Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Try Poetry: Frank’s Wing + Jacob McArthur Mooney
As part of the Try Poetry series, we’re asking our featured poets to let us know how and when they got into the form: today’s poet Jacob McArthur Mooney gives us an exact date and time in today’s interview. Find out when, as well as what collection comes eagerly recommended by Jacob, and read “The…
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Try Poetry: Casting Out + Rocco de Giacomo
Rocco de Giacomo shares with us his first poem, ‘For Then Shall Be Great Tribulation’, from his recently released collection Casting Out(Guernica Editions). For new poetry readers, de Giacomo also recommends exploring your local bookstore to select collections off the shelf that spark your interest, as everyone has a different taste in poetry.
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Try Poetry: Lent + Kate Cayley
Kate Cayley tells us about when she first started writing poetry and provides some recommendations for readers that want to explore their poetic side. Cayley gives us a glimpse into her poetry collection Lent (Book*hug Press) with ‘Mary Shelley at the End of Her Life, Recalling the Monster’. Read poem in full below.
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Try Poetry: Way to Go + Richard Sanger
Our next Try Poetry feature is the late Richard Sanger, a celebrated poet, playwright, and translator. His final book Way to Go (published posthumously by Biblioasis) is a tender, playful, and courageous collection that represents the full spectrum of Sanger’s thoughts and feelings when contending with his illness. Biblioasis Managing Editor Vanessa Stauffer shares a few words…
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Try Poetry: Through the Eyes of Asunder + Neal Shannacappo
Today for National Poetry Month, ALU got a chance to interview Nakawe Poet and Graphic Novelist, NShannacappo about when he started writing poetry, as well as what his featured poem “Warrior” from his collection Through the Eyes of Asunder (Kegedonce Press) means to him.
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Try Poetry: Abolitionist Intimacies + El Jones
We’re in good hands on this first day of Try Poetry (Why Not?) – former Poet Laureate of Halifax and academic/activist El Jones shares her electrifying poem “How to Write a Settler Poem” from her latest collection Abolitionist Intimacies (Fernwood Publishing). Read the poem, the spoken word and activist poets that inspire Jones, and more…
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National Poetry Month 2023: Try Poetry (Why Not?)
When it comes to discovering (or rediscovering) a love of poetry, there really is no time like the present. The unique despair that is being a human amid rising inequality and a pending climate collapse can be captured by poetry, sure, and also offset by it; the poets, in other words, know what they’re doing.…
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Canada Reads for Everyone: Accessible Follow-ups to this Year’s Contenders
There was a lot of discussion surrounding making difficult topics “accessible” in 2023’s CBC Canada Reads competition. We noodled on another way they could be accessible: with follow-up recommendations from our ebooks for Everyone collection! Read on to see what we’d pair with the five contenders from this year’s battle of the books.Psst: The first…
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Queer Coded: 2023 LAMBDA Literary Award Finalists
For our Queer Coded series today, we’re proud to showcase the finalists of the 2023 LAMBDA Literary Awards featured on All Lit Up. Award winners are to be announced in June! Read more about the titles below.
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Character Study: Getting Huge
The hilarious-on-its-surface premise of John Young’s soon-to-be-released novel, Getting Huge (Guernica Editions), is that protagonist John Crackstone is obsessively growing pumpkins as big as he can. But the oddball plot perfectly complements the story’s raw, human telling: one where a marriage is on the rocks, and where a son desperately tries to live up to his father’s example…
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Women Asking Women: Eden Boudreau and Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay
For our final Women Asking Women interview, Eden Boudreau discusses her debut memoir Crying Wolf with Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, discussing her novel-in-translation Dandelion Daughter. Together they discuss writing sexual assault, the receptions of their stories in the queer community and elsewhere, and healing-through-writing.
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Where in Canada: Sourcebooks for Our Drawings
Danny Jacobs takes us through a singular and idiosyncratic portrait of New Brunswick through the commercial sprawl of contemporary Atlantic Canada. In this excerpt from Sourcebooks for Our Drawings (Gordon Hill Press) we get a closer look at the realities of the village fires of Petitcodiac mixed with elements of prose, and speculations of generational…
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Poetry in Motion: Tilling the Darkness
On the blog today we have Susan Braley reading her poem “The Egtved Girl” from Tilling the Darkness(Caitlin Press). Braley’s poems trace a woman in a rural setting who comes to appreciate the complex, bountiful legacy of her early life—exploring grief and renewal. Watch below for a peak into Tilling the Darkness.
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Women Asking Women: Corinna Chong and Taslim Burkowicz
These two British Columbia based authors, Corinna Chong (The Whole Animal, Arsenal Pulp Press) and Taslim Burkowicz (Ruby Red Skies, Roseway Publishing) interview one another about their novels that grapple with alienation and self-discovery. Both stories have protagonists deal with the strains of mixed-cultural identity. Read more below.
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Got any book recommendations?