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This month's featured author is Victoria BC writer
Daniela Lorenzi
Daniela Lorenzi is a writer living in Victoria, BC. After a nomadic start to life, residing and attending schools in various parts of Canada (Sunshine Coast, Toronto, Vancouver Island), alternating with Italy, she was finally able to settle on this special Island. Now retired from a career in language-teaching (high school and university), she is weathering the ageing process with as much grace and humour as possible; her writing helps. Daniela’s work has been published in a variety of print and online journals, and several anthologies.
Released in March, 2023: Daniela's first poetry collection, This Old House (published by Repartee Press).
Winter Dance
Love belongs to the garden of the young.
Les Misérables
Such exception you took to that line
you, lover with thinning grays
and eyes of liquid green
that melt into mine
without shame
to make my insides dance.
Like those early morning jigs:
the two of us twirling
on cold kitchen tiles
to an unexpected memory on the radio
while outside the winter wind
swirls with us
throws back its whipping mane
to howl its laughter at our fun
—and the young
still buried under covers.
Solstice Hymn
An air in minor key
brushed brown with streaks of pitch
sweeps fast through cedar lace.
It settles on the roof
—a middle eight, a rest—
then tumbles down the chimney
gathers winters-full
of soot and grime—those sighs
that linger still.
Cumbrous, now, it lumbers
on warm floors of polished oak
made ready for the feast
and the release of melody
with floating descant—a chorus-full,
a major resolution.
Winter Dance and Solstice Hymn from This Old House
(Repartee Press 2023)
PREVIOUSLY FEATURED AUTHORS
Ladysmith BC author poet Shelley Leedahl
Shelley A. Leedahl is a full-time, multi-genre writer with thirteen books. She presents across Canada and also works as a freelance writer, book reviewer and editor. She’s received International Fellowships for artist residencies in the US, Mexico, Spain, and Scotland. “Something Like Love,” is her literary podcast and she has produced two audio-books for Radiant Press. Born in Saskatchewan, she now lives in Ladysmith, BC and is often hiking, kayaking, cycling, or literally running around town.
Places
After a few drinks someone brings up Las Vegas and who has been there and you have not and you’ve just got to go and it’s not about the gambling or the shows and then onto New York and the crime that you’ve never experienced MOMA or Central Park or even hailing a cab like Carrie in “Sex and the City” and don’t some places exceed expectations like London and Paris and who knew Montreal would feel so good to walk around in at night and Cirque de Soleil but not Celine Dion and zero interest in LA but what if we made a map for the rest of our lives and we couldn’t die until we’d hit like our top five destinations but there’s that cartel business in Mexico and maybe Moscow or Gdańsk and it’s perpetually cool to include Nepal and what about the Florida Keys and anyone done Denver or walking across Scotland and Thailand’s ever-popular and certainly Argentina or possibly Oktoberfest and don’t be such a tourist but Greece for the white-washed towns then back to Las Vegas and you say to sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon and feel tiny and someone says ant and you say no way, tinier.
-Shelley A. Leedahl, from Go (Radiant Press, 2022)
Reviews for Shelley A. Leedahl’s Go (Poetry, Radiant Press, 2022)
"I don't know where to start. So many incredible images. Seriously. Fish entertain with gilded flashes ... snake skins as sheer ribbons ... inside the envelope of cities ... those are just the first few lines that flew from the page. Wise and fresh. Tough mix, but [she pulls] it off beautifully. Honestly, every poem glistens ... it's a remarkable book! Huge congratulations for welding words together like magic. Solid, solid, solid. Every poem."
- BC poet, essayist and novelist Katherin Edwards
"Go is a fantastic book of poetry. It is stylistically varied and sonically adventurous, and it is resolute, courageous, and caring. In a society that is currently being scoured by loneliness, it is particularly impactful and timely. It is an admirable collection, and comes highly recommended.”
-Ethan Vilu, Calgary poet and editor
“Go is a joy. There are gems everywhere ... chiseled out of language which is disarmingly accessible: It is good to sit on a ledge above the town / that is above the ocean. [Leedahl says] so much than meets the eyeball on first slide across the syntax."
-David Schleich, Saskatchewan writer and editor
Titles by Shelley A. Leedahl:
PREVIOUSLY FEATURED AUTHORS
Bowen Island poet Michael Penny
Michael Penny was born in Australia but moved to Canada as a teenager. He has published five books, and his poetry has appeared in over forty different periodicals. He now writes and gardens on Bowen Island.
Heron
The kid and I found
a skeleton scattered on the pebbles of the beach;
bones so light it must have flown.
Then the questions.
I didn’t know how it died
or what had eaten flesh and feathers
or why the bones
were such pure white
and polished clean.
It was now merely a construction kit
with parts missing and broken
but we could tell this belonged here
and that attached there
and this must be the tip
of a beak that once speared fish.
A great blue heron, I told him,
Ardea herodias,
but the kid only wanted to know:
if we put it together again
could it fly away?
He wanted to believe.
(previously published in Cede Poetry, and on the LCP Poetry Pause. )
Titles by Michael Penny:
available through: McGill-Queen's University Press - www.mqup.ca
available through: McGill-Queen's University Press - www.mqup.ca
Nanaimo Author Richard Stevenson:
Richard Stevenson recently retired to Nanaimo from a thirty-year gig teaching English and Creative Writing at Lethbridge College in Alberta. He has published 30 books and a CD of jazz and poetry with jazz ensemble, Naked Ear. Forthcoming collections include Hairy Hullabaloo, with illustrations by Nanimo artist, Carla Stein, as well as new titles from the Cryptid, ET, and Fortean lore series: including the trilogy, Cryptid Shindig, and a standalone volume, An Abominable Swamp Slob Named Bob.
Reviews:
Whatever It Is Plants Dream… :
"This collection is wide-ranging and very ambitious…Theodore Roethke would have danced with this book, hugging each line scraped hard by dirt – and then had a mood swing and been jealous!”– Phil Hall, Books in Canada
Learning To Breathe:
"The power of Stevenson’s poetry lies in a reliance on the particularities of personal experience, and in a forceful combination of narrative and lyric styles that successfully portray the several seasons of being male.” – Matthew Manera, The Canadian Forum
Live Evil: A Homage To Miles Davis:
What's clear is that with Live Evil, Richard Stevenson has become a charter member of the Great Poetry Orchestra, playing with the likes of Langston Hughes, Amiri Bakara, Corso, Ferlinghetti, and Frank O'Hara. It's illustrious company to be sure, but Live Evil is that good." -- Doug Beardsley, Quill & Quire
Sasquatch
Well, they say you're big and hairy,
don't linger long or tarry;
aren't mean, or even scary,
just kinda shy and wary.
Sasquatch! Sasquatch!
Don' wanna shower, hate to wash.
Sasquatch! Sasquatch!
Riper than a rotten squash.
You smell our coffee brewin',
gotta wonder what we're doin'.
Get a whiff of what we're stewin',
gawk at body parts we're chewin.
Sasquatch! Sasquatch!
Shake your head, drop your jaw.
Sasquatch! Sasquatch!
What kinda jungle, what dread law ...
We seem to have such dainty paws,
sport no fangs, got no claws --
break out with gusto in great guffaws ... .
Our kinky kind must give you pause.
Sasquatch! Sasquatch!
Scratch your noggin', pick your schnoz.
Sasquatch! Sasquatch!
Who's callin' who Neanderthal?!
Who? Who? Hoot like a bird
when we gather up your turd.
Babbling, crazy, barely furred --
really, we humans are absurd.
(from the Sasquatch band show; soon to be included in Dark Watchers)
An inspirational quote for Richard:
“When you get good at something, do something else.” -- George McWhirter
To find out more about Richard visit:
https://abcbookworld.com/writer/stevenson-richard/
Titles by Richard Stevenson:
Poet Laureate of Owen Sound ON, Richard-Yves Sitoski
Richard-Yves Sitoski (he/him) is the 2019-2022 Poet Laureate of Owen Sound, on the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Fiddlehead, The Maynard, Bywords.ca, in the League of Canadian Poets' Poetry Pause, and as part of Brick Books' Brickyard video series. He is a 2021 Best of the Net nominee. His latest book is No Sleep ‘til Eden, an augmented reality multimedia collection of poems on the environment.
List of Works:
brownfields (2014)
Downmarket Oldies FM Station Blues (2018)
No Sleep ‘til Eden (2020)
Low Hanging Fireworks
Mother counted a rosary of comets,
father dropped the Earth
and watched as it rolled beneath the couch.
Her music was straight as a prairie road,
his was bent like an elbow to the gut.
He preferred the company of dogs,
she of me when I felt like one.
She arrived with ellipses, he with an interrobang.
She tried to bake with chocolate chips
but I always wound up with raisins.
He taught me to fish but each one I caught swallowed the hook.
Some nights he played heads like percussion instruments.
Some days her migraines were low-hanging fireworks.
In his last hours he was a derelict house,
the handle dissolving when I tried the door.
In hers she was bare as a cathedral
if all that was holy within
had risen and flown away.
(A different version first appeared in The Fictional Café, January 6, 2020)
"If my approach can be summed up in one line, it’s that in my poetry I try to be as lean and terse as possible, because spareness has the effect of raking light to make small objects cast long shadows."
To Find out more about Richard visit:
Twitter: @rsitoski
FB: OSPoetLaureate2019to2022
Titles by Richard-Yves Sitoski
PC Vandall from Gabriola Island BC
P.C. Vandall grew up on Gabriola Island and resides there now with her husband and two children. She is the author of 4 poetry collections and her work has appeared in numerous magazines in Canada as well as England, Ireland, the United States, India, and Australia. She is presently working on her fifth collection, One Sailing Wait from Here.
To find out more about PC Vandall go to:
https://pcvandall.wixsite.com/pcvandall or click on her image above.
Ode to a Poem
I wrote a poem Neruda would blush at,
Blake would find innocent and Ginsberg
would howl at. The poem was bathed in the plum
shade of an O’Keeffe flower. Imagine,
blooming a poem like that, words perfuming
the body in one delectable scent-
ence after another. I wrote the poem
last winter before the snow or perhaps
it was September, ripe and red as the wood
stove pushing heat up the smoke stack to pant
hot spurts into the starry sky. The poem
had no heart, soul, or glass to shatter it.
There were no carnal apples or oranges
sliced but it quivered like a grove of aspens.
No poem—not even the sallow sunflower
dripping seeds from its black eye, not even
the weight of a song—could compare. The poem
—not this one—was the best poem ever written,
and when I read its sublime words out loud,
there was a silence unheard of till then.
I wish you could have heard it. The poem
fractured time and space. Each word splintered
the bone white page. The poem rose like a ghost-
ship out of water, breaching the surface
like a whale caught in a bohemian fog.
I wanted to share that poem with you
today, but the poem had a previous
engagement and sent me in its place.
Great poems can do that. Poets can’t.
© PC Vandall
Pat Smekal & Ian Cognitō
Author - Pat Smekal
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Author - Ian Cognitō
Author - Ian Cognitō
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