Poet Ash Winters (BA’10) has a Way with Words

“Poetry has always come very naturally to me,” Ash Winters says. “It’s the primary way that my mind thinks—it’s my comfort zone.” 

Ash is an emerging poet whose work has appeared in Existere and Open Minds Quarterly and, in 2021, their first volume of poetry, Run Riot, was released.

Ash spent most of their childhood in Tweed, Ontario, and even as a youngster, dreamed of being a writer.

“I remember climbing trees to write in a little notebook, even though words didn’t come easily for me because I had learning disabilities.” 

By high school, Ash was scribbling poetry in the margins of their school binder. It had become part of Ash’s daily life and a powerful way to process emotions and explore identity.

“Being queer influences the way I see the world and the way I make art,” Ash explains. “It gives me the perspective to see the differences between people as well as how we’re all the same.”

“It seems like we are making progress in accepting queerness,” they add, “and that gives me the energy to work to make things better for the next generation, but there’s also some pushback, which is scary.” 

When it came time for university, the solace that Ash found in nature prompted them to enrol in Lakehead’s forestry program. By their second year, however, the pull of the written word became too strong to resist, and they switched to English.

It was a decision Ash didn’t regret. An American poetry class with Dr. Scott Pound introduced them to the Beat poets and the New York School of poets and Ash got involved with The Artery—the English Student Association’s newly established literary magazine. 

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 2010, Ash spent nine years in Vancouver. Most of their time was spent working as a UPS courier before going to trade school for carpentry.

“I also wrote poetry, but I was just getting by,” Ash says.

Complicating the situation was Ash’s struggles with substance use.

“I’d lived with addiction for a long time and then it got to a point where I couldn’t go on anymore. I got sober and wrote my poetry collection.”

Run Riot: Ninety Poems in Ninety Days was written during Ash’s three-month stay at a Vancouver rehab centre. Their publisher describes it as “a work that navigates the intersections of addiction, identity, and trauma.” 

The Toronto Star praised the volume as “frank, touching, and sometimes wryly humorous.”

For Ash, finally being able to ask for help turned their life around. “It made me able to pursue my writing and become a good member of my community.”

Ash now combines writing poetry with carpentry—they work for a small contractor in Toronto doing home renovations, where they now live.

“I wake up at 5 am and work on my poetry for two hours and then go to my contracting job.”

Ash describes their poetry as emotionally evocative with a plainspokenness that makes it accessible, like “Day 61,” a poem from Run Riot.

Day 61

Made sense

I made it make sense

I gave the fire truck shape to the cloud

and it was shaped a bit like a fire truck

but it was never going to put this fire out

never going to get me to climb down from this tree

Took the language that the instructions were yelled in

and translated it into words that could be said calmly

Accent so thick

I use it for a diving board

so I could plunge right into deeper meanings

so thick that when anyone talks anywhere now

I can understand it

I use it as a lever to lift ten times my weight

well over my head

but I still can’t stand the sound of it

The space it takes up in me makes me want to rip myself to shreds 

start over

make myself make sense again 

You can purchase a copy of Run Riot from Chapters, Amazon, your local bookstore, or from Ash’s publisher at: https://caitlinpress.com/Books/R/Run-Riot