What does the Griffin nomination mean to you at this point in your career?
A It’s a phenomenal and improbable thing. Even a week after hearing the news, I feel cognitive dissonance from the reality. Slowly getting some sense of all of this, being one of the finalists, maybe now I might give myself some freedom to make more mistakes as part of the process. I hope the news, once it settles, will let me feel less afraid — at least for a little while.
The other Canadian finalists for the Griffin Poetry Prize are Injun by Jordan Abel, and Violet Energy Ingots by Hoa Nguyen. A Canadian and international winner will be announced on June 8; each will receive $65,000.
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Q You grew up in Saskatchewan: How did that shape you as a writer?
A The prairie gave me a quiet love of open space. I grew up on a farm between Saskatoon and Yorkton. I come from a large family. I was the last to arrive, well after my siblings, and because of that I learned how to spend time alone and how to thrive in solitude. State of mind and spirit come largely from our environment. Being a child alone in the field, even if watched from afar, certainly became a frame for who I am. That kind of daily experience, that environment, gives all the conditions for thinking, questioning, and daydreaming. How else to occupy the mind? Landscape is poetry.
Q How did you get interested in poetry?
A I was completing a Master’s thesis in environmental studies at York University. This is years ago now, but in that paper, I wrote about the phenomenology of place, and asked how can we save our natural spaces. How do we experience them? How do we write about those experiences? A leap to poetry was an easy one, and soon, as part of my research, I was reading Canadian and American poets who had focused their work on these questions.
Q Tell me about Silvija. It was mostly written between 2010 and 2015. What inspired its variously dark subject matter?
A Silvija Barons is the name of a friend of mine who died of a brain tumour in 2011. She was a polyglot, a Renaissance woman, once a head surgical nurse, a Second World War displaced persons camp survivor, and lover of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. She lived her summers at a lake we shared. Over 20 years, we grew close. Silvija would invite me over to her A-frame to tutor me on The Ring, playing and replaying it on vinyl. Our talks kept me writing. I wrote for her and she was my first audience. The best dedication I could give her, to remember her and her life, was to name the book Silvija.
Q Many have remarked on the way you isolate words in Silvija, the silence that the poems inspire. What’s the importance of that silence?
A In our short lives, the unsaid, the unsayable, is the most important thing we need to listen to.
Q Where do you like to write?
A There’s a small lake west of Algonquin Park where you can, from time to time, hear Eastern Wolves and where folks still drink the water. It’s one of the few motorboat-free lakes in Ontario. There are only a handful of cottages around, and I spend as many long days as I can lying on the dock, daydreaming, reading and trying to write snippits of lines.
Q I understand that you haven’t written much poetry since 2015. Can you tell me about that?
A It’s inevitable that a creative process stalls. Or, I’m trying to convince myself of that. Oh, woe for wallowing, laziness, lassitude, stalls, fallow periods, hibernations, and full stops. There are so many incarnations! If I’ve learned anything, it’s that we can’t force the process. And if, as creative types, we do — if we can — well, then we’re not truly frozen or finished, are we? But yes, I haven’t written for a long time: one poem last August for Perth’s “Framework: Words on the Land”, and before that, it has indeed been years.
Q How do you seek inspiration?
A Inspiration is too elusive! It can never be found when we’re looking for it. The rabbit holes of books have always been a source for me, especially archaic surgical manuals, medical texts, and pre-moon landing science fiction. I’m smitten with Coast to Coast AM, a late-night paranormal and conspiracy-themed syndicated radio show that unites scientists, long-haul truckers and shortwave enthusiasts like me. Also, literary journals, art installations, long walks — anything that gives me a reprieve from the same old self. Ah, maybe inspiration, like truth, is out there.
Q Can you imagine your life without writing poems? What would that look like?
A Of course! Writing poetry feels like having teeth pulled! That’s what writing feels like for me most of the time. Without it, my days would fill with river walks and working with the injured and orphaned at the Rideau Valley Wildlife Centre.
Q What does the Griffin nomination mean to you at this point in your career?
A It’s a phenomenal and improbable thing. Even a week after hearing the news, I feel cognitive dissonance from the reality. Slowly getting some sense of all of this, being one of the finalists, maybe now I might give myself some freedom to make more mistakes as part of the process. I hope the news, once it settles, will let me feel less afraid — at least for a little while.
The other Canadian finalists for the Griffin Poetry Prize are Injun by Jordan Abel, and Violet Energy Ingots by Hoa Nguyen. A Canadian and international winner will be announced on June 8; each will receive $65,000.
查看原文...
