Thursday, April 30, 2015

National Poetry Month 2015: Anya Douglas,

Collection


When I was little I had an amusing
game of cataloguing ways to die.
Some were boring, run-of-the-mill suicides,
like hanging, drowning, etc. Some stemmed
from ancient torture practices, like being
sat naked on a bamboo shoot and
dead within a day because of the plant’s
incredible growth rate. Ripped apart
by horses, one’s arms and legs tied to
four of them respectively. Or an icicle
dripping on the top of one’s head
until they go mad, and then piercing
them through as it thaws and detaches.
One of the scariest ways for me was
from an article I read, not about torture
or suicide, but an accident. A needle
was once lost in a patient’s bloodstream.
It eventually pierced his heart. I would
imagine this for hours. It would always
be a sewing needle my mom used to
mend my socks. It would have a very
small eye. A slender silver float coursing
through blue rivers intricate as dreams,
until it stops at the heart.




Anya Douglas was born Anna Moussienko.  Originally from Riga, Latvia, she immigrated to Toronto in 1996.  Anya has two degrees from York University, and is a languages teacher.  She is also a musician and a vocalist.  Anya was an editor for existere in 2004 and 2005. She is involved in translation, concentrating on select 20th century Russian poets. Anya was selected to participate in Diaspora Dialogues Mentorship program with Michael Redhill as her mentor in 2007. Her work featured in such journals as Reluctant Hero, CV2, and Misunderstandings magazine. Her poetry in Russian was published in three Russian cultural magazines/newspapers in Toronto.  Anya’s first chapbook was published by The Emergency Response Unit in 2008. Her feature readings include Plasticine Poetry and the Art Bar reading series. Anya’s first full-length poetry collection Absences has recently been completed, and selected for Diaspora Dialogues Mentorship program with Olive Senior as her mentor.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

National Poetry Month 2015: Gil McElroy and Christina McElroy,




Harvesting Honey


Remind me
of this: what she
was doing, what
I would think. I’d use
the wall like
a window I once
knew, place
the daily outside
& think of the long run surrounded
by enclosure – my
sanity on the brink.

I’d pace off
those narrows, retrace
& reprise likeness (tiger, panther,
cougar, even)
& tear from the inside out seen
from outside in.

 I’d do for me
like somebody else.

Christina McElroy was a professional musician, conductor, and academic for many years, writes poetry, and currently is an appeals officer in the federal government (go figure).

Gil McElroy is a poet, artist, independent curator and critic currently living in Colborne, Ontario.

Monday, April 27, 2015

National Poetry Month 2015: rob mclennan,



from Glossary of Musical Terms

The Key of R, Minor

A territory, blitz. She, from certain angles. Hospital beige. Oracle, a useless vanity. Dates shift. Flicker. You are not the moon. Sad stone, happy. Absence, absence, gesture. Baby, kicks out. Bloodstream, ribcage. Ascend, descending. Swerve, exchange, abend. Such startling, music. Rock salt, lines the quarry. In which we remain present.


The Key of Silence

Occipital. Driven, changes. Change. Subject: what becomes. Morning, dawn, recedes. Ornaments, and grails. A spectral park. We strive, the difference. Inching, silence. Cries, the wee thing. Overtakes the air.




rob mclennan’s recent titles include notes and dispatches: essays (Insomniac press, 2014), The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry collection If suppose we are a fragment (BuschekBooks, 2014). He currently spends his days full-time with toddler Rose, writing entirely at the whims of her nap-schedule. robmclennan.blogspot.com

Saturday, April 25, 2015

National Poetry Month 2015: Jennifer Londry,



Flag of            another                       Country

Saturday night olive and martini mixer.
Pink paper sky
key bowl
a tussle of shoes.

Sunken living room
plush corduroy sectional, half-pie lampshade, frowsy
tangerine shag                                          and a gold
Peter Jackson cigarette lighter lost in the weeds of its
luxurious hair.

The Hollywood Argyles swing on the electric wheel. Psychedelic
jumble a tab of pharmacopeia to wind up the shy.
Inside house at the end of the block a collision
of neighbours.




Jennifer Londry is the author of two books of poetry: Life and Death in Cheap Motels, which was adapted for stage, and After the Words, which was nominated for a Saskatchewan Book Award. Her third book of poetry, Tatterdemalion, appears this fall with Chaudiere Books. A featured reader at the 2009 Kingston Writers’ Festival and at the 2011 Sweetwater 905 in Northern BC, she has also facilitated and organized a literary event for Alzheimer’s Awareness. Jen has taught creative writing and recently was a judge for Words from the Street, a creative writing competition, which gives a voice to the downtrodden, in association with The Toronto Writers’ Collective. She is also a contributor to the anthologies: A Crystal through which Love Passes, Glosas for P.K. Page (Buschek Books, 2013), Where the nights Are twice As long, Love Letters of Canadian Poets (Goose Lane Editions, 2015), and has work forthcoming in the Alzheimer’s anthology, A Rewording Life, editor Diane Schoemperlen, creator Sheryl Gordon. Currently Jen is collaborating with the documentary filmmaker Sarah Turnbull at the Carleton School of Journalism and Communications to produce a mental health video.