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Take Rain: Poems
Not yet published
Expected 6 Apr 27A collaborative ecopoetry collection that is lyric and experimental, lively and absurd
The poems in Take Rain are collaborative and color-saturated. Concerned with climate change and how we mediate life via images, they reflect a belief in relationality and process as a creative tactic for navigating both poetry and the current moment. From swans, snails, and clocks, to polar bears, grief, and airports, the poems reenact a perplexing and uncanny world.
Written in a poetic voice belonging to neither poet but corresponding to aspects of both authors, the poems consider the environment (both psychological and natural) and how, through engaged, creative connection, we can be collaborators. Both humans and nature are, after all, a kind of “wetware.”
The poets used three provocations, such as quotations, visual prompts, and phrases gathered from their peripatetic, multidisciplinary lives, to seed a prompt for a poem. Sometimes these triangles of association yielded multiple poems. The authors then traded these “triangle poems,” and during the joint editing process, a recognizable tone and timbre emerged.
Take Rain addresses difficult topics with liveliness, surprise, and absurdist humor, and proves collaboration can help. Short enough to allow readers to dip in and out, but intense enough to transport them from daily life, these poems practice what they They were created from a place of convivial sharing and trust. What grew from this “artnership” is a unique third voice that surprised both authors.
The poems in Take Rain are collaborative and color-saturated. Concerned with climate change and how we mediate life via images, they reflect a belief in relationality and process as a creative tactic for navigating both poetry and the current moment. From swans, snails, and clocks, to polar bears, grief, and airports, the poems reenact a perplexing and uncanny world.
Written in a poetic voice belonging to neither poet but corresponding to aspects of both authors, the poems consider the environment (both psychological and natural) and how, through engaged, creative connection, we can be collaborators. Both humans and nature are, after all, a kind of “wetware.”
The poets used three provocations, such as quotations, visual prompts, and phrases gathered from their peripatetic, multidisciplinary lives, to seed a prompt for a poem. Sometimes these triangles of association yielded multiple poems. The authors then traded these “triangle poems,” and during the joint editing process, a recognizable tone and timbre emerged.
Take Rain addresses difficult topics with liveliness, surprise, and absurdist humor, and proves collaboration can help. Short enough to allow readers to dip in and out, but intense enough to transport them from daily life, these poems practice what they They were created from a place of convivial sharing and trust. What grew from this “artnership” is a unique third voice that surprised both authors.
96 pages, Paperback
Expected publication April 6, 2027
About the author
Gary Barwin
48 books94 followersGARY BARWIN is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 21 books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His bestselling novel [Book: Yiddish for Pirates] won the 2017 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and was a Governor General’s Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist and has recently been longlisted for the Leacock Medal. His latest poetry collection is No TV for Woodpeckers His work has appeared widely in journals, including Poetry (Chicago), The Walrus and the Paris Review blog. A finalist for the National Magazine Awards (Poetry), he is a three-time recipient of Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year, and has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature. He is was Writer-in-Residence at Western University and the London Public Library and is currently Art Forms Writer-in-residence for at-risk youth and will be Writer-in Residence at McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library in 2017-2018. Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com
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