Janice Colman : 3 poems on my writing process

 

that's not the ending

last night i heard a poet read. afterward i walked to the makeshift stage. your endings, i said. you nailed it! i told him i was working on my endings. some landed, most circled or were rerouted.

i am working on a poem titled i could not save her.

there is a stanza about backs & another, how my eldest daughter's brain adores travel. when i was ten my family flew on the canadair north star to the balmoral club. i remember air pockets, turkey with stuffing & cranberry sauce& oxygen masks. my first jet ride, how on a vertical it zoomed up. my daughter's brain travels.

she sets off without insurance. my last flight was in 2007, to montreal for my mother's funeral. but this is about my eldest daughter. there were times i caught her & times i fumbled. i was late or infatuated. i lacked finesse.

sometimes i took breathers deadlifting at the gym.

when my daughter says good morning i can’t recognize her. when i look in the mirror these days, i keep my eyes level. but that’s not what this is all about.
 

 

tuesday morning at the creek with dogs

on the narrow path           hangs
                               a thick construction
rope from one tree to another / especially for someone
balancing 

                              a balanced dog knows when

a dog is not / & responds with
corrections                        ducks!
                                         the dogs look | on this bank
                                         a dog's head darts            

          underwater to retrieve
          a flat stone    another sorts through sticks       
                                         when emily turns her head i say                        

did you see the ducks                  around the bend
                                         there are little ones / the males are more colorful
                                                                                                 ostentatious  

bowie stays behind
                     here you are taking the fast swimming
                                         route back
                                         when emily crosses the ledge       i say    thank you       

emily is my eldest daughter's
                    service                    dog in training                  
                                         ed the australian shepherd           shakes himself off & river mimics 

sometimes my lack
of balance | the hills & ledges     i grab onto a harness or a collar
                                                   & they bring me through 

lately this is how i write my poems | once upon my time, my poems
were driven by                  men
                               a lacking husband
                               houses lost & houses seized | an old beau inquired 

how do you lose a house? a house, he said,     
                                         is too big to misplace   |   in my old young days

 

i wrote through
                               the pores of men     
                               a bathroom or closet, the blue guest
                               room, a long                              

rectangular balcony
in the isuzu jeep or the chrysler van    
                               el guerillo we called the van. we were given to naming 

our vehicles  in those days | the streets
had their own stories. side streets                     uncles or cousins
                                                              aunts & distant relatives 

of main roads | bowie watches a narrow waterfall
& i say               are you watching the waterfall | since dogs
                                                               appreciate    articulation 

between two boulder rocks         a loud waterfall river
these days | forest & creek & dogs                 
                               all real time 

on the ledge i dictate      the dogs
do not edit. nor request linear.     but here is a tangled ledge 

                                  how do i maneuver
                                  i will have to use two hands

 

 

mayhem my ass 

organized mayhem! he said         
i was raised to be polite     

my life has not been well planned
          there were too many extenuating variables
          i am known for revision 

in my mayhem life            i refocus
                               it happened / i blur 

the background & bring the present into foreground | later becoming
background then again 

packing & moving, treasures lost & never recovered  
i know | how to pack up mayhem & chaos     in our lives
          19 houses. some planned many not i can’t say i loved them all 

my daughters | words & paintings 
          i am like a cat lady with my paintings     lately these past
          five years i have fallen in love with poetry, workshops & writing | my paints 

in our little green room with no heating. i worry 

about my paint beauties. are they cold |freezing    are they old & worn? am i?
i have been hiking with dogs for 15 years & often
8 in our pack sometimes though seldom 

only 4               my daughter told me get an iwatch
                                         if you should fall     when
                                         you’re on the trail the watch would say 

you have fallen are you ok    one winter i fell
on the ice because eight eager dogs
pulled me     with ice & the steep decline | i fell flat 

i hit my head
my watch remained silent  but one morning when i bent down to pat
my eldest daughter’s service dog in training       my watch said
                                                               it looks like you’ve taken a big fall                

i hike with dogs
on cliffs & tight spaces. my brain sniffs the wind
like dogs on a trail | but you know
it’s all connected anyhow. everything.

 

 

 

 

 

Janice Colman is a neurodivergent Toronto poet and interdisciplinary writer. Her chapbook playing cello for a dead bird was published by Turret House Press (2025). Her work has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, filling Station, FreeFall, The /tƐmz/ Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. She has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and support from the Toronto Arts Council.

Janice is the mother of two powerful daughters and a service dog named Emily. Her current poetry follows the movement of attention on her daily creek hikes with her pack of eight dogs.

Jordan Davis : My writing day

rob asked me to write about my writing day, which except for the odd Sunday when I really need to finish an essay, is not, for me, a thing — I have writing… pockets? Standing appointments with myself, specific notebooks for specific projects or research (and sometimes different kinds of pen — a couple times I’ve given the morning appointment to writing with a brush pen), though lately I’ve had to suspend those standing appointments to read (reread, chase down missing context, rule out hunches) to finish essays. When I get to write now, it’s five or ten minutes here or there. I carry two notebooks, one white one black, and depending on the feeling or subject I write in the white one in pencil or pen, or in the black one in white ink. I also keep index cards to hand — 3x5 for poems, 4x6 for nonfiction, 5x8 for fiction, 6x9 for diagrams and memory palaces. Different colored cards for different projects. I bring the cards home and file them. Editing’s another story.

Jordan Davis’s most recent collection of poems, his third, is Yeah, No (MadHat, 2023). He is the editor of The Nu Review.

Jason Heroux : My Writing Day

 

 

1

Lord, I’ve had so many writing routines. My writing day depends on my writing week, my writing week depends on my writing month. My writing month depends on my writing year, and my writing year depends on my writing life. In this life, right now, these days, my daily writing routine depends on whether it is a weekday or a weekend.

 

2

When it’s a weekday, I wake around 630am, and get ready to go to work at a 9am to 5pm office job. During these early get-ready hours I’ll sit at my desk and try to write a random line or two about my immediate sensory impressions (weather, traffic, birdsongs, etc.). It’s not really “poetry,” just a way to connect to the day and be attentive to the mysteries shimmering around me and within me.  

 

3

When it’s a weekday I go to my office job and do no writing.

 

4

When it’s a weekday, after work, I’ll spend some time relaxing in the living room or backyard with a notebook and pen, or a laptop, some nearby poetry books around for inspiration. I’ll try to capture clear lines or images: sunlight on the wall, dust specks in the air, some gentle snowfall.

 

5

When it’s a weekday, the next weekday I do the same thing.

 

6

When it’s a weekday, the next weekday I do the same thing.

 

7

When it’s the weekend, I wake as early as I can and go for a walk. After the walk, I either sit at my desk, or on the couch, or in an indoor hammock, with a pen and notebook. I relax and write random lines, no agenda, just scribble whatever comes to mind in the moment.

 

8

When it’s the weekend, I look at those new random lines, and the earlier random lines I wrote during the week, and see if anything connects or clicks or sparks a little poetic fire. If a little poetic fire is lit, that’s it —  I feel like my “immediate sensory impressions” are conversing with the universe, and I’m consumed. I keep writing at every possible moment to fuel the blaze.

 

9

When it’s the weekend, if nothing poetic connects at the time, I’ll put it aside, and work on another project, usually a prose project, and try to write 500 words of “something” to put gas in the tank. That “something” could be a dialogue exchange, or a new scene, or developing a new character.

 

10

When it’s the weekend, if the poetry isn’t hungry, the prose is fed. If the prose isn’t hungry, I catch up on daily tasks around the house, or respond to overdue emails, or revise existing work, tinkering here and there.

 

11

And always, along the way, weekday or weekend, I try to give a huge hug to my family and friends, for understanding, and accepting. Thank you. Everything in me says ‘Thank you!’ (Psalm 138:1-3).

 

12

Then do it all over again.

 

13

Then do it all over again.

 

Jason Heroux lives in Kingston, Ontario. His recent poetry collections include Like a Trophy from the Sun (Guernica Editions, 2024), Look Out, Yellow Umbrella (above/ground press, 2026), and Unfinished Wilderness (Anvil Press, 2026).