CoCoPoPro: Marita Dachsel’s Martha McBride Knight

It’s day two of the LPG’s Coast-to-Coast Poetry Project, and we’re staying in Victoria for a bit because the weather’s fine. Tomorrow we’ll be announcing details about our giveaways.

Today we’re featuring Glossolalia, a brand-new collection of poetry by Marita Dachsel. She is also the author of All Things Said & Done (Caitlin Press, 2007) and the chapbook Eliza Roxy Snow (rednettle press, 2009). Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and the ReLit Prize. After many years in Vancouver and Edmonton, she and her family have recently relocated to Victoria, BC. 

Glossolalia, just released this month from Anvil Press, is an "unflinching exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, and sexuality as told in a series of poetic monologues spoken by the thirty-four polygamous wives of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Read and share her poem, and don’t forget to check out her Q&A below.

Q&A with Marita Dachsel

What are you reading right now? 

I just finished Sheryda Warrener’s fantastic first collection of poetry Hard Feelings and am about to dip into seldom seen road by Jenna Butler. I’m also slowly working through Marilynne Robinson’s collection of essays When I Was a Child I Read Books and I’ve just started Emily Perkins’ Novel About My Wife.

Who are your favourite poets? 

Karen Solie, Laisha Rosnau, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Jennica Harper, Sachiko Murakami, Don McKay, Lisa Robertson.

What’s one poem everyone should read? 

"Autumnal" by Louise Glück 

What’s your must-read literary magazine or website? 

I can’t pick just one! 

Event, The New Quarterly, Eighteen Bridges, Pickle Me This, The Rusty Toque, Canadian Poetries.

What’s your guilty pleasure (when it comes to reading)? 

Anything about fringe religions and cults. 

When did your interest in reading/writing poetry start? 

I’ve always had poetry in my life. I now read the same copy of the Golden Books’ A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson to my children that my mother read to me when I was very young. I was lucky to have some great teachers in elementary school who encouraged my writing, and then in high school I wrote some very terrible, very angsty poetry. It’s always been there, but it wasn’t until my twenties that I realized it was something I could work on and take seriously. 

Thanks, Marita!

For a bit of refreshing conversation between Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This and Marita about our favourite narratives about writing and motherhood, click here. You can also follow Marita on her blog. 

_______*Edited from the original post, published on the LPG blog