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Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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In Review: The Week of April 9th
This week Poetry Cure gave us puns, bookish self-care tips, Yoda-like writing advice, museums of kindness, and ‘grammable poetry.
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Poetry Cure: page as bone – ink as blood by Jónína Kirton
In her first collection page as bone – ink as blood (Talonbooks), Métis/Icelandic poet Jónína Kirton seeks to access the “blood memory” of herself, her ancestors, and the lands she’s from, divining family secrets, gifts, and curses. She tells us about blood memories, writing rituals, and more in our Poetry Cure interview, and we read the…
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Poetry Cure: Lasting, Leaving, Left by Robin Dyke
In Robin Dyke’s emotionally charged collection Lasting, Leaving, Left (Promontory Press) existential questions of what it means to live take shape in three sections—Lasting, Leaving, Left. Together they explore the meaning of memories, life stages, and what we leave behind when we’re gone.
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Poetry Cure: Museum of Kindness by Susan Elmslie
Perhaps truest to our mission of a poetry cure is Susan Elmslie’s collection Museum of Kindness (Brick Books), where she builds four poetic “exhibitions” that exist in her museum-in-words of kindness, built to explore and soothe human traumas both everyday and extraordinary.
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Poetry Cure: This Will Be Good by Mallory Tater
Today’s Poetry Cure features Mallory Tater’s This Will Be Good (Book*hug), a collection of lyric poems that explore a young woman’s developing femininity and an emerging eating disorder. Scroll down for our chat with Mallory about her debut book, self-care, and potato puns, and read “Blue Tuesday” from her collection.
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Poetry Cure: I’d Write the Sea Like a Parlour Game by Alison Dyer
In today’s Poetry Cure feature I’d Write the Sea Like a Parlour Game (Breakwater Books), Alison Dyer poetically maps the “lumpy land, carving seas, and barrens that are anything but” of Newfoundland. We chat with her about biogeography and coming to poetry, and read “White Birch (the moon child)” from this debut collection-cum-love letter to nature.
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In Review: The Week of April 2nd
We started off this month with Poetry Cure, a series dedicated to poetry as self-care, revisited some historical literary movements (postmodernism, what’s up), and cheered for some indie presses that made the 2018 Alberta Literary Awards shortlist.
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Poetry Cure: Class Clown by Pino Coluccio
Pino Coluccio’s Class Clown (Biblioasis) takes classic themes of love, death, and time and presents them in short, witty poems all based on rhyme, puns, and wordplay. We chat with the Toronto-based poet about his collection (and share two short poems from it), astute life advice like “I before e except after c,” and his…
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Poetry Cure: The Celery Forest by Catherine Graham
In today’s poetry cure, we talk with Catherine Graham about the cancer-healing story that bookends her collection The Celery Forest (Wolsak & Wynn), the story behind the illustration on its cover, and what she’d use her powers for, if she had them (hint: definitely for good). Keep scrolling to read “Fireflies” from the collection, too.
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Poetry Cure: The News by Rob Taylor
When Rob Taylor was awaiting the arrival of his first child, he took on the task of writing a poem a week during his wife’s pregnancy, about her pregnancy. The poems that make up The News (Gaspereau Press) are a collection from those weeks that contemplate fatherhood and the absurdity and violence of the world in which…
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Poetry Cure: Indianland by Lesley Belleau
Lesley Belleau’s first book of poetry, Indianland (ARP Books) is concerned with woman- and motherhood, Indigenous life and politics, nature, longing, and memory. Interspersed with Anishinaabemowin throughout – like the poem “mahwee animikee”, below – her collection is unflinchingly honest, heart-rending, and soulful.
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Poetry Cure: What the Soul Doesn’t Want by Lorna Crozier
Poetry Cure begins with acclaimed poet Lorna Crozier whose poems, to quote the Globe and Mail, “are always a reason for rejoicing.” The poems in her newest collection What the Soul Doesn’t Want (Freehand Books) speak to aging and grief, observing and drawing strength from the quirkiness of the natural world, and as Lorna hopes…
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In Review: The Week of March 26th
This week we played casting director (Hollywood can thank us now), celebrated World Theatre Day with a journey through Canada, and tuned into CBC’s Canada Reads.
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If You Liked x, Read y: CBC Canada Reads Edition 2018
We love tuning into CBC’s Canada Reads, and this year was no exception. We have some If You Liked x follow up reads to the books championed during the debates.
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When the Story Calls
Author Priya Ramsingh shares the “whispers” that drove her to finish writing her debut novel, Brown Girl in the Room (Tightrope Books), as well as an inside look at the anxiety – and, eventually, joy – at readers discussing their reception of her book.
Got any book recommendations?