Questions and Answers
What inspired “A Vision”?
“A Vision” focuses on a keratectomy (laser surgery to correct nearsightedness) gone wrong. As someone seriously myopic (when I got my first glasses as a child, I was astonished that leaves had edges, had texture, were separate from one another!), I have thought about laser surgery but have been dissuaded by possible negative side-effects, many of which happen to the girl in the poem, so that her fairytale dream of “happily ever after” becomes something other. The poem also explores a power imbalance: the surgeon, far too pleased with his work, is male while the patient is female. …Vision of all sorts is so important!
What poetic techniques did you use in “A Vision”?
I like to combine technical vocabulary and subject matter, increasingly medical, with the lyric poem. I am working on a manuscript, Cat Scratch Fever, about sickness, growing from a mysterious illness I suffered a few years ago. The personal is the political no more so than in one’s own body. In serious play, I’m seeing how humour is able to mitigate disquieting subject matter.