Poetic Licence is a special Read Local BC column for National Poetry Month. Each column features one poet and a snapshot into their bookish world. Tina Biello is the current Poet Laureate for Nanaimo and her third full-length collection, Playing In Silence, is forthcoming from Caitlin Press.
Who would you say are the greatest influences on your work?
Canadian poets from Patrick Lane’s generation forward.
Who is a poet you think everyone should read?
Lorna Crozier.
How do you write your first draft of a poem?
By hand.
How much do you edit or rewrite a poem, and how do you decide when it’s done (or good enough)?
Whoa, hard question to answer but lots of rewrites happen before the poem is ready. All edits happen on the computer. The poem seems to always have the capability of “tweaks,” but I guess I’d say it’s ready when I have spent a duration of time with it. Sometimes the time span between first and second edits and a final draft can be months or years.
What do you eat/drink while writing and why?
Coffee, because I usually write in the morning and I love coffee!
As a reader of poetry, what attracts you to a poem, or resonates with you?
If a poem takes me somewhere and I am completely surprised, then I’m in and will read that person’s work. Poetry that also speaks to the heart resonates with me.
Where do you like to read?
My living room in front of the wood stove or on the beach in summer.
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Tina Biello comes from a small logging town in BC and is born of immigrant parents. She studied theatre at UBC and is an actor and now a poet and playwright. Her first full-length book of poetry, In the Bone Cracks of the Walls (Leaf Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Bressani Prize and was part of a multi-disciplinary art exhibition of poetry, watercolour and music in Montreal, Vancouver, and Italy. Her second full-length book of poems, A Housecoat Remains, was published by Guernica Editions (2015).
Tina Biello is the current Poet Laureate for Nanaimo, 2017–2020. Her forthcoming collection, Playing Into Silence, will be published with Caitlin Press’ Dagger Editions in June 2018. Set in the 50s and 60s in small-town Alberta, Playing Into Silence looks back at a dry time in lesbian identity.
Photo credit: Chris Hancock Donaldson
Check out more 2018 National Poetry Month features here.