Back at the turn of the century (!!!), I was the poetry editor for the Literary Review of Canada and, now that they’re celebrating their 20th year of publication, they’ve asked their former editors for contributions to a special anniversary issue. One of the poems from my upcoming book, Whiteout, is now on the stands. Also appearing this month, are three poems each in Event and The Fiddlehead.
Here’s a bit I did on CBC with The Once, the Newfoundland folk band that turned a poem from my upcoming book, Whiteout, into an incredible song. The interview ran on (Canadian) Thanksgiving Day, and contains two fulls songs from their album, including the one I had a hand in, “Song for Memory”. Hope you like it!
My upcoming book for spring 2012, Whiteout, is now available for (WAY in advance) pre-order at a variety of e-retailers. I sometimes like to order books ahead of time, then forget that I ordered them, and then find myself pleasantly surprised when they arrive, apparently unbidden!
I link to the amazons over in the side bar to the right, but mostly because it’s just easy and many readers already have accounts there, making ordering a cinch. But like many authors, I feel a certain solidarity with small booksellers, and I’d prefer that you buy my books somewhere local and independent, if you can. If not, you can always order straight from my publishers (ECW for this book and Glimpse, but Nightwood and M&S/Random House before that). So, please find below a bunch of options for ordering online:
Canada:
McNally Robinson (most recommended)
Amazon.ca
Chapters/Indigo (least recommended)
USA/International:
Powell’s (most recommended)
B&N
Amazon.com
I am reading and speaking and moderating as part of the Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference starting next week. It’s my first time in Vancouver (really!) and I’m in some very good company. Check it out!
A prominent European aphorisms site has translated a bunch of numbers from Glimpse and provided a little introduction, in Italian, on the poet. Very exciting. I lived in Italy for a while back in the 90s, and learned to speak the language. While I’m a pretty rusty speaker now, I can still read, and these translations seem quite good to my amateur eyes. Thanks to the proprietors of the site for their interest and for bringing Glimpse to a new language.
One of the poems I have in my upcoming collection, Whiteout, has just been released as a song on the new album of folk group The Once. It’s called “Song for Memory,” and I originally published it in The New Welsh Review. It was a great process working with the band to craft it into a song and I’m very pleased, in part because I was already a fan of the band before they asked me to participate. Who knew rock stars read poetry?!
You can listen to and order the album here, at their record label’s (Borealis/Universal) site. My song is the last in the list. In fact, the album is called “Row Upon Row of the People They Know”, which is the refrain from the song itself.
New this fall and winter will be several publications containing poems from my upcoming book, Whiteout:
Event was the first mainstream journal to print one of my poems, back in 96, with Fiddlehead only the next year. So it’s nice to be back in both.
Here’s the cover for my upcoming book, Whiteout, due spring of next year from ECW. I hope you like it! I love it.
I’ll be speaking at BookCampTO 2011, which is a gathering of Canadian book professionals, while wearing my Bookninja/pundit cap, August 20th in Toronto. If you’re a publishing type, I hope to see you there! If you’re not a publishing type, I hope to see you at the pub. I think I’m talking about web stuff and about grant writing from the creator perspective.
A whole bunch of poems from my new manuscript will be appearing in various journals this summer and fall. Pasture, out of New Zealand, will be publishing three poems, Event, from BC, will be publishing four, and the newly revived Metroverse (poetry on buses in St. John’s) will be publishing one of the aphorisms from Glimpse. There are also 37 aphorisms from Glimpse in the special aphorisms issue of Hotel Amerika (Chicago) — and one of those aphorisms is the all the text on the back cover, in flow-y script, like James Geary’s is on the front (pictured below).
