the book of smaller : two further reviews, (plus a bunch of others,

My 2022 poetry title, the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press) has garnered two further reviews over the past week! Nate Logan was good enough to write up a review for DIAGRAM, and Eric Schmaltz was good enough to write up a review for Canadian Literature. Thanks so much!

As well, I've even managed to put together a page on my author page linking all the reviews I've managed to find from over the years of various of my work. I mean, that only took how many years to get around to compiling? There are far more reviews of my books (and chapbooks, even) than I had thought! So that was good also. Check that out here.

poems in adjacent pineapple, from the book of smaller,

I seem to have forgotten to mention that a handful of poems from my as-yet-unpublished manuscript "the book of smaller" appeared recently in the UK online journal adjacent pineapple. Thanks much!

Study of an April rain (a new poem

Delights, preschooler boots in puddles. Spring, her every step. Red light like a pulse, a heartbeat. No more than a thickness. Steady stream of traffic. Ocean. Rocks her bee umbrella, yellow. Secrets, set outside the language. Lineated, rain gauge. My father casts for measure. The sidewalk has no taste for anecdote. Lawn, a spongy mass. Stray memories, ease down driveways. A sense, reduced to letter. A chronology to water. The beginning of the book.

for further poems of mine online, check out the link here.

from THE BOOK OF SMALLER

Title poem

I would like to make a statement. Pause, between two notes. A torrent. I wrote a revision. Understate. With each new spill. The rules of the game are secret. A sentence is what annihilates me. She went in for her one-year shot, and came out fine. She made a face. Elegies are never simple. A cell that holds the body, whole. The body. Pluck the fruit of curios, astride. Water-lined. The rain down deeper than before. An excavation. Name. Rename. I chose the hardest thing. 

from THE BOOK OF SMALLER

Christine, in the Halifax airport

Fog delays, at least eight hours. They remain. The larger weather patters, patterns. Toddler walks, squaks, befriends beyond their gate. I wait for updates, texts. Lower ebbs of Gatineau, Ottawa, Toronto underwater. Rigaud. Families lost, and relocated. Of biblical proportions. A pleth. The Chaudiere, rages. It holds down the house. A syntax, excludes. May have washed away. How high’s the water, mama? Their plane out hasn’t even arrived.

new up at Selcouth Station : poems from the book of smaller,

I have a handful of further poems from my unpublished the book of smaller over at Selcouth Station. Thanks so much! To see further poems from the same manuscript, check out the link here.

from THE BOOK OF SMALLER

It’s still winter

Children sketch. Disarticulate. Endless paper and crayons. They laugh, pattern. Stick-figured time. Parent, where gravity is strongest. A lightness of offspring. A weight, sometimes. Simple wear. Become our own parents. Cyclical. Curve, in the shape of reckless exhaustion. Curve to the floor.

Elegy for Dave Russell

What makes a life worth living. Too young to run the country. We pride ourselves on being civilized. The red right hand. Cosplay: Hellboy, Buddy Jesus. More or less is not the same. How much, he asked, do feet weigh? Wheels. Behind a counter, sketchbook. How do I describe this loss? August is the saddest space. A small cut, deepens. Gentle, sweet through the air. Sailed away. You can draw a straight line. Asks to be loved.

three new poems : Vending Machine Press,

I have three new poems up at Australian site Vending Machine Press, from my work-in-progress "the book of smaller." Thanks much! Further poems of mine online can be found at my author site.

Lorine Niedecker (a new poem

This poem, blood, the minerals. Road signs, waver. A measure of woodland. Beneath expression. Furthermore. The singularity of rock, of river. Water levels high, and higher. What kind of birds. Parliament Hill, Chaudiere, old E.B. Eddy. Condos, this domesticated trail. Scored path and step. Algonquin footfalls, long before Champlain. The corruption of shoreline. Richmond Landing. Poem, set in stone a concrete pillar shored up set into the bones of highway. In every part of every syllable. Carved cracked and worn and patchwork smooth.