Salem Paige (they/them)
is a transgender poet and designer based on Algonquin Anishinaabe territory
(so-called Ottawa, Ontario). Their works revolve around the exploration of
identity and discomfort through narrative universes where Nature and technology
intertwine, and can be found in their collection of poetry, The Third Self
(2023, Sunday Mornings at the River Press) and their chapbook to grow roots
(2023, bottlecap press), as well as in Solarpunk literary magazine, Beyond
Words magazine, STREETCAKE magazine, Ariel Chart Literary Journal,
BiPan magazine, and many others. They have previously been nominated for
Best of the Net, shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize, and longlisted for
the ROOM Poetry Prize.
Salem Paige reads in Ottawa on Thursday, March 27 as part of VERSeFest 2025.
Jen Jakob: There is so much good to
say about The Third Self relating to
the creative process. Something I love about it is that it is a product of the
creative process, breaking its own fourth wall in a sense. What’s more, you
dedicated the collection to someone who said you would never be published, and
you have more than surpassed that accomplishment. I suppose I want to start at
the end by asking, how did you arrive at the end of The Third Self? At what point did you say, “okay, I’m satisfied
with this project, time to publish”? When is a creative project “complete” to
you?
Salem
Paige:
I've talked about this before with the third self and my approach to
collections in general. I don't tend to have a collection idea and then write a
bunch of poems for it; I tend to write poems throughout my life and then
eventually find through lines with those existing poems and make a collection
from that. So it was more that I realized I had all of these poems about
writing and about being creative and about being stuck as a creative, and that
I could bring them all together into a collection..
And
then once I had brought together all the poems that I had, it was a matter of
going through them and picking out what works; what fits with this idea that I
have for what the collection could be. And then cutting out what doesn’t work
with the “story” I was trying to tell. I did wind up writing a few to kind of
fill some of the “narrative gaps” that were there. And once I felt that it was
complete, that it flowed and was no jump from one poem to another, that they
that they all connected to the last connected to the next, did I consider it
finished. Not to say that the collection is narrative, but I think there is
kind of a bit of a story to it of the excitement—the wanting and needing—then
the drop down into the doubt, and the coming back to excitement that is so
essential to being creative.
So,
I think it was complete once it was telling the story that I wanted it to tell.
All the way through. Does that make sense?
JJ: Absolutely. I think it's
cool to hear that you were writing these poems before you had the finished
product in mind. Where were these poems coming from? Were you writing them out
of frustration or like, was it just like a notes-app-ranting?
SP: Definitely out of
frustration. I, for some reason, am so averse to notes app poetry, because I
just don't feel like it comes out of me the right way when it's on my phone. I
either write by hand or type on a computer.
Yeah,
these poems definitely came out of frustration. You know when you sit down and
you're like, “I'm going to write; I want to
write. I'm in the mood to write. I
have my candle lit and my coffee,” and then you sit down and there's nothing.
And I think [The Third Self] came out
of feeling the call to write and not being able to. It was kind of the root of
a lot of these poems, or, you know, some of them. And seeing other people who
are writing and feeling, “oh, why am I not doing that?”
So,
I think a lot of it came from— I don't want to say “bad emotions,” —but taking
these emotions that could have been negative and writing something with them.
Instead of letting them stop me from writing.
JJ: The book’s titular
inspiration comes from Mary Oliver’s essay “Of Power and Time” and her concept
of “the third self,” which you define in the foreword as “a vessel through
which we can inhabit another level of consciousness, the state in which we
create and are inspired and make the art that speaks.” You also mention that
sometimes the concept of the third self, the “inner world,” is helpful to your
creative process, and other times it’s a hindrance. What were some of the
challenges you faced with your own third self when creating this collection?
Did you get too deep into your own “inner world?” I can imagine the process was
somewhat paradoxical, writing about writing and writers’ block.
SP: I think the biggest
frustrations I have with the “third self” is that you can't control it. It's
something that comes and goes. A lot of my poems outside of this collection
come from letting it happen and not overthinking what I’m writing, not
overthinking the art that I’m making and just letting it flow out of me, and
then I clean it up later. Another struggle is that the desire to write and
tapping into the act of writing are not always two things that you get at the
same time. I, myself, am in that third self the most when I'm falling asleep or
when my brain is in a liminal, transitional state.
JJ: Which is inconvenient
sometimes!
SP: Right? Because it's
like, if I want to write a poem, I guess I need to go have a nap! It's
definitely a strange process. But that's just kind of what works for me for
getting in the zone, and then you've got to capitalize on that moment and do as
much as you can in that period. Or not. Sometimes it's good to be in that inner
world and not put it on the page and rather just think things through and play
with ideas in your brain before they're fully fleshed out.
JJ: I can absolutely relate
to the frustration of that inner world and “third self” being both a
subconscious and conscious state at the same time. Like, you want it to be
something that you're actively working with, but then sometimes it's almost
serendipitous in the way that it just happens, and you have to, like you said,
capitalize on that. And it makes me think of capitalistic productivity, not to
go on a total tangent. But productivity in the world that we live in is so
focused on schedules and meetings and making dedicated time, whereas sometimes
the best inspiration comes from shower thoughts or thoughts that you have right
before you go to bed right after you wake up. You always have to be ready to
write.
SP: You can't tell your
creativity to be ready at 10 A.M on Saturday because it’s convenient.
JJ: So, you’ve also
published chapbooks, including to grow
roots (2023) and TAKE MY BLEEDING
HEART (2022). How did The Third Self differ from those projects? Do you
feel like one or the others is a better representation of yourself as a poet?
SP: It was different in that
in a chapbook, you have so much less time to tell the story; each poem needs to
serve multiple purposes in the storytelling. Whereas with The Third Self, because it was longer, each poem could be its own
thing. And that's all it represented within the greater picture, right? I found
I could get more detail with the general themes with a bigger collection. And
on top of that, I was able to have multiple poems that discuss the same topic
from different perspectives. You can deep dive with a collection like The Third Self. But as far as what
represents my work best? I think The
Third Self was such a strange part of my work because it didn’t build
within the world that I write my typical poems in. And it didn’t create the
non-reality-based moments which a lot of my work does. And The Third Self is so much more literal and so much more grounded in
reality than a lot of my work. While I think a lot of the themes are relevant
to my other work, I don't think it's necessarily as representative of myself
and my body of work as my chapbooks, especially to grow roots.
to grow roots covers so many themes of
nature and connection, and identity. Which, of course, The Third Self deals with identity. But, to grow roots approaches it a lot closer to the way the majority
of my poems do. I think it gets more to the roots (no pun intended) of my
identity – the collection explores where my identity comes from, and what it
relies on. The Third Self is so much about my identity as a writer, but my
identity is so much more than that – though while writing it, my identity
definitely relied a lot on my writing. Maybe too much. I think I’m able to
actually delve into my identity a lot more when I talk about my connection to
the world around me, and the nature, and the people I am so fortunate to know.
My other works do a lot of the same – exploring the connection of my identity
to, and how it interacts with, external factors. Whereas The Third Self is a veering away from my typical approach, and
addresses the experience of being a writer trying to achieve the feelings of
belonging and connection that I think I'm always trying to achieve with most of
my work outside of the collection.
JJ: Your poetry is very much
about your bodily/spiritual/mental experiences. And I think you see that in The Third Self, but The Third Self also feels almost like a meditation rather than
experiencing those things actively. I wonder, do you find that it was more
comfortable to write about something that was slightly more removed from more
personal experiences in your life? Obviously, writing is usually very personal,
But, like, do you feel that you wear your heart on your sleeve a little bit
more with your chapbooks and other poetry?
SP: I think so, yeah. The Third Self is definitely a little
less personal, like you're watching it happen from the outside looking in.
JJ: A line that struck me
was in your non-poem titled “THIS IS NOT A POEM; THIS IS A LIST OF MY GREED:”
It reads, “THE COMFORT OF BEING KNOWN WITHOUT / THE BURN OF BEING DISLIKED” How
does rejection play into your own creative process?
SP: Great question! Yeah,
rejection is...something that I have more recently, in the past couple years,
been trying to use as fuel rather than a roadblock. I think it's really easy to
see rejection and think, “I must be doing bad and I need to stop.” For a while,
I was really trying to oversaturate myself with rejection to get used to it. I
was sending my workout so much that it became like a muscle memory of
“click-click-click-send,” and then I would just get rejections all the time.
And I think I get excited for it now, less so for my creative process and more
for the community building element of rejection which sounds weird out of
context, but being able to share with other people, “Look, I got rejected!” as
a good thing. And then people respond, “Oh my God, awesome, let’s be happy that
someone got back to us!” Every time I get a rejection now I’m excited. I mean,
I share them on my Instagram stories; I do a “rejection of the day,” which
isn’t every day. But, just being able to celebrate rejections has stopped them
from holding me back.
I
feel like I’ve always had a weird relationship with rejection because I got
used to it, even when I was younger. I was rejected from the writing program at
Canterbury [High School]. And I think
that first rejection hit me so hard. And it did deter me from writing for a while, and when I came back around
to it, I realized rejection isn’t a bad thing, it shouldn’t make you stop
writing. It's just another speed bump. Just another part of the process.
JJ: Absolutely! I don't know
if it motivates me per se, but it's definitely something that I've gotten more
used to. I'm always inspired by seeing you post about rejections. I had a
professor once tell me that he knew somebody who tried to work towards a yearly
rejection goal. It was something like, they wanted to get rejected a hundred
times in a year. The first time I heard that it just completely rewired the way
I thought about rejections.
Because
I think, as creatives and as writers, we often have this idea that we have to
create our magnum opus, and everything has to be a masterpiece. I would love to
know, how do you feel about the word “masterpiece?”
SP: I don’t like the word at
all. When someone says something is a masterpiece, it’s subjective and
arbitrary. I think, when we think of a “masterpiece,” we think about a great
artist and their accomplishments. We say, Van Gogh and his masterpiece “Starry
Night,” right? But there's no way Van Gogh saw Starry Night as his masterpiece,
and it's all been arbitrarily decided by people who later gave it that title.
So,
as someone who is making art, at this point, a few years out from writing the
book, I think I've reached the point where I'm like, “screw a masterpiece.” I
don't need a masterpiece. I'm just gonna keep writing, and if someone later
thinks, “this is a masterpiece,” that’s great, but that's not for me to decide.
JJ: Maybe “masterpieces”
mean more to the people who are assigning that value rather than the person who
actually made them. Perhaps it’s more about giving value to the people who are
perceiving it rather than the glory of having made it.
Your
poems vary in length and style throughout the collection, some only consisting
of two lines. With your background in publishing poetry on Instagram, I assume
you’re familiar with the controversial rise of “Instapoetry,” most notably by
poets like Rupi Kaur and Atticus. What is your opinion on the value of micro
poems? How do they play into your own creative process?
SP: I think there is value
in micro poetry. It makes poetry a lot more accessible. A lot of people might
be really intimidated by long-form, “formal” poetry and by long, flowery,
classic poetry.They might think, “I couldn't do poetry.” But then they read a poem
that's five lines on Instagram, and it really resonates with them, and suddenly
they’re interested in poetry.
I
didn't really dive all the way into poetry until I read Rupi Kaur. That kind of
poetry helped me personally realize I could write poetry and there was a space
for doing poetry on a smaller scale to try things out. And while I believe you
can't get as deep into an idea or a concept with micro poetry or Instapoetry, I
think of it as a valuable starting point, or as an entry point into poetry. I
think it's really valuable especially when everything right now is so fast and
everything is bite size, and our brains are like goldfish brains and we can
barely sit through a 15 second Tik Tok,
I
also feel there's value in saying as much as you can with as few words as
possible. Because there are very short poems out there that, while they might
not dive deep into a topic, they completely reshape how the reader thinks about
something, or they can change someone’s perspective. We need to acknowledge
that people love it for a reason. Instapoetry is popular and marketable because
people connect with it easily. But, it's one tool among many that we can use to
tell our stories.
JJ: I think micro poems are
more about resonating than they are about picking apart or exploring “high
literary value.”
Let’s
talk about imposter syndrome, which is one of the main section topics of your
collection. One of the poems that resonated with me the most was “i feel like I
should have done something by now.” It reminded me, as a young writer, that the
creative process is not only something that can happen in the short-term, but
it also can take place over a lifetime. Do you feel like there is a pressure on
young people to create as quickly as possible now more than ever? Do you think
that pressure contributes to blockages in creativity and inspiration?
SS: Yes! Absolutely yes. I
think part of the root of this issue, from my perspective, is technology. We
have so much access to see what everyone is doing at every moment, and so we
see people who are writing a million things or who are achieving great success
at a young age. And even though that's such a tiny percentage of the people
achieving that success, we, as young people, resonate the most with other young
people. So, we see a young person doing it and we think, “that should be me
too.” But I think we're missing the bigger picture, because there are so many
other people out there who are publishing their first book much later in life,
or who are achieving the things we hope to achieve later than the timeline of
what we're witnessing [on social media].
There's
definitely a pressure that we are putting on ourselves, seeing all these young
people succeeding and comparing ourselves to them. Anything that makes you feel
like you're not doing enough can absolutely block creativity. At the same time
it can be a great tool for pushing yourself; it's easy to give up on yourself
with anything, especially when we see every minute of everyone else’s lives.
It's easy to compare ourselves—I think our brains are wired to look at it that
way—but we could be celebrating it. We could celebrate other people’s success
and be inspired by it, in the same way that we can celebrate rejections because
we are being active in the creative process.
JJ: I think comparing
yourself can also contribute to burnout by constantly putting the expectation
on yourself that you need to be as successful as the thousands of people that
you're constantly perceiving online.
SS: Part of it, too, is
recognizing that someone else’s success and my success will not look the same.
The success of someone else is often based on the things they happen to stumble
into. You know, right place, right time, right person, right circumstance.
Recognizing that someone else's luck on top of their ability is not a lack of
your own ability.
JJ: It has been two years
since the debut of this collection. Do you feel as though you’ve changed as a
writer since writing The Third Self?
Has your creative process changed? What is your current relationship with your
“third self?” What have you learned since publishing this book?
SS: I published The Third Self in the middle of a period
of so much creation for me, where I was writing constantly. I started slowing
down after the book came out, and then I really haven't been writing all that
much over the past year.
Recently,
I’ve distanced myself a little from writing. The Third Self had so much to do with my identity being so
entrenched in being a writer, and I reached a point where I realized that my
identity had to be more than that. I need to learn to be more than just my
writing. My writing lately has been more focused on an effort to marry writing
with my other interests and other parts of my life. Most recently, I’ve been
doing a lot of reading and learning about space – my father worked for the Air
Force on satellites and monitoring space debris, so it’s always been something
in my orbit (pun intended), but I’m only now putting in the time to understand
the concepts and the exciting hypotheticals about what could be out there in
the universe. I’ve been taking notes when things really strike my interest, and
once I have the notes, it’s hard not
to turn them into a poem. In this case, I guess the writing is how I process
the information.
I
also believe that writing is so much more than the individual experience. We,
as writers, are here to interact with each other and to learn and grow and
build things and be a community. A lot of the writing I'm doing right now is
focusing more on connecting.
JJ: It's almost like you're
taking all of what you meditated on in The
Third Self and are now applying it and just existing through your writing,
and sharing your existence with others in the way you know how. Thank you so
much for sharing part of your process with us!
Jen Jakob
(she/they) is a poet and editor based in Ottawa, Ontario. They recently
completed their Master of Arts degree at Queen’s University and holds an
Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree with a double major English and History from
Carleton University. Jen also edits for flo. Literary Magazine as their
poetry editor and has been published in QT Literary Magazine, Eavesdrop
Literary Magazine and The Lamp. She recently self-published her
first poetry chapbook Changing Altars in 2023.
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