2025 has been a tough one. There’s been a lot going on and a lot of heaviness around the world, and during it all i’ve been trying to add to the literary world in the little ways that i can…

As Banff Centre’s Director of Literary Arts, I developed a slate of in-person residencies which found homes across campus and in the newly renovated Vinci Hall. Literary Arts residencies—all of which were scholarshipped at 100% of tuition and 50% of room/board (and 100%/100% for Canadian Indigenous participants)—enabled international writers to work with exceptional faculty: January’s “Deep Winter Writers” residency with Danez Smith and Omar El Akkad (and Samantha Haywood from the Transatlantic Agency); February’s “Environmental Writing” residency with Denise Balkissoon and Steph Kwetásel’wet Wood; April’s “Horror” residency with Shane Hawk, Jessica Johns, Cherie Dimaline (and Catherine Chen from Arsenal Pulp); May’s “Literary Journalism” residency with Kyo McLear, Taras Grescoe, Sarah Berman (and Amanda Crocker from Between the Lines Press); August’s “Summer Writers” residency with Catriona Strang, Eric Sneathen, Douglas Kearney (and Hazel Millar from Book*Hug); September’s “Science Fiction” residency with Premee Mohamed, Ai Jiang, Amal El-Mohtar (and Ali Fisher from Tor Books); October’s “Comics and Graphic Novels” residency with Matt Madden, Bishak Som, Tom Hart (and Michel Vrana from Black Eye Books); and November’s “Early Career Writers of YA and Children’s Books” residency with Jordan Scott, Jen Ferguson, and Tanya Boteju (and David Robertson from Tundra). I am super thankful to be working with Madeline McCaffrey on all of these projects.

Banff Centre‘s Literary Arts department has some amazing plans for 2026 with residencies focused on Contemporary French Writers & Translators, Literary Journalism, Sports Writing, Crime Fiction, Computational Writing, Early Career Writers of Poetry, and several open topic poetry/prose residencies … all responding to the needs of international writers. Lots of news on the Banff Centre website.

Much of my 2025 was also dedicated to putting the final touches on DO IT WRONG: HOW TO BE A POET IN THE 21ST CENTURY which is forthcoming from Assembly Press — it’ll hit the shelves in April 2026.

This year I spoke to audiences at the AWP Conference in LA, at the Ontario College of Art and Design (via Zoom), and Brock University (also via Zoom) and performed at Banff’s Legion Hall. I published in The International Times, ADDA, Asemica, A-minor, New Poetry, The Visual Poetry Times, Periodicities, Var(2x), Sync2, and Stride Magazine.

There were also 8 different small press editions of my work published in 2025: Orpheus and Eurydice and All the Bright Tokens (both from Chromium Dioxide Press) and Another Piece of Reassuring Plastic [2^nd revised edition], Il Pleut, and Penteract Press 2016–2025: A Contributor’s reflection (all from my own No Press).

I continue to place free PDFs of all of my work online—help yourself.

Through No Press I published 13 different editions of poetry and prose – including 5 issues of The Minute Review – with contributions by international, national and local emerging and established writers. Each edition was meant to help spread the word of risk-taking international writing. Thank you for trusting me with your work. This year No Press published Moez Surani’s The Death of Volodya Putin, Rachel Smith’s Carbon Bodies, Kevin Stebner’s Sigils for Inspiration, Nasser Hussain’s Zoom!, and a bootleg edition of Jack Kerouac’s The Holy, Beat, and the Crazy Next Thing.

Oh, and here’s my “Most Engaging Books of 2025” list, highlighting some of the finest books I’ve read this year.

None of this would have been possible without my incredible partner, Kristen, and our amazing kid Maddie (and our dog, Lou, who seems to be made of his tail and fluff). My parents are also steady voices of support and love; thank you.

In so many ways I only excel because of the strength and support of my community of friends and colleagues, especially Gary Barwin, Gregory & Lisa Betts, Kit Dobson, Helen Hajnoczky & David Tchak, Nasser Hussain & Kaley Kramer, Aaron Tucker & Julia Polyck-O’Neill, rob mclennan, Astra Papachristodoulou, and so many others. Thank you.

Here’s to 2026 and it all getting, even a wee bit, better.

NEWLY RE-AVAILABLE FOR ORDER!

The publisher of SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS, Timglaset Editions, announced in the Spring of 2025 that it was no longer publishing, and the book was not available. I am pleased to announce that I now have copies of SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS available directly from me for the price of $25US (+$20 postage). Orders can be received via email (derek@housepress.ca) and payment received through paypal.

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In 1961 John Cage published his seminal book of essays, SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS. In that collection of essays, Cage expounds his theoretical framework and compositional style, and builds upon 4′33″. 4′33″—frequently disparaged as a farce played upon a devoted audience—is a composition which, focusses the musical potential of the ambient sounds of performance halls and shuffling audiences. While the audience is visually captivated by the (non)movements of the pianist, the auditory experience—the performance itself—takes place with the creaking of chairs, the clicking of HVAC systems, the coughing and jittering of uncomfortable audience members; 4′33″ is as much about the structures of performativity as it is about critical and close listening; the allowing of small ambient noises to be considered with as much import as musical notes on an orchestral score.

With his edition of SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS, Derek Beaulieu has created a visual response to Cage’s SILENCE, or more accurately, to a poorly-scanned PDF version found online found on monoskop.org (which coincidently also hosts a PDF edition of his a, A Novel). On each page Beaulieu has deleted all the text except the punctuation marks—which visually represents breath, pauses and breaks—and the grime and digital “noise” on the poorly-scanned page, the creaking digital performance space, of Cage’s lectures.

SILENCE: LECTURES AND WRITINGS is published in a form which mimics the size and shape of Cage’s Wesleyan UP edition, with the addition of a critical, explanatory afterword by noted scholar Peter Jaeger, grounding the edition in ambient sound, erasure, Buddhism, and conceptual writing.

Digitally printed in an edition of 200 copies, 304 pages, size 170×200 mm, with a full colour matte laminated cover.

• Gary Barwin performs a reading of a selection from Silence: Lectures and Writings
• Tom Bowden reviews Silence: Lectures and Writings for Bookbeat: the backroom
• Gary Barwin transforms his initial reading into “Silence Drone” a 4’33” soundscape
• Eduardo Abrantes performs a reading, in Portuguese (as filmed by Elee Kraljii Gardiner in Helsinki, Finland), of a selection from Silence: Lectures and Writings
• watch the launch of Silence at the London Small Publishers Fair, Oct 27, 2023
• named by Christian Bok as one of the “5 most engaging books of poetry in 2023“
• available as a downloadable PDF

Maryam Mulialee discusses my VEXATIONS Project as part of her paper “Recycling Destroyed Cities: Ruined Archives in Copy Art” in Frames Cinema Journal (issue 19, Mar 2022).

New from No Press!

SIGILS FOR INSPIRATION by Kevin Stebner
published in an edition of 50 copies, each with handsewn bindings.
copies are $5.00 each including postage
to order email or paypal derek@housepress.ca
A suite of masterful visual poems, SIGILS FOR INSPIRATION was created using dry-transfer lettering with breathtaking sensitivity exposing a beautiful, unexpected symmetry.

So excited to announce the 1st slate of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity‘s Literary Arts 2026/27 Residencies!

– Late Spring with Jessica Westhead, Philip Terry, and Sawako Nakayasu!

– Literary Journalism with Manjula Martin, Cheryl Thompson, and Shawn Micallef!

– Summer Writers with Adam Dickinson, Dodie Bellamy, and Jordan Abel!

– Crime Writing with Nita Prose, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and Wayne Arthurson!

– Computational Writing with Nick Montfort, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, and Kalen Iwamoto!

– Sports Writing with Dave Bidini, Morgan Campbell, and Mirin Fader!

HOLY SMOKES!: https://www.banffcentre.ca/literary-arts

I’ve just been alerted to the state of my artwork at Roehampton University. I was commissioned to create a monumental piece of visual poetry on the side of Fincham Court at Roehampton University (my alma mater); the building seems to have been abandoned, the offices sit empty, and the piece has been allowed to degenerate and degrade.

Sadly, this seems more than a little symbolic as Fincham Court was once home to Roehampton’s Creative Writing department. Roehampton University instituted mass lay-offs and the elimination of a number of humanities-based programs including classics, anthropology, photography, and creative writing. Those shameful lay-offs, which included the destruction of the department of creative writing, has meant job losses for many exceptional peers and colleagues – folks who were vital to the UK poetry and prose communities, who demonstrated mentorship and teaching of the highest level, who were publishing consistently, and who were instrumental in my own career. Many were given untenable options for the continuance of their careers, and have found themselves in tenuous positions since.

The mural, in better days, looked like this:

I sure hope that Roehampton is dedicated to restoring this work in memory of the exceptional creative writers who taught, studied, and wrote in those halls…

A reminder that Surface Tension remains in print from Coach House Books – and is a book that invites response. It includes poems from letraset and photocopy manipulation and degeneration – and each page asks the reader to imagine a few form of poetry, a liquid and flowing poetry. In Surface Tension, letters and words gather and pool into puddles of poetry; street signs and logos reflected in the oily sheen of polluted gutters of rainwater. Like a funhouse mirror reflecting the language that surrounds us, the pages drip over the margins, suggesting that Madge was right, we are “soaking in it!”

Here’s some of the responses to Surface Tension from across the internet – I invite you to read and respond to the book ,,, and send me your thoughts, i’ll share them here and build on this conversation!

• B&W promotional postcard, issued by Coach House Books
• a series of 4 colour promotional postcards, issued by Coach House Books
• Digital artist “Elephant Zebra” created a eye-popping response to an excerpt from Surface Tension‘s “Page Break”
• 49th Shelf listed Surface Tension on their “Most Anticipated: Our 2022 Fall Poetry Preview“
• CBC listed Surface Tension as one of the “27 Canadian books we can’t wait to read in September” and “48 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in fall 2022“
• rob mclennan reviews Surface Tension on his blog
• Michael Greenstein reviews Surface Tension for The Miramichi Reader
• Greg Thomas reviews Surface Tension for Spam Plaza
• Rupert Loydell reviews Surface Tension for Tears in the Fence 
• Andrew Brenza reviews Surface Tension for heavyfeatherreview.org
• Philip Terry reviews Surface Tension in Gorse
• Gordon Phinn reviews Surface Tension in WordCityLit
• Steven Ross Smith reviews Surface Tension in Freefall
• Sarah Burgoyne reviews Surface Tension in Arc
• Astra Papachristodoulou reviews Surface Tension in Periodicities
• Sarah Burgoyne interviews me about Surface Tension in Periodicities
• Carousel Magazine lists Surface Tension in its “Carousel Recommends: More books from 2022 to check out!“
• Christian Bok named Surface Tension one of his favourite books of 2022
• Astra Papachristidoulou named Surface Tension one of her “Books of the Year” the Poetry Society’s Poetry News
• rob mclennan named Surface Tension in his “‘Best of’ List of 2022 Canadian Poetry Books”
• Kevin Stebner included Surface Tension in his “Favourite Books I read this Year” YouTube video (Surface Tension mentioned at 7:42)
• Kyle Flemmer includes Surface Tension in his “favourite reads of 2022“
• I discuss Surface Tension with Matthew James Weigel as part of the Coach House Books podcast
• The CLMP (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses) includes Surface Tension in its Poetry of 2022 Round-up
• Watch as Calgary’s Shelf Life Books hosts the launch of Surface Tension & the post-reading Q&A
• Carve or Melt meets Scratch and Tint, a chapbook of visual responses to Surface Tension by Jeff Crouch was published by Paper View Books.
• Gary Barwin’s video response to “A Poem Should not mean” (an excerpt from Surface Tension) [Facebook]

Poets are often taught to “write what they know.” That dictum is supposed to bring comfort and solace, to suggest that poets can draw upon their own existence and that will be enough.

I disagree. Write what you don’t know.

Write what you wish you knew, what you wish you could read, the books that you encounter while dreaming, the manuscript which lies just on the edge of your fingertips.

Imagine the younger you, the you that yearned for the book that was just out of reach, the book that you wished was on the shelf—the book that you imagined would fulfill your fantasies, that would make you feel seen and heard, the book that would be just so cool to read. Write that. Write the book that you wish someone had handed to your teenage self. Be able to dream that you can hand that book to your teenage self and say “you’ll be ok.”

I believe that we don’t write for today; we write for tomorrow. A book is not a head of lettuce.[1] It doesn’t go bad. It stays on that shelf calling to a reader that we can’t even fathom. Imagine writing in terms of apprenticeship: learning takes place over several lifetimes of engaging with a subject; it is passed down intergenerationally from writer to writer. Compose with the next generation in mind: pose questions, offer potential solutions, suggest pathways for the reader-poets who come next.

Writing is not individualism; it’s the dream of community.

Continuously be mentored, and mentor in kind.

Celebrate the authors of the generations before you that have inspired and celebrate the authors of generations after you that are about to inspire.

There is no good, better, best in poetry.

[1] Unlike some contemporary politicians.