Myrmurs: An Exploded Sestina is Shannon Maguire’s second book of poetry in her planned medievalist trilogy. Myrmurs uses the twelfth-century poetic form of the sestina as a starting point for the exploration of living systems. Myrmurs is an innovative variant of the sestina form (a medieval mechanism of desire that spirals around six end words). Connecting medieval […]
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BookThug’s 2015 Year in Review
Here at BookThug HQ, we can’t believe it’s already December 30! Today, we’re looking back at our year in review and sneaking a peek at what lies ahead in 2016. While 2015 will soon be over, it won’t soon be forgotten, for what a year it has been. BOOKTHUG’S YEAR IN REVIEW New Website and […]
Continue reading#ReadWomen: A Recommended Reading List
This year, thanks to the Twitter campaigns #ReadWomen and #ReadWomen2015, book lovers everywhere have been encouraged to read more books written by women. We fully support such a great and worthwhile endeavour and hope that readers everywhere will take up the challenge. Here is just a sampling of BookThug’s #ReadWomen recommended reading list of compelling […]
Continue readingBookThug Spring 2015 Launch Party: The Ultimate Video Playlist
Clocking in at ten (count-’em, ten!) adventurous, innovative titles, Spring 2015 was BookThug’s biggest season ever. Authors came from far and wide for the Spring Launch Party in Toronto, and BookThug supporters came out in droves to ring in the new season. Happily, our indispensable media guru John Schmidt was there to document the event. ❧ Opening […]
Continue readingIn Conversation: Wanda Praamsma talks with Pearl Pirie about her new collection the pet radish, shrunken
The lyrics populating Ottawa poet Pearl Pirie‘s new collection, the pet radish, shrunken, buzz with oblique wisdom and surgically sharp wit. Cicadas chirp from beneath the troposphere; secret agent squirrels conspire among the peonies at sunset; revelatory reversals and unfamiliar aphorisms grow like wild flowers. Playing on themes of love and relationships, future-politics of the English language and the current […]
Continue readingSpring poetry PREVIEW: three poems from Jake Kennedy’s forthcoming collection Merz Structure No. 2 Burnt by Children at Play
In 1981 Jake Kennedy accidentally burnt down an abandoned house. Years later, as an adult, he read a story about how the German artist Kurt Schwitters’ “interior house-sculpture” (“Merz Structure No. 2”) was destroyed in 1951 after some children playing with matches accidentally burnt the building down. This sad ‘unmaking’ became the inspiration for Merz […]
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