12 or 20 (second series) questions with Zachari Logan

Zachari Logan is a queer Canadian settler poet and artist whose artwork has been exhibited throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Logan’s work can be found in collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Remai Modern, Peabody Essex Museum, McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Nerman MOCA among many others. In 2014 Logan received the Lieutenant Governor’s Emerging Artist Award, in 2015 he received the Alumni of Influence Award from the University of Saskatchewan and in 2016 Logan was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award. In 2010, his chapbook, A Eulogy for the Buoyant, was published by JackPine Press and in 2021, A Natural History of Unnatural Things, was published by Radiant Press. Logan’s artwork and writing has been featured in many publications throughout the world. Zachari Logan lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? In 2010 I had a chapbook published with JackPine Press, a lovely project driven publisher in Saskatoon that invite poets and visual artists to co-create hand made books, only 75 copies are ever made. I submitted a project as both poet and artist and my project was accepted. That chapbook titled, A Eulogy for the Buoyant, consisted of 11 poems all engaging the process of grieving my late father who died suddenly of liver cancer when I was 22. It was a very powerful project in many distinct ways, primarily it allowed me to creatively process the trauma of losing a parent. I often process everything in my life visually, in one way or another- but with this experience I was entirely unable to. I began simply writing things down, strange remembrances, stranger feelings, and memories always memories, some tied to my dad others simply about a childhood that included him… I had years before taken a poetry class with the wonderful poet Tim Lilburn during the final year of my undergrad at the University of Saskatchewan. I hadn’t had the inclination after the class that I was a poet or writer by any leap of the imagination, but that I really appreciated how visual and philosophical poetry could be (like visual art) a conductor of great questions about life- a mode of communication that was textual by nature, but could also be incredibly visual. My first full length book was A Natural History of Unnatural Things, (2021) and it was it was a catalyst for my continued desire to write much more regularly, and with a more centred confidence in my own voice.

2 - How did you come to visual art first, as opposed to, say, poetry, fiction or non-fiction? I was always drawing from early childhood. and for many years into my schooling could not either read or write without great difficulty because I have several overlapping forms of dyslexia.  It was noticed at a young age, and fortunately for me I was in special classes throughout the course of my education. But it was definitely a struggle for me.

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? For the past several years I have listened to what I refer to as a ‘small generator’ of particular thoughts or kernels of ideas. I simply jot the bones of whatever that is down when they occur to me- and later I either carry the thought further, if it needs it- or ignore it all together if it no longer appeals to me as an idea to pursue. There isn’t really a rhyme or reason to my writing in regard to speed, sometimes they pour out in a matter of minutes with little editing- other times ideas grow small and need multiple versions before they are fully formed.

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? Generally, thus far, my poetry begins with an accumulation… somewhere in the middle I begin to see threads that tie a theme, of course that is, aside from the chapbook I mentioned, which was a more or less fully formed thing when I proposed it.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? I think poetry in particular has two lives, that of the reader enveloped in their own take on your writing, they are perhaps clothed in you while reading your words- and then there is the second life, which is the performative act of reciting, reading as a source of origin, putting your words on to read them out loud 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? I often reflect on past personal experiences in an attempt to relate them to both my present self and to what is happening more broadly in the world. My personal thoughts on my queerness, atheism, the nature of creating, and my continual enchantments with nature and art history are mainstays. Also rumination on places I have visited that help me to understand the world around me and reinforce a sense of place in the local.

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? Writing has many roles. I believe literacy is power. Writing a really good editorial requires a talent for persuasion, writing an article for a scientific journal requires a different type of discipline and relationship to specific information and how it is communicated; writing poetry is vastly different from the first two forms- but in it's own way, equally important and impressive when done well. The ability to reflect on ideas and experiences of the world around us is uniquely human. It is an important way to decipher how people and, more broadly how human systems operate. I am of the opinion that oral storytellers as well as those who write down stories in the form of prose or poetry are at their best a mirror to the reader or listener. If you see yourself the communication has resonated in some fundamental way. In my experience this can cause revulsion, adoration, sympathy or more subtle reactions that echo the former. At present there has been a resurgence in readership of novels like 1984, Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale- it’s really not that hard to imagine why- they have become classics relevant to the present moment because they mirror human experience.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? Essential. The clarity it provides is akin for me to the difference between viewing one of my finished drawings in the studio and seeing it in context installed in a museum or gallery.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)? Never take rejection personally. Very few people are going to win big art or writing prizes- if you expect a lottery, don’t bother. Write or create because you cannot do otherwise, not for praise alone.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to visual art to collaboration)? What do you see as the appeal? I have not found it difficult at all. Each takes its time and requires its own process. These mentioned genres all seek at the same outcome- to share and acknowledge our experiences of the world around us.

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 don’t really have a routine when it comes to writing. It fills time when I have it to give. I would really benefit (I think) from a writing residency. Like the multiple artist residencies I have done, I think it would help to structure my practice a bit more. Maybe this would be a hindrance, I don't know- but I don’t getting the impression it would be.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? I’m not sure I’ve ever been stalled, because I just let ideas come when it they do… I’m not beholden to any particular deadline because I’m often required to be absorbed, time-wise by my visual work.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home? Coffee beans. My morning coffee ritual.

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? Nature, art history, music and science have all been influential- as well as the quotidian, the reality of passing existence without fully knowing why- I guess I like a good question, but I’m not always interested in concrete answers. Green, my new book engages all of these forms- it also includes a visual component that are observations of artworks, plants, animals and other inanimate objects, a compendium of 5 years of experience in no particular order.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work? As a queer person, I am fascinated by religion, by religious texts, particularly the Bible. I was raised Catholic, but am no longer. It did however leave a mark. I have been deeply influenced by its visual tradition. In my visual practice, I often use catholic tropes to return a queer gaze on historical depictions of the male body. In my writing I have explored similarly the fears and fixations these teachings and writings provoke in their adherents. Notions of naturalness that exclude the queer experience, or work to other it- rather than understand it as a perfectly natural occurrence. I love the hypnotic language of fairy tales and often reference in particular the Grimm’s tales as well- I return to several Classical mythological characters often, Daphne and Persephone are particularly interesting to me due to their connections to rebirth and transformation.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? Maybe write a novel.

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? I would have worked in Theatre or film.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? In a strange way, my dyslexia drew me to both visual art and writing.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? Book: Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses. Two recent films I'd like to list: Night of The Hunter (1955); and A Face In The Crowd (1957)- which is frighteningly relevant in relation to the current American administration.

20 - What are you currently working on? I’m just finishing up a one-month artist residency and exhibition between Vienna, Austria and Sofia, Bulgaria. In the studio, I have several big projects presently in production for exhibitions in Italy this September and across Canada over the next 2 years. I’m also carrying on writing in the midst.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Éireann Lorsung, Pattern-book

 

BRAMBLE CUTTING

Five-petaled, milk-white—say
thin as milk, as wholesome: 

pithy centres turn to pulp
in July. All year, canes 

overrun garden paths, empty
lots. Bramble is a lesson 

in plant economy.
       —In another life

I could be bramble: or
rain on bush shelter roofs, 

the taste of salt stepping
off a train. An estuary 

in the morning under fog
not to be seen through. 

Bunkers overgrown with thicket.
These last times I was a girl.

It was very good to spend a few days with Pattern-book (Manchester UK: Carcanet, 2025), the latest full-length collection by American poet (recently returned after spending a few years living and teaching in Ireland) Éireann Lorsung, especially days prior to hearing her read from the collection [see my notes on our shared Dublin reading here]. Slated to take over editing of South Dakota Review this fall, Lorsung is the author of three prior full-length collections—Music for Landing Planes By (Minneapolis MN: Milkweed Editions, 2007), Her book: poems (Milkweed, 2013) and The Century (Milkweed, 2020), winner of the Maine Literary Award in Poetry—with a further title, Pink Theory! forthcoming with Milkweed Editions in 2026. The poems in Pattern-book provide a curious sequence of crisp narratives, each of which begin with a spark, a speck, that broadens as each poem carefully and deliberately unfolds. “Now clouds pass / the sun, for a moment, and are gone,” she writes at the centre of the poem “DESIDERATA,” a poem subtitled with the quotation “reverie alone will do (Dickenson),” “and everything retains / its gold, and all / we need is in this / meadow, its / umbels and its star- / shaped yellow heads of ragwort / and, floating off somewhere, / a train’s sound.” Her line-breaks often hold a pause, a held breath, through quatrains, couplets, sonnets and other form-shapes, and even seem to employ elements of the English-language ghazal, offering leaps of narrative between lines that allow for wider narrative gaps. 

POSTCARD TO SHANA WITH PHOTGRAPH OF
FLORALIËN GHENT, 1913

Everyone I know is losing cities this year. Yesterday
I heard the cuckoo for the first time, which means 

it’s spring. Since I last wrote, teams of gardeners
have gone to work all over Ghent, secateurs catching 

light; in days the neighbourhood was transformed.
Gardenias, azaleas. A young man stood near a shallow 

pool breaking flowers from a peach branch and setting
them in water. Industry unrecognizable in its new 

horticultural clothes. You know I have been tending
to an orchard of my own: peach tree and cherry 

trees; apples; plum. The lawn is stippled bright with daffodils.
I thought, if I leave him I will lose the garden 

I made. I thought, I can make another garden anytime.
Nevertheless (the lambs are playing now—again!), I stayed.

Throughout the collection, Lorsung riffs off lines and poems by such as Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Gwendolyn Brooks, John Berryman, Walt Whitman and Edna St Vincent Millay, among others, in her exploration of rhythmic thought across the American Midwest and English Midlands, of the details and differences of geographic, cultural and domestic space. As the poem “LINNAEAN SYSTEM” begins: “You know the rose is in five pieces. / You know the centre of the split apple copies it. / The skin of a nectarine, a pear, an almond, a peach makes my mouth burn.” There is something of Lorsung’s careful precisions, her narrative care that occasionally attempts to shake lose from itself, writing gardens and photographs and paintings and swans, that I find slightly reminiscent of the work of Montreal poet Stephanie Bolster [see my short review of her most recent book here]. “I have a sense of history as if it were a picture:,” she writes, near the end of the poem “FEBRUARY MOTHER,” “here the donkey / struggles uphill under its load of sticks, and here the pigeons // pick at grain. The fire never burns out. No one dies. The world / is always there, under the tympanum’s perfect sky. The point // of the painted world is the blue of our world that lives / and dies. There is no other point but that.”

Hannah Brooks-Motl, Ultraviolet of the Genuine

 

POVERTY MOUNTAIN

a reference qua the epics
an evening
“coming out of my wormhole”
into the hollow
what’s good for the scurfpea
to be like the soul
crisply transpicuous

Not long ago, I discovered, thanks to the chapbook Poem Staple Collage / for Jonathan Rajewski / & Other Poem (Chicago IL: The Year, 2024) [see my review of such here], the incredible work of western Massachusetts poet HannahBrooks-Motl. Her fourth full-length title, and the first of her full-lengths I’ve seen, following The New Years (Rescue Press, 2014), M (The Song Cave, 2015) and Earth (The Song Cave, 2019), is Ultraviolet of the Genuine (The Song Cave, 2025), a book self-described as “an expansive record of time and thought, weaving together philosophy, science, theology, dreams, grief, literary theory, criticism, history, and ideas of utopia—becoming a book that continuously surprises and is nearly impossible to categorize.” “If you think words are made of poems,” she writes, as part of the extended fragment-sequence poem “POET DILEMMA,” “I mean poems made of words / As we’re taught // I know plenty of words / Though I come from the provinces / Where the earth is filled with violence [.]” There’s something remarkable in the swoop and the rush of Brooks-Motl’s lyrics, a simultaneous sense of compression and expansion, one that allows less a narrative trajectory than a sequence of thought-clusters that interconnect across every other moment and cluster across such wider expanse. “In Exeter, England one June or July,” she writes, to open the poem “EXETER,” “we slept on the floor / Rhetorically, sentimentally—I bring / this up— / not to interpret roses or be watched / by the deer on Pulpit Hill Rd. / Yes it is strange / In everyone there is a certain no one / The garden, the blankets     the poem / should be a world, a real world / Savanging the carved stone / Ymaginator / and the demi-angels now / just shapeless blobs [.]”

Across twenty-five poems, some short and some extended, Brooks-Motl clearly delights in extended meditation and play; she delights in structure, delights in how poems get built and are built, across meaning and rhythm and purpose, across avenues of articulated exploration. The strength of her poems emerge through the blend of collision and clarity, set precisely in that foundation of poems built through the building blocks of words, achieving far more than a straight line ever could. With each poem, it feels as though Brooks-Motl is slowly building something incredibly detailed and impossibly large. All of it, as she said, built out of words. “Nothing was plain or open,” begins the poem “MUTTS OF AQUINAS,” “no one / was invited to explain            Chained up all day / you might wonder:       To whom does the good accrue?”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Luisa Muradyan

Luisa Muradyan is originally from Odesa, Ukraine, and is the author of I Make Jokes When I'm Devastated (Bridwell Press, 2025), When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), and American Radiance (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from the University of Houston and won the 2017 Raz/ Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Additionally, Muradyan is a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and nonbinary writers from the former Soviet Union.  Additional work can be found at Best American Poetry, the Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and Only Poems, among others.

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

My first book will always be a reminder to myself that what I have to say matters to someone out in the universe. When I started writing poetry, my wildest dream was that a press would actually take my ridiculous poems about sentient sexy potatoes, Prince, and Predator seriously. I am still amazed that my poems find readers and now that I have a second book out, I am constantly pinching myself that this is my reality. After I finished my first book, American Radiance, which is largely about my family, I promised myself I would move on and write about a new topic. My second book, I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated, is even more focused on my family. I realized that I’m essentially going to write the same book over and over again, because every poem about my grandmother is ultimately a poem about the moon, and everyone knows how poets feel about the moon.

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

I am drawn to poetry for the privacy. Most of the time, I feel naked writing in prose, and while I love reading novels and essays, I need the distance that the lyric provides, or to put it less poetically, I want to keep my top on.

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?

Writing is a long process for me. I think of my brain as a crock pot that I’m constantly shoving images into. Eventually, I pull images out after a few hours of staring at my computer screen. A final draft often looks nothing like the original version of that poem, and that’s typically because I don’t have a clear idea of where the poem needs to go. Occasionally, I’ll tell myself “I’m going to write a love poem that starts with prunes,” but that’s about as much direction as I tend to give myself.

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?

Poems often begin for me with images. I’ll see a bursting peony bush and immediately think, “obviously I’ll be writing about you later,” and continue on my day. I am rarely a writer who works on “projects” and mostly just assembles manuscripts slowly over time. I obsessively write about ten different things over and over again, and eventually those poems become a book.

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

I adore attending readings. I often think of them as a place of tremendous inspiration, and I often feel energized when they are over. For me, there is something magical about hearing poetry read out loud by friends or poets whose work I am not familiar with.

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?

My concerns are endless. I have a thousand answers for “what do poems actually do?” but none of them feel like the right one. As a poet who often writes about war in my birthplace, I think about this question often.

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?

I generally avoid prescribing what the role of a writer should be. As a teacher of young writers, I see firsthand the tremendous impact that poems have for helping people understand themselves, and also for understanding others. To me, empathy and poetry are connected in a way that is essential. I teach “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski every year because that poem saved my life; I don’t know what role that gives me as a writer. Mostly, I’m not that different than a person handing out pamphlets on the street. I’m giving you something that has transformed the way I see the world, Maybe you’ll remember a line from this poem when you need it, maybe you’ll immediately throw it into the recycling bin.

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

I have been lucky to work with some really generous editors throughout the years. For individual poems, I really only share them with a handful of friends and mostly as proof that I am still living. When I am struggling with a poem, I find that sharing drafts with a friend I trust is tremendously helpful. I worked with Katie Condon on my last book and she was essential in helping me iron out some poems that I had over-edited when I was putting my manuscript together. Since Katie understood my work, she was able to provide some suggestions for not only how to make the poems better but how to shape them towards what I wanted them to be.

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

The best way to learn about writing is by reading as much as possible.

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

Admittedly, I am on the “parent of three young children” routine which means I’m often writing poems on my phone in between hockey practices, in a school pickup line, or during my lunch break between classes I teach.

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

Stanley Kunitz reading “Touch Me” will likely bring me back to earth for a few seconds after I’ve died. When he leans into the microphone and says “remind me who I am” at the end of the poem I gasp every single time.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Home is a complicated idea for me as I came to this country as a refugee when I was a child. What reminds me of Odesa? The smell of meat section in the Pryvoz market or the peonies that grew outside of our apartment building. What reminds me of Kansas City? The smell of bbq and the park after it rains. My current house smells like mint leaves from tea I make throughout the day, scented markers in my children’s playroom, or the absolutely horrific scent of unwashed adolescent hockey gear that lives in my garage.

13 - 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 am moved by visual art and often begin writing poems in my head as I walk through museums or galleries.

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

Gerald Stern is a poet that will always pull me out of whatever writing hole I find myself in. I also have a deep love for Marina Tsvetaeva, Wisława Szymborska, Robin Coste Lewis, Kathleen Peirce, Mahmoud Darwish, Ross Gay, Stanley Kunitz, Adam Zagajewski, Anna Akhmatova, Ada Limon, Tiana Clark, Ilya Kaminsky, Ruth Stone, Matthew Olzmann, Li-Young Lee, Safiya Sinclair, and so many others.

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

I’d love to write a children’s book length poem. I promised my oldest child that this would be our summer project.

16 - 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?

This might be too close to the same wheelhouse as writing but I think I would be a very good namer of things. I want to be whoever is in charge of naming nail polish colors, newly invented cheeses, flavors of candy, or recently discovered insects. Are you a beverage company who doesn’t know what to call your strangely hued newest creation? Allow me to be drunk with power and name that juice.

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

For a long time writing was the thing that I saved for myself as a reward for doing all of the other things I had to do throughout the day. Eventually, I got tired of putting my joy Last.

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

I just finished Traci Brimhall’s Love Prodigal and I recommend everyone with a beating heart buy this incredible book. I also saw Sinners last night and it was brilliant.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I typically allow myself to go through a quiet phase after I have a book come out. I am currently working on getting back to writing poems more frequently.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

i got knocked off facebook on july 2nd, (and where to find me otherwise,

in case anyone was wondering where I've been. I have been fielding an array of emails on the subject, asking if I've blocked or unfriended anyone; I haven't, I've been knocked off, with a perpetual "you submitted an appeal" notice when I try to log in, saying that it usually takes but a day or two to "review your information," but I've been in limbo since, as I said, July 2nd. It's maddening, as it means I've lost hundreds of friends and family contacts. It isn't the same, but if you wish, you can follow me via bsky here, or my instagram here, or sign up for the weekly "Tuesday poem" email list, which often includes multiple other notices for readings, publications, above/ground press, periodicities, Touch the Donkey, the ottawa small press book fair etcetera. I've also a bsky account for periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, the ottawa small press book fair, Chaudiere Books and the (ottawa) small press almanac (given all those facebook groups are now lost to me). Separately, we've a monthly email list for VERSe Ottawa/VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival, or you can sign up (free, if you wish) to my weekly and incredibly clever substack here (where I've been offering excerpts of various non-fiction works-in-progress), or to the above/ground press substack (entirely and completely free), where one can be reminded of events, new publications and even a bunch of brand-new interviews with above/ground press authors. Not the same as facebook, I know, but I don't know what else to do there, as the whole system seems deliberately built to refuse anyone support. Might it reappear? God only knows.

Lines Composed a Few Kilometres across Dublin, On Revisiting the Banks of the Liffey during a Tour : (part three,

[see part one of these notes here; see part two of these notes here] 

Thursday, July 10, 2025: Through all these travels, as we attempted to speak to Rose without wishing to interfere, allow her her space, her independence. It was a curious thing, allowing her a separate independence when she was but feet away from us. There were at least four other kids that talked to us (unprompted) during the trip more than Rose did. The grimace and the turn of her head as I'd realize she, from the choir, had seen us. Yes yes, there you are. And she's gone again. At one point in Dublin, she apparently saw us downtown walking around and took a photo of us on the street, sending it to Christine later, to prove the point. 

Okay, waking. Our first Dublin morning we landed at the student pub, which had a rather good breakfast and was completely empty, but for bartender playing mid-1980s pop/alternative, which made me suspect he and I were similar vintage. By the following morning, we figured out where the choir was having breakfast, which was less fun (the actual student commissary/dining hall, what have you, which felt very 'boarding school' in tone), but at least we could see Rose from a distance. They were going thrifting and Rose needed money, so we aimed for that, to pass it along. Aoife ran over to provide money with a hug. I sent Rose a text suggesting she thank her mother in person for the cash and not simply send a text from six feet away.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our final Galway morning, Thursday, 11am: the goal was for all of us to get on the bus, as the choir had a performance later that day, and needed to get into Dublin in time to get the bags to the residence before heading downtown to set themselves up. For whatever reason, the bus didn't show up (the driver didn't feel like driving that day?), which made the grown-ups quite nervous. They handled it quite gracefully, I thought, not presenting any of their (obvious) stress to the children, and were forced to go with another tour company entirely, who provided a bus some two hours after the original was supposed to have arrived (as we all waited outside with bags, waiting; it was decided they would lunch while we waited). One of the tour-chaperones (one of the choir-parents) is also a travel agent, apparently, and she was right on it. Stressful, but they handled it very well.

Once we were all settled on this new (finally) bus (a better bus than had originally been ordered), I attempted to return to the novel manuscript I hadn't looked at in well over a year (given my two large non-fiction manuscripts, and completing that short story manuscript last summer; the novel that sits somewhere between or even amid my two short story collections). It went slowly, as those things so often do. En route to Dublin, the final city of our three-city tour. Once there, we headed straight for the residence, where a parent and accompanying teenager and ourselves departed the bus at the residence with all the bags, so the choir could go immediately to their venue to set-up for their 6pm service (the timing was rather tight, but they figured it out). Bags and bags and bags as the bus moved along and moving bags and ourselves and a quick settle before a return outside and a rush to a cab. 

But they made it, we made it, the attending group made it, to Christ Church Dublin, otherwise known as The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, where the choir was singing their Choral Evensong. Dublin, this Medieval city. This city of Vikings and early Christians. The church was founded 1030, under a Viking king, apparently rebuilt later on, in the late 12th century under Strongbow. Yes, that Strongbow.

After the service concluded (the cathedral was closed for tourists, so we were to be ushered out rather quickly, so I had to move fast), I went around to the other side of a particularly interesting tomb I'd been sitting near, only to realize that this was the tomb of Strongbow? Our Aoife, as you might recall [see her birth notice here] was named for Aoife MacMurrough (c.1145–1188), who often fought on behalf of her husband. Aoife MacMurrough, otherwise known as Aoife Rua or the anglicized Red Eva, for her fiery red hair (we had hoped our Aoife would have kept her red baby locks, but there you go). Strongbow, so I pulled our wee girl over for a picture or two. Our young lady, named for a Warrior Queen, don't you know. As the stories go, this is the supposed tomb of Strongbow, as certain details can't entirely be verified, and it has been uncertain if the figure beside him was meant to be his wife, or perhaps a child (they did have a child who died young). I attempted to find out from staff if Aoife was buried here as well, but couldn't get an answer, we're closed, we're closed, time to go, time to go. Online checking later on confirmed she is actually buried along with her father-in-law (as she died some years after Strongbow) in Wales, at Tintern Abbey [the same one Wordsworth wrote about, as you know], so it was good to know that we hadn't missed her (otherwise we would have needed to return). Have you heard of Daniel Maclise's 1854 painting "The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife"? The pair were married in this same Cathedral in 1170, after all. Oh, there is history everywhere.

The painting, which somehow made me think of Homestar Runner ("The Marriage of Aoife and Strongbad"), a website I introduced to Aoife later that night (a website originally introduced to me by eldest daughter Kate some twenty years ago). She loved "Teen Girl Squad" best of all. After the service, we headed to dinner at the same venue where the choir had already a booking, set in the basement away from the main action, as there were no other tables. Given the heat of Dublin when we arrived (Belfast and Galway were as cool as 15 degrees C), the difference of another ten to fifteen degrees was considerable, and without air conditioning or fans. This is what it was at home when we left, you know. We sat in the restaurant basement (near the washrooms), away from the action; but away from the heat. 

Friday, July 11, 2025: The bartender in the morning breakfast student pub (of similar vintage and musical tenor to myself, as I said) suggested the best way downtown was to take public transit. A difference of six euro ten for the three of us, and not twenty euro by cab or uber (which appear to be the same thing over here). An easy enough ride, straight down into the city centre, by the giant spire. We took a bus to the spire, and landed one of the city tourist double-decker buses, to see what the city might provide. What might the city provide? Postcards, obviously. I had to get postcards. There were a multitude of postcards.

Okay. There's a lion in this window. Why is there a lion in this window? (I don't think it's a real lion)

At Aoife's request (once she heard all the options), we made our way towards the Dublin Zoo, situated in Dublin's Phoenix Park, one of the many stops of this particular double-decker tour bus. Half-way through the whole run, maybe. I took eldest daughter Kate to the Toronto Zoo once, around the time she was Rose's age; do you remember when I took toddler Rose to the zoo in Washington DC, or six months later, when I took her to the zoo in Berlin? [We visited the Berlin Wall, also, on that same trip, but she cared far less for that] That is an awful lot of international zoo travel (separately, I have also been to zoos in Calgary and Annapolis Valley, not to mention the classic Park Safari in Hemmingford, Quebec; which seem a lot, when I'm somewhere between anti-zoo and completely indifferent). Rose's choir did not make this particular destination, so perhaps she'll have to hear from us how this particular visit went (I don't think she cared; I think they were either rehearsing or shopping).

Just west of the city centre, Phoenix Park is 1,750 acres, if you can imagine it, of "recreational space." Phoenix, from the Irish fhionnuisce, according to Wikipedia, meaning clear or still water. This is an awfully big park, especially set in the midst of such a grand city as Dublin, and reminded me of the park Stephen Brockwell and I visited in London circa 2002 or so, former hunting lands of Henry III, I believe. Such a grand scale so he could hunt elk at his leisure, you know. Just before the Zoo was the Wellington Monument, built across the first half of the 1800s (1817 to 1861, from start to finish, which does seem a bit ridiculous) to commemorate the victories of Dublin-born British Army Officer Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852). This is the same fella Ottawa's Wellington Street and broken Wellington Street West (used to be one singular street until LeBreton Flats mangled that up) are named for, acknowledging his role in the creation of the Rideau Canal. And of course, it was the building of the Canal into Bytown that helped prompt Queen Victoria to choose us, renamed Ottawa, as capital. Thank you, sir.

It was far too hot a day to be walking around anywhere, let alone a zoo, but there was something Christine said she liked about going to a place that was filled with more locals than actual tourists. The heat, was hot. We walked and we walked, catching hippos in the shade and giraffes in the shade and bonobos in the shade and zebras in the shade and flamingos in the shade. It was hot, there. Most of the animals might have been melting.

And as well, throughout, there were dinosaur displays for some reason? A bit random, that.

Eventually we did make it out of the zoo, wandering back through tourist audio (lots of stories of Oscar Wilde, he lived here you know, in a building that used to be here, etcetera), before we made our way back towards the spike, and some food, and Trinity College, where we were attending The Book of Kells Experience. 

They've a whole display set up around the book, as apparently, as Christine suggested, the whole exhibit used to be the manuscript itself (not a nineteenth century book, as some of the promotional descriptors had, but an illustrated manuscript created around the year 800 that has been bound and rebound repeatedly over the centuries, including in the nineteenth century; please get your facts right, promotional materials). The "experience" did seem an awful lot of show for the manuscript, but all of it was extremely interesting, putting the manuscript into a far wider and broader context of composition, creation, historical and Christian tides. 

Above the "experience" was a staircase leading up into their infamous library, an absolutely breathtaking space of books and stacks and busts. Not since we were in Paris as part of our honeymoon in 2011 [I'm wishing I'd writ up my notes on our travel for such, we did see some incredible things during that jaunt across London, Paris, Brussels, Cambridge, etc] as we wandered the Roman foundations at the lowest end of the Musée de Cluny, did I witness a space that could be packed solid with people but completely silent. It absolutely took one's breath.

I did like this pic that Christine took of Aoife, as part of such. Apparently she had seen someone else do the same, and thought it would be fun to attempt as well. Aoife, casually holding up the earth. She is strong, that one.

Aoife, in the Long Room, as it is called. It certainly is. The globe in the centre far larger than us, if you require context for Christine and Aoife's visual tom-foolery. The space also holds, as the website reminds, "one of the few remaining copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic which was read outside the General Post Office on 24 April 1916 by Patrick Pearse at the start of the Easter Rising." Very cool to be able to see a copy of one of the original documents, outlining independence, as important a document as I've seen in some time (the Hudson's Bay Charter being another, for example). The Brian Boru Harp, as well, is housed there, said to be the oldest surviving Irish harp, although the medieval artifact was only associated with the former High King of Ireland, Brian Boru (c. 941-1014) well after the fact.

And then, to close out the whole "experience," an expansive animation of how the book, the manuscript, came to be. And, in the next room, a whole other animation to follow. It is hard to make fun of the whole "experience," as it actually did broaden the story of and around the manuscript and how it came to be, how it came to be there, how it disappeared and reappeared, and who might have been seeking it. Not mere a book but an artifact around a culture long past, and a stretch of history rich with detail and narrative, rich with layers of who they are and have been, and presented in such a way that it can only spark the imagination. In the gift shop, I picked up a copy of the official book on the manuscript (and postcards, so many postcards), so I could further read up on it (there was an audio guide as part of such during the tour, but I'd rather read text quietly in my own time in my own way than feel propelled by audio, although the Giant's Causeway I allowed the exception, as there were no billboards of text, and the walk was quite a ways).

And then back to our residence, our oven-roast room. Small items from grocery, and the balcony off the shared kitchen (shared with a student-aged boy who saw me once and ran away for some reason; we never saw him again, although we did hear him occasionally). I wrote postcards, postcards, postcards. Remember those?

Saturday, July 12, 2025: It took some doing, but we finally figured out where the choir was breakfasting, although we got there well after they'd been and gone, off to Dublin Castle, I think. We were in our own time, attempting a morning at our own pace. Aoife, throughout the trip, was an absolute trooper, the only hurdle being getting her out of the room first thing in the morning. Once we managed that (and it wasn't easy, some mornings) she was completely fine for the rest of the day. Another morning, another attempt at the city bus, and then back into the double-decker tour wanderings. Did you know Oscar Wilde lived here? Just there, the house used to be there. 

Back on the double-decker tour bus, we ended up at EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum; another "experiential" museum space, one focusing on the context of the many decades of Irish emigration to other countries, from the obvious years of the potato famine, religious conflicts and multiple other stories and eras, even up to the present day. There were an array of posters I found particularly interesting, including one that offered "free land" in western Canada, a sequence of such would have spread across the British Isles and Western Europe across different eras, different groups. The myths of the empty west, after all, a more casual trope in Canada than the United States but still equally strong, pushing the Indigenous population out of the way and, at least was the attempt during those years, out of history entirely.

I was struck by a display that offered a quote of a poem (in a display that had nothing to do with literature), quoting Irish poet and playwright Louis MacNeice (1907-1963), offering a nice counterpoint to a more North American tradition that appears to leave literature out of general thinking. 

The museum was absolutely fascinating, offering reasons for leaving, movements as to where, with some horribly sad stories, including unmarried, pregnant teenagers arrested and sent to the colonies, separated from their children, religious leaders banished, or the hoards of starving populace attempting to leave to save their lives. [A while back, I wrote on the Peter Robinson settlers, when Parliamentarian Peter Robinson brought over a few thousand poor settlers into Ontario from Cork, Ireland; one of my genealogical threads was part of this particular group]. There was something curious about the length and breath of world histories and individuals the museum took Irish-credit for, spread across the globe in power and influence. American President John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic President, of Irish descent, seemed an obvious marker, but there were multiple Presidents listed as well. Joe Biden, Barack Obama. This is all us, you know. Interesting.

On the way in, referencing the potato famine, I did make the joke that an Irish emigration museum wouldn't have a proper cafeteria, a joke Christine didn't care for, and then, in the gift shop, one of the featured museum-made products was a stress-ball shaped like a potato. Well, then. Hilariously dark and self-aware, as only the Irish can. Well done, everyone.

Walking out, attempting to find lunch, we chanced through a Pride Parade, which was packed and brilliant and simultaneously serious and joyous. We were walking through, and worried about being separated. As well, walking a couple of blocks, I realized we were passing, again, multiple points we'd already been to, that I hadn't realized were so close together, the tour bus (and other of our activities) making these points seem so distant from each other, but Dublin really is a walking city. Everything is right there. And, from the group chat later on, it seems as though the choir caught up in the same parade at a different point (it would have been impossible for us to see each other through this particular crowd), each of us working our way through a point right by City Hall and Dublin Castle (and so much else). Just around the corner, finding some of the best pizza we've had on this trip (and we've had some fantastic pizza). Aoife had a nutella pizza, and I think it was the happiest I've ever seen her.

"Constructed in the early thirteenth century on the site of a Viking settlement," Dublin Castle (which apparently the choir had toured the day prior) is not at all what I had thought it might be, seeming less a medieval castle than a more (relatively) modern government residence. This was the English seat of government in Ireland for hundreds of years, until the Republic of Ireland finally made itself clear, now hosting itself as site of public events, conferences and Presidential inaugurations, as well as the tourist stretches. The building and surround complex is huge, and I'm sure the public is only allowed into a fraction of the sprawling layout, room upon room upon room (built, obviously, in an adjoining-room design, before hallways were invented, as was the style).

We were a self-guided tour (and Aoife had the scavenger hunt offering that she took very seriously), although we were caught directly between two large guided tour-groups, that often took over whatever space we were attempting to look through. We had to navigate ourselves carefully (and I did get separated from the two of them at least twice). 

The artworks were stunning, and clearly the best parts of the tour, covering almost every surface, including some ceilings (yes, I did lie on the floor to get a better view, which others around didn't exactly take too kindly to). Portraits of royals, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, William IV and Cromwell, even. Such a wealth of portraiture as became difficult to fathom, yet another room beyond yet another room beyond yet another room, all filled to bursting.

And then, a large room beyond all the other rooms, holding the space where receptions are held, and Irish Presidents are inaugurated. Extremely impressive.

After Dublin Castle, we walked for a bit, making it just in time for our pre-arranged tour of the Guinness factory, weaving and moving and slipping through sidestreets. We knew we weren't far, but it was a bit of a hike, especially after an already-walking day. Earlier in the morning, we had wondered if 4:45pm for a tour (the only available slot left) was a bit late for such, but Aoife told us we had to, we needed to (seriously). We sat on the sidewalk as she held her stress-potato and told us we'd be fine.

Comparable to "The Book of Kells Experience" (or even the Titanic experience in Belfast), the "Guinness Factory Experience" did feel like a lot of show for a free (ticketed) pint at the end, offering the original charter that Arthur Guinness signed, the 9,000 year lease, on December 31, 1759 (oh, to be around in the year 10,759, to see what might happen next; one can't always presume a renewal), the document itself set into the floor in a place of significant honour. Funnily enough, Stephen Brockwell and I toyed with taking the tour back in 2002 when we were in town, but couldn't find ourselves out of The Oliver St. John Gogarty, a pub in Temple Bar where we spent each of our five nights in Dublin, nights of multiple Guinness. We gave our own honours there, I suppose.

The tour was expansive, more floors than one might have imagined, offering the history of production, the history of marketing (my goodness, etc), an array of gift shops (with the main one on the ground floor) and multiple corners to have a pint and a meal and a pint and a meal. The place was huge and the crowds filled every corner.

And the Guinness harp, the official logo that pre-dated a similar emblem for Ireland itself, the Irish government forced to hold a different angle to not get caught up in copyright. 

An experience, floor after floor. With the main floor at zero, the final pub where the free pint on the seventh, so that's a lot of walking up, up. With each corner packed. 

On the top floor, each window held text, highlighting a corner of Dublin in the distance (the views were spectacular). Aoife, naturally, offered a fizzy drink, which she hated (our two don't care for fizzy drinks, and even the orange and apple juice over here is fizzy, which irritated her). 

And of course, the potato. Aoife, baby shark.

From there, we retired back to our oven-residence, the breeze of our balcony. We sat for a bit, catching groceries en route from the corner store, and that was the end of it.

Sunday, July 13, 2025: Our last full day in Ireland. We caught breakfast in the student cafeteria place once more, attempted the bus to catch the last day of choir performances. We stood at the bus stop awaiting transport, as dozens of student-groups descended upon the stop and completely took over, forcing buses to be overrun (and at least one wouldn't even stop), forcing us to rush for a cab to catch the first of the choir's final day of performances. We made it, but barely: a morning and afternoon of the choir performing at National Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St. Patrick, a site originally built between 1191 and 1270. Along one side, I saw the curiosity of military flags hung and clearly falling apart, something I found out later was left as deliberate memorial (as opposed to the flags being repaired or any other conservation intervention), providing acknowledgements to those parish members lost as part of particular battles or movements or wars. It was a curious thing, this corner of dark memorial, strips of disintegrating material. Oh, and we saw the return of poet and choir parent Dave Stymiest and Sarah, having returned from their travels to meet up with the group back in Dublin. I wonder if the postcard I mailed them from Ireland has landed yet?

One element of this whole tour that really struck was in how capable the choir tour organizers really are. James Calkin is an exceptional choir director, gently pulling from his assembled choir a quality and comfort and power of performance with seeming ease. As well, the Dean of the Ottawa Anglican Church that hosts the choir, so clearly and absolutely delighted to be participating in such performances, radiating a joyous energy and clear pride of these assembled youths as they performed, traveled and explored. The sheer delight of watching her sheer delight, and how easily and comfortably each of the adults of the group seemed to interact with the kids, ranging from eleven or so (where our Rose is at) to around eighteen or so. The group cohered fairly well, and were remarkably well suited for travel in a foreign country. No conflicts or meltdowns or complications, at least that we were aware of.

The final day of performance, as we saw Rose briefly, post-service, before they wandered off for a lunch on-site, and we left Aoife with Susan for the afternoon (where she hung out with Susan's boy, Matthew, over lunch and other activities, both children pleased with the company), allowing us to rush off to Books Upstairs (we didn't have much time, not expecting an hour-forty service, and couldn't catch a cab to save our lives, barely making it there) for our afternoon reading with Éireann Lorsung and Christodoulos Makris, an event kindly put together by the brilliant Makris. When we were first putting this together, I hadn't understood that this would be Lorsung's last Irish reading, before returning back to the United States after teaching in Dublin, which allowed us a packed house, which was a good stroke of timing on our part. Always read with a local, certainly, and Lorsung brought out the crowd. 

Having gone through one of her books before the reading (back when we were in Belfast), there's a precision to Lorsung's work that I appreciate, and I picked up another of hers here. Makris is an interesting poet, one I'd solicited for a chapbook back when Gregory Betts was organizing a conference [I produced a mound of chapbooks by a variety of conference participants for that event, including by Betts himself, Julia Polyck-O'Neill, Gary Barwin, Kate Siklosi, Mairéad Byrne, Kimberly Campanello, Kyle Kinaschuk, Paul Perry and Stephen Cain), but Makris hadn't any work free at the time, so we weren't able to do anything (I am hoping there is still an opportunity for us to do something). 

The reading was brilliant, and Christine's reading was stunning, prompting her to sell out of copies we'd brought along of her Toxemia (Book*hug Press, 2024) [see my essay on the collection here]. We wished we'd brought more! I, of course, had a stack of handouts of our "poem" leaflet, along with recent issues of Touch the Donkey, which went out to a variety of audience members. Did you leave one of these "poem" handouts at the Seamus Heaney Center last week in Belfast? Why yes, I said. Apparently someone saw it there, which was pretty funny. 

There was even a poet from Ottawa who came over to say hello, Dimitra Xidous, who said she'd done her first ever public reading at The Manx Pub as part of a reading for Bywords Quarterly Journal, not long before she moved from Ottawa to Dublin. And apparently she'd heard Christine read before when she was there, and I even published a piece by her as part of my (small press) writing day. I purchased further books, naturally, and even left a small handful of Touch the Donkey issues for handout at the store.

After the event, Christine ran off to catch the second choir performance back at the Cathedral (and collect Aoife from Susan), as I made for drinks with Makris at a pub nearby, where poets Cliff Horseman, who performs and publishes as Cah-44, and Kit Fryatt, both of whom attended the reading, were already situated with pints. Lorsung, unfortunately, also had to run off to a gathering of students, so wasn't able to come out (I'd been hoping to get a sit-down conversation with her as well, but there you go), but it was good to get a sense of the three that were there. The bartender, also, when he asked how I was (old and tired, always), he said he'd spent part of the afternoon at a birthday party with seven-year-olds, so he had my sympathies (Aoife's last birthday held sixteen or so nine year olds, which wasn't as chaos as you might think, although we were picking up bits of cake in our living room for days, after). Makris and Fryatt only stayed a bit, but I ended up in a lengthy conversation with Horseman, telling me the ins-and-outs of Kentucky (where he's from) history and politics, and the curiosities of being an immigrant back to the old country, as though he moving in the opposite direction to expectation. Mid-sentence, a barfly acted shocked (and pleased) to see me, which made me suspect some kind of Billy Connolly thing again (his reaction was never explained), and insisted on selfies with the two of us. I kept saying, rather loudly, Have you never seen a Canadian before? The conversation with Horseman was fascinating (moving all over American and Kentucky politics in really interesting ways), and I could easily have stayed there all evening, but had to catch the "final dinner" for the choir, reservations for 6:30pm, so he was kind enough to walk me out to a cab; the bartender stopped me on my way out hearing I'm Canadian, saying that he was from Toronto! I mean, small world. 

Arriving at dinner, where the whole choir and crew and Christine and Aoife were awaiting me, not far from our residence. After dinner, the choir descended upon the park just by our residence, a grand and expansive park, where they had ice cream, and did their group thank-yous, good-byes, hugs and tears, acknowledging all who had done so well, so much, so important. We hung back with Susan and her family, who were taking their choir-member from the group for a further week of adventure, and not returning back to Ottawa the next morning. The kids in the park, and we, talking a bit. Just before 10pm, we thought we should head up for our early morning, given the flight, and discovered that the fences of the park had been padlocked at half-nine? (9:30pm). We were trapped! A jogger came through and said there was a low bit of wall on the other side, meaning we had to walk all the way around to the far end of the park, only able to walk back to our residence along the outside (after having to jump down a stone fence of some three feet). It took an hour, so that was a bit frustrating. But then to our sweaty beds, after doing our final packing for early morning.

Monday, July 14, 2025: We woke just after 5am, downstairs at 6am for a cab (the choir had a bus, which there wasn't space on for us, which we already knew) to the airport. None of us were entirely awake, but we made it. I attempted to poke through two of the books I picked up at the reading, one of Makris' earlier titles and Lorsung's prior collection, which I was curious about. A cab and a plane and a bus back from Montreal, much of which I attempted to sleep if I could, but not really, exhausted from travel, exhausted from everything, and looking forward to our wee house again and all of our things (and what mail our neighbour had been salvaging from our front door while we were away). Twelve hours, from the time we woke in Dublin to making our front door. It was good to be home.