Tonight I’m reading for an Art Dean’s conference hosted by the University of Victoria. I’ll be promoting The Malahat Review by reading from “Apiculture”

This story grew from a poem I wrote, though looking at the poem now it seems I cut all but two images. You can read “Apiculture” in the forthcoming edition of the Malahat Review, but for now here’s the poem.

Water – hosed at a wasp nest – Speaks

Shot through clear air
I grip pulp,

pull, rip,
toss sentries
tear entries,
renovate.

I tunnel
grey hive,
tremolo graves –
cadence.

Joy in expansion,
cohesion; my stretched skin
pools, sweetens in
honeyed catacombs.

Swollen, heavy,
I sog paper,
onion off layers
to adhere to, to blur into,

many: I damp the fur
of a thousand furious vibratos

UPDATE: The reading was great fun! Bob MacDonald, Rhonda Ganz, and many many Deans.