I’m kicking myself for having missed Shirley Bear’s reading at the On Edge series last Wednesday. She’s been an important figure to me in the last few years as an elder, artist and writer. I’m looking forward to having a visit with her later this month.

I’m also really looking forward to the launch for Fist of the Spider Woman, an anthology of horror stories (and other genres) by queer and transgressive women, edited by writer,  performer and editor extraordinaire, Amber Dawn. It’s a huge honour to have a few pieces from my long poem “Nascent Fashion” included.

GLBTQ community has remained so supportive all these years, through the transformations and transmutions of both my person and the community itself. I’m headed to Ghent later this month for a conference on queer literary kinship, organized by Katrien DeMoor. I’m really looking forward to meeting Emanuel Xavier, Robert Gluck and especially Sarah Schulman, and to seeing Anna Camilleri again. And, so serendipitously, it turns out that the lovely and talented Angela Rawlings is hanging out in Ghent for a while. Check it this cool clip of her and Jaap Blonk. I always get excited when my communities collide. I’ll stay on in Ghent for a bit after the conference to spend time with Angela, rest my head, and, with any luck, meet local poets. I may even get some writing done.

And speaking of “Nascent Fashion,” that poem is coming out in my first solo poetry book, Automaton Biographies, which Arsenal Pulp Press is publishing later this fall. “Rachel,” a long poem based on the Ridley Scott film Bladerunner and the Phillip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, will also be in that collection, for those of you who are interested.

For now, it’s the last week of class. I’m looking forward to the end of term, though I will miss my students. Papers are due on Wednesday, and the Canadian Studies class has an exam on April 17th. Study hard, my friends, but don’t forget to ask yourselves why you do so.

My long poem Eggs in the Basement is out, published as a limited edition chapbook by Nomados Press. Meredith Quartermain just came by last night with 26 lettered copies. Much appreciation to her and Peter both for being interested in it and for producing such a beautiful edition!

Eggs in the Basement is an experimental, process-oriented poem. I generated a body of source text in a ten-minute automatic exercise, separated it as neatly as possible into subjects and predicates and wrote the poem by repeating first all the subjects and and cycling through the predicates in the first half, and then reversing the procedure for the second. Strangely, the result is loosely the story of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism, in which two murders are committed by a collective: an initial one, which traumatizes the collective, and a second, which covers over the first and consolidates an violent and violated melancholy from which the group cannot escape. If you’re interested at all, you can obtain the chapbook by writing: Nomados Literary Publishers, PO Box 4031, 349 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 3Z4.

Or check out their website: Nomados

I’m really looking forward to teaching at the Clarion Writers’ Workshop in San Diego this summer. It’s the last week to apply. Get in there, all you talented moonbeams!

I’ll be crossing the Pacific pond shortly for the Shanghai International Literary Festival. I’ll also have talks at Fu Dan University and Ningbo University. I’ve been wanting to go to Shanghai for many years. Looking forward to chats, books, ideas, high-tech, fab food and spectacle in this mythic city.

I’m thrilled to have it!  Check it out here: Chroma

It was really inspiring hearing (and hosting) Dionne Brand and Rita Wong at Play Chthonics last night. It feels this week as if a world that recognizes justice, beauty and hope is re-emerging after decades of hiding underground.

Upcoming on February 19 : ” Progressive Texts”– an event to launch two special issues of West Coast Line: Active Geographies: Women and Struggles on the Left Coast, edited by Rita Wong and Joanne Lee; Citizenship and Cultural Belonging, edited by Sophie McCall and David Chariandy; The Artist and the Moose: A Fable of Forget by Roy Kiyooka, edited by Roy Miki; and Sybil Unrest by Rita Wong and Larissa Lai.

Thursday, February 19

The ANZA Club

3 West 8th Ave.

Vancouver

Doors: 7:30pm

I wonder if Father Time is a vampire. How does he march so staunchly into the future without getting tired? Mother Nature recycles.

Back at work. Two courses this term, both fourth year– one on race, gender, memory and citizenship; and one on biopolitics.

Paul Lai has just published a pretty cool article about Salt Fish Girl in MELUS. Alessandra Caperdoni has written beautifully about the Rachel poems in West Coast Line. Very pleased to be thought of with such care and intelligence.

Another wash cycle done, new rough beasts waiting to be born. Much eating of poultry in this cold season. I contemplate the killing of chickens. How the one who slaughters sacrifices self to public opinion, but we all want the meat. I should learn to wield the knife. There’s the limit of my own bourgeois privilege.

Dionne Brand and Rita Wong will read for Play Chthonics on January 21 at 7:30pm. Mark your new calendars!

sybil unrest is out. Rough beast #1. Nomados will publish Eggs in the Basement when ice melts and arms heal. What weather. Sending melt and heal vibes. Joy to the world.

sybil unrest, my collaborative long poem with Rita Wong, has just come back from the printers! I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m pretty excited. Much gratitude to Michael Barnholden of the newly formed Line Books, for his hard work and constant faith in this project. We had a lot of support from the good folks at The Kootenay School of Writing, and from Aaron Vidaver and David Fujino, whose collaborative long poem performance at KSW several years ago was a catalytic inspiration.

Catch Clint Burnham, Aaron Peck and Rishma Dunlop at Play Chthonics this Wednesday, Nov. 12, 7:30 at Graham House, Green College on the UBC campus. Details here.

Had a great time in TO (briefly, briefly) with Gein Wong, Emily Cheung and Aries Cheung. It was pretty cool to see Salt Fish Girl staged.

Upcoming: Friday, Nov. 21, 4pm: an English Department talk called “Agency After the Bounded Subject: Biopower, Body Parts and Human Rights in Stephen Frear’s Dirty, Pretty Things

Nov. 25: a reading with the Short Line Series at the Railway Club with me, Tony Power and others. I’ll update you on the start time when I have it.

Play Chthonics brings Christian Bok and Christine Stewart to the Green College Coach House this Wednesday. Should be a good one. Details here.

On Thursday, I fly to Toronto for the Salt Fish Girl theatre piece staged by Gein Wong, Emily Cheung, Aries Cheung, Brigitte Tang and the company Little Pear Garden. I visited them when they were workshopping it last summer. Now I’m really looking forward to seeing what they’ve done! Check it out.