ditch,

the poetry that matters


Canadian Previously Featured Poets

click on the highlighted poets' names to read their work

Ryan Bird

Ryan Bird’s poems make regular appearances in some of Canada’s most suppositious literary magazines, including: Free Verse Good, Free Prose Bad; The Backslap Quarterly and Rage Against the Colophon. He has also appeared in dANDelion, Carousel & filling Station. You can read Ryan Bird's blog at www.robotkissingbooth.blogspot.com

Ryan Bird's latest book is Under One Roof from Trainwreck Press.

Todd Swift

Todd Swift is one of the leading Canadian poet-editors of his generation. He is the author of four critically-acclaimed collections of poetry: Budavox, Cafe Alibi, Rue du Regard and Winter Tennis. He is the editor of seven international poetry anthologies, including Poetry Nation, 100 Poets Against The War, and Future Welcome. In 2005 he edited a special section, "The New Canadian Poetry", for New American Writing. He is poetry editor of Nthposition. His poems and reviews have appeared widely in journals including Agenda, Books in Canada, The Cimarron Review, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, Jacket, and Poetry Review. He is Core Tutor with The Poetry School. He has been Oxfam Great Britain's Poet-in-residence since 2004. Al Alvarez has written of his latest collection that it is "sophisticated, ingenious, often moving and always blessedly, unashamedly elitist."

Candice Daquin

Candice Daquin is a French-born Psychotherapist and Writer living and working in Canada. A supporter of same-sex equality and immigration rights, Daquin is also a published poet, trained dancer and avid supporter of volunteer work; helping disenfranchised women through deed and word. In her spare time Daquin paints and consumes large quantities of poetry and eggs for breakfast.

Kees Kapteyn

Kees Kapteyn is a poet and a painter living in Niagara, Ontario. He has self published two chapbooks grubstreet and coffee salt as well as being accepted into such magazines as blueskiespoetry.ca, Novella, Corvid Revue, Revolution 21, Canadian Stories, Woven Words and The Saving Bannister.

patti sinclair

patti sinclair is published with Palabras Press, Synchronicity, The Prairie Journal, and ascent magazine. She is the author of Motherhood As A Spiritual Practice and the chapbook red poems.
she has performed with the raving poets, the roar, edmonton's stroll of poets and is currently working on a performance project : the red earth women poets.
she lives and writes on her
blog
and by prairie and ocean.
she is currently working with red nettle press
.

Dave Haskins

Dave Haskins is published in over 30 literary journals, anthologies, and books, and has collected his earlier poems in the book Reclamation (Borealis, 1980). He has won first prizes from the CBC Literary Competition, the Canadian Authors Association (Niagara), and the Ontario Poetry Society. He lives in Grimsby, Ontario, with his wife and his 1970 MGB.

Nathaniel G. Moore

Nathaniel G. Moore is the author of Let's Pretend We Never Met (Pedlar, 2007) and  works in Toronto as an editor and journalist.

Gregory Betts

2007_04_10gregorybetts.jpgGregory Betts was born in Vancouver to Maritime parents, and, "as part of the national compromise," spent most of his life in Toronto. Though not a natural "Upper Canadian," Gregory's work in poetry, fiction, and criticism has consistently explored the literary milieu of his adoptive city. He is the author of If Language (BookThug, 2005) and the collaborative Haikube (2006)—the sculptural counterpart of which, by Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel, was displayed at the Olga Korper Gallery. His most recent book is The Others Raisd in Me from Trainwreck Press. He teaches Canadian and Avant-Garde Literature at Brock University in St. Catharines.

Catherine Paquette

Catherine Paquette is a Montreal-based writer. She is the author of the chapbook: the burden of a song (Mercutio Press 2007), which is a long-poem/visual experiment. Her work has appeared in publications such as brokenpencil, misunderstandings magazine and Fireweed, and more recently in the American online journals Glitterpony, Shampoo, and No Tell Motel.

Chris Hutchinson 

Chris Hutchinson moved from Vancouver, BC to Tempe, AZ where he teaches Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Over the years his poems have appeared in most of the major Canadian literary journals, and also in the anthology Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s New Poets. He is  the author of the full-length collection Unfamiliar Weather (Muses’ Company, 2005). His second book of poetry, Other People’s Lives is forthcoming from Brick Books in 2009.

Kemeny Babineau

Kemeny Babineau's latest book is VDB Wordlist published by Bookthug. Prior to that
was The Incomplete Tree Guide. He also edits and publishes the esoteric
lit rag-mag The New Chief Tongue. He lives in Mt Pleasant with his wife
and two girls.

rob mclennan

rob mclennan lives in Ottawa, even though he was born there. The author of over a dozen trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he is spending the 2007-8 academic year as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. The editor/publisher of Chaudiere Books, Poetics.ca (with Stephen Brockwell), above/ground press, and ottawater, his online home is robmclennan.blogspot.com

Peter Gunn

Peter Gunn lives in Dundas, Ontario. His work is minimal and explores graffiti tagging as a source of inspiration. Previous work includes the poetic novel Superhero Suicide.

Matthew Dunphy

Matthew Dunphy, from Millbrook, Ontario, is currently attending Wilfred Laurier University.

Alison Clarke

Alison Clarke is a poet and children's author from Edmonton. She has published poetry in Ariel, The Canadian Writers' Journal and has also published a children's story with a CD. 

Julian Jason Haladyn

Julian Jason Haladyn is a Canadian artist and writer. His poems have appeared in, among others, ´a·pos·tro·phe, Elimae, Identity Theory, Istanbul Literature Review, Laika Poetry Review, Nthposition, and Otoliths, as well as the collection Nuit Blanche: Poetry for Late Nights (Toronto: Royal Sarcophagus Society Press, 2007). His first poetry book, entitled 17/13, was published in 2007 by Blue Medium. His most recent book is Convulsive Hotel Dreams from Trainwreck Press. In addition, he has published collaborative critical articles and reviews with Miriam Jordan in Parachute, Broken Pencil, C Magazine, On Site Review, and a chapter in Stanley Kubrick: Essays on His Films and Legacy (McFarland and Company 2007). As a practicing artist his solo and collaborative artwork has been included in exhibitions internationally.

Drew McDowell

Drew McDowell is a Ph.D. student studying poetry at the University of Calgary. His work has appeared in The Green Muse, The Grist Mill, the anthologies The Open Window, No Love Lost, and Generations (at the University of Windsor). In 2001, he was a finalist for the Ray Burrell Poetry Award. 

Alessandro Porco

Alessandro Porco (b. 1979) is the author of The Jill Kelly Poems (ECW Press, 2005). A second collection of poetry, titled Augustine in Carthage, is forthcoming in the spring of 2008, also from ECW Press. Currently, Porco attends the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he working towards a doctoral dissertation on the subject of Hip-hop poetics. Porco may be found on the web at www.buffalo.edu/~asporco or alessandroporco.blogspot.com.

M.A.C. Farrant

M.A.C. Farrant is the author of eight collections of satirical and humorous short fiction. As novel-length memoir, My Turquoise Years, was published by Greystone Books/Douglas & McIntyre in 2004. She has published a number of chapbooks with David UU's Berkeley Horse, with Damian Lopes's fingerprinting inkoperated and with Farfield Press.

Her stories have been adapted for both radio and television and are widely anthologized in Canada and the United States. 

She is a book reviewer for the Vancouver Sun and the Toronto Globe & Mail.

In 2006 stories appeared in the Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour; Dropped Threads 3 (Random House); a tribute anthology for bill bissett, (Nightwood Edition) and other places. Three anthology contributions are forthcoming in 2007/08.

In March, 2007 a short fiction collection, The Breakdown So Far, appeared from Talonbooks and Down The Road to Eternity: New & Selected Fiction will appear from Talonbooks in 2009.  She is currently working with the Arts Club Theatre of Vancouver on a stage adaptation of My Turquoise Years.

amanda earl

amanda earl's poetry has been published most recently by above/ground press, listenlight.net and ottawater.com 3.0. she's the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the Bywords Quarterly Journal. amanda also writes sexually explicit fiction and blogs too much. you can find her all over the internet, but especially here: http://amandaearl.blogspot.com/ where she rambles about ottawa literary events.

Claire Thompson

Claire Thompson is an Australian writer and editor currently living in Montreal. She has published short stories and poetry in Blast and First, two short fiction anthologies; Artlook Magazine; The Write Angle Magazine and the now-defunct Muse Magazine. Her work has most recently appeared in Ms Guided Magazine in Montreal. Claire also won the Marjorie Garbor McInnes Short Story Competition.

 

Three
In Memory of David UU

by M.A.C. Farrant

Three is a chapbook produced by damian lopes and M.A.C. Farrant for fingerprint inkorperated, May 1995.
The book was originally intended to be published by David UU's Berkeley Horse Press. After his death, M.A.C. Farrant and damian lopes published it in the style of a Berkeley Horse book.
The entire book is presented here in pdf format. Reproduced with permission.

fingerprint inkorporated published a number of titles by David UU as well as works by Nelson Ball, Christian Bök, jwcurry, Gerry Gilbert, bpNichol, David UU, Darren Wershler-Henry, Stephen Cain, Alana Wilcox and many others.

Greg Santos

Picture035.jpgGreg Santos was born and raised in Montreal. He has been featured in print and online publications, such as, McSweeney's, Matrix, and Feathertale. He had a broadside published by Impress in 2006, and had poetry featured on the “Poems of the Week” section of the Parliamentary Poet Laureate website. He co-edited the "Voce: Recorded Poems" DVD project for Palimpsest, Yale University's arts and literary journal. He lives in New Haven, CT and will be starting an MFA in Creative Writing at The New School in Fall 2007. Visit his frequently updated poetry and literary themed blog at http://moondoggy.blogspot.com/ and his website at http://gregsantos.mosaicglobe.com/.

His most recent book is Oblivion Avenue from Trainwreck Press

Christian McPherson

Christian McPherson's first collection of short stories, "Six Ways to Sunday" (Nightwood Editions) came out April 2007.  His poetry has appeared in several journals and anthologies, including "Misunderstandings Magazine," "Queen's Quarterly," "Jones AV.," and "On Spec."   He lives in Ottawa with his beautiful wife and two kids.

clay mccann

clay mccann is co-founder of Nelson, BC's the Mercury. His work has appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, The New Quarterly, filling Station, The Danforth Review, the annual In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself, The American Journal of Poetry, Grain and other places. He has performed on CBC Radio and at countless poetry readings throughout the Canadian West. He is currently at work on the Shit-Job Manifesto and "dear the Blood Arm: 100 Poems/100 Days". clay is in his third year of anthropology at UVic with plans for an MA in Folklore Studies. 

Trisia Eddy

Trisia Eddy lives and writes near farms, train-yards, refineries, and the North Saskatchewan River.  Her work has been broadcast on radio, published both in print and online, most recently with Existere; fait accomplit; and cahoots magazine. She is the founding editor/publisher of red nettle press, which released her chapbook, what if there's no weather, in 2007.

Trevor Abes

Trevor Abes is studying Literature and Philosophy at the University of Toronto. Originally from Scarborough, Ontario, his family moved to Colombia, SA, when he was five. He is hooked on stand-up comedy.

He has been published in RE: VERSE (www.youngpoets.ca) and in Sage of Consciousness.
Trevor's first book, Levitations, is available from Trainwreck Press.

 

David Fraser

David Fraser lives in Nanoose Bay, on Vancouver Island. He is the founder and editor of Ascent Aspirations Magazine, http:// www.ascentaspirations.ca, since 1997. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in over 50 journals including Three Candles, Regina Weese, Ardent, Quills and Ygdrasil. He has published two collections of poetry, Going to the Well (2004) and Running Down the Wind (2007), a collection of short fiction, The Dark Side of the Billboard (2006 ) and edited and published the four print issues of Ascent Aspirations Magazine.
David is currently the Federation of BC Writers Regional Director for The Islands Region. His latest passion is developing Nanaimo's newest spoken word series, WordStorm,
http:// www.wordstorm.ca

jennifer best

jennifer best is a writer living in montreal. she has been published in prose toad and blank magazine.

Michelle Miller

Michelle Miller is a queer-feminist writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She has had works published in The Danforth Review, Black Heart Magazine, Oh! Magazine, and others. Her first full-length book, an investigation into how feminists look and what that means for the movement, is forthcoming from Sumach Press in Spring 2008. She lives in Vancouver with her partner and attends UBC's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Her work has been categorized as "hostile erotica." You can stalk Michelle on the internet at http://www.michellemiller.ca/

International Previously Featured Poets

click on the highlighted poets' names to read their work

David Michael Wolach

David Michael Wolach, originally from Detroit, teaches creative writing and philosophy at Evergreen State College. David's work is often collaborative and uses a combination of media (audio, text, and visual stills). Author of a novel, a volume of short prose, and three volumes of poetry, his essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in numerous journals, such as The Duplications: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry (University of Kansas), Night Train, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Poetry Midwest, Storyglossia, Saint Elizabeth Street, ABOVO, Rhubarb Is Susan, Wallace Thinks Again, and Toasted Cheese, among others.  The recipient of a Broadside Press Poet's Award and a Peralta Press Editor's Prize for New Fiction, he was recently nominated for a Story South Award and named a finalist in Glimmer Train's Fiction Open. David serves as one of the managing editors of Wheelhouse Magazine, a progressive arts and politics quarterly.

David Michael Wolach's latest book is Fractions of M from Trainwreck Press

Richard Wink

Richard Wink is a poet based in Norwich, England. His work has appeared in Aesthetica Magazine, White Chimney Magazine, 3AM Magazine, Dogmatika, Zygote in my Coffee, Ink Sweat & Tears, Word Salad, Southern Ocean Review, Concrete Meat Sheet, Sein und Werden and Thieves Jargon and is the editor of the blog-zine gloom cupboard. He also has three chapbooks independently published with a new chapbook scheduled for 2008. The truly courageous can view his profile on myspace.

Richard Wink's latest book is Apple Road from Trainwreck Press.

Amanda Yskamp

 Amanda Yskamp has published work in such magazines as Threepenny Review, The Georgia Review, and Caketrain. She lives with poet Douglas Larsen and their two children on the 10-year flood plain of the Russian River in California, where she teaches correspondence courses and writes articles for the local free paper.

Juan Pablo Laso

Juan Pablo Laso is from Quito, Ecuador. He is a former Economics major from Princeton University and is currently researching microfinance in Ecuador for his senior thesis.

Patrick Loafman

Patrick Loafman has published poems in over eighteen journals (including Adirondack Review, Open Spaces and Bellowing Ark), two chapbooks of poetry and is currently trying to get his first novel published. This prose poem is from an unpublished chapbook manuscript titled, Hymns Written with Birds’ Tongues, which was a semi-finalist in Floating Bridge's 2007 Chapbook competition.

Misti Rainwater-Lites

Misti Rainwater-Lites writes a lot of poetry and the occasional novel. She has three forthcoming chapbooks, two from Kendra Steiner Editions and one from Tainted Coffee Press. Misti's poems have appeared in Zygote in my Coffee, Lit Vision, St. Vitus Press, Poesy, Zen Baby, Central Avenue, Words Dance, remark, Yellow Mama, Cherry Bleeds, Nerve House and many others. For updates read Misti's blog at http://mistirainwaterlites.wordpress.com/

Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool (UK) based poet published in The Binturong Review, Unquiet Desperation, Silenced Press, Otoliths, Zygote in my Coffee, and other on-line and print magazines. Four collections published to-date. Co-editor of erbacce poetry journal and erbacce-press. Currrently finalising a PhD in poetry.

Patrick Barron

Patrick Barron is an assistant professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He was recently awarded the Rome Prize, a Fulbright, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant for his translations of the work of Italian poet, Andrea Zanzotto. His books include Italian Environmental Literature: An Anthology (2003) and The Selected Poetry and Prose of Andrea Zanzotto (2007). His poetry, essays, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Poetry East, Ecopoetics, Two Lines, Paideuma, Softblow, and The Argotist Online.

J Michael Wahlgren 

J Michael Wahlgren has been published/will be published in Snow Monkey, Perspectives Magazine, Mississippi Crow, Cosmopsis Quarterly, elimae, iddie & Beauty/Truth. He plays guitar for his grey & white feline in Boston, Ma where he is the editor of silent actor, The Flask Review and Octaves Magazine. His first chapbook of poems entitled "Chariots of Flame" was released by Maverick Duck Press in December, 2007.  

Duane Locke

Duane Locke, Ph. D. (Metaphysical Poetry) lives in rural Lakeland, Florida, and has had published extensively in print and e-zines as well as having 17 print and e-books published.

Duane Locke is also a exhibited widely painter and photographer, a discussion of his work appears in Gary Monroe’s Extraordinary Interpretations (U of Fla press). Recent exhibition, “Outsider Art” at Polk Museum. Is listed in Who’s Who in America (Marquis)

Pamela O'Shaughnessy

Pamela O’Shaughnessy’s first book of poems, Flying at Sea-Level, was published in 2006 by Cross-Creek Press. She is a novelist by trade and an Orzel Collective member experimenting with transtextual poetry. She is a Board member of Poetry Santa Cruz and a moderator on The Critical Poet, an online poetry site.

James Yeary

James Victor Yeary was born in Vancouver, BC, and reared outside Boise, Idaho. He studied anthropology and sculpture at the University of Idaho. Yeary performs regularly as Jimmy Victory, in Portland, OR, where he is editor of the literary review Cloudrag. His book "Goliath Was My Friend," is forthcoming from Earwater Press, and "Apyos: 10-1" is forthcoming from Mom Windmill.

Steve Parker

Steve Parker lives one mile from Emily Bronte's grave on the edge of Haworth Moor in the UK. He is 44, yet spends an inordinate amount of time parenting, and tearing his hair out in the late afternoon. He works in a variety of new and traditional styles, and is a founder member of the Orzel Project transtextual collaboration. He was first published in Chaos International in the mid-80s, which got him arrested as a potential terrorist in an airport in 1989. He is a regular contributor to a few online poetry forums, and has a blog which can be viewed here: www.brickstackblockstack.blogspot.com

Robert Lietz

Robert Lietz is a professor of English and Creative Writing (fiction and poetry)  at Ohio Northern University. He has published widely in both e-zines and print journals in the U.S. and Canada, including Agni Review, Carolina Quarterly, Epoch, The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, The Northern American Review, The Ontario Review, Poetry, and Shenandoah.  Seven collections of poems have been published, including Running in Place (L’Epervier Press,). At Park and East Division ( L’Epervier Press,) The Lindbergh Half-century (L’Epervier Press,) The Inheritance (Sandhills Press,) and Storm Service (Basfal Books).  Basfal also published After Business in the West: New and Selected Poems .
Robert Lietz has completed several print and hypertext (hypermedia) collections of poems for publication, including Character in the Works: Twentieth-Century Lives, West of Luna Pier, Spooking in the Ruins, Keeping Touch,  and Eating Asiago & Drinking Beer. 

David B. McCoy

David B. McCoy is a Social Studies teacher in a township school near Massillon, Ohio, and an ordained member of the Spiritual Humanist Clergy.

Since 1979, David has run Spare Change Press, which in 2007 went to a web-based format for its Solo Flyer.

David is the author of Ohio Wineries Guidebook; the Internet book, Buffalo Time;  The Geometry of Blue: Prose and Selected Poetry, and Voices from Behind the Mask.  (Ordering information can be found at http://www.dbmccoy.info/ )

 

David Thornbrugh

David Thornbrugh currently writes from South Korea, where he teaches English in a National University. He writes to push back the darkness a little bit at a time, in the same flighty manner as lightning bugs. He has been published in numerous small press journals such as The Green Hills Liteary Lantern, Snow Monkey, Gulf Stream Magazine, and Crab Creek Review. He once wrote the questions for a geography textbook and prefers multiple choice questions to True/False.

Hakim Bellamy

Hakim Bellamy is a two-time National Champion in the Poetry Slam scene. Hakim is a freelance journalist, community organizer and social justice advocate as well as a playwright and actor. Hakim’s poetry and journalism have been published internationally as well as his radio journalism on KUNM 89.9FM out of Albuquerque, NM. He is currently working for the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs and is a board member for Poetic Justice Institute as well. He is most proud of being the Poetry Club coach at South Valley Academy.

Peter Schwartz

Peter Schwartz is a painter, poet and writer. He's also an associate art editor for Mad Hatters' Review. His artwork can be seen all over the Internet but specifically at: http://www.sitrahahra.com/. He's had hundreds of paintings, poems, and stories published both online and in print. His last exhibition was through Aesthetica Magazine and featured a projection of his digital painting 'Terminal 4' on a busy street in York, UK. This December his work will be featured at the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in Chelsea NYC.

Peter Schwartz's e-chapbook 'amnesia diary', published by Barnwood Press for their Great Find series, is available for your viewing pleasure at: http://web.mac.com/tomkoontz/Site_24/amnesia_diary.html


Peter's most recent book is the nowhere glow from Trainwreck Press.

Felino Soriano

Felino Soriano, from California, a behavioral assistant and philosophy student. The existence of being a classic and avant-garde jazz enthusiast juxtaposed with his philosophical studies, one can ascertain his poetic inspirations. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in over 90 print and online journals including Blaze VOX, Zone, Ygdrasil, Silent Actor, Hecale, Cherry Blossom Review, Bewildering Stories, Houston Literary Review, among others.

Felino Soriano's latest book is Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes from Trainwreck Press.

Ray Succre

Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and baby son.  He has been published in Aesthetica, Small Spiral Notebook, and Rock Salt Plum, as well as in numerous others across as many countries.

Christopher Major

Christopher MajorChristopher Major resides in Stoke On Trent, UK. He has published a chapblook, The Lowest Level and other poems (white leaf press), and an online chapbook, All Of This And Nothing with lilylitreview.com as well as publishing widely in e-zines such as Zygote in My Coffee, High Horse, Snakeskin, Poetry Kit, Birmingham Words, Lit Kos, Underground Voices, The Hold, Straight From The Fridge, Laura Hird Showcase, Winamop, Shampoo, Can We Have Our Ball Back, Smokebox, Tryst, Dirt, Bolts Of Silk, Word Riot, Thieves Jargon, 3rd Muse, Orange Room Review, Coupremine, Pemmican, The Hiss Quarterly, Southern Ocean Review, Dogmatika etc... 

Davide Trame

Davide Trame is an Italian teacher of English, born and living in Venice-Italy. His poems have been published extensively in literary magazines in the U.K, U.S. and elsewhere. His poetry collection, “Re-Emerging”, was published as an on-line book by www.gattopublishing.com  in 2006.

DB Cox

DB Cox can be found in the early-morning hours, bent over a Fender Strat, in roadhouses and juke joints throughout the south. He describes his playing style as “ look at life through drunken, godless eyes” To quiet his tortured soul, he writes. He has published three books of poetry. His first chapbook is entitled “Passing For Blue”, and is available from Rank Stranger Press. Two other chapbooks, “Lowdown” and “Ordinary Sorrows”, are available from Pudding House Publications. His latest full size collection called “Empty Frames” can be picked up on-line at Main Street Rag Publishing.

PJ Nights

PJ Nights was born and raised in the wild and ravishing state of Maine. She is the co-editor of two print anthologies, Women of the Web available from Sun Rising Press and from east to west: bicoastal verse (print edition #1) available at Lulu.com. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Ocho 10, Blue Fifth Review, Slow Trains, Panamowa:  A New Lit Order, and the Velvet Avalanche Anthology. Her personal website, which also features other poets updated every season, is from east to west: bicoastal verse at http://www.geocities.com/pj_nights.