Welcome to “The Poet’s Point of View,” a new series for The Anansi Poetry Project where we ask our 2019 poets to recommend art, writing, music, and more to experience in tandem with their new collections.

Last week, we spoke to Karen Solie about her collection The Caiplie Caves. This week, we turn to Kayla Czaga and her new collection, Dunk Tank. Kayla is the author of one previous collection of poems, For Your Safety Please Hold On (Nightwood Editions, 2014), and the chapbook Enemy of the People (Anstruther Press, 2015). Her work has been awarded the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Canadian Authors Association’s Emerging Writer Award, among many others. She lives in Victoria, B.C.

In the title poem of Kayla’s sophomore collection, a teenage speaker is suspended between knowledge and experience, confidently hovering there before the world plunges her into adult life. Dunk Tank reimagines the body as a strange and unknowable landscape. These poems explore the varied and strange relationships that underpin a young woman’s coming of age, from inconsequential boyfriends to the friendships that rescue us from “grey daily moments.” Dunk Tank is playful and dark, comic and disturbing.

While reading your new collection of poetry, what would you recommend as . . .

One song or album to listen to: “Love” by Lana Del Rey

One film to watch: Beetlejuice

One meal to eat: Nachos split six ways

One piece of art to look at: Cloud City by Joon Lee

One place to plan to visit: Portland, Oregon

One quotation to read from another writer: “I love you standing in the water wearing the river / like an invisible pair of shoes.” — Hera Lindsay Bird

One question to ask yourself or a friend: Why do you find yourself so embarrassing?

Dunk Tank by Kayla Czaga

Read Karen Solie's "The Poet's Point of View" next