As requested by Edmontonian interview guest Kelly Shepherd! It's about family, the environment, the self. And sounds. And it haunts. Happy Monday!

As requested by a Vancouver interview subject, Diane Tucker. A beautiful poem about transcendental power through music and spirituality. And RIP Bly who just died this year!

Another Listener's Choice Poem from an interview subject, this one in Edmonton not Vancouver! O Herbert. Ever challenging to unfold. He resists. He gives. And he forgives my bumblings around with explications of what is after all his mystery :)

A Vancouver poet (who I have indeed interviewed but whose interview won't be posted until the last episode of Season 3!) asks me to read a Hawaiian poet. A gorgeous piece about work and fatherhood and love and loss. And smoking! Relish it.

Selected as a Listener's Choice by my first interview subject Heidi Greco. It's not a simple piece after all! There's violence in this writing. What's that deer doing anyway? And you can hear my cat.

I begin by reading a series of fragments from the ancient satirist Juvenal to show how old this type of grrrrrr is ;) Then I chat to myself in my yard (or maybe all the birds care) about the disparities and insufficiencies relating to big prizes/arts admin pay vs the every day impoverished maker's reality. And end with a quote about the whole notion that if you love something you should never ask to be paid fairly to undertake it. Say what? Let's shift the system and make it different! This poet says yes.

The final poem in the Revolving City anthology for Friday! And I talk the anthology beast in general before discussing verbs and the Commercial Drive neighborhood in Taylor's powerful piece about vulnerability and love.

In which we rant and chuckle and explore aspects of form, eco-poetry, the gift economy of art, the problems with publishing, and the need to transcend what's expected and engage with the alternate. It's a raucous epic fueled by cheap wine at the Cannibal cafe in Vancouver!

Although I sound gooned at the start I can assure you it's a November morning and I am not. I talk about Heather Spears life and work, her death in 2021, her character and life energy. I flub the name of one of her books - it is the Word for Sand not Name. And I read her funny piece about poetry readings. Another amazing female poet and creative gone.

Second to last piece from the Revolving City anthology and I hem and haw and um a lot here, partly because I recorded this episode in my parents' garden and was worried about being interrupted and in part due to the fact that I am aiming to explicate staccato rhythms ;) at any rate, I read the poem well. Relish the vulnerability!