I’ve been meaning to ask you is an interview series where Kathryn Mockler invites people to answer questions on being human
I’ve been meaning to ask Amanda Earl
Kathryn Mockler: What is your first memory of existing?
Amanda Earl: In my crib in my family’s apartment in Rexdale, Ontario. We came to Canada when I was 2 1/2. I was crying and I stood up. My mother came in and told me to stop crying. It was terrifying. She seemed so angry and I couldn’t stop.
KM: What is your first memory of being creative?
AE: We had a big goldfish bowl full of buttons. I was allowed to take them out and spread them all over the carpet as long as I picked them up. I sorted them by colour and eye size: one eye, two eye etc. These were families. I invented stories about them. I did the same thing with Legos and Red Rose Tea figurines. It was before I started going to school, so I might have been three or four?
KM: What is the best or worst dream you ever had?
AE: While in ICU during my near-death health crisis in 2009, I had ICU psychosis, which caused delusions. The meds I was on to stop me from breathing over the intubation tube took away my short term memory. All the hospital staff were in my delusions/nightmares. My husband, in the delusion, explained that I had to take the tube as some kind of kinky D/s sex ritual. The nurse who gave me my anti-blood clot medication was a crack addict. The porter who took me to my room on the 7th floor of the Ottawa General was out to get me. I was tied to a desk with fishnet stockings that cut into my body and left in front of an empty triage desk in ER. The x-ray technicians in the basement were rough with me and forced me to stand, even though I wasn’t able. These delusions felt like one long awful reality at the time. To this day, I’m not sure whether some of them were real or not.
KM: Can you recount a time (that you’re willing to share) when you were embarrassed?
AE: I was in a contest to sing at the Lion’s Club when I was 8. All us little girls were singing the same song. Something about a milk maid and pretty spring. When it was my turn, I had heard the song so many times, I forgot it. I said, “darn, I forgot the words.” The audience thought I said “damn.” I blushed. My nemesis Christina L. won the singing contest and received a big gold trophy on a sky blue stand that was beautiful. I was jealous and angry. People mocked me after. It was a small town.
KM: What advice would you give to your younger self? Your younger self could be you at any age.
AE: I would tell my 18-year-old self not to go to university. To learn a type of work that would pay for food and shelter, but won’t tax the brain. To save my brain for creative work. To leave home and wander the world. To find my people. To care little about career and more about finding kindreds. To make art and not be shy about sharing it.
KM: Your thoughts on ghosts. Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not?
AE: I am a ghost. I’ve written about this in Beast Body Epic, my collection of long poems provoked by my near-death health crisis, and a later work, a chapbook recently published by above/ground press: Socially Awkward Ghost. I feel as if I abandoned the woman on the ICU bed and she is still there. I am sometimes not certain that this time I’m experiencing is real. Perhaps this is the delusion and I am still on that ICU bed. It’s’s a ghostly feeling.
I also sometimes feel the presence of dead loved ones. Ghosts, whether myself or the dead, are manifestations of grief.
KM: Who would you like to send your love to and why?
AE: I send my love to kindred misfits; especially LGBTQ folk, and anyone experiencing harm and hate for who they are.
Amanda Earl’s Recommendations
Podcast: David Naimon’s Between the Covers, now on the Milkweed Editions site for those who wish entertaining, thoughtful rabbit hole conversations about craft and society. David is the most engaging and engaged literary podcast host I’ve encountered and I often learn about books and authors through his podcast.
Film: Les glaneurs et la glaneuses (The Gleaners and I) directed by Agnes Varda is one of the driving forces of my creative work. She expanded the idea of the hungry taking leftover crops from the harvest in Medieval France to artists who use garbage in their work, to her gleanings of people in her documentaries and of herself. It’s a brilliant and delightful film.
KM: What are you working on now?
AE: I’m currently writing a series of poems about winter, anxiety, desire. I received funding from the City of Ottawa to do so and it’s perfect timing! I’ve just started an open mic through the literary magazine I run, Bywords.ca. I’m doing a collaborative project with my husband, Charles that involves making custom one-off artists’ books / objects for clients. It’s called Creatively Yours and it’s great fun!
Amanda Earl (she/her) writes, edits, publishes and reviews on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Peoples. Earl is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the editor of Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry. Instagram: @earl_amanda
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