plan of action

So the idea is that I will be moving out West this coming Fall and getting a 'real' job.

My ideal 'real job' would be working for an alternative weekly so I've been in the process of trying to get as much Canadian writing experience as possible.

This past Spring I self published a book of poetry entitled 'Somerset Street West and 'Love'" about failed love affairs and the madness that encompasses my neighbourhood. So far it's been well received in both Canada and the UK.

I have been published in various independent magazines in America (Alternative Music Press- interviews with Moneen and Misery Signals), in the UK (The Mic interviews with Stars, Caribou and Minus the Bear, as well as my own online zine when I was 18 in which I interviewed and wrote about whatever was of interest. In Canada most recently I have been featured in the university international student magazine describing my experience of living abroad and in fact while I was away began work on my own book of the same subject. (which may or may not see the light of day)

This past Fall I began writing on the subject of film with relation to my degree. The ones I was most satisfied with were The Male Gaze in Wall-E- The Perversion of a Little Robot and the Misogynistic Representation of Women in Romantic Comedies using He's Just Not That Into You and Pillow Talk.

Additionally, I have much experience in Radio DJ'ing and have just been hired on to co-host a counter-cultural radio show in which I will have the opportunity to do some on-air journalism beyond just interviews. (I'm excited about this)

This past May I even co-hosted the Craig Norris Hour on CBC 3. That would be a dream job but with all the recession cuts, I have to work quite hard to get anything beyond an internship with them. Plus, they're based out of Vancouver, and I'll be in Edmonton.

Cheers and thanks for reading :)

I will be sending poetry, prose and ideas to:

- In Words (carleton poetry magazine)
- The Moose and Pussy (Ottawa sex lit magazine)
- Upfront
- Iheartmusic
- Cokemachineglow
- and whatever else I possibly can

I'm looking into registering in some writing workshops as well to further challenge me. I just returned back to Canada and was writing quite a bit while away but I'm not sure how good any of that is as it was more self-meditative than entertaining.

Strawberry Chocolate Cake Clown Face (unfinished)

Strawberry chocolate cake created to distract me from thoughts of real life, reality and responsibilities. A replacement of the three ‘r’s. Not quite the grade school lesson reflected in sound.

The bells are ringing for high society ladies. Too bad homeless people try to steal my bike. They make faces at me like that clown who kept repeating, ‘I’m gonna getcha! I’m gonna getcha!’ Gloved hands outstretched ducking past. Still able to ignite fear and queesiness at age 22. Dirty hands haunt dreams and memories of unnaturally orange hair.

Knatted with birthday cake honk the nose and continue.

Leftovers Inspire Prose

The leftovers in the fridge are smelly reminders of you. Your favourite sauces half emptied squished between the expired ketchup. Remember the purple ones when we were little? There was something wrong with a flavor being identified with colour. Orange is orange, that’s a given. Purple equates to what exactly? Setting the standard for artificiality in the young ones.


Even the Tupperware you left is marked with chili stains. I always hated to scrape off the molding parts, though truth be told, it took me weeks to finally toss it.

When we first broke up I had to throw away the food you bought me. It was ridden with association. Organic apples got chucked into the garbage. I could have tasted the guilt of your acts.

Cooking as a means of seduction you first invited me over for food. Dough from scratch you kneeded it expertly showing off the movements of your skilled hands. Twisting and grinding. Mashing and pounding. Just enough spice to make it taste right. Preheating for [culinary] pleasure.

Bun in the oven. 45 minutes is all it took. Rise.

Rise up from your kitchen and come into the bedroom conveniently located right off of it. Hearing your roommates cook and stumble drunken into it late at night we held each other. Rubbing ginger and vinegar on our skins. Paper fragility of an onion to be peeled roughly until (pre-cum) leakage. Cut, cut, damn.

Mixed into the soup, blood. Toss more curry powder in to disguise the putridity. Salt was used in the middle ages to do that to spoiled meat. Good thing neither of us dine on that carnal sin. Mrs. Nesbits Meat Pies. Jack the Ripper would have something to say about that. Never to be seen, his crimes hidden in the crust. You choose dust instead.

Garbage never taken out, stench from across the house. Cat piss and rotten salad. Styrophone containers half hazardly tossed on top, you’d bitch about the waste. Ecological footprint your socks are always dirty. Never to disintegrate you’d compost them instead.

Reaching into the depths of the fridge things are growing even without your presence. I’d pull out too early, forgetting about you. Science projects with minds of their own. Gagging upon opening, similar to first eating you. No entrees we’d dined together on vegetables and rice. Pure in intentions we’d fuck on the kitchen table. In front of the maintenance guy across the street peering in.

That rag smelled like wet dog. Why you’d touch it, I don’t know. You’d smell like dog in the morning. Drooling just as much a pool of garlic, no wait, pussy breath. You complained that day that your hand smelled of sex. Your own fault for reaching down before breakfast.
Not so sanitary your hands would be cleansed with Sunlight lemon dish detergent. Doing the washing up they say. Special knives for parsnip patties and cutting boards never big enough. Big enough that it fit.

You’d feed the masses if you could but in the meantime you’d feed your lovers tidbits of soy and French wine from exes. Drain the bottle. Suck it dizzy dry. Glasses disappear with each passing night. Red elipsor ring on your lips. Ring around the rosey. A pocket full of dirty and rocks shoved down your front pouch.

Traveling across the country we’d land in another kitchen, oil splattered the same and burned flesh to where you had to caress to forget the pain. Suck on it hard and eye the sore. Fan and heat beating down on bodies weighed down with famine.

Fingers sunk into rotting fruit. A red pepper bent and mangled to the elements that preserved it. Seeds spilling out, no longer good, exposed. You try to salvage its meat to cook together. Scraping and stuffing it back turned hunched over a dark corner. Ignoring the microwave a Wok replaces life giving.

Breakfast of flesh is that of champions. We’d fuck til we were both winners. Juice in the morning. Drinking deep that sweetness followed by black tea and marmalade. Crunchy toast crumbs pissed you off eating on dotted sheets.

Scrubbing the potatoes clean the dirt would run down the drain. Thermostat is messed up so fresh things are freezing. Who’d want to bite down on that? I toss out the rest of your Tupperware experiments and close the humming fridge. Heat generating a soft pool my foot is wet. I slip.