The Poetry of Lucía M. Polis ✱ Biography

Biography

My name is Lucía M. Polis (she / her). I am a neuroqueer poet, translator, and editor. I hold a Ph.D. in literary translation studies and I have been writing and translating poetry since 1996.

I was born in Moscow, in the imaginary country known as the U.S.S.R., lived in Israel—during the Gulf War and the First Intifada—and in Canada, and then worked in Japan and the United States.

Before the COVID Pandemic, I visited more than twenty-five countries. At any given point in time, I know between three and five languages.

Aside from poems unborn, stillborn, unwritten, destroyed, or lost, I have to date created more than 1,000 poems, which have appeared in Uprooted, The Liar, Holes: An Anthology of Poems about Depths, Darkness, and Desire, Becoming: An Anthology of What-If Poems about Women and Womanhood (forthcoming in January 2026), and in my poetry collections.

In 2005, I self-published Granville, my first poetry collection, followed by the multimedia antipoem epic Go Fish in 2006. In 2009, I completed my first large-format (11″ × 17″) poem, Silo 28, followed by its sequel Cathedral in 2010. In 2015, I finished researching and defended Sex, Lies, and Red Tape, a dissertation on Soviet censorship and mistranslation of American satire into Russian during the Cold War.

Photo credit: Jes Battis

In 2023, I founded the imprint JLRB Press and published my second collection, We Were Hateful People. In 2024, I released my queer epic poem as the final section of my third, eponymous collection, The Love of a Good Man. In 2025, I republished my epic poem in my fourth book, The Love of a Good Man: The Queer Epic Poem—the first book to bear my true name—and released my fourth collection, Granville: 20th Anniversary Edition, Expanded and Revised.

I live on Vancouver Island. In time free from work, I agonize over the written line, haunt local coffee shops in colourful dresses, tend to plants, love friends, set boundaries, keep house, take photowalks, memorize verse, and go on long drives to nowhere in particular.

Timeline

The following is a timeline of my poetic career and encounters with other literary figures.

1996-09-01: I write "I am," my first poem in English, in Ms. Barthel's ninth-grade English class.
1999-01-01: I write « Trois poèmes », my first translations from English to French for M. Barois’s eleventh-grade IB French HL class.
1999-09-01: I read, for the first time, at the Sir Winston Churchill Secondary twelfth-grade International Baccalaureate Retreat.
2003-09-02: I write "Cappelbaum's Protest," the first of many poems that include the alter ego purloined from the late Stanley Cooperman.
2003-10-21: I write "Cliché Manifesto v.1.0," my first artistic credo.
2003-11-04: I receive a reply to my letter to Michael Turner.
2004-03-04: I meet Turner at a talk at Langara College. His bearing and storytelling electrify me.
2005-03-29: Joey from Yorkshire contacts me about performing "people waiting at the bus/stop."
2005-05-19: Joey incorporates "people waiting at the bus/stop" into his theatrical piece and performs it on stage at York St John University.
2005-08-27: I attend Sex with Michael Turner at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Turner reads excerpts from Harlequins and shares chocolates.
2005-08-30: I write my first poetry collection Granville, inspired by Turner's Kingsway.
2005-11-09: I read for the second time, at an open mic event at Behind the Scenes, a café on Broadway Street in Vancouver. Turner comes out to support me, despite being cheerfully inebriated.
2005-11-25: I read for the third time, at the same venue. My selection of poems falls on deaf ears. Exasperated by an audience member's question, "But what does it mean?" I blurt out, "It's an intellectual thing" and beat a hasty retreat.
2006-02-28: I listen to Douglas Coupland and Chuck Palahniuk read at the Frederic Wood Theatre at UBC. Coupland bores the audience with excerpts from JPod. Palahniuk throws stink bombs and plastic excrement into the audience while reading "Mister Elegant," a story about an epileptic male stripper.
2006-03-10: Two of my poems, "buffer overflow" and "Chinaski meets Cappelbaum" (the latter inspired by the doppelgängers of Cooperman and Charles Bukowski) are published in the first and last issue of Uprooted.
2006-06-10: I record the audiopoem Go Fish, inspired by Jackson Mac Low, William S. Burroughs, Nicanor Parra, and Hugo Ball.
2006-12-18: I write «за соседним столиком», my first extant poem in Russian.
2006-12-21: I write "at the next table," my first extant translation from English to Russian.
2009-06-16: I write 「多分詩」, my first poem in Japanese.
2009-07-20: I write «Сонет 130», my first poetic translation from English to Russian.
2009-11-21: I hold Silo 28, my fourth, hour-long poetry reading at a friend's house in Vancouver. I read twenty-eight poems, featuring the eponymous long poem inspired by Charles Olson's The Maximus Poems. Turner comes out to support me, despite suffering from influenza.
2009-12-01: I write "a pretty girl," my first poetic translation from Japanese to English.
2010-09-09: I move to Waterloo to begin my M.A. program in literary studies.
2010-09-18: I meet George Eliot Clarke at a reading at UWaterloo. He assures me that there is nothing wrong with confessional poetry.
2010-11-06: I hold Cathedral, my fifth poetry reading, at my house in Waterloo. I read twenty-nine poems, featuring the eponymous sequel to "Silo 28".
2010-11-24: I hold a telephone interview about Poetry in Voice with Scott Griffin, founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize.
2011-09-07: I move to Calgary to begin my Ph.D. program in translation studies.
2011-11-03: I co-create "Wasteland-o-Matic" by using PHP and MySQL.
2011-11-05: I hold Cathedral II, my sixth poetry reading, at a friend's house in Calgary. I read thirty poems, featuring a slightly-revised version of the eponymous long poem.
2011-11-23: I read "the defenestration of poesy" for a friend's video project.
2012-03-09: I read for the seventh time for the 2012 Free Exchange Conference Creative Night at Pages Books on Kensington: "there are languages…," "Sitting in Class with a Professor Who Had Us Read Martin Heidegger," "the poet rears his ugly head," and "four minutes thirty-three seconds of noise."
2012-04-24: "found poem XIV or roughing it in the bush, 2848" is displayed at the Taylor Family Digital Library at the University of Calgary during Poetry Month.
2012-10-02: I co-write "In connection with Hitler—a contemplation," my first poetic translation from Polish to English.
2012-11-03: I hold «слог и слово», my eighth poetry reading, at my house in Calgary. I read thirty-one poems.
2013-08-08: I read for the ninth time for August Flywheel at Pages: "piss stains on tan pants…," "And could you?," "reform school for repeat offenders or noise in the head," "Yesterday I found out that…," and "three oh two a.m. air".
2013-10-12: I write «Девушка с очками», my first poetic translation from Hebrew to Russian.
2013-10-18: I give Chuck Palahniuk a letter at a WordFest event at the John Dutton Theatre. He asks me whether the envelope contains anthrax; I assure him that it does not. I listen to Palahniuk read "Guts" and "Zombie". Palahniuk gets everyone to blow up large, luminescent beach balls, write questions on them, and throw them around. At various points during the reading, he throws lots of candy and stuffed "pussy" into the audience.
2013-10-23: I write 「杯の泡」, my first poetic translation from English to Japanese.
2013-11-30: I hold Mutatis Mutandis, my tenth poetry reading, at my house in Calgary. I read thirty-two poems.
2014-03-17: I meet Lawrence Venuti at an event at the University of Calgary. He gives my dissertation a new direction.
2014-06-13: I read for the eleventh time for June Flywheel at Pages: "Palæmon," "dangerous times," "Cappelbaum Judenstern," "the portage to san cristóbal of m. k.," "confession of the neighbourhood arsonist," and "Saturday."
2014-11-08: I hold found in translation, my twelfth poetry reading, at a friend's house in Calgary. I read thirty-three poems.
2015-03-06: I read for the thirteenth time for the 2015 Free Exchange Conference Creative Night at Loft 112: «за соседним столиком», "at the next table," 「きれいな女の子」, "a pretty girl," 「変わりない」, "nothing special," «вечер в фукуоке», "an evening in fukuoka," "Der Tanz des Nashorns", "every narrator is unreliable," «сик транзит», "sick transit," "Блевать или плакать", and "To Cry or to Vomit."
2015-05-23: I write "Transsiberian Ozymandias", my first translation from German to English.
2015-06-26: I successfully defend my dissertation, Sex, Lies, and Red Tape: Ideological and Political Barriers in Soviet Translation of Cold War American Satire, 1964-1988, earning the title of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).
2015-08-13: I read for the fourteenth time for August Flywheel, at Pages: a poem from my secret poetic cycle, "About What You Can Write," "A Hare Can Be Anywhere," "Transsiberian Ozymandias," "said the learnèd philosopher," and "Thou and You."
2016-11-05: I hold twenty, my fifteenth poetry reading, at my house in Vancouver. I read twenty-three poems.
2016-11-05: JoAnne Growney mentions "The Gaussian Function" in Intersections – Poetry with Mathematics.
2017-11-04: I hold nothing to write home about, my sixteenth poetry reading, at my house in Vancouver. I read thirty-six poems.
2018-01-28: I hold Bring-a-Poem I at my house in Vancouver for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2018-03-03: I hold Bring-a-Poem II at my house in Vancouver for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2018-03-17: One of my poetic translations, "Primary Catalogue of the Order of Delectation," and two of my poems, "Cappelbaum Gets a Divorce," and "style fully wonderful" are published in the Spring 2018 (Volume 19) issue of The Liar.
2018-03-31: I read for the seventeenth time for The Liar launch and the wUrdz full mOOn lit open mic event at Kings Cafe on Kingsway Street in Vancouver: "a list of people I have killed," "The Great Depression of 2073," "radiator," "Cappelbaum Gets a Divorce," "style fully wonderful" and "Primary Catalogue of the Order of Delectation."
2018-11-03: I hold Emergency, my eighteenth poetry reading, at my house in Vancouver, immediately prior to moving to Nanaimo. I read thirty-one poems, six short of the original plan.
2019-12-05: I read for the nineteenth time, at the WordStorm Metaphorically Speaking open mic event in the Old City Quarter in Nanaimo: "ceremony," "after frost," "inconvenience store," "found poem XXIII or Pentametric," and "openings."
2020-11-07: I broadcast One Minute to Midnight, my twentieth poetry reading, over Zoom from a friend's house in Vancouver. I read forty-three poems.
2021-05-18: I interview for City of Nanaimo Poet Laureate.
2021-08-05: I lose City of Nanaimo Poet Laureate to Kamal Parmar.
2021-11-06: On the occasion of the twenty-fifth year of writing poetry, I hold Half Life, my twenty-first poetry reading at my house in Nanaimo, and also broadcast it over Zoom. I read forty poems.
2021-12-23: I resolve that, starting from January 1, 2022, I will not use the articles a and the in my poems (with the exception of my translations) for one full year in order to simulate the order of the Other and to demonstrate that it, too, can be beautiful. I try it out in "Walk" and then (after another special case in the title of "Departurition or The Sundering"—perforce, a reference to "The Big Day"), my experiment begins in earnest.
2022-03-20: I complete Robert's in Trouble.
2022-07-21: With the help of a friend, I co-found the Queer Poetry Nanaimo group on Instagram.
2022-09-10: I hold By the Pricking of My Thumbs, the first Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2022-09-11: I visit the Fielding Road exhibition at the Nanaimo Art Gallery for the first time. My imagination is inflamed by my engagement with the literary and visual works of the late Nanaimo poet Peter Culley and his unmediated interactions with the material world of Nanaimo and our mediated reception thereof, his locative writing, his proprioceptive motion through the landscapes of the city (reminiscent of Charles Olson's movements through the spaces of New England), the implied questions of Culley's objets trouvés (found in situ, not framed as objets d'art) placed in juxtaposition with the ekphrastic gestures of other artists responding to Culley's work as part of the same exhibition, and the notions of bedness and Platonic removes that haunt the entire affair as a result. The first thing I do upon leaving the gallery is locate Culley's home (across the road from Cavalotti Hall). The second thing I do is scout Fielding Road (across the highway, four minutes away from my own house).
2022-09-19: In tribute to Culley's poetic praxis, I go walkabout and explore the railroad tracks from Jingle Pot Road to Brooks landing and then walk to Departure Bay Road and finally back up to Country Club Centre.
2022-09-23: Having observed Fielding Road only mediated by Culley's photography and videography (nominally the second, but possibly third, remove), and then mediated again by artists responding ekphrastically to Culley's work (nominally the third, but possibly the fourth remove), I begin to turn to what the Russians term наблюдение за наблюдающим—observation of the observer. I visit Fielding Road (the exhibition) a second time, taking a friend with me and taking in his observations of the aforementioned (clearly, Plato hasn't counted on such a distance from reality). I am enthralled with my friend's comments on the exhibition and begin to buy up facsimile copies of Culley's out-of-print The Climax Forest from the gallery.
2022-09-26: My friend and I visit the bisected Fielding Road from both of its ends and photograph all that haunts it. I stop asking how many levels of remove we operate on, for they all become relative and difficult to enumerate.
2022-10-01: Having now observed Fielding Road, both in the wild (complete with the conspicuous presence of Culley's absence) and through every other possible filter, I visit the gallery for the third time and bring yet another friend to the exhibition and marvel at the incredibly generative function of observing mediated works of art through another's eyes. I buy up all the remaining copies of The Climax Forest.
2022-10-02: On the last day of Fielding Road I visit the gallery for the fourth time and bring some friends with me. I ask one friend to contrast his second visit to the highly mediated, curated space with his first visit, as well as our visit to Fielding Road (the road). I am once again enthralled while observing the exhibition for the last time through my friends' eyes.
2022-10-15: I hold Do You Bite Your Thumb at Us, the second Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2022-10-26: A lifelong thought process leads me to "an overwhelming question" which I answer with the realization that I have always been a queer poet. I begin to identify myself as such.
2022-11-05: I hold La Vita Nuova, my twenty-second poetry reading at my house in Nanaimo, and also broadcast it over Zoom. I read forty-one poems. This is my first private reading as an openly queer poet.
2022-11-19: I hold Moisten the Thumb, Finger the Page, the third Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2022-11-22: I read for the twenty-third time, at an open mic event at White Sails, a brewery in Downtown Nanaimo: "Ξέρω! Ξέρω! Ξέρω!," "Lines Upon Dissolution of Moto-Tech," "Portrait of Two Men Embracing Under Cover of Stone," "Ballad of Lovely Masturbator or After Sexton," "Dream of Fisherman's Husband," and "My Arborist." This is my first public reading as an openly queer poet.
2022-12-11: While continuing to ponder my identity, I arrive at the conclusion that a passing sentiment (that in my adolescence I had construed as mild gender dysphoria) is, in actuality, an indication of being genderfluid. This revelation does not yet cause me to change my pronouns but enriches my existing identity further.
2022-12-18: I hold Bottoms Down, Thumbs Up, the fourth Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works; when one is unable to recollect a poem involving a dancing giraffe, we co-write a replacement poem on the spot.
2022-12-22: I read for the twenty-fourth time, at an open mic event at White Sails: "said the learnèd philosopher," "Living Model of Forth Bridge," "picking blackberries at the back of the property line," "I Can't Stand Ants," and two pieces from my secret poetic cycle. It is so distressingly loud at the venue that I vow never to read there again.
2023-01-05: I read for the twenty-fifth time at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe in Downtown Nanaimo: "Ξέρω! Ξέρω! Ξέρω!," "Portrait of Two Men Embracing Under Cover of Stone," "Ballad of Lovely Masturbator or After Sexton," "Dream of Fisherman's Husband," "Swift Tryst, Fleet Trick betwixt Tall Trees, All Pleased," and "My Arborist." When I present this retooled version of my November 22, 2022 open mic set list, it is received more enthusiastically by a more queer, and queer-friendly, crowd.
2023-01-22: I hold Die Nacht ist nicht allein zum Schlafen da, the fifth, hybrid Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends—in person and on Zoom—who share their favourite poetic works.
2023-02-02: I read for the twenty-sixth time, at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe: «За соседним столиком, Redux», "At the Next Table, Redux," "Under the Radar or After Magee," "after frost," "after/at wood I," "I Dreamt of You Again Last Night…," "if you read this mother," and "said the learnèd philosopher."
2023-02-13: I officially register JLRB Press with Library and Archives Canada. The mission of the imprint is to empower queer and neurodivergent voices and emerging writers.
2023-03-03: I read for the twenty-seventh time, at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe: Hugo Ball's „Seepferdchen und Flugfische“, "four minutes thirty-three seconds of noise," "After the fire," "the needful profession or after henry," "God is Gay," and „Der Tanz des Nashorns“. This is my first public performance that involves wearing gender-nonconforming clothing in public. In addition, prior to reading the penultimate piece, I explain that the word queer, although right-fully reclaimed over the past few decades, has become far too genteel, and that there are words such as faggot that are yet to be rehabilitated. I reintroduce myself as a faggot and ask the audience to respond with a thunderous "GOOO FAGGOTS!" every time the word is mentioned. My listeners oblige enthusiastically.
2023-03-18: I hold Third Time's the Charm, the sixth queer poetry evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2023-04-06: I read for the twenty-eighth time, at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe: "On the way back," "Warm," "if i called you," "I Wish," 「きれいな女の子」, "a pretty girl," "the defenestration of poesy", Aleksander Pushkin's «Ты и Вы», "Thou and You," and "sixteen ninetyfive."
2023-04-13: I publish my second poetry collection, We Were Hateful People.
2023-04-29: I hold Hawt off the Press, a hybrid celebration of the publication of my second poetry collection, the launch of JLRB Press, and the seventh Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2023-05-04: I read for the twenty-ninth time, at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe: "follow me to ladysmith," "part-time wife, part I," "part-time wife, part II," "Emergency," "inconvenience store," "the threshold of happiness," "Pentametric I," and "how I spent september eleventh, 2076."
2023-05-20: I hold Summoned by Sun, the eighth Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2023-06-01: On the first day of Pride 2023, I read for the thirtieth time at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe: a piece from my secret poetic cycle, "Commandment," "The 575 Kilometre Breakfast," "Easter in the Forest," and "Dream of Fisherman's Husband."
2023-06-11: I represent JLRB Press at a booth at the 2023 Nanaimo Pride Festival.
2023-06-24: I hold In Midday Heat, the ninth Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works.
2023-07-06: I read for the thirty-first time at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe: Aleksander Blok's «Незнакомка», "The Unknown One," "Dual Desire," "Gloriette," "every narrator is unreliable."
2023-07-08: I represent JLRB Press at a booth at Pride in the Word 2023 in Victoria.
2023-07-29: I hold New Enterprises, New Clothes, the tenth and final Queer Poetry Evening at my house in Nanaimo for my friends, who read their favourite poetic works. I order a cake emblazoned with the word Queer. I pass the reins of the event to other hosts. I change my pronouns to he / she.
2023-07-06: I read for the thirty-second time at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe: «Двое шли спать», Leonard Cohen's "Two Went to Sleep," "Rules for Building a Woodpile," "The Birds," "style fully wonderful," Archibald MacLeish's "Ars Poetica" and my eponymous translation thereof, and "After Dickinson II."
2023-09-05: I adopt the secret name Lucía M. Polis (she/her).
2023-09-07: I read for the thirty-third time at an open mic event at The Vault Cafe, for the last time: "My Pen I, Redux," "Cliché Manifesto v.1.0," and "My Arborist."
2023-09-16: I represent JLRB Press at Small Press Fest 2023 at Open Space Victoria.
2023-09-23– 2023-09-24: I represent JLRB Press at the 2023 Victoria Anarchist Book Fair.
2023-10-01: I perform my queer epic poem "The Love of a Good Man" to a friend over Zoom.
2023-10-13: I read for the thirty-fourth time at the premiere performance of "The Love of a Good Man" at a bonfire at my house in Nanaimo.
2023-10-15: I read for the thirty-fifth time at a reprise performance of "The Love of a Good Man" at a simulated bonfire over Zoom.
2023-11-04: I hold Life, the Universe, and Nothing, my thirty-sixth poetry reading at my house in Nanaimo, and also broadcast it over Zoom. A friend reads the introduction to the program. This is my first-ever birthday performance in a dress, without my trademark white shirt and red tie.
2024-01-11: I publish my third poetry collection, The Love of a Good Man.
2024-01-21: I come to the realization that Lucía M. Polis has always been my eternal, true self.
2024-01-26: I hold a book launch for The Love of a Good Man and read for the thirty-seventh time at The Vault Cafe.
2024-02-02: I write to Ali Blythe. Miraculously, he responds; we begin to correspond.
2024-02-09: I read for the thirty-eighth time, at the Planet Earth Poetry open mic at Russell Books, performing "Rules for Building a Woodpile".
2024-03-16: I read for the thirty-ninth time, at the Planet Earth Poetry open mic at Russell Books, performing "Ballad of Lovely Masturbator or, After Sexton."
2024-03-20: I host a book launch for Mitra's Smoked Frames at The Vault Cafe, interleaving stories about my experiences and discoveries while collaborating with Mitra on her collection with eight recordings of Mitra reading her poems, five of my favourite poems from the collection (making this, in effect, my fortieth poetic performance), and four poems performed by volunteers from the audience. Members of the Nanaimo Hindu Cultural Society perform poems from Mitra's book.
2024-04-26: I read for the forty-first time, at the Planet Earth Poetry open mic at Russell Books, performing "part-time wife, part II." I also meet Keith Garebian, become utterly enthralled with his performance of poems from Three-Way Renegade: $amuel $teward Without Apology and give him my performance copy of The Love of a Good Man as a gift.
2024-05-01: I co-edit, design, and publish Holes: An Anthology of Poems about Depth, Darkness, and Desire.
2024-05-07: I read for the forty-second time, at the Under the Table open mic on Zoom, performing "My Arborist" and "Dream of Fisherman's Husband."
2024-05-09– 2024-05-14: I drive 1,000 km in one day to Calgary, where I pick up the first traditionally printed batch of 400 books for JLRB Press and catch up with my graduate school friends and professors.
2024-05-12: I hold a book launch for The Love of a Good Man and read for the forty-third time at Wild Rabbit Vintage in Calgary (the former location of Loft 112, where I previously performed in March 2015).
2024-06-02: I host a virtual book launch for Holes: An Anthology of Poems about Depths, Darkness, on Desire on Zoom and read for the forty-fourth time, performing "The Asstronaut," and "Other Enigmas of Emptiness and of Fullness", an authorized translation of a poem by Ghérasim Luca. Other anthology authors read their contributions.
2023-06-09: I represent JLRB Press at a booth at the 2024 Nanaimo Pride Festival.
2024-06-12: I read for the forty-fifth time, at the League of Canadian Poets Poetry and Pride open mic on Zoom, performing "Dream of Fisherman's Husband."
2024-06-22: I lead the JLRB Press virtual workshop "Self-editing for Readability, Lineation, Rhythm, and Sound. (Read detailed summary with resource links.)
2024-06-28: I take part in the book launch for Holes: An Anthology of Poems about Depths, Darkness, on Desire, featuring Katherine DeCoste, at The Vault. I come out to help and also read for the forty-sixth time, performing "Other Enigmas of Emptiness and of Fullness," "The Hole," and "The Asstronaut."
2024-07-26: I give a talk on the theme of trust and the subjects of poetry and changing the ethos of publishing at JLRB Press for CreativeMornings/Victoria. At the end of the talk, I read for the forty-seventh time, performing "Ξέρω! Ξέρω! Ξέρω!," "Dream of Fisherman's Husband," and "My Arborist."
2024-09-07: I broadcast She Full of Light, my forty-eighth poetry reading, over Zoom from my house in Nanaimo. I read twenty-two poems, including the first three cantos of "I’ve Waited to Mourn the Cathedral," an epic poem in progress.
2024-09-21: I represent JLRB Press at Small Press Fest 2024 at Open Space Victoria.
2023-09-21– 2023-09-22: I represent JLRB Press at the 2024 Victoria Anarchist Book Fair.
2024-10-04: I read for the forty-ninth time, at the Planet Earth Poetry open mic at Russell Books, performing "Dream of Fisherman's Husband."
2024-10-12: I lead the JLRB Press virtual workshop "Scansion, What is It Good For? Absolutely Everything!" (Read detailed summary with resource links.)
2025-01-11: To celebrate my newfound transgender identity, I publish The Love of a Good Man: The Queer Epic Poem.
2025-03-04: After it was suppressed for 220 days, I re-record and post my talk "Poetry and Trust, Redux: How Institutions Stifle Creators and Their Creations and What You Can Do About It".
2025-05-16: I hold a launch for The Love of a Good Man: The Queer Epic Poem at Planet Earth Poetry at Russell Books. I read for the fiftieth time, performing "Ξέρω! Ξέρω! Ξέρω!," "Dream of Fisherman’s Husband," two cantos from The Love of a Good Man," and "My Arborist."
2025-06-03: I read for the fifty-first time, at the Nanaimo Pride Flag Raising ceremony, performing "My Arborist."
2025-06-08: I represent JLRB Press at a booth at the 2025 Nanaimo Pride Festival.
2025-07-03: I read for the fifty-second time, opening Pride in the Word 2025 in Victoria with "Ξέρω! Ξέρω! Ξέρω!," "Dream of Fisherman’s Husband," and "My Arborist." I also represent JLRB Press at a booth.
2025-07-06: I represent JLRB Press at a booth at the Victoria Pride Festival in the Park 2025.
2025-07-14: I give the talk "History, Memory, Trauma: Poetry and Publishing as Mutable Historiography of Self" as part of Eavesdrop Magazine's Vancouver Island Artist Summer Talk Series. Throughout the talk, I read for the fifty-third time, performing "part-time wife, part I," "part-time wife, part II," "Warm," "Easter in the Forest or, El milagrito casual," "A Chain Bookstore in British Columbia,", and "Window."
2025-08-30: I publish my fourth poetry collection, Granville: 20th Anniversary Edition, Expanded & Revised and host a virtual book launch on Zoom. I read for the fifty-fourth time, performing seventeen poems, telling stories about returning to my first collection, and sharing Cooperman and Turner poems that had influenced me.
2025-09-06: I broadcast By Nanaimo River I Sat Down and Wept, my fifty-fifth poetry reading, over Zoom from my house in Nanaimo. I read thirty-one poems.
2025-10-26: I read for the fifty-sixth time as part of The Strange Hour: A Brunch Variety Show, performing Stanley Cooperman's "Cappelbaum's Hallowe'en," "Rules for Building a Woodpile," "The Asstronaut," and "Cappelbaum's Hallowe'en, 2078."

Post Scriptum: On Influences and Development

Twenty-eight years after beginning my poetic journey, it strikes me as curious that mine is a tale of not only a surfeit of fruitful collaborations (some omitted from this page due to their intimate nature) but also of a dearth of proper poetic mentorship that often, at best, consisted of empty promises and inaction and, at worst, of bad advice and worse behaviour. Perhaps this is why I have once written "i've spent the first two scores of years / with wolves grown reticent and wild."

To this day, I can't name a single creative mentor—it seems that it has all been a combination of reverse-engineering my idols' work by means of analysis and pastiche, as well as a never-ending construction of stylistic imitatio to justify at least the rudiments of one's poetic position. While there is, almost certainly, nothing wrong with this approach, it is a lonely sort of generative existence.

Still, despite the salient lacuna of poetic tutelage, I must acknowledge some of the most incredible literary mentors who have played personal, active, and invested roles in my development, who listened to my sense and nonsense, responded and corresponded, read my poems, and wrote references for me. These paragons of patience and founts of knowledge include Muriel Densford, Don Wood, Noel Currie, Laurie Ricou, Kieran Kealy, Lee Johnson, David Williams, Jon Kertzer, and a few more others. 詩