abby paige.writer.actor

Since the internet encourages scanning over true reading, it is more true than ever that we often take words for granted. This is a difficult environment in which to be a writer, but it is also, in a sense, a call to arms. I admire any poet who struggles to rock the reader out of a complacent relationship with words. I don’t always enjoy the work that results, but perhaps enjoyment isn’t the primary aim of such a poem.

In her clever collection, (made), poet Cara Benson writes in defense of the weary word. She plays with how poems look, how narrative is built, and how words sound, putting the reader on alert and demanding closer reading. The results are mixed, but perhaps that could be a hallmark of innovation? Check out my review on Rover for further musings.

I like to think that I invented a poetic form that I call The Diatribe, a poem, usually free verse (who has time for meter when they’re really pissed off?), that rants self-righteously and directly against one or more objects of scorn. Once in a while, though, I run across a poem that proves that others have already stumbled onto this form themselves: Amy Gerstler’s “Fuck You Poem #45″ is a fun example that comes to mind.

While such poems are cathartic to write, they are difficult to control, as anger most always is, and to be good, they require an unusual lack of vanity on the part of the writer. That’s why I was so impressed with Sharon McCartney’s rage-fueled collection, “For and Against.” Read my full review on Rover. And let me know if you can think of other diatribe poems.

Poetry anthologies can be tough reading. They sometimes seem motivated by an indulgent, overly simple impulse, as though someone read a really great poem about, say, gardening, and instead of thinking, I wish I could read a whole book of really great poems, thought, I wish I could read a whole book of poems about gardens.

Magic can happen in an anthology, though. Of course it helps when the editors choose exceptionally strong work. And when the work is well-chosen, and perhaps the theme isn’t too didactic, the poems can begin to speak to each other in a mysterious way, setting each other off and influencing the reader to baffling effect. I found this to be the case with “Penned,” an anthology of poems about the zoo that was published recently by Signal Editions here in Montreal. To read more, check out my review on Rover.

On Monday, May 17, carte blanche, the literary review of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, will launch its eleventh issue. I’m honoured to contribute a poem to the issue and to read at the party celebrating its official launch!

carte blanche issue 11 readings and more
May 17, 7:00pm
Kaza Maza
4629 du Parc, Montreal

The evening will feature live music by Sigh Twombly; an interview with William Weintraub; fiction from Mark Paterson and Sarah Gilbert; poetry from Leslie Pasquin and me, and lots more! And if you’re not in Montreal, you can just check out Issue 11 when it goes on-line that same day.

All poetry is at some level about what words keep us from saying. It tries to leap the chasm between the world that is and the world that is effable. But what if the spaces between words and utterances are also speaking? In her new collection, R’s Boat, Lisa Robertson spreads her lines across the page, giving the work less coherence, but more breadth. The whiteness of her pages seems to suggest that silence has expressive potential. My review of R’s Boat is included on The Rover this week.