Victoria Mbabazi is currently Canadian in Brooklyn, New York. victoriambabazi.ca
You can read Love Laced Cake in the July 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 started writing this poem after my ex best friend and I got in this really big fight. We stopped talking for a total of 30 hours and then he was worried about me and reached out. The easiest way to irritate him was not letting him know what was going on with me. He liked to make fun of me for how much I talked but he also didn’t know what to do with himself if I wasn’t constantly yapping either. He especially hated when I was short with him. When I only said “lmao” and “okay”. A couple of years ago I spent a whole day answering him as shortly as possible to bother him. I never admitted this. I’m admitting it now as it relates to this poem. Anyways I did that because he annoyed me the night before because I didn’t like the way he told me he loved me. As my quiet wasn’t something he liked it was the easiest way to have a tantrum without having a tantrum. We got into the big fight because he felt no matter what he did I would think his love wasn’t sufficient. This wasn’t true. I actually felt the opposite. I thought he loved me too much. All of his actions were about pleasing me but were tainted by his inability to be honest about why. The big fight was over a gift. It ended our friendship. Though as we were fighting I thought of my tantrum and wrote this poem.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
Freestyle rapping. I’m not, like, good at it or whatever but I’m constantly like, what if I did that too?
How do you revise your work?
If I feel like arguing as I edit, I send it to Ryanne and if I want it to be good I send it to Ryanne.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
I’m gonna be honest I genuinely don’t know because I am never satisfied and although I am grateful for my accomplishments every time I reach them I have imagined something else. I am trying to learn to stand still and enjoy things. Right now maybe a nice review on goodreads for my first book coming out in Fall.
We love the artistic underdogs, the experimentalists, the lovely weirdos — who or what might you get creative joy or energy from that others might not be aware of yet?
I really love reality tv. People are poetic as fuck when they’re upset or angry for sure but mostly when they are mildly irritated. The best one-liners come from people who have to be around people they don’t really like that much while intoxicated. You could write a really pretty found poem with lines from Real Housewives.
What are you working on now?
I am writing a hybrid novel as Sanna called it and a novel in verse as Téa called it. It’s a book of short forms (vignettes, poetry and flash fiction) detailing cyclical and abusive relationships throughout my life.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
I really love writing on public transit because there is no service on the subway and I don’t get distracted by various group chats.
What are you reading or watching or listening to lately that intrigues or inspires you?
The Ultimatum: South Africa
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?
Daniel Scott Tysdal from University of Toronto Scarborough, who was my professor in undergrad and thesis advisor, taught me how to make enjambments. I hate using punctuation because it seems useless to me (this is one of the many things Ryanne and I fight about) because I can’t hear it and when I started writing really big prose poems that I cut up in paragraphs he told me I was always one word or something away from making my enjambments more interesting. Now every time someone compliments me on them I always think of him!
How did you begin writing poetry? Was there a specific inspiration or reason?
I lost a friend when I was twelve and I wanted to write about her. It was called “Like a Vase” you know, because our friendship shattered like a–