Taking the poet out of imposter syndrome: A conversation with Natalie Lim

World Poetry Day whizzed by late March, and while global attention was centred on the COVID-19 pandemic, SAD took the opportunity to virtually reach out to local poet Natalie Lim. In this Q&A, Lim shares what she’s been up to since winning the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize for her poem on grasping a culture she feels a part of but also separate from, “Arrhythmia.”

SAD: How has your writing journey been since your poem, “Arrhythmia”, won the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize?

It’s been interesting. The CBC Poetry Prize is the first place I ever submitted my work in a formal capacity. I did not expect it! 

Having my first piece of published work being that public and seeing established authors that were also short- or long-listed for it, I was super grateful and honoured to have won. It also sent me into a terrible tailspin of imposter syndrome and feeling like: “What if this is the only good thing I ever write? What if I never write anything good again?” 

SAD: That must have put a lot of pressure on you.

Yeah, I was totally cognizant that it was a pressure I was putting on myself. Nobody else was saying, “You better come out with more good stuff!” It was just me in my head being like: “Oh, I have to live up to this now.” At the same time, I was getting invited to do poetry readings, so I kind of had to write. I had to be able to read more than one poem at these events. That was an interesting time to navigate. 

SAD: Speaking of, you’ve also received Room Magazine’s Emerging Writer Award for 2020. Congratulations! Which poems did you submit for recognition?

Thank you! One of them is called, “one poem wonder,” which is posted on my Twitter. It’s about me not feeling like I could write or being worried about not writing anything else that was good ever again. The other one is called “conversations with mom,” and that one is wondering whether or not it is moral to have children at this point. 

SAD: In your recent virtual reading for the Dead Poets Reading Series, you mention that you think about death a lot. What’s your philosophy on life and death when it comes to writing about it?

The book that I read for that reading, Stupid Hope by Jason Shinder, made it a little clearer for me about my philosophy on this kind of thing. The last poem I read by him is called “Untitled.” It ends with him saying that he wants to continue to describe things to be sure they happened. That is so powerful to me, especially since it was coming from Shinder as he was looking death straight in the face—he was right at the end of his life. 

So, it makes me think, let me keep writing things. I want to remember how I felt at this moment. I want to capture these things that have happened to me and that are often universal across the human experience. The feelings I wrote “Arrhythmia” around, I never really talked about or expressed it to anyone until I started to write the poem. And then once it was out, there were so many people that reached out to me and said: “This is exactly how I feel all the time.” It was such a cool reminder that we are not alone in so many of our experiences. That’s what writing is for me—sharing experiences and describing things to make sure they happened. 

SAD: Where do you look for inspiration most? 

I took an experimental fiction class during one of my last semesters at Simon Fraser University, and one of our assignments, that whole semester, was to write down things around you that you see, that you can maybe revisit. For example, I was sitting on the bus and noticed that there is a sign that says, “for your safety, please hold on.” That is such a simple message but it has a beautiful undertone. Like ”Hey, I care about you, for your safety – because we want you to be okay – please hold on.”  That became the basis of a poem that I wrote called “rattle on home.” Taking inspiration from little places like that is where I find my work coming from. 

SAD: How would you describe your poetry style?

My style is what people would probably call lyrical or narrative. Mostly lyrical, just because I don’t generally use rhyme schemes. I don’t tend to have a strict format, I use free verse, and I tend to be very descriptive and literal. My poetry is pretty straightforward. You can read it and get what it’s about. That’s the kind of poetry I generally like to read. I feel like a lot of the poetry I read when I was growing up, or in school, it felt like you had to really work to “get it,” and if you didn’t “get it,” you weren’t smart enough to do poetry, which I hated. There are a lot of awesome poets doing work that is weird, abstract and experimental. I totally love some of that poetry, but it’s not the poetry that I tend to be drawn towards the strongest. 

SAD: How does it feel to perform your poetry versus writing it? 

I love performing poetry. There’s a certain magic with hearing something out loud versus reading it on a page. I really enjoy getting to perform, and I like how it can be different every time you do it depending on your mood and the people in the room. “One poem wonder” is a pretty sad poem, but the very first time I performed it at a reading, I said the first two lines, and people started laughing. I was like, “Is this funny? Did I accidentally write a funny poem?” So, I decided to lean into that and made it a little funnier when I performed it. I thought that was interesting because that is not at all how I felt when I was writing it. 

SAD: How has both reading and writing poetry changed your life?

The writing part of it in recent years has given me a community to be rooted in and given me a lot of awesome people in my life. I’m grateful for the people I met through poetry and on Twitter that I would never have come into contact with otherwise. Poetry has often been a source of comfort for me and source of joy. I have poems that I come back to over and over again – I have security blanket poems that I’ve loved for a long time! 

SAD: What’s coming up for you in the next year? Where do you hope to go with your writing?

I’m working on a chapbook that will eventually come together in some form. I’m looking at compiling my poems, and writing more of them and putting them in an order that makes sense. It would be so cool to have a book!
You can find Natalie’s poems on her website natalielim.ca and follow her on Twitter @nataliemlim