12 or 20 (second series) questions with Blair Trewartha

Blair Trewartha’s debut collection, Easy Fix (Palimpsest Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Relit Award. He is the author of three chapbooks: Break In (Cactus Press, 2010), Porcupine Burning (Baseline Press, 2012), and Human Energy (Anstruther Press, 2022). Blair’s poems have recently appeared in The Dalhousie Review, Prairie Fire, and The Fiddlehead. Born and raised on a farm outside of Clinton, Ontario (Treaty 29 Territory), Blair now lives in London, Ontario (Treaty 6 Territory) with his partner, two children, and their hyper Beagle. Half-Earth is his second full-length collection.

1 -How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

It’s hard to compare them, but I think the biggest difference is the context and the focus of the poems. My new collection, Half-Earth (Palimpsest Press, 2026), feels broader in scope and yet much more personal than Easy Fix, which was published way back in 2014. Easy Fix generally explored the current culture at the time and alienation, the tension between rural and urban life, and the poems had the restless energy of a younger narrator trying to locate himself within a fractured culture, asking where he fits into it all (which makes sense since I wrote a lot of that book in my late 20s). 

Half-Earth looks outward to climate change, artificial intelligence, and the pandemic while filtering those concerns through fatherhood, illness, and family history. It moves more deliberately between personal memory and experience, deep history, and an uncertain future, and it is written from the perspective of a parent wondering what kind of world his children will inherit. It’s much more personal. Half-Earth feels like the question has changed from one of belonging (like in Easy Fix) to one of coping; the poems acknowledge where we are now, how we got here, and where we’re going next, but they’re exploring how we cope with all of this. What does it mean to live, and go about our lives and raise children in a world full of failing systems, whether environmental, socio-political, economic, technological, a planet and species nearing our demise?

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

I actually started writing mostly fiction in my youth, several short stories and a never-finished novel, but once I had initial success with publishing a few poems in literary magazines in my early 20s, I started to focus more exclusively on poetry. Eventually, fiction fell to the wayside. Although if I think back to high school, frantically scribbling in my journal at night when I couldn’t sleep or sneaking back to the creek on my parents farm to smoke cigarettes and attempt poems and song lyrics; that was all poetry, long before I ever attempted to write a short story. Poetry was always the initial impulse to write. 

Every once in a while I make another attempt at fiction, but I rarely get far. It feels sluggish and stalled, like I’m learning a new language and struggling for vocabulary and structure. I’d like to get back to it someday, but there’s something about poetry that feels more intuitive and also more malleable, more workable, and I find it easier to actually finish a poem or collection. The initial creation seems to come from impulse and spur of the moment; but then I can edit and fine tune it later. I think poetry will always be my first impulse, and more workable as a craft to 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?

My writing process varies, depending on the poem, so my answer to most of these questions would be yes and no. Sometimes, a poem flows quickly out of an experience or moment, like it did with the poem “Lightshow” in my new book, Half-Earth. I was putting my son to bed one night after he had choked on a marble earlier that day, and he started asking me questions about what dying looked like. The entire poem is almost verbatim our conversation, and I wrote that down immediately after leaving his room once he was asleep. It went through some editing in my workshop group and with my editor, but 90% or more of that poem hasn’t changed from its first draft that night.

Most poems though have a much longer grinding process, working through drafts in my workshop group and with my editor, even if the initial draft comes out in full. It could take months to write a single poem and have it ready for publication, while once in a while a poem comes full force in a matter of minutes. It’s rare, but beautiful when it happens.  

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?

For both my poetry collections, I was never working on a book as a cohesive concept until at least 75% of the material was written. It was more a matter of slowly churning out enough poems to finally justify structuring it into a manuscript and submitting to publishers. I think the themes and topical sections of the book came out organically based on the things I was preoccupied with over several years.   

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 always a mandatory after thought and never part of my creative process. I’ve never actually thought about reading a poem in public until the book or chapbook is published, and discussions about launches start. Like many writers I’m sure, I’d rather be reading or writing privately than performing in public, partially because I’m introverted, and partially due to a moderate but consistent level of social anxiety.

With that said, I also can’t deny that magical, extremely rewarding feeling of a book launch, the responses and feedback from the audience, the relief afterwards when it all goes well. It’s a special moment, to feel part of a literary community that welcomes you and wants to hear what you have to share.  

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 think in Half-Earth in particular, I’m trying to explore what it means to live in our current reality, to progress and raise children and attempt to move forward and what impact that has on us, knowing that as both a species and a planet, we are devolving, we’re in decline even as we continue to innovate, expand, procreate, and live our lives. I’m stuck on this idea of how do we continue individually and collectively living day to day, which is always focused on progression (whether that’s our passions, careers, children, relationships, homes, etc.) knowing full-well that the human population and the planet are on a downward trend.

I guess I want to know what it means to survive on a personal level knowing that it’s likely no longer possible for us to thrive or even potentially survive long term collectively. What does it mean to cope and live our lives with so many facets of our world (environmental, political, social, economic) in decline? It’s a strange feeling in the back of your mind, this backdrop that’s always in crisis, as we commute to work and buy coffee and take our kids to soccer practice. Cognitive dissonance is used a lot, but I think that implies it doesn’t affect us consciously or subconsciously, but I believe it does. It’s the impact I want to explore.

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’d love to say the writer has a specific, vital role in a culture because I believe we do have that potential, but ultimately, I think the writer’s role is simply to participate in a given culture, to  experience the world and cope with life by producing art. Ideally, the work they produce helps others cope as well. Writers are often expressing joy or sorrow, portraying social or political injustice, or deeply intimate personal experiences. Either way, I think it’s all a form of processing and coping with the world around them, and expressing that aloud for others to experience as well.  

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

I only have experience working with two editors, Karen Schindler from Baseline Press, and Jim Johnstone from Anstruther Press and Palimpsest Press, and both were essential. A good editor can see things you can’t, weaknesses in your poems that you’re too close to. I’ve never actually found it difficult, but I’ve also been lucky to work with incredibly skilled editors. With both my first book and my second, I think I placed an immense amount of trust in Jim Johnstone, knowing that he has the rare ability to balance deserved praise with much needed criticism. He finds that perfect middle ground between generosity and objective ruthlessness (and that is a compliment). He knows when to tell me a poem is complete and impactful, and when to chop off a stanza or two or even pull an entire poem from the manuscript because frankly, it’s not good enough yet. That’s such an incredible gift to receive as a writer trying to improve their craft.

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

If you’re given a space in the literary community, create two.

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? 

I wish I had a writing routine, but I don’t. Two kids and a full time career, and an autoimmune condition that requires me to put a lot of time and energy into physio and exercise and self-care, makes it very hard to have a regular writing routine. Instead, my writing is sporadic, writing a poem in my head as it comes to me on a walk with the dog or driving or reading a book, and at other times it’s extremely intentional, where I block off time to be alone for a couple of days so I can be more productive. In order to finish Half-Earth, I had to book four days of vacation and go solo to an off grid cabin with nothing but my laptop, no internet, and a pile of books. If I could do that even just a few times a year, I’d be far more prolific than publishing two books 12 years apart. Hopefully the third book comes much sooner.

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

I turn to nature and reading, coffee shops and libraries. It’s very much a physical location change that’s needed when I’m most stuck. That, and I read when I can’t write. It softens my mind and gets the words flowing again. If I can be reading at a cabin in the woods, or a hammock at a campsite, even better. Also, listening to music and walking the dog at night. I don’t look for specific sources of inspiration to initiate stalled writing; I look for specific environments and stimulation to get my mind to the right place.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home? 

I grew up on a farm in a drafty farmhouse built in the late 1800s, so three distinct smells remind me of home: dead flies, cow manure, and fresh cut hay. I haven’t lived in that house since my early twenties, and it was sold and destroyed many years ago, but to this day, I can still vividly conjure the exact smell of the upstairs hallway and my old bedroom, and I think it’s a combination of those three smells. Such a weirdly comforting combo of good and bad smells.   

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 tend to agree that books come from books. Reading puts me in the mindset to write, and nature gives me the temperament needed to write a poem and open myself up to the lines that come. Most of the time, that’s the peaceful quiet walking down a nature trail or camping or cottaging by a lake or river, but sometimes it’s also the chaos and energy of a busy downtown street, staring out a coffee shop window and watching a city churn. 

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

There are too many to name, but there were several books I was reading deeply while writing Half-Earth, including the poetry collections I mention later in question 18, but also the non-fiction title The Future is Analogue: How to Create a More Human World (David Sax) and several articles about climate change, technology, deep history, mentioned in the acknowledgements section of my book. A few of my favourite fiction writers are Ocean Vuong, Zoe Whittall, and David Huebert. As for poets, some favourites over the years have been LizHoward, John Wall Barger, Matthew Dickman, Ben Ladouceur, Triny Finlay, and most recently Sabrina Spenser Smith, Zane Koss, Brandi Bird, and Jenny Berkel.

Outside of my own writing, I edit chapbooks for Anstruther Press and on my own independently offer manuscript edits and consultations, and this brings me so much genuine joy. I get to see early drafts from incredibly skilled writers, some of them on the cusp of their publishing careers and others more seasoned, and I get to work with their poems and help mold and tweak and fine tune them into their final published artifact. It’s so satisfying, and I’m continually amazed at what others are doing, how truly spectacular so many emerging writers are.  

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

Skydive, solo back country camping, become fully fluent in a second language, learn to hunt (sustainably & respectfully), publish a novel or short story collection.  

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?

I’m a learning specialist and instructional designer, and formerly a teacher, so education had always been my career plan. Writing was always my passion, but never something I pursued as a career. I suppose if I could pick any job, I’d love to teach creative writing at a University, something I never did in my 12-13 year teaching career. Alternatively, if I could pick any job regardless of income, I’d work in a bookstore or a library, simply because I can’t think of a better place to spend 5 days a week. It’s always been a fantasy of mine. And yes, I realize what I actually want is to be a customer in a bookstore 5 days a week. Working in one, I’m sure, comes with all kinds of stress and pressure that I’m not aware of.

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

Compulsion and anxiety, and listening to Neil Young in high school and discovering Alden Nowlan and Patrick Lane as a teenager. Writing has been there since early high school, when I started devouring novels and poetry books and writing frantically in my room each night when I couldn’t sleep. It stayed with me all of these years, but became more intentional, more steady. The compulsion to write, to me, is more important than every other aspect of writing like editing and publishing and promotion. Whether or not I have a publication or a public reading, or even if I don’t write anything new for several years, the desire and impulse to write will, I deeply hope, always be there, or always return when it’s stalled.  

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

Last great novel was Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. I’ve read so many phenomenal poetry collections over the last year or so, but the few that stood out the most were Sabrina Spenser Smith’s A Brief Relief from Hunger, Triny Finlay’s Myself a Paperclip, and Matthew Dickman’s Wonderland and Husbandry. I rarely watch films anymore, but on a rare occasion I went to the movie theatre and saw One Battle After Another, which was a wild ride.   

19 - What are you currently working on?

Not allowing my writing to grind to a halt now that I’ve finally published my second book. After my first, I developed my career, had two children,  got a Masters degree, and had a spouse with a very busy career, so it took 12 years to publish my second full length. I’d like to make the third book happen sooner, not for any time line, just so that writing continues to be part of my daily life even when life gets chaotic.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Sanna Wani, Lantern

my review of Toronto poet Sanna Wani's second full-length collection, Lantern (Toronto ON: House of Anansi, 2026), following My Grief, the Sun (House of Anansi Press, 2022), is now online at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics.

Annie Wenstrup, The Museum of Unnatural Histories

  

1997:

Breaking sounds like a glacier
calving. Like ice sheets crashing 

onto saves. A wave is water
oscillating between the moon’s pull 

and the seabed’s cradle. A wave
is the shape of the tension 

between them. the largest waves
form when the seabed cracks, 

when earth’s long subducted core
rises and displaces the reaching 

water. Earth births the largest waves
by breaking her body. The anchor breaks 

the news. Her camera’s eye brines
the living room blue.

2023:

I no longer watch the news
but my body thinks about breaking
on schedule. At 5. Again at 6, 

an update at 10. (“1997 JonBenét Ramsey Tap Dances”)

The full-length poetry debut by Annie Wenstrup, a Dena’ina poet from Anchorage, Alaska, is the impressive The Museum of Unnatural Histories (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2026), a collection composed of an assemblage of remarkably-precise lyric poems articulating her immediate present, from cultural figures to what the cover copy describes as “the lived experiences of an Alaskan Native person and the histories of unresolved cultural violence [.]” Through an opening cluster and seven sections—“GGUGGUYNI TRANSCRIBES THE ARCHIVES,” “THE BLUE WING,” “POLICIES AND PROCEDURES,” “PERFORMANCE ART,” “RETROSPECTIVE: A MILLION CATACLYSMS LIVE INSIDE MY BODY,” “THE CURATOR’S OFFICE” and “FUTURE EVENTS”—Wenstrup speaks to cultural violence, erasure and revision, and the losses that continue to be felt, all framed through and against the argument of depiction, much of which has too long been shaped by those from the outside. “I imagine // the portraits of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s papoose,” she writes, as part of “Pretending to Be a Woman, I Roam, the Museum,” a poem that sits in the book’s untitled preface section, “Keep America Beautiful’s Crying Indian, / Mattel’s Eskimo Barbie, Disney’s Pocahontas, // and how they must face each other after the lights / darken, how they must wipe off war paint, how / they must unfeather their hair.”

Writes of cataclysms and depictions, Wenstrup articulates the voice and stories of Ggugguyni, named for the Dena’ina Athabaskan word for the raven, such as the opening poem, “Sukdu’a,” that writes: “Once Ggugguyni in her human form / walked by the river. She left her right eye / behind as a lookout. The eye saw the Dena’ina // draw near and it called to Ggugguyni. / Ggugguyni cried to the Dena’ina, Don’t touch / but watch! She tossed her eye into the air // three times. It looks out for your luck she said.” Her lines are sharp, enough to bleed. Through the voice of Ggugguyni, she articulates the frame of the museum, of the archive, shaping a context from within the context of that lived experience, offering portraits, transcriptions and self-portraits, working as a reclamation (comparable to elements of Nisga’a writer Jordan Abel’s ongoing work), and to navigate what might be seen as contradiction. “I ate and the fireweed blazed.” begins “As Persephone,” “Roadside blooms / snared roadkill while asphalt caught leaves, the way / calloused hands snag silk.” Writing through and around references to murdered and missing indigenous women to JonBenét Ramsey, Jackson Pollack, Rube Goldberg and Wile E. Coyote, each element speaks to not only loss but the need for agency, even in death. “How beautiful, how lovely the women // are. If missing,” she writes, as part of “Ghost Pixels,” “I hope they’re not dead. / When they die, we dissect their lives / into made-for-TV docu-dramas like bodies // preserved in formaldehyde. Blonde hair floats / on screen. Pale, blue-eyed women echo / here.”

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Nick Wilkshire

Nick Wilkshire is a lawyer and author of seven novels. He grew up in St. John's and spent five years in Whitehorse, Yukon before moving to Ottawa, where he now lives with his wife. They have three adult children and one grandson (so far).

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

I've always been a part-time writer so in some ways it didn't change much. On the other hand, I'll never forget the email saying that my first book was being published and I've kept writing ever since. The way I approach publication now is much different – wanting to do absolutely everything I can before it goes out, as opposed to just being satisfied that it's being published. As a result, I know that my most recent book (The Hunt) is much more polished than the first.

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

I've always enjoyed reading mysteries and thrillers so it made sense for me to write in those genres.

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've gotten into the habit of starting a book after Labour Day week-end, after spending several months on an outline. So by the time I get started, it tends to go quickly. Mostly, first drafts are rough approximations of the final product but there have been some books that have changed substantially from first to last drafts

4 - Where does a work of fiction 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?

It's always a book. It starts as a concept, then it gets fleshed out into an outline over several months.

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

I feel like the Sean Connery character in Finding Forrester when it comes to readings but one thing I've learned over seven books is that the work of an author doesn't end when the final draft is done. Readings are just a part of the work that follows and while I don't love doing them, I do enjoy talking about a particular book, or writing in general.

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 main goal as an author is to write the kind of stories that I would enjoy as a reader and that hopefully appeal to other readers as well.

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 worry about the impact of AI but I see writers as chroniclers of their times, which is why I try to make my stories as authentic as possible, with elements drawn from headlines or current events.

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

It's both, for sure. It's never easy to be asked to change something you've laboured over for months or years but other perspectives are important and the end result is always an improved product

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

I have a few inspirational quotes around my writing desk, mostly about persistence. Thomas Perry has a few good ones, including: “Whether things are going well or badly, it's useful for a writer to remember that the most powerful force in human life is luck. The second most powerful force is persistence.”

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?

As a part-time writer, it's a constant struggle to carve out time for writing. For me, it's in the early evening. I'll usually start a novel in September and have a daily goal of 45 minutes or 750 words, whichever comes first, six days a week. By Christmas, I'm usually getting close to the end of the first draft.

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

Sometimes it's a matter of sitting at the keyboard and working it out. Other times, I'm walking the dog and the solution to the plot dilemma that's been bugging me for days just presents itself.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Salt - I'm from St. John's, so a whiff of an onshore ocean breeze is all I need to bring me back there.

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 put a lot of emphasis on setting so nature is a big one for me. My most recent book – The Hunt – is set in the Yukon, which is a place like no other. The way the characters respond to that rugged, remote environment is a key part of the story. I also have a specific playlist that's always on when I write, so music is an indirect influence as well.

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

I have my favourite writers but I also enjoy finding new ones. I recently came across a fantastic series of detective novels from a writer I'd never heard of before (Adrian McKinty), set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

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

Be a full-time author

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?

I'm a lawyer by day but if I had my time back, I might have tried travel writing, or maybe an airline pilot

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

Writing has always been a creative outlet for me – plus it's always fun to be able to create alternate worlds where you control everything that happens!

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

I clicked the wrong button recently and accidentally bought Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent (I was trying to buy one of his more recent books). Considering it was published in 1987 I was expecting it to seem dated but it's not – it's amazing. Maybe I'll try and re-watch the film when I'm finished the book!

19 - What are you currently working on?

Something set in the North Atlantic...  

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Nathan Dueck, Nathan Russel Dueck (1979— ): Mortifications

 

NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK 
(1979-2003)

Before the ink had even dried on the contract, Nathan announced the news from atop a chair in the computer lab so everyone within earshot would know he’d soon to be an honest-to-goodness published author. A friend from a graduate seminar rushed over to slap him five. “I can’t wait to get my hands on the book,” he said. Then he stage-whispered, “You know what this means, right? We’re both going to be neck-deep in tang!” Nathan stepped down and led his friend by the arm into the hall, stalling to mull over what he said. Sure, he’d enjoyed himself many a refreshing glass of orange-flavoured crystals dissolved in tap water in his day—who hasn’t? By why did he have to share with this guy? Nathan sputtered, “I could sure go for some Tang right now! If it’s good enough for astronauts, it’s good enough for me.” The friend sighed. “Poets, man. You never make a lick of sense.”

The latest from Cranbrook, British Columbia-based poet Nathan Dueck is the “debut memoir” Nathan Russell Dueck (1979— ): Mortifications (Winnipeg MB: Turnstone Press, 2026), a curious assemblage of prose-echoes and repetitions blending memoir, lyric and a possible bending of fact (I would like to see the numbers on his claim of being “a worst-selling Mennonite author,” for example). Each individual piece, none more than a page in length, are set beneath similar headstone-esque titles, including “NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK (1979-1992),” “NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK (1979-2006)” and “NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK (1979-1994).” As the back cover description provides, this collection “[…] is a lifetime collection of cringe-worthy moments that are always true (… ish).” “Nathan cosplayed as a scholar all throughout his youth,” Dueck writes, to open the piece “NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK (1979- ),” “donning pleated trousers. Oxford shirts buttoned up all the way, and cardigans with elbow patches. The part in his hair was always severe. When he finally became a professor, his students couldn’t tell if his preppy getup was ironic or sincere. In truth, he couldn’t tell either.”

This is Dueck’s fourth full-length title, following the poetry collections king’s(mère) (Turnstone Press, 2004), he’ll (St. John’s NL: Pedlar Press, 2014) [see my review of such here] and A Very Special Episode (Hamilton ON: Wolsak and Wynn, 2019) [see my review of such here], with a further forthcoming within the next year or so with University of Calgary Press (although it is good to see Dueck returning to his original publisher, here). His debut, a fragmented book-length long poem on and around Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King, is a collection that perhaps remains my favourite of his works overall, at least so far; in part for the cheek of it, writing so playfully (via accumulated fragment) on such a serious yet colourful historical figure, let alone one of Canada’s best-known (and most unusual) of Prime Ministers. There’s long been a playful element to Dueck’s book-length explorations, one that attends form and memory, play and sly jokes, nostalgia and self-doubt, offering a sense of structural play and self-depreciation, bending lines of fact into something else, leaning hard into perspective. As the short piece “NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK (1979-1994)” writes, in full: “Although Nathan faithfully awaited true love throughout high school—admittedly, this wasn’t too difficult since he wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes—he didn’t think it really counted without the officially licensed True Love Waits wristband, so he paid another beta male at the church youth group twenty dollars for his. It was silicone and gave Nathan an itchy rash.” His books-to-date—including his prior collection, riffing on and through the nostalgia of Saturday morning cartoons and after-school specials—exist as book-length studies through a particular subject, each title wildly different than the others. Curiously, a selected poems at some point would be fascinating to see, in part for what kind of framing a potential editor might decide.

The memoir element of a book-length accumulation of self-contained prose pieces could be seen as an echo of Vancouver writer George Bowering’s classic Autiobiology (Vancouver BC: Georgia Straight Writing Supplement, Vancouver Series #7, 1972), offering prose bursts on individual moments, memories and experiences across childhood and youth. As well, Dueck adds the caveat of not only clustering these purposefully awkward and self-depreciating pieces into sections with flamboyant titles—“Rejectio in Perpetuum,” “Ridiculam in Persona,” “Retentus in Pecunia,” “Regior in Propagatio” and “Reprobi in Publicum”—but adds a layer of narrative through subtitles across the table of contents itself. As each piece within the book offers but name and date, the table of contents offers addendums such as “That time Nathan mulled over potential complications of moral philosophy …,” “That time Nathan exhibited a textbook case of white savior complex…” and, referencing the poem fully quoted above, “That time Nathan became a worst-selling Mennonite author….” Throughout, Dueck references what might be his touchstones, including nostalgia, introspection, self-doubt and faith, attempting to reconcile exactly how he might see himself, as to where he has been, and where he might currently stand.

NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK
(1979-1996)

Nathan was one of a dozen or so teens seated around a circular table in an Evangelical church basement as their twentysomething youth leader held forth. “Then this pilot hears from a stewardess that some passengers had disappeared—they were all raptured!” Nathan surreptitiously sat on quaking hands, but everybody else was rapt. “Get this,” smirked the youth leader. “The pilot’s wife and son were taken without him!” Seeing Nathan’s head shaking, the youth leader snarled, “Something wrong, bruh?” Starting at the ceiling panels, Nathan said, “Without my family there, I’m not sure heaven would feel much like paradise.” The table fell silent. The youth leader cracked wise, “It’s gonna be such a par-tay, you’d never even notice!” Glaring at the floor tiles, Nathan added, “But how is that an eternal reward?” “Jesus’s going to separate sheep from goats at the Second Coming,” said another teen in a condescending tone. “Believe you me, you don’t want to be caught up in the wrong crowd.” Nathan pushed away from the table, saying, “I should probably go.” The youth leader waved, rattling his puka shell bracelet. “But will it be paradise without you?”

I’m also intrigued by Dueck’s use of repetition and echo through this prose-poem memoir, a structure utilized by numerous poets over the years, whether utilizing repeated title or not, still beneath a repeated prompt to further the possibilities, including MC Hyland’s The End (Sidebrow Books, 2019) [see my review of such here], Peter Burghardt’s (no subject) (Oakland CA: Omnidawn, 2022) [see my review of such here], Johannes Göransson’s SUMMER (Grafton VT: Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2022) [see my review of such here], Samuel Ace’s I want to start by saying (Cleveland ON: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2024) [see my review of such here], Sawako Nakayasu’s remarkable The Ants (Los Angeles CA: Les Figues Press, 2014; Punctum Books, 2025) [see my review of such here], and multiple titles by the late Noah Eli Gordon, specifically Is That the Sound of a Piano Coming from Several Houses Down? (New York NY: Solid Objects, 2018) [see my review of such here] and The Source (New York NY: Futurepoem Books, 2011) [see my review of such here]. Throughout, he returns to that same central prompt of himself and his own memory, a headstone-title set as a firm ground from which to leap, or stand. If a writer really wishes to push into unknown, unexpected territory, it isn’t enough to write five or ten pieces around a particular subject, but twenty or thirty or forty pieces, working through the expected material fairly quickly, leaving only the unexpected to follow, and Dueck’s approach is thorough, and wide-ranging. How far might one push the idea, after all, and Dueck’s clustering of pieces suggest the compositional process provided a sequence of pieces far different than their final order within this collection. Do I know more about the life of Nathan Dueck after reading through this “debut memoir,” one might ask? Possibly, but moreso, I know far more about what he thinks about various events throughout his life. Or, as the piece “NATHAN RUSSEL DUECK (1979-2004)” reads:

The best advice Nathan ever received came from his master’s degree advisor. She made only one comment at the end of the first draft of his thesis: UNCLENCH. From that moment on, he laboured 24.7 to do just that.*

 

 

*Sure, this practice puts him in an early grave, but still, pretty good advice, huh?