Aoife E. Osborne: One of the first things I wanted to start with, and I know it's quite a basic generic question, but one of the things I was drawn to reading your poems is that they're so unique and so wonderful and crafted so beautifully, because they're based in reality and they're very grounded in sort of the relatable aspects of life. Where does that inspiration come from for you?
Maria Giesbrecht: I love that question. One of my poetry, sort of mentors, that I look up to is Kelly Grace Thomas, and she's a wonderful educator, and she often talks about writing the big thing small. I often think of that while I'm writing poetry – how can I write this big thing that probably a lot of people have gone through or experienced, whether it's love, heartbreak, moving across the country, that sort of thing? How can I write that in a way that's very unique to my small circumstance, but is still able to reach people who have experienced the same thing?
I think relatable poetry gets a bad rap sometimes, but it's a wonderful way to connect with your reader. But it doesn't necessarily have to be in a way that is, just sort of like these broad sweeping narratives, that the small little things can actually sometimes connect on a far, more deeper level than just talking about and describing a sweeping narrative, if that makes sense.
Aoife E. Osborne: That actually kind of blends very nicely to my next question. When I looked at your website, I noted that you've got a phrase, which is that you are a believer in writing blank down. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about where that comes from, and what does that belief system mean for you?
Maria Giesbrecht: I think that means a few different things to me. The purpose of poetry has very much sort of changed in my life. So when I started writing poetry, like seriously, I was at the tail end of high school. I was coming from a family that it was not a safe place for me to talk about what was going on internally. So externally, I didn't have a very safe outlet to talk about things internally. So that's what poetry in that period of my life was for, and the poems were very much for me. I wrote in a very confessional diary style and those poems were never published, but that was the original purpose of poetry for me, was to be a safe place for me to describe what was going on inside of me, and so that has been a powerful aspect.
Aoife E. Osborne: Was there a moment that brought you to poetry in the first place?
Maria Giesbrecht: Yeah. Absolutely. It was in my grade 11 creative writing class. I had this phenomenal teacher, it's always a story of a phenomenal teacher, which I love because teachers are so important.
She was just a wild teacher. She let us swear, however we wanted in class. She showed up to class with these funky seventies high heels every day. It was very inspirational.
She used to lead us through hypnotic meditations before we wrote. She was very mystical in that sense. And she did this one meditation about – I think the theme was somewhat related to childhood – and I just remember, for the first time, writing about something that I had forgotten about, and it felt like there was this memory that came to me that I didn't even know I had. And I was, like, holy crap.
It was definitely her, and then she nurtured that in me. She believed in my poems.
Aoife E. Osborne: Amazing, that's really lovely. I loved everything that I read, but there was one in particular that I think sort of stepped out – the theme of self diagnosis in a shifting society around mental and physical health is so prominent at the moment. Is there an inspiration or a story behind self diagnosis in particular?
Maria Giesbrecht: I've actually had that question numerous times from that poem. A lot of people have asked if it's like if I'm self diagnosing myself with a medical condition or a mental health diagnosis.
That's actually not the intention. The intention for me was to diagnose myself as weird and strange, and sort of like, this happens to me, and I must be something other. And so I'm going to just call myself that before you have the opportunity to call myself that. I will say it's been really interesting because I've had a few people write other poems to this poem, and it has been for a self diagnosis for like autism or ADHD. And I love that, and I think that's also a cool exploration and a way to take the poem in that direction.
Aoife E. Osborne: Building on this idea of speaking to other people or inspiring other people – I'm kind of gathering the community as something that's quite important to you as a writer, as a person, maybe as both. What draws you to the idea of community, and what does community mean to you as a writer?
Maria Giesbrecht: I love this question. I think community is literally everything to me. I'm an immigrant, so I was born in Mexico, and then I moved to Canada when I was four years old.
I'm originally from Russian Mennonite descent. So I have struggled with belonging for my entire life. I have never felt like I fit somewhere, even in high school and earlier in my twenties, working in the corporate setting, it was sort of hard for me to figure out where I belonged. When I found the greater poetry community on Instagram, and even on other social media, for the first time in my life, I can honestly say I felt like I belonged.
Aoife E. Osborne: On a more technical level, one of the things that really stuck out when I was reading through your work was the run on lines – the enjambment that you use throughout all of your poems. Is there a thought process behind that.
Maria Giesbrecht: That's a great question. Enjambment and how it is used differently in different ways can impact how a reader is pulled throughout the piece. So whether it's quickly or slowly or harshly or softly, I try to keep that in mind when I'm writing a poem. Do I want my reader to feel jerked through the piece, from room to room to room quick, quick, quick? And that might be very short and small short lines, harsh and jam it in the middle of a phrase.
Whereas if, let's say my poem is like a love poem, and I want them to sort of waltz between each stanza in each room very softly, that might be where I have these longer lines, and they end on a very natural finish at the end of a phrase. But sometimes it's just the vibes.
Aoife E. Osborne: Do you consider reading poetry part of your learning process as a writer?
Maria Giesbrecht: Absolutely. Because I feel like you can't really discover what poetry can offer and what it can do if you don't see other people taking those risks. And it's so inspiring to me when I see someone pull off a poem that you think you shouldn't be able to pull it off that way. That gives me, I think, like creative freedom to also take risks like that in my poetry.
Aoife E. Osborne: Do you consider yourself a poet, a writer, an artist, a bit of everything, a bit of both?
Maria Giesbrecht: First and foremost, I'm an artist. I think that anyone that creates anything is an artist. I would have said a poet probably a year ago, but I've recently started writing and experimenting with some personal essays.
Aoife E. Osborne: How does that process vary for you from writing poetry, and then writing a personal essay, or writing a longer form piece of work?
Maria Giesbrecht: How I got into essay writing was I started writing prose poems, and then I wrote a really long prose poem, and I'm like, oh, this is actually an essay. So it happened pretty organically, and then I started sharing them on my Substack, and people seem to love them. And I was like, oh, I really like that. That was fun.
Maria Giesbrecht
Maria Giesbrecht is a poet based in Guelph, Ontario. Her work has previously been published in Contemporary Verse 2, Talon Review, samfiftyfour, Gyroscope, and elsewhere and is forthcoming in Canadian Literature and Queen's Quarterly. She hosts the virtual writing table, Gather, and can be found at www.mariagiesbrecht.com or @theguelphpoet on Instagram.
Aoife E. Osborne
Aoife E. Osborne is a multidisciplinary writer and arts worker based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her work has been published in Keeping it Under Wraps: Bodies Uncensored, DoublePress and Paper Lanterns Literary Journal, among others. Originally from Cork, Aoife completed her undergraduate degree in English at University College Cork where she was the 2022 Eoin Murray Scholar, awarded in recognition of excellence in creative writing. She completed her MA in Arts Management and Cultural Policy with Distinction at Queen’s University Belfast in 2024, and is currently the Operations and Programme Coordinator with Fighting Words Northern Ireland.
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