Perry Gasteiger is a queer, non-binary poet and writer from Ontario, Canada. Their current work embraces a Post-Modern Gothic sensibility, taking a keen interest in playing with a reader’s discomfort to bring about an empathetic understanding of different aspects of the world. Perry enjoys exploring the banal darkness of our everyday world using juxtaposition between the real and the abstract, the beautiful and the deformed, the congruent and the disordered. With a distinct love for local art, and the impact it can have on its community, Perry has been working on their project “The Blank Page Initiative” to bring together local creators in fun and accessible ways in Southwestern Ontario. Perry is also an Editor at the Red Lemon Review, an online literary magazine that uplifts the mundane through unique perspectives. You can find their work in places such as Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine, Spellbinder Magazine, Fevers of the Mind, Not Deer Magazine, Outcast Press, Warning Lines Magazine, and Melbourne Culture Corner Magazine. They released their debut chapbook Meditations for the Dead and Dying on December 4, 2021.
Why this book and why now?
This book is dark, it’s gritty, it’s honest in its examination of things, and though it can be difficult for some to read, I would recommend it be read by anyone. Just because things make us uncomfortable doesn’t mean they aren’t important to think about. Discomfort helps us to grow, and this book is nothing if not discomforting. Death, dying, the brutality of existence – it’s scary stuff, but it’s real and it’s there and if we don’t look at it, we are robbing ourselves of the chance to come to peace with it. I think that this book happened when it happened because I was growing within myself and taking a look at these questions of death in life, of violence in existence, and really looking at what it meant to be an embodied creature in the world. As I went on this journey, I wrote about it, and it ended up being full of ideas that I wanted to present to others.
How long did you work on Meditations for the Dead and Dying?
This book came to be almost without me knowing. I had been developing a language with myself surrounding bodies and was using this language to examine the relationship of selves with each other, as well as with the world. I guess I just looked up one day and realized I had almost an entire book of these poems. I think the earliest poem in this collection was written in May of 2021, and the collection was queried to presses at the end of August. From the moment I decided to turn these pieces into a book, though, and the time I submitted them, I think it was probably six weeks.
For you, what are the stages of writing a poem?
That’s a fun one, as I’ve been writing poetry for a while now and many of the “stages” get rolled together these days. However, I would say that there are a few distinct stages in my process that I can identify:
Setting up the idea. What is it that I want to explore in this poem? What images and words evoke the shade of emotion that I want to explore this thought with? I attended a Maggie Smith poetry workshop where she referred to the poem as a “site of wonder”, that you are exploring the idea you’re presenting as you write it. This stage is kind of like creating the setting in which you will be exploring – the imagery, the metaphors, the feelings around the exploration.
The exploration of the idea. This is where I get into the writing and the thinking. I bumble my way through, writing and crossing out and writing over and crossing out and going on tangents and coming back so that the idea has been explored thoroughly, and there’s a record of that exploration. A poem moves someone from one place to another, so making sure that I’m keeping a record of that movement that I make from having an idea to having explored an idea is important for the movement of my poems.
The refining process. Then the craft comes in. I go back and say, Okay here is my exploration, which parts are cohesive and important to each other? Lots of times, this process finds me sitting with something completely different than I set out to do. Roll with it, there is always another poem to write. Here is where you kill your darlings. Cut the fat, keep it somewhere safe to come back to another day for another piece, but be brutal. What serves the thesis of this poem? What moves the reader through the idea? Only keep what has its place, don’t be afraid to put something you love aside if it doesn’t fit into what you’re writing.
The editing process. Once I’ve refined a poem, this is where I go in (usually with my sister because she’s a genius) and make small edits. Look at the grammar and punctuation, is the formal structure tight, making better word choices, manipulating the minutiae of the poem that really makes it a crafted experience for the reader.
The process is different for everyone, and I don’t necessarily go through all of these stages as separate stages every time. But elements of these four pieces are always in my writing process, no matter if I’m doing a bunch of pre-work looking at definitions and developing themes and metaphors beforehand, or if I free-write a piece and edit it later, or if I go through and edit as I go. Every poem is different, every poet is different, and honouring the uniqueness of every experience is part of how you are able to create authentic pieces.
Who is the audience for your book?
I would say the audience for this book is anyone who is interested in pain, either because they have experienced it themselves, had someone close to them who has, or are interested in it as a way of conceptualizing the world. This book focuses on existence in the context of suffering and pain experienced through the flesh, and how the world is experienced by someone either going through or inflicting that pain. The phenomenon of pain is central to this work, and so anyone interested in the suffering of the flesh would be part of the audience for the book.
Do you have a suggested way that people should read your book?
I think it’s important to understand that a “meditation” in literature is “a written work or a discourse intended to express its author's reflections, or to guide others in contemplation”. These poems do not strive to prescribe or reveal some truth, but simply ask the reader to engage with the world in a different way so as to provoke thought. I would suggest that when people read Meditations for the Dead and Dying they do so with the intention of going on a contemplative journey. See where the words lead you, what ideas do they bring to your mind, what feelings do they evoke, and why would they do that? There is no right way to read this book, there is no grand reveal that you get from it, it is simply a path down which I ask one to wander with me for a while.
What do you want people to feel or take away after reading your book?
What I really want people to take away from this book is to question things. To look at things differently and ask, Why? For example, with Corpus Corallium, why do we feel an ownership over the things that we create? A Modest Feast, why do we believe in the power structures we have in place? Blood and Body, why do we devote ourselves to things blindly and without question? I’ve always been taught to question everything, question your authorities, question your surroundings, question yourself. If I had one thing I could ask people to take away from this book, is to question the way you look at the world, and find new ways of doing so. Always. I decided to tackle the themes in this book from the context of a body undone, which isn’t completely new, but is uncomfortable and out of the norm. Being thrown into the world of this alternate context, I hope, will shake loose something in someone and cause them to look at the world from a different point of view.
What other creative projects are you working on now?
Well, the biggest thing I’ve got going on is a collaborative project with two other Waterloo Region artists, Greg Trumper and Rebecca Payne. We’ve just secured some funding to produce a hybrid book of poetry, photography, and illustration exploring the journey of growth from childhood to adulthood, and the anxiety and nausea of constant change. I’m so excited to be collaborating with these two wonderful creators, and we can’t wait to see what we create!
Aside from that, I’ve got four chapbook projects I’m working on that are aiming to be done between January and April 2022, including a collaborative book of horror poems, a chapbook about love and relationships called How to love when the sky is falling, and two others that I’m plugging away at. I’ve got lots of concepts to develop to keep me busy for the next year, and I’m sure the ideas won’t stop coming anytime soon! You can keep up with me and my projects on social media.
How do you fit in time to write among all your other demands?
Writing is what I love to do, so I find myself drawn to it whenever I have a spare moment (and sometimes in spite of having other things that I should be doing). Writing seeps into my life no matter what. I am also lucky to be surrounded by a community of people who love writing and reading, and are always engaging with it in some way. When I visit my sister, we like to listen to lectures on writing, my partner and I are editors for a literary magazine and enjoy discussing the pieces we look at on a craft level. Many of my friends I have made through the writing community online, and we “hang out” by having online writing sessions. It’s permeated my life in a way that I don’t think many people have the luxury of.
What is one thing you learned during the process of writing and publishing Meditations for the Dead and Dying?
I think one thing I learned is how much work it takes to create something. It’s not just the creation, it’s the promotion and getting people interested in buying it, and having confidence in the fact that it is something people should want to read! I put in so many hours creating designs for stickers and bookmarks and promotional gifts for preorders, putting in work on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram to let people know this was happening, reaching out to local people to sell copies. It’s work, it takes a lot, but if you love what you do, it’s also really fun. It was a huge learning experience, and I’m excited to apply what I’ve learned to the next project I produce.
What is one piece of advice you have for anyone who may be working on a book right now?
Believe in yourself. And surround yourself with people who believe in you, for when you don’t have it in you to be confident. It’s a long process, and it can take a lot out of you. Just know that the thing you’re working towards is achievable if you’re willing to put in the ground work to get there. Even when you feel like everything sucks and you can’t produce anything worth reading, remember that there was a point where you knew that you were good enough, and that you will get back there. Also, keep a folder of all the nice things people say about your work along the way, it really helps to look back on demonstrable evidence that you don’t suck when you feel like you suck.
Follow Perry on Twitter. Get your copy of Meditations for the Dead and Dying here.
Interview by Glodeane Brown
Photos provided by Perry Gasteiger
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