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March 13, 2017My final two columns: Part One
After nearly a decade, my time as a columnist for Open Book comes to a close. According to my email folder, it was May 2009 when Amy Logan Holmes first approached me with the idea of submitting pieces ...
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July 31, 2017An Interview with David O’Meara, organizer of the Plan 99 Reading Series
In the Manx Pub, a basement bar on Ottawa’s Elgin St., there’s a slim shelf of books – lots of poetry, but also some prose. The books are often browsed, often borrowed, and often returned. They’re ...
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August 10, 2017“Considering the Book as Bi(bli)osphere,” an Interview with Gary Barwin
The writing of poet, composer, and recently Giller nominated novelist Gary Barwin has music to it that sounds like a gathering of organic materials, processed and released over and over until they sound ...
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June 27, 2016“These Two Things Are One,” an Interview With Kilby Smith-McGregor
Kilby Smith-McGregor’s debut poetry collection, Kids in Triage, explores the in-betweens that exist just out of sight. Psychology/biology, art/philosophy, literature/legend all expose their connective ...
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September 19, 2022"All Language is Your Playground" Poet Otoniya J. Okot Bitek on Chance Encounters and the Power of Poetry
In her new collection, decorated poet Otoniya J. Okot Bitek plays with form and expectation, rewriting history both colonial and literary. A Is for Acholi (Wolsak & Wynn) sees Okot Bitek rewriting ...
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January 12, 2022Acclaimed Poet D.A. Lockhart on Taxidermied Iguanas, Poetry "Shipbreakers", and the Importance of Endings
Poet D.A. Lockhart brings an energy, wisdom, and urgency to his writing as he shares meditations on and explorations of Indigenous identity and history. That energy clearly extends to his work ethic; ...
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March 16, 2018
An Interview with Justin Million, host/star of KEYBOARDS!
For the last few years, Peterborough poet Justin Million has been hosting (starring in? living? breathing?) a weird interpretation of the poetry reading called KEYBOARDS! As with any reading, poems are ...
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April 28, 2016"We're All Teachers," an Interview With Michael Fraser
Michael Fraser is a high school teacher and author of two collections of poetry, The Serenity of Stone, and, most recently, To Greet Yourself Arriving. If you attended NOW Magazine’s Battle of the Bards ...
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February 03, 2018“An Anthem for the Unwell,” an Interview with Shane Neilson
Poet, editor and physician Shane Neilson follows in the long tradition of doctor-writers: someone who works closely amongst the drama of life; who sees the personal, difficult, often hidden aspects of ...
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May 25, 2018“A poem discloses something,” an Interview with AF Moritz
If there is such a thing as an eternal place, poetry of AF Moritz inhabits it. In his work, history, myth and nature provide scaffolding that holds epic-minded verse, at once in awe of beauty and trembling ...