I was honoured to read from recent work, and be interviewed on stage by Nasser Hussain, at Sheffield Hallum University’s Performance Lab (Sheffield, UK) on Feb 27, 2020 as part of Poetic Futures: Genres, Concepts, Creativity.

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the event (courtesy Phil Davenport), where, in addition to the interview, i also read from my chapbook Extispicium, bpNichol’s “a small song that is his” and excerpts from Nichol’s Nights on Prose Mountain…

original (letraset on paper) and variations (photocopy manipulation)

AI poems by Pratim Sengupta and I: “asterisk ampersand asterisk: the poetry of the Centennial Planetarium” was unveiled this evening as part Planetary, the premiere exhibition at now at Contemporary Calgary…

more on the exhibition :
“Worlds collide: 36 local artists contemplate the Earth and cosmos for first exhibit at Contemporary Calgary.” Calgary Herald. Jan 23, 2020.

“Contemporary Calgary Launches Inaugural Season.” Avenue. Jan 22, 2020.

“Contemporary Calgary art gallery debuts in former Centennial Planetarium building.” CTV News. Jan 27, 2020.

‪Thank you so much to Gary Barwin for naming my ON SYNTAX one of his favourite books of 2019. While the book is out of print, the publisher, Timglaset editions, has made the book available as a free PDF

Once again December brings an opportunity to reflect upon the year’s publications. Like previous years, my “most engaging books” list reflects what I found most fascinating / useful / generative in terms of form & content. Seek out these volumes; every one will reward the search (your local, independent, bookstore can help). This is the cream of the crop for 2019, seriously:

Aguiar, Fernando. Poems without Words (Timglaset). 

Barwin, Gary. (Alessandro Porco, Ed.) For it is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe. (Wolsak and Wynn)

Cage, John. Diary: How to Improve the World (You will only make matters worse). (Siglio)

Cage, John. Love, Icebox: Letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham. (John Cage Trust)

Courtois, Gregoire. (Rhonda Mullins, trans.) The Laws of the Skies. (Coach House Books)

Dworkin, Craig. The Pine-Woods Notebook (Kenning)

Leslie, Woody. Understanding Molecular Typography. (Ugly Duckling Presse)

rawlings, angela. Sound of Mull. (Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology)

Terry, Philip, Ed. The Penguin Book of Oulipo. (Penguin)

Waider, Isabel. We Are Made of Diamond Stuff. (Dostoevsky Wannabe)

Zawacki, Andrew. Un/Sun. (Coach House Books)

2019 was an incredible year:

2019 was my first full year as Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and in October I unveiled the full-slate of Literary Arts programming for 2020/2021. It is a true honour to be part of Banff Centre, to work with such exceptional colleagues, and to have my family here on the side of Sleeping Buffalo Mountain with me, and to help create such an incredible space.

Shropshire, UK’s Penteract Press published my day-glo technicolor suite of visual poems, Aperture, in the spring — I am thrilled to see my concrete poetry finally realized in full colour. They also released a limited-edition poster in support of the book.

Invisible City Records released BOTHBOTHBOTH by Stuart Chalmers & See Monsd, a limited-edition CD & minidisc of audio responses to my visual poetry; its an incredible thrill to hear how my work inspires such responses. The tracks are also available to stream or download.

This year I have been lucky to have conducted readings and talks at Text / Sound / Performance: Making in Canadian Space (University College, Dublin) and at public events in Dublin, St.Catharines, Vancouver, Banff, Calgary and Canmore — Thank you so much to all of the organizers, hosts, colleagues, friends and audiences with whom I’ve shared the stage.

I’ve been lucky to have work published in il verri: reviche chose mi aspetto ddalla critica, Publishing Manifestos: An International Anthology from Artists and Writers, Forty Proper Tales, The Charles Bernstein Mixtape, Reflections, they will keep speaking the night, Not Your Best and 7 different magazines. 

There were also 7 different small press editions of my work were published in 2019: occupied floor (No Press), Extispicium (Proper tales press),  150 (for Andy) (with Arnold McBay, Timglaset), Helvetica (Happy Monks), give ’er (synch2), On Syntax (Timglaset) and Skare (Viktlösheten). I continue to place free PDFs of my work online. My artistic work was included in gallery exhibitions in Ottawa, St. Catharines, Windsor, Leeds, New Orleans, Vancouver, and Bern.

Through No Press I published 17 different editions of poetry and prose from international, national and local emerging and established writers. You can support No Press through Patreon. Each edition was meant to help spread the word of risk-taking international writing. Thank you for trusting me with your work.

None of this would have been possible without my incredible partner, Kristen, and my amazing daughter Maddie. My parents and in-laws have also been a steady voice 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 Greg and Lisa Betts, Christian Bok, Kit Dobson, Kenneth Goldsmith, Helen Hajnoczky, Nasser Hussain, Sina Queyras, Jordan Scott and so many others. Thank you.

EXTISPICIUM is now available; a piece of writing which is deeply personal and a lot of years in the making. A slow, difficult process but one which I’m glad to see the light of day thru Stuart Ross’s exceptional Proper Tales Press. $8 postpaid. email propertalespress@gmail.com to order…

& thank you rob mclennan for the brief review of the chapbook

A PISTOL SMUGGLED IN TYPHUS

             — after Rimbaud

A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
soon I’ll mourn your hidden shrieks:
A: a corset embroidered with a cirrus wave of carrion,
clouding the sky over a dead pigeon,
an apple gone soft in the swelter of summer
as flies crawl across a tyrant’s open eye.  
The swirling maggots blister and hatch to
a static of blindness. E: An iceberg reflected in a cataract iris.

A snowy quadrangle afloat in a sea of cream,
the hateful hood over a chessboard knight;
I, the spittle of opium flowers nestled within a blistered palm,
a cracked brick held in anger above a burning crowd.
U: shards of broken glass
across the folded banner of Muhammad;

O: the tattered crash of porcelain
on the stones of Roman villas,
mined from the pits of Afghanistan:
—set ablaze in your accusing stare.

(download a PDF of this poem’s original publication, a leaflet from Calgary’s Blasted Tree Press)