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Poetry in Motion: Paul Vermeersch + NMLCT
In his eighth book of poems, NMLCT (ECW Press), Paul Vermeersch creates a multimedia experience that responds to our “post-truth” society; one that is rampant with misinformation, facsimiles, and artificial intelligence. Precisely 16 lines long each, identically formed as though mass-produced, these poems explore our relationship with what’s real and what’s brought to us by a constructed reality. As readers move through the book, they encounter text and visual elements that capture the experience of being in a digital realm. Below, Paul tells us more about his poetic style and reads “On Monstrosity” from his book.
Skeuomorph, Ritual, Synesthesia, Mutation, and the Protean Well of Language: Fragments of a Poetics
by Paul Vermeersch
Poetic form is a skeuomorph, an electric lightbulb shaped like a candleflame. It preserves its function in what it communicates, in how it communicates. It preserves it, above all, in its aesthetics.
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Terminology is texture.
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Repetition is rhetoric.
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Repetition is rhythm.
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Repetition is ritual.
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A well-made image is synesthetic. It not only appeals to more than one sense—it induces different perceptions in those senses. Moreover, language is a form of synesthesia. That we can look at some marks on page—say the letters B-A-L-L—and immediately think of a spherical object; or hear a sound like “dog” and immediately think of a canine, is synesthesia. The written word, or the spoken word, are not connected to the objects they conjure up except by mental association. It is the same way that a letter of the alphabet or a musical note can be connected to a colour for a synesthete. That we agree on the symptoms of this synesthesia makes it a codified cultural phenomenon. Language is mass synesthesia.
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Read like an explorer.
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Evolution requires mutation.
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Explore with purpose.
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Mutate with purpose.
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Exploring a new style involves striking a balance between “trying” new things and “allowing” new things to happen.
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Every person has a deep, protean well of language within them. It is constantly growing, deepening, and refilling. Every time you engage with language—in reading, in conversation, in contemplation—the well of language is altered and replenished. As a glass determines the shape of water, the contours of the self—all of one’s experiences, identities, and curiosities—determine the shape of one’s well…which is always in flux. This well is the source of all the raw materials of poetry.
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Do not let what words are saying distract you from words are doing.
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Don’t write about things. Write things. A poem that tries to capture an experience is never as interesting as a poem that tries to create an experience.
Paul reads “On Monstrosity” from NMLCT
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Paul Vermeersch is a poet, multimedia artist, professor, and editor. His eighth collection of poetry is NMLCT, published in September 2025 by ECW Press. Paul holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph for which he received the Governor General’s Gold Medal. He is currently a professor at Sheridan College where he serves as the editor-in-chief of The Ampersand Review of Writing & Publishing. He is also the senior editor of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers where he created the poetry and fiction imprint Buckrider Books. He lives in Toronto.
Photo by Bianca Spence.
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NMLCT is available now, here or from your favourite indie bookstore. And if you’re wondering, how do I pronounce the title?, click here.
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