Berg Blackwood

Sharon Berg Interviews Clara Blackwood

(Ekstasis Editions, 2023)

Clara Blackwood

Sharon Berg:      We’ve been circling around each other on the literary scene for a number of years, but this is the first time that you and I have exchanged more than a few sentences. Thank you for agreeing to do this interview, Clara. I feel like I am finally getting the opportunity to know something of who you are on a deeper level.

I noticed that you placed in the Best Poem/Song category for the 2020 Aurora Awards for your piece “The Girl Who Loved Birds,” one of the poems that is collected in your book Pomegranate Heart. I wonder, can you share what it was like to be recognized in this way? Were you given any warning that you were even up for that award?

Clara Blackwood:           It was a lovely surprise for my short, lyrical poem “The Girl Who Loved Birds” to be nominated in the Best Poem/Song category for the 2020 Aurora Awards. I’ve long been a fan of the fantasy/speculative genre in general, and even though I don’t consider my work to be heavily influenced that way, there is an undercurrent of the fantastic that permeates many poems. Receiving that nomination was an unexpected bright spot in a bleak year, the pandemic being in full swing, and we were in lockdown. I wasn’t writing much at that time, more frozen in fear with the collective crisis at play and also trying to fight my own personal demons. So having a pre-pandemic poem (originally published in the Sci Fi magazine Amazing Stories in 2019) shortlisted for the Aurora Award was both an honour and source of encouragement.

SB:            Your artwork has been featured on the cover of several other poets’ books and it always receives charming and alluring comments. Do you ever feel in competition as a poet with all of the other aspects of your creative self?

CB:           I’m very grateful that over the years many writers have commissioned me to do art for their books. I’m especially glad these are people whose work I enjoy and admire. Most recently, I did the cover art for Kate Rogers’ powerfully lyrical book The Meaning of Leaving (Ace of Swords Publishing) and I feel this is one of my most evocative paintings ever. The colours are rich and moody and there’s a kingfisher bird flying somewhere else, leaving the old, familiar landscape behind. Doing commissions becomes a way of merging my two great loves of poetry and art, as I get ideas for the paintings in response to the various images conjured by reading others’ poetry.

But strangely enough, I haven’t tried to illustrate my own work much. This is something I’d like to explore more in the future. The poet/painter duality still seem to be separate selves that are very much in competition with each other. When working on a painting, I drop my writing entirely. I tend to just focus on that canvas and do nothing else. Then the writer side starts to feel very far away. When I’m immersed in writing, the same thing happens. The painter side seems far away and I feel guilty I’m not doing any art.

Imposter syndrome can creep in as well, and I try to ignore that voice, but it’s there. I have a hard time identifying as both painter and poet simultaneously because I’ve never really hit the sweet spot where both co-exist harmoniously. It’s almost like one side is jealous of the other when it is put on pause. The flip side is that it is a relief to have more than one creative outlet when you reach a limit and need a break. Also, I like being able to express my creative vision in more than one medium. But I certainly feel that both painting and poetry together are a handful!

SB:            If the Goodreads book reviews of your chapbook Arcana are an indication, you’ve earned your stripes as a professional Tarot card reader and the chapbook interprets Tarot cards through poetry. In your full book, Pomegranate Heart you delve deeply into spiritualism, symbolism, and mythology with an assertive poetic voice that offers an intimate portrait of your worldview. Can you respond to this? I recognize what you’ve said about the ‘I’ in poetry not always being first person, but is Pomegranate Heart close to your heart?

CB:           Tarot card readings and being a professional Tarot reader―in person and on the phone―was a big part of my life for many years. During that time, I published the chapbook Arcana in 2012 (with Aeolus House) and those Tarot poems also made their way into the last section of my second book Forecast in 2014 (with Guernica Editions). I tend to write about what I’m immersed in―and spirituality, occultism and religion have always been major preoccupations. Pomegranate Heart extends these themes but is even closer to my heart because it’s more unshielded. Many of the poems, whether using “I” or “she,” come directly out of personal and mystical experiences. I listened closely to each poem and then decided on the poem’s terms whether it should be in the first, third or even occasionally second person, for the strength of the voice and integrity of the poem itself. Many of these poems went back and forth between “I,” “she,” and “you.” That was some early writing advice I was given as well and always remembered: to experiment with voice. It can really enhance and transform a poem.

Another reason Pomegranate Heart is so close to me is because it over-archingly describes a journey from witchcraft to Catholicism, a transition that took many years and was one of the biggest life decisions I had to make during a spiritual crisis. So the poems are also a reflection of that crisis. Most of the poems are steeped in the pagan world I was heavily involved with as a practising witch and the worldview I held. But by the end of the book, that worldview is unravelling as a new belief system with a different paradigm is coming into play.

SB:            Titles are often difficult to come up with, though some authors seem to begin there. What was your experience in developing a title for Pomegranate Heart?

CB:           I didn’t have the title Pomegranate Heart until the manuscript was well underway. For a number of years the working title was “A Golden Hunger,” named after one of the early poems in the collection. This poem came out of a workshop course, taught by Sonia Di Placido, centered on the work of Gwendolyn MacEwen. In one of the workshops she instructed us to write about appetite. We were looking at MacEwen’s A Breakfast for Barbarians. The poem “A Golden Hunger” flowed out and was one of those rare “gift” poems I didn’t have to struggle with and re-write so many times. Because it spoke of spiritual appetite and passion, I thought for a long time it would also make a good title for the next book, but as the book developed I started to feel that the title was too bright for a collection that was also quite dark and pained. And then one day, voila, the motif of the Pomegranate Heart came to me and I knew this was the right title! But I can thank the earlier title and Sonia’s workshop for being a bridge.

SB:            Is this a book that seemed to lay itself out on the page quickly, almost as if it were channelled, or did you put a lot of effort into its structure? Was there a developmental process? Please elaborate.

CB:           My last book Forecast was from 2014 and Pomegranate Heart (with Ekstasis Editions) came out in 2023. So that’s nine years between books. I think it took me so long to write these poems because I was going through a lot of upheaval, both interpersonally and spiritually, and the book is a reflection of that. And I didn’t feel I could complete it until I had finally settled and found some stability. A few of the poems, like “A Golden Hunger” and the six-part “Burying Persephone,” truly seemed channelled, as they came quickly, while I usually have many drafts, and the inspiration normally comes out in fragments. In terms of structure, I wanted the book to be one long flow of poems without any section dividers, and for the reader to go on a spiritual journey with the speaker as she moves through traumatic experiences and a radical shift from paganism to Catholicism at the end.

SB: Something that often interests readers is knowing how much of a particular work is invented and how much is autobiographical. Would you care to share your approach/thoughts on this aspect of your readers’ curiosity?

CB:           This particular collection is the most autobiographical of all my books while also being infused with the mythological world that I find so meaningful and compelling. The archetype of Persephone is the one I’ve identified with for much of my life. I believe archetypes can be wonderful ways of understanding ourselves and others. But if an archetype is activated within us and gets out of control, it can be very problematic. In my case, I felt as though that’s what happened, and I tried to express that in this collection, especially with poems like “Burying Persephone,” “Note to the Queen of the Underworld,” and in the troubled relationship poems such as “Gaslit:” the latter expressing how being involved with a Hades-type man can engulf and take you to an underworld that is hard to emerge from.

SB:            In terms of your own development as a literary artist, what do you hope this book will achieve for you? Ignoring any reviews you may have received, do you think it does this?

CB:           I hope this third book of poetry reaffirms my commitment to the genre. I’m a “mid-career” poet, and have slowly and steadily honed my craft since first experimenting with poetry as a teenager in the 90s, and also attending readings from before I was bar-age! I’ve been lucky to have heard so many diverse voices, and I believe it can only help to hear and read widely, because one never exists in a vacuum. Since the early days, I have grown and matured as a writer with my own distinct poetic voice which has something to say about spirituality, trauma and many of the mysterious psychological forces at play in our lives. I believe Pomegranate Heart adds to the conversation in Canadian poetry about these topics. They aren’t always the most popular but deserve equal exploration.

SB:            If Pomegranate Heart were to be chosen for the list in a graduate course, what discipline would it fit into? (i.e., history, politics, social change, philosophy, other) Or would it be used to describe a particular taste in writing, a genre, a literary style or ___?

CB:           Pomegranate Heart could fit in on a list of graduate courses in the areas of Women & Gender Studies, spirituality, psychology and religion. The book is heavily influenced by Carl Jung and his idea of archetypes. And, in fact, a Psychology of Religion course I took many years ago in university had a tremendous impact on me. I very much like looking at spiritual and religious experiences in a non-reductive way that doesn’t try to discount them from a purely physiological point of view or limited psychiatric model. In this way, the poems of Pomegranate Heart can speak to the validity of liminal mental and spiritual experience. Equally, the book could also fit in well to a subgenre of mystical poetry influenced by the European Symbolists.

SB:            Please describe the central idea that links all of the parts in this collection and why you felt it was important to address this in contemporary times.

CB:           Pomegranate Heart recounts a spiritual journey through immersion in a pagan occult world that is both dangerous and beguiling, whereby the speaker reaches a crisis mid-way (at “Burying Persephone”), and then, towards the end of the book, finds herself pulled in a surprising Christian direction, expressed in the later sequence of poems “In the Company of Saints,” “Lent” and “Conversion.” I felt it was important to address these spiritual themes in poetry because many people, more than ever, are searching for wholeness, meaning and healing in our chaotic and uncertain world. And I think there’s always that deeper part of us that knows, even if we ignore or deny it, that there are things science and rationality cannot satisfactorily explain. To quote Novalis, “Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”

SB:            How does this book fit in the stream of all of your literary works? Is there some fundamental difference between Pomegranate Heart and your prior work?

CB:           Pomegranate Heart continues the themes of spiritualism, symbolism and the belief in a hidden world overlapping with this one, but in a richer and less ironic voice than some of my earlier work. As a young writer I was once criticized by another writer who said that the passionate nature I held and carried with me did not fully come through in my poems. I certainly hope that is not the case now, if it ever was, but I do believe the poems in this third collection are some of my most passionate and intense, whereby the reader can be welcomed to engage with the spiritual questions and themes that are so close to my heart.

SB:            Thank you, once again for agreeing to this interview, Clara. I am sure that readers of this piece will appreciate getting to know your take on the issues we’ve discussed as much as I have.

Clara Blackwood is a poet and visual artist living in Thornhill, Ontario. She is the author of three poetry books: Subway Medusa (2007) and Forecast (2014) with Guernica Editions; and most recently Pomegranate Heart (2023) with Ekstasis Editions. Past iterations of her career include work as a professional psychic―in person and on the telephone, a reiki practitioner and a reading series organizer in Toronto.

Sharon Berg attended the Banff School of Fine Arts Writing Studio in 1982 and was accepted to Banff’s Leighton Artist Colony in 1987. She is also an alumni of Humber College’s Writing Program. She did her B.A. in Indigenous Studies at Laurentian U, followed by her B.Ed for Primary Education at U of T. Her M.Ed focused on First Nations Education at York U, and her D.Ed focused on Indigenous Education at UBC. She also received a Certificate in Magazine Journalism from Ryerson U. Sharon founded and operated the international literary E-Zine Big Pond Rumours (2006-2019) and its associated press, which released chapbooks of Canadian poets as prizes for the magazine’s contests. She's published five full books and three chapbooks, working in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her work appears in periodicals across Canada, the USA, Mexico, the UK, the Netherlands, India, Germany, Singapore, and Australia. Her 3rd poetry collection Stars in the Junkyard (Cyberwit 2020) was a Finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards, and her narrative history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School (Big Pond Rumours Press 2019) won a 2020 IPPY Award for Regional Nonfiction. When she retired from teaching, she opened Oceanview Writers Retreat in Charlottetown (Terra Nova National Park) Newfoundland.