Kim June Johnson is a singer-songwriter, composer and poet living on Vancouver Island. Her short poems and short nonfiction has appeared in Room, Prairie Fire, FOLKLIFE Magazine, Arc Poetry, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things blog and elsewhere. she is a recent graduate of Lighthouse Writers’ Poetry Collective.
You can read Instead of the Usual Scented Candle in the January 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 began this poem in the online writing community I host called “Cozy Sunday Write-Ins”. We write for an-hour-and-a quarter on Sunday evenings during the darker months (October to March). I guide the group through three writing topics and we explore various genres and forms together. I often do the writing prompts along with the group. We were writing list poems when this one appeared in my notebook. List poems are fun; I find they really pry the mind open and allow images to present themselves in unique and unexpected ways.
Do you have a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone?
My most cherished, most-read collection is Patrick O’Connell’s “The Joy That Cracked the Mountain”. Patrick O’Connell is a now-deceased Winnipeg poet, but he was alive when I lived in Winnipeg, and his poems remind me of my years spent living in that city, which were expansive, creative years for me. O’Connell’s lyrical imagery and fragmented, abstract narratives make me want to write a hundred poems.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
I am also a songwriter and somatic coach. Both of these provide me with a similar sense of expansion and magic. If I didn’t do that, I think I would keep bees or spend more time in my garden.
How do you revise your work?
If I can hold the piece loosely enough after the first bang-through, I can go in with a “whatever” attitude and fiddle around with it. I do my best to keep it to “fiddling around” for as long as possible because if it becomes too serious, I can get creatively arthritic and stuck. I keep all my poems-in-progress in one document and fiddle with various ones when the urge hits. There are many poems that I will probably never share. But when one seems to shine, I do my best to tighten it up as fast as I can and put it into another document of poems to submit, which makes it feel a lot more solid and real.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a memoir about a depression I went through that was connected to having spent a lot of my life in toxic religious communities. It’s challenging material, but I’m also realizing I have a hard time sustaining the focus for long-form narrative without my inner critic showing up to hurl insults at me. I’ve published a few essays lately—most recently in FOLKLIFE Magazine—but those essays were hard-won. I hired a writing coach to help me get beyond some limiting mindsets and I’m slowly re-training the part of my brain that tries to be poetic in every line—it’s not a strategy that serves me as I try to complete a full draft of a memoir.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
I think a poem begins with a shimmer.
I once watched a wonderful documentary about a woman who claimed she could communicate with animals. Part of the documentary was a discussion with people who tracked wild animals—not to hunt them, but to observe them. Many animal trackers claim to be able to “see” (intuit) a shimmering white line that reveals to them the direction the animal is going. I experience something similar with creativity. Sometimes the shimmering white line is there at the start—a phrase or image that pulls me in. But more often it comes once I’ve let myself blurt some bland words onto the page, or even later when I’m fixing it up. I don’t think the shimmer ensures the poem will be good, but it gets me writing.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
There’s a great quote about creativity that I read years ago, though I’ve lost track of where I first read it. It goes something like this: “Creativity is a lot like a train. It takes a lot to get it going from a standing stop, but once it’s going, it takes a lot to slow down.” For me, short daily practices are what keep the train of my creativity going so I don’t have to start from a standing stop. I write at least a little bit every day. Often if I show up for ten minutes, I find I’m still at my desk two hours later.
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?
The best advice was and still is: “Let yourself do it badly.” Sitting down to write and trying to be good usually leads to frustration. But when I give myself “permission to write the worst junk in the world” (as Natalie Goldberg puts it) I am able to get something down and live as a writer and songwriter in the world.
Do you belong to a writer’s group? If not, where do you find poetry community and feedback?
I draw a lot of inspiration from my online writing community, “Cozy Sunday Write-ins” because I’ve always got one ear cocked for good pieces to share with them, and this keeps me in the flow of words. I also have a wonderful writer’s group on Hornby Island. I’ve been with them for ten years, and each one of them has made me a better writer. Most of them have published books and are more experienced that I am, so I have learned and continue to learn a lot from them.