Looking toward the Sky

“Everyone has their own personal sky that they visualize depending on their experience and lived geography.”

Billeh Nickerson, Creative Writing Department

Billeh Nickerson joined the Creative Writing Department in 2006 where he teaches Introduction to Creative Writing and upper-year courses on nonfiction, poetry, popular culture as well as on the business of writing. He is currently serving as co-chair of the department. Billeh is the author of six books including Artificial Cherry, which was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Award, and the always delightful McPoems.  Billeh has served as editor for the literary journals Event and PRISM international, and as co-editor for the anthology Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets.

Billeh’s most recent book of poetry, Duct-Taped Roses, was published this past spring by Book*Hug Press.  Reviewers have praised Duct-Taped Roses for its “honesty about nearly every aspect of day-to-day life” (The Miramichi Reader). As Heidi Greco writes in The Miramichi Reader, “The imagination of Billeh Nickerson is a force to behold – that and his attention to the details of memory, especially as exhibited in the long poem to the town where he grew up, Langley, BC.”  Another reviewer observes, readers will be drawn to “Nickerson’s sometimes diaristic, often vulnerable, always incisive eye as he admits to his unsureness in love, mainly because of past sorrows that … seemingly fill an ocean” (Plentitude Magazine).

Billeh will be reading from and discussing his latest book, Duct-Taped Roses, at an online event hosted by the Creative Writing Department on Tuesday, September 21 from 4:00 – 5:20 PM.  All are welcome to join! Please contact Ann Linn (anne.linn@kpu.ca) for a secure Zoom link to the event. 

Congratulations on the recent publication of your book of poetry Duct-Taped Roses.  Would you tell us a bit about the book and what it was like to send it out into the world in the middle of a pandemic?

I’ve been describing the book as “The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Snuggly” of life. This collection has a little bit of everything—from meditations on 1970s and 80s Langley and sea turtles to humorous takes on gay sub-culture and thoughts on food (in)security. There are, unfortunately for me, numerous elegies. I suppose the collection is about resilience.

In an interview this past spring with Open Book, you mention that it took 20 years to write “Skies,” the poem about your dad.  Would you share with us what it was like to carry a poem-in-process for that length of time?  I imagine that poem went through a series of transformations, just as you (the poet who completed the poem), is quite different from the “you” that began writing it two decades ago?

I should perhaps clarify that I that started the poem 20 years ago, but I wouldn’t say I actively worked on it all those years. Probably a good ten years though. I had the opening image of me looking toward the sky searching for my father, an airline pilot. Metaphor! I realized that folks who have parents who work on planes have a different relationship with the sky, and that everyone has their own personal sky that they visualize depending on their experience and lived geography. I’m happy it took me so long as I don’t think I was ready to fully tackle that poem earlier in my career.

What advice do you give students in your Creative Writing courses when they are drawing upon personal memories and experiences in their writing?  How does one navigate the personal without becoming too sentimental or enmeshed in the content? Or is it more a matter of being incredibly brave and vulnerable?

A lot of folks think that writing about difficult and/or challenging experiences is cathartic, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes It’s hard to write and it’s still hard even after it’s written. Be ready for that. I ask students to be kind to themselves and to try to be authentic and honest. The reader can sense inauthenticity faster than a truffle pig hunting truffles.

Another poem in Duct-Taped Rose entitled “Love Coward or What Happened after My Poem ‘Driving in Adam’s Jeep’ Appeared on Poetry in Transit” is this delightful reflection of you experiencing other people reading your poem as it traveled across Vancouver on various buses as part of the Poetry in Transit initiative.  Was that experience a bit surreal and inspiring, especially since it sparked a poem?  Did it make you, the poet, experience your poetry-in-transit in a different way than through a poetry reading or literary festival?

Life is often so meta! I wrote that poem about having my poem on the bus AND THEN it was just announced that this new poem would also appear on the bus. The great thing about Poetry in Transit is that I’ll rarely have that many people read my poems. It’s weird sitting on the bus and seeing people mouth out the words to my own poem though. It’ll be a year of people phoning and texting messages about seeing my poem on the bus. My poor students though! They’ll sometimes have to take my class and then have my poem hover over them during the bus ride home.

What are the essential items or conditions you need to write poetry, to feel inspired?  In other words, if we stole a peek into your poet’s ‘toolbox,’ what would we find?  Do you have any ‘duct-tape’ solutions when a poem is feeling a bit wobbly?

I still write out my initial drafts and notes with pen and paper—or on the backs of receipts or napkins etc. Using my phone tends to not work as well. I don’t trust the delete button! If I write it all down I can see how things both work and don’t work, which is not possible when I delete down to a blank page. It’s important to let things stew and steep. I tell my students to stop expecting perfection right away. I’m inspired all the time, but it means nothing if I don’t slow down to jot it all down. I’m also not afraid to give my poems time to percolate. It’s not a race—unless there’s a deadline.

You may also want to attend The Poetry Bash at the Vancouver Writers Fest on October 22, where Billeh will be reading from Duct-Taped Roses and reflecting on his writing practice alongside a number of other Canadian poets.  Fellow Creative Writing Department co-chair and author Aislinn Hunter will be hosting the bash.