In In Their Words, writers published in The Feedsack answer questions about their work and sometimes read it aloud. This time it’s John RC Potter, whose poem “Went with the Wind: Flatulence after Fifty” ran here on October 21.
Where do you write these days?
For the past five years, I have arisen at 3-4 AM each day (for submitting and writing tasks); this is on weekdays, weekends, and on holidays. I have a reproduction of an antique desk, which has little cubbies and shelves. It is in the main room of my home in Istanbul (a large room with both dining and living room areas). I do nearly all of my writing at that desk.
Who were the first poets you read?
When I was 10 or so years of age, my mother gave me a collection of Robert Service’s poetry. I had been an early and avid reader of stories and books for a long time already, but I added poetry to my reading interests. In high school, I took CanLit class (Canadian Literature), and was introduced to stellar Canadian poets (Margaret Atwood, Irving Layton, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Earle Birney).
Which poets or writers do you count as major influences in your work?
When I was younger, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum) & Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) made an indelible impression on me as a reader, and by extension, as a writer. Always a lover of mystery novels, in high school, my favourite author was Agatha Christie. Other writers whose work touched my head and heart over the years are: Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, Robertson Davies. I am also enthralled with Philip Kerr’s novels; the character he created in a series of riveting books, Bernie Günther, is unforgettable. For historical fiction, Ken Follett is brilliant. I still love reading Agatha Christie’s mystery novels.
Do you write every day or when the moment strikes?
I make simultaneous submissions, and thus submitting work and updating my submission documents is a daily task. I usually have at least one piece of work in process (a poem or a story). In terms of genres, my writing has been published in various forms: fiction, non-fiction or CNF, essays, reviews, and articles. However, both poetry and prose are my preferred genres.
Every stanza ends on the same sound: panorama, drama, glamourama, cyclorama, trauma, Dalai Lama. “Glamourama” isn’t in the dictionary. Did that sound come first, or did the poem find it as it went?
I was seemingly born with an overactive imagination, and it has served me well throughout my life. The word came to me, but I was surprised to find out it is an actual, informal word. Although I thought I had perhaps created a word, that was not the case.
Each stanza turns on a colon at the end of its fourth line, and the fifth line sums up the decade, as in “Trucking on despite all that trauma.” Why that shape for every stanza?
The use of a colon in each stanza is, in essence, directional, signifying for the reader a signpost or pathway, and indicates that the sentence to come is important. As well, it gives the reader the opportunity to pause and reflect, even if only momentarily.
The decades get names: The Troubled Teens, The Thrilling Thirties, The Fabulous Forties, The Flatulatory Fifties. The poem goes from the teens straight to the thirties and calls them “The next decade.” Where did the twenties go?
I had an issue with the Twenties. I couldn’t seem to make that stanza work. For me, the Twenties and Thirties seemed to collapse together, but I should have made it clearer or given a reason in the poem. No doubt, Freud would have found it interesting and illuminating! 🙂 If I rewrite the poem, I will endeavour to include a stanza on the Twenties with which I am sufficiently content.
The next day, John sent this note about the missing decade:
I have been thinking about the missing decade. To have left it out invites questions. A reader could well think it wasn’t my favourite decade. As mentioned, when writing the poem I was not content with the draft stanza about the Twenties. At the time, about the only thing I liked about it was using the term The Roaring Twenties. I took another look at a draft, and then fleshed it out more.
John’s new Roaring Twenties stanza is now in the poem.
The poem is funny right up to the last stanza, which ends on “birds against the setting sun” and “Each of us becomes our own Dalai Lama.” Your goddaughter Nisa Winter’s painting, “Birds in the Setting Sun,” runs with it. Did the painting lead to that last stanza, or the other way around?
I am always proud of my goddaughter, Nisa’s artwork. When I started the first draft, I wondered if and how I could make a logical connection to Nisa’s painting, and when I wrote the final stanza, it came to me. It seemed a fitting place for prose and artwork to meet.
You write poetry, prose and plays, and you have a children’s picture book coming out in the UK in November. How do you decide which form an idea belongs in?
Great question! Part of it is time. If I am keen to put pen to paper, so to speak, and know that I don’t have much time, I may decide to write a poem. Whether poetry or prose, a piece of creative writing sometimes, or even often, begins with a title, or a character name, or a situation. For me, creating a story in the form of prose or poetry – because both genres tell stories, in my opinion – the act of writing is almost as effortless as reading. When I start a new piece of work, it nearly always flows easily. I don’t worry too much about the technical aspects in a first draft. It is to get down on paper, so to speak, words that will hopefully come alive when read by another.
Is this poem part of a larger collection, or what are you working on now?
Although this poem was written recently and is not included in the manuscript, it is part of a poetry collection that I have submitted to several publishers. I also have a short story collection making the rounds at publishing houses. Finally, I have a novel in progress, set in Canada in the early 20th century.
Read Went with the Wind: Flatulence after Fifty by John RC Potter.
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