May 30, 2015

Bill C-51 Poem

Web Searches That, Thanks to Bill C-51, Will Trigger A CSIS Investigation of You 1. Sweater vests. 2. I found this long gun on the bus, how can I find out who it belongs to? 3. Who is it exactly that’s benefiting from the neoliberalization of the university? 4. The location of today’s peace march. 5. The militarization of our paper money. 6. The militarization of the arctic. 7. Indigenous epistemologies. 8. David Suzuki. 9. What Alberta used to look like. 10. What happened to all the Roma children living in my neighbourhood? 11. The missing and murdered, the missing and murdered, the missing and murdered. 12. Dismantling Canada. 13. The names of trees.
October 8, 2014

Summer 2014 Roundup

By all metrics, it was a terrible summer. War, environmental disasters, political hypocrisy, weaponized hatreds. In my own circumscribed world, however, there were some small successes, a few surprises, and a book deal. So, in no way taking away from the horrors of the macro, here is a round up of my own, inconsequential micro. I read poetry at three events this summer. In June, I headlined the inaugural Firepit Reading Series in London, Ontario, put on and hosted by David Huebert. This was the first time I read my poem “Handwritten Addendum to the Torah Left On The Moon” in public, along with other new–and newish–work. (True to its name, after the reading, the night refocused around the firepit.) In August, I read at the two-day long mega-reading that took place at the BIG on Bloor street festival, hosted by Jess Taylor. Finally, in honour of Leonard Cohen’s eightieth birthday, I read six of Cohen’s poems at Jewish Urban Meeting Place, as well as one of my own poems written to Cohen. Reading through his selected poetry in preparation for the reading, I remembered anew how fundamental Cohen’s poetry is to my own poetic sensibilities. Out of the dozens, […]
June 30, 2013

Books, Free Books

It’s graduation and moving season here in the Annex, which means people are culling their book collections. And, for those of us who cannot walk past even a soggy cardboard box if it contains the promise of a single book in it, this is a both a blessing and a curse (if it wasn’t for this strange compunction, how—for example—would I ever have come across Growing up Degrassi?). This late spring/early summer cornucopia means terrific finds, but also swelling bookshelves (of course, we could do our own slimming of the hordes, but who are we kidding?) A few weeks ago the greatest find thus far occurred in the foyer of the building I live in. In a stack of maybe thirty books, which I spent a good fifteen minutes carefully going through, I took upstairs, in a rush of sheepish, bookish joy:
February 21, 2013

What’s On My Night Table

Hello. As part of the Institute For Things to do With Books’ mandate to participate in things that have to do with books, here is my annual list of books that have piled up on my bedside table. Some of these books have been read through, some (the short story anthologies, certain poetry books) have been dipped into, others have got lost in the shuffle and are as of yet unread. As always, come spring, I’ll reshelve, and start the process all over again. Feel free to contribute your own night table geographies in the comments section. Books are listed from the top of the pile to the bottom Pile A: Happy New Year! And Other Stories by Sholom Aleichem (Translated by Curt Leviant) The Circle Game by Margaret Atwood (Poetry) So Much to Say: Dave Matthews Band 20 Years on the Road by Nikki Van Noy (perhaps the worst book I have ever read) The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (thank you BMV!) 50 Short Science Fiction Tales, Edited by Isaac Asimov and Groff Conklin An Oak Hunch by Phil Hall (Poetry) Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson (BMV again!) February by […]