Thursday 29 September 2011

Sam Cheuk's Love Figures reviewed in the Maple Tree Literary Supplement

U of T Creative Writing grad Catriona Wright reviews Sam Cheuk's Love Figures in the latest Maple Tree Literary Supplement. Here's a sample:
Reading Sam Cheuk’s debut poetry collection Love Figures is like stepping into a film noir. Each poem is “an interrogation room” (63) with the speaker at once the detective “rummag[ing] through the memorabilia / for clues” (74) and the perpetrator confessing, perhaps falsely, to being the one with his “hand on the cleaver” (16). A chiaroscuro effect, as likely to be created by 9-11 memorial searchlights as by the shadows between a girl’s crossed legs, simultaneously conceals and spotlights meaning. Doppelgängers and multiple personalities abound. Two-way or compromised by hairline fractures, mirrors disorient and distort rather than reflect. Speakers connect to the others in their lives, most notably parents and lovers, with sincere ambivalence. Here, lying is always the quickest way to the truth.
Read the entire review here

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Marcus McCann interviewed on MyGSA.ca

I'm currently working with Marcus McCann to bring out his second collection of poems The Hard Return with my 4 A.M. Books imprint at Insomniac Press in spring 2012. Marcus has been interviewed by the queer advocacy site MyGSA.ca, and I'd like to share that with you. Here is a sample:
MyGSA: Do you find you are impacted by place?  Does an urban space provide you with a lot of material for your writing? Have you lived/traveled outside of Canada and have those places/spaces influenced your work?

MM: Yes, in terms of urban space. I find a lot of poets who live in cities still resort to poems about birds and wheat fields. Why is that? I write poems about cell phones and puffy coats and apartment towers because for most Canadians, that’s more likely to be an image they can conjure in their heads, compared to a red-throated lorikeet or a creeping thistle, or whatever.


Read the entire interview here

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Today my blog just passed 30,000 hits.

As of this morning, my blog has been visited more than 30,000 times since I started it a few years ago. Perhaps I will celebrate in some small way. Perhaps by reading some favourite poems. Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday 4 September 2011

Sachiko Murakami's Project Rebuild

In conjunction with the launch of her new book Rebuild, Sachiko Murakami gives us Project Rebuild. According to the site, "Project Rebuild is an experiment in collaboration. You are invited to move into any of the poems on the site, and renovate them as you will. Your new poem will then join the front page neighbourhood." Once you poke around the site for a minute or two, the game becomes apparent. It's fascinating project. I have just "renovated" my first poem on the site. I invite you to read my poem, and then, if you wish, you may "move in" to my poem and "renovate" it however you wish! To see my poem, called "Well Well Well", click here.

If you're in Toronto this week, come to Sachiko's launch on Wednesday night at The Press Club. The details are here.