Poetry in the Pontiac, with AJ Dolman ! This is a poetry thing happening this Wednesday!
Woot! I have a virtual reading with Toronto's Brockton Writers Series on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. at Glad Day's new space at 32 Lisgar St.
Been struggling lately to feel like a writer, and to work on my stuff. But last week, I received my annual payment from the Public Lending Rights Program from the Canada Council for the Arts, as my books Town & Train and Fear Itself (both Lethe Press) are available in Canadian libraries. It's a reminder that I'm still a writer.
Thank you, casual library users, avid bibliophiles, the Canada Council, The Writers' Union of Canada, all you readers out there and, of course, other writers carving out their craft.Currently reviewing Soundtrack, a Book*hug Press poetry collection by my pal Michael V. Smith. Each poem is titled after a popular 1970's, 1980's or 1990's pop song, his personal experience with that song, and growing up queer in our hometown of Cornwall, Ontario.
Oh, damn it to hell, to hear the news of Catherine O'Hara passing yesterday. Discovered her as a kid watching Toronto's SCTV at sleepovers, growing up in the 'burbs. The film Beetlejuice cemented my enduring crush for her doing Harry Belafonte's "Day-O". Adored her pretentious Moira Rose (depicted) in Schitt's Creek. Last saw her as an alcoholic pothead shrink in the second season of The Last of Us. A delightfully irascible broken character.
You were terrific, Catherine O'Hara. Rest in humour & power. And please say "Hi" for me to your fellow SCTV alum John Candy.
This week has had noteable losses.
Sal Buacema passed away January 24 at the age of 89. Buscema is the legendary comic-book artist who, among other many credentials, drew The Incredible Hulk monthly comic for a record ten years, defining Ol' Greenskin's iconic comic look of the time. Notable additions to the Green Goliath mythos include the treacherous fellow irradiated U-Foes and the Cold-War-era Soviet Super Soldiers.
The slobbering mouth is all Buscema's touch, like the famous Kirby Cosmic Crackle. I grew up with that comic. For eight years, Buscema also penciled The Spectacular Spider-Man.
I have a poem, '"Nomad", about Sal Buscema and the Jade Giant, that I am seeking a home for.
Thank you for the high adventure, Sal. You were brilliant.
Here is the Frank Miller cover, opening splash page, a Hulk-out splash page and a claustrophic sequence from The Incredible Hulk # 261, "Encounter on Easter Island". Hulk meets up with sociopath Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man. Fellow comic legend, mainstay Hulk writer Bill Mantlo, scripted the issue, during Old Jade Jaw's worldwide drifter years. This outre imagery, the entire Easter Island motif, captured my impressionable imagination.
I allude to this outlandish issue # 267 in "Nomad".
https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/sal-buscema-tribute
This just in! Interviewed Canadian novelist, poet, editor and fire-starter Amber Dawn about Buzzkill Clamshell, her new Arsenal Pulp Press poetry collection, for Plenitude Magazine.
It's here.
Very satisfying to talk shop, having followed fab Amber Dawn since finding her superb story “Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental” in Arsenal Pulp Press’s 2009 anthology Fist of the Spider-Woman (which she edited), reviewing it for Xtra Magazine (née Capital Xtra) and Rue Morgue Magazine: Horror in Culture and Entertainment.
