Poetry: hobby or passion? [Career?] I’m finding it harder and harder to separate poetry from the other aspects of my life: teaching, activism, community, and family. It all flows together.
Does love help? (If so, what kind?) Love is essential. I didn’t use to think so, but now I find I’m always looking for the beating heart of a poem. The best kind of love fights off the worst kind of despair.
Is the creative act political to you? Inherently subversive? Inherently a social service? Everything is political to me. Creativity is perhaps subversive because it involves thinking.
How does inspiration work for you regarding individual poems? Most of my poems come from a desire to write about a specific thing, but a desire is not enough. A line has to appear, and if it does, a poem will likely follow. The line gives me a way in---and it usually comes to me when I’m walking (the closest I get to meditation).
Who or what triggered you to begin writing? The London lit community triggered me— (I arrived here as an academic). London grew me. The other important thing that happened is that I finished my dissertation, and suddenly my brain was free to think of different things.
Creatively, whom do you look up to, if anyone? Oh, I look up to the modernist poets. I look up to so many contemporary Canadian poets. I look up to friends who are graphic artists, dancers, musicians, community activists, politicians. I look up to my students who are driven by curiosity and ambition and the delight of creating and honing their craft. I look up to my mom who writes poems about my dad, my brother and his partner who make art, and my other brother and his partner who sing, and also make stuff. I look up to people who are really funny and fearless. And I look up to animals and plants who have their own intelligences and languages and wisdom. I look up to my partner Miriam who has the most interesting thoughts and orientation to the world. And I look up to my son Emmett who knows joy and movement and humour better than anybody.
Walk us through your typical creative day. I don’t have a typical creative day. I try my best to make room to write, but it is always getting squeezed by all the other things in life. This would be my ideal writing day: 10:00 am: wake, drink coffee, read. 11:00 -2:00: sit at the computer and write stuff. 2:00-4:00: play squash or hike or play shinny. 5:00-7:00: write and revise. 7:30: receive email offering book deal or informing me of publication/award/funding. 8:00: poetry workshop with peers. 10:00: beers with peers. 12:15: snack.
This from a young poet: Any tips for staying motivated when discouragement hits? When discouragement hits read. And go for walks. And talk to other poets. And help other people with their creative endeavours. Also, clean your office---it’s embarrassing!
BIO. Tom Cull served as Poet Laureate for the City of London, Ontario from 2016-2018. He teaches creative writing at Western University and runs Antler River Rally, a grassroots environmental group that organizes monthly cleanups of Deshkan Ziibi/Thames River. Tom’s first full-length collection of poems, Bad Animals, was published by Insomniac Press in 2018, and his chapbook What the Badger Said was published by Baseline Press in 2013. Tom's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Quarterly, The Rusty Toque, and long con magazine. His poem “After Rivers” was recently published in the anthology Undocumented: Great Lakes Poet Laureates on Social Justice (MSU Press, 2019).