Love this piece, Han! This gathering of tools, echoing Rich but diving into hope, not wreck... ❤️🔥
Also: "And not be stopped by ice / off the coast of Greenland." A perfect linebreak—elegant & powerful—a masterclass on shouting silence 🤩
Put on this coat of goose feather.
These sealskin boots. Wipe tallow on your lips.
We may see a gam of whales today.
When we return, our loves may still love us…
Han VanderHart #poetry #NaPoMo #NationalPoetryMonth 📚💙
Was about to say the same thing as rob: both, always both.
Insisting on the chap will only make the bigger project better (with extra editing & more opportunities for spontaneous growth); or… fulfill the chap’s promise & clear way for other projects.
My 2 cents anyway ;)
“a curious lyric & layered essay that counterpoints a thread of Dante & Saramago against a commentary around the difficulties around attempting to garner a passport one can’t travel to”
— @robmclennan.bsky.social, on my manifesto on bureau. Thank you, rob, for your lyric attention & kind words 💙
Send us your beautiful work, we're looking forward to reading it!
How to Write a War Poem from my latest collection of poems titled Hold Your Own @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social published in 2024
THIS, in a week!
So excited to revisit Montréal/Tiohtià:ke & read bordercrossing poems that were born in that city I love...
Why some people are called expats and others migrants. The migration of birds. A person that feels like home. A country, a place, a language, a body that doesn´t. Poetry and CNF welcome, black and white drawings are also possible.
Oh the honour is surely mine! Thank you for the kind words & the inspiration ☺️
Thank you for reading & the kind words ☺️
X (poem by Carlos A. Pittella) after Ae Hee Lee Every time they print an X all over my face not even pixelated but a fairly good face considering we’ve endured a 36+hour journey from some side of an ocean to some other side of an ocean that is if you can look beyond the X My love & our lovey are both Xless but because I’ve been Xed we three must move to a different line the bottom of it & wait with all those whose crowdface stuffed into a cloud has been pierced by a crossroads How should one cross the last steps from behind the yellow line to the officer’s plexiglass with that rectangle missing for a voice to carry hopefully? How to modulate a raspy accent to sound the least menacing possible? Does one go with joke or extra-formal deference all the way thru? Depending on whom you get the pickup line can drop all of you into an endless spool never to be fished out of sea the coast looking further & further away it’s my turn now Hello
The second poem in the #SpotlightSeries (curated by @robmclennan.bsky.social) is after @aeheelee.bsky.social's amazing "Conversation with Immigration Officer" 🔥(www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...)
To read my #SpotlightSeries poems & author statement: robmclennan.medium.com/spotlight-se...
Decolonial x-ray of my accent (poem by Carlos A. Pittella) for Amogha Since syntax I have an accent Greek battalion coercing my jaw into warmongering formations wicked stepmom grading sibilances into proper whistle More like several accents on accents though several never means you can sever all without mirrors bending the other day I said “mom” & did not have the first momrise sound the land said Well pruned we fall again byebyeing suns “Will we grow back” asks my love who goes by the English noise of “love” & feels falling deeply but never says it ahowling so not to scare our child staredaring the moon Here comes a feather falling “Hey d’ya hear that metal bird screeching such an axing grinding landmouths it didn’t have the right-of-way didn’t even know how to fluff n’ drop a vowel” I wanna featherly ask syntax till mom fesses up on dad (Mr. colonial dad to you) who laughs cigbutts on his lips I swear he’s gonna pee those ole bigboy pants when we ask disarmingly
One of the poems in the #SpotlightSeries (curated by @robmclennan.bsky.social) is dedicated to my brilliant poet-friend @amoghaaa.bsky.social 🔥
To read both poems & the accompanying author statement: robmclennan.medium.com/spotlight-se...
« I often find myself meditating on borders as liquid fault lines. Liquids, of course, don’t respect borders. Water finds porousness. »
Good timing for this meditation, leading up to the April/16 #PoetryMatters event on « borders, boundaries, margins » ☺️
Thank you, @robmclennan.bsky.social 💙
![Poetry Matters warmly invites you to "borders, boundaries, margins," an evening of poetry readings featuring Shanice Nicole, Elizabeth Wood, Carlos A. Pittella. The event will take place at the Rocket Science Room (170 Rue Jean-Talon O #204, Montreal, QC) on Thursday, April 16th at 7:00pm.
[bios]
SHANICE NICOLE is a Black feminist educator, facilitator, writer,
(out)spoken word artist, and mother based in Montreal. She is also the curator of free community resources such as Jobs & Things and All Black
Everything Montreal. Her debut children's book, Dear Black Girls, was published in 2021 by Metonymy Press. Shanice Nicole was nominated as Gala Dynastie’s Author of the Year in 2022 and named one of CBC’s Black Changemakers in 2024.
Originally from rural Ontario, ELIZABETH WOOD is a Montreal-based educator, visual artist, art writer, and poet. Her first chapbook Outlaw, Rainy Day was published in 2022 by Turret House Press. She was also a contributor to their collective chapbook XTRACTS Studio #7 (2022). More recently, her chapbook The quiet only knows half of itself was published by Anstruther Press in 2025. Wood’s poems and writing on art have appeared in numerous arts publications, exhibition catalogues, and poetry journals.
CARLOS A. PITTELLA is a Latinx poet and editor and the recipient of a 2022 Frontier Global Poetry Prize. His poetry is haunted by borders and bureaucracies and has appeared in places such as Shō, Jacket2, Glyphöria, & The Capilano Review. His first chapbook in English footnotes after Lorca was published in 2024 by above/ground press, and in 2025 he published Propersitions with Cactus Press. His latest work, the manifesto Dante’s Bureau, will be published by Anstruther Press in 2026.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vdyucqz7c5gplbzwznd4yeot/bafkreifpb3wkpj2cz7nkbjydhcdyp7g5oxncclacesgcfyuemc7stuyym4)
Poetry Matters warmly invites you to "borders, boundaries, margins," an evening of poetry readings featuring Shanice Nicole, Elizabeth Wood, Carlos A. Pittella. The event will take place at the Rocket Science Room (170 Rue Jean-Talon O #204, Montreal, QC) on Thursday, April 16th at 7:00pm. [bios] SHANICE NICOLE is a Black feminist educator, facilitator, writer, (out)spoken word artist, and mother based in Montreal. She is also the curator of free community resources such as Jobs & Things and All Black Everything Montreal. Her debut children's book, Dear Black Girls, was published in 2021 by Metonymy Press. Shanice Nicole was nominated as Gala Dynastie’s Author of the Year in 2022 and named one of CBC’s Black Changemakers in 2024. Originally from rural Ontario, ELIZABETH WOOD is a Montreal-based educator, visual artist, art writer, and poet. Her first chapbook Outlaw, Rainy Day was published in 2022 by Turret House Press. She was also a contributor to their collective chapbook XTRACTS Studio #7 (2022). More recently, her chapbook The quiet only knows half of itself was published by Anstruther Press in 2025. Wood’s poems and writing on art have appeared in numerous arts publications, exhibition catalogues, and poetry journals. CARLOS A. PITTELLA is a Latinx poet and editor and the recipient of a 2022 Frontier Global Poetry Prize. His poetry is haunted by borders and bureaucracies and has appeared in places such as Shō, Jacket2, Glyphöria, & The Capilano Review. His first chapbook in English footnotes after Lorca was published in 2024 by above/ground press, and in 2025 he published Propersitions with Cactus Press. His latest work, the manifesto Dante’s Bureau, will be published by Anstruther Press in 2026.
We have a flyer for « borders, boundaries, margins »❗
Kindly let it fly & refly...
👉 Thu, April 16 | 7pm
Rocket Science Room (170, rue Jean-Talon O #204)
A #PoetryMatters event with:
Elizabeth Wood, @itsshanicenicole.bsky.social, & @pittella.bsky.social
[Free & open to the public]
Systems scribing map from S. Leite's 2026 paper "Teacher agency for transformative climate change education: a systems analysis of determinants and deterrents," published at EER. The diagram displays opportunities and barriers to Transformative Climate Education in Québec, pointing to high-stakes exams as key leverage points for systems transformation.
Diagram from S. Leite's latest paper on Climate Change Education, suggesting that:
« high-stakes exams (Ministerial or IB) have a disproportionate influence on the rest of the education system and thus serve as key leverage points for systems transformation... » 💚
Source: doi.org/10.1080/1350...
« Remember the coelacanth?
Give it eels, beetles, chocolate ices
if it wants. »
—Stephanie Bolster ❤️🔥
Montréal/Tiohtià:ke folks, reading alert❗
« borders, boundaries, margins »
a #PoetryMatters evening of poetry with:
Elizabeth Wood, @itsshanicenicole.bsky.social, & @pittella.bsky.social
Rocket Science Room (170, rue Jean-Talon O #204)
Thu, April 16 | 7pm
Free & open—but kindly register here ⏬
Single panel comic of a man reading a book while wearing a deep sea diving suit underwater. The caption reads "In order to escape the insidious commercial excesses of Christmas, Uncle George opts for a quiet weekend away from it all".
I love Diane Seuss.
W.S. MERWIN
Calling on Raphael Rabello's guitar to help summon the appropriate Orishas to help complete a cover letter... ❤️🔥
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2cN...
EXCUSE ME?!
« They were things both with and without rules »
— @mishasolomon.bsky.social on poems, writing, & his debut,
in interview with @robmclennan.bsky.social 💙💙
"Technique & heart...
...You ever read a book you’re enjoying then, turn aghast, want to close the book & hide it because otherwise you’ll read it all too fast & be done? Yeah, that."
—@pearlpoet.bsky.social's fabulous review of @mishasolomon.bsky.social's debut poetry collection❤️🔥
Wonderful interview: I particularly love the meditation of learning Korean as a way to re-view English from a distance.💙
Funnily (in a mirror-like way), it was English that allowed me to see my first (& also colonial) language from a distance too... so I connect.
Cover of Dante's Bureau—a deformalist manifesto, by Carlos A. Pittella. Published by Anstruther Press, in the Manifesto series, no. 13. The red cover includes a laurel crown reminiscent of Dante's laurels.
[DB 3/3]
Gratitude to Stephen Ross, my Dantean colleagues (including @cbcradio2.bsky.social!), Jason Camlot, Sina Queyras, & Shane Neilson for their wise edits.
Much love to Anstruther Press for the beautiful layout of this unorthodox text.
✋Will there be a launch somewhere? Of course! Soon. 😉
(Opening page of DANTE'S BUREAU, a deformalist manifesto, by Carlos A. Pittella, published by Anstruther Press, 2026) I. INFERNAL CUSTOMS: As Dante and Vergil approach the city of Dis in the lower rings of hell, they encounter resistance. The gatekeepers say only Vergil may proceed, and Dante is terrified he will be left alone. Vergil tries to parlay with the demons, but they slam the gates in his face. Vergil sighs, confessing he is vexed, then tells Dante not to be daunted, because they shall win this contest against whoever tries to block their way. Reminding Dante that the gatekeepers’ insolence is nothing new, Vergil announces their course of action: wait! All they have to do is wait. “No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra” (In the middle of the way there was a rock) Brazilian modernist Carlos Drummond de Andrade repeated this line in permutations throwing them as a mock sonnet, squashing as a tombstone all poetic mandates. Do you think Carlos stopped to think? In the middle of the way there is always some form hurtful & heavy, slowing down attempted bordercrossings. Every poetic form establishes a border & strict rules for inhabiting.
[DB 2/3]
🛃 In 2022, during a “Dante & Modern Literature” course facilitated by Stephen Ross, I drafted an essay about the origins of Western poetic & bureaucratic forms.
Excerpts appeared in The Capilano Review & GLYPHÖRIA @metatronpress.bsky.social, but only now the full manifesto is published.
[DB 1/3]
«DANTE’S BUREAU», my manifesto on bureaucracy, is out with Anstruther Press❗
🛂 I've long been haunted by forms (both poetic & bureaucratic), questioning their history, coping with their borders, writing within/about them…
This is a limited ed., so don't wait until your file your taxes 🙃
from my 3rd book Waterbaby @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social
"Catfish"
Photo of poet with sunglasses, Brazilian flowery T-shirt, green earbuds, & leather jacket, in a Parma piazza.
Ciao from Parma,
looking for Pessoa,
who dreamt a dream of Parma
that became a rhizomatic play
about the limits of sanity
that now is a collective dream…