Susan Ioannou

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

On Humility

Creative Nonfiction Even poets can lose perspective. On a small dais at the back of the restaurant, the host for the poetry reading adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses against the glare of the spotlight and raises his note of introduction. As the room lights dim, the patrons settle. A wooden chair

Ekphrasis

The Challenge To translate a painting into a poem—the visual into the verbal—usually begins with assembling a description of the canvas’ various parts. But if it ends there, touching only the surface, the poem feels flat, even mechanical. To my mind, the poet has a greater responsibility: to

Liftoff

As soon as my toddler grandson was able to walk steadily, he loved watching the washing machine cycle. As it sloshed suds from side to side, he would swing his hips in rhythm. A steady beat can set most small children dancing, a visceral appeal that extends up the years

Memorization

When I was in high school more than 60 years ago, memorization was part of our English Literature course. We might be assigned a soliloquy or sonnet from Shakespeare or a traditional British poem we studied in class. Not only had we to learn it by heart, but also to

Guest Note

Marvyne Jenoff ~ On Poetry Decades ago I was asked for my definition of poetry. What I came up with, and I stand by it to this day, is that poetry consists of music and implication. “Music” because the sounds are very important to me: rhythm, assonance, even how the words

Commerce

How often have we been tempted by insufficient recognition, family pressures, or sheer economic desperation to throw in the literary towel and try to write for cash? “I’ll copy the latest bestseller, or crank out a Harlequin Romance, or whip up a hundred and fifty pages of bleak adolescent

Art

As Erica Jong once said in an interview with Karen Burke, “You must view yourself as a perpetual beginner, someone still searching for your own kind of truth... You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before.” No doubt experimental

Never Alone

As writers we appear to create apart, by ourselves. Yet we are never alone. Our body of work is like one ongoing Poem. That Poem may be our pet, or long-term lover, or even spouse, depending on how passionate or uncomfortable we feel at a given moment. That Poem is

A Thrill

In recent years, I have enjoyed reading the online poetry journal Juniper. I recommend it to all who delight in fine writing. Founded in Toronto in 2017 by Lisa Young and published every February, June, and October, it “seeks poems that bring the reader back to themselves and leave them

Discovering Form (3)

Beyond Amorphous Previously, I used the word “amorphous” to describe my first drafts. Free verse does not pour words into a metre-and-rhyme mould, and lacks a measurable pattern. However, it does achieve form in the other ways it handles line: for example, by choosing to enjamb or end-stop; by grouping

Discovering Form (2)

Four-Line Stanzas and Pairs In contrast to free verse and triads, for me, a four-line stanza is very different: square-cornered, balanced, confident. Especially if written in metre and end rhyme, each four-line unit feels solid, complete in itself, a kind of concrete building block. Each helps move the poem along

Discovering Form (1)

Why Triads? What is it about a defined, rather than organic, shape that attracts? In terms of the number of lines,  triads aren’t new. A Handbook to Literature1 describes how 17th century poet Robert Herrick composed in tercets (three lines, all with the same end rhyme). In the same

A Little More Gauze

(Silly Stuff) Of course, nothing compares with the pleasures of writing when it is going well: light verse skating ephemeral arabesques onto solid white, or the ever-stirring subterranean pool of more serious poems in flow. But some days are definitely not a pleasure. After six hours wrestling to get out

2022 Posts

A List Arranged in Chronological Order To find a particular post, use the Search function along the top of the web page. About: Welcome to Poetry Notes. How this blog began. Review Excerpt: Line and Detail, Heidi Greco, Practical Anxiety (Inanna Publications, 2018) Review: M. Travis Lane, The Witch of

New URL

As of February 1, 2023, the new URL for my personal website Meet Susan Ioannou will have become https://www.susanio.ca/sumeet.html

Endorphins and Poetry

In poetry workshops, I’ve often found myself commenting, “Writing keeps me sane.” According to the Cleveland Clinic, being in a creative state of mind releases endorphins, the “feel-good” chemicals that “attach to your brain’s reward centers (opioid receptors) and carry signals across your nervous system”. They “help relieve

Hello Again

With apologies for a long absence owing to illness, Poetry Notes is back with more, occasional thoughts on the art.

Poet’s Progress: Or Not?

Recently, I read an analysis of another’s poetic development. How much did my own writing change, I wondered, over past decades? When a youthful lyric “I” felt too narrow after the birth of two children, my focus did broaden to simple domestic narratives about family, friends, and neighbourhood. By

Writing on the Edge

Trying to find a balance between the autobiographically personal and deeper reader value, between the immediate concrete detail and the philosophical inference.

The Integrity of the Line

In free verse, ideally each line feels like a rung in an asymmetrical ladder, moving from there to here. It is integral to the structure, not merely a casual spillover from a sentence above. Even if not grammatically self-contained, nor end-stopped, each line is essential to advance an idea, image,

Poetry and Time

Until the 19th century, given society’s agrarian base, there was a sense of certain natural rhythms in life. This sense disintegrated with the industrialization of society and World Wars I and II. Was Imagism, with its precise concreteness, an attempt to simplify and get hold of a disintegrating world?

Know Your Critics

If only because our poets travel in spirit as well as body, there is no approved “Canadian Style”. With arts travel grants, Writer‑in‑Residence programs, conferences, plain wanderlust, and now the Internet, we crisscross the nation. Reading each other’s books, literary journals, and e-zines published coast to coast,

Cooking with Poetry

If nouns and verbs have been likened to the meat and potatoes of poetry, why not pronouns to pasta? Adjectives to sauces. Adverbs to garnish, like parsley. Articles (indefinite) to herbs, and (definite) to salt and pepper. Prepositions to water. Conjunctions to wine. The challenge is in the selection, proportion,

Frog's Progress: A Fable

Once upon a time, in the middle of a secluded pond, a little green frog squatted on his favourite lily pad. The sun glowed warm on his back, and he felt content. “This is the life,” he thought, and began to kerchunk a tune, as he often did on such

Symbol

In extended metaphor, both aspects of a single comparison are developed side by side on the same surface. In symbolism, it’s as if the two pictures are individually complete but separate, one (translucent) layered on top of the other. The top layer makes sense when read literally, yet at