kevin mcpherson eckhoff : bulletprove

British Columbia lives in kevin mcpherson eckhoff, whose living comes by teaching, writing, acting, and daddying. The most recent book of his devising is their biography: an organism of relationships (BookThug, 2015). Find him Twitterside as @Kayem_Ee  and find his bestfriend in your local library as Merz Structure No. 2 Burnt by Children at Play!

Amanda Earl : firstwalks of the year - two

Amanda Earl's visual poetry has been exhibited in Russia and Canada, has been published in Fantagraphics' The Last Vispo Anthology. Her visual poetry chapbook Of the Body was published by Kingston's Puddle of Sky Press. A Fieldguide for Fanciful Bugs was published on line by avantacular press. Snippets & excerpts of her visual poetry have appeared on line at DrunkenBoat.com, The Volta, Tip of the Knife & UnlikelyStories.Org and in print in Dreamland IX (Prince George, BC, 2016). Gary Barwin gave a lovely write up of Earl's visual poetry over on Jacket2.  For more vispo, please visit EleanorIncognito.blogspot.ca.

Note: collages made in conjunction with chapbook firstwalks of the year (In/Words Press, Ottawa, 2016).

Robert Swereda : from ransomumble

Robert Swereda is the author of How to design a hail storm (Another new calligraphy), Signature Move (Knives Forks and Spoons) and re: verbs (Bareback editions), as well as four chapbooks: bloom circuits, Capture, chicken scratch and ionlylikeitwhenitrhymes. His writing appears in Canadian and international literary journals.

derek beaulieu : from ascender / descender

Dr. Derek Beaulieu is the author of the collections of poetry with wax, fractal economies, chains, silence, kern, frogments from the frag pool (co-written with Gary Barwin) and Please no more poetry: the poetry of derek beaulieu (Ed. Kit Dobson). He has also written 3 collections of conceptual fiction: flatland, Local Colour and How To Write (Nominated for the W.O. Mitchell Award). He is the author of two collections of essays: Seen of the Crime and The Unbearable Contact with Poets. Beaulieu co-edited bill bissett’s RUSH: what fuckan theory (with Gregory Betts), Writing Surfaces: fiction of John Riddell (with Lori Emerson) and Shift & Switch (with angela rawlings and Jason Christie). He is the publisher of the acclaimed no press and is the visual poetry editor at UBUWeb. Beaulieu has exhibited his work across Canada, the United States and Europe and is an award-winning instructor at the Alberta College of Art + Design. Derek Beaulieu was the 2014–2016 Poet Laureate of Calgary, Canada.

Stanford Cheung : 2 poems from Metal Conch

Stanford Cheung is a musician and poet from Toronto. He is the author of the chapbook Any Seam or Needlework (The Operating System, 2016). His work appears in The Nomadic Journal, Experimental- Ex Literature, Zoomoozophone Review, and elsewhere.

1. Finch&Borealis

When I return home
  free once again
                               .
        on and towards an onset
the sound of bathing crows
                  a screaming thimble
           lodged in my mouth
         the evergreen words sewn
        before jokes exist
                              .
 not even the hand that writes will laugh
           at the airstrikes
                             your worries
                                             head first
                    a barrage of tapestry
                       shot through the shirt’s archway
                for imprisonment
_________________
that is the art of shouldering
           single hand on my thumb

      a quick brush
     felt
a begrudge
                still standing

                         .

2. Cry Faith

/wilderness lake/ horns reverb
                          1km to d  r   o    w      n      I       n         g
                   water/ down/
            choke
//blame those foresters//
                   Only greed that rhymes
                                     .

Robert Swereda : if spy was making popcorn

Robert Swereda is the author of Signature Move (KFS press) and re:verbs (Bareback press) and has published work in Canadian and  international journals.