Pain and Beauty in This Year’s Poetry Reading: Full Circle

2022-11-17T11:56:56-05:00

Poetry is a place into which we can disappear from pain. In these collections, there are many other themes explored, but these passages intertwined like threads through my reading. In “A Toothless Crackhead Was the Mascot” from Reginald Dwayne Betts’ Bastards of the Reagan Era (2015): “This begins the concept

Pain and Beauty in This Year’s Poetry Reading: Full Circle2022-11-17T11:56:56-05:00

Autumn 2022, In My Reading Log (Twelve Indigenous Stories)

2022-11-14T15:21:54-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I attended Wordstock, a literary festival in Northern Ontario (they presented all their events in-person and online), and one of my favourite discussions was between three northern Indigenous authors, which reminded me that I had intended to share some other recent Indigenous reads. The Wordstock

Autumn 2022, In My Reading Log (Twelve Indigenous Stories)2022-11-14T15:21:54-05:00

Connecting Thread: From Revolution to Secrecy (2 of 5)

2021-12-27T14:57:43-05:00

Picking up yesterday's thread, the balance in Seçkin’s novel sways toward the personal, whereas the political scene in Alaa Al-Aswany’s The Republic of False Truths (2021) is more prominent, despite all the attention paid to characterization—a network that grows increasingly complex as readers turn the pages. (And there’s at

Connecting Thread: From Revolution to Secrecy (2 of 5)2021-12-27T14:57:43-05:00

Margaret Atwood Reading Month 2021, Week Two #MARM

2021-11-08T13:57:06-05:00

Last week, I wrote about learning that Margaret Atwood has been a long-time supporter and admirer of Thomas King’s writing, a writer I’ve enjoyed reading for a couple of decades. And I teased that this week I’d be writing about someone whose books likely wouldn’t have landed in my

Margaret Atwood Reading Month 2021, Week Two #MARM2021-11-08T13:57:06-05:00

Alistair MacLeod’s “The Return” (1971)

2021-06-20T13:20:44-04:00

Those of you who are reading here now, but not reading Alistair MacLeod’s short stories, will probably only be interested in the first couple of paragraphs after this introduction. Feel free to skip past the section that I've titled The Underneath, written with those who know the story-or other

Alistair MacLeod’s “The Return” (1971)2021-06-20T13:20:44-04:00
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