I always wanted to die every time somebody said something like ‘Poetry is like dancing with a shadow’ so I can’t say I never had any feelings for poetry.

My interest in Canadian poetry

is firmly rooted in my teenage years.

I studied classical music but, still,

poets were the most enviably dead.

It was easy to give up on baseball,

but still frustratingly hard to give up

on friendship. But, somehow, with poetry,

I was finally able to do just that!

In music, I had a sense of repertoire.

On the mound, I had four reliable pitches:

a fastball (which may’ve been my weakest)

and three different kinds of spitballs.

With much less to rely on, I moved on.

I studied poems fixedly in college,

thinking one day I would see my name

beside some of those groovy suicides.