ZW reads Heighton, Avison and ZW

ZW reads Langston Hughes and Claude McKay

ZW reads Hughes and McKay

ZW reads Coyle and Stallings

ZW reads Frost and Langer

ZW reads Elizabeth Bishop and ZW

ZW reads poems by Bruce Taylor and John Terpstra

ZW reads Derek Mahon's "A Disused Shed in County Wexford"

Reading online "at" the Halifax Public Library

I forgot to post this in advance, but I did an online Zoom reading with poets Shalan Joudry, Sam Sternberg and Emily Skov-Nielsen on April 30. It was very fun. Unfortunately, not recorded for posterity.

Article online

I spent the early days of self-isolation working on an article on landlord-tenant politics during the current pandemic. That article is now up on the website of Walrus Magazine.

Old Poem, New Home

I'm really pleased to have my poem "The Pond" republished in a new anthology, Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds, edited by Yvonne Blomer.


Because of the timing of its publication, a bunch of launch events had to be cancelled, but a virtual launch--in which I'll be taking part--has been scheduled for April 22 at 1630 Pacific Time. You have to register to attend and I think space is limited, so best to do so in advance.

QUARANTINE

Together, we are
apart. Apart, we
shelter. Storm still,

but we are
battered, two sides
of a weathered stone

dyke, leaning
into each other, over
our hearting.

Interview online

Not much to post here of late due to the fact that I've pretty much gone dormant as a writer and editor.

I'm ramping up as a socialist labour activist rabble-rouser, however, and recently did this interview with Michelle Robidoux of International Socialists.

Olga Tokarczuk

One must keep one's eyes and ears open, one must know how to match up the facts, see similarity where others see total difference, remember that certain events occur at various levels or, to put it another way, many incidents are aspects of the same, single occurrence. And that the world is a great big net, it is a whole, where no single thing exists separately; every scrap of the world, every last tiny piece, is bound up with the rest by a complex Cosmos of correspondences, hard for the ordinary mind to penetrate. That is how it works. Like a Japanese car.

 --Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, translation Antonia Lloyd-Jones

INVADER

Got nothing against

them, they have a right

to exist, I just can't

tolerate their ilk

taking shelter here. This

is where I live—my

home. They're dirty;

I have a duty

to defend my family.

After I flooded

a burrow in the yard

one turned up

in the house. We packed

all the dry food

in the kitchen

into plastic

containers, woke

to find them

shredded and scattered.

That's when we knew

no harmless wee

mouse was this. Our kid

just a baby,

we were scared

it might visit

his crib at night.

It bored a hole

through the baseboard

back of the fridge,

clearly had a track

between there and

the plumbing under

the sink. We bought

warfarin, snap traps,

we went on alert.

Third night of its

occupation, I heard

a rustle from

the cupboards. I slipped

on my loafers

and crept into

the kitchen. I swung

the door below the sink

open and the crinkling

stopped. Behind cartons

of bin bags, rags

and cleaning supplies,

I sensed it was there.

I kicked a box,

out it flew, I brought

my foot down

and trapped it,

belly-up, struggling.

Her teats were bulging—

she must have been

gravid. My heart

beat hard, I pressed

down harder, her body

as large as my size-ten

loafer, repulsive

skinny tail a good

six inches extra.

I bore down on her

until damn sure

she was no longer

breathing, then dumped

the dam and her unborn

pups in the green bin.

A PRIMER ON ACTING

        i.m. Ker Wells

Just say what you see, damn it, say it plain,

clear, show nothing, and forget expressing

emotion, you'll have better luck squeezing

a turd through your tympanum. Blue heron

on her stilts in the silt-scummed shallows

of the Clyde never concentrates, but she's

paying attention and knows what to do

at her wait's end, executed with bloodless

aplomb. You on your stilts in the tall grass

of the riverbank, cousin, you too knew

a thing or two about killing your darlings

and the world's aloof procession. The moon,

waxing full, casts a wake on the ripples

of the river. I can see you stilting

across it, wings akimbo, bound for the far shore.

Literary Power Couple in Print

The Dalhousie Review has just published a lengthy interview, conducted and introduced by Shane Neilson, of myself and Rachel, followed by reprints of a prose poem of Rachel's from Cottonopolis and a poem of mine from Track & Trace (which I realized the other day is now ten years old!). Only available in print, so get ye to the library if you feel the burning need to consume this content.

TWO-STRIKE APPROACH

I am evermore anxious that the future

is pure fiction, and yet I persist

in planning for it. When my son tells me

about the children he will have, I want

to shake him for thinking this hell is fit

for hopes and dreams. I don't. Instead, I smile

and stroke his head. His education

savings plan is growing nicely; it should

mature to six figures. He'll need it. Or won't.

The mortgages are getting paid ahead

of schedule. I'm installing a fifty-year

roof. By my calculations, the houses

should remain above water. They're building

a levee near the lowest-lying one.

All of this is likely crazy, but maybe

it beats doing nothing? I could always swerve.

Look for the fastball. Adjust to the curve.

Some love for Biblioasis titles in the NY Times

David Orr, a critic whose taste and judgment I've long admired, has published a list of the best poetry titles of 2018, according to him. Really pleased to see my friend Amanda Jernigan's Years, Months, and Days on his list. I had the pleasure of hearing Amanda read this slim book in its entirety on two occasions, while she was doing a reading tour with Rachel. Minimalist poetry at its best.

I'm even more chuffed to see Richard Sanger's Dark Woods on Orr's list. Not only because Richard is a friend and the book is published by Biblioasis, but because I was its editor. I don't care a whole lot about attention or lack thereof paid to my own books, but I always get a bang out of seeing the books by others that I love appreciated.

CBC Poetry Prize

I'm doing very little freelance work these days because I'm doing a lot more other work than I used to, but one thing I did recently was serve as a reader for CBC's annual poetry contest. It's a complex process, with twelve readers each assessing over 500 entries (I read 515) and submitting a list of their top 12. There is some overlap, as I understand it--i.e., there aren't 6000+ entries, but over 2500--so they must aggregate the lists somehow to come up with their longlist of 30, which is then whittled to a shortlist of 5, before a winner is finally crowned. Three of my picks made the longlist, including my top pick, a poem called "Migrations" by a poet named Mark Wagenaar, who also had another entry make the longlist. I only learned the identity of the author when the list was published, because the judging is completely blind. Wagenaar's name and work wasn't known to me (which shows how little attention I pay to these contests normally, since he won it in 2015) previously, so this was one of the bonuses of doing this work. Wagenaar's poem, I will say, was easily my first choice, so I was disappointed that it didn't make the shortlist. But so it goes with contests.