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Amiel Gladstone

Frank Borg

Joy Russell

Maiko Bae Yamamoto

Tim Carlson

what we do

tiny births

When I think about the process of writing, I immediately think: impulse, the breath in which a line is born. It's in this breath that my writing begins, particularly when I'm writing poetry. Tiny births occur in the everyday: washing dishes, sweeping the porch, riding the bus, brushing teeth, walking, watching light spill across a floor. These simple, small acts have become biological parents to many pieces of writing. The other day, a friend, also a writer, and I were discussing how these writing births sometimes come just when you are about to fall asleep, when you are in that slippery world suspended between two states of consciousness - there, words make their visitation: an image arrives gleaming. In these states, nothing is held, no effort is made, no goal is to be achieved. Call it trance, meditation, dream-state - that's where most of my writing gets done.

In order to be available to these writerly moments, what is essential for me is a certain porousness, a willingness and capacity for surrender and possession. That openness acts as faith and embodies me as conduit. It's not a thing I plan for, or control, so, when it does come: I attend, grab paper, notebook, pen, and just write until there is no more writing to be done. Of course, if there is no pen and paper, or I am in an inconvenient situation, I just hope memory gets it right.

There are times when no words come to visit - and one isn't suspended between two states forever - the little notebook and pen, faithfully kept by the bed, demands attention in the wee hours for that one line; the dishes get done; the pretty light on the floor eventually disappears; and at a certain point, you have to get off the bus and get going to some destination. One has to do that thing: "deliberate" writing.

I often start by writing non-stop for 20 minutes - no editing, no going back to correct misspellings or bad punctuation, no plotting out the next phrase. It empties the mind, puts me in a place which isn't driven by having a finished, polished text. What drives the writing at this stage is an interplay between rhythm, breath, and the impulse of the first image - even when I stray far from it. Later, when I'm mining for potential material, there's the banal and embarrassing, but on a good day strange, raw images appear that have something, or the beginnings of something.

As I shape a piece, for example, a poem, with an awareness of the framework, or theme, I'm still engaged with that initial impulse. I'll start small - with a line, an image, a rhythm, a gesture, a simple story or incident - then begin to layer. I concentrate on the senses, find the emotional tone/s, expand, accumulate details, poke my nose around for gossip, work with factual information, or the mundane and quotidian - anything. Then, I'll "overwrite" the image until I feel I've exhausted it.

In my writing, I often use the first-person, trying to work beyond the construct of literal confession. I work from this root/route source because I like the intimacy created - sometimes I use my own life material, sometimes I create a first-person persona. As well, I love when people tell me stories: I collect their tales and preserve them to memory - always in the voice of the teller. I'm constantly intrigued by the tension and interplay which exists between teller/confessor and listener/recipient.

I'm equally enamoured by rhythm, cadence, sound, oration, words peeling off the page, sound rolling from the tongue, music: Latin, jazz, blues, hip hop, drum 'n' bass, big band. My formative years from zero to six were spent in Belize, Central America, where the sounds of the Caribbean, Africa, Spain, and Maya collided, came at me, got a grip, and never let go. For me, the understanding of narrative and story is heavily influenced by how they arrive - how they hit you. I take those rhythms into my writing - always: rhythm and text are married. I want narratives, poems, dirges, words, incantations, lists, with the sheer power of their rhythmic force, to mesmerise, assault, awaken, reveal, soothe and heal.

When the writing muscle begins to atrophy, I lay the piece to rest for at least a few days. Returning to it, I begin to think about what the small narrative is, the through-line. Determining narrative is something which happens through osmosis and instinct. I can pretty much tell when it's off-track, but trying to articulate how I get it right is still somewhat of a mystery. Once I've identified the tiny being, I look for a way to embody it into a larger narrative, "working out," using a kind of pull-focus technique, until the frame widens. Located within that frame, I'll contemplate, research and incorporate, perhaps, social context, historical data, pop culture and/or myth. This wider frame can be implied, referred to, or simply act as background, and often is not immediately apparent within the text.

On the home stretch, I read, ask questions: Is the voice clear? Is the form right for the voice? Does everything in the work support the narrative? And, of course, have I retained the energy of that first breath? Stuck? - well, I just head for the sink, then out the door, and walk until the next bus comes.