Clockfire in the National Post

Jonathan Ball recently spoke with Mark Medley of the National Post about rap, impossible theatre and his new book Clockfire.

'Recently published by Coach House Books, long a bastion of experimental writing, Clockfire is described as “a suite of poetic blueprints for imaginary plays,” but the truth is much more complicated than that: These short works combine elements of prose, poetry and drama, and, in the process, become unlike any of those genres. The plays include Contact, which requires the participation of an alien civilization; Eight Minutes, which calls for the destruction of the sun; Hostages, in which the actors take the audience prisoner; and Like Lambs, in which the audience is murdered one-by-one.

“I almost consider it, somedays, to be a horror novel in which you are the victim,” says Ball, 31, on the phone from his home in Winnipeg. (“If you hear any horrible noises in the background,” he says at the beginning of our interview, “that’s just Winnipeg.”)

“I consider myself a writer of horror and comedy, but because I use such strange approaches in my writing I don’t think people see those relationships,” he continues. “I [am] generally considered an experimental poet … but personally I’m not particularly interested in those kinds of labels. If I call myself anything, I just call myself a writer."'

Read the whole interview here.