The idea of a typical “Canadian” is a concept that requires dismantling, and Moni Brar challenges this fallacy in her carefully constructed poem “What You Want Doesn’t Matter”, now available to read in our summer issue (58.4). Rife with the contradictions of living as a perceived stranger, Brar’s gaze is unwavering as it deftly moves from one image to the next. We were honoured to sit down with Brar to ask her a bit more about her work.
Where are you from? Wrong answers only.
This question is messy business! I’ve got plenty of answers that always seem to leave the inquirer feeling dissatisfied, suspicious, or frustrated—or a combination of the three. I’m not sure I’ll ever find the right answer, and I’m finally okay with that.
This poem is so rich in unexpected imagery, and I was wondering how you found and crafted these visuals?
I drew some of the visuals from memories of everyday life in our village in Punjab. These memories are steeped in sensory data and recalling them instantly transports me back to my first home. The smell of cloves as my grandmother crushed them to add to a pot of chai, the hairy husk of a coconut discarded by the brick stove, the dust of coriander left on the mortar and pestle when my aunts would make dahl—these memories and images remind me of where I’m from. I think these images are also often romanticized by non-Indian people as being “exotic,” so that’s another reason why I chose them. The visuals in the latter part of the poem—the pocket, lint, crumbs—these I drew from my experience of being an immigrant and POC. For me, these images invoke secrecy and a quiet rebellion.
Something else I love about this poem is how it both reveals and obscures right before the reader’s eyes. The speaker is asked a question, and the speaker offers a number of answers that aren’t answers at all. How did you balance these contrasts?
I’m glad you like that aspect of it. To me there is a push-pull embedded in the question, and I drew upon my personal experience to balance the contrasts. When someone asks me this question, it’s often not from a place of genuine curiosity or interest. Rather, they’re looking to extract information that will help them provide a label for me, a label that’s a bit more specific than the “other” which is immediately obvious when you see me. I push back with the answers-that-are-not-answers response. It’s a question I’ve been asked thousands of times and when I say I’m from Canada, I get the “you don’t look Canadian.” When I answer I’m from India, I’m met with “why don’t you have an accent?” or “why is your English so good?” I’m fatigued from the emotional labour of answering the question (along with the inevitable follow-up questions), never satisfying the inquirer, and being left with the feeling of not being Indian enough or Canadian enough. In this poem, I play with creative responses where the power resides in the responder and not the inquirer.
What are you working on at the moment, and where can we find you next?
I’m working on my first book-length collection of poetry. It’s a wonderfully slow process. I’m going about it differently than my other writing projects, and it feels good to not have deadlines and expectations for it.
You can find me in a few different places in the next while. I have poems coming out in two anthologies (Resiliency by The Selkie and You Look Good for Your Age by University of Alberta Press), as well as a few literary journals and magazines—Hart House Review, Existere, Blank Spaces, and Mobius.
Moni Brar is a settler on Treaty 7 land and the land of the Syilx of the Okanagan Nation. She is a Punjabi, Sikh Canadian writer exploring diasporan guilt, identity, intergenerational trauma, and the possibility of healing through literature. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Hart House Review, Rogue Agent, Existere, Blank Spaces, Mobius, Ricepaper, and various anthologies.