Megan Gail Coles reflects on the 'weird and wonderful' ways of writing poetry
'Poetry has given us so much. We encounter poetry before most of us can even speak'
Megan Gail Coles is an author and playwright originally from Savage Cove, N.L., and currently living in Montreal, where she is a PhD candidate at Concordia University.
She is the author of the short story collection Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome and the novel Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, which was a finalist both for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize and Canada Reads 2020. Her latest book, Satched, is a darkly comedic and honest collection of poetry.
Coles, along with Canadian poets Armand Garnet Ruffo and Hoa Nguyen, was on the jury for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.
The 2023 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET. The results will be announced in fall 2023.
The CBC Poetry Prize recognizes works of original, unpublished poetry, up to 600 words in length. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and have the opportunity attend a two-week writing residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point.
Satched explores the resilience required to survive in the face of economic precarity, growing inequality and prevailing dissatisfaction. With a fierce dedication to place, the collection takes a comedic and clear look at the conflict between individualism and collective need writ large in a hyper-commodified Newfoundland and Labrador.
Coles spoke to CBC Radio's Breakaway host Alison Brunette about Satched — and what she looks for in a poem.
Your new collection of poetry, Satched, was recently released. What does 'satched' mean?
Well, 'satched' is a word that we use commonly to refer to someone or something being soaked through or weighed down by a burden. We also would locally use it to refer to someone who potentially overdid it at a party. And so you would say, "Oh, I got caught out in the rainstorm. I was satched." Or, "Oh, I had too many glasses of champagne last night. I was satched."
I call the poetry collection Satched because, for me, that's a word that is very intimately connected to Newfoundland in the way that we speak. And so I was speaking directly to my community members by using a word that they would recognize themselves in.
What made you want to put this collection together?
I started writing poetry as a child to try to express complex feelings to my family members. This was a way that I could be my most honest self as a little kid, and this is still very much a part of the way that I write poems. I'm trying to process my community, my environment and my lived experience and establish some kind of open dialogue with the people around me.
Everyone should put forward the work that is most representative of their creative intentions and ambitions.
April is National Poetry Month. Why do you think it's important to highlight poets and their work right now?
Poetry has given us so much. We encounter poetry before most of us can even speak. Our parents say nursery rhymes to us. They sing us songs. It's how we kind of innately acquire language. How wonderful is that? It's fundamental that we celebrate something that has contributed so much to our storytelling culture and the way that we communicate with each other as people.
Poetry has given us so much. We encounter poetry before most of us can even speak.
You were one of the judges for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize. What do you think makes a great poem?
A poem that allows the reader to experience a moment of surprise or discovery. And I don't mean they're shocked because something is unexpected. I mean they've been introduced to a way of seeing a language or an image or an emotion that was never considered before. Their worldview has expanded because the poem has done something totally different — and not for some mode of production or commercial value, but for the sake of art and beauty. That in and of itself is kind of wondrous in this day and age.
Your novel, Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, was shortlisted for the 2019 Giller Prize and was a finalist on Canada Reads 2020. How does writing poetry differ from writing fiction?
With a novel, you have so much space and time to fluidly, almost luxuriously get to your point. It's a writing marathon. And if the novel is a marathon then the poem is a sprint. It doesn't require any less level of athleticism. In fact, a sprint can be quite an undertaking, right? But it requires a very different approach. It requires a kind of precision of language and a focus. These two things speak to each other. My fiction choices improve greatly when I'm reading and writing lots of poems and that can be really rewarding.
If you have a unique, spectacular, and maybe even weird and wonderful poetic voice, those are the poems that you should be submitting to prizes.
Do you have any advice for emerging poets who may be entering the CBC Poetry Prize?
Everyone should put forward the work that is most representative of their creative intentions and ambitions. If you have a unique, spectacular, and maybe even weird and wonderful poetic voice, those are the poems that you should be submitting to prizes so that the jury can experience who you are as an individual, as a unique, creative person.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
