Very curious to see how NewPoetry.ca, an online project by George Murray, shapes up. If you haven’t already, you should bookmark the page and keep an eye on it.
I’m quite interested in the slow movement I see towards combining more conventional and more experimental work in the literary world. I’m in an odd position, because although I come out of the “Calgary scene” to a great degree, I live in Winnipeg and am very much a product of the scene here. And although I am probably thought about as an experimental poet (if thought about at all!) I think of myself as a writer of horror and comedy. In fact, I write little poetry. I have even come to think of my published poetry as fiction. The more I look at Ex Machina, the more it seems to me like a science fiction novel — one without characters or a plot.
Combining aesthetic approaches, to create new and terrible monsters, is what truly interests me. My hope for this NewPoetry.ca site is not so much that it will bring together writing of different types in one place (for one audience), but that in fact it will encourage a new, hybrid strain of Canadian poetry.
Yes! That!
[...] to have caused some excitement and some dismay in the poetry world. By far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. But this site and those interested in it are not serving the cause by refusing to engage. As [...]