“Notes from the Director,” “Spring Fever,” and “Afterlife” by Leah Callen appeared in Issue 31 and can be read here.
We’d love to hear more about this set of poetry.
These poems all have one foot in reality and one foot in imagination. Notes from the Director was inspired by a vivid dream I had where I was hanging out with David Lynch. It was amusing playing around with that since I will likely never meet the man in person. Spring Fever grew out of my time in Vancouver, BC at the beginning of the pandemic. The seawall became so deserted and eerie that it inspired this dystopian poem. Afterlife tries to capture the hallucinogenic disorientaton one experiences after having one’s drink spiked with something mysterious.
What was the most difficult part of this set?
The most challenging and rewarding part of all these poems was deciding where to break the lines. It affects everything from meaning to music in a poem.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
Help The Witch by Tom Cox. It got me through lockdown in Vancouver.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
Anderson Cooper. Because I respect the hell out of him as a human and he looked like a lot of fun on New Years Eve.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I’m working on the manuscript for my first poetry collection which contemplates life and death and afterlife through the lens of magical realism. It has a working title, but that’s a secret for now.
Our thanks to Leah for taking the time to answer a few questions and share these poems. Read “”Notes from the Director,” “Spring Fever,” and “Afterlife” here: https://www.sequestrum.org/three-poems-by-leah-callen.
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Leah Callen is a Canadian poet whose verse has appeared in The Malahat Review, Vallum Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Scrivener Creative Review, Kissing Dynamite, and Barren Magazine. She was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.