Tearing Down the West
STUART ROSS INTERVIEWS ALI RILEY
Ali Riley’s first book, Wayward (Frontenac House, 2003), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She has been a playwright, an actor and the singer/songwriter of the psycho-country band Sacred Heart of Elvis. Ali was the semi-official poet of Carolyn Mark’s Hootenanny West Tour in October 2005 and her work has appeared in Event, Geist and the Moosehead Review. Her second book of poems, Tear Down, will be published by Frontenac House this spring. She lives on a farm near Vulcan, Alberta. This Magazine fiction & poetry editor Stuart Ross confronted her with a few questions.
In the ’80s, you led a band—how did it feel to be a poet on the Hootenanny West Tour, amid musicians you knew?
I had forgotten what it was like to be with musicians. They’re so unlike poets. They might bitch about immediate things—sound problems, no beer left—but would never question the validity of what they are doing. A guitar player wouldn’t say, “Well, maybe music is just irrelevant now,” and look sadly into the distance.
I love Carolyn Mark—she’s the best-read woman in Canadian music. She knows her stuff—she always tries to bring different elements together. For instance, on the Hootenanny, there was the “Mötley Moment”—nightly readings from the Mötley Crüe bio. They got me to do it in Calgary and never asked again. If memory serves, my onstage comment was, “These guys are such a bunch of fucking pigs!” It felt natural to me to perform poetry for people who were predominantly a music audience—they were very receptive. As time went on, I jammed with Hank Pine and Lily Fawn, who have a spooky, quirky vibe that was really fun to read with. Every night I had a front-row seat for the opening number, and saw a bunch of tired, crabby folks transform into pure magic.
Is poetry your final destination? Will you return to music, or theatre, or explore another art?
I want to combine all three into some kind of performance extravaganza. There’s a noise collective in Vancouver called In Flux that wants to collaborate. I miss screaming really loud.
Do you strive to create a personal mythology in your poetry?
Well, I’m from the West, so I guess I can’t help but mythologize everything. I’m sure it seeps its way into the poetry. The stories I grew up with were about epic people and events, lots of Triumph in the Face of Hardship. Then there was the punk-rock scene—everyone had aliases, told extravagant lies and indulged in every type of drama-queen behaviour possible. It was all about myth. Some might say the prairie punk scene was a myth, but I was there. I saw it.
How will Tear Down differ from Wayward?
Both books have an underlying theme of searching for tribe, for community. Wayward confronts the world with armour and anger, but Tear Down tries to love the world while the whole shebang is falling apart.
Is there really a Vulcan, Alberta?
Oh yes. I hear Counsellor Troi is returning this year for Spock Days.
