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Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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From the Archive: Titles Gone Rogue with The Iconoclast’s Journal and Biblioasis’ ReSet Series
Award-winning author Terry Griggs and the team from Biblioasis ask in today’s From the Archive, “what’s in a name?” In the case of Griggs’ The Iconoclast’s Journal, it can result in some serious mis-shelving: the former title, Rogues’ Wedding, had wound up in the romance section more than once. They talk about saving the book in its…
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Beautiful Books: Surfaces
In his collection of visually-based poems Surfaces (Invisible Publishing), Eric Schmaltz pushes the boundaries of writing and language to explore the intersection of text and image. Eric tells us more about this intersection and how he plays with shape and space in his debut book.
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Chappy Hour: A Whiskey Apple Cocktail + Our Familiar Hunger
Warm up on a cool Spring night with this Whiskey Apple Cocktail, inspired by the apple-toting Ukranian woman immigrating to Canada in “What She Carries in her Chest” from Laisha Rosnau’s latest collection, Our Familiar Hunger (Nightwood Editions).
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In Review: The Week of April 23rd
This week we found moments of reprieve with our last few poetry cures and got our maps out for Canadian Independent Bookstore Day.
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Best Canadian Poetry’s Slow-Cooked Poetry Stew
After 19 healing days of the #ALUpoetrycure, we sure could eat. Tightrope Books’ Best Canadian Poetry series editor Anita Lahey joins us to make a perfectly balanced poetry stew; detailing the common and contrasting themes in the poems that make up the series’ 10th Anniversary Edition, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry.
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Poetry Cure: Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Poetry Cure ends on a transformative note with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Bodymap (Mawenzi House), a collection that meditates on what it means to be a queer woman of colour in North America with sections on disability, queer transformative love, politics and Sri Lankan identity, and queer parenting. We read “everyone thinks you’re so lazy. don’t…
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Poetry Cure: creole métisse of french canada, me by Sharron Proulx-Turner
After a near-20 year writing and editing relationship and friendship, Sharron Proulx-Turner’s editor Aruna Srivastava fields questions about her late friend’s final collection, the hybrid of storytelling and poetry creole métisse of french canada, me (Kegedonce Press). We chat with Aruna and read “The longhouse” from this beautiful book.
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Poetry Cure: Happinesswise by Jonathan Bennett
In Happinesswise (ECW Press), award-winning author Jonathan Bennett explores the relative nature of happiness in a collection of poems that range from his personal experiences with his autistic son to poems about palliative care patients. We learn more about Happinesswise, get some life advice, and read the title poem from Jonathan’s collection.
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Poetry Cure: The Size of a Bird by Clementine Morrigan
Clementine Morrigan’s collection The Size of a Bird (Inanna Publications) explores desire, sexuality, and all of its pleasures and pains under rape culture. They talk with us about trauma magic, queer writing groups, and letting the writing come first (and editing come second), as well as sharing the poem “First Dates” from her collection.
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In Review: The Week of April 16th
This week Poetry Cure was just the antidote we needed to the is-it-spring-yet blues and we finally cleared up how to correctly pronounce Pulitzer.
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Poetry Cure: Ritual Lights by Joelle Barron
Today’s poetry cure speaks to trauma, sexual assault, and healing with Joelle Barron’s Ritual Lights (Goose Lane Editions), a collection full of vulnerability, humour, and rage. As Joelle tells us below, “It’s a story of many losses that lead to the ultimate triumph of queer love and the formation of a beautiful family.”
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Poetry Cure: Like by Max Layton
Max Layton’s collection LIKE (Guernica Editions) operates under the directive that this ubiquitous word – “like” – be used in every poem. We chat with Max about how losing his sight opened the “floodgates” to writing songs and poetry, what inspires his work, and his very poetic lineage, as well as read “In the Cave of…
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Poetry Cure: Elemental by Kate Braid
Kate Braid’s fifteen-year-career as a carpenter informs much of her new collection Elemental (Caitlin Press), both an ode to nature and a feminist nod to blue-collar tradeswork. Below Kate tells us about a knee surgery that was the impetus for this collection and the most surprising part of being a writer.
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Poetry Cure: Book of Annotations by Cameron Anstee
In Cameron Anstee’s Book of Annotations (Invisible Publishing), he packs years of minimalist poetry practice into a collection of tight, jewel-like poems (like “Triptych”, below). We chat with Cameron about his influences, his writing habits, and what he’s reading now.
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Poetry Cure: Songen by Patrick Friesen
In today’s Poetry Cure, we chat with award-winning poet Patrick Friesen about his book Songen (Mother Tongue Publishing), a collection of poems each one sentence long and joined by commas; the likeness of Middle English and Low German; and music as inspiration.
Got any book recommendations?