Poetry weekend no. 23
LAST MINUTE ALERT | Okay, so I’ve been moved to the final reading slot on the Saturday evening of UNB’s Poetry Weekend.
I was supposed to be reading in an afternoon slot. It’s a whole thing.
This was a last minute change (literally found out just today) and an ostensible favour to me, personally orchestrated by the organizer. And I am grateful, I am. I wanted it. At the same time, it feels like a test of sorts, and I am not sure that there aren’t more than a few people who would like to see me flop.
That’s not a great feeling.
Also not great? The sudden interest in making a few bucks off my back.
I … don’t want to get into it. It’s just a little bit frustrating to have to be sweet — SO very sweet — in the face of being actively exploited.
Sigh. This is just the world. It’s the way it is. I accept it as I do all the things I cannot change.
I do. If I say it enough, it’ll manifest, right?
I have a lot of other feelings in me at the moment, based on a lot of other info I can’t actually tell you right now, or perhaps ever, but just know that I did not expect to be reading Saturday night, and I never envisioned being LAST of all things, and it is indeed an honour to be in this slot, and I am very nervous.
It’s also so last minute, I have no idea what I’m going to do/read/perform. So you’re going to get a surprise and I am too.
Last year, my first year, I went funny. It went very well. All the copies of my book I had with me sold out. I kept 100% of the money from those sales.
I sort of smashed? People seemed to like me at any rate. It led to more things. Good things. 2026 has indeed been my rebuilding year.
But right now, at the start of Q4? Rebuilding year or not, I’m in a very different position than I was in in 2025. I understand more. I am better-respected, if not entirely respected. I’ve got a big announcement coming, and I wish I could share it with you, but I cannot. Alas. Not yet.
There’s just a lot going on. Hard to explain. Hard to parse. Hard to … I don’t even know.
Look, if you’re local, come out to see me read on Saturday night. I’ll try to give you your money’s worth. (For the record, this event is free.)
Also, I have no idea why Poetry Weekend tends to use a fish as its header image. That’s what is done on the Book of Faces. It’s something from well before my time. No doubt, some inside maritimer joke that I will never be able to understand being “from away” as I will forever be.
I just went with it because. And because I am also nice, I made an IG post shouting out all the other readers who will be there with me at Memorial Hall on Saturday night. All of them are fancy pants.
Meanwhile, I’m the ding-dong who’s most viral post (recent) is a joke I thought of while sitting on the toilet. A reel that took me no less than five minutes to make. I’m not sure I belong.
No, I’m sure I do not.
Then again, I’ve been wrong before.