A teacher at the Toronto New School of Writing, Jenny Sampirisi has just launched Croak, her new collection of poetry from Coach House Books. The Toronto Standard spoke with Sampirisi about her biologically-themed book.
In a line, what is Croak?
A frog-and-girl/Frogirl love poem that makes multi-limbed creatures dance, wiggle and voice their way toward death. It’s a comedy.
Why frogs?
Because they’re “the canaries of our time.” They absorb the toxins that seep into the water through their skins and deform as a result. They also have a habit of changing genders when they’re in evolutionary trouble. There’s lot’s there to play with. But they’re also entrenched in our culture from Aristophanes The Frogs, to the Frog Prince to Michigan J. Frog and Kermit the Frog. The frogs on our screens and in our imaginations are very different from the frogs in the ponds and I think that makes them fruitful poetic figures.
You made the switch from prose to poetry for this book. Why?
My first novel Is/Was was very poetic in that it was attuned to language as a place of confusion and frustration so it wasn’t a big leap into poetry from there. I think language is prickly. It doesn’t matter if it’s a novel or a book of poems. I’m obsessed with the weirdness of explaining the body through language especially. Think of a visit to the doctor. How you describe your reason for being there can greatly change how the doctor treats you. You make decisions and pick words and hope you get it right so that the doctor can hand over this pill instead of that pill. Both Is/Was and Croak deal with that particular fascination so I see them as very similar in that way.
What is the more endangered species, frogs or poets?
Poets and poems have been on the list a lot longer.
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Brian Joseph Davis is Toronto Standard’s Book Critic. He also is the author of Portable Altamont and I, Tania, and co-founder of the literary website Joyland.
