Sharon Berg Interviews the Long Dash Group

(2025)

The Long Dash Group

Sharon Berg: After reading the chapbook that the Long Dash Group created, I decided to try interviewing a group of authors rather than a single person. John, you arranged for the printing of the chapbook and I understand you answered one of the general questions and one of the individual questions. Merle Nudelman and Elana Wolff also each answered one of the general questions (on behalf of the group), and Merle and Elana, as well as Sheila Stewart and Clara Blackwood, each answered individual questions. 

The Long Dash is a writing group with eight current members that meets most weeks. This must mean you know each other pretty well. Each of the eight members has contributed four pages, adding up to 32 pages of poetry in a 36-page book. The title says the collection should speak to the idea of Heart-Threads: Bonds that Bind. Can anyone speak to other parameters the group decided upon to guide the work submitted by each author? For instance, I wonder after reading whether a secondary theme, such as echoes or haunting, was established? Or did it just emerge on its own?

Elana Wolff: The parameters for the chapbook were guided by the League of Canadian Poets National Poetry Month (NPM) theme of family—broadly conceived. We hadn’t put out a Long Dash collection in a long while and thought it would be timely to offer a chapbook as part of our annual NPM reading event, which was held at the historic Foy House this year, one of Toronto’s rare Victorian family mansions—slotted for imminent ‘repurposing’. We put our heads together and came up with the title, Heart-Threads: Bonds that Bind, opting not to include the word ‘family’, so as to leave the field open. Thus, the book includes poems about imaginary/created family as well as cinematic, literary and nuclear/ancestral family. Given the 36-page format, we were each allotted four pages, so up to four poems. Kath’s poems are longer, so she has two pieces in the collection; Sheila has three.

The echoes and/or hauntings that you’ve observed, Sharon, are clear and present, though this happened rather serendipitously—a fairly regular occurrence in our group. They come through in Clara’s grouping of “Dark Shadows” poems, inspired by the 1960s American gothic soap opera TV series; in Kath’s two pieces, which resurrect New Zealand modernist author Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) as an imagined narrator; in Merle’s heartfelt commemorative mother-and-son poems; in John’s poem for his parents as “Architectural”/“pillars” and in “Arthur” for his “carpenter grandfather” who could “frame up reality / to stand a century.” In Sheila’s poem, “Invitation,” that addresses the matter of who we invite into our house and who not, we’re told “We can’t invite the dead—they simply / show up.” And they do: in Brenda’s poem, “Woman with Flowers,” accompanied by one of her (three featured) drawings, “The tangle of images in her hair” is “A poetry caught among the dead.” Echoes of an intergenerational kind show up in all four of my poems, most hauntingly in “After-cast”, wherein the image of butterflies sealed in a serving tray: “real dead bodies / flattened under glass” call up the presence and pronouncements of a beloved Nana. In Mary Lou’s piece, “starting with UNLESS” —a found poem inspired by Carol Shield’s novel—echo occurs in “breathy presence like a moth around / the ear.” The family bonds in Heart-Threads cross lines of time, relationship, category, and cadence.

SB: Several other poetry workshops have published collections: The Third Taboo: A Collection of Poems on Jealousy, edited by Heather Roberts Cadsby and Maria Jacobs in 1983, and Tenfold: An Anthology of Poetry by 10 Life Members of The Ontario Poetry Society in 2019 come to mind. As you say in your Preface, this is not the first book your writing group has produced. Can you speak to the importance that The Long Dash Group places on producing finished books of poetry? Is there a strong link between writing and publishing for your members?

Merle Nudelman: The members of The Long Dash Group have been working together for many years. Our sessions are a stimulus for fresh writing and for honing our craft. Honest, constructive feedback is given and valued. This exchange is the primary focus of our meetings. We support and encourage each other's publications, creativity and success. Every April we do a group reading as part of National Poetry Month and some years, we have done additional group readings as well. Before we named our evolving group The Long Dash, we published a chapbook, Six from the Sixth (2001) by the Sixth Floor Poets. At the time, we met in a sixth-floor classroom at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

In 2005 we published our first Long Dash chapbook entitled The Long Dash ̶ Poetry ̶ Rosemary Blake, Merle Nudelman, John Oughton, Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes, Sheila Stewart, and Elana Wolff (the members at that time).

For eleven years The Long Dash Group collaborated with some of the studio members of the Women's Art Association of Canada (WAAC) for our April National Poetry Month reading, which was held in the WAAC gallery at 23 Prince Arthur Avenue in Toronto. Poems for this event were specifically written in response to paintings by these artists, and then the paintings and accompanying ekphrastic poems were hung around the gallery. We produced a beautiful book of paintings and poems entitled Resonance: Poetry and Art in 2008 during this period of collaboration.

Heart-Threads: Bonds that Bind is our latest chapbook. It was launched at our Poetry Month reading in April, 2025.

Notwithstanding the fact that The Long Dash Group has jointly produced only one book and two chapbooks, each member of our group has authored full-length poetry collections in addition to having their poems appear in various literary publications. In this respect, there is a strong link between writing and publishing for our individual members who are motivated to share their work with a wider audience through publication.

SB: Chapbooks are fairly easy to produce these days, even using a home printer. Yet they are a form, like broadsides, that seems to have been far more common in Canada during the 1960s and 1970s. Many folks are simply unfamiliar with presentations of poetry in this form in contemporary times. Can you speak to why your group chose to produce a chapbook rather than a full-sized book in 2025?

John Oughton: There are a few reasons. One is that chapbooks are part of the Long Dash group’s tradition. We have produced a few over the 20+ years we’ve existed, plus we published one when we were just an unnamed poetry workshop. It’s touching to look back at these earlier collections and remember the members who have since died, or left the group for other reasons. It’s also a kind of informal archive of how our writing has evolved over more than two decades. The second major reason is that producing a chapbook ourselves is quicker and easier than finding a publisher for a full-sized book. Small presses come and go rapidly—lately it seems more are in the “go” column, and the ones that remain in operation often have waiting lists a few years long before an accepted manuscript appears as a book. We wanted something for our National Poetry Month reading on April 30 with good quality but minimal wait time, a small volume that makes a good gift and is half the price of a full-sized book.

SB: I believe that every book takes a stance in the midst of the contemporary social and political concerns it is surrounded by. How would you describe the position of Heart-Threads: Bonds that Bind and its areas of concern in today’s world?

Merle Nudelman: We're living in a time of anger, fear, frustration, and uncertainty. During periods of upheaval, we turn to the arts and to poetry for sustenance and inspiration. We have the power to choose to make the world better through acts of love, kindness, support, and understanding—to help others and thereby elevate and strengthen ourselves. We are all energetically connected; we all have the ability to shine a light in dark moments.

My poems explore this position. “At the Table” speaks to the resilience of the human spirit to survive and thrive after huge personal losses; to find hope and joy in a newborn child. “To Love That Well” is about the sustaining nature of a long-term, loving relationship in this fragile life. “Petals on the Patio” is a testament to the courage to live fully even with a debilitating disease like ALS, and how small acts of kindness enliven those around us. Finally, “The Portrait” describes how a generous gift of creativity is a bridge between the physical and the eternal. Underlying all of these poems is love—familial love, romantic love, the love within friendship, and in chance encounters as well as the love that transcends death. We can choose to be loving.

SB: Authors often speak of the necessity of writing multiple drafts for a book. What is your experience?
 
Sheila Stewart: For this chapbook I chose poems which I’m still actively mulling over, particularly in terms of their autobiographical and biographical content. I expect to rework them if and when I include them in a full poetry collection.
 
SB: Readers are often interested in knowing how much of a work is invented and how much is autobiographical. Would you care to share your approach/thoughts on this aspect of your readers’ curiosity?
 
Sheila Stewart: There isn’t a clear line between invented and autobiographical, given the multifaceted nature of memory and writing. This complexity is well suited to poetry. Given how our stories are inevitably entwined with those of others and, in my case, family members, I try to approach this intersecting material with care.
 
My first collection, A Hat to Stop a Train (Wolsak and Wynn, 2003), is about my relationship with my mother, and my third collection, If I Write About My Father (Ekstasis Editions, 2024), is about my relationship with my father. The self I present in these books is fluid, evolving and beyond the autobiographical. Those books were published after my parents’ deaths, whereas the poems in this chapbook mention some family members who are still living.
 
SB: Do you feel it’s important for authors to speak to what inspired them to begin work on their book? Are there times when this question crosses an important boundary?
 
Elana Wolff: It’s the writer’s prerogative to speak as they wish about their work. If they’re asked a question they feel crosses a boundary, they’re free to decline to answer, or to deflect. I recall reading that Bob Dylan would say “I don’t remember” to questions he didn’t want to answer, or didn’t know how to answer in the moment. As makers, we often don’t know exactly what inspired us—whether the spark was autobiographical or not. Or we may know, but don’t wish to talk about it. For me, the creative process begins with an inner impetus—an enthusiasm, the urge to express ideas and personal feelings and/or experiences as art—most often in poems, also in visual art, and sometimes in an amalgam of the two.
 
SB: Readers are often interested in knowing how much of a work is invented and how much is autobiographical. Would you care to share your approach/thoughts on this aspect of your readers’ curiosity?
 
Elana Wolff: Emotional truth over objective or autobiographical truth is at the heart of the work, unless I’m writing creative nonfiction—for which research and fact checking are of course essential. But there are objective limitations; namely, what I consider socially responsible and/or politic to express. There’s always this dance—between emotion’s truth and its clothing. The creation has to ring true through the clothing of the craft—whether it’s made from fabrication or not. I tend to interweave autobiography/memoir with worldly concerns; the imagined and invented with the actual. And despite my enthusiasms, I practice a certain restraint. Sometimes it suits me to share the provenance of the work, as I see it, in order to satisfy a questioner’s curiosity. Not always.
 
SB: How do you think Heart-Threads: Bonds that Bind should be assessed for its value? Does it offer practical points for further exploration? Describe an important cultural event? Offer a compelling message about social awareness” Or does it describe your personal aesthetic?
 
John Oughton: The title refers to the theme for this year’s National Poetry Month, which centred around family and close relationships generally. As a result, some of the poems chosen by Long Dash Group members do focus on family/partners in the literal sense. Some examples are Clara Blackwood’s “Boy” and “Gallows Hill”; Kath MacLean’s “All That is Silent” and “Let Us Be Tender, Let Us Be Kind”; all of Merle Nudelman’s selections; my paired poems “Arthur” and “Jack,” for my grandfather and father, respectively; Sheila Stewart’s three poems; and three of Elana Wolff’s poems: “Back in the Day,” “Use of the Room,” and “After-cast.” In the poems mentioned above by Clara and Kath, we note that the voice chosen (and family) are not the author’s own, but rather those of others, real or fictional. Some selections touch on relationships in more imagistic or symbolic ways, as in those by Brenda Clews and Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes. I might mention, too, that my poem “Sentinel” came from spending a month looking after my niece’s elderly sheep flock, which reminded me that pets and farm animals are part of our larger families. A subtler echo of the overall theme lies in the fact that our group has been together for so long that we are, in a way, members of each other’s extended families. We know when a member is a new grandmother; or when his/her partner is ill or undergoing a major operation; when someone’s daughter overseas needs help after birthing twins; and so on. So, just as we talk together, I think all the poems—most of which we have participated in workshopping—continue a comfortable conversation around these ties.
 
SB: How does this book fit in the stream of your literary works? Is there a fundamental difference between Heart-Threads: Bonds that Bind and your prior work?

Clara Blackwood: I think that for all of us there are certain themes and subject matter we return to again and again, exploring further what preoccupies us. So, I see this collection as a continuation of all of our personal visions. Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes has often fused her deeply lyrical poetry with compelling concepts and language of the scientific and astronomical. On page 27 in her section of the chapbook she muses: “Some risks / are worthy: / attempting perihelion— .”  “Perihelion” (as noted by the author) is the point in the orbit of a planet when it’s closest to the sun. Brenda Clew’s poetry is very sensuous and visual and lends itself well to movement, which accords with her visual arts background and ability to bring her words to life experientially through dance as well. In her poem “Woman with Flowers” we encounter this multi-sensual expression: “The tangle of images in her hair. A poetry caught among the dead. An abandoned cardinal’s nest.” For me, the fascination with the supernatural and spiritual continues in the ghost-ridden poems I selected for this chapbook. The difference this time is that I am writing in the voice of a character from Dark Shadows, and also using that character as a vehicle to explore the themes of the uncanny I find so intriguing.

SB: I want to offer my thanks to all of the members of The Long Dash Group who contributed answers to my questions for this interview. It is not an easy thing to coordinate, and I offer special thanks to John Oughton who not only organized the production of the chapbook but organized this response to the questions as well.

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Readers who wish to order a copy of the chapbook can do so by contacting John Oughton through the Contact page on his writing website: https://joughton.wixsite.com/author/home. Copies are $10 plus mailing.

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​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 taught in Ontario after studying to become a teacher with a focus on First Nations Education: B.A./Laurentian U.; B.Ed/U of T; M.Ed/York U; and D.Ed/UBC. She received a Certificate in Magazine Journalism from Ryerson U and is an alumni of Humber College’s Writing Program. Sharon founded and operated the international literary E-Zine Big Pond Rumours (2006-2019) and its associated press, releasing chapbooks of Canadian poets as prizes for the magazine’s contests. Her poetry appears as full books with Borealis, Coach House, and Cyberwit, and she has four chapbooks with BPR Press. Sharon’s short fiction is with Porcupine’s Quill, and her nonfiction appears with BPR Press. Her writing appears across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Chile, England, Wales, Netherlands, Germany, Siberia, Romania, India, Persia, Singapore, and Australia. Her 3rd poetry collection Stars in the Junkyard was a Finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards, and her narrative history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School 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.