You Exist. Details Follow. launches in Toronto on Thursday!

My new poetry book, my seventh full-length collection, and perhaps my craziest book, You Exist. Details Follow. launches on Thursday (April 5) in Toronto. The poster says 7, but it starts at 7:30.

I'm reading/launching along with Patrick Friesen, who also has a new book out from Anvil Press, and Susan Steudel and Walid Bitar, who have new books from Coach House. Hosting the evening will be the definitive Dani Couture.

My publisher, Anvil Press, let me know that the books arrived at their office yesterday. It's a really weird feeling know that the books are out there — they exist! — and I still haven't seen them. I should be getting my 10 author's copies and the 100 additional copies I'm buying (for starters) soon.

Last weekend held a nice trip to Hamilton for the GritLit festival. I've been to Hamilton a million times, but I've never stayed downtown before, or spent much time there. Some amazing things happening along James Street: all sorts of great arty things. The festival seemed very well organized and very friendly. I was scheduled into the very last event, on Sunday evening at a café called Homegrown Hamilton. Six of us were reading, and I wound up getting the last spot. Throughout the evening I neurotically revised what I'd read up there — chapters from Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew — knowing that whatever I left them with would be the last note of the festival. So the very depressing ending I was toying with gave way to something a bit more ambiguous. And I also read a chapter I'd never read aloud before: The Many Uses of a Yahrzeit Candle. The reading went over really well.

Nice to see a bunch of friendly writers at the festival too: Glenn Downie, Gary Barwin, Amanda Jernigan, Stephanie Bolster, Will Ferguson, Susan Shaw, and plenty more.

Next festival: Prince Edward County at the end of next week.

Meanwhile, will my copies of You Exist. Details Follow. arrive here at home, or will I see it for the first time at Thursday's launch?

Over and out.