Bad Animals — Tom Cull (Insomniac Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Bad Animals.  Tom Cull.  Insomniac Press.  London, Ontario.  2018.

Every single poem Tom Cull writes is a different type of gold.  Bad Animals had Today's book of poetry going in poetry circles.  This cat can burn.

Today's book of poetry is going to start today's festivities with one of the finer list poems we've encountered in a long while.  It seems Cull can whip these wild musings into movies that attack the inner cortex of your brain from all sides with skill approaching magic.

Preparing for Apocalypse: 13 Survival Tips

1.  No one will survive the apocalypse.

2.  In addition to anything starring Will Smith, consult the 

following movies: Deep Impact, Melancholia, Armageddon,

Waterworld, WALL-E, 28 Days Later, and Eat

Pray Love.

3.  Add the following titles to your self-help library: anything

by Anne Coulter, Blood Meridian, Roughing It in the Bush, Not

Wanted on the Voyage, and Les Revenentes.

4.  Replace GPS with GSP.

5.  Audition for the following reality television shows:

Survivor, The Biggest Loser, Hell's Kitchen, Naked and Afraid,

Polyamory, Married & Dating, Real World, Deadliest Catch,

Full House.

6.  Compress your vocabulary—remove words such as

ambivalent, ecopoetics, neo-liberal, and crepe.

     i(a). idiom. Literalize your metaphors (open a can of worms,

     eat slow food, put a ring on it, issue trigger warnings, make a

     killing, beg to differ, cross that bridge, etc.).

     i(b). diction. Prepare for shifts in word definitions: glacial,

     for example, will mean "very fast." Koodo, Google, Hulu, and

     Snapchat will become onomatopoeia.

7.  Know when to follow; know when to retweet.

8.  Trade in Apple, BlackBerry, Tinder, and Kindle for apple,

blackberry, tinder, and kindle.

9.  Loot anthropology museums for supplies. (Didactic panels

may also prove helpful.)

10.  Refrain from correcting improper usage of personal

pronouns I and me.

11.  Stay limber; work on your cardio. When shit gets real,

remember tip #1 and/or Will Smith in Bad Boys II.

12.  Get comfortable with killing. Start small—a worm, maybe a

mayfly—then move up to vertebrates. Don't always choose ugly

things. You will get the hang of it.

13.  Make a list dividing the people you know into columns A and 

B. When the time comes, you'll know what it's for.

💫💫💫

Tom Cull is a new age poetry Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, long winded but smarter Richard Brautigan and that crazy old insurance company's wild life documentary narrator.  All in one, and more.  What Today's book of poetry is so clumsily trying to say is that  Mr. Cull hits every poetry nerve receptor we have and calls out a few we didn't know we had.

It's as simple as this — Tom Cull's poems explode off of the page propelled by intelligent wit and a fantastically agile and humane closet of frailties.

Mr. Cull, who is apparently also an ornithologist/zoologist of the highest order, is also unhinged in the best possible way.  Tom Cull is not wired like the rest of us.  As a result he is perfectly placed to objectively cut through our human nonsense, all our bullshit.

Show and Tell

Dead man in a box

inside a larger box.

With us.

Moving down a mile-long line

of pylons on the 401,

a hawk folds and dives behind

a row of cedars.

A stack of sandwiches,

devilled eggs,

tarts, and coffee.

"I'm a man of few words."

The dead man replied, "Yes but you use them

all the time."

The season is fall.

He leaves. For days

he leaves. Moaning and terrified.

The hospice nurse asked, "Have you

been able to return to

any of your normal activities—

light housework, cooking,

laundry?" His reply: "I have a wife."

The child in the spotted dress

hides behind the coffin, and the bruises

fade yellow.

💫💫💫

Those of you Today's book of poetry fans with long memories will remember that Today's book of poetry wrote about Tom Cull's beautiful Baseline Press chapbook What the Badger Said back in June of 2014.  You can see that here:

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/06/what-badger-said-tom-cull-baseline-press.html

Today's book of poetry had nothing but admiration for Mr. Cull's Badger.  Bad Animals is a step into the big league and Cull has made it a head-turning giant step.

Our morning read was held out on the porch for the first time this year, all bright sunshine and promise.  Today's book of poetry asked the crew to dedicate today's reading to Toronto playwright and most excellent man, Andrew Batten (1963-2019).  Andy loved poetry.

The Today's book of poetry staff responded with gusto.  Our morning read of Tom Cull's Bad Animals was the best we've had around here since we blasted through David Lee's last book.

Today we're going to finish the proceedings with another smashing "list" poem.  Thank you Tom Cull.

Invasive Species

European green crab

Purple loosestrife

Zebra mussel

Sea lamprey

Emerald ash borer

Didymo

Gypsy moth

Sub-Saharan Zeus moss

Asian long-horned beetle

Phragmites

Karaoke

Giant hogweed

Asiatic carpe diem

Common buckthorn

Northern snakehead

Killer shrimp

Rusty crayfish

Brown spruce longhorn beetle

Mountain pine beetle

Sirex woodwasp

Dutch oven

Butternut canker

Common crested Brohammer

Japanese knotweed

Garlic mustard

Dog-strangling vine

Alfalfa blotch leafminer

Stuffed crust pizza

Prussian drone operator

Eurasian witch lemming

Holy Roman trebuchet

Oriental weather loach

Asian swamp eel

African clawed frog

Spanish slug

European yellow-tailed scorpion

Red-card slider

Water hyacinth

Gangis Kanye

Jayden

Eurasian wild boar

Burmese python

Tyrannosaurus rex

Giant African land snail

Three-sceptred monarch

Herb-crusted salmon

Panko-crusted tilapia

Open-concept kitchen

Spotted eastern gulch

Barrel-chested man-child

Three steepled tree weevil

Right said Fred

💫💫💫

Bad Animals is some of the best damned cooking Today's book of poetry has tasted, flat out.  Today's book of poetry loved these poems and assures you that given the chance you will love them too.  

They are that good.

Tom Cull

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Cull grew up in Huron County and now resides in London, Ontario, where he teaches writing and serves as the city's current Poet Laureate. His chapbook, What the Badger Said, was published in 2013. Since 2012, Tom has been the director of Thames River Rally, a grass roots environmental group he co-founded with his partner Miriam Love, and their son Emmett.

BLURBS

"Like his black bears that have drifted too far south, Tom Cull's poems wander through a suburban wilderness, out of place, unpredictable, full of purpose, nosing among the wasting, surreal artifacts of human life, looking for sustenance."

     —Jeffery Donaldson, author of Missing Link

"Bad Animals sings a natural world rendered absurd by human hands. In the same line, the same breath, the reader can find grief and calm, folly and beauty, spectacle and longing, yet Tom Cull's poems always circle back to joy."

     —Laurie Graham, author of Settler Education

Tom Cull (8th Poet) | Open Mic Poetry May 3, 2017

Video: London Open Mic Poetry

insomniacpress.com

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie - Jay Ritchie (Coach House Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie.  Jay Ritchie.  Coach House Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

"like an inner tube at a pool party

nostalgic for asphalt."

                                                                                    "Upcycle" - Jay Ritchie

Jay Ritchie has reimagined what Richard Brautigan might be saying were he alive and living in Montreal.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie does not emulate Brautigan so much as doff the hat in admiration as it continues along in its Jay Ritchie way.  No disservice to the esteemed Mr. Brautigan, Today's book of poetry holds his work in high regard - but Mr. Ritchie is a richer serving.

Today's book of poetry generally has a difficult time with poetry carved from surreal dreams but like my hero, Stuart Ross, Jay Ritchie operates with such efficiency and sleight of hand that you are at his mercy.  These poems are tangential superheroes and dream-thought riddled with reason.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie tries to wrestle the norm out of the daily grind and succeeds with a Cool Hand Luke grin.

The Waiting Room

requires a series

of short commitments,

the way Highway

I needs to 

be reimagined after

each pirouetting pine

tree, the way

an extension cord

needs to be

wound eight times

before it is

a noose. I

made a promise

in the driveway

not to go

inside until I

had sunk twenty-three

baskets consecutively. Light

has a special

way of falling

into polygons in

the waiting room.

The sewage truck

is idling outside

the walk-in clinic

beside the public

library. People fall

out of my

life like oranges

off the back

of a truck.

Residents of Heatherglen

Housing Co-operative Ltd.

were not informed.

A paint stain

on the window

starts to look

modern. The rehabbed

juvenile delinquent said,

Building a house

is just a

series of small

tasks that amount

to something big.

I was out

there in the

driveway until dark.

Here, the Venn

diagram made by

the water's surface

and lip of

the glass. It

was a promise

I made to

luck so that

luck would be

promised to me.

...

Truth be told, and Today's book of poetry always tries to tell the truth, some of Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie may have escaped our feeble grasp.  When I passed Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie around the office before the morning read the response was universal: everyone loved the journey but no two of us ended up in the same place.  Today's book of poetry likes to read poetry that takes the reader out of their comfort zone and Ritchie succeeds.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie uses sly humour and the reader is never quite certain if Ritchie's witty asides are detachment or genuine and gentle wonder.

Today's book of poetry had no problem at all believing whatever Ritchie had to say.  These poems rang true, from start to finish, like a metronome.

Loud Familiar Sound

At the end of the year with my bags asking to be let in to the

present. Single-family detached homes with comparable square

footage curve gradually with the cul-de-sac, as usual. Did you

see the addition to the business park? Nothing hurts like not being

in on the joke. My friends tell me I have a tendency to distance

myself from friends, which is troubling. Walking home involved

a Walmart, an overpass, a business park, real estate, a Catholic

elementary school, and a cosmic sense of purpose determined

by faulty or burnt-out street lamps. This is how I remember it:

I learned geometry from rooftops. I might carry my laptop over

the back deck in the morning with a cup of coffee and consider

how a rainbow's favourite high is gasoline. I might be closer to

what I was walking toward and further from where I wanted to

be. I'm unsure if the leaves are a part of the plan. Airport security

said, The easiest way out is to look for an entrance.

...

Our morning read was a rapid-fire affair.  Ritchie's poems elevated the mood, the sun was actually shining in through the windows and had Mr. Ritchie heard our din I'm certain he would have been cheered.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie is the genuine article.  Ritchie is playing the long game, he strings things out onto a high wire, adds a bicycle, and then a beach ball, and then the elephant in the room jumps onto the wire.  Everything ricochets skyward, airborne, juxtaposed, upside down and clearly doomed until Ritchie juggles them back down to the wire, each one precariously balanced in the good graces of the others.  

Jay Ritchie is welcome in the Today's book of poetry poetry kitchen any time.  Ritchie can burn the house down.

Celebration of Life

Every mourner was given

a blue, yellow,

or green helium-filled balloon

and was pushed out

into the snow-covered field.

Releasing the balloon

into the troposphere

was a symbolic gesture

for the final stage

in the grieving process:

acceptance, or 'letting go.'

How many leatherback

turtles are going to die

from this mass act of littering?

I had done a project on

leatherbacks in Grade 7.

It was the fourth consecutive day

of putting my suit on, and the fourth

consecutive day of putting

ice cream in my coffee.

Three people had died

in one day, and for three days

there was one funeral per day -

except today is different, today

is a celebration of life.

I unparked the SUV

from the half-frozen mud.

What is going to happen

to everyone's nice shoes?

The nonsmokers look so natural

holding their cigarettes.

I wanted to clarify some negative

comments I had made, but I did not

expect to encounter absence,

which is no encounter at all,

just a persistent humming

at the highest audible register

and its root note at the lowest,

making a chord

with idling city maintenance

vehicles. The possibility

that photographs would be

insufficient occurred to everyone

at once, it was unanimously decided

someone would make a DVD.

The Rocky Mountains

had a better understanding

of us, they had seen

the oil barons as heroes

and were less anxious, they said,

Squint, you can see tomorrow

through tiny pinholes in the air.

...

Today's book of poetry was thoroughly entertained by Jay Ritchie, he certainly cheered us up.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie may offer some of the most original poetry you've read this year.

Jay Ritchie

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jay Ritchie was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and lives in Montreal, Quebec. Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie is his first full-length collection.

BLURBS

‘With their clever – but never glib – concision of image, and emotional directedness, these poems actually make me feel something, and that is something I really enjoy.’
     – Rebecca Wolff, author of One Morning—

‘Ritchie throws black holes on the wall, disappears through them. His poems are like dreams dreamed mid-movement, just before something happens, as if light, buildings, breath, parakeets, hope, haircuts, Montreal, and art-making are all fragments of the same epiphany.’
     – Sean Michaels, Giller Prize-winning author of Us Conductors

‘Charming, funny, and often elegant. This is a formidable collection.’
     – Ben Fama, author of Fantasy

Jay Ritchie

Jay Winston Ritchie - Poetry (part1) @ Bain Saint-Michel, Montreal

Video: Neil Corcoran

chbooks.com 

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Your Daily Horoscope - Nik De Dominic (New Michigan Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Your Daily Horoscope.  Nik De Dominic.  New Michigan Press.  Tucson, Arizona.  2015.

Nik De Dominic has been hereby declared as Master of Horoscopology by Today's book of poetry. Your Daily Horoscope is true-that one the most thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining romps we've been on in a while.

Splendidly playful and deadly serious, Your Daily Horoscope is a first rate page turner.  If these horoscopes replaced our daily grog in the newspapers the world would be a very different place.

Your Daily Horoscope [someone will send...]

Someone will send you a .gif

of a clown tying a noose

around his neck to a sapling.

He will then water the sapling.

Everywhere a .gif a gift.

...

To tell you how funny these poems are would be a bit like doing an "Ali-shuffle," brilliant mis-direction.  Watch my feet while I disconnect your noggin.  Nik De Dominic could be a stand-up comic with poetry punch lines.  It's like he has absorbed the best of Richard Brautigan's surreal joy and stewed it up all modern and relevant.  

Today's book of poetry had a few other comparisons that leap to mind, it is possible that De Dominic has studied at the church of Ron Koertge, but we'll skip the comparisons and tell you that these poems cook.  Stone cold, Nik De Dominic can cook with the best.

Today's book of poetry's only complaint with this collection is that it is too short, we could have read these gems all day long.

Your Daily Horoscope [twenty years ago...]

Twenty years ago Dizzy had some racket with Impalas

and could have keys cut to VIN numbers. A perfumed

icon hanging from the rear view as we drove around

doing crimes. Now I ride the 794 to work and I think

Dizzy is dead. Everyone on this line is infirmed somehow,

walkers and wheelchairs, boils and bald, reeks of salad dressing, and I

am trying to figure out why my problem is. Big and beautiful

blonde boys bring their bibles on the bus, sit closely

together in starched white short shirt sleeves, murmur to each other

secrets of the after this. It is a bible, the thing Mormons morm from?

The strip-mall church off San Fernando, Pentecostal something or other,

is giving away food and there is a line out the door,

up both sides of the block. A little girl with black bangs hangs

in her parents' hands over a pack of pigeons, brethren grieving

over a fallen and headless brother, and she spits at them to scatter.

When I get home still afternoon we lie in bed and let the house go

from day to blue. I tell you I read today that you are everyone

in your dreams. No shit, you say,  who else would you be?

...

Nik De Dominic is one Mother of Invention, these poems snap, crackle and pop like old timey flash bulbs.  We had so much fun at this morning's reading that we tackled some of these poems twice.   Milo, our head tech, was particularly enthralled and in his finest form.

When Today's book of poetry tells you that these poems were easy going we mean it as a compliment.  They welcome you in like they were looking for you.  Nik De Dominic has found a voice that sounds as natural as a siblings, rings as true as a straight shot always does.  This is no small feat but from the first poem the reader is comfortable with De Dominic's cool, clear and clean voice, the cavalier comes later.

A Note For Reading Your Daily Horoscopes

The preceding horoscopes are intended for purely

entertainment purposes. I make no claims, beyond

the claims I've made above, about the possible

outcome of your life. It is important to remember

that the horoscope, like all things, is metaphor, and its

application completely subjective -- that language, too,

is dynamic. Flexible. Destabilized, even. Something

about signs and signified, yada, yada (lol, Plato).

When I say you sometimes I mean me; when I say I

sometimes I mean you. Sometimes when I say we I

mean you and I and other times I mean well, it's sort of

royal, so I mean me. But other times, I really do mean I

and I really do mean you and I really do mean me and

I really do mean we. further, for one stargazer, a new

job may mean getting fired. For another, a new job may

mean losing an uncle. For yet another, a new job may

mean, literally, a new job --  like in middle management

at a rental car agency. What I will say is this, something

good will happen for you soon. I am sure of it.  So will

something terrible.  That, I am also sure.

...

It's a real pleasure to be able to tell you about books like Nik De Dominic's Your Daily Horoscope. 

These poems really do scamper across the desk with considerable glee and purpose.  This is beautiful and audacious poetry with the grace of a cheetah - and then that bite.

Today's book of poetry flat out loved Your Daily Horoscope.

Nik De Dominic

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nik De Dominic believes in the stars. Work has appeared in Los Angeles Review, Harpur Palate, Guernica, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. He is a founding editor of The Offending Adam and a poetry editor of New Orleans Review. He lectures in The Writing Program at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles with is partner Janna and their leash aggressive dog, Dinal.

BLURBS

I want to read one of these in my newspaper daily and then when they're done to get them in my newspaper all over again from the beginning. They are keen, talky, funny, immediate, clear, kind, and more. Welcome to a beguiling set of new constellations.

     - Aimee Bender

The future cannot exist without the invention of debt, debt that bonds us with time beyond the immediate. Oh, and we owe much to the prescient prestigitation of Nik De Dominic's imperative and dimension-warping poems that, time and time again, rip time a new portal. And predictably you always and already know that when you read this book you will find yourself finding yourself in those past pasts and in those future futures. And there you are being struck dumb by the brilliant anticipatory insight and elegant grace of this work -- the smart smartness, the dumbest of luck.

      - Michael Martone

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Mars Is For Poems - Aaron Bushkowsky (Oolichan Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Mars Is For Poems.  Aaron Bushkowsky.  Oolichan Books.  Lantzville, British Columbia.  2002.

Today Today's book of poetry is continuing with our tradition of stepping back in time, so to speak.
In our queries to publishers we always ask about older or back-catalogue titles.  Our theory here is that until we see them -- they are all new books.

Mars Is For Poems was published thirteen years ago but it reads like it appeared yesterday, it reads like it has read today's newspaper.

Bushkowsky gets it all said lickety-split and with elan.  These poems are sports cars when most people are driving trucks.

don't ask

circling stories about children
dying in the middle east
which she clips and deposits
in her big book of secrets
i wait it out in the kitchen with the newspapers

she has stormed down
to the dark world of the basement
to feel safe again

then when she emerges
she stares past my head
where i think she has spotted a sniper in the garden

don't ask don't ask

in the after world of innocence where we quietly exist
above flowers painted on bed sheets
draped on the chocolate walls of the downstairs

it's nothing she says
it's nothing don't worry
happy tomorrow

...

Bushkowsky is masterful, I keep thinking I see the grinning face of Kurt Vonnegut/Richard Brautigan leaning over the shoulder of some of these poems but I strongly suspect that those are my biases more than Aaron's influences.

I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of Bushkowsky's earlier book of poetry, Ed and Mabel Go To The Moon (Oolichan Books, 1994) but I'm looking - and I am going to gamble certain when I say I know I would love it.

It should come as no surprise, Aaron Bushkowsky is a multiple award winning playwrite.  Here's a short list: 
Farewell, My Lovely
Play With Monsters
After Jerusalem
The Project
My Chernobyl
Landscapes of the Dead

and so on...

Bushkowsky writes fiction and movies as well.  I suspect, were he asked, he could write a spectacular grocery list.  He is a pro and that is a big compliment.  All my underlings here at TBOP know that if they want to butter me up - they should include a reference to my "pro-ness" in their request.

solar flare

by the sea  she said  by
and by i'll be gone and then
nothing  she looked at the clouds
and she looked down the shore
and the spray caught by sun was quick
a watery solar flare  and she smiled
and said  one has to admire that
my imagination running wild
rolling over and over
each flash another wave
catching light and burying it
with green so deep you're never quite sure
what you've seen  now holding her hands
out across the waves
as if greeting them or quieting perhaps
she knew the poem already
rolling over in her mind  washing up
the shore to brim in her own green eyes
now and then saying those words
by the sea  by the sea
then closing them
as if to keep the sea in

...

Let's just say that TBOP wishes there was a lot more poetry like Bushkowky's Mars Is For Poems.  Reading these poems  - Guy Vanderhaeghe comes to mind.  Why?  HE IS A PRO.

I loved these excellent poems.

At this point my only complaint, request, is to Mr. Bushkowsky.  We all know that poetry won't keep the fridge full or the lights on at night, but Aaron, you are so damned good at it...

alien lover

i'm watching alien
the movie
with a friend on a windy friday night
who tells me during the commercial
she has slept with her ex-husband
to teach his current wife a lesson

yes i say
this is something we all dream of
only human to teach people important sexual lessons

during the next commercial
she tells me she has beat her neighbours' dog
because he trusted her too much
over the weekend

yes i say
this is something we all consider
only human to think
of ways to teach animals important lessons about trust

during the last commercial
she confesses she hates babies
and once slapped her sister's child
because it wouldn't stop crying

why was it crying
i asked
it was crying she said
because i wouldn't touch her hair

yes i say
there is something about hair
in all of us

and she smiles and kisses me on the cheek

you understand perfectly
she says thru her perfectly white teeth

and i do

when the show is over
we finish the popcorn
and she notices blood
at the bottom of the white bowl

that's strange she says
one of us has been bleeding all night

...

so, please publish more poetry.  I know you've written it.

And we here at TBOP are equally certain that it is good.

Milo, our resident curmudgeon, loved the cover of Mars Is For Poems.  He said that more books of poetry should look like science-fiction.

Aaron Bushkowsky

Photo:  Emily Cooper

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aaron writes and publishes in many genres: film, theatre, poetry, prose, and non-fiction. A prolific writer, Aaron has 8 published books and over a dozen professional play productions. Aaron teaches at Kwantlen University, Langara College, Studio 58, and Vancouver Film School and works independently as a film story editor and playwriting dramaturge. He is the artistic director of Solo Collective, a professional Vancouver theatre company.
Over the past 16 years, Aaron has been nominated for Jessie Theatre Awards for Outstanding Original Play nine times, more than any other playwright. He has won two Jessies. In 2012, Aaron's play "After Jerusalem" was nominated for the prestigious Carol Bolt Award -- Canada's national playing competition. He's also served as playwright-in-residence atTouchstone Theatre, The Playhouse, Rumble Theatre and as a resident film-writer at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto.
Other nominations: Leo Award (Screenwriting -- Short), Sterling Theatre Award (Writing), Stephen Leacock Award (Curtains for Roy, 2015), Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (ed and mabel go to the moon, 1995).
Aaron completed his MFA in Creative Writing at UBC (2002) after receiving his BA and BEd from the University of Alberta. He is a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas member (LMDA).

oolichan.com

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.