hane Rhodes’ most recent book of poetry, The Bindery, was published by NeWest Press in Spring 2007. Winner of an Alberta Book Award and the Archibald Lampman Award, Shane’s poetry is also featured in the anthologies New Canadian Poetry, Breathing Fire II, Decalogue, and Seminal: Canada’s Gay Male Poets.
Questions & Answers
Is there a specific moment that inspired you to pursue poetry?
There is no specific moment. I think poetry has always been the form of how language happened to me.
How/where do you find inspiration today?
Everywhere. My poetry involves a fair amount of research and getting myself into uncharted territory. So I see poetry and poetic use of language as a cognitive tool of prying at things, of displaying things, of inquiry.
What is your writing process?
Thinking. Writing. And then some more thinking.
What is your revision/editing process?
Write. Write. Write. . . . Write. Write. Write. . .
Did you write poetry in high school? If yes, how did you get started? If no, why not?
I’ve always been writing poetry. In highschool I wrote poems to make girls fall in love with me. It worked.
Do you use any resources that a young poet would find useful (e.g. websites, text books, etc.)?
It depends on what you are doing. With some poems, cookbooks are useful. With others, not so much.
When you were high school aged, what would have been helpful/motivating to hear from a published poet?
I think being introduced to how poetry is used and written in our world right now would have been helpful as poetry was only talked about as something that happened in history.