Curious links for February 2015...

1) In the distracted chaos that is mid-December, Lemon Hound unveiled its Emerging Toronto Poets Folio, a selection of the city’s new class as curated by Stevie Howell and Aisha Sasha John. Thankfully that magnifying lens is also being applied to cities outside of the Big Smoke, first with the New Vancouver Poets Folio (as selected by Daniel Zomparelli and Dina Del Bucchia) and soon enough with Winnipeg’s (edited by Jonathan Ball — submit your stuff here, Winnipeggers). If you’ve been yearning for some new Canadian voices, best keep an eye on this series.

2) Since the new year, rob mclennan has been issuing commentaries on a variety of authors over at Jacket2. Alongside these features on Phil Hall, Chris Turnbull, David McGimpsey and others are short interviews with Nikki Reimer and Armand Garnet Ruffo. Offering unique perspectives (like editing Phil Hall's Selected collection) and sometimes new poems (from Pearl Pirie's forthcoming book), mclennan gets us closer to a range of writers at work. All of these posts are available to read here.

3) The Platform, a reading series established by teachers and emerging writers of the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies creative writing program, will resume on Thursday, February 5th at 7:30pm. Featured readers Paul Vermeersch and Alexandra Leggat will share the stage with writers in the program. Full details are here.

4) My Recent Reads column over at Ottawa Poetry Newsletter finally rose with the groundhog, sharing reviews of Jennifer Baker's Abject Lessons (above/ground press, 2014) and Rob Thomas' Brood (Bywords, 2014). I'll be catching up on select, late 2014 work and intercepting new titles over the coming months!