Biography
Dorothy Mahoney is the author of several poetry collections including, Off-Leash (Palimpsest Press, 2016) and The Inevitable (Red Moon Press, 2022). Her poetry has been included in numerous anthologies, most recently Heartwood, poems for the love of trees (The League of Canadian Poets, 2018). Her haibun, “M PATHY”, won an Honourable Mention in the Genjuan International Haibun Contest in Japan, 2017. She is particularly intrigued by compressed forms and admires the prose poems of Tom Hennen and Robert Bly. She was able to attend workshops given by Patrick Lane, an inspirational source. A retired English and Creative Writing high school teacher, she has given workshops to teachers and writers at all levels. A volunteer with Hospice in Windsor, she has helped people write life stories. She often spends time on Manitoulin Island with her family and an Old English Sheepdog.
Micro-interview
I feel very fortunate that I had a very passionate high school English teacher, Ms. Fluelling. She taught a unit on Canadian poetry and introduced us to the works of Al Purdy, Earle Birney, Irving Layton and many others. She also brought in a young poet, Mary Di Michele who read her work and encouraged us to read and write poetry. She won the CBC Poetry Prize in 1980. I went to the library and heard her read. It was my first poetry reading. Later, I would go to readings by Layton and Purdy. It was an exciting time. I remember liking a Margaret Atwood poem, "This is a photograph of me" because it was such an unusual idea that the photograph of the lake was taken after she drowned. At that time, Atwood was known as a young poet; she hadn't written any novels yet.
I can't stress the impact of teachers. In grade school we had a remarkable teacher who would read poetry every Friday afternoon. Our favourites were Robert Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and "The Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail." He was a very animated reader and brought these poems to life. When the principal died suddenly of a heart attack, the students wrote memorial poems. I was selected to read mine at the tree-planting ceremony. That is when I first felt like a poet. I was in Grade 5. Reading in front of the whole school, as well as invited guests, was quite an honour.
Hopefully writing poetry never feels like a 'job.' Poets should write because it is a part of who they are. As such, they should challenge themselves to sharpen their skills, to learn from others and to be part of a poetry community, mentoring others, and attending and giving readings.
Joy Kogawa's "Where There's a Wall" is a powerful poem for me. The first two lines want to read, 'where there's a will, there's a way' which is essentially what she proves through a list of examples both violent and peaceful, from bombs and torture, to prayers and poems. There are no obstacles that cannot be overcome. There is a dream-like voice that 'calls from the belly of the wall' itself. She uses assonance and consonance in a sequence of words: 'perhaps, sentinel, sometimes sleeps, secret passwords,' to increase the whispering nature of this voice. The poem leans on a poem by Robert Frost, "Mending Wall" and 'Something there is that doesn't love a wall...' and that it is not always true that 'good fences make good neighbours.' There are many historic walls like the Berlin Wall and Trump's wall, that echo in the examples. 'Where there's a wall / there's a way through a / gate or door. There's even / a ladder...' provides hope for all that imprisons a reader. This is a poem of hope, with the added irony that she has followed her own advice and written a poem, even.