Tracy Hamon was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and still resides there. She holds a BA Honours in English from the University of Regina and is a MA candidate in English with a creative thesis at that institution. She works part-time as a barber/stylist and is the Colony Coordinator for the SWG. She is currently serving on the board of the Sage Hill Writing Experience and is the director of the Vertigo Reading Series. While her work has been published in numerous literary magazines, Thistledown Press published her first book of poetry, This is Not Eden in April of 2005, and was a finalist for two Saskatchewan Book Awards that same year. More recently, she was short-listed for the 2007 CBC Literary Awards for “Standing at the Window,” a section from a manuscript of poems based on the expressionist painter Egon Schiele. Her second book of poems, tentatively titled Some People Eat Cars, is forthcoming from Coteau in spring 2010.
SL: Could you talk about the relationship between your blogs - Manageable Imaginations and The Plural Hoe - and the poetry you're writing? Can you describe the interplay?
SL: Could you talk about the relationship between your blogs - Manageable Imaginations and The Plural Hoe - and the poetry you're writing? Can you describe the interplay?
TH: While my main blog, Manageable Imaginations isn’t a critical review blog, or predominantly a poetic blog, it’s a space where I can work out my concerns with writing and the world (large and small). I very rarely put my own poetry on this blog; I prefer to create conversations about poetics, about writers that interest me, and about theory that interests me (I have a great passion for discussing the topic of “prairie writing” and the community of prairie writing). In finishing one degree and starting another, I’ve often discussed writing assignments, sharing what I’m doing in classes. In the past six months, I’ve been posting interviews with poets about their books (I do plan to do more, I’ve just not had time). I’m the kind of writer that needs to keep writing to be productive, and writing a blog is a good way to generate ideas.
The idea, at least in theory, is that the other blog, The Plural Hoe, is a place where I can go to write experimental material—to explore numerous forms and conventions—in the blog format. My two blogs don’t compete with each other at all, and often a poem can stem from a blog post (or even someone else’s blog post). Although my creative blog is similar in style to a workshop blog, feedback from people isn’t necessary; however, I’m always interested in what people have to say if they do comment. What I’m going to do with the poems is unclear, and it isn’t something I worry about right now—I’m just going to keep writing them and will see what I’ve built whenever there is an end to the process.
SL: WJT Mitchell said that "in what is often characterized as an age of "spectacle," "surveillance," and all-pervasive image-making, we still do not know exactly what pictures are, what their relation to language is, how they operate on observers and on the world, how their history is to be understood, and what is to be done with or about them." I know that you're interested in ekphrasis, and have written pretty extensively about it and also written ekphrastic poems. Does thinking about and playing with images in this way change the way you develop your blog posts? I know that since blogging, my handwritten journal has actually changed shape. I now choose unlined journals and integrate drawings and photographs into the whole. Has blogging changed your writing in any measurable way?
TH: I’m a visual person, whatever that means. I jot down the things I see/hear/think (okay, not everything, but close) in little books all over the house (in my purse, in my car). As my relationship with images and text shifts and evolves, I’m pleased to see the blog hosts advancing their product, making it simpler and easier to link and to upload photos and videos. The ease with which I can upload photos, allows me to incorporate more visual elements on the blog, esp. on The Plural Hoe, where I can use the image/text to relate to the self-portrait. Sometimes I can just share an image, which is a good way to maintain contact with others via the blog (or so I think). In a way, I guess much of the blog experience is a form of the self-portrait, in the medium of text (and often image). I don’t think blogging has changed my writing, but it’s an integral part of the writing process. It provides another medium to work out (The Plural Hoe) and think/play through (Manageable Imaginations).
SL: What strategies have you developed to keep the blog "manageable?" and can you talk about how you developed the blog and how it has evolved?
TH: An editor once coined my imagination as unmanageable (imagine that!). While I was confused about why an abundance of imagination was unmanageable, the comment inspired me to experiment with the blog format as a place to exploit (or use up) some of that uncontrollable creative energy. I started a blog and called it Unmanageable Imaginations (I remember spending all day on the email with Brenda Schmidt trying to figure the blogging world out). Unfortunately, my beginner blog was deleted from the blogosphere due to some unwanted abusive comments. In trying to manage the situation, I realized that I liked writing on a blog for whatever reason, posting for the few people that did read it, and that regardless of one reader’s harassment, I wouldn’t let someone drive me away from the space I’d created. Therefore, I deleted the original blog, altered the name, the host, and continued to blog under the name of Manageable Imaginations.
It’s interesting now to write about this, to see the how one person’s intrusion into my life created something more “manageable.” One of the biggest changes, I have to admit, with the bad experience of the first blog, was amending what and how I related to the web world. For the longest time on Manageable Imaginations, I hid the blog from public consumption. I tried to keep the personal out of my posts, and still very much do to a certain extent, though as time went on, I realized that what I do is so much a part of who I am, that it’s impossible to keep “me” out. Once I began to feel more secure in my space, I included more “me,” eventually bringing the blog back into the public sphere.
SL: In what ways has the community you've developed via the blog had an impact on your creativity?
TH: Tough question. I think blogging carries a ricochet effect in it’s own community. For example, doing this interview, makes me realize that my writing is read, to some extent and that there IS a community, which as a “prairie writer” (she says tongue in cheek) is important to writing. The support of a community, no matter how small is vital to my writing. And as for my own process, even today, answering these questions led me to write a final report and draft some work; all this writing settled me down to write, albeit none of it poetry, but words are words, and writing is writing, and hopefully, one thing leads to another. I guess by continuing to do what I like to do with the blogs, and feeling confident with the small community I’ve built, I’ll post sporadic occurrences/thoughts/theories, experiment with some poetry, and maybe write some plain ol’ dribble.
