Calgary Herald interviews Kyle Buckley
The Calgary Herald interviewed Kyle Buckley, author of The Laundromat Essay, earlier this week:
Laundromat writer takes his poetry to the cleaners
Poet questions medium and its many challenges
Eric Volmers, Calgary Herald
Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2008
At the beginning of Kyle Buckley's book-length poem, The Laundromat Essay, he quotes a simple and seemingly depressing four-word half-thought from Steven McCaffery — the Canadian poet, scholar and general experimenter with the written word.
'The disappointment of poetry' is a strange mantra to launch a book of poetry, but it does seem to fit into Buckley's peculiar modus operandi.
The former University of Calgary student first cobbled together the thoughts behind The Laundromat Essay as part of a thesis for his master's degree in English literature. He couldn't defend it, however, because he became increasingly fascinated with how it was a failure.
'I had a lot of questions when writing it,' he says. 'In some ways, it was the failure of cohesiveness in poetry and those questions of concerns that I wrapped into how I rewrote the book. It's almost a book written within the collapsing ruins of another book.'
Buckley, 31, will be back in Calgary tonight, not to defend his thesis but to read from it as part of a book launch tour. The Laundromat Essay has been published by Coach House Books, the long-standing Toronto company with a roster of alumni that includes McCaffery, Michael Ondaatje, Guy Maddin and Calgary's own Christian Bok. It's known for publishing experimental work, particularly from its poets.
And, as Buckley tours the country giving readings, he can't help but wonder if he really fits in with other CanLit practitioners.
'A lot of writing I do is kind of like denying that it's really poetry, or messing with the idea that it's really poetry or keeping an arm's length from it,' he says. 'It keeps an arm's length from what is normally accessible about poetry. So I often wonder if I affect other poets, since it is directly questioning the medium.'
The Laundromat Essay began as a series of childhood memories before Buckley wrapped them into a simple narrative about a man distracted from a trip to the laundromat by various memories and 'mental detours.'
Buckley, who was at U of C in 2000, said there were already rumblings of Calgary's healthy poetry scene when he was in town eight years ago. Calgary has become a hot spot for Canadian verse, thanks to the work of Bok and U of C's English lit program that allows students to submit theses with a creative writing component.
None of which is likely to make pursuing a career in Canadian poetry particularly lucrative. But Buckley says the challenges with promoting poetry to the masses are part of the process.
'I think when you come to a text or any work of art where you are unsure and your own expectations are cloudy, it can be unsettling,' he says. 'But I think there's something rewarding about that.'
evolmers@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
