by Dan Lalande
In her poem Life Skills (3): Maximal density packing, Suzanne Nussey equates stacking a dishwasher with a Grade Five math problem: “How many unit cubes fit a solid square?” she asks. She follows this up with a dash of destiny: “Will spend her later life writing verse and placing everything she lost into small spaces.
“Placing everything she lost into small spaces” is a perfect description of Nussey’s approach to poetry. In her first collection, Slow Walk Home, the demure Baby Boomer with the cornflower-blue eyes manages to encompass so many of the goodbyes experienced by her generation into its compact 70 pages. To wit: losing one’s parents, health scares, becoming an empty nester, and aging. Her major themes—family, spirituality, and most of all, transmogrification—dance through the collection like “ranks of rebel angels,” to borrow a phrase from the introductory What came of picking flowers.
In another poem, Metamorphosis, Nussey writes, “We all turn into something else.” Throughout her own life, Nussey has turned into an Ottawan from a New Yorker, from unhappily married to happily married, from cancer patient to survivor. Her most public transformation, however, has been from lit mag contributor to book author. Though she has been honing her craft since her days as a creative writing student at Syracuse University and her tutelage under Toronto-based poet Dennis Lee, Slow Walk Home is, incredibly, Nussey’s first published collection.
FIVE QUESTIONS WITH POET SUZANNE NUSSEY
- Congratulations on having your first collection published! As a writer of a certain age, what does this achievement represent both personally and symbolically?
I was relieved to finally bring a collection of my poetry together before health issues might make it impossible. Finally having a physical copy of my work in the hands of friends and family, as well as readers I will never meet, has been incredibly gratifying. To me, writing is a service to the community. But delivering that service is almost impossible without publishers who first see the importance of it.
- Your work’s been published in major quarterlies and anthologies for a long time now. Why did it take so long for a collection?
In addition to raising a child, the sort of work I’ve done to earn a living did not allow for the time and space I needed to focus on writing. The fact that I’m not a prolific writer probably also factors into the long gestation period.
- The collection is comprised of chronological episodes from your own life’s journey, many of which you share with other members of your generation. What do you want readers to take away from your perspective on these shared experiences?
When we’re telling ourselves our own stories, we often don’t take into consideration what was happening on the world stage, or even in our neighbourhoods, that might have shaped us and the environments we lived in. My poems often refer to such events (the Cold War) or cultural influences (fairy tales, pasta in cans, feminism’s Second Wave). I hope they help my readers to consider their own.
- The collection has a lot of goodbyes in it yet it’s not doleful. In the final poem, Last request, you cite your preacher father’s final words: Don’t be afraid. Is this your ultimate message to your readership?
Letting go and leave-taking are certainly themes in the book. It’s a tricky balance to write about these without despair, to capture the anguish of such moments, but also to look for the gifts in them. Last request strikes the balance, I hope. It compares the finality of leaving home forever to the finality of death. It also compares two pieces of fatherly “advice.” The last line of the poem was a gift that I hadn’t anticipated. I started this poem ten years ago and could never figure out where it landed until I looked back at the notes my father wrote while he was intubated. And there it was! I offer that gift to my readers.
- Last, what’s Suzanne Nussey’s next professional and/or personal milestone?
I’ve been so focused on getting this book out into the world, I haven’t had much bandwidth to think about another project. I’d like to read more about 14th-century medieval women mystics and see what comes of that. I’d also like to play the harp! Stay tuned (no pun intended)!
Slow Walk Home by Suzanne Nussey is available in Ottawa at Perfect Books, Books on Beechwood, Singing Pebble and The Spaniel’s Tale.
