RECEIVED: CHANGING THE FACE OF CANLIT
Dane Swan's hefty new anthology of prose and poetry, Changing the Face of Canadian Literature (Guernica), has been at my elbow for a few weeks now. Thirty contributors (and an A-to-Z of recommended...
View ArticleRECENTLY RECEIVED
Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo, edited by Sue Goyette. University of Regina Press, 2021Sue Goyette's sensitive and uncompromising foreword is a necessary guide through this anthology...
View ArticleGREG SANTOS IN THE MEMORY PALACE
Greg Santos photo: Mollye Miller Greg Santos WITHIN THE MEMORY PALACE after James Tate You remember taking your first bite of caribou, hanging from the side of a reservoir, somehow losing your...
View ArticleGEOMETRY AND THE BOOK
The ever-expanding to-read list: Kaveh Akbar's Pilgrim Bell, brought to my attention by this Rumpus book club chat. Lots of takeaway in that chat; read my notes on geometry and "spiritual technology...
View ArticleVALERIE MEJER CASO: ECHO | ECO
image by ralev_comValerie Mejer Caso, translated by Michelle Gil-Montero ECHOOnce the ocean is spent, its hollow converts to steel, andall the oddly propped boats are ready to tumble onto thatempty...
View ArticleCOIN OF ANOTHER WORLD: EDINBURGH NOTEBOOK by Valerie Mejer Caso, translated...
Edinburgh Notebook (Action Books)"Poetry -- that catacomb art which refuses to perish with our mortal beings"* One of the reasons I love poetry is its way of keeping company with grief. This late...
View ArticleKevin Irie: The Tantramar Re-Vision
John James Audubon, Whooping Crane (Sandhill Crane), 1835. Image from Museum of Nebraska Art In the marsh grass, wind stirs up...
View ArticleBREN SIMMERS: A POEM
Bren SimmersSPRING CONDITIONS AT BESTWe're tired of headlines, of doomsdaypessimism, of ponying up for a seasonpass at Whistler only to get springconditions at best.We want fresh pow and bluebird...
View ArticleWHAT SHIFTS: A CONVERSATION WITH BREN SIMMERS
SUSAN GILLIS: How did you first come to poetry - or poetry to you?BREN SIMMERS: I grew up in a household of readers. We went to the library once a week and loaded up on books. My dad, d.n. simmers, was...
View ArticleClaire Caldwell: A Poem
Claire CaldwellSOUNDS A RIVER MAKESGas leak, ventilator, bear clicking its teeth.Twelve hundred caribou hooves on frost.Lips around bottle, bottle slurringon bar. Rattling aspen, dusky grouse,sheets...
View ArticleFIERCELY LANGUAGE RESISTS: MICHELLE GIL-MONTERO IN CONVERSATION
Earlier this year I found my way to Michelle Gil-Montero's brilliant translation of Edinburgh Notebook / Cuaderno de Edimburgo by Mexican poet Valerie Mejer Caso. The notebook is a body, a landscape...
View ArticleGILLIAN SZE: A POEM
Gillian SzeCURRENTAnd you are ever again the wavesweeping through all things. --Rilke (II.3)In a single gust, it seems, the leaves yellowand one evening, I find the maple bare,the last of summer...
View ArticleHELLO, 2023
Paul Rode, Brenda Reading (oil on board, circa 1985)During 2021 and 2022, serving on two Canadian poetry awards committees, I was stirred in wide-ranging ways by more books and individual poems than...
View ArticleFRAGMENT, PUNCTURE, TIME: GILLIAN SZE IN CONVERSATION
Poet-scholar Gillian Sze's Quiet Night Think fuses prose and lyric into a hybrid whole that meditates on place, identity, tradition, adaptation, what to hold and how, and the language these things are...
View ArticleDAVID O'MEARA: A POEM
David O'MearaDAYSWe keep forgetting something back there, don't we?We pop out the door, turn corners, the shops unchanged,but data nags like a black box has signalledfrom the wreckage, or a high voice...
View ArticleANNICK MACASKILL'S BANFF
Annick MacAskill writes: “Banff” is a poem from my latest collection, Murumurations, which just came out with Gaspereau Press. The book is a collection of queer love poetry that also explores the...
View ArticleSHERI BENNING: FIELD REQUIEM, THREE PARTS
SHERI BENNINGfrom Let Them Rest (Field Requiem) …dies illa Solvet sæclum in favilla - Dies Irae1 Zephaniah It’s true what they say. We were warned: everything will be swept away,...
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CONYER CLAYTON: WE SHED OUR SKIN LIKE DYNAMITE
Conyer Clayton photo by Grant SavageConyer Clayton writes: This is one of my favourite poems to read aloud in my entire book, and I was looking forward to sharing it orally with folks during readings....
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MARCUS WICKER IS TODAY'S POEM
Alexander Kokinidis/freeimages.comTwice this poem, today's Poetry Daily feature, says "stay with me." Don't worry, poem! I'm so there in your language I'm not sure I could leave if I wanted to....
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