Reading time: About 2 minutes
When he writes poetry, Misha Solomon says he works in a linear way. “I almost always start with a title and that title rarely changes…”
Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet from Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. He is the author of two chapbooks, FLORALS (above/ground press, 2020) and Full Sentences (Turret House Press, 2022), which was nominated for the Expozine Award for English Literary Publications. He recently completed his MA at Concordia University, where his poetry won the 2023 David McKeen Creative Writing Prize.
His work has appeared or will appear in Best Canadian Poetry 2024, Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Grain, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, and Riddle Fence. His debut full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, is forthcoming with Brick Books in 2026. He has served as Editor-in-Chief for Headlight Anthology and Poetry Editor for LBRNTH. He also consults on scripted television development.
I was excited to talk to Misha about how he approaches writing.
Q. Roughly how much time do you spend writing every day?
I’ve never been a writer with a set or daily writing practice. I can go weeks without writing and then have a very productive few days where I write many poems in quick succession.
Q. What’s a simple activity or habit that makes you a better writer?
Reading broadly. Reading a mix of older things that I think are relevant to my interests and very new things that I hope will shift my interests.
Q. What interferes with your writing?
I think towards the audience a lot, which is mostly helpful to me, but can also interfere if I get too in-the-weeds with it.
Q. How do you persuade yourself to sit down to write on days when you really, really DON’T feel like doing it?
Mostly, I simply do not. My writing rarely involves strict deadlines. But, if need be, I turn to prompts. Lately I’ve been engaging with a “lifelong project” of writing poems after each poem in The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara.
Q. Is there a particular motto or saying that you’ve found helpful for writing?
No, but I wish there were!
Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why?
Writing, by far. I love engaging with a poem as it unfurls on the page. I write in quite a linear way: I almost always start with a title and that title rarely changes. And so, watching a poem descend from that top line is endlessly thrilling for me. I do also love researching before and while writing. And editing is a thing that exists too.
Q. What’s one of the best books you’ve read (either fiction or non) in the last five years?
The book that has perhaps stuck with me most is Diary of a Trademark by Ian Stephens, which I have written about.
Q. What book are you reading right now?
The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, with gorgeous illustrations by Ned Asta. Originally published in 1977 and reissued by Nightboat in 2019.
Q. What do you think is the biggest misperception that new writers have about the act of writing?
That there’s a certain way to do it.
