Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
There’s a thread runs through everythingand a seamstress with a camel the sizeof a needle’s eye, though it’s not the eyethat worries me, but the other end,a steel point that runs me throughlike the pin the entomologists useto fix their bugs to the mounting board.The Fates don’t clip the thread, you know.Whoever said that was…
This is a poetic response to some passages I read in The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness, a memoir by Karen Armstrong.
And by “Like” I mean “Like” as in feel great affection or affinity for, as opposed to “Like” as in click an up-turned thumb on a Facebook page.
Anna Rabinowitz, whose poetry I have reviewed here and here, has collaborated with composer, Stefan Weisman, to create what they describe as an “experimental opera – theatre work” called Darklingwhich they have released as a two-CD recording from Albany Records.
Have you heard the news? Publishers Weekly reports that a Japanese insurance company purchased Toronto-based ebook seller, Kobo, for $315 million dollars.
I dreamt I died and went to heaven. When I got there, they told me there was no such thing as print media. They said: books are physical things, but we, as incorporeal spirit beings, have no fingers to turn the pages.
Half-choked Blooms I give my best to the morningand the balance to the afternoonin the half-choked blooms of the rosesand the thorny brambles of a dying quince. Profile of a Poet i used to worship in a churchbut the air was stale and deadi slunked away an outsidernot meek not powerfulan inheritor of nothingthen to…
After a month of driving to from in and around western Canada, I’m wondering what to do next. While on the road, I did as I intended, writing poems as I went. Maybe not as many poems as I would have liked, but enough that I have the raw material for a chapbook.
what a fucked up thingto nail Jesus Is Coming to a treebeside a highway in north ontarioa via dolorosa which is latinfor road through the middle of nowhereand prompts an eternal question:if a soul declares its christin a forest and there is no GODto hear it…a tree-spiking evangelist isno concern of mine no soulsharmed in…
there’s a path in The Forks where we stumbled on a humble little man dressed in a loincloth and armed with a walking stick a strange sight in Winnipeg though less strange if we had stumbled on him in wintertime we would have figured the cold froze him solid instead of the rabid pack of…
as we drive into Laniganpopulation next to nothinga pull out and a signand on the sign a mapand above the map in bold-faced caps the word LEGENDI’m not thinking cartographyand imagine a bright marqueeflashing The Legend of Laniganlike The Legend of Zeldaevery place has its legendhere we see its traceshere the dusty gravel roadshere the…
I hate to drive through the prairies.It’s boring. It all looks the same.I love to shop at Wal*Mart.All across this great country,Wal*Mart is the place for me. (if performed, this verse should be repeated at least 300 times, once for each Wal*Mart in the country) Download the complete collection of poems and accompanying photographs as…
Imagine our world is dying. Imagine survival depends on journeys to distant suns settling strange planets colonists voyaging for generations whirling in cigar-shaped tubes tribes of ten thousand adrift between the stars. Now imagine these crafts of our salvation are designed by the Ghermezian brothers: worlds of endless shopping salted by breaks in water parks,…
What was the wildest thing you saw in all of wild Canada? Was it the roaring waters of Rearguard Falls? Or the black bear swimming across Mud Lake? Or the pine beetle chewing its way down the North Thompson River Valley? Or the protesters haranguing politicians on the steps of the Victoria Legislature? Or the…
self-congratulating signslitter roadsides allacross the countryharper masturbatingon our shoulderswhat a good boy am itearing down mountainsraising up valleyswrapping ribbons of highwayaround the nationknotting a tight bowlike mickey mouse earsa great big beautiful packagethree lanes each waysquirting goods from a to bk y gel efficiencybut nowherenot a single stopno pull out rest areaplace to stretch and…