5 Questions with Thuy On
Thuy On is a freelance arts/literary journalist and critic who has written for a range of publications including The Age/SMH, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, Books + Publishing and ArtsHub. She's also the Books editor of The Big Issue.
Turbulence, her first collection of poetry, is out now by UWAP.
(Photograph: Leah Jing)
No.1
How did Turbulence first come about? Under what circumstances was it conceived?
I never set out to write a book, and a poetry collection at that. Turbulence came about accidentally, organically. It’s a great cliché that creativity comes from pain but it’s certainly true in my case. The book was inspired by two events: the breakdown of my long-term marriage and shortly after, a short-term rebound fling I had with a man who was abysmally unsuited to me, but who nonetheless became my muse for a spell. He wasn’t the love of my life obviously, but after what we had dissipated, I still continued to write poetry—he was the spark that reignited my long dormant poetic interest. I had written poetry years ago, never seriously, but the desire was there, albeit buried. I’d never thought it would surface again.
I continued to write and after a few months realised I had over 100 poems, and thereby enough material for a book. It was only then that I started the process of trying to find a publisher for it because I thought, “Hey, you’ve gone this far, may as well try and see it to publication.”
Turbulence is divided in four parts: ‘Wreckage’ deals with the aftermath of separation, ‘Chimera’ with the trajectory of the affair I had not long after, while ‘Fish’ is about online dating and ‘Turbulence’ is about the general upheavals of life.
No.2
You’re also a critic. I find that the two forms—poetry and criticism—can be similarly exacting yet vastly different in the sense that they can employ contrasting emotions; objectivity pitching against unbridledness, for example. Did you find yourself wearing your “critic’s hat” at all when you wrote Turbulence? Or did you have to compartmentalise it?
In some senses I find that criticism and poetry are allied artforms; both require attention to detail, both work within limited word counts, space restraints and minimalism and yet I find poetry offers me the freedom that criticism does not. I have spent 20 odd years writing about other peoples’ books and I have had to be as objective as possible, often writing across genres that I personally had no interest in as a reader but still having to judge whether that piece of writing was a good example of its kind.
However, poetry is mine, and mine alone. Many aspects of Turbulence have unabashedly been taken from my own life: it’s confessional but truth has been embroidered by art. I cast aside notions of a “critic’s hat” during the writing of it: it was more an outpouring of emotion. The cool, critical gaze came later, during the preliminary and final stages of editing when I was looking back and pruning, replacing or moving words around.
It wasn’t so much compartmentalising both forms: I find that they both move easily between each other. There’s a porous wall that encourages osmosis. I’m a better critic because I am a poet and vice versa.
At any rate, criticism and poetry both demand rigour and discipline. You don’t have the length of a novel to play with so you have to be sure that every word is pulling its weight: no extraneous indulgences.
No.3
Tell us a bit about your process. How do you know when there is a poem to be made? And when do you decide that a poem is finished?
I am inspired by people mostly but sometimes events. And I am like a bower bird in that I collect certain shiny words or phrases in my head, or if I happen to have my notebook nearby, scribble it in there. There’s not much dithering. I write quickly because I feel the need to write the poem. I do not agonise over single words or their placements on the page because the most important thing is to tie down those wafting ideas before they float away.
There is an innate sense of satisfaction when I re-read what I’ve written and feel that I can’t add or detract any more. It’s fine as it is. That’s when I know it’s finished. Sometimes there is a niggling sense about one that it’s not quite right or incomplete. I’ll leave that poem for a day or two and come back to see if I can fix it, for closure.
No.4
In our longform interview with you in 2018, you wrote, “I… write poems to try and relieve whatever ails me.” A lot of the poems in Turbulence are cut through with a deep sense of sorrow, in that they deal with themes around heartbreak, grief, loss. I imagine going to dark places in your writing can be difficult as well as healing. What do you do to take care of yourself when you have to tap into these moods?
In that earlier interview I think I also mentioned cupcakes and that hasn’t changed! I still have a weekly cupcake to buoy my spirits and I ride a pushbike around the block daily, for half an hour. It helps to clear the head. But for the most part I’m lucky to have lovely supportive friends—whenever the world gets too much I vent to them and they help me endure whatever mini-crises I am going through.
No.5
What’s something you wish someone had told you when you first started writing?
Hmm this is a hard one. Sometimes it’s better off not knowing. Honestly, if non-writers knew the mountains of rejection notes, the iron will required to prevail regardless and the miserly remuneration from wordplay, I think they will blanch and stick to their safe, non-creative jobs. And yet. And yet. Writing can be addictive and exciting and so satisfying. And when you write something that’s published? It’s the best feeling in the world.
Find out more
Buy a copy of Turbulence direct from UWA Publishing or from all good independent bookstores. Don’t know which ones will deliver to you? Check out this very good bookshop map by Alan Vaarwerk.