Poetry Month: Michael Mirolla - Light and Time

Michael Mirolla calls himself a Montreal-Toronto corridor writer (because he spends so much time travelling between the two cities). He’s a novelist, short story writer, poet and playwright. Publications include two novels: Berlin (a 2010 Bressani Prize winner and finalist for the 2009 Indie Book and National Best Books Awards) and the recently-released The Facility, which features among other things a string of cloned Mussolinis; two short story collections: The Formal Logic of Emotion (recently translated into Italian) and Hothouse Loves & Other Tales; and two collections of poetry: the English-Italian bilingual Interstellar Distances/ Distanze Interstellari and Light and Time. His short story, “A Theory of Discontinuous Existence,” was selected for The Journey Prize Anthology, while another short story, “The Sand Flea,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. A poem, “Blind Alley,” was shortlisted for the Winston Collins/Descant Prize for the Best Canadian Poem in 2007. His short fiction and poetry has been published in numerous journals in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, including several anthologies such as Event’s Peace & War, Telling Differences: New English Fiction from Quebec, Tesseracts 2: Canadian Science Fiction, The Anthology of Italian-Canadian Writing, New Wave of Speculative Fiction Book 1, and The Best of Foliate Oak.

Along with partner Connie McParland, Michael runs Guernica Editions, a Canadian literary publishing house.


TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Michael Mirolla - Prognostication is for psychics and a psychic I definitely am not. Otherwise, I’d be down at Casino Niagara. However, if there’s such a thing as reading the writing on the wall (the text message on the cell phone is more like it), I have some concerns with respect to the viability of the written word as creative art when it comes to its long-term future. I’m not talking specifically about whether literature – the novel, the short story, the poem – will survive. My concern is more one of the diminishing impact they have in our world. It seems that, more and more, serious literature (writing that takes chances as opposed to Twilight, Harry Potter and Oprah picks) is becoming marginalized.

This is particularly true of poetry. There was a time when poetry was at the centre/core of a civilization’s culture. It was where the creation myths were unrolled and the essence of the people told and re-told until everyone knew it by heart – and able to pass it down. That it is no longer today has more to do with the shifts in society and economic systems and ways of looking at the world than any idea that the poetry itself has an intrinsic problem. Literature still tries to get to the essence of things. Still tries to work itself down into the sweet spot where the human lives. The problem is that this “sweet spot” is being eroded as we speak. It has lost its place in the people’s consciousness and has been replaced with assembly lines and shopping. Sure, we still use the same trigger words – family, love, soul, community, etc. – but they’re used for commercial purposes, or for getting young people to join the military.

Is this reason for despair? Pessimism? An attitude of surrender among writers? Well, it could be. There could come a time when, thanks to interactive technologies and Star Trek holodeck type virtual realities, we will all spend our time entertaining ourselves alone locked in the room of our own imaginations. But it could also mean the opportunity to help in the creation of alternate realities, of worlds where the original values that made us human are once more not only believed in but actually acted upon, or worlds where different ways of acting and thinking are examined.

What will that take? Ah, again only speculating, but I think it will take a leaving behind of the so-called democratic principles connected to the individual as the core unit of society – and the re-establishing of societal connections, kinship, collective identities, and most importantly the re-connection between head and heart. Poets can be at the forefront of such a revolution. They can be the wedge that drives a stake through the dead heart of commercialism. Or their laptops can overheat trying.

As for e-books replacing the printed page, I think we're going to see a process whereby the printed book (and especially poetry books) will become objects d'art, collectors' items. For mass distribution, some type of electronic book (or perhaps eventually a direct implant) will take centre stage. The physical book has had a long run but its time is almost up. I see the physical books of the future becoming similar to the illuminated manuscripts of the pre-Gutenberg era.







In transit I: Primary colours

In the blue corridor, the ghost limb sings:
           there is no grass
           there are no stones
           there are no fathers
           there are no stairs
           there is no door
           there are no handles
           there are no sons
           there are no bricks
           there is no body


In the blue corridor, the hip screw-plate responds:
           there is but wink
           there is but glow
           there is but drip
           there is but tick
           there is but scar

In the green room, the wheelchair moans:
          oh my God
          diaper
          my God
          rash
          my God

In the yellow room, the bedpan laughs:
            haha
            strap him in
           hoho
            tie him down
           heehee
            feed the spoon
            its reflection

In the red room, the curtains chant:
            sorrow incarnate
            night’s chlorine smell
            wrinkles in time
            we are but
            wrinkles in time
            we are but
            night’s chlorine smell
            we are but
            sorrow incarnate

In the blue corridor, the leg brace echoes:
             God
             haha
             oh my
             heehee
              periwinkle slime
              hoho

In the blue corridor, the syringe inscribes:
             ever dutiful, I hold
             my old man’s wound
             all the while
             dreaming
             of poetics
             and the incandescent word
             that will make him sing
             that will make him respond
             that will make him moan
             that will make him laugh
             that will make him chant
             that will make him echo
             that will make him inscribe
             that will make me real

- From: The House on 14th Avenue






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