Michael V. Smith is a deeply loving, insightful poet and performer – who uses intimacy and humour as tools to explore pain. In this interview, Linda chats with him about power dynamics and bullying, as they address his poetry collection, Queers Like Me (published by Book*hug in 2023)

Here are some of the subjects we covered:  

• on the nature of creative writing and genre (6.15)
• poetic technique, poetic devices, and poetic voice (verbatim poems: 6.45, 8.00, 42.43)
• Facebook poem and writing about his father (9.35, 10.48, 27.50, 32.20)
• depictions of masculinity  (21.40 mistake with bike/book; 12.05, 21.25)
• The Floating Man (13.03, 27.10)
• Agnes Varda (12.12)
• Eloise Marseille (4.18)
• working across genres (16.25)
• Michael reads from “Grandma Cooper’s Corpse” (20.25)
• humour and contrast (22.42, 24.25)
• poetry and knowledge - the function of poetry (37.00)
• his chapbook (23.45)
• dynamics of power and bullying (32, 32.40, 33.40)
• the importance of nuance (34.50)
• gay marriage (36.08)
• Bronwen Wallace (38.30)
• Lorna Crozier (39.20)
• His memoir, My Body is Yours (40.38, published by Arsenal Pulp Press)
• radical inclusion (46.54)

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