Poetry: the polarizer of literature. Most people I know either adore poetry or cannot fathom the appeal. To be honest, I don’t know what poetry I like. I enjoy listening to poets read aloud, but I can’t figure out what style of poetry I prefer to read.
“That’s the beauty of an anthology,” counters Susan Musgrave, acclaimed poet and writer, from her Copper Beech House Bed and Breakfast in Masset, Haida Gwaii. Musgrave says she often tells her MFA students at UBC that it is “not wrong to not like something.” The beauty of an anthology of this size is the diversity of styles, thoughts, and opinions within. Musgrave suggests I read poetry anthologies at random — pick a page, read a poem; if I like it, seek out more by that writer.
In April 2013, Mother Tongue Publishing released a perfect book for that experiment: Force Field: 77 Women Poets of BC. Edited by Susan Musgrave, the collection was a huge undertaking that began as an idea in the summer of 2010 when Mother Tongue publisher Mona Fertig was staying at Musgrave’s bed and breakfast.
Musgrave says she agreed to the idea, although she later had some apprehension when considering the scope of the endeavour. Recent anthologies have celebrated Canadian women poets and BC poets separately, but there has not been an anthology of women poets of BC in 34 years, and none of this size — Force Field weighs in at 390 pages — since Women’s Eye: 12 BC Women Poets (edited by Dorothy Livesay in 1974) and D’Sonoqua: An Anthology of Women Poets of British Columbia (edited by Ingrid Klassen in 1979).
It is “not wrong to not like something.”
The difficult part, Musgrave explains, was determining who would be in the book and whom they had to leave out. “We could easily do a second [book], but I don’t think Mona [Fertig] has it in her,” laughs Musgrave. She believes that the “consciousness [the anthology] raises about women in BC” is valuable.
Fertig and Musgrave started with a list of 30–40 poets they wanted to include — obvious poetic heavyweights such as Lorna Crozier and Daphne Marlatt. They then put out an open call for poets, which resulted in more than 150 submissions.
“We started as 55 [poets], then increased it to 75, and eventually we had to cut it off at 77.” Still, many poets were not included, such as Sarah de Leeuw, who won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize this year. Others, like Rhea Tregebov, bowed out in order to make room for younger poets to be included.
Musgrave was charged with the difficult task of then choosing which poems to include. “I didn’t just choose poems I liked,” explained Musgrave. “If I just chose my favourites it would be a very different book.”
After initially asking writers to submit 10 poems, she asked them to narrow them down to four favourites. Arranged alphabetically, each contributor in the anthology received equal space: four pages of poetry preceded by a short bio and headshot.
While gender inequity is an issue in the literary arts, as well as many other fields, Musgrave does not press this point when we speak. She puts more emphasis on how writing reflects the “struggle, suffering, and little joy that life has,” and if writing helps you get through it.
While I still don’t know what style of poetry I like, I’m a little closer to figuring it out.
