tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-254161952011-07-30T11:49:30.835-04:00Poetry for materialistsMatthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comBlogger401100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-65603231888882510812010-03-24T22:56:00.002-04:002010-03-24T23:00:48.356-04:00

No more curtains on these windows.Residing at Wordpress now.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-32473224942167447172009-12-31T17:25:00.017-05:002010-03-04T12:56:58.044-05:00

I'm peached to make Starnino's best of 2009 at the Véhicule blog. Also come in for bestest title and (yeah!) reading tour coverage. An aw-shucks tear, crabwise down my face, right now. Still refuse to believe I can't squeeze another tour into 2009.Read a couple of nights ago at Jason Collett's Basement Revue (above, the cover of the man's new album, out in March). He puts on a variety show each

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-83102435290771223972009-12-16T15:30:00.013-05:002009-12-17T10:39:23.326-05:00

Ah, reviews. Who says it's better to give than receive?Katia Grubsic thoughtfully engages with the high-low world of Hayflick in Arc. Some trenchant points. Some kudos.And the Dobson review infra is now available (in part) on Coach House's site. How pleased was I to read this?Tierney seems, as a writer, comparable to, say, a David McGimpsey in terms of range...Verily.No mention of stupid in

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-30179676200755143372009-12-10T22:10:00.005-05:002009-12-10T22:37:55.270-05:00

Recently watched the Starnino-Bök showdown. A contrast in personas, despite comparably natty suits. Rock star vs. cleric. As debates go, warmed over rather than heated, more trench than battlefield. Still, some decent points and a laugh or three. Come for the aperçus, stay for the body language.Much talk of Eunoia’s success, which, despite admissions from both sides about its singularity, still

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-27696904772510774352009-11-23T20:43:00.004-05:002009-11-25T10:12:32.086-05:00

So, a poem of mine made its way into the Best Canadian Poetry in English 2009. What does this mean? More to the point, is it one of the best?No. Of course not. But it does mean that A.F. Moritz thought it was (on that day, anyway), and that's good enough for me. Good enough for Tightrope Books, too.The best poem from last year won the CBC Literary Award. Just like the year before. That just goes

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-85271603825027615932009-10-24T12:41:00.006-04:002009-10-24T13:30:00.012-04:00

So, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald runs a post-mortem on the tour: photographer attends our reading at King's College, reporter has 15 minute telephone interviews with Kevin and me. Imagine my surprise--go ahead, close your eyes--when I read said piece and don't remember saying much of anything attributed to me. No big deal. My memory ain't so great, and thankfully I've yet to announce my candidacy

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-36896548278449542012009-10-11T17:38:00.003-04:002009-10-11T17:47:51.515-04:00

Check it out: Finlay Paterson animated two poems of mine for Nuit Blanche. Collaboration is fun when the other guy does all the work. Way to go, Finlay.Also, a brief interview leading up to WOTS, at which I read with Al Mortiz and Jacob Mooney. We then held court with a talk about inspiration being 90% perspiration...or something. Maybe it was the other way around.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-5808463707444914372009-10-07T21:31:00.005-04:002009-10-07T21:45:58.797-04:00

Nearing the end of the road with Kevin Connolly. Road trip, I should say. (Kev rawks.) We're getting it all down in our Excellent blog, so you don't have to come out to the readings. In fact, it's better than being here. No, it's virtually better than being here. Here is Antigonish for the moment. Halifax tomorrow. Follow the bouncing poets.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-60598263115090731942009-07-19T22:44:00.003-04:002009-07-19T23:02:14.681-04:00

Some questions were asked of me. I answered them, the scale sliding cheeky to earnest. Think kazoo.1. Winnipeg's Uptown2. National Post's Afterword (for NaPoMo)3. mclennan's 12 or 20 questionsRemember: Self-deprecation is the flattest form of sincerity.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-36379369961493281092009-06-05T15:59:00.008-04:002009-06-06T11:14:55.656-04:00

Starring Scott Griffin as Merlin.Poetry whirlwind this past week, shortlist readings followed by “the highlight of the literary calendar,” the dinner. So say those who manage to score tickets, anyway. Yours humbly among them.The readings were sold out. It constantly boggles that 850 people show up. Else-when during the year, the base unit for the audience count is the baker's dozen. As in, "I had

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-2306481171851193912009-05-25T20:15:00.006-04:002009-05-25T21:04:02.893-04:00

Much to tell, much more to keep close to the vest.Whatever you do, do not revisit the Two-on-a-Choo-Choo tour blog. Don't. Stop. Thinking about tomorrow. Dodds/Tierney have separated, like the saucer section of the Enterprise and that sleek war-vessel with the mood lighting. (See above picture. Pretty clear who's what.)Blogging every day, or near to it, was chore-ish. I’m not sure how you people

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-71247616743102469352009-04-17T16:35:00.005-04:002009-04-17T16:42:16.956-04:00

Well, The Dodds & Tierney Poetry Train starts Sunday.You will be hearing about this tour, unless of course you choose not to follow along at our blog. Jeramy has promised one rip-roaring anecdote a day, plus a smattering of epiphanies and a mind twister.Hilarity will ensue.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-77358027007789256502009-04-11T14:30:00.003-04:002009-04-11T15:26:17.671-04:00

I'm up in Evie Christie's blog.It's a roll call of writers' spaces. The lure of the "creative process" has a grip on our imaginations, and there's always the hope that we'll glean something from a glimpse behind the curtain.Great idea for a blog. It's like candy. Have a scroll through the other writers.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-71388209892656191862009-03-29T14:58:00.003-04:002009-03-29T20:03:32.603-04:00

It's official.We're taking our poetry on the road - on the rails, anyway. Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver and Ottawa.You read about authors who hate promotion. I wish I were like that. I wish all I wanted to do was sit in front of my computer and write. Because it's mostly about the sitting anyway.For two weeks, I get to pretend. I'll be carrying my books in a guitar case.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-2970837941668576472009-03-23T21:37:00.005-04:002009-03-23T21:55:50.230-04:00

The Toronto launch is in the books.I've noticed that readings are now being called listening parties. In some quarters anyway. Last night was divided neatly into some serious listening, then serious partying. Fight for your right.Maybe it had something to do with it being the first reading of the season--but you could almost hear the crowd focus harder. Such powers of attention. Intense. It made

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-39076956869852812922009-03-17T18:51:00.006-04:002009-03-20T20:24:18.179-04:00

Skitterish walking up to Coach House to pick up copies of The Hayflick Limit. It's like meeting an old friend that you haven't seen for a while. That kind of nerves.They let me glue one too. I dropped the first try and it turned out a little cock-eyed. The second one, though. Glued and trimmed. Imminently readable.Now to practice my reading for Montreal tomorrow. Practice makes pefrect.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-72148184407957247192008-12-22T19:55:00.008-05:002009-03-08T16:53:41.532-04:00

A longish poem just out in the Fiddlehead, where I tie together leaps in tool-making to expletives. It's a pretty good approximation of my own attempts at carpentry.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-4288006354336916712008-09-21T10:47:00.006-04:002009-03-08T16:55:07.674-04:00

A couple of poems out in the September issue...a shout out to Stu Ross for choosing and publishing.One follows an eclipse chaser as she runs down the globe trotting she's done. There's something singularly hopeful about these people, who make years of preparations and layout huge amounts of cash for brief experiences of sublimity.The other is more depressing, and perhaps a better reflection of my

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-26790597575869893432008-08-17T15:09:00.005-04:002009-03-08T16:55:14.621-04:00

It's called "Seven Phobias" and it's exactly what you'd think. Seven poems, seven pages of real scary stuff. I believe the chipbook is going for a twoonie.Thanks to the crew at littlefishcart: Jeramy Dodds, Leigh Kotsilidis, Joshua Trotter and Gabe Foreman.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-41156999986272992702008-08-03T10:30:00.006-04:002009-03-08T16:55:24.671-04:00

West coast? Check.East coast? Check.Upper Canada? Check.Lower Canada? Check.Finally cracked the prairie nut.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-86202776262159196692008-07-06T20:45:00.003-04:002009-03-07T23:53:47.195-05:00

Almost made it into the print weekly, but alas, 2nd place. A tie. For my poem "Alaskan Black Cod at the St Lawrence Market."Been filling my head with fanciful tales of Darwinism lately. Trying to lose my species-centric view of the world. Tough to do when everything else is so tasty.

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-5891355028990176672008-07-02T21:15:00.005-04:002009-03-07T23:55:30.746-05:00

A new poem out with Maisonneuve. Or I should say, a 3-year-old poem newly published with Maisonneuve, called "Theory of Everything."The idea of a TOE is remarkable for its hubris. The way things are going, and all. And I just found out string theory is a dead end. Not a scrap of real-world data to back it up.Glad I didn't write a poem about that. 

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-55323653938616856092008-06-25T21:03:00.004-04:002009-03-07T23:55:45.267-05:00

Got a poem in Arc, part of their 30th anniversary issue. We had to angle the poem into thirty, somehow--either turning, being, passing, looking back fondly on, etc. I was instructed to have fun with it. So I did. 

Matthew Tierneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-11535536447566158272008-05-31T19:38:00.005-04:002009-03-07T23:53:26.013-05:00

Thursday night was the launch for IV Lounge Nights, the 10-year anthology of past readers at the series. I've got a couple of poems in there, and was slated as a reader.I hadn't read in over a year. I felt out of practice. And tall. Does anybody have the stones to fiddle with that mic stand? My motor skills go south with people watching.Anyway, the book is beautiful. Check it out.

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-40655677208694118492008-05-31T19:34:00.004-04:002009-03-07T23:55:55.233-05:00

Got a poem out in this summer's issue of Event, "Age of Majority." It's about a guy who grows up in one day.It's not very realistic.

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-58811078135807116732008-04-26T12:16:00.005-04:002009-03-07T23:52:01.377-05:00

Pleased much to be in the new issue of Jacket.The headshot is a good representation of how I look while composing poems.On "Perpetual Motion Machine":Some energy will always be lost in any machine: the second law of thermodynamics, etc. But it's interesting to think of the poem as a perpetual motion machine. Whatever energy you put into it is retained. It's 100% reusable. Go ahead, read the poem

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-73154652753586512272007-12-17T11:24:00.002-05:002009-03-07T23:56:04.744-05:00

I've been seeding the journals and mags with some new poems. The first of these have just come out."Apeirophobia" (The Malahat Review):Seven phobia poems will be appearing shortly with littlefishcart press as part of their chipbook series. My imagination was piqued by the odder fears; one of the poems is, in fact, "fear of otters." The others include fear of rooms, flutes, parades, laughter and

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-34040791521944230612007-07-27T16:31:00.001-04:002009-03-07T21:10:49.730-05:00

My reading over at Authors Aloud has been picked up by a weekly Arts Programme on shortwave, broadcast from the Isle of Wight. The mix should be up shortly.Fantastic, to get some bounce from this recording.Over, out.

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-35062694822386802582007-06-13T14:48:00.002-04:002009-03-07T23:56:15.779-05:00

A poem of mine appears in the Summer 2007 issue of Taddle Creek. It's called "Utopia," and the science within it is completely made up. The poem itself, though, is based on a true story, starring Julianne Moore.(The issue, and poem, is positively reviewed in the Ottawa Citizen.)Just discovered this link to the poem.

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-41379713745769392782007-05-09T16:08:00.001-04:002009-03-07T23:51:23.067-05:00

Here I am, reading four poems on this cool website run by Trevor Cole.It's very difficult to read without an audience and have the poems not sound flat. As soon as you try to add a bit of drama, it sounds like brie--or another of the soft cheeses--at least to these ears.(Also, I'm pretty sure I mispronounced "piezoelectric." Ah, the old fear....)

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-25993161542206988042007-05-04T16:47:00.001-04:002009-03-07T23:51:13.726-05:00

Just how much pop culture do you want in your poetry?This one uses early 80s' references as accelerant. It was written in reponse to a call for poems about Toronto. Feel free to bring a match, if, you know, that's how you feel about Toronto. Or the 80s.

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1175800655377356852007-04-05T14:45:00.001-04:002009-03-07T23:50:43.674-05:00

The review of Full speed by Richard Joines has been reprinted in March's issue of BiC. It's under a new "Looking Back" section, subtitled: (An occasional series on poetry books you may have missed)I like the idea of the series, and arriving fashionably late to the party has its points, as though you were a) otherwise bracingly engaged, or b) admirably indifferent. Neither of which is true. But I

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1169681032109423752007-01-24T17:36:00.001-05:002009-03-07T23:50:31.895-05:00

Two readings coming up:Strong WordsMarch 5Gladstone HotelArt BarApril 17Victory CafeThese will be all-new-episode readings, poems from my second collection, The Rocket Scientist. I'm interested in the boundaries of the cosmic and subatomic, how the mind contains both, which means I generally end up exploring us, the sadsack creatures in the nexus. What does it mean to be an intelligent species?

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1159222264520555302006-09-25T17:24:00.001-04:002009-03-07T23:50:15.188-05:00

This from Richard Joines deep in the heart of the heart of Alabama, on Full speed:Tierney's genuine fascination with the infinitely strange human dramas in which he finds himself allows him not only to craft charming poems but to express a generosity and sympathy we have not seen since James Wright.The review is not online, and I'm not prepared to type it in in its entirety, but a few more, for

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1156185189361407292006-08-21T14:28:00.000-04:002006-08-21T14:33:09.370-04:00

A friend of mine created this entry. Someday soon we'll all have one. (Thanks, Craig.)

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1149535129434855652006-06-05T15:12:00.002-04:002009-03-07T23:56:45.195-05:00

Whaddya know.I was awarded 1st place in Maisonneuve's literary contest, on newstands now, issue no. 20.

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1145909722741753522006-04-24T15:30:00.001-04:002009-03-07T23:49:38.773-05:00

Yes, I won this year's literature award.It is particularly gratifying to be in such good company. Woody Allen's line (okay, Groucho Marx's) about "joining a club that would allow someone like me as a member" springs to mind...but I really must learn to accept good news with aplomb. (Bad news too--that goes without saying.)For the award ceremony, the Foundation is showing a video of the six

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1145144287404441282006-04-15T18:12:00.001-04:002009-03-07T23:49:14.143-05:00

This review originally appeared in the November 2004 print edition. I'm not sure when it was made available online.One should not respond to one's critics. Maybe that sentiment is outmoded. It's pretty easy to respond nowadays, and all the cool kids are doing it. Very tempting... I would like to mention one thing, though: "aon," "do," and "tri" are Irish Gaelic for "one," "two" and "three." I

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1144870650476070362006-04-12T15:13:00.001-04:002009-03-07T23:49:00.427-05:00

All reviews are equal. But some reviews are more equal than others.I won't say that any review at all--good, bad or ugly--is nice. That's just not true. But silence is by far the worst.

Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25416195.post-1144531105740250022006-04-08T16:54:00.002-04:002009-03-07T23:56:56.522-05:00

Hey, some news. Won 1st and 2nd place in THIS Magazine's Great Literary Hunt 2005. The issue should be on the stands in November....The above is an example of the kind of info I had trouble incorporating into my original website design: thus, this blog. Not that I imagine all news will be of the windfall variety. There'll be readings in the future, etcetera, etcetera. It goes without saying that

Matthewnoreply@blogger.com