@weaverandy.bsky.social
Poet, professor of English and Creative Writing. Latest book, The Loom https://press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781773855837/.
This one was hard to write. Many thanks to Bren Simmers for accepting my poem for the July issue of The Buzz PEI, A Gift of Island Poetry.
#poem #poems #poetry #PEI #PEIpoetry
Every art needs two - one who makes it, and one who needs it," Ernst Barlach, the German sculp. tor and playwright, is reported to have said. If this is taken to mean someone out there who needs it-an audience-the working artist is in immediate danger of externalizing his activity, of distorting his vision to accommodate it to what he knows, or supposes he knows, his audience requires, or to what he thinks it ought to hear. Writing to a student in 1965, I put it this way: ... you will find yourself not saying all you have to say-you will limit yourself according to your sense of his, or her, or their, capacity. In order to do all that one can in any given instance (and nothing less than all is good enough, though the artist, not being of a complacent nature, will never feel sure he has done all) one must develop objec-tivity: at some stage in the writing of a poem you must dismiss from your mind all special knowledge (of what you were intending to say, of private allusions, etc.) and read it with the innocence you bring to a poem by someone unknown to you. If you satisfy yourself as reader (not just as "self-expressive" writer) you have a reasonable expectation of reaching others too. This "reader within one" is identical with Barlach's "one who needs" the work of art. To become aware of him sateguards the artist both from the superficialities resulting from overadaptation to the external, and from miasmic sub-jectivities. My reference above to "self-expression" is closely related to what I believe Ibsen must have meant by "to make clear to himself." A self-expressive act is one which makes the doer feel liberated, "clear" in the act itself. A scream, a shout, a leaping into the air, a clapping of handsor an effusion of words associated for their writer at that moment with an emotionβall these are self-expres-sive. They satisfy their performer momentarily.
the poet in the world DENISE LEVERTOV Starting my week off right // book held up in front of living room interior, philodendron revolution rising in the background above hardwood floor
If you satisfy yourself as reader (not just as "self-expressive" writer) you have a reasonable expectation of reaching others too.
Denise Levertov
Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal] : forty-sixth issue, / @linarvitvideopoet.bsky.social ;
touchthedonkey.blogspot.com/2025/07/touc...
i can't believe i'm only 9,530 away from 10,000 subscribers to my clever substack! robmclennan.substack.com
and you know above/ground press has a substack now also, yes? free updates! abovegroundpress.substack.com
Probably Breath Takes, or Story for a Saskatchewan Night. The two he co-wrote with Sheila E.Murphy are strong, too. Highly recommended!
16.07.2025 23:54 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
A new poem published! Thanks to the Harvard Review Online for publishing this poem in honour of Douglas Barbour, my friend and mentor (and a very noteworthy poet and critic):
www.harvardreview.org/content/the-...
John Furnival, 3D Noughts and Crosses, 1963
15.07.2025 17:00 β π 37 π 4 π¬ 0 π 0
"Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"
Slow Reading Project 2025-07-10 paulpearson.ca/the-blog/
Todayβs striking line comes to us from @robmclennan.bsky.social
#poem #poetry #poetrysky ππ
today is the thirty-second anniversary of above/ground press,
abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/07/toda...
You're not you when you're reading poetry in translation.
In this issue of "Poetry" for the first time, I came across poetry translated from a language that should have been a large part of my life but that wasn't.
We live, as punctuation.
Slow Reading Project 2025-07-08 paulpearson.ca/the-blog/
Todayβs striking line comes to us from @robmclennan.bsky.social
#poem #poetry #poetrysky ππ
For the holiday weekend, a little something from the archives. Read the rest of this Kathleen Graber classic here: loom.ly/ay9W8lY
03.07.2025 17:20 β π 4 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0βListen, you money-plated bastards. When I shout love, I mean your destruction.β
- Milton Acorn
congratulations to Jake Byrne for winning the Trillium Book Award! here's the interview we did, back when Jake was newly shortlisted:
periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/05/rob-...
Nice to have my latest book included in this fatherhood/Father's Day list:
www.cbc.ca/books/24-can...
(Appropriately, I was too busy parenting to post this yesterday)
I covered a Paul Dutton poem. After his recent passing, I wanted to acknowledge his influence, and introducing his work to a new audience seemed fitting.
youtu.be/QnoLp70AvJE?...
Updating my CV and just realized that my dissertation (and my PhD and the computer I wrote it on) is 35 years old.
You can listen to it here (it's a musical composition), thanks to Pennsound.
media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/au...
#booksky
11.06.2025 19:11 β π 5061 π 585 π¬ 46 π 28
hey! i have two new poems up at blood+honey! / @bloodhoneylit.bsky.social ;
www.bloodhoneylit.com/poetry/mclen...
You slap me after the kiss, and two sounds
ring up around the steeple [β¦]
βNathan Fako @nfako.bsky.social
Revolutionary Letter #96, poem at dawn Empire is its own undoing Diane di Prima
09.06.2025 01:50 β π 627 π 168 π¬ 1 π 0
Came home to find the latest issue of @canadianlit.bsky.social, in which my poem βWitnessing Namesβ (excerpted here) appears. You can also find this poem in Bonememory @ucalgarypress.bsky.social. With many thanks to both publishers π
06.06.2025 04:44 β π 11 π 2 π¬ 0 π 0Say Hi!
02.06.2025 23:15 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Wherever you are, let out a primal scream for Paul Dutton today:
youtu.be/th-pbiwcipI?...
friends in toronto! make sure to attend the celebration of 60 YEARS OF COACH HOUSE BOOKS on June 12!: www.eventbrite.ca/e/coach-hous... (@coachhousebooks.bsky.social )
22.05.2025 16:24 β π 5 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0fuck this, all of this;
22.05.2025 17:18 β π 14 π 2 π¬ 1 π 0
Cameron Anstee on small press culture
20.05.2025 00:07 β π 14 π 4 π¬ 2 π 0
above/ground press zoom launch! Tierney, Quartermain, Houglum, Doller + Jenks, May 28 2025 / @tomjenksuk.bsky.social @orchidtierney.bsky.social ;
abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/05/abov...
The Lily Crucifix (ca. 1450) Godshill Parish Church, Isle of Wight Christ crucified on his mother's flower. What is with you until the end? The crown of thorns still visible. The nimbus slim as a stamen. A flower holds Christ there. Something holds you here. The full moon rising. The warm petal of your dog's tongue. The pull of the waves. Your child's feet in them. The flounder your love breads and fries, apologizes over. 71 from LARKS (Ohio University Press, 2025)
The lilies, the petals green blades around you. Mary's flower is the most dramatic in death, staining the countertop gold. You have not brought enough days of Lexapro. Your head hurts from the light. Yellow jessamine threads the yard's live oaks.
Something holds you here.
The full moon rising.
The warm petal of your
dog's tongue.
The pull of the waves.
Your child's feet in them.
The flounder your love breads
and fries, apologizes over.
βHan VanderHart
photo of text poem: the poet i beg my bones to be good but they keep clicking music and i spin in the center of myself a foolish frightful woman moving my skin against the wind and tap dancing for my life.
good morning, fam
lucille clifton
THE POET
