April Gatherings with Junction Reads, Speech Dries Here on the Tongue, I've Been Meaning to Ask You, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Eric Topol and more.
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My NewsSpeech Dries Here on the Tongue: Poetry on Environmental Collapse and Mental Health
Edited by Rasiqra Revulva, Amanda Shankland & Hollay Ghadery has been listed in the Quill and Quire’s Spring Preview and CBC’s list of 39 spring poetry collections they are excited about.
I’m grateful to have contributed three poems to this anthology.
Order Speech Dries Here on the Tongue
I’m starting a new Send My Love to Anyone interview series called I’ve Been Meaning to Ask You.
But I’m not putting my guests through these questions without doing them myself, so here’s my self-interview to kick of the series.
It gets personal!
Kirby News
For National Poetry Month, sits down with Junction Reads host, Alison Gadsby to “spill the T” on She, Poetry is Queer, their upcoming Fairy, and other queeries. Thursday April 17th 7pm ET on InstagramLive.
What I’m Reading: The Gate of Memory edited by Brynn Saito, Brandon Shimoda. A Magnificent Loneliness Allison Benis White. Love, Joe The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard edited by Daniel Kane.
What I’m ReadingFrom “March on the St. Lawrence,” a new poem by Nyla Mutak in The Walrus
“An imperial literature prefers the realism of showing the imperfect domesticity within an American empire.”
One way to understand the dilemma of contemporary American literature in the age of Donald Trump is to see it as an imperial literature. The United States is a different kind of empire, exerting global hegemonic power through hundreds of military bases and a network of alliances, trade agreements, and financial and legal institutions, which add up to a US-led “international rules based order,” as Joe Biden called it.
For decades, American literature has played its role in this order as an arm of US soft power, showing the domestic life of empire while mostly ignoring the rest of the world. Remember that the aptly named Central Intelligence Agency understood quite well the importance of soft power and the role of art. During the Cold War, the CIA secretly funded or encouraged everything from the promotion of modernism in Europe to the importation of international writers to the United States, where they could be exposed to an American literary aesthetics.
From Viet Thanh Nguyen: Most American Literature is the Literature of Empire in Lit Hub
Global Round Up from
FEMINIST GIANTGlobal Roundup: Transgender Day of Visibility Around the World, Gaza Tent Beauty Salon Provides Self-Care, Grannies Football Tournament, Indigenous Women ArtistsWith the U.S. Capitol in the background, Kali wears a trans equality flag in her hair while attending a rally for the Trans Day of Visibility, on the National Mall, Monday, March 31, 2025, in Washing…Read more9 days ago · 15 likes · Mona EltahawyI also know that his Allahu Akbar here is the lament of a helpless soul. A lament that turns to God in the face of a world that has abandoned his people and says, “You are greater than all of this. Greater than our worries, than our pain, than our suffering. Greater than the bombs they drop, than the aid trucks they block at the border, than the UN vetoes, than the state-sanctioned abductions.”
Read Unpacking Allahu Akbar, beyond the Hollywood hype from
Idea for a story. Two writers, living in two chalets on opposite slopes of the valley, observe each other alternately. One of them is accustomed to write in the morning, the other in the afternoon. Mornings and afternoons, the writer who is not writing trains his spyglass on the one who is writing.
One of the two is a productive writer, the other a tormented writer. The tormented writer watches the productive writer filling pages with uniform lines, the manuscript growing in a pile of neat pages. In a little while the book will be finished: certainly a best seller—the tormented writer thinks with a certain contempt but also with envy. He considers the productive writer no more than a clever craftsman, capable of turning out machine-made novels catering to the taste of the public; but he cannot repress a strong feeling of envy for that man who expresses himself with such methodical self confidence.
from If on a Winter’s Night a Travel by Italo Calvino
Good piece on White Lotus:
It's Not You, It's The Media....because only wealthy White Lives MatterRead more5 days ago · 29 likes · 1 comment · Bhakti ShringarpureAnyway, this is all to say—the game is rigged, it’s been rigged, and yet we still play it. You always get to decide what matters to you and where you spend your money (or not). Is it worth it to you to spend $25 on a Publishers Weekly maybe? Is it worth it to you to spend $500 on ad space on Facebook or in Mother Jones or through a Goodreads giveaway? All up to you (or your publisher, depending!).
From “First in My Heart” by Cassie Mannes Murray in .
on What Makes a Good Writing Prompt from The Writer’s Journey
The Writer's Journey with Laura DavisWhat Makes a Great Writing Prompt?You may wonder why you should bother to use writing prompts—let’s face it; a lot of typical ones are boring. You may also assume that prompts are only appropriate for beginners; but I’ve found them invaluable for writers at every level. In my decades responding to prompts and creating and personalizing them for my students, I’ve learned a lot about what makes an effective, compelling, truth-producing prompt…Read morea month ago · 2 likes · 6 comments · laura davison Canadian book retailers lowing “their elbows”
Be sure of one thing though. If/When fascism comes to Canada, it will be cloaked in red maple leaves and facilitated by the “business community”. Every single fascist moment in history has been aided and abetted by elements of the “business community” and Canada is not going to be an exception to this iron law of political history.
Kwame EffCanadian Book Retailers Lower Their Elbows, Break Solidarity With #TeamCanadaThe Cracks In Fortress Canada Are Already Showing…Read more13 days ago · 8 likes · 1 comment · Kwame EffFrom ’s Ground Truths:
Ground TruthsThe Breakthrough Blood Test for Alzheimer's DiseaseRead more2 days ago · 436 likes · 15 comments · Eric TopolCanadian university teachers warned against travelling to the United States
What I’m Listening toBig News in Victoria!The Canadian Association of University Teachers released updated travel advice on Tuesday due to the “political landscape” created by President Donald Trump’s administration and reports of some Canadians encountering difficulties crossing the border.
The Victoria Book Prizes Society is excited and proud to announce the inaugural DC Reid Poetry Prize! Submissions are also open for 2025!!
