Lisa Baird (she/her) lives on the territories of the Attawandaron, also the treaty land of the Mississaugas of the New Credit and Dish with One Spoon territory (Guelph ON). Her book, “Winter’s Cold Girls” (Caitlin Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 Relit Award for poetry. http://www.lisabaird.ca
You can read Poem That Wanted to Be an Apple in the July 2023 issue.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
If I didn’t write poetry, I’d probably fill sketchbooks, which I wish I was currently doing—not instead of but as well as poetry. Unfortunately, I’m weirdly monogamous when it comes to art forms. I tend to pick one thing and do pretty much only that. Poetry has mostly been that one thing for the last few years, except for 2014 when I made a zine a month for Guelph Zine Club, a few weeks in 2017 when all I wanted to do was play the ukulele, and a few happy spates of drawing.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
I don’t! I run a small business and parent a five year old. Luckily I formed a strong relationship
with writing years before my schedule became this demanding, and when I can carve out the time I’m usually able to drop into the writing zone (until the timer goes off and I have to stop.)
In terms of poetic style or craft, is there a big question you are trying to find an answer for?
HOW DO ESSAYS WORK? I became very interested in writing creative nonfiction this spring and I think I’m shifting to that being my Thing instead of poetry. I don’t really know how to write an essay (beyond what I did in high school) but I’ve signed up for a course on Writing the Lyric Essay this summer so I’ll probably figure it out.