The Cassidy McFadzean Interview

Cassidy McFadzean’s latest book, Crying Dress (House of Anansi), is a playful and provocative collection of poetry. Her forthcoming book, Dead Writers (Invisible Publishing), is an anthology of novellas in collaboration with three other writers. McFadzean kindly answered the following questions by Zoe Shaw via email about Crying Dress and her creative processes.

Zoe Shaw: I’m interested in the contrast that we encounter immediately upon opening the book. The cover is a Bauhaus costume design (from a Schlemmer ballet alluded to in the title poem) that emphasizes the mechanical and artificial, and then the table of contents reveals that the book is sectioned into the seasons of the year. Many of the poems play with images from across the artificial-natural spectrum. How do you envision the relationship between human and nonhuman in Crying Dress?

Cassidy McFadzean: I was definitely interested in that tension, but I hadn’t considered the reader’s experience opening the book so that’s interesting to hear! Many of the poems are curious about what the nonhuman might offer in terms of other ways of understanding, communicating, or being. I also wanted to explore the encyclopaedic and techniques of collage—sort of a frantic impulse to contain everything inside. I just finished Danielle Dutton’s Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other, which is similarly a book about art, ekphrasis, and the natural world, and the final sentence really resonated with me: “We make machines for remembering what we loved.” I see my poems as sort of these machines that try to remember the feeling of being alive in the world at this particular time.

ZS: Your use of language is precise and self-reflective, and you often borrow from languages other than English, especially Farsi. What aspects of Farsi appealed to you most while working on these poems?

CM: I was inspired by conversations with poet Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi who introduced me to the many English/Farsi homonyms between the two languages. When I was taking conversational Farsi classes, I started keeping a list of these English-Farsi puns as well. For example, the Farsi word for “snow” sounds like “barf” in English, but the two words might evoke very different feelings. This kind of wordplay is a way to open up associations in a poem. Even if it’s just for myself, homonyms are one way of accessing the subconscious, and can send the poem in a direction I hadn’t anticipated. Farsi is also a sonically beautiful language and I’d like to study it more seriously one day.

The image of humans consuming and carrying plant seeds recurs throughout the book (“Feral Parenteral,” “Field of Mars,” “Germ,” “Knock on Wood”). Poets are a form of pollinator, surely—what traces has nature left on you recently? Where are you taking them?

I love the idea of poet as pollinator! Hmm, I was recently in Cypress Hills Saskatchewan, which is unique for its pine forests and hills in the otherwise flat prairies since it was bypassed by glaciers. I’ve been working on a book that draws inspiration from the natural world, and I wonder if it might make sense to write in a longer form. Most of my poems are fairly short, but I’m curious if extending a piece past my usual one or two pages might offer the space to reflect on the vastness of this kind of geological time.

The art of architecture is a frequent motif in the book. What existing building, garden, or monument do you most identify with?

I was happy to find mention of Primrose—the donkey statue with two broken legs near St Michael’s college in Toronto—in Matthew Walsh’s incredible new book Terrarium. I broke my wrist when I first moved to Toronto and seeing that donkey statue with its two pink casts always filled me with delight. I love the way the statue reappears throughout Matthew’s book, in some of the funniest and devastating poems I’ve read.

Tell us about your upcoming book with Invisible. How was your experience collaborating with other writers on a project of this scope? How does writing fiction differ from writing poetry for you?

Consulting with three other writers on book covers, titles, and other aspects of publishing has been incredibly helpful and I love the intersections between our stories in Dead Writers, which consider the idea of a “bargain” in different ways. I feel like my brain is in some ways naturally suited to writing a poem, where I can play around with sound and language without worrying about plot or character in the same way. A poem is a form where anything can happen, and I think my fiction opened up when I started channelling this poetry energy into my fiction. Lately, I’ve been exploring speculative elements and voice to expand the possibilities of what can happen in a story.

You can read a review of Cassidy McFadzean’s Crying Dress here!

CASSIDY McFADZEAN studied poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and fiction at Brooklyn College. She is the author of two books of poetry: Drolleries (McClelland & Stewart 2019), shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award, and Hacker Packer (M&S 2015), which won two Saskatchewan Book Awards and was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her crown of sonnets, Third State of Being, was published by Gaspereau Press in 2022. She lives in Toronto.

Publisher: House of Anansi Press (April 2, 2024)
Paperback 6″ x 8″ | 112 pages
ISBN: 9781487012588

Zoe Shaw

Website

Zoe Shaw is a writer, editor, and administrator based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal. She is managing editor at carte blanche literary magazine. Her major interests are in gender and sexuality, ecocriticism, and the elegy in British Romantic poetry, which she explored in her master’s thesis at McGill University. @zoestropes on Instagram. Her website is http://zoeshaw.com/