Dan MacIsaac Writers in Residence Archives
Raised on Vancouver Island, Dan MacIsaac is a third-generation lawyer and served for ten years as a director on the board of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria. His poetry, verse translations, and fiction have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals and magazines. One of his stories was short-listed for the 2009 CBC Literary Awards, one of his poems received the 2014 Foley Prize from America Magazine, and another poem was short-listed for the 2015 Walrus Poetry Prize. He lives in Victoria. Cries from the Ark is his first poetry collection.
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December 22, 2017The Art of Xmas
Christmas is stage and spectacle—lighting, costumes, song, set and dance. It features hammy acting (Oh I just love this pair of candy cane stockings! Or, ooh, this freebie library card—I’ve always ...
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December 19, 2017Monster Ink
Today’s question--what is a monster?There is only one villain in my personal gallery of rogues-- the (ughh!) earwig, which smirks and slithers. Only this horror would appear on a wanted poster in my ...
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December 18, 2017The Swarm
My father would fill up our triple-seater truck with six bench seats worth of brats—his own and the neighbour’s--on any given Saturday. One Saturday, he told us that we were heading up Nanaimo Lakes ...
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December 16, 2017What's So Big About Green?
Earle Birney asks, “What’s So Big About Green?” in his poem of that name. Green is huge. Green is the colour of money--which is why one of our major chartered banks has Green Machines, ATMs that ...
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December 10, 2017The Moth
I do not nominate the moth, pallid creature of night, to be any sort of talisman or totem. Moths are vandals, eating your heirloom woolens. These Visigoths deserve summary execution. No last meal of tartan ...
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December 06, 2017The Striped Scrapper
When I was fifteen, Dad moved my sibs and I from the chilly West Coast to the hurricane belt—Grand Cayman Island. We spent six months living by the Caribbean Sea where Dad, bewigged and robed, practiced ...
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December 04, 2017A New National Emblem Revisited
I was too hasty the other day. For nice, polite Canadians, the spider icon is just too darn ornery. In true Northern fashion, I apologize. We need something more civil yet found from coast to coast ...
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December 02, 2017The Colour Purple
I am very, very short-sighted. Way off the normal sight spectrum. Like a career politician. The spawn of two myopic parents, I am a mole, midget-sighted. My natural focal point is my own nose. No, I have ...
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November 30, 2017A New National Emblem
Canada is a land of plenty. But it is a state poor in symbols. Our national emblems are few and time-worn. Canada’s plant is the maple tree, which, in an annual strip tease, releases red leaves clogging ...