Dear friends,

This Thursday we were invited to a Substack bestsellers event, and though we have our qualms with Substack, we think it eventually does more good than harm to many artists we know. We were unsure of going as we’re not particularly social people but they lured us with a $50 gift card each to spend on books. The space was wonderful (Book Bar Toronto), and the people were super interesting too. I got Dione Brand’s New & Collected Poems, and Shannan got Robert Jackson Bennett’s A Trade of Blood, a 3rd book of the murder mystery fantasy series she’s been loving lately.

We left leaving a tinge of sadness that ONLY POEMS does not have a physical presence like that. I know we do a lot of things and don’t even have the bandwidth for anything else, but it’s our lifelong dream to have a bookstore which we continue to manifest, and hopefully down the road we’ll find our Ruth Lilly. Anyhow, we are planning an in-person open-mic event and if everything goes well, you’ll hear about it soon.

Also, if you’re in Toronto, our friend & poet, Maria Giesbrecht & her Gather group are hosting a launch event for their print anthology in Toronto on October 17th at Typeis Studios and Coffee, between 7—9 pm. If you can make it there, we’d love to see you. Register here!​

All good things,

​Karan​

PS: We are open to free submissions for Book Reviews of all varieties, and they can be as long or as short as you like. → SUBMIT HERE

Poet of the Week

Anders Carlson-Wee

Anders Carlson-Wee is the author of Disease of Kings (W. W. Norton, 2023) and The Low Passions (W. W. Norton, 2019). He lives in Los Angeles.

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