When you ask a poet why they don't write a novel, whatever they tell you, this is what they mean.

Jack Gilbert

If you want to make your bed softer, remove the hardback poetry volumes

Over at my wife’s bakery this afternoon for a coffee! The case looks good!

The Al and Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize is entering its second year since being announced as a prize that recognizes “the best Canadian book of poetry published by an established Canadian poet of distinguished achievement and awards an annual prize of $10,000.” Wow! tinyurl.com/2jym6xam

Jack Gilbert

Here is my review of Elizabeth Bachinsky's Real Grownup. tinyurl.com/mvb6m9cm "Bachinsky writes prose poems, free verse poems in quatrains and non-uniform stanzas; skinny little poems and wide-ranging poems that take over multiple pages, but the story-telling is always there

Rem D. Koolhaas’s Lo Res Car looked as though it was designed to ram the shit out of Cybertrucks!

New poem I’ve been toying with for a few days.

I guess as Canadian poets we all just sit at the kids table is what the latest Griffin Poetry Prize longlist is telling us.

Really enjoyed Sue Sinclair's New Fangled Rose out this Spring with Goose Lane Editions. tinyurl.com/4znu7n6z underlying poems about Robo-Bees, or a river blinking its “multitude of eyes”, there is a searching intelligence trying to apprehend “the Great Everything from which we are poured”.

One more for World Poetry Day. I’ve read this poem countless times and it breaks my heart every time.

Your life is not your own and / never was. D. A. Powell

2006 internet: RSS feeds, forums, communities of hobby blogs, where people post about interior design, fashion, and music for free 2026 internet: sponsored content, paid partnership, buy my merch, try my supplements, invest in my crypto, click link in bio to unlock the secrets of life for $30

There's NewPoetry today from Tolu Oloruntoba. newpoetry.ca/2026/03/20/p...

New poem.

Got up at 5:30 am to work on poems and a new ms.

New tshirt.

Finished copy edits on the new book. Celebrated by eating a banana and putting on a brand new Spaceman 3 t-shirt.

New poem.

More new Canadian poetry. More of Evan Jones. Who is into turning old myths into new myths. On the gates of Hades and other gates... Horn Gate It is not the sea you hear. Not one of the five rivers of Hades nor rain against the house you grew up in

Another poem I’m working on. I think I’ve got it. Reading lots of Jack Gilbert so very much Gilbert inspired.

Another poem I’m working on. I think I’ve got it. Reading lots of Jack Gilbert so very much Gilbert inspired.

I have a poetry collection called Bureau of Useless Splendour coming out in the fall. A collection of essays completed. A New & Selected to shop around after my fall book. And thirty new poems inspired by Gilbert, Strand & Levis that I’m slowing building into a book. I have trouble sitting still.

if only we knew back in 2007 that alienating losers was a critical social guardrail

Wrote a banger of a poem this morning. Now to write a poetry review.

Love when people I don’t know DM to tell me they don’t like my poems online. Quick block. Much better!

Maybe you are like me and this is a difficult time of year for you. Here is a poem from my forthcoming book Bureau of Useless Splendour (ECW Press, Fall 2026) that cheered me up this morning. Perhaps it will do the same for you. onlypoems.com/poems-catalo...

Acquired Gorillaz tickets for their stop in Toronto in October. Taking my kids!

My partner Aura thinks I should run a reading series out of her bakery when I retire next year. Hmmm….something to think about. Would I have to apply for grants? I’m terrible with numbers and money in general, but I will have time for sure.

We need more reviewers in Canada. I think as poets we should be reviewing a couple of titles a season. It’s good for the community and it’s good for our own sensibilities and poetry. It’s hard to justify the work involved, I get it, but ultimately I think it’s a way to give back.

Important to call lies out when there are lies. These are lies from a liar.

Mark Strand's "Hour" as it first appeared in The New Yorker.

Read The Tinder Sonnets by Jennifer LoveGrove. Highly recommended! Review coming on The Woodlot - Canadian Poetry Reviews & Essays next month!

I should have cover art soon for my next poetry collection Bureau of Useless Splendour in the next week or two. It’s been a long wait for this next one but worth it to get it just right!

Forthcoming April 7: CREATURE FEATURE by DEAN YOUNG For this #coverfeature, Dobby Gibson and Matt Hart, friends of DEAN YOUNG, take us behind the cover art of YOUNG'S first posthumous collection:

The book club “scammers” I and everyone else have been ignoring are now threatening to damage my books through posting negative reviews if I don’t engage with them. Implied blackmail. Not engaging but annoying.

Valentines Day Pug!

Interviewer Marlies Dubois talks with Canadian poet Tree Abraham about her poetry collection elseship: an unrequited affair out with Book*hug Press now! tinyurl.com/2bwps787 "Perhaps had I not agonized over making meaningful art of that experience, it would haunt me.”

I've written a review of Russell Thornton's Two Songs Selected Poems 2000-2025 which is quite simply breathtaking and a well-curated selection of Thornton's best work! tinyurl.com/5c2w7vxm

“Anna and Stephanie went here, there, / while they went home to drink Molotov cocktails / as the plane went down. // I love you drunk in a sober mood. // Like putting a tux on to fight a fire.” —Bob Hicok, “Now We’re Not Getting Somewhere” @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social

Interviewer Breanna MacElwain talks with Canadian poet Jumoke Verissimo about her poetry collection Circumtrauma (Coach House Books, 2025) for The Woodlot! tinyurl.com/2xnb4ajt

"Purge" by Guy Elston, from the Fall 2025 issue of @malahatreview.bsky.social.

some above/ground press author activity: Frances Boyle, Gregory Betts, Chris Banks, Larry Sawyer + Gary Barwin, / @chrisbanks6625.bsky.social @garybarwin.bsky.social @francesboyle19.bsky.social @larrysawyer.bsky.social @whatisapoem.bsky.social ; abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2026/01/some...

Trump loyalist and criminal collaborator Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota officials after news of Alex Pretti’s murder by ICE thugs. The letter urges repeal of sanctuary policies, full cooperation with ICE, and DOJ access to Minnesota’s voter registration data. #3E #GoodvsEvil

Bondi is demanding MN surrender its voter rolls in exchange for pulling ICE out of Minnesota. In a sane and civil society this is called extortion. In the Banana Republic of the United States this is just another day in trump’s fascist, tyrannical regime. How much longer will we tolerate this?

AOC: "An ICE officer had violently pushed a woman to the ground and he had come over to help get her up and that is what precipitated this incident that very quickly led to an execution in the streets. What we are seeing here is a momentous pivotal moment for the United States."

“I thought I would be a wealthy, functional-alcoholic lawyer, / but I ended up being a poor sober person // working in a copy shop downtown, / trying to do a good job with the hole puncher / and the binding machine.” —Tony Hoagland, “Great Expectations”