a series of video recordings of contemporary poets reading from their work, prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent cancellations, shut-downs and isolations; a reading series you can enjoy in the safety of your own protected space,
Tim Duffy : “Between the Church and the Door” and “Cart”
Tim Duffy is a poet and teacher working in Connecticut. His work has appeared recently in Bodega, Pleiades, Entropy, Rabbit Oak among others. He is the founder and EIC of 8 Poems Journal.
Sarah Venart : “Octopus Laser” and “Stun Guns”
Sarah Venart was raised in New Brunswick and lives and teaches in Montreal. She is the author of I AM THE BIG HEART and WOODSHEDDING.
Joshua Beckman : “If You Pray These Days” and “poem n form d bill bissett”
Joshua Beckman is the author of a number of books including The Inside of an Apple, The Lives of the Poems & Three Talks, and most recently Animal Days.
Joshua Corey : “Exterior Century,” “Interior Medusa,” and “Interior Birth.”
Joshua Corey is a poet, critic, translator, and novelist whose books include The Barons (Omnidawn Publishing, 2014), The Transcendental Circuit; Otherworlds of Poetry (MadHat Press, 2018), a new translation with Jean-Luc Garneau of Francis Ponge's Le parti pris des choses as Partisan of Things (Kenning Editions, 2016), and the forthcoming Hannah and the Master (MadHat Press). He lives in Evanston, Illinoi with his wife and about-to-be teenage daughter, and teaches English at Lake Forest College.
Leesa Dean : “Self-Isolation”
Leesa Dean is a graduate of the University of Guelph's MFA program and a Creative Writing Instructor at Selkirk College. Her collection of short stories, Waiting for the Cyclone, was nominated for the 2017 Trillium and Relit Awards. Her poetry chapbook, The Desert Itabira, was published by above/ground press last year. She is a settler on Sinixt territory in the Slocan Valley where she roams her small acreage, finding inspiration in the wildness surrounding her, and mostly fails at trying to grow melons. The long poem read for this series is from a manuscript in progress titled How to Survive which explores macro and micro forms of survival, ranging from the species level to the personal, including meditations on the author's summer spent at Aircrew Survival camp in Northern Alberta in 1995 and her mother's life-long repercussions from having polio as a child, a condition that ultimately killed her at the age of 60.