It was an incredible experience. P.W. did a public reading of some of his poetry on March 13th at New York’s Parkside Lounge as part of the lounge’s Inspired Word NYC series. It was just as thrilling as he thought it would be. Mike Geffner hosts and his series is a marvel — much fabled among poets in and around New York and beyond.

P.W. greatly enjoyed working with the audience, host Mike Geffner, and the poets, comedians & musicians with whom he shared the stage. The evening truly was a marvel.

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Wow. Two speaking opportunities within the space of two days.

P.W. was most grateful to give the “Author Talk” for the Canadian Authors Association on February 8, 2023. The subject was “Creativity with a Day Job”. The well-attended, live virtual session was hosted very capably by Naomi Steinberg, with technical support from Bob Mackay — both very accomplished writers in their own right.

Harking back about three years to his pre-retirement years, P.W. provided some suggestions about how a busy work schedule and the impulse to write can be reconciled so that creative urges are given the priority they deserve. The main takeaway was that, in P.W.’s humble opinion, the small slivers of time that appear from time to time in an otherwise busy work and family life should and can be seized and put to good writing use. Deferring creative activity to those ideal times where there are no distractions or interruptions is folly; insisting on the sepulchral silence of a private writing space before getting down to it is de facto procrastination. Those opportunities come very seldom, if at all, and to wait for them is effectively to put one’s writing projects on hold indefinitely.

Then, on February 8th, P.W. sat down for a one-hour interview with the affable and deeply knowledgeable founder and presenter of The Commentary, Joseph Planta.

The Commentary is in its 19th year and the interviews Joseph conducts cover a very wide spectrum of subject matter and public figures. Many writers and other people who P.W. admires greatly have been guests on The Commentary. Very recent ones include writers Theresa Kishkan, Shauna Paull, Jane Munro and Mark Leiren-Young. Other public figures interviewed in 2022 alone include Peter Mansbridge, Carole Taylor, Russell Wangersky, Michael Kaeshammer, Eve Lazarus, Leslie Hurtig, Charlie Demers, Marsha Lederman, Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Madeline Sonik, Brendan MacLeod, Lorna Crozier… The list goes on and on.

Joseph’s questions for P.W. ranged widely over the one-hour interview, touching on topics including the challenges and exhilarations of writing poetry and fiction, literary education in Canada, P.W.’s former careers as a lawyer and a judge, and his forthcoming title, Deliverance, 1961: A Novella in Thirty-Two Cantos (forthcoming from Pooka Press later in 2023). The interview was aired on February 16, 2023 and can be accessed online by clicking on this link.

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Donal O’Hanlon is a celebrated Irish actor and director who heads and performs with the highly regarded Newpoint Players theatre group in Newry — a city that straddles Co Down and Co Armagh in Northern Ireland. He is also one of the best spoken-word artists anywhere, and is known for his clever, nuanced and often humorous delivery that reflects his many years treading the boards as a card-carrying Thespian. Recently, Donal recorded a spirited reading of “The Conversation” (taken from P.W.’s second collection of poems, Idiolect, published in 2021) for inclusion in a series of recorded readings offered and made public, electronically, by the South Armagh Poetry Group. That group is led by renowned, Belfast-based journalist and poet Eamonn Mallie.

As might be obvious from its title, “The Conversation” involves two voices and Donal takes both, namely, that of a bewildered father (on camera) and his challenging and somewhat ungovernable teenaged daughter (off camera). The video composition of the two-part reading called for some very deft editing and electronic splicing. In keeping with the gradual evolution of the poem’s somewhat difficult subject matter, Donal’s brilliant treatment begins with humour and gradually shifts into a darker register. P.W. is immensely grateful to Donal and Eamonn for choosing “The Conversation” for inclusion in the South Armagh Poetry Group’s latest program of public readings.

The Donal O’Hanlon reading of “The Conversation” first appeared via Twitter in a tweet that was posted on 21 December 2022; gratifyingly, only 36 hours later it had already attracted more than 3,000 views via that platform! It has now been posted on YouTube and can be accessed via this link.

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O happy day. P.W.’s first chapbook — Deliverance, 1961: A Novella in Thirty-two Cantos — has found a publisher.

Pooka Press, a literary press founded and operated by the estimable Warren Dean Fulton, will release Deliverance, 1961 sometime in 2023. Pooka is a Canadian publisher of considerable renown that specialises in chapbooks (and the occasional broadside). In entering the Pooka stable, P.W. finds himself in good company: other contributors whose work appears under that imprint include Robert Creeley, Susan Musgrave, George Bowering, bill bissett and rob mclennan.

Unlike some of P.W.’s writing, Deliverance, 1961 — a period piece — is wholly Canadian in terms of its subject matter; it involves a chance encounter between two troubled characters on an eastbound train travelling from Vancouver to Toronto during what is sometimes referred to as the “Madmen” era. Watch for cameo appearances by Alice Munro and Ethel Wilson, among other worthies.

P.W. embraces Paul Muldoon’s dictum, “Form is a straitjacket in the way that a straitjacket was a straitjacket for Houdini”. However, for this novella in verse, he adopted a punishingly difficult rhyme scheme, stuck to it, and it nearly killed him! But it’s done and Deliverance, 1961 is now in Pooka’s hands. Watch this space for future updates on the chapbook’s 2023 publication and launch dates.

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Occasionally a book reviewing assignment comes along that is pure joy for the reviewer. This was one of those… after an initial moment or two of hesitation.

P.W. will admit that when London Grip assigned Boris Dralyuk’s first collection, My Hollywood and Other Poems, to him for review, the assignment initially seemed daunting. Boris Dralyuk is a scholar of great renown, a highly sought-after translator of Russian literature, a UCLA professor of Slavic Languages and the editor of the L.A. Review of Books. He is thus a writer and scholar of great stature and My Hollywood is his first outing as an author of a book of poetry. More than that, being the editor of a prestigious book reviewing journal himself, Drayluk plainly knows as much about book reviewing as almost anyone. Imagine being an artist commissioned to paint a portrait of, say, Lucian Freud or Ken Danby, and you’ll have the point.

The feelings of trepidation quickly subsided when the reading began. My Hollywood is a strong and beautiful paean to the many emigrés and exiles from numerous diasporas who make up Hollywood’s heart and soul. These emigrés and exiles, like so much in that city, are somewhat obscured (to quote the review) by the “cloud cover of show-business meringue that mostly keeps them hidden from view”. Dralyuk’s poems draw them out of obscurity and celebrate and ennoble them in the most lyrical way. My Hollywood is a lovely and important book. To read P.W.’s full review of Boris Dralyuk’s first collection, click here

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Postscript Magazine was established in Paris in 2018 and is currently based in the UAE. Its editors explain on Postscript‘s website that the magazine “push[es] readers to leave their comfort zones, to go beyond what they know, [and] to be culturally curious and compassionate”. The October issue of Postscript — the “Alpha” issue — examines toxic masculinity from multiple perspectives. P.W. is pleased to have had his poem, “Ariana Grande Comes to Lunch: A Modern Tableau En Famille“, accepted for publication there. P.W.’s poem’s take is a little different from most of the other content in the issue. The poem portrays a curmudgeonly man of a certain age who struggles to accept and embrace the world as it is changing around him. He’s the kind of guy who has become cranky in retirement and is prone to saying cringeworthy things that embarrass his grown children. We all know people like him. “Ariana Grande Comes to Lunch…” is part of a series of poems that is currently taking shape under the provisional title, “The Curmudgeon’s Diary”.

If you’d like to read “Ariana Grande Comes to Lunch…”, prepare for a little gentle mockery of both a curmudgeon and his daughter’s live-in, man-bun-sporting boyfriend. Then click here.

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P.W. couldn’t be more thrilled to learn that some of his poetry will be included in a live reading event to be held on October 13, 2022 at 7:00 pm at the historic Linen Hall Library in Belfast.

The lead presenter at the evening’s program will be legendary journalist and poet, Eamonn Mallie, who will read from his considerable body of poetry exploring the effects of the pandemic on ordinary folk. Eamonn will be accompanied by the inimitable Donal O’Hanlon — an actor, musician, singer, dancer and head of the Newpoint Players theatre group in Newry, Co Down. Apart from reading from P.W.’s work, Donal will also read poems by Síofra McSherry (author of the extraordinary chapbook, Requiem, reviewed by P.W. here) and Art Riordan (the much-celebrated Irish actor and writer). There is much gratitude here in Vancouver for this exposure being given to P.W.’s poetry across the Atlantic in Donegall Square North!

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The An Áitiúil Anthology is a joint venture between Dublin literary publishers The Madrigal Press and The Martello. It explores the notion of “locality” from many different perspectives. The anthology was published in both electronic and print forms and its contributors come from a wide variety of locations across the world. Their contributions appear in the form of poetry and fiction and they are complimented by stunning photography. P.W. is very pleased to have his poem, “Who Reads Obituaries for Truth Anyway?” included alongside the works of so many writers he holds in high esteem.

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Having for a long time been a writer of flash fiction, P.W. is intrigued by and attracted to highly compressed literary forms. He has previously won competitions (such as the Scottish Book Trust’s 50-Word Short Story Competition) that emphasise brevity and so, when the Bangor Literary Journal announced its 40-Word Competition this year, P.W. decided to have a go. His poem “Union Jack” did not win the competition, but it attracted the “Commended” designation — a most pleasing outcome that he received with gratitude. The only real disappointment was being unable to travel to Fealty’s in Bangor for the announcements, the readings and the general celebrations. All of the 40-Word Competition entries that won or placed appear in issue 18 of the Bangor Literary Journal. (Those and a good deal more.) You can review the entire issue online by clicking on this link.

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The indefatigable Colin Dardis is a force of nature in the poetry scene of Northern Ireland. He has published his own work widely, does readings and workshops frequently and comes up with truly novel ideas for encouraging poets to get their work out before readers. In October 2022 he issued his third “24-hour challenge”, inviting poets to respond to the prompt “clothes” with a poem not longer than 14 lines in length. P.W. has taken up the 24-hour challenge once before and, again this time, his entry has found its way into the resulting anthology along with poetry by many talented poets, mostly from Northern Ireland. Clothes was published in October 2022 by Rancid Idols Productions, Belfast, and can be accessed via this link.

P.W.’s poem “The Red Dress” (which appears with its accompanying photo on pages 25-26 of the anthology) is entitled “The Red Dress” and it confronts the very troubled and troubling issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

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P.W. has long admired the Irish literary magazine, Skylight 47.

It had its origins in Galway City’s “Over the Edge” reading series and, since 2013, it has been publishing high quality poetry, fiction and criticism from across the world. It was an honour for P.W. to have his first appearance in Skylight 47‘s issue 16 (Autumn/Winter, 2022). The poem is entitled “theres no future for them mate” (caps and punctuation intentionally omitted) and revolves around some rather naïve predictions made in the mid-1970s about the likely survival of video games.

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P.W. and Amy Burns, editor of the Texas-based e-zine, Dillydoun Review, go back a long way. When she was a doctoral student at the University of Glasgow, Amy was the editor and publisher of Unbound Press and the editor of the literary periodical, Spilling Ink Review. Both published short fiction written by P.W. in 2011 and both are now defunct (not, he presumes, for that reason).

After earning her Ph.D. in Creative Writing, Amy went on to write a novel entitled Leaving is My Colour, returned to the USA, edited The Mulberry Fork Review and now edits the Dillydoun Review. P.W. is pleased to have work appear again in the pages of an outlet guided by Amy’s steady hand. This time it is a poem, entitled “Begley”, written in commemoration of dear friends’ King Charles Spaniel that recently died. You can access the entire September 2022 issue of the Dillydoun Review by clicking here.

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One rightly approaches social media platforms cautiously and with a degree of trepidation, but the experience for P.W. of stepping onto the Twitter train in March has been mostly very positive. A recent example proves the point. A tweet about his poem, “There Was Fire in Magherafelt”, recently re-published in the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, attracted the attention of reporter Liam Tunney of the local Derry newspaper, Derry Now. (Magherafelt is located in South Derry and within the Derry Now catchment area. The poem touches on a sectarian bombing of the Ulsterbus station that took place in Magherafelt in 1993.) An e-mail exchange with Liam ensued, then a Zoom interview, and in a few days a full story was published in Derry Now. (You can read the article here.) Thanks go out to Liam and his editors for their interest and support.

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P.W. is immensely honoured to have his poem, “There Was Fire in Magherafelt”, reappear in vol. 44, no. 1 (2022) of the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies. (The cover of a recent issue of the CJIS is displayed above.)

The CJIS is the house journal of the Canadian Association for Irish Studies and it publishes scholarly articles on Irish history and culture — particularly as they intersect with the history and culture of Canada. The CJIS also publishes poetry, short fiction and book reviews.

“There Was Fire in Magherafelt” first appeared in A Lamb. It responds to and builds upon celebrated Belfast-born poet Sinéad Morrissey’s remarkable poem, “There Was Fire in Vancouver”. That poem in turn lent its name to Morrissey’s first volume of poetry, published by Carcanet, in 1996.

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Síofra McSherry is a prodigiously talented poet originally from Northern Ireland who now lives and works in Germany. She has had a modest number of poems appear in online outlets in the past. Recently however, English publisher The Emma Press brought out a chapbook or pamphlet by Ms McSherry entitled Requiem. P.W. believes that this title warrants widespread notoriety and celebration.

Requiem is a commemorative elegy written by Ms McSherry’s to honour her mother who died of motor neurone disease. It is a highly developed piece of poetic writing that displays acceptance, but not resignation, in the face of mortality. By turns gentle and fierce, Requiem is an extended, compassionate meditation on death that is punctuated with moments of tenderness and rage. It presents as deft a treatment of its difficult subject as you will find anywhere.

To read P.W.’s comprehensive critical assessment of this remarkable book — which appears in the English literary arts journal, London Grip — click here. And to see and hear a video recording of the talented actor and theatre director Donal O’Hanlon giving a spirited and masterful reading of the Benedictus section of Ms McSherry’s long poem, click on this link.

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So. How cool is this? A prompt is sent out. You have 24 hours in which to respond with a poem of no more than 14 lines in length (excluding title, line breaks and epigraph). The editor has his rather elaborate (and rather beautiful) formatting template all set up in advance. The deadline passes, he swiftly makes his selections from among the submissions received, plugs the chosen ones into the template and, voila! — the resulting chapbook is published thereafter online. Just like that.

Thus, Sea was born. You can download it from here. The genius behind the 24-hour Chapbook Challenge project is Belfast-based poet, Colin Dardis. Colin also supplied the wonderful accompanying photographs. P.W.’s poem — “Japanese Debris Field Arrives On B.C. Shores After 2011 Earthquake” — is the final piece in the chapbook. Have a look at all the poems in Sea. There is some beautiful work there.

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Who can resist a book of poems with a title like Age of the Microwave Dinner?

Colin Hassard’s sense of humour shines brightly through in the title of his first collection, but empathy, doubt, love, anger, kindness and honour are in plentiful supply in this new book, too. It is absolutely brilliant. You can find P.W.’s review of Age of the Microwave Dinner in the Seamus Heaney Centre’s Friday Critique posting by clicking on this link. And, while you’re at it, give a listen to Colin Hassard reciting the marvellous poem that concludes the collection, “Potions and Elixirs” — accompanied by his band, Dirty Words. The poem is a stirring homage to his home city, Belfast: wonderful on the page but transcendent when delivered aloud.

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Two nineteen-year-olds steal away together for a weekend tryst. There’s a dangerous hike across a muddy cow field in driving rain. And a surprise encounter with an angry bull en route. Still, young love eventually blossoms in front of a fireplace where the two are warmed by “flickering whiskey light”. All of this in 397 words. You can stop in at The Galway Review and read P.W.’s latest flash fiction piece, “Dropped Threads”. Just click here.

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Yikes! He said he’d never do it! He said it would never happen! But P.W. is now on Twitter!

You can find him here. Smart people — writing friends mostly — have been urging him to do this for years. We’ll see how this goes…

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The Royal City Literary Arts Society (“RCLAS”) makes a significant contribution to the literary scene in British Columbia. Alongside its other activities, it promotes the writing of fiction and poetry, runs annual Write On! competitions, sponsors the Annual Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry and holds multiple reading series. Among the latter is the RCLAS “Tellers of Short Tales” series and P.W. was honoured to be chosen as the series’ featured author for the session held February 24, 2022. It was a pleasure and a privilege for him to participate in the “Tellers of Short Tales”.

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Each year the British literary magazine, The High Window, publishes lengthy critical pieces addressing featured UK and American poets. Those articles commonly comprise an in-depth review of the featured poet’s most recent title, together with representative selections from that most recent title and from the poet’s earlier works. The High Window‘s Featured UK Poet for the spring of 2022 is Jude Nutter and P.W. was privileged to be asked to write a lengthy assessment of Nutter’s newest title, Dead Reckoning, released by Salmon Poetry in 2021.

That in-depth review, and Nutter’s brilliant poem, “Disco Jesus and the Wavering Virgins in Berlin, 2011”, were published in The High Window on February 13, 2022, and can be read online by clicking here. In a future post, The High Window will republish several poems from Nutter’s earlier titles, Pictures of the Afterlife (Salmon Poetry, 2002), The Curator of Silence (Notre Dame University Press, 2006), I Wish I Had a Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman (Notre Dame University Press, 2009). P.W. highly commends all of Jude Nutter’s poetry to the discerning reader.

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Who doesn’t love listening to North by Northwest, Sheryl McKay’s weekend early morning arts and human interest program on CBC Radio One in Vancouver? Sheryl has, perhaps, the warmest and most welcoming voice on the CBC. She is also a very skilled and astute interviewer. One never shrinks from setting the alarm on the weekend so as not to miss her show.

It was therefore a great pleasure for P.W. to usher in the New Year by appearing again on North by Northwest on January 2, 2022. Sheryl’s interview of P.W. forms part of her program’s series featuring British Columbia poets. The focus this time was Idiolect, P.W.’s latest book of poems, published in August 2021 by Ekstasis Editions. If you’d like to listen to the interview, open this podcast link, click on the play button for the January 2^nd episode and then, at the bottom of your screen, advance to the 12:27 minute point and you’ll find yourself at the beginning of the interview.

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If one were inclined to craft a humorous, wry and mildly dystopian Christmas story, could there be a better time than the present? P.W.’s “Doris Fly” is just such a story and it has been published by the excellent, New Brunswick-based online literary journal, Miramichi Reader, just in time for Christmas.

The story turns a saurian eye on modern hipsters — juggling busy careers and the many other pressing demands on their time — as they strive mightily to squeeze in rushed Christmas visits to their slowly declining parents, aunts and uncles living in a seniors facility.

Seniors homes are like small towns. There are big, forceful personalities claiming centre stage and others watching critically from the sidelines. Alliances are formed and broken. Not much goes unnoticed and not much is spared comment, even when a jolly and over-upholstered staff-member dressed as Santa distributes gifts to residents at the facility’s annual Christmas party.

[Doris Fly] wanted to know why she got two electric nose-hair trimmers from Santa and none of the others received even one—not even Mr. Sahota who, she said, could use one for each of his nostrils and a couple more for his ears. “Is this some kind of sick joke?” 

“Doris Fly” first appeared in P.W.’s second book of short fiction, The Four-Faced Liar, published early in 2021. That collection was a finalist for a Miramichi Reader “Very Best Book Award” in 2021 and editor James Fisher chose to re-publish “Doris Fly” on the Miramichi Reader website on November 29, 2021.

Want to know how the broken TV remote, pictured above, fits into the story? You can add “Doris Fly” to your pre-Christmas reading by clicking here and find out.

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P.W. is honoured to have been invited to participate in an initiative, led by Prof. Lidia Vianu together with Anne Stewart of Britain’s Poetry PF, in which English-speaking poets, mostly resident in the UK, provide mentoring and translation guidance to Romanian graduate students at the University of Bucharest. The students in question are pursuing M.A. degrees in the translation of contemporary literary texts. (For a brief description of the program, go to pages 84-85 [PDF pagination] of the university brochure accessible here.)

The M.A. students’ coursework requires them to prepare initial translations of a number of the writings of modern Romanian poets, and then work closely with their English-speaking poet/mentors to further develop, refine and finalise those translations in anticipation of their future publication. P.W. will necessarily be connecting with and providing mentorship and translation guidance for his M.A. students online, beginning in December 2021. This is a unique and exciting opportunity which P.W. was pleased to accept.

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B.C. Bookworld is a publication which has been tirelessly supporting and promoting British Columbia authors for more than 35 years. It was founded and then published for most of those years by Alan Twigg, whose diligent contribution to the literary life of this province is inestimable. Recently, Beverley Cramp has stepped into Alan’s role and the transition has been seamless.

It is always a happy occasion to have one’s work mentioned in B.C. Bookworld — even when the mention (in this case in the Winter 2021 edition) begins with a good-natured jibe:

Readers can be forgiven for not believing that the long-winded style of a former judge could be transformed into flash fiction and short stories…

The reference there, of course, is to P.W.’s collection of short fiction, The Four-Faced Liar, published in January of 2021 by Ekstasis Editions. P.W. is grateful to have had The Four-Faced Liar catch the attention of B.C. Bookworld, and — yes — he can take the joke. He’s heard it before. A few times. Well. Maybe more than a few times…

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It has been P.W.’s pleasure in the past to appear and read new work on Vancouver Co-op Radio’s longstanding literary arts program, Wax Poetic. The publication, in August, of Idiolect opened that door again and P.W. was pleased to walk through it, though figuratively this time. (Pandemic constraints require that such interviews be conducted virtually for the foreseeable future.)

Hosting the program on this occasion was the lively and endlessly entertaining RC Weslowski, ably assisted by the remarkably talented Kevin Spenst. Both are very accomplished poets in their own right — poets’ poets, you might say. Working with interviewers like RC and Kevin makes the experience that much more enjoyable.

The 30 or so minutes taken up by the interview — which was broadcast on October 27, 2021 — seemed to pass by very quickly. There were no awkward silences or pauses. Some of the interviewers’ questions were delightfully “nerdy”, poetics-based inquiries. What more could a poetics nerd, as interviewee, ask for?

P.W. is a regular Wax Poetic listener and he recommends that his readers become regular Wax Poetic listeners as well. A wide spectrum of new writing from mostly local poets is featured on each program and much fine talent is revealed by the skilled interviewing of the program’s hosts. Wax Poetic is broadcast on Vancouver Co-op Radio, 100.5 FM every Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. You can also tune in live online via this link, or catch the program on demand after the live broadcast by visiting its podcast archives.

An archival podcast of P.W.’s interview broadcast on October 27, 2021 is available online: if you wish to listen to it, simply click on this link and select the podcast identified by date as “20211027”.

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Reviews have started to flow in, critically assessing the two books P.W. published in 2021. The reviews have been (largely) quite gratifying.

Andrew Parkin is a distinguished poet, Yeats scholar and a former Professor of English at UBC and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has published more than 24 books and continues writing actively during retirement. Dr. Parkin recently penned a thoughtful and insightful review of P.W.’s most recent book of poems, Idiolect, for the English literary magazine, London Grip. The review is entitled “The Diverted Self: Business Class from this World to the Next” and it can be accessed by clicking here. Another retired professor of repute from UBC, Philip Resnick, has turned his hand to writing poetry during his retirement years (and, when pressed, to writing the occasional book review). Dr. Resnick, too, has offered a positive assessment of Idiolect, in this case in the pages of The Ormsby Review. That review can be accessed by clicking on this link.

Also writing in The Ormsby Review, Sheldon Goldfarb — the archivist for the AMS Society at UBC and the author of several scholarly and fictional titles — recently provided his assessment of P.W.’s book of short stories and flash fiction, The Four-Faced Liar. Dr. Goldfarb observed, quite correctly, that there is bleakness in some of the stories included in the book, continuing:

Not for nothing does the protagonist in the opening story bear the middle name Stearns, after T.S. Eliot. And there is cleverness too, parody and satire…

But, it seems, P.W. and Dr. Goldfarb differ on some things, including the extent to which a writer of fiction should tie up the loose ends found in, or at the end of, a piece of fiction. Fair enough. This is a subject on which reasonable people can, of course, reasonably disagree. To read Dr. Golfarb’s take on The Four-Faced Liar, click here. Then, if you haven’t already got one, pick up a copy for yourself and see what you think.

More reviews of P.W.’s two new 2021 titles are due to be published in the coming weeks and months, both in Canada and abroad. “Watch this space”, as they say, for word of them when they appear.

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It was P.W.’s immense honour to be included in the program at the Celebration of Life for legendary jazz composer and performer Hugh Fraser held at Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre on October 17, 2021. Within the limits imposed by current pandemic-related public health orders, the event was nearly sold out.

Hugh Fraser was a very dear friend and his musicianship — on both the trombone and the piano — was stunningly innovative and colourful. His example and mentorship have shaped the aspirations of a generation of Canadian jazz players. The many musicians who played at the event comprised a virtual Who’s Who of the Canadian jazz scene (including Hugh’s son James who, with his trio, turned in a blistering, virtuoso performance).

The tribute was masterfully organised, and then emcee’d, by Lorae Farrell, Hugh’s partner, herself a brilliant player of the trumpet. Lorae and James began the afternoon’s program by playing a heartrending duet. The piece they chose was the exquisitely melancholy “First Star of the Evening (Think of the One You’ll Always Love)” — one of Hugh’s finest, and most challenging, compositions.

P.W. gave a reading at the Celebration of Life of his poem, “Thank You Very Much” — a poem which first appeared in Jerry Jazz Musician and is also included in Idiolect. P.W. wrote “Thank You Very Much” as a tribute to Hugh shortly after he died in 2020.

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P.W. was grateful to be chosen by the Poets Corner Reading Series to contribute the “One Minute Poem” reading for September 2021.

“Lydia Outside the Vanguard” — a poem first published in Jerry Jazz Musician and then in P.W.’s new collection, Idiolect — seemed to be the right choice for the occasion. To see and hear the reading, click here. And to savour a beautiful recording of the tune, “Roman Nights”, performed by Tom Harrell et al. — which is mentioned in the poem — follow this link.

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The egg has finally hatched. P.W.’s second book of poems, entitled Idiolect, was published at the beginning of August 2021.

Ekstasis Editions has done its usual masterful job in producing a volume that reflects exacting book design values and typographical artistry. Several of the poems are accompanied by striking colour illustrations. Let us hope that readers find the content measures up to the look and feel of this new selection. Review copies are now going out to various outlets, both in Canada and abroad, and the book is beginning to show up in bookstores. It can also be ordered directly from Ekstasis Editions online by clicking here.

The pre-publication reception that Idiolect received has been warm indeed. This can be seen in the book’s back cover endorsements. Gary Geddes — long a titan on the Canadian poetry landscape (and editor of 20th-Century Poetry and Poetics, P.W.’s English 100 poetry text in 1970 and still in print!) — commented:

If Idiolect, as the dictionary suggests, is about individual speech habits, P.W. Bridgman is to be congratulated for his amazing range of diction, from colloquial idioms to elevated speech and delightful rhetorical hijinks. He is, in turn, playful, sly, ironic, satirical, combining a strong narrative bent with a judge’s keen eye for human foibles. His new book offers surprise after surprise, with perhaps the fattest sonnets ever written, some lines pushing thirty syllables, but whipped into shape by wickedly clever end-rhymes.

And Stephen Sexton, whose extraordinary If All the World and Love Were Young was the 2020 winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the E.M. Forster Award and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature (imagine!), described Idiolect as:

…[A] lively, marvellous collection of lyrics, vignettes and short, fleet-footed narratives teeming with history and language. The various Englishes—North American and Hibernian—of this collection commingle into rich and textured expression all its author’s own. Timely anxieties about politics and technology’s ever-refining intelligence sit alongside poems composed by the iPhone; fluent and agile riffs on poets of the past—Louis MacNeice particularly—keep company with takes on paintings and photographs, and elsewhere riff along to Kind of Blue. A generous, capacious collection touched throughout with technical skill and compassion.”

Those generous assessments, offered by two very astute and talented poets, will give you some idea of what to expect in Idiolect.

For pandemic-related reasons, the prospects of having a joint, in-person launch of Idiolect and The Four-Faced Liar in autumn 2021 look increasingly bleak. However, perhaps some cautions optimism that a launch can be planned for spring or summer 2002 is justified. Watch this space for details as things come into clearer focus.

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The Idler is an online literary magazine, published in Ireland, that features poetry and fiction from contributors across the world. P.W. has returned to its electronic pages, this time with a wistful poem entitled “Day 29” which addresses the death of his father in 2013. You can read “Day 29” by clicking here.

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Well. P.W.’s 2021 title, The Four-Faced Liar, didn’t win the Miramichi Reader‘s Very Best Book Award in the short fiction category this year. But still, to be selected as one of six finalists for the award amidst such distinguished company was itself a great honour. Even better, it was thrilling for P.W. to see his friend and fellow lawyer/writer Frances Boyle emerge as the winner in the short fiction category for her stunning short story collection, Seeking Shade. Brava! Frances. This recognition is richly deserved. All readers of this site are urged to buy a copy of Seeking Shade and see for themselves why it not only won a Very Best Book Award but also was a finalist this year for the Danuta Gleed and the ReLit.

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P.W.’s second book of poetry, entitled Idiolect, was sent to the printers by his publisher, Ekstasis Editions in mid-June 2021. Enormous thanks go out to Lydia (Tu sei il mio mondo); to Richard Olafson at Ekstasis Editions for publishing this second collection of poems; to Gary Geddes and Stephen Sexton for being such great supporters, such exemplary poets themselves, and for writing such warm and encouraging cover endorsements; and to all who are mentioned with gratitude on the book’s Acknowledgments pages.

Provided all unfolds according to plan, Idiolect should be released in July. Very exciting! More on that, and on the subject of a joint launch of that title and P.W.’s short fiction title, The Four-Faced Liar (released by Ekstasis in January), anon. The joint launch will be scheduled for sometime in the autumn, and — COVID-19 public health orders permitting — it will be an in-person event. Stay tuned for more details as plans come more fully into focus.

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P.W. is over the moon to find that his selection of short stories and flash fiction, The Four-Faced Liar, has been chosen as a contender, alongside five other titles in the short fiction category, for a Miramichi Reader Very Best Book Award for 2021. And, in being included on that list, he finds himself in extremely good company. Other authors who are in contention in the short fiction category are friends and outstandingly talented writers Frances Boyle and Barbara Black, as well as the extraordinary Madeline Sonik, John Gould and Faye Guenther.

So much talent! The winners in the short fiction, novel, poetry and non-fiction categories will all be announced on or before June 26th. Watch this space for updates.

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Cause for celebration! P.W.’s “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen, or So It’s Said”, has been awarded second prize in the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s 2021 Write On! Writing Competition in the poetry category. “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen…” is a glosa — a form popularised by the late and much missed P.K. Page in her book Hologram — and it takes its four-line cabeza from a poem entitled “Down the Drain”, written by P.W.’s friend and fellow writer James W. Wood. “Down the Drain” was published in James’s award-winning title, Building a Kingdom: New and Selected Poems, 1989-2019 (Swindon: The High Window Press, 2019).

Of “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen…”, poetry judge Angela Rebrec said, in part: “This is a smart poem–mentally and emotionally engaging–simultaneously making us grimace and smile”. To see Ms. Rebrec’s comments in their entirety (along with a listing of all of the winning entries and the judges’ comments regarding the top entries in each category), follow this link.

Is your curiosity piqued about “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen…”? RCLAS will, eventually, publish the poem on its website. And it will also be included in P.W.’s second book of poetry, entitled Idiolect, which is forthcoming from Ekstasis Editions in June or July of this year. Stand by for more news about that new publication in the coming days.

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The first review of P.W.’s latest book of short stories and flash fiction, The Four-Faced Liar, has now rolled in. And it is positive! To read Bill Arnott’s generous assessment of the book — where he pronounces the writing “very, very good” and concludes that “P.W. has created a series of journeys worth taking” — follow this link to the May 2021 issue of The Miramichi Reader. And, while you’re there, have a look at the rest of the content in the May 2021 issue of the Maritime provinces’ most respected outlet for literary criticism.

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P.W. is immensely pleased and honoured to have had his piece, “Kind of Blue (Found Poems)”, chosen for inclusion in the Jerry Jazz Musician journal’s anthology A Poetry Selection Inspired by Miles Davis. To read the many interesting poems that comprise the anthology, including “Kind of Blue (Found Poems)”, click here.

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Ubi liber natus, ibi gaudiam est! The Four-Faced Liar is now in print!

P.W.’s newest book of short stories and flash fiction has been some time in gestation. At last, it has made the magical transition from a concept, a mere idea, to a physical object that one can hold in the hand. Ekstasis Editions has, once again, come through admirably, granting P.W. considerable control regarding the book’s cover, typography and overall design.

Alas, for very good pandemic-related reasons, the launch of The Four-Faced Liar must be deferred.  However, because P.W.’s second book of poetry, Idiolect (another Ekstasis publication), is due for release in about June of this year (2021), it is hoped that an in-person launch of both titles will be possible, either then or not too much later.  Watch this space (as they say) for more on that as June draws nearer.

The Four-Faced Liar will begin appearing in bookstores in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, the easiest way to obtain a copy is to order one online directly from Ekstasis Editions by clicking on this link.

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When Anita Lahey chose Rob Taylor to serve as the editor of Best Canadian Poetry, 2019, she chose very well indeed. Mr. Taylor’s survey of contemporary poetry in Canada reveals a level of care and discernment that stands out as being truly exceptional. The richly diverse body of work that greets the reader of Best Canadian Poetry is aesthetically pleasing and, where appropriate, challenging — both as to form and content.

Familiar voices are collected in Best Canadian Poetry, 2019 alongside some new and emerging ones. To read P.W.’s in-depth, critical assessment of the anthology, published in March 2021 in The Ormsby Review, click here.

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Ben Ray is a remarkable young poet and Oxford History graduate, originally from the Welsh Borders, who has recently taken up a position as a copywriter for the European Parliament. His worldly and cosmopolitan outlook is evident not only in his career choice but also in his lyrical and thought-provoking poetry. Ben Ray’s pamphlet, The Kindness of the Eel, was the winner of the 2019 New Poets Prize sponsored by The Poetry Business. P.W. too finds much to admire in The Kindness of the Eel; you can read his review of the pamphlet, published in London Grip in January 2021, by clicking here.

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What nicer way to end the year (especially 2020) than to have a poem published in one of Montréal’s most respected literary outlets? P.W. was delighted to wake up New Year’s Day to find that his poem, “All My Falling Women”, was uploaded to the Montréal Writes website on December 31st. You can read the poem by clicking here.

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Happy, happy news. Ekstasis Editions — one of Canada’s most respected literary publishers — will be bringing out two new books by P.W. in 2021 (Ekstasis’ 39th year in operation). The first is a selection of short fiction, entitled The Four-Faced Liar. The second is a book of poems entitled Idiolect.

More about all of that in due course as matters progress. But for now, here’s a small preview. The poem that will appear last in Idiolect is a love poem. (Don’t you think a book of poems should always end with a love poem? P.W.’s first poetry title, A Lamb, concluded with “Living With Me Now in Green Dolphin Street” which, most assuredly, is a love poem.) Idiolect will end with “Lydia Outside the Vanguard: 2010”. Also a love poem, also jazz inflected.

Do you think a pattern might be forming?

“Lydia Outside the Vanguard: 2010” has just been published by Jerry Jazz Musician as part of its Autumn 2020 Collection of Jazz Poetry. To read it, click here and, once you’ve arrived, use your browser’s “find” feature to search for “Lydia”. You’ll be taken directly there. Alternatively, you can scroll down manually to find “Lydia Outside the Vanguard: 2010” and, if you do, by all means pause along the way to enjoy the other poems that have been selected for the Collection.

Jerry Jazz Musician was not able, for digital space reasons, to include the photograph that ultimately will accompany “Lydia Outside the Vanguard: 2010” when the poem is published in Idiolect (about June 2021). P.W. is not faced on this website with the same space constraints so… here it is:

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When composer and piano/trombone virtuoso Hugh Fraser died in June, 2020, he left a gaping crater at the centre of the Canadian jazz music world. He was only 62. P.W. was fortunate to have enjoyed Hugh’s friendship over 20 of those years.

The roller coaster ride that followed his cancer diagnosis was punctuated by moments of great hopefulness and then despair-inducing setbacks. Yet, Hugh held on to his good-natured disposition throughout. He was determined to beat back the disease and — with the loving and determined support of his partner, trumpeter Lorae Farrell — he succeeded in doing exactly that for a considerable time.

To see P.W.’s tribute poem written for Hugh Fraser, entitled “Thank You Very Much”, follow this link to the Jerry Jazz Musician poetry page where it was posted in mid-October, 2020.

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No one finds the subject of the sexual abuse of children and youth by members of the clergy an easy one to discuss (or even contemplate). But recent history especially has taught us that getting such scourges out in the open and talking about them is an important step in the direction of expunging them. When our society collectively examines itself in the mirror — provided it honestly takes stock of what it sees there — who can deny that the sexual-exploitation-of-children-and-youth blemish, in all its ugliness, is visible and must be both confronted and reckoned with?

The literary arts collectively and metaphorically hold up such a mirror to society from time to time. It is a mirror that reflects our society back to itself in ways that both flatter and unsettle. And so it should be. As H.L. Mencken said of journalists, practitioners of the creative written arts too have, among other responsibilities, a responsibility to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”.

To read “Miracle Whip”, P.W.’s poem published in the Fall 2020 issue of The Maynard that deals with a fictional case of clerical sexual abuse of a youth, click here.

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The Bray Literary Festival is a much-awaited celebration of the literary arts held each year on the east coast of Éire. Bray is a few short miles south of Dublin in Co. Wicklow — not far from both Sandycove (where the Martello Tower featured at the beginning of Joyce’s Ulysses is located) and Dalkey (the setting of Flann O’Brien’s exceedingly droll novel, The Dalkey Archive). The Bray Literary Festival organisers run two literary competitions in conjunction with the festival — one for poetry and one for flash fiction. P.W. was immensely honoured to have his story “Unilateral Declaration” shortlisted alongside five other finalists in the flash fiction category this year.

Shortlisted poets and flash fiction writers were asked to record readings of their works so that they might be included in the festival program. Those readings were then live-streamed on September 18th as part of the festival’s “Culture Night” kick-off celebrations. Finalists’ readings (preceded by readings by four talented young poets from Drumcree), the announcements of the winning entries and the judges’ comments have all since been posted on YouTube and can be viewed by clicking on this link.

The Bray Literary Festival’s main events will unfold on September 25-27, 2020. The organisers have put together a very interesting and ambitious lineup of readings and presentations — all of them online this year, of course. The full program can be reviewed here. What’s more, those readings and presentations will be live-streamed on September 25-27 and can be attended virtually, by donation, from anywhere in the world. (Details in that regard can be found here). Do consider supporting the Bray Literary Festival by making a donation and then planning to log in. What better way to get a taste of what is going on these days at the leading edge of Irish literary culture?

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Early autumn of the year 2020 seems to be a time when readers are showing an increased interest in author interviews. Perhaps that should not surprise us as the coronavirus pandemic and its associated social distancing protocols limit the kind of in-person contact we all once took for granted. The talented and energetic Bill Arnott — poet, travel writer and all around writing guru — has for a while now been presenting a Showcase Interview series for his large online audience and it was P.W.’s honour and privilege to be chosen to participate in that series in mid-September. To see P.W.’s interview on Bill’s Artist Showcase Interview platform, click here.

And Jim Fisher at The Miramichi Reader kindly asked to reproduce P.W.’s interview on his interesting and popular website. (Who would ever say “no” to an opportunity like that?) So you can also find the interview posted there too, simply by clicking on this link. But please don’t stop at that. Check out the archives on Bill’s Artist Showcase platform for insights into the writing lives of numerous other poets, novelists and non-fiction writers; similarly, there is much fascinating content for readers and writers that ought not be missed on The Miramichi Reader website.

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The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast, has for some time now been publishing interviews of poets, fiction writers and academics involved in the literary arts alongside photographs of the rooms where they write. To see P.W.’s “Writer’s Rooms” interview, click here.

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Alarming lapses in the quality of care received by the elderly in long-term care facilities have been coming to light for years in Canada, in the UK and in many other countries. Of course, those of our parents’ generation deserve to have their daily living needs met by qualified and compassionate professionals and support staff in environments that are clean, safe and life-affirming. Alas, there has long been perceptible slippage in all of those areas, the more so as such facilities have come increasingly under the control of for-profit entities while, in turn, regulatory oversight has decreased. (A “perfect storm”, one might say.) In truth, the COVID-19 crisis in long-term care is, thus, just a much more extreme manifestation of a problem that has existed for far too long.

P.W.’s poem entitled “Care Home Apologia” — published in June 2020 in Crossways Literary Magazine — was written more than a year before the current pandemic first began to reveal itself. It responds, therefore, to concerns about the quality of care received by the elderly that pre-date the COVID-19 situation — problems that are now more plainly in view. You can read “Care Home Apologia” by clicking here.

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Tom Laichas is an American poet of immense talent. David Cooke’s outstanding, UK-based literary publishing house, The High Window Press, has just brought out Laichas’s first book of poems, entitled Empire of Eden. In this slim volume, the poet has reimagined and reconstituted the Judeo-Christian creation story and, indeed, wholly upended it. These poems make for heady reading. They are deep, dark, transgressive and unsettlingly brilliant. Laichas posits an account of what happened “in the beginning” that differs radically from what we learned when we were first introduced to the Book of Genesis at Sunday school or in shul. His poems will leave his readers pondering, reflecting, marvelling, questioning and returning to reread parts of Empire of Eden in search of an enhanced understanding of a disruptive, alternative cosmology. To see P.W.’s review (published in London Grip online on June 10, 2020), simply click on this link.

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What kinds of values do young children absorb as they grow up in the company of their parents? Do subtle messages received at an early age set the stage for attitudes of misogyny? or a crippling enslavement to consumerism? These are the questions raised by P.W.’s latest satirical, somewhat tongue-in-cheek poem to be published (on May 6, 2020) by England’s Culture Matters. To have a look, click here.

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P.W. is very pleased indeed to have his dyspeptic rant — a poem entitled “Howl YVR” — appear (as of May 3, 2020) in the online version of SAD Mag: an edgy, push-the-boundaries, National-Magazine-Award-winning print and electronic publication whose mandate is “to advance artis­tic accom­plish­ment via the pro­mo­tion of lit­er­acy, writ­ing, art, and pub­lic dis­course among emerg­ing cre­atives in Van­cou­ver.” SAD Mag has a young and energetic team of editors, artists and writers who, for the past 11 years, have (with great skill and artistry) been tackling subjects that are of interest and importance to a highly literate and aesthetically astute readership.

“Howl YVR” is expressly written “after” Allen Ginsberg’s monumental classic, Howl, but it is (of course) a good deal shorter. P.W.’s poem does indeed offer up a full-throated, Ginsberg-like rant, but with a more contemporary and localised focus. “Howl YVR” questions some of the excesses that characterise life in modern-day Vancouver, with particular emphasis upon the ways in which the ubiquitous use of the mobile phone has so markedly degraded standards of civility in day-to-day human interaction. The talented graphic artist, Ata Ojani, was chosen by the SAD Mag art directors to provide a clever, apt and perfectly executed illustration to accompany the poem.

If you are giving some thought to reading “Howl YVR,” and seeing Ata Ojani’s brilliant artwork that appears beneath it, be forewarned that some turbulence (and even a small soupçon of Ginsbergian vulgarity) lie ahead. So, if you’re game, do fasten your seatbelt, secure your tray table in the upright position, hold on tightly to your drink and then click here.

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The Idler is a lively, online Irish literary journal that publishes poetry, very short fiction and essays submitted by writers from around the world. Its editor, Barbara Clinton, matches up interesting and well-chosen images with every new piece she accepts for posting. The Idler had been on a brief hiatus recently but Ms. Clinton is back at it, receiving, considering and publishing new work.

Three poems by P.W. appeared in The Idler in late April, 2020. While this is its first outing, one of them — “Dream, Interrupted” — was long-listed for the Bantry, Co. Cork-based Fish Poetry Prize in 2018. The other two poems are entitled “The Sacred and the Profane” and “The Fox Fur Draped Over Mrs. Avery’s Shoulder“.

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If you are concerned (as, with respect, all of us should be) about the ways that the lessons of history are sometimes distorted to serve particular political ends, then Martin Malone’s book of poems, The Unreturning (Nottingham: Shoestring Press, 2019), is a book that you should consider reading without delay. The Unreturning trains a bright light upon the troubled historical record of the Great War, revealing — in brilliantly evocative, poetic language — the insidious ways in which that record has been shaped and reconstituted in modern times.

The centenary of the 1918 Armistice coincided, of course, with a significant increase in armed conflict across the globe. It also coincided with the dawning of the “Great Age of Untruth”. Given the marked upsurge of interest in WWI from and after 2018, we now must ask: how can the important lessons of the “war to end all wars” have been so easily forgotten? Can the explanation lie, at least in part, in the fact that that upsurge in interest has been matched by an upsurge in revisionism and spin? Malone very deftly exposes the disreputable messaging that has, in our modern times, often overtaken the hard truths of human combat (the “trench honesties” as he styles them). He brings war’s human costs back to the personal level, thus bringing its abject madness back into clear focus.

To see P.W.’s London Grip review of Malone’s exquisitely written, timely and consummately poetic treatment of this profoundly important subject, click here.

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Jerry Jazz Musician is an online American journal that is well known to those who, the world over, turn to literature and jazz for pleasure and who particularly appreciate the confluence of the two. Who could deny that jazz and certain kinds of poetry are near to inseparable in some precincts of American culture? Ferlinghetti’s own reading of “Autobiography“, for example, cannot properly be appreciated without the live jazz that surges intermittently in the background of the definitive recording. So it is, too, with Ginsberg’s reading of “Refrain“. After hearing that poem with the languid and hypnotic playing of Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot sounding melodically behind it, there is simply no going back. (Indeed, all of the pieces on the Ginsberg album where “Refrain” appears, The Lion for Real, are deserving your attention. Prepare, though, for some trademark Ginsberg ribaldry!)

Jerry Jazz Musician — for which we have the expansively knowledgeable Joe Maita to thank — has been feeding the jazz/poetry/fiction/interview appetites of many since the 1990s, and very ably too. Nat Hentoff, the late and much missed editor of Downbeat Magazine, was unstinting in his accolades when he said:

“Of the jazz websites I visit, the most far-ranging — and therefore, most often surprising — is Jerry Jazz Musician… The site encompasses what could be called American civilization with jazz as the centerpiece.” 

High praise from a vaunted source! The site’s name, amusingly, comes from the use of “Jerry Jazz Musician” as a phrase meant to convey all things hip and cool. It appears at minute 1:10 in “Unhappy Childhood,” one of Woody Allen’s best comedy routines. That clever recording dates back to 1964 — a happier time in many ways for him, in fact, and indeed for us all.

P.W.’s “Kind of Blue (Found Poems)” — a suite of five poems inspired by the five tracks on the iconic Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue — was published on on Jerry Jazz Musician on March 28, 2020. You can see it by clicking here.

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Ekphrastic poetry — poetry that takes its inspiration from visual art, that is — has increasingly become a focus in P.W.’s writing life. He has several ekphrastic pieces “out there” at present under consideration by various poetry journals and online publications. Time will tell what becomes of them.

One of P.W.’s ekphrastic pieces, however, has just appeared (on March 26, 2020) in the much-celebrated online journal, The Ekphrastic Review. The poem responds primarily to an extraordinary painting by the recently deceased Canadian painter, Gordon Smith, and stands in effect as P.W.’s tribute to Smith and his art. (Artemisia Gentileschi’s disturbing 1610 work, “Judith Beheading Holofernes”, also figures in the poem.)

The Smith painting — cryptically entitled “Painting #5 (1994)” — is one of several in Smith’s Black Paintings series. These are dark and moody works which invoke the painter’s traumatic experiences as a soldier in the Canadian Army during WWII. Smith was, in fact, wounded in action and (remarkably) some of the works in the Black Paintings series make use of fabric from Smith’s own soldier’s kit in place of conventional canvases.

In 2012, art historian and academic Robert Enright wrote an excellent article in BorderCrossings about Gordon Smith’s extraordinary talent and contribution, all in connection with an exhibition of the artist’s work mounted then by the Equinox Gallery in Vancouver. Mention is made in the article of, among others, “Painting #5 (1994)”. P.W. is indebted to Robert who was instrumental in assisting him in obtaining permission from the warm and obliging Sophie Brodovich, director of the Equinox Gallery, to make use of an image of the painting to accompany the poem.

P.W.’s ekphrastic poem and the images that inspired it, now up on The Ekphrastic Review website, can be found by clicking here.

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Two positive and encouraging reviews of P.W.’s book of poems entitled A Lamb (Ekstasis Editions, 2018) have been published a few days apart in March, 2020. Both were authored by reviewers who are talented poets in their own right. The first to appear showed up in the Advocate, a legal journal received by (among others) all practising lawyers in British Columbia. Daniel Cowper penned that one. The second surfaced in the Pacific Rim Review of Books, a much respected literary publication, and it was authored by John Swanson. Daniel Cowper and John Swanson each published their own books of poetry in 2019, both to great critical acclaim. Daniel’s new title is entitled Grotesque Tenderness, while John’s book bears the title, an almost hand, beckoning.

For excerpts of the Cowper and Swanson reviews of A Lamb, and links to both reviews in their entirety, visit the Critical Reception/Reviews subpage on this website.

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Culture Matters is a politically progressive British website devoted to promoting arts and culture. It publishes a wide range of content, including fiction and poetry. In describing its mission, Culture Matters explains that its readers have “…a right to freely access the co-created culture that is our common property. In our class-divided society, our cultural commons is under threat in many ways, and we need to learn how to defend it and enhance it, for the common good.” There is a healthy appetite for satire at Culture Matters and P.W. was happy to feed it with a poem that lampoons the recent Brexit campaign and some of the more insular, xenophobic rhetoric adopted by bellicose proponents of the “leave” option. (It will be obvious that P.W. has no sympathy for the biases and prejudices that are satirised in his contribution dated March 2, 2020.)

P.W.’s poem, entitled “Brexit Music,” is expressly written “after” Louis MacNeice’s famous poem, “Bagpipe Music”. To read P.W.’s send-up of some dispiriting “leave” campaign bigotry, you can click on this link.

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Allen Mendenhall is the associate dean of law at Faulkner University in Montgomery Alabama. He has impressive credentials in both law and English literature and one of his scholarly interests is the intersection between legal and literary subject matter. His website, named The Literary Lawyer, publishes creative and academic works that reflect that scholarly interest.

P.W.’s glosa, entitled “Saint Stephen,” was published by The Literary Lawyer on February 26, 2020. The glosa is an ancient poetic form that originated in Spain. Its revival in modern times is largely attributable to the late, much-missed and much-venerated Canadian poet P.K. Page. For inspiration, P.W.’s “Saint Stephen” draws its cabeza, perhaps unexpectedly, from four lines found in the Grateful Dead’s song of the same name. You can read P.W.’s glosa by clicking here.

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Leslie Timmins is a talented Vancouver poet whose first full collection, entitled Every Shameless Ray, was recently released by Ontario publisher, Inanna Publications.

P.W. had the privilege and pleasure of reviewing Every Shameless Ray in The Ormsby Review in January 2020. To read his positive assessment of Timmins’ “tenebrous and illuminating” poetic writing, click on this link.

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Can there be any doubt that Marilyn Bowering is one of British Columbia’s, no Canada’s, strongest poetic voices? Her latest collection — entitled What is Long Past Occurs in Full Light — is full of her emblematic chiaroscuro. So much texture, so much subtlety, so much insight. To read P.W.’s review of What is Long Past in The Ormsby Review, click here.

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“You Have a Visitor, Sir” is one of P.W.’s poems that has a period feel. Some have suggested that its oblique narrative arc and dark undercurrents hint vaguely at something sinister in a way reminiscent of some of the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. The poem has just been published in the Winter 2019 issue of the excellent English poetry journal, The High Window. You can form your own impressions of “You Have a Visitor, Sir” by clicking here.

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In his flash fiction story, entitled “Legacy Journalism Fails Him Again,” P.W. seized an opportunity to explore some favourite tropes. One of them is the way that hand-held devices increasingly isolate their users from the “real world” (whatever that is).

Another is the modern preoccupation with personal wealth and comfort (and the blindness to the fates of the marginalised and disadvantaged that often accompanies that preoccupation). And then there is the way that social media platforms pander to an appetite for details about what is unfolding in the world that don’t matter and so often disregard the details that do. Aaaackk. “Legacy Journalism Fails Him Again” pulls all of those strands together in a 250-word flash fiction story. The piece didn’t place in a recent competition run by Reflex Fiction, a U.K.-based online zine that publishes some great writing. However, the editors there liked the story well enough to publish it anyway. You can read “Legacy Journalism Fails Him Again” by clicking on this link.

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Are you curious to know what poetic gifts are possessed by the AI in your mobile? If so, check out P.W.’s frothy little piece entitled “The Ghost in the Machine: Irish Poetry Reimagined by the iPhone.” It was published in The Galway Review in October 2019 and you can access it here.

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Some of P.W.’s previously published poems have recently been reprinted in the Canadian Poetry Review. This is happy news. Reaching more readers is always a good thing. Specifically, the dark and brooding “No Writers Were Harmed in the Making of this Whiskey” — which first appeared in the Glasgow Review of Books and then later in P.W.s first collection, A Lamb — can now be found in the online version of the Canadian Poetry Review here. Beyond that, the poems “Not the Way a Bullet Leaves a Gun” and “Mr. Low-Hanging Fruit Makes His Will” — both of which first appeared in A Lamb — were reprinted in the hard copy edition of Canadian Poetry Review, a pdf of which can be reviewed if you click on this link.

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Canadian poet and novelist, Catherine Graham, has penned the most powerful book of poems on the subject of cancer that P.W. has yet encountered. Its title is The Celery Forest and the volume was released recently under the Buckrider imprint of Ontario publisher Wolsak & Wynn. The Celery Forest, of course, traverses well-travelled territory where “[t]he pitfalls and hazards are legion and well-known. One need only turn to the obituary pages in one’s newspaper to be reminded of how, when aiming to do justice to mortality and the profundity of loss, recourse to cliché, other tired forms of expression and sentimental excesses can mar the efforts of kindly, well-meaning and plainly stricken people.” Catherine Graham’s writing in The Celery Forest reveals no such missteps. Indeed, it is a subtle and nuanced tour de force. To read P.W.’s review of the book published in the Glasgow Review of Books, click on this link.

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Mention was made below of the fact that P.W.’s poem, entitled “A Family Gathers,” was forthcoming in The Bangor Literary Review. (This poem also received an honourable mention in the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s Write On! competition.) The poem is now accessible online by clicking here and scrolling down to pages 96-97. But, do pause along the way to savour the excellent poetry and fiction contributed to that issue of The Bangor Literary Review by other fine writers.

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Gary Allen’s poetry, like Anakana Schofield’s fiction, frequently requires the reader to spend time in the company of central characters who are marginalised and outwardly unsympathetic. Allen’s latest title, Sour Hill, follows that familiar pattern but, as P.W. notes in his review recently published in London Grip, the effort will be rewarded for those who press ahead and immerse themselves fully in Sour Hill‘s challenging content despite initial misgivings. You can find P.W.’s review of the book-length poem by clicking here.

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Add this to the many kind and laudatory things that can be fairly said about the wonderful poets, academics and administrative staff at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast: they are stunningly, gratifyingly and endlessly encouraging and supportive of their summer writing school alumni! Here’s proof positive of that, in the form of a recent Twitter post:

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P.W. is honoured to have been invited — alongside poets John Swanson, Helen Gowans and Mala Rupnarain, and musician Michael Averill (what a talented lot!) — to participate in the launch of Bill Arnott’s latest non-fiction travel title, Gone Viking, on August 21, 2019. The event details appear in the poster below:

Bill Arnott is a poet and writer of great and diverse ability and talent. Beyond crafting his own original work, he teaches at SFU’s continuing studies program, is a member of the Poets Corner team and writes a column entitled “Poetry Beat” that is published by the League of Canadian Poets and the Federation of British Columbia Writers. Gone Viking has recently (and justly) been named a finalist for a 2019 Whistler Independent Book Award. Its launch promises to be an enjoyable event and visitors to this webpage are strongly encouraged to turn out for it.

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July was a great month for radio exposure. Apart from appearing on CBC Radio One’s celebrated North by Northwest program with host Sheryl MacKay earlier in the week, on July 31, 2019, P.W. was also interviewed by RC Weslowski on Vancouver Co-op Radio’s lively Wax Poetic program.

RC posed some wide-ranging and penetrating questions and the half-hour session provided opportunities for P.W. to read and discuss a new poem — “Care Home Apologia” — as well as “Bill and Ben, Flowerpot Men” from A Lamb.

A link to the Vancouver Co-op Radio archival recording of the interview can be found here. The actual interview begins at 3:58.

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The warm and talented Sheryl MacKay — host of the CBC’s outstanding weekend Radio One program North by Northwest — has long shown an unwavering commitment to giving exposure to British Columbia’s established and emerging poets.

This year she has been featuring a B.C. poet on her show virtually every week. On July 21, 2019, North by Northwest broadcast Sheryl’s searching interview of P.W. in which the discussion touched on, among other things, the recent publication of his book of poetry entitled A Lamb. Also included is a reading of the poem, “Door Into the Light: August 1973,” which is an in memoriam tribute to P.W.’s father. You can listen to the entire North by Northwest program for July 21st by clicking here. The interview with P.W. begins at 54:32.

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Word has come in that P.W.’s poem, “A Family Gathers,” will appear in issue no. 9 of The Bangor Literary Journal. (That previously unpublished poem received Honourable Mention earlier this year in the Royal City Literary and Arts Society’s 2019 “Write On” competition.) Issue 9 of the BLJ will appear in August and news from the journal’s editor Amy Wyatt (aka Amy Rafferty) — a poet of exceptional talent herself — came with an invitation “…to come along and read your piece at the launch of the journal, which takes place at The Blackberry Path Art Studios, 26 Gray’s Hill, Bangor, Co Down, NI… on Sunday 18th August 1-3pm.” Alas, P.W. will not be travelling in Northern Ireland this summer, having just returned from over a month in France, Italy and The Netherlands. Thus, he must decline that gracious invitation. However, numerous other contributors to issue no. 9 will be present and P.W.’s friends and readers in N.I., elsewhere in the UK and Ireland who visit this website from time to time are encouraged to attend if at all possible and support the BLJ in its outstanding work. As noted, there will be much fine poetry on offer at the launch, presented in a beautiful gallery setting, and refreshments and a light buffet will also be available.

To see a brief video of Amy Wyatt reading her wonderful poem, “Lemons” — which was justly shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing in 2018 — all you need to do is click here.

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John Swanson is a supremely talented Vancouver poet and photographer and his long-awaited book, an almost hand, beckoning,has just been released by Blurb Books of San Francisco. You may read P.W.’s enthusiastic review of an almost hand, beckoning, just published in The Ormsby Review, by clicking on this link.

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How very gratifying to receive an encouraging “short form shout-out” — a brief review, in effect — of A Lamb from Jami Macarty at The Maynard on that estimable literary magazine’s Twitter feed! Among other things, Jami commented that “To read this poet’s alchemical poems is to hear them, as one hears live, improvisational theater; so imbued are they with scene, character, accent, and idiom.” Have a look at the entire assessment by clicking here.

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Having one’s work accepted by The High Window — one of England’s most highly respected literary outlets — is always a great honour and so when word came in this month that P.W.’s poem, “You Have a Visitor, Sir,” will appear in THW‘s Winter 2019 issue, a mini-celebration ensued. Once the poem is published, notice of that will be given here under the “Recent Developments” heading. In the meantime, take a leisurely wander through the brilliant content that is currently accessible in THW by clicking on this link. Do pause to savour, especially, the poetry offerings of the late Fr. Michael McCarthy and Abegail Morley. The writings of both in the Summer 2019 issue will send chills up the spine. As well, take a moment to have a look here at the thoughtful and appreciative review of THW co-editor David Cooke’s new poetry title, Reel to Reel, that appeared recently in London Grip.

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With retirement looming in September 2019, P.W. has — after an occasionally interrupted hiatus of more than 12 years — started to become more active again as a writer of reviews of literary titles.

For his take on Michael Bartholomew-Biggs’ clever and brilliantly executed murder mystery entitled Poems on the Case (which, intriguingly, is written in both prose and verse!), click here. And for P.W.’s assessment of Everything Can Happen — an intelligent new anthology of poems written predominantly by English and Irish poets on the subject of the future — click on this link. Both reviews were published in London Grip in May 2019.

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P.W. was gratified to receive notification recently that his poem entitled “A Family Gathers” received an Honourable Mention in the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s 2019 “Write On!” competition. Congratulations are due to winners Meg Stainsby, Carlie Bloom and Chelsea Comeau, as well as fellow Honourable Mention recipient Fran Bourassa.

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The reviews of P.W.’s first book of poetry, entitled A Lamb, are now rolling in more regularly. The outlet this time was The Ormsby Review and the reviewer was David Stouck — emeritus professor of English at Simon Fraser University and author of, among other titles, Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life. That brilliant Erickson biography was shortlisted for six literary awards including the RBC Taylor Prize. It won four: two BC Book prizes named for Hubert Evans and Roderick Haig-Brown, UBC Library’s Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia and the City of Vancouver Book Award.

Mr. Stouck has offered up a generous appraisal of A Lamb, commenting upon (among other things) “the visual thrill of language, the interplay of many voices (especially including those from the working class), and an ironic authorial perspective that renders the simple as something complex…”. Overall (and gratifyingly) he pronounced A Lamb “a remarkable collection of contemporary poetry that encompasses the now and the before…”. See the entirety of Mr. Stouck’s review of A Lamb in The Ormsby Review by clicking here.

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The accomplished and widely published B.C. poet Bill Arnott has written a lively and positive assessment of A Lamb in Canadian Poetry Review. His generous comments include the following: “A Lamb not only welcomes us into the author’s realm, but props open the door to his secret citadel. Bridgman’s musicality and romance language fluency come through in meter, tempo and an umami-esque richness in each lyrical line. His narrative style can seamlessly deliver razor wit…”. To see the entire piece in Canadian Poetry Review, click on this link.

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It was P.W.’s immense pleasure to share the feature readers’ podium at Poets Corner on March 20, 2019 with his great friend and mentor, George McWhirter. As always, Poets Corner convened at Massy Books, one of Vancouver’s leading independent new and secondhand bookstores. Patricia Massy is a dedicated supporter of the literary arts in this city and her incredibly well-stocked shop and gallery is host to more book launches and literary events than any other, by far. Poets Corner, in turn, is — thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the discerning and insightful James Felton and his team — arguably the best-organised and highly respected poetry reading series in Vancouver.

George’s readings on March 20th were particularly strong. It was an honour and a privilege for P.W. to serve as the supporting act for George who, among other things, is a Commonwealth Poetry Prize winner, the former Poet Laureate of Vancouver and a friend and university classmate of the late and much-missed Seamus Heaney. Altogether it was a lively and well-attended gathering on March 20th with — as always — an inspiring group of talented open mic readers on hand to start off the evening. The banter and Q&As after the main readings were thought provoking indeed!

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The first review of A Lamb has at last come in and it offers an encouragingly positive assessment. The review was penned by established English poet Thomas Ovans and appeared in March 2019 in London Grip, a UK-based “online venue, a cultural omnibus providing intelligent reviews of current shows and events, well-argued articles on the widest range of topics, an exhibition space for cross-media arts and an in-house poetry magazine with its own editor.” Mr. Ovans observes, among other things, that “In these relatively long poems Bridgman tells stories, sets scenes and develops ideas, often using quite plain language but most imaginatively put together in many varieties of free verse.” To read the whole review, click here.

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P.W. was grateful for the warm reception he received as one of two featured readers at the Spotlight session of the Victoria chapter of the Canadian Authors Association held on February 19, 2019.

Leila Kulpas was the other featured author on the program for the evening and she gave a very compelling reading from her recently published autobiography, Into the Eyes of the Hungry. The focus for the February 19th session was short fiction so P.W. read passages from some of the stories found in his 2013 title, Standing at an Angle to My Age, as well as from some more recent work. Hats must be tipped to the hospitable CAA team in Victoria, as well as the appreciative audience and the warmly welcoming staff at Caffè Fantastico.

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Every December the Glasgow Review of Books invites those who have published original fiction or poetry in its pages to contribute a “Reads of the Year” year-end summary of their most highly-recommended fiction, non-fiction and poetry titles. This year, the books that P.W. chose to enthuse about are Jonathan Tulloch’s wry, clever and exceptionally droll Larkinland (Bridgend: Seren, 2017) and Mark L. Winston and Renee Sarojini Saklikar’s informative and inspiring Listening to the Bees (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2018). To read P.W.’s take on both of these memorable books, follow this link to the Glasgow Review of Books webpage.

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P.W. submitted the winning entry in the all-age English language category for the Edinburgh-based Scottish Book Trust’s 50-Word Fiction Competition for November, 2018. The rules required that submitted stories be set at a music festival. You can read P.W.’s winning story by clicking here and scrolling down the “previous winners” page to the November 2018 entries.

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The Honest Ulsterman — that marvellous, Derry-based literary journal with the much-storied history — has published in its October, 2018, issue an in-depth interview of P.W. by Vancouver’s own Anne E. Giardini.

You may read the interview online by clicking on this link. And, while visiting the October issue of The Honest Ulsterman, be sure to take some time with the many fine poems, stories, interviews and the like to be found there. Your attention is drawn particularly to the piece on P.W.’s fellow Ekstasis Editions author Gregory J. Dunne (click here), Bangor Literary Journal founder and editor Amy Louise Wyatt’s exquisitely elegiac poem, “Memory Box” (click here) and Milena Williamson’s artful poetic response, entitled “Summation of an Infinite Series,” to Seamus Heaney’s poem, “Postscript” (click here).

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P.W. is honoured to have had his short story, “The Four-faced Liar,” published by the much-respected Irish literary journal, The Galway Review. With just shy of 400,000 online readers from all around the world, the GR is a significant print and online presence in contemporary fiction and poetry. Having chosen The Four-faced Liar and Other Stories as the provisional title for his next book of sort fiction (which is almost ready to be circulated to interested publishers), P.W. is pleased to have had the lead story in his current work-in-progress accepted in such a prestigious and widely read literary magazine. You can read “The Four-faced Liar” online by clicking here.

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Be there or be square! The Vancouver launch of P.W.’s new book of poems — A Lamb — will take place at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre (the “Cultch”) on Sunday, November 25, 2018 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. There will be readings. There will be signings. There will be refreshments. There will be merriment! Mark your calendars. The Cultch is located at 1895 Venables Street (at the corner of Victoria Drive) in uber-Bohemian East Van. West-siders have no fear! No shots are required before crossing over Main Street.

Here’s an electronic version of the Vancouver launch poster. (Click once or twice on it to improve legibility.)

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More on the subject of P.W.’s just-published volume of poems entitled A Lamb (Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2018). On September 20, 2018,his very generous friends and mentors at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast (“SHC”) provided some welcome exposure for A Lamb through the Centre’s social media channels. That is, SHC made mention of the publication of A Lamb on both its Twitter and Facebook feeds that day. Such postings can soon be difficult to find as time marches on. Therefore, readers wishing to see the SHC tweet announcing the publication of A Lamb will be taken to it directly by clicking here. A screen grab of the other posting — that is, the SHC Facebook announcement — is reproduced below.

The image of the Facebook posting will become perfectly legible if you enlarge it by clicking on it twice. P.W.’s enthusiastic thanks go out to Rachel Brown, coordinator at SHC, and all of the other fine people there — most especially the overwhelmingly talented SHC Fellow, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, for being such a kind, exacting and supportive mentor and teacher.

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Like a much-anticipated second child who finally emerges from the delivery room healthy and with all fingers and toes accounted for, P.W.’s second book at last (on September 10, 2018) rolled off the presses at Ekstasis Editions. Entitled A Lamb, this new volume of mostly narrative poetry can now take its rightful place on the bookshelf alongside P.W.’s first book (a selection of short fiction published in 2013 entitled Standing at an Angle to My Age).

P.W. is especially pleased to have A Lamb appear under the colophon of the highly respected literary publisher, Ekstasis Editions. Ekstasis has been a prominent feature of Canada’s literary landscape for decades. Commencing in 1982 it has brought out more than 350 titles, beginning with editor-in-chief Richard Olafson’s Blood of the Moon,nowa Canadian classic. Included among the many fine authors whose poetry has been published by Ekstasis are bill bissett, Michael Bullock, Leslie Choyce, Gwladys Downes, Jan Drabek, Margaret Dyment, Len Gasparini, Stephen Guppy, Gillian Harding-Russell, Cornelia Hornosty, Eileen Kernaghan, Susan McCaslin, Nellie McClung, Michael McClure, Florence McNeil, Sue Nevill, P.K. Page, Andrew Parkin, Linda Rogers, Steven Scobie, Bruce Serafin, Robin Skelton, K.V. Skene, Glen Sorestad, Richard Stevenson, Pete Trower, David Watmough and Carolyn Zonailo.

Watch this space, and the “Upcoming Events” page on this website, for updates regarding launches, readings and other activities surrounding the publication of A Lamb.

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P.W.’s poem, “Still Life with Traces of Movement: St. John’s Wood, 1931,” has been published by The High Window in its Issue No. 11 (Autumn, 2018). You can find it by clicking here and then clicking again on the “P.W. Bridgman” link.

The High Window Press is the publisher not only of its eponymous literary review but also of many collections and selections of work by some of Britain’s most respected modern poets, including editors David Cooke and Anthony Costello themselves. David Cooke’s heartfelt, and unsentimental, tribute to Seamus Heaney (written in 2013 following Heaney’s death) is one of the best yet seen. You can read and savour the tribute yourself by clicking here. Titles forthcoming from The High Window Press include James W. Wood’s Building the Kingdom: New and Selected Poems, due in 2019. James W. Wood is an expatriate Scot who now lives near Vancouver (on Bowen Island) and whose reputation as a poet and literary critic of considerable talent and accomplishments is well-deserved.

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On May 15, 2018, the winners, those on the short list and those on the long list for this year’s Fish Poetry Prize were announced.

Congratulations to Janet Murray of Sheffield, England, whose poem “Vernacular Green” was the winning entry. P.W.’s poem, “Dream, Interrupted,” made the 2018 long list. The judge of the poetry competition was Ellen Bass — author of, among other titles, Like a Beggar, published in 2014 by Copper Canyon Press. Her predecessor judges in previous years include Billy Collins, Brian Turner, Leanne O’Sullivan, Michael McCarthy, Peter Fallon, Matthew Sweeney, Paul Durcan, Ruth Padel, Nick Laird and Jo Shapcott. The Fish Prizes are administered by Fish Publishing of Bantry, Co. Cork and an anthology of the winners and finalist poems, short stories and flash fiction entries is published each year.

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The Bangor Literary Journal is a fast-rising new presence on the literary scene in Northern Ireland and it is making great strides in giving exposure to the work of both established and emerging writers from N.I. and around the world. The journal features intriguing fiction, poetry and artwork. P.W. is pleased to have had another poem accepted and now published in its second issue.

The poem’s title is “The Things He Grasped with Both Hands (A Lamentation in Thirty-six Bars)” and can be viewed online by clicking here and then scrolling down to page 50. But please, don’t stop there. There’s a whole lot of good reading to savour in this second issue, including a great feature interview with, and several poems by, Colin Dardis (at pages 29 to 35) and a lovely, wistful poem called “Plugging Gaps” by Amy Louise Wyatt — one of the journal’s editors — that makes use of gentle repetition to produce a most pleasing effect. You will find that one at page 69.

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The RIC Journal is published simultaneously in Jaipur and Paris. It is truly an eclectic outlet for creative literary content from India, France and around the world. It publishes poetry, to be sure. But the categories of what appears in its online pages are open and far from conventional. They include “Iconotopsies”–dissections and analyses of art objects and their histories–as well as dreams, impressions and the like. There is a category of content identified as “Apocrypha,” involving interviews with, or “new” writings by, people of note or reputation who have long been dead. At the time of writing, the most current of these include a poem by the experimental Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector (who wrote no poetry) and a bizarre and surreal interview with Eva Braun. P.W. has managed to storm the RIC Journal‘s avant garde ramparts with a love poem entitled “Living With Me Now in Green Dolphin Street.” You can see it here by clicking on this link.

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Now comes a “recent development” that truly stands out. It may even call for celebration. Later this year Ekstasis Editions–one of Canada’s most well-established and respected publishers of poetry and literary fiction–will publish P.W.’s first book of poems, entitled A Lamb.

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P.W.’s poem, “We Strive to Dismiss Their Prejudices with Good Humour (A Lamentation in 7/4 Time)”, was recently shortlisted in the Federation of British Columbia Writers 2018 Literary Writes Poetry Competition. The competition was judged by distinguished Victoria-based poet, Patricia Young, and first prize was awarded to Barbara Black, a very accomplished poet and musician. Congratulations, Barbara.

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The Bangor Literary Journal has accepted P.W.’s poems “Don’t Touch that Dame” and “Not the Way a Bullet Leaves a Gun” for publication in its inaugural issue.

This new literary review originates (nor surprisingly) from Bangor, not far from Belfast, and the inaugural issue (which, fittingly, has a “firsts” theme) appeared online on February 28th. That issue and its contents can be accessed by clicking on this link.

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The last time P.W. had a story appear in The Antigonish Review was in (can it be?) … 1992. Its title was “So and Not Otherwise” and the story was also included in his book of short fiction, Standing at an Angle to My Age, released in 2013.

The Antigonish Review (which is administered through the English Department at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia) has published P.W.’s somewhat surreal story/prose poem “Sinking and Surfacing.” You can find it in issue 193 (Spring 2018).

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As happened last year, the fine people at the Glasgow Review of Books have asked their contributors of original fiction and poetry to pen personal, year-end reviews of the titles that, for them, truly stood out in 2017. By clicking on this link you can read an appreciation of two new works of fiction plus a collection of poetry from an earlier time that P.W. chose to discuss in his GRB “Reads of the Year, 2017” contribution. The featured authors are Vancouver short story writer and novelist Cynthia Flood (What Can You Do), Glasgow-based short story writer and novelist Bernard MacLaverty (Midwinter Break) and deceased Italian poet and novelist Umberto Saba (The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba).

But don’t stop there! Other GRB contributors’ “Reads of the Year” pieces make for lively reading in and of themselves; they also provide some very helpful suggestions about what might be snapped up during the January sales to ensure that reading for pleasure in 2018 starts off agreeably.

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Every Friday, literary jack-of-all-trades (and master of many) David Fraser publishes online–under the Ascent Aspirations Magazine imprint–a handful of “Friday Poems” by contributors from all over the world. The writing is always accompanied by interesting and evocative original artwork. P.W.’s poem, “Meat, Bread and Open Mic: Soho 2013”–which offers a quirky little New York vignette–was the Friday Poem published on Friday (of course), February 2, 2018. You can read “Meat, Bread and Open Mic…” by clicking here and scrolling slowly down to the “Friday Poem” posted on February 2nd. (But be sure to read all the other great “Friday Poems” on the way!)

If you would like to have fresh new poetry and visual art delivered like a cappuccino and hot croissant to your computer screen every Friday, it is dead easy to subscribe to Friday Poems. Just scroll down to the “Subscribe” feature at bottom of the page to which this link will take you.

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Cheery news has just come in from poet and retired computational mathematician, Michael Bartholomew-Biggs, the genial poetry editor of London Grip. He writes to say that hehas chosen P.W.’s poem about mean boys, entitled “Lych Gate and Yews: A Tableau Vivant”, for inclusion in London Grip’s March 2018 issue. The March issue, somewhat unusually, features longer poems. You can read P.W.’s poem by clicking on this link.

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Seattle-based Pif Magazine published P.W.’s flash fiction piece entitled “Visitations” in its October 2017 issue. You can read “Visitations” by clicking here. But wait. There’s more. Pif has also published P.W.’s poem, “Jim Begins to Consider Himself (A Performance in Ten Degrees)”, in its November 2017 issue. You can see that poem here.

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There can be few more storied Irish literary periodicals than The Honest Ulsterman. Its first issue was released in 1968. James Simmons was the editor.

Simmons — a splendid poet and sometime professor of English — was succeeded by Frank Ormsby and a host of Northern Ireland’s brightest lights. Alas, The Honest Ulsterman is no longer published in print but it still has a stimulating and lively presence online at www.humag.co where it is edited masterfully by Greg McCartney. The following description of the periodical’s history comes from the announcement, in 2014, of its online revival, under Dr. McCartney’s steady editorial hand, in collaboration with the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry:

From its beginnings HU has presented Northern Irish writers alongside poets, prose-writers and critics from around the world. Early issues included work by Stevie Smith and Tony Harrison, as well as by Gavin Ewart, who continued to contribute until his death. It went on to include work from all parts of Ireland and Britain, the USA and Canada, Australia and many other places. Its beginning coincided with the emergence of a remarkable generation of poets, including Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon, but it also provided an early, often the first, platform for subsequent waves of writers such as Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Medbh McGuckian, and numerous others.

The June, 2017, issue of The Honest Ulsterman includes P.W.’s poem, “Out of the Bar and Into the Black Belfast Night.” You can have a look, here. While you’re at it, take some time to read some of the other great fiction and poetry in the June issue. And don’t miss Greg McCartney’s thoughtful interview with Jacob Polley. Jacob’s brilliant fourth book, Jackself, was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2016 — most deserving recognition. That interview can be accessed by clicking on this link.

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Easy Street, the outstanding American online “magazine of words and culture,” has published a gratifyingly insightful review of P.W.’s short story collection, Standing at an Angle to My Age.

It is plain that the reviewer, Angela Kubinec, has thought deeply about the stories. In a lyrically written review, she has integrated her responses to them with certain aspects of her own life experience that the stories have evoked. You can read the review here.

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Vol. 12, no. 1 (2017) of Ars Medica is now available online. Ars Medica is subtitled A Journal of Medicine, the Arts and Humanities and it publishes literary fiction, nonfiction and poetry that confront the intersection of those diverse, but nevertheless related, callings.

P.W.’s poem, entitled “Consent to Orchidectomy,” appears at pp. 46-49. You can read it (and, indeed, all of the contents of that issue of Ars Medica) by clicking here. We know that like all fallible humans, physicians sometimes stumble and “Consent to Orchidectomy” considers an example of that. It is greatly to the credit of the editors of Ars Medica that they were willing to publish a poem that deals with the occasional failings of members of the medical profession. It is through open discussion of uncomfortable topics that we learn.

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P.W. is happy to have his poem, entitled “Time’s Forward Gear,” published in the spring 2017 issue of the Austrian print journal, Poetry Salzburg Review.

The PSR is an English language publication edited by Dr. Wolfgang Gortschacher with a wide, international readership and a diverse stable of established and emerging contributors. Among those appearing with P.W. in the current issue are 2016 Forward-Prize-winning, Trinidadian-born poet Vahni Capildeo and M. Stasiak, an ex-pat Canadian now living in London.

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P.W. extends his thanks to the great writers, poets and spectators who showed him such a warm welcome at the “To the End of the Verse” reading series in Melbourne, Australia. As happens monthly, a number of poets and spoken word artists gathered on March 21st to read from their recent writing at The Open Studio, 204 High Street, Northcote. The quality of the work was remarkably high. Perhaps most memorable of the evening’s lineup were Monster Mike (whose offerings included an extraordinary rendition of “Waltzing Matilda” in the style of Tom Waits), and Yuri (whose lively, energetic and articulate reading was positively hypnotic). Australia (Melbourne particularly) is blessed with a very vibrant and creative literary culture.

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Watch for a couple of poems by P.W. that have just appeared in Easy Street (“Low Horse on a High Road: Variation on a Theme by Gershwin” and “At the Corner of Triumph and Pandora”). These complete P.W.’s Julian Capstick trilogy, the first of which–entitled “Single Helix”–appeared in Easy Street in April, 2016.

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The editors of the Glasgow Review of Books kindly invited P.W., along with other contributors of poetry and fiction to the GRB‘s pages over the past year, to offer up their “good reads” for 2016. P.W. chose to celebrate poetry recently published by Karen Solie, short stories recently published by Colin Barrett and an old chestnut of a book of poems by George MacBeth released in the late 1960s. If you’re minded to see what lifted P.W.’s literary spirits in an otherwise rather dispiriting year, click here.

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P.W.’s poem, “Somebody Shot President Kinney,” was chosen as a Friday Poem by David Fraser for publication on his Ascent Aspirations literary website for Friday, November 18, 2016. To read that remembrance of the Kennedy assassination, as refracted through perplexed younger and older eyes, scroll down within the archived Friday Poems for 2016 on the Ascent Aspirations website (by clicking here) until you reach the entry for November 18th.

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On October 12, 2016, P.W.’s short story entitled “No Writers Were Harmed in the Making of this Whiskey” was published by the Glasgow Review of Books. You can see it by clicking here.

Set in a small village in Northern Ireland, “No Writers …” is a dark meditation on human fallibility and its sometimes tragic consequences. The appearance of the story in the Glasgow Review of Books‘pages is accompanied by an extraordinary image by world-renowned photographer and Emily Carr University of Art and Design professor, Art Perry.

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On October 6, 2016 (National Poetry Day no less!), the online American literary journal,Praxis Magazine, published P.W.’s poem, “I’ve Asked the IscariotsOver for Potluck and a Game of Bridge.” The poem vaults biblical characters forward in time to the 1960s and recasts them, with a frisson of mildly irreverent humour, as ordinary, plainspoken folk in small town Canada.

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P.W. is honoured to have had his story, “But No, Nothing,” chosen as the feature podcast for International Podcast Day (September 30th) on Wisconsin-based Bob’s Short Story Hour. Robert (or Bob) Daun is the creative force behind the podcast site (accessible by clicking here). Bob has an abiding love for the short story form and for storytelling. He has a particular love for the oral tradition and he recognises that the experience of hearing a story told well is qualitatively different from that of reading one. Thus, about a year ago he created Bob’s Short Story Hour. Since then he has put up podcasts of many short stories by many writers on his site, accompanied sometimes by incidental music by Bob and others. (Bob is also a very skilled guitarist.) Bob’s Short Story Hour opens a different kind of window onto short fiction–some from the classics but much more written by contemporary writers hailing from many places. If you are looking for a restful evening’s literary entertainment, or perhaps for something diverting to play via Bluetooth through the audio system in the car on a long drive, dial in Bob’s Short Story Hour and give it a listen. New short stories appear regularly and there is an archive of everything posted since the site’s inception that you can tap into.

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Section 8 Magazine, a print and electronic journal based in Seattle, has published in its online version a short story by P.W. entitled “Smothered Mate”. Section 8 Magazine has previously published a flash fiction piece of P.W.’s entitled “Indirection”.

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The American literary e-zine, Easy Street, “provides writers a venue to discuss the publishing industry, to showcase their own work, and to share viewpoints on diverse aspects of contemporary life and culture”. It is chock full of high-quality fiction, non-fiction, poetry and commentary. P.W.’s dark and moody poem, “Single Helix,” was published by Easy Street at the end of April, 2016, and can be accessed via this link.

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Robert Daun, from Wisconsin, U.S.A., has recently launched a very fine website indeed. It features podcast readings of short fiction. This is a welcome development for those who recognise that short stories are meant not only to be read but also to be heard. Mr. Daun’s website is called Bob’s Short Story Hour and episode 4 on that site contains a podcast of a reading of P.W.’s story, “But No, Nothing”. You can access the podcast online by clicking on this link. “But No, Nothing”–a consummately Irish story–was selected for recognition for Excellence in Contemporary Narrative and inclusion in the 2014 Gem Street anthology published by Labello Press of Conmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland.

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P.W.’s poem, “Safari Not Supported but Your Prayer is Important to Us,” has now been published in Aerodrome, a marvellous a literary journal based in South Africa.

You can see P.W.’s poem in Aerodrome online by clicking here.

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P.W. has had work appear before in Litro, an arts and culture magazine headquartered in London that publishes a great deal of fiction and commentary. Litro has recently expanded to North America.

Visit the New York-based LitroNY site to see a gritty little noir flash fiction piece authored by P.W., entitled “Shotgun Wedding: Vancouver, 1960”. Click here and your browser will take you directly to “Shotgun Wedding: Vancouver, 1960”.

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The website, London Grip, is (of course) headquartered in the U.K. Note the eye-catching logo.

London Grip accurately self-describes as a “wholly independent online venue, a cultural omnibus providing intelligent reviews of current shows and events, well-argued articles on the widest range of topics, an exhibition space for cross-media arts and an in-house poetry magazine with its own editor”. P.W.’s poem, “The Nobility in That, or Not,” appears in the December 2015 issue of London Grip.

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The successful staging, in July 2015, of P.W.’s “The Mars Hotel” by talented contemporary dancers Ziyian Kwan and Noam Gagnon together with jazz trio Handmade Blade (that is, Peggy Lee on cello, JP Carter on trumpet and electronics and Aram Bajakian on electric guitar) was just a beginning. The dancers and musicians are continuing to develop the performance and they took it on tour to Victoria and Nanaimo in early 2017 and also presented it again at the Fire Hall Performing Arts Centre in February. Beyond that, discussions are also underway which, if successful, will result in touring performances of “The Mars Hotel” taking place in other cities across Canada. Very, very exciting.

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P.W.’s flash fiction piece, “A Summer Nativity: Vancouver, 1977,” has been published online by the edgy Scottish webzine, Word Bohemia, which is accessible by clicking on this link.

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On July 8 and 10, 2015, talented contemporary dancers Ziyian Kwan and Noam Gagnon joined forces with jazz trio Handmade Blade (that is, Peggy Lee on cello, JP Carter on trumpet and electronics and Aram Bajakian on electric guitar) to stage performances in movement and music built around P.W.’s flash fiction piece, “The Mars Hotel”. The July 8th performance sold out and the one on July 10th came very close to selling out as well. “The Mars Hotel” was choreographed by Ziyian Kwan; Peggy Lee composed the original score. It formed part of the 2015 Dancing on the Edge Festival and was presented at the Fire Hall Performing Arts Centre on East Cordova Street, Vancouver. To see, en francais, a television interview of Ziyian Kwan and Noam Gagnon on CBC Vancouver’s French language channel in which footage of one of the final rehearsals for “The Mars Hotel” was aired, click on this link. An edited, six-minute video clip of highlights of the performance filmed on opening night at the Firehall Performing Arts Centre can be seen here. And to see a pre-performance interview of P.W., Ziyian Kwan and Peggy Lee by Janet Smith in the Georgia Straight, and a post-performance review of the performance by critic Matt Hanson published in Brooklyn-based Dance World, click here and here.

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In the May, 2015 issue of A New Ulster—the Belfast-based online and print literary magazine edited by Amos Grieg of Lapwing Publications–you will find P.W.’s new story, “Even Unto My Death You Shall Be Judged”.

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P.W. sends out words of thanks to all who got behind Authors for Indies Day at hundreds of independent bookstores across Canada on May 2, 2015 by turning up, buying books, listening to readings and generally joining in the lively discussions that unfolded in each venue about our literary culture in Canada. That literary culture badly needs a thriving network of independent bookstores to sustain and nurture it and the support shown for booksellers on May 2nd by authors and readers alike was heartwarming indeed. A special thanks goes out to Nancy who organised the readings at the People’s Co-op Bookstore on Vancouver’s edgy and uber cool Commercial Drive, and to Daphne Marlatt and Fiona Lam with whom it was P.W.’s pleasure to join in readings there. What fine, gracious women and magnificently talented poets! Below are a couple of photos taken at and after the readings at the People’s Co-op Bookstore on Authors for Indies Day.

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P.W. wishes to thank session leader Michael Kerins and all of the participants and audience members who were present in Glasgow’s West End on April 17, 2015 at the iconic Tchai Ovna Teahouse in Otago Lane where he (P.W.) had the privilege of giving a reading of some of his fiction from Standing at an Angle to My Age. Tchai Ovna is a venue where some of Scotland’s finest storytellers, poets and fiction writers gather to share their work with a discerning audience of listeners. P.W. was shown a very warm, Glasgow welcome and, as well, he appreciated the opportunity to hear some very fine storytelling by the others on the evening’s lineup. Never been to Tchai Ovna? Better hurry! Its future is threatened by a creeping luxury flats development that may, ultimately, result in its demolition. That would, truly, be a great pity. Tchai Ovna is an important and working part of Glasgow’s literary and indie music infrastructure. As some measure of that, consider the fact that the teahouse’s interior is featured in the cover art for Belle and Sebastian’s 2003 album, Dear Catastrophe Waitress.

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P.W.’s non-fiction piece, “Virginia Woolf and Pete Seeger, Inter Alios: A Meandering Rant on on Truth, Beauty, Love and Twitter” — which has been published in the U.S.-based Mulberry Fork Review — has received honourable mention in the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s “Write-on!” competition.

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Some happy news! The McGill University based literary criticism journal, The Bull Calf (which takes its name from the Irving Layton poem), has published a warm and generous review of P.W.’s book of short fiction, Standing at an Angle to My Age. Have a look at the Critical Reception/Reviews subpage on this website for an excerpt from the review and a link to the full text of it.

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The Patchwork Paper–a UK-based magazine that presents contemporary poetry, fiction and photography to its online and print readers–has just published P.W.’s “Villanelle Moderne”. This dark little poem addresses a very modern kind of problem within a highly structured poetic form that some believe originated in Italy or Spain during the Renaissance. A villanelle comprises 19 lines and, using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, its form can be expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2. “Villanelle Moderne” is accompanied by a haunting photograph by Asia Wardzynska and is accessible online via this link.

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The Irish publisher, Labello Press, is currently running interviews with its Gem Street anthology contributors on its Labello News website subpage. You can access P.W.’s interview via this link.

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A nonfiction piece written by P.W.–entitled “Virginia Woolf and Pete Seeger, Inter Alios: A Meandering Rant on Truth, Beauty, Love and Twitter”–has been published at page 90 of the September 2014 issue of the American literary journal, The Mulberry Fork Review.

The rant is accessible by clicking on this link and scrolling ahead to page 90. (And, while you’re there, don’t miss the opportunity to sample the work of the many fine writers whose stories and nonfiction contributions are found in that issue.)

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P.W.’s short story, “The Colours of Love and Loss,” appears in an anthology entitled National Voices, published in November 2014 by the Canadian Authors Association. Copies of National Voices can be purchased directly from the CAA, online, via this link.

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Tá sé am chun ceiliúradh a dhéanamh! P.W.’s short story, “But No, Nothing,” was selected by Labello Press for an Excellence in Contemporary Narrative Award and inclusion in the Irish publisher’s Gem Street anthology for 2014.

Released in August, the latest Gem Street anthology includes the 15 stories that were chosen as finalists in this year’s Leonard Koval International Short Fiction Competition. The authors whose work is represented in the 2014 anthology hail from England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Italy, U.S.A., Australia and Canada.

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P.W.’s story, “Dear Dark Head”–an adapted version of Ceann Dubh Dilis (which appears in Standing at an Angle to My Age)–was published in August 2014 in the Belfast-based print and online literary journal, A New Ulster. As well, a review of Standing at an Angle to My Age appears in the September, 2014 issue of that journal.

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P.W.’s “Win, Win: A Miniature Vancouver Tragicomedy”–a story written in a satirical vein — can be accessed via this link. Despite its Vancouver-centric conceit, “Win, Win …” was published in the U.K. in Litro, an ultra-cool, London-based literary arts magazine with a print circulation of 100,000+ and a large online presence as well.