<p>In this episode of On Creative Writing, guest host and poet Marco Melfi sits down with talented poet Stephanie Bolster to discuss her latest collection,<em> Long Exposure </em>(Palimpsest Press, 2025). The conversation examines the book’s remarkable 15-year creation process, revealing how time, patience, and evolving perspectives shaped the final work.</p><p>Stephanie, who is a creative writing professor at Concordia University, Montreal, shares insights into <em>Long Exposure&#39;s</em> fragmented long-poem structure, explaining how this form allowed her to capture the complexity and multiplicity of disasters—both natural and man-made.</p><p>Marco, author of the poetry collection <em>Routine Maintenance </em>(Gaspereau Press, 2025)<em>,</em> asks Stephanie about the central events that inspired <em>Long Exposure</em>, including Hurricane Katrina, the Chernobyl disaster, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She talks about her approach to writing about these catastrophes, emphasizing the importance of bearing witness without appropriating others’ suffering, and the ethical challenges of representing trauma and disaster. Stepanie says she strives to balance the chaos inherent in such events with moments of humanity and empathy in her poetry.</p><p>Some poets are inspired by, or focus on, the sounds of their poems, while others are inspired by images. The images may be a fleeting image created by a few words and vivid in the mind&#39;s eye for a few moments. Or they may be seen in a book, galleries, museums, etcetera, or what a poet observes as they move through their day. For Stephanie, the photographs of Canadian photographer Robert Polidori have impacted and inspired her. She explains how the act of taking and viewing photographs parallels the experience of writing about disaster: both involve framing, selection, and sometimes, a necessary distance. She describes how photographs can both reveal and obscure truth, and how this duality influenced her poetic choices.</p><p>Stephanie reads several evocative excerpts from <em>Long Exposure</em>, each illuminating the systemic failures that often underlie large-scale disasters and the profound human cost that follows. Her readings highlight the tension between the personal and the collective, the seen and the unseen, and the immediate and the historical. Marco and Stephanie discuss how poetry can serve as a form of testimony, offering space for reflection, mourning, and, ultimately, understanding, and Marco also draws attention to Stephanie’s use of sparse punctuation and unconventional visual formatting, noting how these stylistic decisions mirror the book’s themes of displacement, fragmentation, and loss.</p><p>Throughout the episode, Marco skillfully guides the conversation, drawing connections between Stephanie’s poetic techniques and the broader questions her work raises about memory, responsibility, and the role of the artist in times of crisis. Stephanie answers with insightful and revealing reflections on her writing, including the challenges of sustaining a long-term project and the ways in which her own thinking about disaster and representation evolved over the years.</p><p>Poets and readers of poetry curious about the intersections of art and social responsibility will find that this podcast episode offers thoughtful conversation and many insights.</p><p>On Creative Writing is grateful to Marco for taking the host&#39;s seat, and to Stephanie for her wonderful responses to Marco&#39;s questions.</p><p><strong>Links:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.stephaniebolster.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Stephanie Bolster</a>.</p><p><a href="https://palimpsestpress.ca/books/long-exposure-stephanie-bolster/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"><em>Long Exposure </em>by Stephanie Bolster</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/hellotarko/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Marco Melfi</a>.</p><p><a href="https://gaspereaupress.com/books/routine-maintenance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"><em>Routine Maintenance, </em>by Marco Melfi</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.robertpolidori.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Photographer Robert Polidori</a>.</p>