Susan Ioannou

Susan Ioannou is a widely published Canadian poet, fiction writer, and literary essayist.

Poetry and the Brain

Did you know that when certain poems are recited aloud, they can induce chills in the listener? The Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Pedersen Brain Science Institute, explains in a fascinating article: “More Than Words: Why Poetry is Good for Our Health”. It’s not simply the

A Deeper Look

In an earlier Poetry Note titled “Staying Open”, I wrote: “Every day we pass by so much, unobserving.… To see fully what is around us, we need only to slow down. The poet is more than a sensitive feeler of private emotion. The poet is also an observer of the

Stanza Breaks

Regardless of whether a poem describes, tells a story, contrasts, puzzles, or poses questions, it can be made more inviting by stanza breaks. After all, a solid block of print, like a dense thicket, looks hard to squeeze through. Where prose would start a new paragraph to signal a major

Looking Back

Confessions of a Little-Magazine Editor Megan’s soft brown eyes stared at the gold and white business card on the restaurant tablecloth. “How glamorous!” “You must know so many fascinating people!” Ruby chimed in. She took a sip of her rum swizzle. Behind steel-rimmed glasses, her expression turned dreamy. “All

Watching for Life

In David Zieroth’s 2022 book Watching for Life (McGill-Queen’s University Press, The Hugh MacLennan poetry series), it is refreshing to read poems that originate from the discipline of a single vantage point. Day after day, the poet gazes down from his apartment balcony into the urban lane below.

Perfection

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:          Its loveliness increases; it will never          Pass into nothingness . . . So begins “Endymion, A Poetic Romance” by 19thcentury poet John Keats. His words came back to me in a dark moment, a reminder of how beauty in nature and in art helped

The Big Why

Every time I pick up a new collection of poetry my expectations are high. I am waiting for the thrill of brilliance. Often I buy the book because one poem in a literary magazine, or lines quoted in a review or promotional blurb particularly impressed or intrigued me. I may

Memorable

For me, a memorable poem reaches far beyond its author’s private experience to touch something in us all. Five decades ago when my parents were downsizing to move into a more compact home, my father invited me to help myself to any of the framed pictures on their walls.

Wordsworth vs Eliot

Recently I came across the interesting article “How Eliot Refutes Wordsworth’s Concept of ‘emotion recollected in Tranquility’” https://www.literary-articles.com/search/?q=wordsworth+eliot Ever since, William Wordsworth’s description of poetic creation has been weighing on my mind. I don’t recall ever having found the initial

Whetting the Appetite

A recent post by Ronna Bloom announcing her new book A Possible Trust drew my eye to the Laurier Poetry Series, since 2005 an imprint of Wilfrid Laurier University Press. The Series is distinctive for its aim to give college and university students and a general readership what LPS General

The Next Step?

Writing poetry may suffer disheartening moments, struggling to focus a line, smooth or perk up rhythm, conjure a crisper image, and on and on. Nonetheless, joy in creating still rises above long hours to get a poem right. Over years writing and revising poem after poem, when the efforts are

Duality

Imagery is based on duality. It is the means by which the particular reaches into the universal, where factual detail takes on the resonance of icons. Imagery sets readers’ feet in two worlds, the everyday and the imagined. In this straddle position, they gain a larger vision, what in Lectures

More on AI and Poetry (2)

In a past Poetry Note “Carmen Starnino” (April 25, 2022), the poet raised the question of how far Artificial Intelligence (AI) could go. Would it one day, even soon, surpass poets’ talents and make human creativity obsolete? In “More on AI and Poetry” (May 2, 2022), technologist David Brayley rebutted:

Relativity

The world was shaken by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. This poet, too, has been unnerved by the discovery of creative relativity: E=MC2 (Excellence = Merit X Criticismmultiplied). For me, the first handwritten draft of a poem always releases a burst of endorphins: that my thoughts and feeling have actually

Book Sales

While today poetry may be valued in song lyrics and as well-executed public performance pieces, why don’t its physical books have wider sales? Is it still a hangover from decades of classroom teaching dating back to my day as a high school student 60 years ago? Too often poetry

Interplay

This week, my copy of Kate Marshall Flaherty’s new book Titch (Piquant Press) arrived, a thought-provoking and enjoyable read indeed. What an intriguing surprise at the bottom of certain poems to find printed a URL to their audio-visual recreations online. Sitting down at the computer, I was glad to

Reality

As I was surfing the Internet, I was struck by the opening line of Ronna Bloom’s poem “Cicadas” in the current issue of Queen’s Quarterly (Vol. 130, No. 2, Summer 2023). “The cicadas opened a place in the sky and I fell through.” How wonderful when a poem

Line Breaks–Again

This week I delighted in watching Marvyne Jenoff’s new video created for The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, http://artsandlettersclub.ca/videos/ or http://www.marvynejenoff.org. I have long been a fan of Marvyne’s work, both visual and poetic. The video presented not simply her reciting

Staying Open

Most writers have likely enjoyed the sensation of peacefully drifting toward sleep, when slowly a poem begins to form. Some grab the bedside pencil and paper, and still in the dark, jot down the lines as they come. Others don’t bother rolling over or switching on the light, but

Whose Voice?

A while ago, I stumbled across a web page, the location of which I regret not noting, where I had the option of listening to a bot read aloud from one of my published books. How unsettling it was to hear several lines presented by a machine. There was even

In Gratitude

Inspiration comes in many forms. Merla and I met 47 years ago in a watercolour painting class. An avid traveller, twice a year with her husband Lynn she loved exploring beautiful cultural sites throughout the U.K. and Europe. Whenever she returned from abroad, we would meet for lunch. Sharing

Image Spokes

K.V. Skene When asked whether one of his books had been written to make a statement or to have a certain theme, Al Purdy replied, “You just write poems and collect them.”1 I suspect that is the way many poetry books originate. The poems’ sequence and their grouping

Whence a Poem (2)

After trapping a first draft in my computer, the rest, for me, is repeated, long, and even frustrating rewriting—or should I say “dewriting”: rewriting to determine what I really want to say. I think of Irving Layton’s words: “The poet is searching in the ashes of his past

Whence a Poem (1)

As a writer, I am fascinated by a process that defies logic. Where do the poems come from? How do the lines take actual shape on the page? The answers startle. Some explanations derive from my own experience of the Muse, some from reading how other Canadian poets have created.

Closure

All poems have closure, if only by virtue of stopping. Sometimes, even just simply running out of words conveys a secondary meaning of the term. The Collins English Dictionary describes it thus: “If someone achieves closure, they succeed in accepting something bad that has happened to them.” That can be