{"id":4070,"date":"2015-08-18T15:51:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T15:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=4070"},"modified":"2015-08-22T20:37:02","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T20:37:02","slug":"poet-heather-haley-how-did-this-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=4070","title":{"rendered":"“Heather Haley-Poet.” How did that happen?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sideways\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Certainly I didn’t plan to become a poet. I didn’t grow up thinking, when I grow up I’m going to be a poet. But in essence, it is who I am. I wasn’t exposed to literature. My father read Popular Mechanics<\/em> and my mother, True Confessions<\/em>. Though, being an Irish queen of blarney, Corona could spin a mean yarn.<\/p>\n

I didn’t get a degree. I dropped out of university and ran away to join the punk rock circus; sang, wrote songs and poetry which I performed in coffee houses and nightclubs. When I returned to Canada, in a fluky way, published my first collection, Sideways<\/a>, <\/em>with Anvil Press. Three Blocks West of Wonderland<\/a><\/em> came out with Ekstasis Editions in 2009 so I’m not exactly prolific, though never cease writing. In a haphazard way, I’m becoming “widely anthologized;” Verse Map of Vancouver <\/em>(Anvil),\u00a0 Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry <\/em>(Mother Tongue Publishing), Alive at the Center <\/em>(Ooligan Press), FORCE Field: 77 Women Poets of British Columbia <\/em>(Mother Tongue Publishing), The Wild Weathers; a gathering of love poems <\/em>(Caitlin Press), The SpokenWord WorkBook (<\/em>Banff Centre Press), Where the Nights are Twice as Long: Love Letters of Canadian Poets<\/em> (Goose Lane Editions), The Other 23 1\/2 Hours, What Your MFA Didn’t Teach You <\/em>(Wolsak & Wynn), and the forthcoming Simon Fraser University’s Lunch Poems<\/em> Anthology. <\/em>Is my approach irresponsible or irreverent? Due to a bad attitude perhaps and Sideways<\/em> might be entirely appropriate.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve worked in many genres; journalism\/reviewer, non-fiction\/blog, prose\/novel<\/a> and written several screenplays.\u00a0 I always go back to poetry. Or, come back to poetry.<\/p>\n

Recently I completed a rough draft of my latest manuscript, Detective Work<\/em>. Why? It’s in me, verse. And I have no idea how it got there.<\/p>\n

MY WEEK<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fed a germ.
\nOld dog.
\nSpooned flies out of yogurt.
\nDislodged ants from the toaster.
\nEntered words.
\nFought for blackberries.
\nFree stuff.<\/p>\n

Doctored bites.
\nSigned language.
\nCollected greens,
\nHeritage tomatoes.
\nMeme parlanced.
\nRegistered my feelings.<\/p>\n

Last house on Husband Rd.
\nProlific bamboo d\u00e9cor.
\nYou can sit in a resin chair
\nForever, white ones
\nEspecially war strong.
\nToo late in the week now
\nTo do anything nice.<\/p>\n

Or, nicely.
\nToo late in our life spans
\nFor anything,
\nThough he\u2019s still trying
\nTo Xerox his ass,
\nMoon earth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Certainly I didn’t plan to become a poet. I didn’t grow up thinking, when I grow up I’m going to be a poet. But in essence, it is who I am. I wasn’t exposed to literature. My father read Popular Mechanics and my mother, True Confessions. Though, being an Irish queen of blarney, Corona could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12],"tags":[149,236,285,324],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4070"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4114,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions\/4114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}