Have you noticed how cooking and editing are comically ill-at-odds with each other? Did you know ravioli is edible after being cooked for at least 25 minutes and fried for the last few? *le sigh*
I have review coming out soon on Tamil Terrains: poems, translations, reflections, edited by Nedra Rodrigo and Geetha Sukumaran (Trace Press, 2025) whichI found fascinating.
OPEN BOOKS, OPEN MINDS is a full-day book industry conference of the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec, in-person in Montreal or online, on April 23, 2026. Further details are on their website.
Should I do a poem read a day for the month? Share a poem written each day in the month? Compose and share the fresh? It’s kinda arbitrary, not as if I don’t do those on the regular.
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I feel like the princess and the pea. There’s a book missing. Where’d it get off to? It’s…orange-yellow?
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Susan Constable died on March 18, 2026, at the age of 83. Read her obituary. Susan began her connection to haiku when she entered the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival’s very first Haiku Invitational in 2006. Way back almost to usenet days, we were on a poetry-w listserv workshop together.
The Internet Writing workshop is still going I believe although its news wall is out of date. Joanna Weston listed as active, died Aug 2020. I knew that but sometimes I forget again. Death makes no sense.
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The Ottawa Indie Bookstore Crawl is back again, April 24-26th! The crawl:
Books on Beechwood, Evermore Books, Love Lyla Books, Mill Street Books (Almonte), Octopus Books, Perfect Books, Singing Pebble Books, The Spaniel’s Tale Bookstore and World of Maps.
Pick up your free passport at a participating store, starting April 24.
Visit 7 out of 9 participating bookstores.
Submit your competed passport to any participating store before close of business on April 26 for your chance to win!
Prizes include: A grand prize of $225 to spend at Ottawa’s indie bookstores; One of nine secondary prizes of $25 to spend at an indie.
No purchase necessary! Each participating store will also have their own in-store activities and giveaways to celebrate Canadian Independent Bookstore Day.
Open mic as part KaDo at versefest.ca, was 1:30pm Sun Mar 29, Black Box Theatre, Arts Court, Ottawa. I read a few haiku atMinute 52:43. Photos at PearlEssence.
If you missed it, theVF channel is still there to see events you missed. or want to have another go at listening to. Like Isabella Wang at Arc’s showcase or the Factory Series poetics lecture.
Isabella just started the Phoenix Poetry Prize. You can offer your books or cash as support.
Over at Blasted Tree, there’s Die Workshop which is a chance operations poetry chapbook by Neil Surkin. A couple years old but I missed it at the time.
Do you know about booksellers.ca? The Quebec Cooperative of Independent Bookstores brings together, under the name Les libraires, more than 125 independent bookstores in Quebec, the Maritimes, Ontario and Manitoba. Its members are committed to both books and book readers and to the vitality of the literary scene. In 2026, LIQ’s digital expertise was shared Canada-wide when it deployed booksellers.ca, an extension of its leslibraires.ca site. Great for when your indie is far away and when you want digital book now but not from you-know-who.
Over at Wikipedia, “Better to praise and share than blame and ban”, John Updike‘s rules for art criticism.
Oh, and this isn’t technically links but here are my fav reads and re-read this year:
Becoming Altar: New and Selected Poems by Kyla Houbolt (Suppress, 2025) Cinema of the Present by Lisa Robertson (Coach House, 2014) Weather by Rob Taylor (Gaspereau Press, 2024) Do It Wrong: How to be a Poet in the Twenty-first Century by Derek Beaulieu (Assembly Press, 2026) Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal (Quirk Books, 2022) and Turtle Dreams: The Red Moon Anthology of English Language Poetry 2025, ed. by Jim Kacian (Red Moon Press, 2026).
Word from David O’Meara, “When you’re starting off, it’s easier to take writing really seriously while also having a really good time doing it. I want to do whatever I need to, in my writing, in order to be doing those two things simultaneously again. “This matters” plus “This is fun,” the whole time I’ve got my notebook open.” And other positive angles from Salem Paige.
There are also poems coming in the paper Peter F Yacht club which you can pick up via above/ground subscription or at a merch table at VERSeFest which starts tomorrow.
Ex-Puritan closes its spring submissions in 2 day.
Did I already say that the schedule and registration for Haiku Canada Conference is now open?
Did you know Sasha Archer has pages of his books and poem links?
Did you know it’s world water day? Hydrate for smoother joints and clearer head.
How to Write Bad Haiku by Kris Lindbeck. “If one seasonal reference is good (see Kigo: Season Words in Haiku), two, or even three, seasonal references are better” Yes, nothing but kino. Big ole wobbling stack of kigo. This list is totally applicable to all poetry forms.
Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku contest winners at the Heron’s Nest with 1,505 entries, from 791 poets, judged by Randy Brooks… I particularly like one of the Honourable Mentions,
public restroom I wash the bar of soap with my hands
Vandana Parashar Panchkula, India
No surprise the excellent, Antoinette Cheung and Jacquie Pearce make a showing. They also do the people’s choice awards. Spoiler, the top pick is fabulous, concrete and unexpected and natural.
wild berries the trail map folded into a cone
Steve Bahr (December Issue)
Chad Lee Robinson is up there too. I do admire his brain.
