Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
The stack, a vertical grey against the blue,flinging strands—smoke?—but they’re white.Let’s be generous and say its steam.Birds wheel in play or in anger:What I saw; what I saw. The chair creaks, the wood beneath it groans;on the back, a cashmere sweater,draped where it was hung, eggshell,a button missing, swaying with the chair:What I saw; what…
This is a poem about copyright law and my fear (the chilling effect) of quoting other authors (eg. Pigeon & Page). There is something perverse about living in what some describe as the postmodern era, where quotation and mashup are cultural norms, while our laws increasingly operate to suppress these norms.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. — Arthur C. Clarke I don’t know how things work.Take lava lamps for example:the rise and fall of globuleslike red corpuscles squeezedin a mysterious rhythm.I’m amazed the lava doesn’t meltthrough the glass. The blobsare real lava, aren’t they? Take the financial markets:the rise and fall of shares,the lifeblood…
Introducing the latest poetry magazine to show its face in Canada—this one from Vancouver: it’s called Poetry Is Dead. Irony abounds. For example, on page 1 we have a (moderately graphically altered) excerpt from John Donne’s 10th sonnet. Ironic because an avant garde poetry magazine is opening its doors with a work from the classical…
This evening marked the 10th annual Griffin Poetry Prize. Prizes were awarded to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (international) for The Sun-fish and to Karen Solie (Canadian) for Pigeon. Read the Griffin Trust’s press release here. Learn more about Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin here. And read a review of The Sun Fish in The Guardian. Learn more about…
There’s a traditional view of how a poem relates to the world that has been with us for almost 2,500 years. This view is a reflection of an equally traditional view of how our world is organized. Although we’d like to describe ourselves as up-to-the-minute advanced scientific creatures, this ancient view is still with us in subtle ways.
A children’s verse takes on a sinister tone when it’s tied to the irresponsible conduct of BP, the world’s 4th largest TNC, an organization which continues to feed us lies even as it becomes apparent that BP has perpetrated one of the worst environmental disasters in history.
One of the most difficult things for a person to do is to admit when he’s wrong.
The reed leans into the windas if listening for a secret,an image which stirs the eye withinthe eye within, and no less real for the fact that it happened hereat a pine table in a suburbankitchen with not a reed for miles,but a pen poised over a scratch pad leaning, steep, like a reed into…
A warm and blustery wind from the southhas caught me full on my mouthand turned to red and black and bluea cheek that once shone white for you. I wanted a single room apart,but you demanded all my heart.What you asked I gave for free,withholding nothing, me to thee. On flat stomach and virgin monsran…
We tend to think of reading as an advanced form of cryptography. At least that’s the default approach for a rational soul like me. The poet has a thought or feeling he wishes to communicate, so he takes that thought or feeling and wraps it in a coded packet called a poem.
cash grabs and glad rags feed bags and grab bags old nags and plastic blow flies and jujubes If Freud had been Japanese,would free association have ledto the penis? Why not to the tongue?Or to a flip of the middle finger?Both potent in their own ways,and mightily accessible. keen tools and old fools big screens…
Instead of staring at the damn thing, why didn’t Keats look inside the urn? Maybe he would have found candies or cigarette butts. Instead he just went on and on about sylvan lovers chasing one another around the outside.
They’ve widened highway 69up through Parry Sound.Now perched high on outcropsand staring from their rocky ledgesare the Inukshuks,granite rubble stacked,legs, torso, arms and head.“We are here” (we think they say),a testament to thosewho set them there,a good host with arms wide,or maybe a guide to point the way. I am the bones of my mother,Laurentia,…
A while ago, Vanessa Wells invited me to lead a poetry workshop with her grade 11/12 English class. My mission, should I choose to accept, was simple. She wanted me to demonstrate a few basic ideas…