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April 29, 2014
Questions Not to Ask While Facing a Blank Page
Is enjambment supposed to be pronounced with a French accent?What do you do when you unpack a line and can’t figure out where you thought you were going in the first place?Is a metaphor just a simile ...
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April 28, 2014
Shake It Up
Range is something to aim for – a poet’s ability to go multiple, whistle one minute, moan the next. Sound like a basset hound, then go for a high-pitched squawk of geese. Try tender, then bold; try ...
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August 30, 2016City of Toronto Announces Finalists for the Toronto Book Award
The City of Toronto and Toronto Public Library have released the shortlist for the 2016 Toronto Book Award, which honours books of literary merit that are evocative of the city. Books of all genres are ...
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April 26, 2014
The Most Important Skill
Someone asks me what’s the most important skill a poet can have and I start to say the power of observation. The world awaits us with all sorts of small truths that can’t easily be seen. When I lose ...
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April 25, 2014
A Poem Can Be About Anything
I came across a cat writing contest on the internet. At first I thought that the poems had to be written by cats and was sure that my Iris Belle had a stanza or two inside her just waiting to creep out ...
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August 30, 2016The Lucky Seven Interview, with Mike Barnes
The Adjustment League (Biblioasis) is the first instalment in a new noir trilogy by Mike Barnes. This first book sees the patients of a psychiatric hospital coming together to form the titular league, ...
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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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August 24, 2016The Entitled Interview with Eric Beck Rubin
Eric Beck Rubin's School of Velocity (Doubleday Canada) marks the arrival of a talented new voice in CanLit.The novel follows Jan de Vries, whose virtuoso talent at the piano promised him a stunning career. ...
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April 23, 2014
More Revision
A friend confesses that he could spend the rest of his life revising a handful of the same poems. One change leads to another. It’s like a glassblower unsure whether to make a swan or a squirrel, the ...
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August 23, 2016The Lucky Seven Interview, with Amanda West Lewis
In The Pact (Red Deer Press), Amanda West Lewis tackles difficult historical subject matter in the context of a compelling story about a young boy.Peter Gruber is a War Child — a German child pulled ...
