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On March 28th, novelist and poet, Emily Schultz, author of Joyland and Songs for the Dancing Chicken, will be in conversation with film writer Jason Anderson, at a This Is Not A Reading Series event on Wednesday, March 28 at 7:30pm at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto. This is a free, public event. Doors open at 7:00pm.
In Songs for the Dancing Chicken, the films and life of acclaimed director Werner Herzog are used as jumping off points for investigations into everyday life. While fans of Herzog will recognize the details of his amazing life and words from Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo, Stroszek and Nosferatu, Schultz finds the intersection between Herzog’s art and her own poetic voice. Songs for the Dancing Chicken is a fan letter and much, much more.
I interviewed Emily via email after devouring the quirky, elegant and intricate poems in Dancing Chicken.
ZW: Tell me about how you came up with the title.
ES: The book was going to be named after one of the sub-sections, “Better Hell,” but in the end, I thought it too grim. The dancing chicken image comes from a Werner Herzog film, Stroszek, in which a chicken in a penny arcade dances in order to receive its food-pellet reward. In the film, the chicken just keeps going in circles and won’t stop dancing. I loved this image and bonded with it the first time I saw it because it’s so human—we just keep going in circles. One section in the book is based on the films of Herzog, but a lot of the individual pieces are work poems, and poems in transit, which I also think fit into the notion of repeating ourselves and getting caught in a cycle.
I should also mention that Herzog had to have the chicken trained extensively to get it to dance so long. This is a large part of the appeal of Herzog. Here is someone who will do anything for art.
ZW: You’re an accomplished short story writer, novelist, editor and journalist, but I know poetry has always been your first love. How does it feel to be considered an emerging poet? Does it feel sort of like when a long-time band signs to a major label and is suddenly ‘new’?
ES: I admit that I have been working on putting together a poetry collection for about 10 years, during which time I published poems here and there (including Descant). I would be hard-pressed to say how many poems have been written and discarded over the years. I don’t think I can claim “long-time band” status though…. A better analogy might be “practice kissing with the pillow.” The book is so newly released, that it hasn’t made contact yet, so I feel like I’m just leaning in for the first real one. I’ve been practising a long time.
ZW: What was the editing and publishing process like in comparison to fiction?
ES: I would say there was more dialogue in the editing process for Songs. I worked with Michael Holmes as my substantive editor, and Stuart Ross as my copy editor—both superior poets (and editors) whom I’ve admired for a long time. In the first round with Michael, if we were having trouble with a line, or a poem, or even a whole section, we would say, “Let’s flag that, and ask Stuart what he thinks.” Then when I worked with Stuart, we would tinker and turnaround, and again when we weren’t sure if something was working, we’d be, “Let’s send it back to Michael.” I feel very lucky to have had them both on my side to consult.
ZW: Tell me about the ups and downs of being part of a literary power couple.
EW: Uh…it means there are two empty bank accounts instead of one.
ZW: What can we expect from the launch on the 28th?
It’s a This Is Not A Reading Series, so obviously I won’t be reading from the book. Jason Anderson, one of Canada’s premier film critics, will be joining me onstage where we’ll do a kind of filmic/poetic commentary, using some Herzog themes and images, and then touching on the poems themselves.
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