A rolling moose gathers no moss.

he historian who writes potboiler novels replete w/ racial stereotypes / the wildlife biologist who chases bears from the staff parking lot

"Of course, looking back, you would like to reboot and start over, but there is no over." An excerpt from The Waking Comes Late, winner of the 2016 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry.

"On benedick’s retirement, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the catholic church"

A remote control to guide the grief in front of you.

“...it tells time / rapidly, then untells it back again”

"My name is Bar, like the stool."

"And then you think of her with her eyes brimming, the both of you standing dumb in the foyer of the friendship centre, holding eyes, not hands."

"In this poem my father is not drunk. He does not phone me this December night and beg me to invite him for Christmas."

"If I conceive God's child my father will get $500,000 / My father instructs me to pray for this fortune / he could open a second restaurant / a walk-in fridge"

Second prize winner of the 3rd Annual Geist Erasure Poetry Contest.

he played injun in gods country where boys proved themselves clean / dumb beasts who could cut fire out of the whitest sand

"Your poem should look pretty and shut up. Your poem should have a boner. Your poem should smell like a wax museum or jail."

Keep your radio on—otherwise you might not make it home.

Bobby returns from the war with a box-camera snapshot of boys drowning in greatcoats.

“his skull for an inkwell / his blood for ink / and a bayonet for a pen"

"Desire, he said, wants what is not in reach. So reach for me and dance me out of death."

“It’s God’s day off, and mine too.”

“Some phrases / literally could not be said.”

For Barbara Gowdy.

Third prize winner of the 1st Annual Geist Erasure Poetry Contest.

Pole, stretchers, ribs, and canopy.

Third prize winner of the 3rd Annual Geist Erasure Poetry Contest.