What are the trajectories of poems? Where do poems travel to be shared, read or exchanged? How relational is the process of writing a poem, including its language(s) or the subtle and particular elements that might filter through many poems? Each piece in If/Then is based on the poem that has gone before it, travelling from/to a number of countries and specific regions and locales within them: Canada, the U.S., Britain, Portugal, Trinidad, and the British Virgin Islands.
As this collection of poems developed, the communities, correspondences, and geographic ties between them became more evident. The poetry in If/Then is generous and generative. It’s important that poems unravel over time, and that we hand them to one another, in ongoing ways, for exchange and conversation.
Chris Turnbull is the author of cipher (Beautiful Outlaw Press), [ untitled ] in own (CUE Books) and Continua (Chaudiere Books/Invisible Press). Her most recent chapbook is parts path (drift/line press, Kingston). Additional writing, collaborations and installations are in print, online, and within landscapes. She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails (www.etuor.wordpress.com). She lives near Ottawa, within the unceded, unsurrendered, territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg.
If/Then Contributors: Chris Turnbull, Linda Russo, Sandra Guerreiro, Anna Reckin, Camilla Nelson, Matti Spence, Sarah Cave, Luke Thompson, Suzanna V. Evans, Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Andre Bagoo, and Richard Georges.
