Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Writer’s Block: Michael Kaan
May commemorates a lot of things – Mental Health, short stories, mothers – but we’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss another commemoration, Asian Heritage Month. Answering our questionnaire today is debut novelist Michael Kaan, whose novel The Water Beetles (Goose Lane Editions), about a Hong Kong boy surviving the horrors of war and Japanese occupation, has…
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This Week in Lit Events: May 1-7th
Venture out to one of these great literary events in your area this week, including the Trillium Award 30th Anniversary Readings in Ottawa and the Read Local BC readings (x2!) in Vancouver.Are you hosting an event featuring an author whose titles are available on All Lit Up? Send the event details, including author, book, date,…
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Chappy Hour: Red Headed Woody + No TV for Woodpeckers
ALU resident mixologist Tan is back at it again to cure you of the post-National-Poetry-Month blues with a fresh cocktail for spring and a mighty collection of poetry, No TV for Woodpeckers by Gary Barwin (Wolsak and Wynn).
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In Review: The Week of April 24th
Holy April showers, National Poetry Month is over already? While this year’s #poetsresist campaign comes to a close, we’ll continue to keep our fists held high against social injustice all year and beyond. Read on for a book recommendation as well as other litbits, and enjoy this last April weekend because before we know it…
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Poets Resist: Katherine Leyton
Katherine Leyton’s debut poetry collection All the Gold Hurts My Mouth (Goose Lane Editions) is a perfect end to #poetsresist: it examines sexual politics through the 21st century lens of ever-present communication technology. Her raw-yet-gorgeous poetics are a view into what poetry as resistance can look like as we strike back, and move ahead.
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Poets Resist: Lise Gaston
Lise Gaston’s Cityscapes in Mating Season (Signature Editions) speaks from a woman’s bodily experience of the world, from the reimagining of a ruined castle as a female body participating in her own patriarchal “ruining,” to the pervading fear of being alone outside, in the dark. The poems lay insight into the female body, a body…
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Poets Resist: Rachel Lebowitz
Rachel Lebowitz’s Cottonopolis (Pedlar Press), describes the seedier side of the Industrial Revolution through both found and prose poetry. Moving from the British cotton industry at home to colonization and slavery abroad, the Industrial Revolution’s brutality on its oft-forgotten suffering are revealed, from “little lads” who “get littler” and scavengers who “are not birds.”
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Poets Resist: Lisa Robertson
In 3 Summers (Coach House), poet Lisa Robertson traces the body in its various forms, exploring borders and boundaries and time, all the while asking what is a body? In Lisa’s words “…the whole female body of time mostly passes beneath representation.” Read on for a poem from the collection, and an interview with the…
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This Week in Lit Events: April 24-30th
It’s Authors for Indies this Saturday, which, if nothing else was going on, would be a jam-packed week for literary events. But there’s MORE.
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Poets Resist: Molly Peacock
Consummate poet and writer Molly Peacock returns with her latest collection, The Analyst (Biblioasis), a chronicling of her long-term therapist’s recovery from a stroke through painting. Through the recovery, Molly went from patient to helper, witnessing the transformative power of not only art, but human relationships, too.
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In Review: The Week of April 17th
We’re heading into our last week of our National Poetry Month interview series, Poets Resist, where we have words with the @#$% patriarchy with five mighty poetry collections. Until then, we’ll leave you with some bookish news around the web.
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Poets Resist: Jeff Steudel
Jeff Steudel’s Foreign Park (Anvil Press) voices concerns about the natural world and our relationship with it, exploring both our individual and collective impact on the environment. As the poems detail the effects of destruction on our land, they also peek into the communities in Vancouver’s coastal cityscape, asking questions about everything from death to…
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Poets Resist: John Reibetanz
Poet John Reibetanz’s collection Afloat (Brick Books) explores humanity’s relationship to water: how we use it, are threatened by it, corrupt it, and are made whole by it. John calls our relationship with water the “natural metaphor for the reciprocal relationship between humanity and the environment,” discusses his inspirations both poetic and photographic, and shares the poem…
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Poets Resist: Richard Kelly Kemick
In Caribou Run (Goose Lane Editions), Richard Kelly Kemick’s debut poetry collection, we glimpse the Porcupine caribou herd of the western Arctic through its annual cycle of migration, exploring what we share with this creature and what remains ineffable. Running the gamut in form and theme, the poems range from lyric studies of the caribou…
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Poets Resist: Leanne Dunic
Leanne Dunic’s collection To Love the Coming End (Book*hug) is environmentally-conscious, in an entropic sort of way: “Everything will end,” she says in our interview. “Such is the nature of life.” All the same, Leanne discusses improving our environment to give us the space to fix our other failings.
Got any book recommendations?