Listen to my poem 'Interview with a spawning salmon on the kagawong river'

Arc Poetry Magazine has published the poem along with my reading of it on the magazine website. The print version is forthcoming. The poem can be read in multiple ways: line by line across the horizontal, up and down each column, and back and forth. I created that structure to mimic the river - its movements and that of the salmon that move up along the river, and the rocks along the way that create resting spots for the spawning fish. I like the non-linear structure of the poem; ecologies are not linear; I wanted my poem to be multi-directional, and to challenge our distinctly anthropocentric way of seeing the world.

Listen and read HERE

Nina Jane Drystek says this about the poem:

"Every time I read “Interview with a spawning salmon on the kagawong river” I find new surprises and ways of reading the poem. The structure of the poem allows it to be read in several different ways, which questions how we personify creatures and how they might see the world. The first column keeps the reader grounded while the right columns remind us about the fluidity of the creature." (Arc Magazine).