An interview with Beth Everest

What makes this particular work of poetry unique?

It is "sexy and dangerous" according to one reader. I view the book as an intimate rather than romantic look at sex, childbirth, and parenting. I often hear people say that their lives will be significantly no different once they become parents. Yeah, right. What a surprise when I had my first child; my whole world exploded. I had no inkling of the magnitude of those changes or how they would take place. I suddenly understood my parents, and my parents' love in a whole new way. I began to value concepts and institutions that I thought I had rejected. I realized that I had needs that I couldn't articulate I wanted to know everything there was to know about my mother. All of these feelings, and more, I wanted to bring across these feelings by way of story but not in the genre of fiction, because there you do something else. It was the emotion and insight that I wished to capture in the book, not the characters.

Why is poetry the genre of choice for this book? Why not memoir, or a book of short stories?

The book is not all about me, nor is it the stories of my life, so memoir would not work. I didn't want to focus on the exposure of character and human behaviour. Rather, I wanted to capture some pivotal emotional moments. These moments are brief and deeply felt, but often difficult to articulate. And sometimes they are best felt rather than articulated. This unspoken language is what I intensely interests me. While the other genres can do this, and often do this, they do it differently. Poetry does exactly what I want it to do--to bring across those moments experientially and emotionally and with great brevity.

Is poetry this marketable today?

Absolutely. I work in a lot of schools and I deal with every age of kid and adult. What I see is a resurgence of interest in language and what language can capture in a short amount of time. It makes me think about how one is interested in rock videos. Although the genres are different, the encapsulated moment is very marketable. This is why I like the Palm Poets idea because it fits neatly into this almost visual package.

How much of this book is autobiographical? Or do you blur the lines between fiction and truth in your poetry?

Anything one writes contains autobiography because we can only know what we know. Some of the people in the book are people from my life, and some of the experiences contain details from my own lived experience, but there the lines begin to blur. One can only get at truth, the truth expressed by the poem, by leaving reality behind. The poem itself, at some stage, takes over.

Is this poetry a departure for you, or a continuation of ideas you set along time ago?

I've been writing poetry for years. This collection began with the birth of my first child, and many of the pieces in earlier drafts and in other forms appear in my doctoral work.

Do you have any mentors? Influences in your life as a writer?

I read voraciously. I've had great teachers. I work with many writers. My family. And my students. It is difficult to name anyone specific.

Is there something to be "learned" in the process of writing for the writer?

My partner tells me that the process is more difficult than childbirth. That's the view from the outside. From the inside, one is in the moment. It's exhilarating. It's painful. You do what you do to make it work.

What kind of advice would you give a poet today in Canada?

Read. Write. Surround yourself by books. Take writing workshops and literature courses. And read. And write. Get involved in a writer's circle. And read. And write. And write and write and write.