In a month-long act of resistance, poets remind us that poetry can push back against forces that marginalize voices, erase stories, and impose control over how we live and imagine.
An interview with poet Mahaila Smith
ALL LIT UP: How would you describe Seed Beetle to someone picking it up for the first time?
MAHAILA SMITH: Seed Beetle is a collection of poems by Nebula Armis, compiled by her partner after her death. It tells the story of her life growing up in a small, southern Ontario farming town. It begins by retelling her mother’s experience working in a manufacturing plant, assembling agricultural robots in the form of megafaunal beetles.
The collection transitions into poems told from Nebula’s perspective, describing her experience growing up in her community; leaving to study marine biology and poetry; and her growing understanding of the harm caused by corporate greed. Through the poem you learn about her activism to overcome that harm.
ALU: How do you see poetry as an act of resistance?
MAHAILA: Poetry is an excellent tool for promoting empathy. In my experience, poems are uniquely capable of translating emotions. This is incredibly important in a time where people are frequently dehumanized and forgotten by those in power. I see poetry as being able to take us down to the granular, individual level. It can show us someone’s interior life, and help us to empathize with perspectives we wouldn’t otherwise know.
Poetry forces us to think critically about language and meaning. This is especially important in a time shaped by extractive and colonial narratives.
ALU: Is there a line (in your own or someone else’s work) that you return to?
MAHAILA: There are so many poets whose work amazes me. Some who I return to often are Anne Carson, Dionne Brand, and Amanda Gorman. Adrienne Rich wrote the lines, “No one lives in this room / without confronting the whiteness of the wall / behind the poems, planks of books, / photographs of dead heroines. / Without contemplating last and late / the true nature of poetry. The drive / to connect. The dream of a common language.”
I think about that stanza often, and I think it’s relevant when we are talking about resistance through poetry. Often we are hoping to find the words that can bridge divides between people and communities. Through writing I work to better understand myself and others, and connect with them.
ALU: What role does community—readers, poets, teachers—play in your writing?
MAHAILA: Community is an incredibly important aspect of writing for me. I am a big fan and reader of poetry and rely heavily on local poets for guidance and support.
As a teenager, I attended an arts-focused high school, enrolled in the creative writing stream. During that time I was inspired and encouraged by my teachers to continue to pursue poetry. Just before Seed Beetle launched, I had the opportunity to attend my grade 10 teacher, Mr. Blaur’s writing class and share what I have learned through the process of writing this book, as well as writing prompts that I use, with his class of young writers.
I feel grateful to be living in a city where poetry is celebrated and promoted through literary festivals and events. This week I had the privilege to attend a talk delivered by Michael Ondaatje. One piece of advice he shared, which I plan to take back into my own writing, was if you knew how a poem was going to end, make that the first line. The act of writing a poem should be an act of uncovering what it will become. I find that to be an inspiring prompt in the context of the speculative poetry I like to write. For example, in thinking about writing a utopian future, you could start by describing how people live and then consider how that community will be maintained.
ALU: How do you sustain a practice of writing poetry in politically or personally challenging times?
MAHAILA: A lot of my poetry is about worlds and times that are different from my own. I find this to be a hopeful practice while writing amidst the horrors of our world. It allows me to imagine how things might be different. For example, in Seed Beetle, I am writing about a community in the future that is working to take back its agency from an exploitative corporation. Through that type of writing, I am allowing myself to imagine how I can support caring communities in my city.
Read “Water-Kin“ from Seed Beetle
Channel 24 broadcasts that the world’s
richest oligarchs have cross-sectioned Mars amongst themselves.
I watch as the owner of Veil, the largest global mining corporation,
addresses a crowd of reporters, fans, and protesters.
Soon we will be creating a glut of new jobs
and sending new miners and ice harvesters to the red planet.
I scroll through the pages of the newest National Geographic.
The cover story is about the EELS discovery of microscopic fish
living in the seams of the planet’s polar caps.
I study marine biology.
My partner, Dip, studies mechanical engineering.
When I talk to Dip about the fish,
I am talking about a nation
of monocular stares through frozen windows.
When Dip hears, they track recruitment efforts
and pull lists of interested advocates, sending direct messages
over a network they encrypted under a feathery spread of frost.
We work with Dip’s classmates and my reading group.
We enlist in the corporation’s work program,
learning about the ways we might need to repair
their spaceships in an Emergency.
The convex metal winks back our busy hands,
sticky with sweat and fingerprints, oil hinges, test for friction.
When launch day comes,
our supervisor finds the ships are empty pods,
stripped of their soft inner parts, unable to leave Earth.
Reprinted with permission from Stelliform Press.
Watch Mahaila read “Water-Kin” from Seed Beetle
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Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag. They like learning theory and writing speculative poetry. Their debut chapbook, Claw Machine, was published by Anstruther Press in 2020. Their second chapbook, Water-Kin was published by Metatron Press in 2024. Their novelette in verse, Seed Beetle, is available from Stelliform Press.
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Thanks to Mahaila for answering our questions and to Stelliform Press for the text excerpt from Seed Beetle, which is available to purchase on All Lit Up (and get 15% off + FREE shipping Canada-wide with the code POETSRESIST until April 30!).
Follow our NPM series all month long to discover new poetry or connect with old favourites, and visit our poetry shop here.
