Photo credit: Tam Lan TruongInterview by Matthew Rettino Mirabel (whose real name is Avleen K. Mokha) is a 24-year-old award-winning poet originally from Mumbai, India, currently studying speech-language pathology at McGill University. I came to know her well during...
MA|DE is a collaborative writing partnership comprised of interdisciplinary artist Mark Laliberte, author of asemanticasymmetry (Anstruther 2017) and writer Jade Wallace, author of Rituals of Parsing (Anstruther 2018). MA|DE is based in Toronto, Ontario, and are currently working on their first full-length collection of poetry. You can find MA|DE online at ma-de.ca, as well as their poetry on our website, and in the latest issue of DREAMS 57.1.
Continue reading Issue 57.1 Teaser: Behind MA|DE
Former PRISM poetry editor Rob Taylor sat down with Amanda Jernigan to discuss her recently released third poetry collection, Years, Months, and Days (Biblioasis, 2018), a book whose content was inspired by a nearly 200-year-old Mennonite hymnal, Die Gemeinschaftliche Liedersammlung....
Former PRISM poetry editor Rob Taylor sat down with poet, author and former journey carpenter Kate Braid to discuss her newly released poetry collection “Elemental” (Caitlin Press, 2018).
I spoke with you briefly for PRISM international back in 2014, and at that point you noted: “Looking over my recent poems, I’m a bit alarmed to find I’m writing more personally, neither behind the mask of another or out of my experience as a carpenter – which also became a sort of persona.” True to that statement, Elemental, though certainly structured around “elemental” themes, feels in other ways like your first “general” collection (your past collections having channeled Glenn Gould and Emily Carr, among others). In that sense it feels almost like you’re living the traditional poet’s trajectory in reverse (the early, more personal/general collection, followed by themed “projects”).
Do you think of this book in those terms (“general” and personal), and do you think it represents a larger shift in your preoccupations/energies as a writer? Did “removing the masks” allow you to access some more “elemental” part of yourself?
Continue reading I Keep Coming Back to What Gives Me Courage: An Interview with Kate Braid
Interview by Matthew Kok
Beni Xiao is a nanny and writer based in Vancouver, BC. They are tired all the time, so they would appreciate if you’d let them sleep. Bad Egg, Beni’s new chapbook, is full of quiet, important things. There is a garden of variety in these poems, and the chapbook is drawn together by the strength of Beni’s voice. The effect is a lot like having a small bug perched in your ear, joking, encouraging, asking. They are willing to go with you into storms. They will not lie and tell you your impact on the world is going to be anything other than what it is. They will tell you about the hard, strong thing we all need to be sometimes, and as they describe it you may believe it is you—it may depend on the day, or whose limbs you’ve found crossed over your own, but the bug will say it for you if you can’t. There is a whole world of people who will speak around the important things rather than to them, or ignore the strange and the wonderful, but none of them are in this chapbook. You should start listening to Beni Xiao—I promise it will be worth it.
Former PRISM poetry editor (2014-15) Rob Taylor sat down with Winnipeg poet and spoken word artist Chimwemwe Undi to discuss her debut chapbook “The Habitual Be,” part of the 2017 New-Generation African Poets Chapbook Box Set (Akashic Books, 2017). Photo...
Former PRISM poetry editor (2014-15) Rob Taylor sat down with 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize judge Tim Bowling to discuss his twelfth poetry collection “The Duende of Tetherball“. Coyote – Tim Bowling Shoved its head heraldic through the autumn foliage fifty...
Former PRISM poetry editor (2014-15) Rob Taylor sat down with Dorothy Livesay Prize finalist Miranda Pearson to discuss her fourth poetry collection “The Fire Extinguisher“. Cagliari – Miranda Pearson In Cagliari we walked along alleys through the thick, foreign air....
Interview by Matthew Walsh Amber McMillan’s recent collection of poetry, We Can’t Ever Do This Again was released with Wolsak and Wynn last year. Split into three sections, the poems cover a lot of emotional ground. It’s easy to...