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January 09, 2019
Poet Susan Gillis on Landscapes, Ecologies of the Heart, and Czeslaw Milosz
Partly inspired by a memorable line in a Czeslaw Milosz poem, Susan Gillis' new collection Yellow Crane (Brick Books) is sharply observed and lovingly rendered, casting an observant and incisive eye ...
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November 25, 2021
Poet Talya Rubin on Glacier Funerals, Sacred Family Books, and "How Deeply a Poem Will Land Inside You"
How does our human connection to the natural world change in a time of climate crisis? In Australia-based poet Talya Rubin's urgent (and spectacularly titled) new collection, Iceland is Melting and ...
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April 24, 2014
Poetic
Tell a classroom of wannabe writers to try their hands at a poem and the stilted, strangely wrought language that ensues can be alarming. It’s like they’re being told to write in some World War II ...
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October 10, 2016
Poetic Inspiration I
Rather than simply providing a list of books that have inspired me, I want to go into a bit of detail on specific poems or series of poems or poetic innovations that have made my synapses crackle, broadened ...
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October 18, 2016
Poetic Inspiration II
This is the second in a series of posts highlighting poems that have made my synapses crackle, broadened my sense of what poems can be and do, and sparked me to stretch further in my own work. The first ...
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October 23, 2016
Poetic Inspiration III
This is the third in a series of posts highlighting inventive poems that have broadened my sense of what poems can be and do, and sparked me to stretch further in my own work. (The previous instalments ...
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October 28, 2016
Poetic Inspiration IV
This is the fourth in a series of posts highlighting inventive poems that have broadened my sense of what poems can be and do, and sparked me to stretch further in my own work. (The previous instalments ...
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April 02, 2014
Poetics of Place
I’ve been thinking about the poetics of place: Tim Lilburn’s Moosewood Sandhills; Don Domanski’s wilderness of a cosmos; Karen Solie’s truck stops and motels; Tim Bowling’s fishing boats. It’s ...
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April 01, 2023
Poetry as Joy: A Retrospective and Introduction
April in Ontario is unpredictable. There can be warmer days to soak up the sun by a river, or ice storms to coat everything with a perfect translucent film. In any case, April feels ideal for poetry—the ...
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April 02, 2019
Poetry Au Naturel: Poets Tell us About Their Nature-Themed Favourites for National Poetry Month
The theme for National Poetry Month 2019 is "celebrate nature with poetry". While nature poetry might have a reputation as sleepy and traditional, great writers have often mined the natural world for ...