K.I. Press is a Winnipeg writer originally from northern
Alberta. Her books of poetry include Exquisite Monsters (Turnstone) and Types
of Canadian Women (Gaspereau).
Q: How long were you in Ottawa, and what first brought you
here? What took you away?
I lived in Ottawa to do my M.A. in English literature at the
University of Ottawa. I was a fast-tracking keener! It only took me a year, and
I went off again to other opportunities.
Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and
subsequently, the writing community here?
I didn’t really get involved in the writing community in
Ottawa, even though, looking back, I did cross paths with lots of other people
who were writers, being in the English department and all. I was writing what
would become my first book at the time—Pale Red Footprints—which was
actually very influenced by a course in the Canadian long poem I took with
Seymour Mayne. I’d been writing poetry for a long time before that, though, at
least since I was an emo teen (though we didn’t call it emo then!). In Ottawa,
I was preoccupied with my academic self, just trying to finish the thesis,
which was on the work of Lola Lemire Tostevin, that even though I was writing
poetry, I wasn’t really sharing it.
Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your
thinking about writing, if at all? Have there been subsequent shifts due to
where you have lived since?
I’ve had a very different relationship with the writing
community in every city, and I’ve lived in several. As an undergrad in
Edmonton, I was very involved in the local literary journal, the student
publications, the reading series and the independent bookstores at the time (in
the mid ‘90s). Then in Ottawa I was quiet, just writing alone and being an
academic in public; when I moved back to Edmonton, I felt more like a writer
again. Then I moved to Vancouver, where I kept writing, and published more, but
never really connected with the local writing community. In Toronto, I became
more active again and socialized with lots of writers who became very good
friends; but then, the community is so big there, there are so many ways in and
parts of it you can fit into. In Winnipeg, I started out trying to be involved,
but my involvement has definitely waned over the years. Partly that is because
I had a family and found my ability to go out in the evenings limited. I can
almost never get to events that I’d like to get to. Also, I teach in a college
program where I am the only writer-writer on the faculty, so it’s easy to start
to feel like being a writer is more of a nuisance than an advantage.
Q: What did you see happening here that you don’t see
anywhere else? What did Ottawa provide, or allow?
I lived in Sandy Hill and walked everywhere! I spent a lot of
time going to the Big Sites/Sights like the National Gallery, and to local
hangouts like the ByTowne Cinema. I had great immersion in Big Culture in
Ottawa; there were always so many events going on, and unlike in Toronto, I
didn’t normally have to subway somewhere for an hour to get to them. The
cultural immersion was inspiring. It’s something that has never been the same
in other cities.
Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your
engagements here? How had the city and its community, if at all, changed the
way you approached your work?
Well, that Canadian Long Poem class really informed my first
book. I had already been interested in the long poem in my undergrad, when my
early mentor Bert Almon got me to read The New Long Poem Anthology,
among other things. I then—like countless other poets, I’m not original at
all—became profoundly obsessed with Atwood’s The Journals of Susanna Moodie
and, especially, Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, the
latter being something I used as a model.
Q: What are you working on now?
I have a fantasy novel that will probably never be done, and
in poetry, I’m in the early stages of exploring a project about God and climate
change. Nothing big or anything.
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