What I'm Doing

Hi friends.

First of all, thanks to those of you who have subscribed to my SubStack.

I honestly am not really sure what I’m doing on here. I joined the platform to follow other SubStacks, and have also been using it as a kind of low-key social media.

But some of you have very kindly subscribed, so I guess I should actually post something.

I know most people use SubStack for long-form essays. Don’t expect anything like that from me. I generally don’t have a lot of coherent thoughts that lend themselves well to essays. My mind is typically a vast wash of uncertainty. This is one of the reasons I write poetry—it’s one of the few genres that really lets one express the nuanced uncertainty of experience.

So what I’ll use this platform for is periodic updates on what I’ve been up to with poetry. If that’s not of interest, feel free to unsubscribe. I won’t be offended. I may not even notice.

So here goes.

My biggest news in recent months (which many of you may already be aware of) was that I won first prize in the ESU Formal Verse Contest. You can read my winning poem, “Continuing City,” or watch a video of me reading it, here. There’s also a really wonderful Marly Youmans poem on the same page.

Other recent poems:

• “The Petrie Island Platonist” in Bywords. (The page should open on my poem. If it doesn’t, navigate to “contents” for April 2025.)

• “The Blessing of the Waters” in FORMA Journal #21. (See page 67.)

• “The Sunday Painters” in Traces Journal (which is a really wonderful new Canadian journal of Christian arts and letters—check out the whole issue!)

March was the one-year anniversary of my book, The Living Law. If you don’t have a copy yet, it can be ordered from your local bookstore, Indigo/Chapters, Amazon Canada, Amazon US, Eighth Day Books, or straight from the publisher (only in the US). There have been some very kind reviews of the book in The European Conservative, Traces Journal, and Arc Poetry Magazine (not available online). There was also a less complimentary review in The Brazen Head, but everyone’s entitled to an opinion.

I’m pulling together the manuscript for a second book of poems. Like The Living Law, it will be a combination of new poems and older work from the several decades in which I was writing but not publishing. However, it will be a little different in tone—a bit more weird and a bit more dark. I’m probably dating myself here, but remember when Tom Waits put out a bunch of his unreleased tracks in a three-part album sorted by tone—Orphans: Bawlers, Brawlers & Bastards? If you haven’t heard it, “Bawlers” was mostly a compilation of ballads, “Brawlers” was more on the rock & roll end, while “Bastards” was weird experimental songs. I sometimes think The Living Law was my “Bawlers,” while the next book will be my “Brawlers.” (I probably also have a “Bastards” book in me, but no one will ever want to publish it.)

Finally, here’s an interview I did recently on The New Lyre Podcast.

If you’re still reading, thanks for your interest. I’ll have some exciting news to announce in my next release, along with forthcoming poems in Blue Unicorn, Pulp Literature, On Spec Magazine, and Traces Journal.

best,

JKB