Biography
Puneet Dutt is a Poetry Editor at The Fiddlehead. Her debut collection of poetry, The Better Monsters (Mansfield Press), was a Finalist for the 2018 Trillium Book Award For Poetry and was Shortlisted for the 2018 Raymond Souster Award and was named one of “Ontario’s Best Books” by NOW Magazine. Her chapbook, PTSD south beach (Grey Borders Books), was a Finalist for the Breitling Chapbook Prize. She holds a MA in English from Toronto Metropolitan University, and is a founding member and editorial board director at Canthius. Her most recent chapbook manuscript was Longlisted for the 2020 Frontier Digital Chapbook Contest, selected by Carl Phillips. Dutt was born in New Delhi, raised in Jersey City, NJ and now resides in Markham, Canada with her partner and two kids. She is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada.
Micro-interview
Yes. “The Cinnamon Peeler” by Michael Ondaatje. What was striking about this poem was the power of utilizing all five senses to really read and know it. It draws not only your eyes to the delicious language, but taste, touch, scent, and sound are heightened as well. It changed the way I thought of and read poetry as a teenager. It was like a complete film in a mini form, so compact with a beginning middle and end. And of course, it shows how sex and love can be written about without being crass or sappy, but with an elegance, and realness.
I always scribbled poetry, ever since I can remember. It wasn’t until 2013 that I started thinking about sending work in to be published and build towards a larger body of work for a manuscript. I started thinking of myself as a poet after my first poem publication.
I think the job of a poet is a micro-perspective on the minute often overlooked slivers and instances of a lived experience through language and form we don’t necessarily use on a daily basis for utility. It’s a special role of non-utilitarian communication to reveal what has slipped through our fingers and notice.
Aisha Sasha John’s “Regardless” reads like an anthem or song, so relatable to so many of us. It's something that can be and should be memorized, but is equally wonderful to be shared aloud as she is a performance poet. It has a wonderful lesson in it as well, that despite all of our flaws, and any mistakes or circumstances, we all are struggling to live and survive, and that is ultimately real life. It's so gritty and real, and hides nothing. It's a new voice in Canada, and makes the reader think outside-of-the-box from their ideas of what they think 'poetry' is. And the tonal repetition of “If” is so powerful as well, the refrain is like a fight and defence in itself.