Jamella Hagen’s debut book of poetry Kerosene (Nightwood Editions) starts in a homestead in northern British Columbia in Canada that has no electricity. It’s the kind of place where chainsaws are second-hand, gumboots are worn in the bathtub and a herd of goats is kept in the basement because the barn hasn’t been built yet.
In the opening poem, "Linguistics," Jamella is one year old and a ram has just knocked her unconscious. As the young Hagen comes to, the reader is invited to hear the hum of the distant saw mill and watch a flowering of peas “swung heavy on the netting”.
Hagen admits her childhood was a bit different. She grew up on a rural plot of land near Hazelton, B.C., and her book delves into the nitty-gritty details of growing up in the Bulkley Valley. She wasn’t planning on writing about her childhood. It came to her in a series of unexpected memories, Hagen explained. “I became interested in what’s familiar to us and what’s strange to us and how those things intersect.”
Later, Hagen takes us to Vancouver. Then the hectic streets of Latin America. Then, finally, the Yukon, where Hagen has made a home for herself for the past three years as a teacher and writer.
Even in the dark, you can see
where the tufted hooves of caribou
have sifted into the snowbanks in search of food,
Writes Hagen about a journey driving north on Highway 37 towards the Yukon. Kerosene, according to the poet, is not only the title of her book. The image of a kerosene lamp acts as a metaphor for memory and all things we burn.
In a section describing a trip to South America, the poet attempts to bring to light the reason we travel.
And why the attraction
in the first place? As though it’s all better
than the people, places, possibilities
you already know. So you can come fresh
at all the things you hate about
yourself—your awkwardness at dinner parties,
karaoke, small town postal outlets.
It took Ha
gen five years to complete this first book project. She wrote a good chunk of the manuscript while completing a Master’s of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia and a retreat at the Banff Centre in Alberta. She sent her poetry to several publishers and waited a year until Nightwood Editions finally gave her the green light.
Hagen said she writes poetry because you can put details next to each other without having to fill in all the narrative background, like you would in fiction or non-fiction.
Poetry, she continued, is a way to reflect on what we don’t talk about.
“I guess that’s what art is about,” she said. “It’s about finding pieces of our lives that are meaningful to us but that we don’t always have time to reflect on. You can tell just a really small slice of a story and leave the rest unsaid.”
