I don’t know that many writers these days. I mean, on an up-close and personal basis. Blame old age, blame COVID, blame burn-out, blame attrition, blame computer isolation and AI companions, blame… whatever. During the 1990’s there was a wild group I hung out with, partied with, put on events with, published with in often makeshift, short-lived magazines. This group has (sadly) long since dispersed. For some one reason or another that I can no longer recall, I thought it might be worthwhile to try and re-create some semblance of that old-time camaraderie and “the interview” format seemed a nice, relaxed entry. I also wanted to interview and champion writers who contribute to the literary community in broader ways, not only as writers, but as publishers, editors, event organizers, and such. I have been acquainted with David Clink for several years, though it’s only recently that we’ve begun to sit across a table from each other to engage in a small (very) stakes poker game. I am aware that he’s a published poet. I am aware (sometimes painfully) that he is a self-proclaimed humorist and punster. I am aware that he organized a “Dead Poet” event for a number of winters, a couple of which I partook in. I am only peripherally aware of his involvement in the genre of Fantasy and Science Fiction writing and poetry and what that involvement entails. In fact, I admit to being totally ignorant of the poetry sub-culture and its participants and audience whatsoever. Which makes me curious, and perhaps others may be curious as well. So, I decided to ask.
1. Will the real David Clink please stand up! Meaning, David, please give our readers some history and an overview of who you are and what you do why you do what you do as a multi-faceted and creative force in the Toronto (and further?) area poetry scene.
On my website, it says I am a poet, poker player, podcaster, and punster. I come by three of these honestly. My history as a poet is a long and storied one. My history as a fiction writer is poetic.
I count my beginnings as a poet when my sister, Carolyn, invited me to join the A-S-T (Algonquin Square Table Poetry Workshop), at the University of Toronto (meeting at Hart House), back in the fall of 1995. It was a group started by Sandra Kasturi (2005 Arc Grand Prize winner in their Poem of the Year Contest winner for “Old Men, Smoking”), a noted genre poet, and A. F. Moritz (the best damn poet writing in Canada, in my not so humble opinion), who was the faculty representative. I had been writing poetry my whole life, and I participated in many poetry round robins at SF conventions through the 1980s (I remember ones at Ad Astra in Toronto where there were close to thirty attending, including Phyllis Gotlieb and Judith Merrill) and 1990s, and I had written 100+ poems before 1995, but the AST is where I cultivated my craft and developed my discipline. I also started to send out poetry to journals and contests in earnest.
In the early 1990s, I attended the Atkinson Readings at Noon group, that met once a month, for many years, at York University, in the Harry Leith room in Atkinson College. It turns out the group started in 1980. It was a reading circle. We read our poems, but without criticism, just like a poetry round robin. They did allow for what Claudio Duran called: “Business arising from the poem.” They also published an annual anthology, of members’ work, titled: A View on the Garden, and Ned Hagerman was in this group, and also Megan Swaine. Both Ned and Megan were part of the Rowers Pub Reading Series—more about that later.
My beginnings as a performer began in the spring of 2000, where I read in the open stages of the Art Bar Poetry Series (during its run it was Canada’s largest weekly poetry-only reading series, but it ended recently), back when they were at the Imperial Pub (may it rest in peace), near Dundas and Yonge. I did well enough, reciting poems like “Spider Love” and “Toxic Girl” and “Visited by Frogs” that Heather Cadsby offered me my first featured reading, which was in October 2000. There was a time when I averaged six featured readings each year for ten-fifteen straight years.
Not all was fame and glory. At the reading series Strange Tongues in October of 2002, I performed a 15-minute musical sing-along parody of Dune, using finger puppets and plush toys. You had to be there.
I count my organizational poetry experience to early 2002, when Allan Briesmaster invited me to be on the board of the Art Bar. He left in May, and that joke about everyone taking a step back, when asked to volunteer, came true. I was the one left standing. The board had twelve+ people, and no one wanted to do the top job. I became the Artistic Director in June of 2002 and stayed in that position through June of 2005. Many thanks to Phlip Arima for taking over in July 2005. My wife Alexa and I both loved his spoken word poetry. By the way, doing the grant applications for the Art Bar was a horror show, but well worth it. We coordinated with two other reading series (Lit Live in Hamilton and Poetry London, in London) to create tours for poets to come from across Canada to visit southern Ontario. I started the DPSN (Dead Poets Society Night) in December 2003.
A quick shout out to Maureen Judge and Tina Hahn, for the Bravo TV Series which premiered in 2005, “The Heart of a Poet.” I worked with Maureen and Tina to feature poets reading at the Art Bar. Some of the poets featured were: Lillian Allen, bill bissett, Christian Bök, George Elliott Clarke, Marty Gervais, Seth-Adrian Harris, Ray Hsu, Shane Koyczan, Daphne Marlatt, Angela Rawlings (who also hosted episodes in 2006), Stuart Ross, and Karen Solie.
The next big thing was when Ned Hagerman (may he rest in peace) and Ian Burgham approached me about starting a new poetry / fiction series, to be hosted at the Rowers Pub (now Harbord House), their local pub, and that was the birth of the Rowers Pub Reading Series, back in 2007. I had already done a lot with the Art Bar, but the idea of creating a reading series from scratch was something new. I brought in Halli Villegas, and she brought in Catherine Graham, and the five of us began it. I was Artistic Director for the first three years, and then Board President for the next two, before I left. The series lasted thirteen years (a lot of this was due to Heather Wood doing a fabulous job taking on a leadership role after I left). The series ended in March 2020.
The creative force idea is kind of cool. I have been a member of many poetry workshops, and writing groups, including The Muse Cooperative, Monday Night Poets, and The Plasticine Poets, many of which I was a member for a decade or more. I also attended the Art Bar Poets poetry workshop. And I was invited to join an SFFH (Science Fiction & Fantasy & Horror) fiction writing group, The Vault, in 2019, which meets monthly, and it still meets, and I still attend. The other members are Stephen Humphrey, Francine P. Lewis, Kris Westerlaken, Heather J. Wood, and Kurt Zubatiak. I wrote roughly twenty stories, to date, and have begun sending some of them out. In February of 2026 I joined the Toronto SFF Writers, which is a genre fiction workshop, that meets weekly, with a 2,000-word limit for workshop pieces, and I make it to the workshops about once a month. I am mainly bringing in chapters from a novel-in-progress that has talking animals that like to pun. I have learned that some people do not appreciate puns.
I almost forgot to mention… for a few years some friends of mine started an erotic fiction group, which ran from 2007 to 2013, called P-CLUB, and I was able to write fiction, which got me into the fiction head space. It led the groundwork to join The Vault in 2019. I had two recurring characters in my stories: Dr. Knowitall and Nurse Jiggles.
Just a quick note about terms, I use genre interchangeably with SFFH. I know that “mystery” is a genre, and “western” is a genre, but I limit genre to SFFH.
I did start a monthly genre poetry workshop, back in 2022, called Dr. Heroes Caravan, with others (Carolyn Clink, Troy Harkin, Sandra Kasturi, Herb Kauderer, and Halli Villegas) who like to write poems that are genre, but we do occasionally bring in non-genre poems, especially if they are a response to the monthly ekphrastic poetry challenge that Rattle Magazine has. I have written close to forty-five poems doing the challenge, poems I would not have written without the challenge. There is nothing like a deadline to get one’s creative juices flowing.
I also should mention that I am a poetry editor at Amazing Stories (along with my sister, Carolyn, and Herb Kauderer). I think, for close to ten years, we have selected poems, usually on a monthly basis, for the print editions, and then the online editions of Amazing Stories. It is wonderful seeing all the submissions and finding poems that the three of us agree on. We have also had a few instances where we worked with a poet on edits that went on for weeks and were very extensive. The first number of years Jennifer Crow assisted in the selection of poems.
Note: I am one of those who thinks the word “very” is a very good word. There are many who say that, instead of saying “very mean” say “cruel”; and instead of “very windy” say “blustery.” I like “very.” In fact, I am trying to make “very” happen. More on this later…
2. Can you talk about the Fantasy and Sci-Fi poetry genre and what attracts you to it?
The Strong Nuclear Horse attracts me to SFFH poetry. All kidding aside, I like the strange, unusual, peculiar, alien things in the poetry that I read and the poetry that I write. There are so many great genre poems. One of my favourites is “What Ugly Is” by Robert Priest. Other favourites include “ms & mr frankenstein” by Phyllis Gotlieb, “Old Men, Smoking” by Sandra Kasturi, “Wedding Song” by Herb Kauderer, “The Volcano” by A. F. Moritz, “The Perfect City” by Patrick O’Leary, and “Attack of the Crab Monsters” by Lawrence Raab.
SFFH poetry, as a genre, has a very long history. For a poem to be SFFH, it has to have one or more of the elements that make Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror what they are. There are also many subgenres of SFFH. I would recommend visiting the SFPA (The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association) site. They have a definition of what makes a poem speculative, and I invite readers to read that. They also have a listing of genre poetry markets.
3. As a published poet in respected small literary presses, do you notice any difference in audience reception to the work, vis-à-vis, the Fantasy/Sci-Fi crowd?
I am confused by the question, so I will answer a different one. There is a very strong community of genre poets. There are poetry round robins at conventions. As I mentioned earlier, there is the SFPA that I joined almost twenty years ago (I joined on Sept 14, 2008). They have two annual best of anthologies, one is called The Dwarf Stars Anthology, which has poems that are ten lines or fewer, and the other one is called The Rhysling Anthology, which has poems that are longer than ten lines. They have two quarterly journals, Star*Line and Eye to the Telescope.
I guess the non-genre poetry community is also small, and everyone knows each other. I think both the genre and non-genre poetry communities do support other members in their groups.
I think there is a lower bar for genre poetry. One does not expect literary brilliance from poems that have ghosts or zombies or wizards or spaceships. I think that makes it more of a challenge—to write a brilliant poem that has fantastical elements. People often look down on genre poetry, and for good reason (in some cases). There is a lot of dreck out there in both genre and mainstream (non-genre) poetry. More on this later.
4. Do you make any conscious effort to establish a clear distinction between the two writing styles, beyond the content, say?
I make a conscious and unconscious effort to try to write the best damn poem I can. Period. Exclamation Mark. Ampersand. Interrobang.
I treat genre and “mainstream” poetry the same, mostly. Which means,
often, that my genre poetry is literary. Years ago, I had appeared in Analog
Science Fiction and Fact, a few times, and the editor, Stanley Schmidt,
kept asking me to submit a fun, rhyming poem. The stuff I submitted, and he
published, was non-rhyming and literary. I finally decided to do what he asked,
kind of as a challenge, and I wrote, “Skippy the Robot.” It was funny, rhymed, had
leading capitals (which I hate) and had puns. The one thing I am not good at is
beats, Iambic Pentameter, and the like—and if I were to edit it now, I would
try to have the same number of beats per line. It wasn’t centred on the page,
so maybe that was its only saving grace. Stanley took the poem. Here it is:
Skippy the Robot
His name was Skippy,
And he had light-brown hair.
His arms were shovels,
His seat, a chair.
Skippy was programmable,
And he had a robotic heart.
His dream since he was little
Was to be an aquanaut.
They told him when he applied
That his chances were very slim.
Skippy was afraid to tell them
About his inability to swim.
There were so many applicants,
On one they couldn’t settle.
Skippy began to wonder
how they would test his metal.
They threw everyone into a deep pool,
And on this note, let’s be frank—
Skippy’s hopes were dashed,
His robotic heart sank.
The moral of this story,
And it is a moral you can trust,
Is, don’t plan on being an aquanaut
If your body parts can rust!
5. I’ve noticed that you often use humour in your literary poetry. Is this usage evident in your Fantasy/Sci-Fi poetry as well?
In one word: yes. In two words: very yes.
6. I find that humour, to my mind, is sorely lacking in much poetry these days, whereas it seems important to you. Perhaps even necessary. If my assumption is correct, what makes it so?
As Paul McCartney said in A Hard Days Night: “I like a good laugh.” Also, if someone says that they wrote a funny poem, and they are not known for writing humorous verse, it won’t be funny (usually). Also, on a similar note, if someone says, “Funny story!” and then they relate that story, you can bet that the story won’t be funny.
There are a lot of unfunny poems and unfunny poets, which makes me think that what George Carlin said was true, what he said about stupid people, if you extend it to humour… “Think of how unfunny the average person is and realize that half of them are unfunnier than that.”
7. You also host Podcasts. Are they specifically poetry, or more general content?
Both podcasts are genre. Not about poetry. I like poetry a lot. If I were to do a third podcast, it would definitely be exclusively genre poetry. But that would be insanity. To paraphrase Captain Kirk, from the episode The Doomsday Machine, ‘I find two quite sufficient.’ The two podcasts I do are: Two Old Farts Talk Sci-Fi (with Troy Harkin); and, Wizards & Spaceships (with Rachel A. Rosen).
https://wizardsandspaceships.ca
8. You organized a number of “Dead Poet” events several years ago. Any ambitions for a resurrection? As I recall, they were well-attended and a lot of fun. As William Butler Yeats used to joke: the only good poet, is a dead poet.
Cool that you mention William Butler Yeats, since I had a Yeats infection in college. Too soon? Bueller?
I don’t think there will be a resurrection— it was quite something to keep it going. But stay tuned! There are rumblings of a new reading series in the east end of Toronto, organized by Mary Rykov, where the annual Dead Poets Night may find a home.
I referred to it as the DPSN, The Dead Poets Society Night. Or, maybe I didn’t. Anyhoo, I always liked it when someone, doing a featured reading, would cover a poet, then read their own stuff. I also liked the movie, the Dead Poets Society. Also, the first time I attended the Art Bar Poetry Series, it was a “Poets of the Century” night, in December of 1999. It was organized by Allan Briesmaster, and my friend Edward Baranosky invited me to it. It was a very large line-up and seeing all the poets reading one poem from a poet they admired, that first appeared in the 1900s, was a wonderful thing. I sort of combined all these sources, when I began the Dead Poets Society Night. Whether it be fiction or poetry, we do owe a debt to the ones that came before, and it is good to acknowledge that. I even had a “Canadian Poetry Night” at the Art Bar where the cover poem one read had to be from a Canadian poet. The Dead Poets night was terrific, and I always felt energized after it. It was always standing room only and pretty much every year it was the biggest night at the Art Bar. Sorry to see it go.
9. Poets deal in words. What is your favourite word and why? What about another word that maybe strikes your funny bone or makes you feel uneasy/awkward for no particular reason when you say it?
Words are important. You can quote me on that. Back in 2019, at the last Ad Astra Convention (I think it was the last), I organized a panel called The Word Panel. It was kind of freewheeling. I selected the panelists: my brother-in-law, Robert J. Sawyer, Tanya Huff, Ira Nayman, and myself. At one point Tanya said to Ira: “Are you mansplaining menopause?” and I then told Ira that he had his first million seller, all he had to do was to write: Mansplaining Menopause. I told him we just made him rich. Then I offered a title I had to Ira, so Ira could have back-to-back bestsellers: The Hysterical Jesus. I don’t think that Ira wrote those books.
Words are the building blocks of both fiction and poetry, and all writers have to do is to pick the right words and put them in the right order. It is that easy, and it is that hard. I think there is a cancelled genre writer who (or is that whom) I am paraphrasing. God, I like parentheticals (really)! And exclamation points!!
Let’s go dark, first. There are some words that are very problematic, especially when spoken by a dude, like, “Moist.” Also, if a guy starts a sentence with, “Technically” then he should be ready for a world of pain. But if you combine them, that would be a great title for a poetry book or poetry chapbook: Technically Moist. I would read that book. Kind of rolls off the tongue. Stan, you can have it if you want. In fact, I very much insist. I guess the title could also work as: Moist, Technically.
I recently (May 2026) wrote a short story called “The Floating Man,” that will hopefully find the light of day somewhere, where I mention the words: petrichor, and crepuscular. Petrichor is the smell after it rains. Crepuscular are the times around sunrise and sunset, or twilight (without the sparkling vampires). In the short story I also share a quote from Bruce Lee, which is one of my favourite quotes: “Don’t speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn’t know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that’s why it’s called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life.”
Petrichor and crepuscular are great words. I do keep a board on Pinterest called “Words & Phrases” which has over four hundred pins. Here are a few words from that board (please look up the definitions yourself, I can’t do all the work!): Cockwomble; Ailurophile; Anhedonia; Knobstacle; Pluviophile; and, Quiddling.
Here’s another great word, with the definition: Hiraeth: noun, Welsh. A spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was. Nostalgia for ancient places to which we cannot return. It is the echo of the lost places of our soul’s past and our grief for them. It is in the wind, and the rocks, and the waves. It is nowhere and it is everywhere.
Very cool, eh? Almost sounds like The Force.
Here’s a quote for you: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” => Mark Twain.
Also, I may be running out of gas here, but we should not forget about punctuation. Punctuation is not just important, it is very important. There is the old joke about the poetry workshop that spends thirty minutes considering removing a comma from a poem, and then another thirty minutes debating about putting the comma back in. Here is a sentence without commas: “I like cooking my family and my pets.” As the Pin says, “Use commas, don’t be a psycho.”
10. What other sources influence your poetry, i.e., music, movies, sports…?
Thank you for not using the word “inform” or “informs.” Anytime I hear someone ask, “what informs your …”, I feel like I’m Robert Shaw in Jaws, and he does that whole ‘fingernails on the chalkboard’ thing. I am influenced by a lot of things, which does include stuff on TV, movies, genre fiction, genre poetry, local sports teams (Go Jays! Go Leafs! Go Argos! Go Raptors! Go FC! Go Sceptres! Go Tempo! Go Rock! Go Marlies!), ultimate frisbee, aircraft carriers, The French Revolution, ennui, revisionist futures, gorgonzola, Emile Zola, and Coca Cola. And Granola. Did I forget Ebola? This list reminds me of a poem I wrote called “An Alphabetical List of What Separates Us from the Squirrels.”
With the podcasts that I do, I am introduced to many novels that keep me current and relevant (Rachel has not steered me wrong with her recommendations), and those, coupled with all of life’s experiences, somehow filter down into who I am, which is reflected in my poetry and my fiction. A friend of mine hosts a movie night every month or two or three or four, and recently we saw Backrooms, and that stretched my mind. Highly recommended. I went with a group of friends to see Solaris (the 1972 Tarkovsky film) in a large theatre, and that was amazing. A very powerful ending. The same group went to see The Elephant Man on the big screen, where I cried like a baby. I had forgotten that the ending of it carried an emotional wallop similar to Field of Dreams.
I grew up on The Twilight Zone, Star Trek (the original series), The Night Stalker, Seeing Things, Night Gallery, The X-Files, UFO, and Battlestar Galactica. I was kind of surprised when a third of the stories I have written are horror stories, but then, I grew up on horror. Please catch the wizard battle between Boris Karloff and Vincent Price in The Raven (The 1963 Roger Corman movie). And Science Fiction melds well with horror, especially in film. Think of The Thing from Another World, The Thing, The Fly, Nope, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day of the Triffids, and Alien.
The short fiction I love includes “Flowers for Algernon,” by Daniel Keyes, “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin, “Sandkings” by George R. R. Martin, and “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs.
I think the best advice to anyone who wants to write genre poetry is to immerse yourself in the medium, and to stretch your mind, experience the world. And don’t forget to dream!
11. Do you feel
that poetry has the power to end war, hunger, discrimination and environmental
destruction in the world?
No.
12. Do you have any advice for anyone who’d like to be(come) a poet?
Keep writing. Keep reading. Send your stuff out. Don’t let rejection get you down. I received a rejection slip thirty or so years ago, I think from Mississippi Mud, that said, “You will save our time, and yours, if you stop submitting to us.” There was a review in Now Magazine of my Shapeshifter chapbook, and the reviewer said: “Reading David Clink is like having your brain pulled out through your nose.” Did any of these criticisms stop me? No!
Keep writing, even if the rejection slips keep piling up. But continue to grow. Just be aware of all the great poems out there and keep working at your craft until your poetry improves, until you have written one of the great poems, and then continue to write and evolve. I have already written the poem that I will be known for, called: “The Perfect Library,” but I continue to write. You want to bring your writing level up (as I have tried to so), so it is at the same level as the best stuff out there, and that takes time. There is that thing that Malcolm Gladwell talked about (from the book, Outliers), where you need 10,000 hours of working at something before you can achieve world-class expertise in a subject. If you want to get great at poetry, you need to put in the time—there are no shortcuts. Or haircuts. Or headbutts. You should be able to compare the stuff you are writing now to the stuff you wrote a year or two or ten years ago, and you should see an improvement. Go to the Poetry Foundation site. Read The Best American Poetry. Read The Best Canadian Poetry in English (not sure if they are still doing that). For genre poets, read the annual Rhysling Award anthology. One does want to write accessible poetry, to use words that most people understand, but expanding one’s vocabulary is a good thing. Also, as part of The Word Panel, I mentioned a number of rhetorical devices and literary devices. Adding these to your writing can help improve it. There are literally (and I don’t use that term lightly) hundreds. I took a course in style and stylistics taught by Robert (Bob) Cluett, back in 1982 or 1983, at York University, and he had a textbook called (this is from memory, so it might not be accurate) Grossly Abbreviated: 144 Rhetorical Terms which went into detail on each rhetorical device, with examples. I would recommend doing a deep dive on all of them and start using ones that speak to you. Wikipedia has a good listing…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_rhetorical_terms
Here are five (some of these definitions have been borrowed):
Accismus is the rhetorical refusal of something you actually want.
Adnomination: the use of words with the same root in the same sentence. This rhetoric is sure to somehow work on someone, somewhere, someday.
Adynatan: purposefully hyperbolic metaphors to suggest that something is impossible—like the classic adage, when pigs fly.
Anadiplosis is the repetition of the word from the end of one sentence to the beginning of the next, and it has been used by everyone from Shakespeare to Yeats (too soon?) to Yoda: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Anaphora is the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of subsequent sentences.
Every so often I weed my poems, where I take my bottom ten or twenty poems, and cull them, don’t send them out anymore, but I do take out the best line or two from each one, the brilliant lines that sing, and I put them into a new poem or two. I have had a lot of success doing this. I have had a number of very good poems created from the entrails of dead ones. The alternative is to recognize the one or two brilliant lines in a poem, and to bring up the level of writing in the other lines to match the brilliant lines. As poets, we try to capture a moment, thought, emotion and/or idea, hopefully in a way that has not been done before, and in a way that brings life to the words you use.
Join and/or create a poetry workshop, or, at least, get beta readers, people who can offer advice on your poetry. I generally take about 80% of the suggestions I receive. Stick to your guns, never make a change to a poem because you don’t want to offend the person who made the suggestion. If someone made five suggestions, you may feel that you need to take at least one of them. You don’t. If they are all crap, don’t take any of them. You need to do what is best for the poem. If they don’t think you are giving their comments due consideration, that is on them. But you should think about every suggestion, let them sit with you, think about them. I have often thought about some of the suggestions I rejected, and then I reconsidered them later, or, I found a way to incorporate the suggestion in a different way.
Read The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets who Teach edited by Robin Behn & Chase Twichell. I particularly like the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects” exercise, which featured a poem that appeared in Poetry (the same magazine that had published “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliott and “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer) by Jim Simmerman, and the Cross Reading poetry exercise, where the poem “My Mother’s Voices” (that had appeared in The Georgia Review) by longtime AST member Susan A. Manchester was the example.
Affirmation is critical. The support you receive from beta readers and workshoppers is important. I remember, when I read “My Latest Poem” at the A-S-T Workshop in January of 2003, Al Moritz applauded. That meant a lot. I also remember reading “The Perfect Library” at the “The Muse Cooperative”, in September of 2013, and the reaction from Sandra Kasturi and the other members of the workshop. Similarly, I brought the short story, “The Floating Man” to the Toronto SFF Writers, in May of 2026, and the members were very supportive.
In almost every case, for those writers who are in a relationship, your partner is your first reader. It would be difficult to continue on without that person’s support of your creative endeavors. My muse was my wife, Alexa Carroll. She even put her support of my writing as one of her wedding vows (and she even working in a shout out to the song by Rascal Flatts: “Bless the Broken Road” which was performed at our wedding by Infinitely More (Allison Lynn & Gerald Flemming).
Alexa said: I vow to continue, as we already are, to be part of a great team, to lift you up when you need, to be part of the extraordinary creative journey you are taking lately, and to just keep walking down the sometimes-broken road together. She passed in February of 2023. A writer’s journey is best shared.
13. What question is it that you’ve always wished an interviewer would ask, and hasn’t?
How about those
Jays?
and,
What informs your jock itch?
and,
Are you really trying to make “very” happen?
14. Add any additional comments of your own choosing. Manifestos included.
I like how you are open to a manifesto. I feel that this whole interview is a manifesto. By the way, I did use the word “manifesto” in a very bad poem, called, “Cereal Killer”, which appeared in my humour poetry collection, Crouching Yak, Hidden Emu. I am not sure why I am sharing it with you now, since it doesn’t make it in my top 500 poems. It is not a good poem. But it does have the word “manifesto” in it, so it does have that going for it. Here it is:
Cereal Killer
I can’t shake the feeling
that I am slowly being poisoned
by my mother.
I have written messages
in my alphabet cereal
detailing her involvement
in the plot to kill me.
She collects my milky manifesto
and pours it down the sink.
I don’t think she knows I know.
David Clink is the poetry editor (along with his sister, Carolyn, and Herb Kauderer) of Amazing Stories. He is the Chair of the CSFFA (Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association) Hall of Fame. He co-hosts two podcasts: Two Old Farts Talk Sci-Fi (with Troy Harkin) and Wizards & Spaceships (with Rachel A. Rosen). His poem “A sea monster tells his story” won the 2013 Aurora Award for Best Poem/Song. He has three speculative poetry collections: Monster (Tightrope Books, 2010); The Role of Lightning in Evolution (Chizine Publications, 2016); and The Black Ship (Aeolus House, 2023). DavidLivingstoneClink.com/
