NEW! FERTILE FESTIVAL 2022 PASS
CA$10.00 - CA$100.00
Mostly, we wanted to embark on an adventure. Join us.
FERTILE FESTIVAL OF NEW & INVENTIVE WORKS IN POETRY
05 - 21 AUGUST 2022
KFB EAST at THE GREAT ESCAPE BOOK STORE 957 KINGSTON RD [BACK LANE]
Curated by The Blasted Tree, Gap Riot Press & KFB
Our Inaugural. Featuring a feast of New & Inventive Works in Poetry—Installations | Readings | Launches | Gatherings—curated by publishers KYLE FLEMMER The Blasted Tree (Calgary) KATE SIKLOSI & DANI SPINOSA Gap Riot Press (Toronto) and KIRBY knife | fork | book (Toronto)
FESTIVAL PASS CHOOSE YOUR OWN PRICE POINT!
Passholders receive 10% off designated merch during the festival. These passes go directly to assist festival costs. Thank you for your generous support.
ALL PASSHOLDERS WILL RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF BILLY MAVREAS tenderness [limited edition to the festival].
CURRENT FESTIVAL SCHEDULE & UPDATES HERE
With special thanks to Katya at The Great Escape Book Store
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NEW! KFB FERTILE FEST BUNDLE
CA$60.00
CA$50.00
KFB FERTILE FESTIVAL OF NEW & INVENTIVE WORKS BUNDLE
Created to celebrate our inaugural festival!
includes
KLARA DU PLESSIS + KADIE SALMON Skin & Meat Sky
SACHA ARCHER Kim
BRIAN DEDORA Get Lost
BILLY MAVREAS tenderness
TRAVIS SHARP Behind the Poet Reading Their Poem Is a Sign Saying Applause
JUST ADDED! AARON TUCKER The Passage Bird's Farewell
AVAILABLE NOW AT A SPECIAL PREORDER/FESTIVAL PRICE SAVE $10
PUB DATE 17 AUG 2022
FERTILE FESTIVAL OF NEW & INVENTIVE WORKS
AUGUST 05-21 2022
KFB EAST at THE GREAT ESCAPE BOOK STORE 957 KINGSTON RD
KFB SELECTS MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION SERIES
CA$150.00 - CA$285.00
Join KFB SELECTS SUBSCRIPTION SERIES any time of the year for a full year. The latest and best in contemporary poetry selected by KFB. Delivered to your home.
The beauty of the subscription series is you can always opt for an alternate title to the one selected (similar price point) at the shop. This way, you get exactly what you want and continue to support knife | fork | book in the process.
KFB SELECTS UPCOMING 2022
JUST ADDED! >>> ANSELM BERRIGAN Pregrets (Black Square Editions)
KLARA DU PLESSIS & KADIE SALMON Skin & Meat Sky (KFB) ANNICK MACASKILL SHADOW BLIGHT (Gaspereau Press) CARL PHILLIPS Then the War (FSG, 2022) LANNII LAYKE Os DALE MARTIN SMITH Blur MAUREEN SCOTT HARRIS More Than One Homage PAOLA FERRANTE The Dark Unwind (KFB)
NEW! THERE IS NOW A HALF SUBSCRIPTION OPTION! [Includes all of the above, while supplies last].
NEW KFB SELECTS SUBSCRIBERS receive a KFB BONUS GIFT BUNDLE
SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
Previous KFB Selections include: SAM CHEUK POSTSCRIPTS FROM A CITY BURNING (Palimpsest Press) VICTORIA MBABAZI FLIP (KFB) JIM JOHNSTONE INFINITY NETWORK (Vehicule Press) LISA ROBERTSON BOAT (Coach House Press) AYAZ PIRANI HOW BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE ARE (Gordon Hill Press) R. KOLEWE THE ABSENCE OF ZERO (Book*hug) DALE MARTIN SMITH FLYING RED HORSE (Talonbooks) LIZ HOWARD LETTERS IN A BRUISED COSMOS (M&S) IAN WILLIAMS WORD PROBLEMS (Coach House) PHIL HALL TOWARD A BLACKER ARDOUR (Beautiful Outlaw) AARON TUCKER CATALOGUE D'OISEAUX (Book*hug) HOA NGUYEN A THOUSAND TIMES YOU LOSE YOUR TREASURE (Wave) STEPHEN COLLIS A HISTORY OF THE THEORIES OF RAIN (Talonbooks) AIDEN CHAFE GOSPEL DRUNK (U of Alberta Press) JESSI MACEACHERN A NUMBER OF STUNNING ATTACKS (Invisible) BARDIA SINAEE INTRUDER (Anansi Poetry) KLARA DU PLESSIS HELL LIGHT FLESH (Palimpsest) KATE SUTHERLAND THE BONES ARE THERE (Book*hug) IAN WILLIAMS WORD PROBLEMS (Coach House) C.P. CAVAFY THE BARBARIANS ARRIVE TODAY Translated with an afterword by EVAN JONES (Carcanet Press, 2020) CODY-ROSE CLEVIDENCE "BEHOLD A MAN!" (Auric Press, 2020) SUE GOYETTE ANTHESIS: A MEMOIR (Gaspereau Press, 2020) A. F. MORITZ AS FAR AS YOU KNOW (Anansi Poetry, 2020) ROXANNA BENNETT UNMEANINGABLE (Gordon Hill Press, 2019) KAIE KELLOUGH MAGNETIC EQUATOR (M&S, 2019) ANNICK MACASKILL MURMURATIONS (Gaspereau Press, 2020) JOHN ELIZABETH STINTZI JUNEBAT (Anansi Poetry, 2020) ALICE NOTLEY FOR THE RIDE (Penguin Poets, 2020) SAM SAX Madness (Penguin), CANISIA LUBRIN Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn), ANNE MICHAELS All We Saw (McClelland & Stewart), SINA QUEYRAS My Ariel (Coach House), GEORGE OPPEN 21 Poems (New Directions), KAVEH AKBAR Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Penguin UK Edition), BILLY RAY BELCOURT This Wound is a World (Frontenac), ROXANNA BENNETT Unseen Garden (knife fork book), KLARA DU PLESSIS Ekke (Palimpsest Press), ERIC SCHMALTZ Surfaces (Invisible)
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| ˈfəːtʌɪl | : KFB SUBSCRIPTION SERIES of New + Inventive Ideas
CA$195.00
CA$175.00
| ˈfəːtʌɪl | fertile
• producing many new and inventive ideas: her fertile imagination. [OED]
SECOND SEASON: 2.4 KLARA DU PLESSIS & KADIE SALMON Skin & Meat Sky SACHA ARCHER Kim BILLY MAVREAS tenderness TRAVIS SHARP Behind the Poet Reading Their Poem Is a Sign Saying Applause BRIAN DEDORA Get Lost AARON TUCKER The Passage Bird's Farewell (KFB)
2.3 KYLE FLEMMER x 2 The Heavy Crown (noir: z) + Guest 22 (above/ground) ARISTILDE KIRBY Daisy & Katherine (auric press) ZANE KOSS Harbour Grids (Invisible) SIVINA LÓPEZ MEDIN Poem That Never Ends (essay press)
2.2 2 x TIMGLASET KATE SIKLOSI Leavings ERIC SCHMALTZ Language in Hues + KEVIN STEBNER Typewriter Art: Postcard Set of 4
2.1 CACONRAD Amanda Paradise (Wave) SACHA ARCHER Jung Origami (Enneract Editions) KIRBY Poetry is Queer (Palimpsest Press) NOT YOUR BEST no. 2 "Queer Ass Fuck" Issue V/A (KFB)
KFB is intensely interested in the new, new forms, ephemera, shapes, concrete, visual, sound, lexicon, their roots/lineage.
With this quarterly subscription, we'll package chapbooks, broadsides, essays on poetics, ephemera, vispo, concrete, collections that are certain to challenge and delight.
Note: Some items are subject to change based upon availability.
Premiere Season: 4th INSTALMENT CAMERON ANSTEE LINES (ST ANDREW) DEREK BEAULIEU THE MINUTE REVIEW VOL 2 NO 1 KYLE FLEMMER BARCODE POETRY (THE BLASTED TREE) AISHA SASHA JOHN TO STAND AT THE PRECIPICE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE) JIM JOHNSTONE THE OUROBOROS (KFB) 3. LISA FISHMAN Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (Wave Poetry) NICOLE BROSSARD Museum of Bone and Water Translated and Introduction by Robert Majzels and Erín Moure (House of Anansi) +++ Selected ephemera. 2. JOHN BEVIS Letter-Winged Kite (Penteract Press) ANDREI MONASTYRSKI: Elementary Poetry Edited and Translated from the Russian by Yelena Kalinsky and Brian Droitcour (Ugly Duckling Presse) FRED WAH Music at the Heart of Thinking (Talonbooks) Premiere. SADIQA DE MEIJER alfabet/alphabet (Palimpsest Press) CATHERINE VIDLER oleander 7 (The Blasted Tree) KYLE FLEMMER Purple Rain (The Blasted Tree) DANI SPINOSA OO: Typewriter Poems (Invisible)
+ new works coming from Ugly Duckling Presse, KFB, and various micro-presses local and abroad.
Welcome to | ˈfəːtʌɪl |
UPCOMING AUGUST 2022 KFB | ˈfəːtʌɪl | POETRY FESTIVAL OF NEW & INVENTIVE WORKS
KLARA DU PLESSIS & KADIE SALMON Skin & Meat Sky
CA$15.00
I stumble over my love for the sea, rest my head on mountains.
I’d like to posit a theory that we’re all descendants
of headstones.
Klara du Plessis, Skin & Meat Sky
Part of KFB's Inaugural Fertile Festival of New & Inventive Works & KFB SELECTS
KLARA DU PLESSIS
& KADIE SALMON
SKIN & MEAT SKY
Poetry. Chapbook.
ISBN 978-1-989355-43-5 (print)
Cover: Kirby
Layout: R. Kolewe
Winner of the 2019 Pat Lowther Memorial Award, Klara du Plessis’ debut collection, Ekke, was released from Palimpsest Press. Her second book is Hell Light Flesh, 2020. Klara is a poet, critic, and literary curator, developing Deep Curation as an experimental practice of poetry reading organization. She resides in Montreal.
Kadie Salmon has been exhibiting internationally for over a decade and has received support from Arts Council England to The Henry Moore Foundation. She is a photographer, sculptor, and moving image artist based in London, where she is represented by gallery New Art Projects. Kadie is currently working on her newest work Closing Bones supported by the Freelands Foundation.
AMANDA EARL MATTHEW
CA$25.00
Only a few left!
When this gospel queen heard she had a vispo of Matthew, she said, "WE MUST!" ...and then she SAW IT. - KIRBY
From the creator of JUDITH: WOMEN MAKING VISUAL POETRY
AMANDA EARL
MATTHEW
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MARK TRUSCOTT RAIN
CA$10.00
CA$6.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
Winner of the inaugural Nelson Ball Prize (for Branches)
And where are you?
MARK TRUSCOTT
RAIN
Poetry. KFB Pamphlet Series.
ISBN: 978-1-989355-36-7
Typeset in Perpetua and Cooper Hewitt
Cover: Kirby.
Layout: Ralph Kolewe.
Printed by John DeJesus at Coach House Books, Toronto.
MARK TRUSCOTT is the author of three poetry books: Said Like Reeds or Things (Coach House, 2004), Nature (Book*hug, 2010), and Branches (Book*hug, 2018).
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JAMES LINDSAY THE LAKE
CA$12.00
CA$8.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
I don’t know how to talk
about my biological father,
so instead I’m going
to describe the lake:
JAMES LINDSAY
THE LAKE
Poetry. Chapbook.
ISBN: 978-1-989355-37-4
Typeset in Perpetua and Cooper Hewitt
Cover: Kirby.
Layout: Ralph Kolewe.
Printed by John DeJesus at Coach House Books, Toronto.
JAMES LINDSAY is the author of Double Self-Portrait, Our Inland Sea (Wolsak & Wynn) and the chapbook Ekphrasis! Ekphrasis! (Anstruther Press). He is the co-founder of Pleasence Records and works in book publishing.
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JENNIFER LOVEGROVE THE TINDER SONNETS
CA$15.00
CA$10.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
Listen, sometimes the anti-depressants
mean I can’t get hard. It’s not you. Okay?
JENNIFER LOVEGROVE
THE TINDER SONNETS
Unabashedly confessional, radically vulnerable, hyper-visible Lovegrove's sonnets sally against the long-standing and subjugating demand that “women of a certain age” be rendered invisible, non-sexual, and accept this politely. These poems refuse invisibility; instead, they confront and subvert it, often uncomfortably so, while experimenting with traditional forms like the sonnet and the conventional lyric. The Tinder Sonnets is a refusal to recede from view, to cede sexual space, to be quiet and polite. It is a messy, dirty celebration of contemporary life – dating apps, sex, difficult conversations, pleasure, disappointment, betrayal, anger, family, identity, art and life.
Poetry. Chapbook. Sonnets.
ISBN 978-1-989355-34-3
knife | fork | book Toronto
Jennifer LoveGrove is the author of, most recently, the poetry collection Beautiful Children with Pet Foxes (Book*hug 2017). Her novel Watch How We Walk (ECW Press, 2013) was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She works at the University of Toronto, and divides her time between downtown Toronto and rural Ontario, Canada. She is learning to play the drums.
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VICTORIA MBABAZI FLIP
CA$18.00
CA$10.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
"I'm accused of relating everything back
to her"
VMBx2
SHE DOESN'T COME BACK
+ SEND MY LOVE TO IVY
VICTORIA MBABAZI
FLIP
ISBN: 978-1-989355-38-1
Poetry. Book.
52 pages with Purple Foil on
Astrobrights Pulsar Pink 65lb Cover
Perfect Bound and trimmed 5 7/8" x 8 3/4"
with Black Endpapers
Cover: Kirby
Lay-out: r. kolewe
Printed at Couch Hose Press by John DeJesus
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On Sale
TRAVIS SHARP YES, I AM A CORPSE FLOWER
CA$20.00
CA$15.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
"THE QUEEREST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ IN MY LIFE. And the most freeing." - KIRBY
"Sharp’s language is thick, racy, sensual, ruckous and uniquely physical, upturning tables with a flamboyance... YES, I AM A CORPSE FLOWER is an impressive debut" - @robmclennanblog
TRAVIS SHARP
YES, I AM A CORPSE FLOWER
KFB. Poetry.
ISBN 978-1-989355-27-5
Yes, I am a corpse flower composes a queer lyric meditation on body, identification, and subjectivity, proposing a queer poetics not just referential, limited to language’s meaning. These are not poems about queerness, but composed queerly: eccentric, off-centre, oblique, to twist. Poems that failingly and flailingly attempt to define the queer “I,” that skepticize any stable connection between queer self and body, narrate an unnarratable encounter with self-recognition outside of categorizable identity. These poems are composed from a feeling that to state queerness can never be to expound on a single journey, but to gather together a multitude of I’s of which this I, here, writing this paragraph, is only one iteration. I is not this one, but neither is I an other, but a we, perversely licked-linked through language, a sort of tongue: limn me, limn me!
Contents
Yes, I am a corpse flower
Sinister Queer Agenda
The body under valuation: a musical
I guess we should talk about our feelings
Protean Shakes: A Memoir
OrganGrindrTM
Acknowledgements/Bio
TRAVIS SHARP published the chapbook Sinister Queer Agenda (above/ground press 2018), the artist’s book one plus one is two ones (Recreational Resources 2018), and, with Aimee Harrison and Maria Anderson, co-edited a digital book, Radio: 11.8.16 (Essay Press 2017). He has an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from the University of Washington, Bothell, and is a PhD candidate in the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo. Travis is the editor and director of Essay Press.
KIRBY POETRY IS QUEER
CA$20.00 - CA$30.00
SWALLOW MY PRIDE SPECIAL: KIRBY's PIQ + THIS IS WHERE I GET OFF FOR LESS THAN A QUICKIE!
Kirby’s Poetry Is Queer is a work that refuses to be contained, boxed-in, defined by any terms that might seek to diminish or limit its insistence on possibility. A manifesto for life as art, art as life, one that witnesses, repairs, and defends the self in all its time-spanning facets — beauty, liberation, grief, survival, transcendence — Poetry is Queer is a gift from a rebel elder who is willing to look back with honesty and to reach forward with hope.
DAMIAN ROGERS, Author of An Alphabet for Joanna
In Kirby’s devastating and erotic redress of queerness, the beloved poet maps their homosexual body/world set around poems by queer contemporaries across decades. What emerges is Poetry Is Queer, beautiful, sexual, and flamboyantly, unapologetically gay. “Thank you Saturday Night Cock God!” This is the best kind of museum.
JOSHUA ESCOBAR, author of Bareback Nightfall
"Kirby’s Poetry is Queer. There’s a wisdom in it that is rare and so, so vibrant (courage)." - NEIL SURKAN, poetry mini interviews, author of Unbecoming, and Their Queer Tenderness
Has Cavafy’s ghost entered my body?
If so, it did at a very early age. I’ve often wondered what was meant by ‘old souls,’ but regarding mine, I have no doubt.
That and/or, gay teenage longing is very similar to that of an elder’s. Everything but want slightly out of reach.
KIRBY
POETRY IS QUEER
(Palimpsest Press)
Poetry is Queer is a kaleidoscope of sexual outlaws, gay icons, Sapphic poets, and great lovers, real and imagined, conjured like gateway drugs to a queer world. Claiming the word QUEER for those “who self-proclaim the authority of their own bodies in defiance of church and state,” Kirby pays tribute to gay touchstones while embodying both their work and joy. From gazing upon street boys with constant companion C.P. Cavafy, to end of day observances with Frank O’Hara, to mowing Walt Whitman’s grass, Poetry Is Queer is a hybrid-genre memoir like no other. (Palimpsest)
HEAR KIRBY READ FROM #PIQ I AM A PROFESSIONAL HOMOSEXUAL
NOT YOUR BEST no. 2
CA$22.00
Sold out
"This bitch is packn"
NOT YOUR BEST No 2
THE QUEER ASS FUCK ISSUE
Edited by KIRBY
The second instalment of KFB's NOT YOUR BEST Series.
FEATURING
JAKE BYRNE
BRIAN DEDORA
JOSHUA ESCOBAR
PHILIP HARE
DAVID LY
ANNICK MACASKILL
IAN MARTIN
KHASHAYAR MOHAMMADI
PEARL PIRIE
DON PYLE
ANGIE QUICK
JEAN-PHILLIPE RAÎCHE
MICHAEL RUSSELL
KATIE STOBBART
SASHA TORCHINSKY
K.S.Y. VARNAM
MATTHEW WALSH
SOLD OUT
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KFB "KIRBSERV" BUNDLE
CA$65.00
CA$50.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
"KIRBSERV" Let poet/shopkeeper KIRBY pick what they would recommend from the shop, including at least 1 current KFB HOT bestseller, 1 chapbook, and 2 titles from the thousands of poetry collections we have in stock, topped with some ephemera only to be found at KFB.
KIRBSERV CURBSIDE PICKUP IN THE VILLAGE (Church/Alexander). We ship.
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On Sale
JIM JOHNSTONE THE OUROBOROS
CA$10.00
CA$5.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
"In Jim Johnstone’s long poem, the city eats itself inch by inch... Appetite knows no bounds." - The Pamphleteer
If shouts were music
the whole world would be singing
Don’t ruin it.
Don’t ruin it.
Don’t ruin it.
JIM JOHNSTONE
THE OUROBOROS
KFB PAMPHLET SERIES 002
ISBN: 978-1-989355-32-9
Embossed Cover on Mohawk Loop Straw 80lb.
Translucent Endpapers.
Printed on Zephyr at Coach House.
Cover: Kirby
Design: R. Kolewe
JIM JOHNSTONE is a Toronto-based poet, editor, and critic. He is the author of five previous collections of poetry, most recently The Chemical Life (Véhicule Press, 2017) and
Dog Ear (Véhicule Press, 2014). He is also the winner of several awards including the Bliss Carmen Poetry Award, a CBC Literary Award, the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, and
Poetry’s Editors Prize for Book Reviewing. Currently, Johnstone curates the Anstruther Books imprint at Palimpsest Press, where he published The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry in 2018.
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On Sale
SHANE NEILSON WALT
CA$10.00
CA$5.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
We would not be good enough for Whitman but he would be good to us.
Poets, have you had words electrocute you? If no, then you are not poets.
Words must do more than chasten you, force you to conform.
They stun you into care.
SHANE NEILSON
WALT
KFB PAMPHLET SERIES 003
ISBN: 978-1-989355-33-6
Embossed Cover on Mohawk Loop Straw 80lb.
Translucent Endpapers.
Printed on Zephyr at Coach House.
Cover: Kirby
Design: R. Kolewe
SHANE NEILSON is a poet from New Brunswick who can never repay the debt he owes Walt Whitman. This unpayable debt makes for the conditions of a perfect love: nothing is asked for, nothing is required, and yet everything would be given.
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R. KOLEWE THE WILD FOX
CA$15.00
CA$10.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
from the author of silence, then and The Absence of Zero
picking up pieces scraps & torn
postcards & library cards &
typewriter ribbon & only now
seeing myself all wrapped in
my self “by aporia pure & simple”
then & now how can I forget?
“Clear a space for it” you said.
R. KOLEWE
THE WILD FOX
Poetry Chapbook.
ISBN: 978-1-989355-31-2
40 pages. Embossed Cover on Mohawk Loop Straw 80lb
Translucent Endpapers. Perfect Bound.
Printed on Zephyr at Coach House.
Cover: Kirby
Design: R. Kolewe
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On Sale
HAMISH BALLANTYNE Imitation Crab
CA$15.00
CA$5.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
Poetry. Chapbook. ISBN: 978-1-989355-26-8
was drunk not
dreaming and thought will write
to this
friend/to that
What arose next
day won’t smoke
Wild eye in the mens
who can remember
HAMISH BALLANTYNE IMITATION CRAB
Hamish Ballantyne's Imitation Crab is the speechlessness that settles three days into a road trip, the groan of human language tearing half apart from nature. Its pleasures have their lineage in Zen poetry's precision and Lorine Niedecker's vivid work of condensery; they tumble in cascades of tight unlikelinesses; they bite down hard on the tongue of the Moment in the mouth of Gabriola Island lingo. I invite you to "fall down the / flower of / THE WAY HE SPOKE."
Hamish Ballantyne (b. 1994) is a poet and translator from Vancouver Island. He works seasonally as a mushroom picker and works on the Downtown Eastside the rest of the year. Hamish recently completed a translation of Luis de Góngora's Solitudes.
Cover: Kirby
Design: r. kolewe
CORY LAVENDER BALLAD OF BERNIE "BEAR" ROY
CA$6.00
THE DEBUT OF KFB's NEW PAMPHLET SERIES
Oh, dear backwards bear. Didn’t make it out to the house
that Christmas to visit huff and puff lawnmower bear.
No more gardener bear, no squash-a-year like from Grandpa bear
more of a piss off the back step, selling off the heirlooms bear
worn wheezy bear plopped in the easy chair before your shows.
CORY LAVENDER
BALLAD OF BERNIE "BEAR" ROY
KFB PAMPHLET 001
ISBN 978-1-989355-30-5
Cover: Kirby
Layout: R. Kolewe
Graphics: Jessica Hiemstra
Photos: Torben Robertson
CORY LAVENDER is a poet of mixed Black Loyalist and European descent settled in Mi’kma’ki. His chapbook Lawson Roy’s Revelation came out with Gaspereau Press in 2018. His work has appeared in journals such as Riddle Fence and The New Quarterly, and is anthologized in Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020).
On Sale
On Sale
JOHN NYMAN The Devil
CA$15.00
CA$5.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
Poetry. Chapbook. ISBN: 978-1-989355-21-3
"at least I have something to take care of.
I wouldn’t say I’m heartless."
JOHN NYMAN THE DEVIL
Originally from North York and currently living in Toronto, John Nyman is a writer, scholar, critic, and poet working in traditional verse as well as visual and conceptual forms. John’s first full-length collection of poetry, Players (Palimpsest Press), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award by the League of Canadian Poets. John is also a co-author of the &, poetry collective’s second chapbook, &, 2: this happened to one of us (Publication Studio Guelph), and the author of the manifesto chapbook Slogan, Substance, Dream: keywords for a responsible poetry (Anstruther Press), along with works of concrete poetry, literary and arts criticism, and short fiction. Links to some of John’s online publications can be found on the CV / Publications page, while selections from his visual, conceptual, and erasure projects are regularly featured on his Instagram, @selected.works.
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On Sale
ANDY VERBOOM DBL
CA$10.00
CA$5.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
Poetry. Chapbook. ISBN: 978-1-989355-20-6
Verboom is a wordfucker and DBL finds him at his most playful. - Kirby
"Just cause the human beings are hanging doesn’t mean entertainment’s dead. The genre bends."
ANDY VERBOOM DBL
Andy Verboom is from subrural Nova Scotia and lives in K'jipuktuk (Halifax). He is the founder of Couplets, a lit & art collaboration series, and co-founder of long con, an online magazine for art about art.
His poetry has won Frog Hollow’s Chapbook Contest and Descant’s Winston Collins Prize, been shortlisted for CV2's Young Buck Prize and Arc's Poem of the Year, and appeared in Prism, The Puritan, Vallum, and elsewhere.
His sixth poetry chapbook will be DBL (knife | fork | book, 2020).
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On Sale
GARY BARWIN + KATHRYN MOCKLER ME THEN YOU THEN ME THEN
CA$15.00
CA$10.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
“Grandma says regret is like having sex with a ghost,” the book opens. By the end, we’ve met support group loudmouths, hope the size of a grain of rice, Céline Dion, various undulations, and one thousand donkeys. No regrets here. - The Pamphleteer
KATHRYN MOCKLER + GARY BARWIN
ME THEN YOU THEN ME THEN
Poetry. Chapbook.
ISBN 978-1-989355-24-4
Cover: Kirby
Layout: R. Kolewe
GARY BARWIN is a writer and multidisciplinary artist and the author of twenty-four books of poetry and fiction. His latest books include Ampers&thropocene (Penteract, 2020), A Cemetery for Holes with Tom Prime (Gordon Hill, Fall 2019) and For It is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems, ed. Alessandro Porco (Wolsak and Wynn, Fall 2019.) His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates (Random House Canada) won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour as well as the Canadian Jewish Literary Award (Fiction) and the Hamilton Book Award (Fiction). It was also a finalist for both the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A new novel, Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted: The Ballad of Motl the Cowboy will appear from Random House in 2021. He lives in Hamilton and at garybarwin.com
KATHRYN MOCKLER is a poet, writer, and screenwriter. She is the editor of Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House Books, 2020) and her debut collection of stories is forthcoming from Book*hug in 2022. @themockler
On Sale
On Sale
NEIL SURKAN THEIR QUEER TENDERNESS
CA$15.00
CA$10.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
Yet, as is often the case with desire,
it swerves suddenly,
got shy.
NEIL SURKAN
THEIR QUEER TENDERNESS
Poetry. Chapbook.
ISBN 978-1-989355-29-9
Cover: Kirby
Layout R. Kolewe
NEIL SURKAN is the author of the poetry collection On High (McGill-Queen’s University Press) and the chapbook Super, Natural (Anstruther Press). His most recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Fiddlehead, THIS Magazine, Prairie Fire, The Literary Review of Canada, PRISM international, and Riddle Fence, among others. He lives in Calgary.
MICHAEL CAVUTO Country Poems
CA$20.00
Sold out
Our first full-length. A poet's extraordinary debut.
MICHAEL CAVUTO
COUNTRY POEMS
Poetry. ISBN: 978-1-989355-06-0
with an introduction by DALE SMITH
SOLD OUT
"I’ve come to realize that telling stories is at the forefront of all of my poetry. Of course, narrative and stories aren’t the same thing, but it’s been a surprise." - MICHAEL CAVUTO, Touch the Donkey
Michael Cavuto is a poet living in Queens. With Dale Smith & Hoa Nguyen, he edits the Slow Poetry in America Newsletter. Country Poems is his poetry debut.
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On Sale
DALE SMITH "SONS" [eBook]
CA$8.00
CA$5.00
Poetry. Electronic Book. ISBN: 978-1-989355-13-8
AVAILABLE AS AN eBook ONLY.
DALE SMITH is a poet, critic, and scholar of poetry and rhetorical theory on the faculty of English at Ryerson University, Toronto. He is the editor with Robert J. Bertholf of An Open Map: The Robert Duncan / Charles Olson Correspondence and Imagining Persons: Robert Duncan’s Lectures on Charles Olson. A critical study of poetry and public culture, Poets Beyond the Barricade: Rhetoric, Citizenship, and Dissent after 1960, was published in 2012. His writing has appeared in The Baffler, Best American Poetry 2002, Columbia Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, The Walrus, and elsewhere. A recent book of poetry, Slow Poetry in America, was published by Cuneiform in 2014; other poetry includes American Rambler (2000); The Flood & the Garden (2002); Black Stone (2007); and Susquehanna (2008). His reviews and essays have appeared in the Boston Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Brick. Born in Dallas, Texas, Smith has resided in Ontario since 2011 with the poet Hoa Nguyen and their children, Keaton and Waylon.
HOA NGUYEN Ask About Language As If It Forgets
CA$15.00
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Poetry. Chapbook. ISBN 978-1-989355-10-7
Hoa Nguyen is the author of several books of poetry, including As Long As Trees Last, Red Juice, and Violet Energy Ingots, which received a 2017 Griffin Prize nomination. As a public proponent and advocate of contemporary poetry, she has served as guest editor for The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2018 and she has performed and lectured at numerous institutions, including Princeton University, Bard College, Poet’s House, and the Banff Centre’s Writers Studio. Recipient of a 2019 Pushcart Prize and a 2020 Neustadt International Prize for Literature nomination, Nguyen was born in the Mekong Delta, raised and educated in the United States, and has lived in Canada since 2011.
brandy ryan + Kerry Manders AFTER PULSE
CA$15.00
There is a vigil planned at the 519 community centre and I / must bring my camera the event will offer some good photo / ops (us queers are always good for that) and this would be / good documentary practice and good witnessing so I ready my / Nikon DSLR and pack my lenses and make sure I have / memory cards and juiced batteries.
But I leave my camera at home.
These are pictures I cannot take.
brandy ryan + Kerry Manders
AFTER PULSE
Poetry. Chapbook. ISBN 978-1-989355-04-6
Kerry Manders is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and photographer whose personal projects focus on queer memory and mourning. Current work includes articles on queer photography for the New York Times, a monthly interview series for Women Photograph, and oral histories for Toronto's West End Phoenix.
brandy ryan works, lives, and walks in Toronto. she writes about objects and women and sex and anger. she takes photos of flowers in the gutter. she is currently navigating a manuscript of unruly BRs, an exploration of queer domesticity, and some thoughts on Buffy. there is always a cat on her lap(top).
On Sale
On Sale
KIRBY "SHE'S HAVING A DORIS DAY" [eBook]
CA$8.00
CA$5.00
Poetry. Electronic Book. ISBN: 978-1-989355-11-4
"Where was she?"
JEFF KIRBY She's Having a Doris Day
Poetry. Electronic Book. ISBN: 978-1-989355-11-4
Each day she wakens / wonders what day is / this? what, if anything, she / has to do, or even if / she has to
In She's Having a Doris Day, we find ourselves lost in pinkness, genderqueerness, whiteness, madness, sadness, gladness, and the beauty that keeps us here. From an entire morning finding her coffee, waking to the news of today's massacre, to still having to deal with men. This is classic Kirby.
KIRBY's earlier chapbooks include Simple Enough, Cock & Soul, Bob's boy, and The world is fucked and sometimes beautiful. Their work appears in numerous anthologies beginning with the letter Q, and most recently online at The Rusty Toque, Matrix Magazine and bandcamp/jeffkirby. Kirby's full-length debut, THIS IS WHERE I GET OFF, comes out 22/04/19 from Permanent Sleep Press. Kirby is the owner/publisher of knife | fork | book.
Cover: Drew Shannon
BEN ROBINSON WITHOUT FORM
CA$60.00
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What to say about a work concerned with void, gap, and silence?
And the earth was without form, and void. - Genesis 1:2 (KJV)
Is a gap nothing? Or is it eloquent? Of what does a silence speak? - Erín Moure
Since the mid-1500s, the text of the Holy Bible has been subdivided into chapters and verses. These markings are all we see in Ben Robinson’s Without Form, a meticulous erasure of the Bible sparing only its notation. The resultant text drifts like atomized numerical clouds across the mathematical superstructure of the divine, hinting at a supreme silence before the word. This ambitious project encompasses all sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments combined—over seven hundred and fifty pages—co-published as a limited edition hardcover art book by The Blasted Tree and knife | fork | book.
knife | fork | book and The Blasted Tree
BEN ROBINSON
WITHOUT FORM
STRICTLY LIMITED EDITION
50 copies. Numbered.
766-pages.
Hardbound.
Linen-wrapped.
Foil stamped cover.
Dust jacketed.
SOLD OUT
BEN ROBINSON is a poet, musician, and librarian. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas. You can find him online at benrobinson.work.
The Blasted Tree Publishing Co. is a small press based in Mohkinstsis promoting exceptional experimental writing by Canadian and international authors. I publish innovative poetry and visual poetry, short fiction, drama, graphic narrative, creative nonfiction, and multimedia art, with a special focus on the physical embodiment of unique practices and perspectives. Much of our content is available online, and I encourage you to browse the selection of print media in the online store. I even offer a subscription service if you like having chapbooks and leaflets appear in your mailbox. theblastedtree.com
With a passion for simple design and good work, Tkaronto-based knife | fork | book has been publishing poetry chapbooks since 2017. “Our aim,” says KFB’s publisher Kirby, “is to serve the book,” tending to the beauty of the book in hand. In 2019, KFB launched a second imprint, What Queer Reading [wQr], edited by Fan Wu, with a directive to publish queer/BIPOC poets. Also in 2019, KFB launched a NOT YOUR BEST series, the premiere issue edited by Eric Schmaltz. We have since branched out into broadsides, ephemera, and full-length collections. knifeforkbook.com
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On Sale
KATE SUTHERLAND BEASTS OF THE SEA
CA$15.00
CA$5.00
KFB SUMMER SALE [ONLINE SHOP ONLY]
Poetry. Chapbook.
ISBN 978 0 9959300 8 7
KATE SUTHERLAND is the author of two books of short stories (Summer Reading and All In Together Girls) and a collection of poems (How to Draw a Rhinoceros). Summer Reading won a Saskatchewan Book Award, and How to Draw a Rhinoceros was shortlisted for a Creative Writing Book Award by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Her stories and poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies including Best Canadian Poetry and Best American Experimental Writing. She is currently at work on a new collection of poems on the theme of extinction.
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On Sale
R. KOLEWE silence, then [eBook]
CA$8.00
CA$5.00
Poetry. Electronic book.
ISBN 978-1-9959300-19-0
PDF download of r. kolewe's sold out KFB chapbook.
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On Sale
DALE SMITH Sons Broadside
CA$25.00
CA$20.00
k|f|b BROADSIDE 001 Poet DALE SMITH SONS Artist ANTHONY DIFAZIO Design NORMAN NEHMETALLAH Master Printer KYLE SCHLESINGER at CUNEIFORM PRESS
LIMITED EDITION of 50 19 x 12. Two-colour. Letterpress. Numbered. Signed.
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On Sale
JONATHAN GARFINKEL "BOCIANY (STORKS)" [eBook]
CA$8.00
CA$5.00
Poetry. Electronic Book. ISBN: 978-1-989355-12-1
AVAILABLE AS AN eBook ONLY.
JONATHAN GARFINKEL’s multi-genre writing has been translated into twelve languages, and his plays have been produced throughout Canada, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. He is the author of the book of poems Glass Psalms (Turnstone Press) and has written numerous plays including The Trials of John Demjanjuk: A Holocaust Cabaret and the Governor-General shortlisted House of Many Tongues. His memoir Ambivalence: Crossing the Israel/Palestine Divide was published in five countries to critical acclaim (Penguin Canada and Norton and Norton US). Jonathan is also an award-winning non-fiction writer; his journalism has appeared in places like The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Eighteen Bridges, Tablet and PEN International. In 2015 he was commissioned to adapt Rawi Hage’s Cockroach for the stage, which premiered at Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary in 2016. Currently it is in development with Soulpepper. Named by the Toronto Star as “one to watch”, he teaches playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal.