Interview with Joanna Cleary
Joanna Cleary
Joanna Cleary (she/her) is an emerging queer artist and recent graduate of the University of Waterloo. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in The /tƐmz/ Review, The Hunger, Gordon Square Review, Always Crashing, Apricity Press, Digging Through The Fat, Typehouse Magazine, The Gravity of the Thing, and Funicular, among others. Follow her on Instagram at @joannacleary121.
Manahil: This is Canthius’s tenth issue, and the first for which we have a guest editor, Sanna Wani. Whether you’ve been a long-time reader of Canthius or are just getting introduced us, how did you come to decide what pieces you wanted to share with the magazine?
Joanna: What I love about Canthius is that the magazine creates a space for writers of marginalized gender identities to express themselves in ways both relating to their gender and to other aspects of identity. For me, my relationship to writing relates both to my identity as a queer woman—as I often write about that—and other topics that often but don’t always necessarily relate to gender or sexuality.
As a queer woman, I occasionally find it difficult to feel completely free when writing about these latter topics, such as love, relationships, and writing, because I don’t always feel like I have the social agency to choose to distinguish my identity as a queer woman writer from my identity simply as a writer. This is frustrating because I usually want to create work that can be seen both through the lens of sexuality/gender and the lens of the broader human experience. For example, in my opinion, “August” is not necessarily a “queer” poem, but it’s not not a queer poem. I intuitively felt as though Canthius would understand this, which is why I’m thrilled and honoured to have found a home for my poem in your tenth issue.
Manahil: I find writing often emerges from a conversation. What conversation is happening in your work?
Joanna: “August” is a particularly metacognitive poem, as it’s largely a reflection on my relationship with writing. In that sense, it’s a conversation with myself about how I struggle to understand why I find myself drawn to the subjects and memories that end up in my poems—one perhaps also including a realization that not everything has to be understood.
Manahil: In your poem, “August,” a cut on the thumb is an anchor point for writing. How do we know what these anchor points are, or do they simply reveal themselves to us over time?
Joanna: One of the most beautiful aspects of art is that one usually doesn’t know what parts of it are going to stay with them in the long-term. Often, I’ll read a poem or see a play that I may or may not find immediately meaningful, but then weeks or months later I’ll suddenly be reminded of it and understand how that work has intertwined with my life without me even knowing. Likewise, I hardly ever have an experience at the level of day-to-day mundanity and know immediately that I’m going to write about it—and then suddenly that experience will be all I want to write about.
In the case of “August,” I accidentally cut my finger while peeling potatoes. I felt embarrassed more so than hurt (as I had just been warned to be careful with the potato peeler), which unexpectedly brought back a vivid childhood memory of accidentally cutting my thumb trying to clean my razor while shaving my legs for the first time. I had almost forgotten about that memory and was surprised I remembered it so well—almost better than what you’d think would be more significant moments in my life—and thus the idea for a poem was born.
Manahil: What is something you’re working on that you’d like to share!
Joanna: I’m currently in the process of writing a play called The Happy Family. It’s set in the afterlife—which takes the form of a type of purgatory—and explores mortality (obviously), grief, and regret, but also hope and forgiveness. The project will be produced as part of the 2023 season for WOOMcollaborative (woomcollaborative.com), a small theatre collaborative of which I’m a co-founder.
Manahil: In closing, what is a poem, story, painting, chapbook, or book you would like to recommend others read?
Joanna: If anyone, like me, is interested in reading more about the relationship between writing and other aspects of identity, I recommend reading “Blank Sonnet” by George Elliott Clarke. This poem is such a unique exploration of writing, race, and history that challenges and subverts the sonnet as a poetic form reserved for upper class white men. I read it in a second-year university course and the poem has remained with me ever since.