Gion Davis, Designated Stranger

You can actually run away. You are allowed to go, at least for a little while. You can drive all over the place and end up in California and eat fried cod in Fort Bragg and half-joke about moving there even though you know you won’t because small towns you can only get to by wild little highways aren’t really your thing anymore.

 

You are allowed to have the most perfect day you can remember, even though you are tired from sleeping on an inflatable mattress in some stranger’s living room. It’ll be a day where it doesn’t matter than you are trans, that you are newly twenty-eight, that you are waiting on the hospital bill from your boyfriend having to go to the ER with COVID after you lost your insurance because you quit your job three weeks ago to run off into the country.

 

It won’t matter that you’re a poet standing under some giant redwoods and wondering if they ever have perfect days and what those days are like. Maybe just the right amount of sun, just the right amount of rain, just the right amount of passing nutrients back and forth to one another underground in secret. It’s hard to imagine anything going wrong for them. I stood in the burned-out heart of a tree that was still healthy and enormous everywhere except right at the bottom in the middle which was empty. You could have lived inside it. Maybe someone has. (“The Thing No One Wants You to Know”)

Following his full-length debut, Too Much (Ghost Peach Press, 2022), comes Denver, Colorado-based poet Gion Davis’ latest, the collection Designated Stranger (Logan UT: Thirdhand Books, 2026). “there are parts of me / I will never see / there are parts / of Louisiana / that are underwater,” he writes, as part of the poem “Simple Divorces.” There’s a restlessness to the poems in this collection, one that emerges from a narrator seeking out their place; wandering, for the sake of seeking somewhere to settle, or even feel comfortable, perhaps, working to articulate a wandering period of youth, and the current realities of being transgender and poor in America. “You can’t imagine it: the smell drying onto cardboard & into an old / Red wheelbarrow full of stomachs heavier & whiter than the moon.” begins the poem “Nothing’s Hanging Out Going to Whole Foods,” “They do not / Do that where you are from. Where you are from, a velvet rope runs the circumference / Of death & you stood in line with a ticket just to touch it.”

As the press release offers, the book “spans years, states, genders, and climates as it confronts the concurrent apocalypses of being trans and poor in America,” as Davis offers poems that are smart and exploratory, exhausted and declarative, utilizing a sharp use of both the lyric sentence and the line-break, prose poems and accumulated phrases. “I wanted to live / in this junk drawer / of a city with you / among the pyramids,” begins the poem “Goddamn Universe,” “and piles of ripped up / rebar like wads of hair / from a brittle brush / beside the Mississippi.” Or, as the poem “How to Be a Good Man (If Conditions Are / Better to Be a Wildfire)” ends: “Wear a shirt that is nonthreatening. / Try on that pair of Wranglers / again. Maybe they’ll fit you / if you surprise them. / Come home to one person / in your bed every night / and stay who you are / for the rest of your life.”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Misha Solomon

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. His work has twice appeared in Best Canadian Poetry and in journals across Canada. He is a student in Concordia's Interdisciplinary PhD program. His debut full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, appears with Brick Books in March 2026, and his third chapbook, Misha Solomon's Biodôme: A Bestiary after Stephanie Bolster, follows with above/ground press in April 2026.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first chapbook, FLORALS (above/ground press, 2020), made me feel like I was actually a poet. It changed my life in that it opened up the possibility of pursuing poetry in a real and public way. My upcoming first full-length book, My Great-Grandfather Dance Ballet (Brick Books, 2026), feels different from FLORALS in that it has a strong central concept/narrative. But it also feels like a natural extension of some of the things I’ve been exploring since before FLORALS came out, a sort of closing of this first long chapter of my poetic “journey.”

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I happened to take a Quebec Writers’ Federation poetry workshop taught by Derek Webster and just liked it. I had been taking QWF prose workshops for a few years, just as a hobby, but it wasn’t until the poetry workshop that I found something I felt like I could really do. The contained, brief nature of a poem (or at least of the poems I wrote back then) was appealing to me. They were things both with and without rules, and I like applying structure to creativity and creativity to structure.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I’m not sure how long it takes me to start a project. Sometimes projects starts before I know they’ve started. My writing comes quickly and first drafts are reasonably close to final drafts, for me. I edit, of course, but I write quickly and when I write a poem I write to completion. I think my poems can sometimes trick me into thinking they’re done because I am good at having a beginning, middle, and end all figured it out, so that’s why I like to write in some sort of community to get early feedback.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Often poems begin with a prompt of some kind, maybe one I’ve been given or one I’ve given myself. Sometimes they come out of just an idea, a feeling, a thesis, but that’s usually once I already have a project on the go. In the past I’ve been an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, but these days I’m more focused on working on a “book” right away.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Public readings are an essential part of my creative process. I love them. I would do them all the time. They are my favourite part of being a poet. I write to an audience.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Yes! Or at least I hope so! In My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, I think my editor, Leah Horlick, really nailed the questions I was asking in the back cover copy she kindly wrote for the book: "What if the queer ancestor you always wondered about had really existed—and could speak to you across all time? When there’s only one document to be found in the archive, can our misheard or half-remembered family stories be enough?” In my new work, I’m focused on questions of (non-)reproduction, of what it means to be an animal, of what it means to be a human with an animal in your house.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Writers certainly have a role. Different writers have different roles. I think, at my core, I see myself as an entertainer? That sounds vaudevillian, song-and-dance-y, but what I mean is that I want my writing (or my performances of my writing) to provide distraction and engagement. I want people to enjoy my writing, even if I also want my writing to shift a political consciousness or evoke negative emotions.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I love working with an outside editor. I had an incredible experience working with Leah Horlick on this book. I don’t find it difficult. I really enjoy seeing how my work is landing for someone else. In my non-poetic employment, I give notes to screenwriters, so I’ve very used to the process, and it’s fun to be on the other side of it.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

What does it say about me that I cannot for the life of me think of an answer to this question?

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?

I haven’t really moved between genres in a public-facing way yet. My current project involves a lot more prose and lyric essay and academic writing, and the shift has been fluid. It has felt like the right time, especially since so much of my poetry is prose-y already. The appeal for me is the ability to dig further into ideas in a single work. There’s also the appeal of the potential of a wider audience, since readers are for some reason more “comfortable” with prose than with poetry.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I do not have a writing routine of any kind. A typical day begins with my fiancé, Guillaume, and my dog, Mugcake.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Frank O’Hara. And Mugcake.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Of my current home? Mugcake. A mostly pleasing doggy odour.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I’m influenced by science. My BA is in biological anthropology, and I grew up wanting to be a zoologist. My current work is interdisciplinary and heavily influenced by thinking about primates, biological reproduction, animal studies, etc. In My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, I was influenced by ballet, which isn’t something I knew (or know) very much about, but I’ve always been interested in it and loved being able to research it and write about it. There are also a few ekphrastic poems about the art in my home, so I suppose I am influenced by visual art on occasion.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Oh wow. So many! I am fortunate to have many writer friends. Allegra Kaplan, a fantastic Victoria-based poet and friend, recently said something about how so much of my poetics is about community, which I thought was a very nice way of putting it. Sarah Burgoyne, my poetry fairy godmother, has been a fundamental source of inspiration, support, encouragement, and friendship. Stephanie Bolster, my MA and PhD thesis supervisor, whose work (especially her zoo-related work) has been an inspiration (stay tuned for a new above/ground press chapbook…). My generative writing group (currently mostly on pause), with André Babyn, Sasha Manoli, and (previously) Lauren Peat. My current writing/workshop group in Montreal, with Robin Durnford, Madelaine Caritas Longman, Domenica Martinello, Melanie Power, Sarah Wolfson (we miss you, Patrick O’Reilly and Carlos Pittella!). Other poetry mentors/teachers I’ve had over the years, including Liz Howard, Sina Queyras, Lisa Richter, and Danez Smith. I could go on and on, truly. And I haven’t even gotten to poetic inspirations like Frank O’Hara.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

There are lots of things I haven’t done that I’d like to do, but I feel like I can’t quite put them into words. That’s not true — I just don’t want to put them into words, for fear of their not happening.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

If I hadn’t been a writer, I would have surely continued working full-time in scripted television development, which I still do as a freelancer. But going back to my childhood dream of zoology would be fun. Hosting an animal-centric documentary series. 

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I wanted to express myself artistically and publicly in some way, and this is the way I enjoy most and am best at.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I just finished Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told by Jeremy Atherton Lin and found it fascinating and moving. I also loved his previous book, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out. I also just mostly completed by annual year-end film catch-up — I think The Secret Agent may be my favourite film from 2025.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my spring above/ground press chapbook. Kinda sorta putting together a second full-length collection while working on my PhD project.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

 

Gwen Aube, missed connections with tall girls

 

at digby house, before steve sold
the place to hop trains in mexico 

at digby house you were playing the drums
while screaming. 

you didn’t really have boobs,
but your boobs were out. 

you were hitting the drums very fast.
anarchopunk thrash metal fast.
you called stephen harper a fag. 

i crushed a beer can on my head,
thought “holy fucking shit” a lot of times,
got kicked in the face, and went home. 

six years later at a party i saw you,
wearing a dinosaur onesie
and holding a beer with both hands,
like a nervous dinosaur. 

like a meteor shower,
four trans girls swooped on you at once.
you ran away because we scared you. 

three years later your boyfriend is visiting—
we watch you play drums in your basement. 

        he says:
she is going so fast. 

        i say:
i think she has been doing this forever.

From Montreal-based poet Gwen Aube [performing later this month in Ottawa at VERSeFest], following her chapbook debut, pulp necrosis (above/ground press, 2025), comes the full-length missed connections with tall girls (Brooklyn NY/Athens OH: LittlePuss Press, 2026), a sly, savage and saucy assemblage of intimate first-person lyric gestures filled with youthful vigor and gestural language, elements of poverty and deep grief. “you really were the enby dyke folk hero / of the Grand River housing projects. // your desktop tower full of Japanese autopsy / photosets, werewolf omoroshi, Linkin Park AMVs,” begins the poem “raised by wolves,” “neopets begging for their lives as guts hung / from their pixels like ball gowns.” Across a landscape of poverty and precarious living, working class life and transgender experience, and ridiculous and wayward adventures with friends and situations that occasionally move well beyond control, Aube’s delightful and exuberant poems articulate a meditative flamboyance, joyful optimism and playful language and use of the line. “waiting for a boy to take my bag outside dufferin station,” begins the poem “dao owes me a burger,” “the big blue duffel thing paint-stained & exploding socks / shirts skirts pants panties & broken // laptop, i lock eyes with a girl / in a lemon yellow crop top / posted up on the sidewalk, / hey sis, she slinks from somewhere behind / that sweet-sly smile, a jutting eve’s apple, / appraising my spills— [.]”

I do agree with the back cover blurb, appraising that Aube’s “hilarious and uncompromising poems chronicle a precarious, debaucherous carnival of trailer-trash divas and Discord autistics, living and delightful in survival at the edges of technocapital,” and comparing her work to “a transsexual Kevin Killian” [see my review of Killian's posthumous collected here], although some of the language-layerings and gestural flourish of her work just as much provide echoes of the work of Toronto poet MLA Chernoff [see my review of their latest here]. As well, the work of all three share a joyousness that is just as much a strategy for survival as it is a celebration, gesticulating a lyric-as-protection, writing out document and elegy, mournful ballads and memorials, playful gesture and theatrical waves. Either way, Aube’s poems remain grounded in narrative experience, which of course allows elements of the language to flourish, almost flail, suggesting an untethering or even an unravelling, but very much walking that line between order and chaos, both through lyric structure and narrative intent. Or, as the ninth poem in the ten-poem sequence-section “Wearing a Fur Coat to the Welfare Office” ends, writing:

i know this is no way to end things
but i hate it here, in ottawa.
& i’ll need to come back soon
to finish a poem— 

not this one.
this one is done.