Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
-
DiscoverVerse: Yusuf Saadi + Pluviophile
Our interview with poet Yusuf Saadi turns the final page on our Poetry Month celebrations! Yusuf takes on the last round of our ALU DiscoverVerse with his collection Pluviophile (Nightwood Editions), a Baudrillard-ian playground where words die and are reborn under sacred signifiers. Read on for the full interview where we chat about editing, interplanetary food competitions…
-
DiscoverVerse: M.A. Mahadeo + Never a Child
Today’s featured DiscoverVerse poet is M.A. Mahadeo whose debut collection Never a Child (Now or Never Publishing) is both a dialogue with and reflection of the people who have shaped her understanding of her feminine identity. Below, M.A. tells us what she learned writing her collection and how poetry is always evolving, what she’d bring with…
-
How Do Poets Write Through Times of Crisis? Two approaches to writing poetry during uncertain times
When Heather O’Neill writes that “artists are notorious for creating their art under the most perilous and inopportune circumstances,” I want so desperately to believe it. In an essay for Maclean’s, she states: “They create in poverty, under repressive regimes, in prison, in the margins, after long late night shifts at a diner.” History proves this to…
-
DiscoverVerse: Betsy Warland + Lost Lagoon/lost in thought
In her collection Lost Lagoon/lost in thought (Caitlin Press) Betsy Warland explores a small body of water in Vancouver’s Stanley Park as a source for revelations on our urban and natural worlds. In today’s interview, Betsy tells us more about how this collection reinforced her understanding of the crucial nature of pace—a slowing down from the…
-
DiscoverVerse: Gwen Benaway + day/break
In her fourth collection, day/break (Book*hug Press) Gwen Benaway lays bare what it means to be a trans woman in the world, calling into question how gender, sexuality, and love intersect with violence and institutional transmisogyny. Below Gwen tells us more about writing her collection and why day/break was a lesson in refusal for her.…
-
In Review: The Week of April 20th
This week we continued our penultimate week of NPM celebrations with more author interviews and poems, and quietly (and unrelatedly) wondered to ourselves “why does anyone make bread when they can buy it?” (We get why, ps).
-
DiscoverVerse: Sadiqa de Meijer + The Outer Wards
Sadiqa de Meijer takes on the ALU DiscoverVerse today to discuss her book The Outer Wards (Véhicule Press), a collection about maternal love and duty and finding new frontiers of language to convey sense of powerlessness as a mother facing illness. Sadiqa shares more with us about knowing the boundaries of her work, of outer worlds,…
-
DiscoverVerse: Margaret Christakos + charger
The poems in Margaret Christakos’s new collection charger (Talonbooks) consider how our technology delivers us to each other: what part does our digital world play between the private and social, between mortal and virtual? Below, Margaret delves deeper into these questions, and chats with us about walking as a place to consider her second-generation-Canadian body in history, her…
-
DiscoverVerse: Wade Kearley + Narrow Cradle
Today we chat with Wade Kearley about his third poetry collection Narrow Cradle (Breakwater Books), a mid-life reckoning with mortality that through poetic form strives for freedom and personal rebirth. Below, Kearley shares more about learning his love for family, the planet and traditional forms of poetry through the writing of this collection and takes…
-
DiscoverVerse: Irfan Ali + Accretion
Irfan Ali joins us for ALU DiscoverVerse to chat about his newly minted collection Accretion (Brick Books) — a debut inspired by the ancient Persian love story of Layla and Manjun — that considers the struggle of an immigrant family stuck between their cultural traditions and new life. Set in the crowded streets of Toronto, immersed in hip-hop…
-
DiscoverVerse: Bertrand Bickersteth + The Response of Weeds
Bertrand Bickersteth kicks off a brand new week of ALU DiscoverVerse with The Response of Weeds(NeWest Press), a collection that explores what it means to be both black and Albertan. In today’s interview, Bickersteth offers more about the inherent strangeness of Alberta and how, through writing, he was able to come to a sincere understanding…
-
In Review: The Week of April 13th
This week in quarantine: our NPM celebration rolled on with five more rad poets, CBC Books shared their spring reading list, cute comics were found, and more!
-
DiscoverVerse: Daniela Elza + the broken boat
Today’s ALU DiscoverVerse poet is Daniela Elza whose new collection the broken boat (Mother Tongue Publishing) is about the undoing of a twenty-year marriage and what it means to sit with grief. Below Daniela talks to us about why grief is a good teacher, what it is to embody words, and where she draws inspiration from.…
-
DiscoverVerse: Catherine Hunter + St. Boniface Elegies
Today in the ALU DiscoverVerse, we welcome poet Catherine Hunter, author of St. Boniface Elegies (Signature Editions), a collection that traces a poet’s relationships with her family and her community. Below, Catherine shares more about the grip that poetry has had, and continues to have upon her life, and how visual art and theatre energize her thinking. PLUS,…
-
DiscoverVerse: Scott Nolan + Moon Was a Feather
Around his 40th birthday in 2015, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Scott Nolan set out to replace smoking cigarettes with walking ten kilometres a day—the catalyst that began his poetry writing. Below he tells us about his debut collection Moon Was a Feather (J. Gordon Shillingford) that evolved from those long walks through the Winnipeg streets. Read…
Got any book recommendations?