Sadiqa de Meijer on language, place, and the prism of consciousness
- Sheelagh Caygill
- Sep 2
- 4 min read
Sadiqa de Meijer is the author of the poetry collections Leaving Howe Island and The Outer Wards. Alfabet/alphabet won the 2021 Governor General Literary Award for Non-Fiction. Her book of essays In The Field is published by Palimpset Press in October 2025 and brings readers essays that move searchingly through their central questions. What meaning does a birthplace hold? What drives us to make contact with a work of art? How do we honour the remains of the dead? This writing constitutes a form of fieldwork grounded in intimate observation.
In The Field is an extraordinary book, one that invites readers to bring renewed attention to their own lives and to embrace the subjectivity in the experiences of others.
Sadiqua's work has also won the CBC Poetry Prize and Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest, and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She lives with her family in Kingston, Ontario. Here is Sadiqa de Meijer on language, place, and the prism of consciousness, her writing process, and her concerns about generative artificial intelligence.
Sadiqa de Meijer on language, place, and the prism of consciousness
OCW: What life experiences have shaped your writing style?
SDM: English not being my first language (though I learned it early in life) is a deep influence on how I write – in my book ‘alfabet/alphabet’ (Palimpsest Press, 2020) I explored how the Dutch language, and the edges of other family languages like Punjabi and Urdu, persist in my voice.
I also think studying sciences strengthened certain writing skills for me, like description and concision, and perhaps limited others—the inventive, the digressive. Of course, like any writer, reading has probably shaped my style most of all; that exposure to all the possibilities on the page, and the wish to aspire towards some of them.
On evolution and community: trusting the process, together
OCW: Has your writing evolved over the years? If so, how? Through writing experience? Reading a lot? Writing courses or communities? A combination, or something else?
SDM: Sure, my writing is evolving—I feel greater trust in my voice than when I started, though in some ways every new project seems like a freefall into the unknown. And the means of that progression in trust: yes, reading itself as I mentioned, and then learning by writing, for sure—writing many things that don’t work, as well, and understanding them to be the groundwork for things that do. I’ve also learned a great deal from my writing group, the Villanelles, from trading work with other writers, and by meeting with the Writers-in-Residence at Queen’s University over the years.
Themes of note: Describing light, and exploring what connects us
OCW: Can you trace any common themes across your writing?
SDM: I explore place, language, motherhood, borders, medicine, spirituality, and the long wakes of colonialism and migration. I often find myself trying to describe the qualities of light. In my latest manuscript I have noticed a surge in horses and trains.
OCW: Which authors and/or types of books do you like to read?
SDM: Poems, I like to read in shorter bursts—when I have to read a whole book or manuscript of them at once, it’s as if they can’t have their full embodied effect. I regularly read non-fiction about visual artists, and spiritual traditions, and of course I find great essays and memoir to be breath-taking. I love being inside a good novel—the feeling that this parallel world will be there to return to at bedtime. My favourite writers are Etty Hillesum and James Baldwin.
OCW: Do you use social media to engage readers, writers, or publishers and, if so, which platforms?
OCW: Are you a plotter or a pantser? (For writers or short stories and novels).
SDM: For the few short stories I’ve written, I’m inclined towards imagining a plot, getting stuck, and pantsing instead.
OCW: If you’ve been published, how did you find your first publisher?
SDM: I was put in touch with Oolichan Books by my friend, the poet Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang, who had published her collection Sweet Devilry with them.
OCW: What advice/guidance would you give to writers?
SDM: Read, my dears—read for pleasure, and also be attentive to figuring out how the words are making things happen.
OCW: Do you see generative AI as a threat or benefit to writers?
SDM: Well, to write is to make particular movements in and with our consciousness, through the infinitely dimensional prism of a language (or multiple languages), and each time we take part in that, we situate ourselves in a relational world. This practice belongs to all of us. So when I think of software that generates text, my first concern is not what it might do for or against writers, but what it could subtract from our wider human experience.
OCW: Do you edit as you write, or write and edit later?
SDM: As much as possible, I try to quiet editorial impulses while writing the first draft, and then return for edits after letting it rest.
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