Briana is a queer poet, DJ, and event curator from Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is passionate about storytelling as a pathway to embodiment and empowerment, and the healing catharsis that comes from poetry and dance. She’s also a cat fanatic, clowncore enthusiast, avid birder, Jean-Claude Van Damme film buff, and insatiable consumer of all things Drag Race. Her favourite holiday is, and will always be, Halloween.
You can read Our First & Last Photograph in the April 2024 issue.
Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your poem? For instance, how or why you wrote it, or perhaps provide some extra context?
I wrote this poem after a loved one received medical assistance in dying. During a trip back home to Halifax, I found out her health was declining, so I drove to the Annapolis Valley with my mom and my partner to visit her one last time.
The experience made me think about how an approaching death frames everything in firsts and lasts—particularly when it’s as clearly defined as a MAiD procedure. This loved one and I had never taken a photo together, despite knowing her all my life, so I brought my film camera and made sure we got a picture before I left that day.
Why was the poetic form the best fit for this particular piece of work?
When we pulled into the parking lot for that last visit, my mom made a comment that she’ll have to ask when the Gravenstein apples will be in season. Immediately I was struck by how such a simple, secular statement conveyed the impact of what role a person plays in our lives, and the holes they’ll leave once they’re gone. I wrote the poem’s first line down in a note on my phone exactly as it is now.
During that brief visit, I absorbed every new detail my loved one shared about her life, and, combined with what I already knew of her, it formed a fairytale in my mind. I jotted these precious nuggets down on the drive home. The whole visit was cerebral and dreamy, just like her. Poetry felt like the only way to capture this—like the required supporting material for our photograph.
Do you have a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone?
Right now, these are the poems I’m rooting in and resonating with again and again: The Unloving Ground by Aniqah Choudhri; Remember the Boys by Rachel McKibbens; Becoming Moss by Ella Frears; I Got That Dog in Me by William Ward Butler; What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
For me, a poem most often starts as a single phrase or line that will appear seemingly out of nowhere (like in the liminal place between awake and asleep), or when I’m struck by an image or an interaction in my surroundings. All of my poems begin with observation or listening in some form.
The instances that strike me can be painful, sweet, mundane, or strange—it might be something I’m unable to articulate in any way other than a few disconnected words. The poem comes from an instinct to preserve, because most of these moments are just a blip in the course of a life, but the blips and the feelings too big for literal explanation are the best parts of existence to me.
What are you reading or watching or listening to lately that intrigues or inspires you?
I’m in constant awe of fictional world-building. I recently read my first Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations, and was taken with its intersection of gloominess, comedy, and grandiosity. I’m currently fascinated with Frank Herbert’s Dune universe (mainly the sandworms), and Tolkien’s Middle-earth always. Justine Triet’s film, Anatomy of a Fall, has stayed with me since watching it—specifically its domestic starkness that felt so real.
Have you ever received advice (or has there been something you’ve learned on your own) about writing or revising poems that has made you a better poet? What was it?
I had the pleasure of mentoring with Canadian poet Cassidy McFadzean, who said during one of our sessions that what she loves more than a pattern is breaking one. Remembering this sentiment when laying out a poem and playing with forms in general has been freeing and powerful.