National Poetry Month : R. Kolewe,

On Certainty: three fragments

285.

I wrote down secrets no one has

because I wanted to know for certain

if someone is looking for something and

I doubted

did not ask

read

believes that what he is looking for is there

532.

like an old man

who is always mislaying

something: now

his spectacles,

now his keys

394.

I don’t remember how I felt I felt

lost. This is one of the things I cannot doubt.

As if feeling could be replaced

saying this must —

I wanted to listen.

There are letters but they don’t say much

remain legible nevertheless read silently

all new forgotten as if

there was a beginning when all there will be

handwriting and stillness and blame and

cannot see clearly what has been lost.

What do I do with this thought?

Making use of Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe’s translation of Wittgenstein’s book of the same title.

R. Kolewe lives in Toronto. He has published two books of poetry, Afterletters (BookThug 2014) and Inspecting Nostalgia (Talon Books 2017) as well as two chapbooks, Silence, then (Knife | Fork | Book 2019) and Like the noises alive people wear (above/ground press 2019).

Marcus McCann in Niagara Falls and Hamilton

Chaudiere Books author Marcus McCann has two upcoming readings you should be aware of:

In Niagara Falls: Grey Borders Reading Series
w/ Dani Couture & Ralph Kolewe
7pm, Fri, Feb 28, 2014.
Niagara Artist Centre, 354 St Paul st.

In Hamilton: LitLive Reading Series
w/ Jim Smith, Christine McNair, Andrew Faulkner & others
7:30pm, Sun, March 2, 2014.
Sky Dragon centre, 27 King William St.

For information on further McCann readings and appearances, check out his events page, here.

Chaudiere Books author Marcus McCann reads at Toronto's Pivot Reading Series with Richard Krueger + Ralph Kolewe, Sept. 21, 2011

The Pivot train has started, and there’s no getting off, Toronto. Join us on September 21 for readings from three fantastic man-poets, Ralph Kolewe, Richard Krueger, and Marcus McCann. As always, at the Press Club, and as always, doors are at 8. Your gracious host is Elisabeth de Mariaffi.

Pivot Readings at the Press Club
Featuring Ralph Kolewe, Richard Krueger, and Marcus McCann

Wednesday, September 21
The Press Club
850 Dundas Street West, Toronto
8 PM
PWYC 

Ralph Kolewe lives in Toronto. He is co-editor of InfluencySalon.ca, the online iteration of Influency: A Toronto Literary Salon. He makes his living as a software engineer. He takes photographs, which have been shown in various venues (you can see some of them online here), and has recently begun to admit that he also writes poems (some of which you can read here).

Richard Krueger grew up in Prince George, British Columbia, where he eventually received his Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Northern British Columbia in 1999. He was winner of the inaugural Barry McKinnon Chapbook Prize in 2006. The Monotony of Fatal Accidents, released this fall with BookThug, is his first book of poetry, though many of the poems that comprise it previously appeared in chapbook form.

Marcus McCann is a poet and journalist, the author of Soft Where and eight chapbooks, most recently The Glass Jaw and Town in a Long  Day of Leaving. In Ottawa, he was the artistic director of the Transgress festival, facilitator of the Naughty Thoughts Book Club and a host of CKCU’s Literary Landscapes. He was the managing editor of Xtra in Toronto and Ottawa until this summer; this month [September], he started law school at U of T. His next full length collection, The Hard Return, will be released in April with Insomniac.

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Pivot Readings at the Press Club
pivotreadings.ca
@PivotReadings

Every other Wednesday at the Press Club in Toronto, we present the writers breathing life into Canadian literary culture. Established and emerging, time-tested and fresh; we're what's happening in literature, right now. Your hosts are Elisabeth de Mariaffi and Sachiko Murakami.