There’s a Poem for That: Jamie Sharpe + Get Well Soon

All Lit Up: Can you tell us a bit about Get Well Soon and how it came to be?

Jamie Sharpe: This collection’s impetus goes back to 1993. At that point, I had started writing rudimentary bits of poetry but was more known for chess. The chess community then was in a tumult. Gary Kasparov, the reigning champion, had broken away from the FIDE World Federation to create his own Professional Chess Association. Rumours were swirling that FIDE president, Florencio Campomanes, was a KGB agent propping up certain Russian players like Anatoly Karpov. I mention all this in explanation that Kasparov was under enormous stress at the time and it likely deteriorated his concentration and play, allowing for the string of events that prompted Get Well Soon.

Anyways, September of 1993 found me in London amongst two dozen or so hopefuls, lined up to play blind speed chess against Kasparov in a series of matches promoting the newly formed PCA. As an unranked player, a teenager, and from the backwoods of Canada, I was seen as a novelty, an everyman. Having the advantage of watching most of the bouts before commencing on my own, I noticed something almost unconceivable: the quality of play was rather poor. My fellow opponents seemed to be gunning for a draw. More surprising yet, Kasparov looked content to give it to them. It was as if he was playing by rote, mechanically unfolding through his openings, instead of capitalizing on positional advantage.

My confidence, gained from watching the boards, was not eclipsed by the blindfold. I drew black and remained calm. After several moves I felt Kasparov pushing me into a more classical Italian game. I needed to break him out of the familiar game trees he had followed his whole life. I partially exposed my king. The clack, clack, clack of the game clocks stopped momentarily. Kasparov moved, attempting to fork my queen and rook. Could I beat him a rook down? Sometimes you have to give up a castle to fight in the fields.

A minute later I heard Kasparov let out a long, slow breath. He resigned. Obviously flustered, he lifted his blind and stared at the board. It was then the number one ranked player said something that would perplex me my entire life—a sentence that, twenty years later, I’d try to unpack through a collection of poems. Kasparov murmured, “Then consider myself Heaven’s great compost bin” and walked away. We never played again.

ALU: What has been your most unlikely source of writing inspiration?

Jamie Sharpe: Not too long ago I got myself into a kind of legal tussle. Poets are occasionally forced into unscrupulous acts for money. Perhaps I had done some dodgy work and wanted to come clean? Perhaps this is also very pertinent to the poem, “Short Talks on Anne Carson”? Or maybe it’s not (I really can’t say). But there’s no law against me writing a poem, so I’ll conclude with this:

You’ll Have to Sign a NDA

Hunger’s moan: a poet’s tale.
Whispers of fading light.
In shadows, secrets oft prevail;

Within law’s lines, fact takes flight.
[Name redacted]’s myth & truth convene.
Pens dance round flames of red.

Muzzled now, compelled to glean
Legal threads as verses spread.

Scribe, vessels of esprit shackled,
Fatted by silence fed.

ALU: What are you most in the mood to read these days? Any poets you’re especially enjoying?

Jamie Sharpe: On Tuesdays and Thursdays I take my daughter to swim lessons. On Wednesdays I take my son. Lately, while they splash around in the pool, I sit and read the three part diaries of Witold Gombrowicz. There’s joy to be had in his words, but mostly I’m there for cantankerous views on his contemporaries and generalized misanthropy.

There’s also been a very good crop of debut Canadian poetry collections: Hannah Green’s Xanax Cowboy, Amy Ching-Yan Lam’s Baby Book, Celebrate Pride With Lockheed Martin by Jake Byrne, and Fawn Parker’s Soft Inheritance all come to mind.

ALU: If your poem were to win a yearbook superlative (e.g. “Most likely to…”), what do you think it would be?

Jamie Sharpe: Most likely to accidentally impregnate itself in the biology lab.