Biography
Susan Glickman grew up in Montreal and though she lives in Toronto now, she has published all eight of her poetry titles with Signal Editions of Véhicule Press, in that city. Her most recent book with Véhicule is Cathedral/Grove (2023). http://www.vehiculepress.com/q.php?EAN=9781550656350
She was lucky enough to have Denise Levertov as her mentor when first starting out as a poet, and then to form strong friendships with Canadian poets Roo Borson, Carolyn Smart, Bronwen Wallace, Mary di Michele, and Rhea Tregebov, as well as British poet Helen Dunmore. For many years she taught creative writing in the English Department of the University of Toronto and later, in that university’s continuing education program as well as at the Chang School of Continuing Education at Toronto Metropolitan University. In addition to poetry, she has published four novels for adults, three novels for children, a selection of essays and a work of literary history.
Micro-interview
I discovered Leonard Cohen when I was in Grade 10; he was the first poet I'd ever heard about who lived in Canada - in fact, in Montreal just like me. I wrote an essay about his poem "A Kite Is a Victim" because I loved it so much.
I started writing poetry as soon as I learned to write! Before then, I went around making up little rhymes and singing them. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned that poems didn't have to rhyme, which gave me a lot more flexibility. I only started to think of myself as a real poet when I took a creative writing class with Denise Levertov; that she admitted me into her seminar and liked my work encouraged me to continue in a serious way.
A poet's job is to pay attention to the world and to try to recreate their experience of it for other people. At the same time, a poet's job is to honour the material they work with -- in my case, the English Language -- and try to explore all its wonderful possibilities.
I wrote an ABC of animals for children and B was for Bat! I love bats and think they are unfairly feared so I wanted to give one a little quiet song that would make other people love them as well.