shore thing — my new poetry pamphlet about mudlarking on the River Thames was published by Ottawa-based above/ground press today, with cover art by @theorumsby . if anyone in the UK wants to buy a copy directly from me to save on overseas postage, that can be arranged. £5 including postage. for a very up close view of the Thames foreshore.
orders from elsewhere in the world are best made through above/ground press, run by @rob_mclennan_writer /2026/05/new-from-aboveground-press-shore-thing.html
I am an underling. a shore thing.
scanning. eying. sliding. overing.
chalk cobble. and flint nodule.
pebble. pebble. pebble. gravel.
pebble. gravel. oyster shell. brick.
brick. brick. brick. until click.
the blue of something.
smoothed by hand.
#mudlarking #smallpress #poetry #riverthames
p a u s e — my new poetry collection — is available for order directly from @brokensleepbooks .
In p a u s e. J. R. Carpenter turns the simple act of going for a walk into a radical practice of attention. Written over the course of a year of daily encounters with kisiskâciwanisîpiy (the North Saskatchewan River) as it runs through amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton) in Treaty 6 Territory, this long poem listens closely to water and weather, birds and trees, mudstone and ice, while never forgetting that no geology, no language, and no river are neutral.
Written in short, breath-like fragments, p a u s e. drifts between field note, love poem, and land acknowledgement, refusing settled as a genre. Fossils, wildfire haze, trumpeter swans, city traffic, and pandemic loneliness all pass through its pages, as the poem keeps returning to one insistent question: what happens when we treat noticing as a form of care, and listening as a way of giving something back.
see @brokensleepbooks for more details: /product-page/j-r-carpenter-p-a-u-s-e
#pause #ecopoetry #smallpress #walking #attention #kisiskâciwanisîpiy #amiskwacîwâskahikan #treaty6 #yeg
snow falls up, like flowers. all the river’s pebbles. gleam dense with fossils. animal, replaced with mineral. look, here’s another. look, close with fingers. cold a close cousin. of all the glaciers. that ever passed here. this was last morning. snow up like the early. sparrow sometimes. and whistle pine siskin. lawn elk are social. and certain. not deer.
#springsnow #fossils #bowriver #banffnationalpark #banff
may snow morning. sprucing up the. house is a body. made of tree breathing. sap gum. and green wet. in a place made. of high dry. some late blooming. joy says. clump flake. and some ground soaks. wait. and sintering. #snow #spruce #banff
new interview with me published by @rob_mclennan_writer today — on my new above/ground chapbook shore thing, on mudlarking, writing, process, and the chapbook as a generative form. the final photo shows the great Fred Wah and Daphne Marlatt discussing this chapbook over breakfast at @banffcentre in such a beautiful way I very nearly cried. #mudlarking #smallpress #poetry
what part of river. is glacier. grinding bedrock. into powder. fine as flour. what part is sunlight. finding this suspension. of mineral. disbelief. and scattering. before bottom. shorter wavelengths. appear blue. and green to our eyes. what part of river is bank. and what part of bank is rot. and fallen. how does wood break. at such angles. everything dry. fractures sharp. and keens. for want of. what part of river is ancient. and what is missing. #bowriver #banff #alberta #canada
bow feels like an old word. perhaps because it means so many things. to bend or incline. make curved or crooked. a flexible strip. bent by a string. a looped knot. for tying together. a long rod. with horsehairs stretched. a single movement. over the strings. the forward end. of a vessel. off the port bow. the river. where bow reeds grow. bends to pressure. from glacier. to ox. bow lake.
the first photo shows sleeping buffalo mountain over a bend in bow river (double bowing). all the rest of the photos show pebbles found in said bend, containing broken bits of crinoid stems.
#bowriver #banffnationalpark #banff #alberta
attempting to tidy. in advance of houseguests. arriving. whilst I’m away. at Banff next week for a residency. I found a photo. I don’t remember. from the first time. I was at Banff. in 1995. making webart. and queer as fuck obviously. it’s all coming back to me. the cheek. the cocksure. the collar.
the second image shows my first webart project. uploaded from the command line. of the Unix server. @banffcentre 1995. it’s still online. it still works.
#whatwereyoulikeinthe90s #webart #banff
my author’s copy of Transformative Repetition in
Experimental and Post-Digital Poetics arrived today, with many thanks to editor Bruno Minstro @bugs.errors.and.malfunction for including my chapter “It’s Fine: An Ecopoetics of Exhaustion in Weather Writing” and thanks also to @husserler and all my colleagues on the Weather Reports project @uni_southampton_wsa . I have included images of the abstract and the bibliography and a page of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, which I can’t get enough of. special thanks to @jaygao13 for a wee chat on the adjectival many moons ago. if anyone wants a pdf of this chapter let me know via the email link on my website, link in bio.
#climatewriting #ecopoetry #measuresofweather #itsfine
a new vase is a new friend, @benny_nemer says. especially odd ball out of focus ones. found a pound at the chazza. and this bouquet my students gave me. a week later. peonies just keep getting better. a long weekend. green enough. to walk through tender. xx marks the spot where. the narrow boats rest. and river runs under. lots of fun actually. and the evening. sky as seen from. just lying here. reading. the sun sets. as if it means it. #spring #bouqet #longweekendvibes #armley #sunset
top tips. for city plot. flower pot gardening. for the absent minded. with half a mind to. live and let live. leaning. towards survival. of the fittest. for purpose. when in doubt. just leave it. even the deadest. looking. maybe still living. its best life. undercover. of grit and soil. I prefer grit. and determination. and hairy stems. as a mechanism. for the repulsion of slugs. salvia, you save me. red broom, you surprise me. oh hello lupin. right where I left you. well on your way. to looking like apostles. exactly as Bishop says. hello clematis. I really thought you’d left us. same to you chives. and who knew strawberries. are tough enough. to overwinter. in northern climes. it never rains. but it pours. forth spring blossom. and speaking of climbing. hello honeysuckle. sending out new shoots. mid stock. is one way. to tender stem. entwine my heart. #gardening #spring #armley #leeds #westyorkshire
