English Department Blog
By Katie Stobbart My Poetry Month Choice: “Work Suite” by Emma Healey Photo Credit: Funky64 (www.lucarossato.com) via Compfight cc Prose poems aren’t always easy to pull off. The best ones I have read simultaneously bend and embrace both forms; they have the poem’s hyperawareness of language and devices and prose’s steadiness, its stream-like … Read more
By Michelle Superle My Poetry Month Choices: “Peach,” “My Mother Saw a Dancing Bear,” and “Under Aldergrove Lake” Even as a child, I disliked most children’s poetry. Dennis Lee’s Alligator Pie, one of the bestselling Canadian books of all time, left me cold when I received it as a gift in Kindergarten (and it … Read more
By Virginia Cooke My Poetry Month Choices: “The Bishop Orders his Tomb from St. Praxed’s Church,” “Of Modern Poetry,” “Gesture,” and “Postscript” This assignment is very difficult because I have so many “favourites” for so many reasons. Here are four of them. 1) “The Bishop Orders his Tomb from St. Praxed’s Church” by Robert … Read more
By Margret Bollerup My Poetry Month Pick: “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver Photo Credit: Let Ideas Compete via Compfight cc Right now (I say “right now” like this is a new find for me. It’s not. Years and years ago, someone’s psychiatrist suggested reading it, and that someone emailed it to me, and I … Read more
By Heather McAlpine My Poetry Month Choice: “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy Nineteenth-century British poetry is what I teach, so I worried a little that my choice of poem was too obvious. Believe it or not, there are actually lots of non-nineteenth-century (and non-British) poems that I love (everyone should check out Alison … Read more
By Emily-Pohl-Weary My Poetry Month Choice: “I Shout Love” by Milton Acorn This is one of my favourite poems… and also the slightly weepy goodbye post from your 2015 writer-in-residence. I’m back in Ontario already, and while I will definitely miss all of you guys, it’s lovely here. The weather has FINALLY caught up … Read more
By Alex Wetmore My Poetry Month Choice: “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley My choice for poetry month was partly inspired, I will admit, by the runaway hit TV show Breaking Bad, whose best episode is titled “Ozymandias.” Watching the show’s final season, which tracks Walter White’s meth empire as it inevitably crumbles into … Read more
In case you hadn’t realized it yet, UFV is home to some amazing student writers. Many of them produce insightful local commentary on a grueling weekly schedule in our student newspaper, The Cascade. Sadly though, it’s time to say goodbye to several greats. Katie Stobbart (Editor-in-Chief), Michael Scoular (News Editor), Nadine Moedt (Culture Editor), … Read more
By Andrea MacPherson My Poetry Month Choice: “Rehearsal” by Sara Peters There’s not much better than discovering a new writer you love. I immediately fell in love when I read 1996, Sara Peters’ debut poetry collection. Peters’ collection is about obsessions, in all their varying forms, ranging from sex, cruelty, childhood, and religion. But … Read more
By Hilary Turner My Poetry Month Choice: “Western Wind” One of my favourite poems is the early, anonymous four-line poem “Western Wind.” Here is a fellow who works on the land, probably herding sheep or planting crops, torn between two demands that life has placed on him. On the one hand, he has … Read more