Beyond Bullfights & Ice Hockey
-
Enclosures
Check out this podcast from Reckoning Magazine where the editor Michael DeLuca talks about my essay Enclosures. You can read the complete text too or download the podcast to listen at your leisure … whenever and wherever . Enjoy! Podcast Episode 18: Enclosures https://reckoning.press/?powerpress_embed=3058-podcast&powerpress_player=mediaelement-audio Today I’m going to read you an essay by paulo da costa, “Enclosures”, from Reckoning 6. I think of this piece as a new perspective in an ongoing conversation that started, for me, with Kate Schapira’s essay “On Political Change, Climate Change, and the Choice to Not Have Children” that appeared in Catapult in 2017, and my editorial piece in Reckoning 2, “On Having a Kid…
-
New creative essay in Queen’s Quarterly
The Colours of Happiness, a new creative essay, published in the Winter issue of Queen’s Quarterly Review (Queen’s University in Ontario). Check it out. Winter 2021 Vol. 128 No. 4 From the Editor – Winter 2021 ~ James Carson Going for Ice at the Motel on Ocean Boulevard ~ Marc Plourde Lilac Clouds and Wind Chimes ~ Deidre Dwyer Crown of Vespers (poem) ~ Mazzy Sleep In the Neighborhood of Sickness and Love ~ Alexis David Reasons Not to Be Human #1, 46: Airbnb ~ Sara Salih Old Blue Jeans (poem) ~ Sarain Frank Soonias Soldier’s Heart ~ Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt Healing Power, Present Wisdom (poem) ~ Meg Freer A Condensed History of Window Gazing ~ Christopher Cherney The Wash (poem) ~ Nicholas Bradley Playing…
-
On Falling from Grace – author and reader
This post includes my clarifications (in the guise of a response) to a few points/interpretations raised by Emanuel Melo regarding a few essays in Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey. I deemed the response necessary and relevant in light of his interpretations of my Canada Reads essay, and in particular, amid the present high-profile event of the Jian Ghomeshi trial. The original intent of the essays under discussion, and his interpretation on some details, were so unexpected and so far from my original intent that I needed to present my interpretation. This response was originally sent to Emanuel by email. He found the points valuable and suggested I included the response…
-
A Reader’s Response to Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey
Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: A Reader’s Response By Emanuel Melo I overheard a conversation between a father, his wife and daughter while at lunch at Le Petit Château in Quebec City the other day. “What are you planning to do this afternoon?” he asked. “We’re going to the Museum of Civilization.” “Great. That’ll give me time to watch the game and then we’ll meet up after.” I could say that I found it shocking that someone would take the time to come all the way to Quebec City to stay cooped up in a hotel room to watch a game while ignoring the charm of the city, but…
You May Also Like
The Guest who refuses to be polite – impressions by Emanuel Melo
-
Poetic & Lyrical – impressions by Irene Marques
Irene Marques on Beyond Bullfights & Ice Hockey (essays) Paulo da Costa has a poetic and lyrical voice that is beautiful. It is an appeasing murmur conducive to meditation putting into question the acceptance of the mundane or the fashions of the moment which are often guided by economic pressures that erase us all under a blanket of sameness. It is a voice that wants the power of the word to remain pure so that it can reach us at a deep level and have an impact that goes well beyond the facades of easy, cheap rhetoric. It is a writing that asks you to slow down, to pause, in order…
-
Interview in Portuguese-American Review
original interview in Portuguese-American Review Portuguese-American Review – Congratulations on publishing “Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey: Essays on Language, Identity and Writing Culture”. What is this book’s genre or category? paulo da costa – The book can be seen as a creative non-fiction collection of texts that stretches its traditional essay-like boundaries past the more journalistic or academic essay by its irreverence, humour and often its embrace of a poetic tone to deliver thought through the vein of beauty. I hope it will be seen as a garden of beautiful words with philosophical substance. A poet at heart can never abstain from wrapping his thoughts in beauty. An edible…
-
The Guest who refuses to be polite – impressions by Emanuel Melo
I’m hanging out with paulo da costa these days. On the crowded subway ride to work in the morning and again in the evening on the way home I listen to him; those around me don’t. But I prefer listening to him when I get inside my solitude, sitting on my sofa, in the quiet of my library, where I can be attentive without the pull of people’s chatter. Even at four in the morning, when I cannot sleep, he is still talking. Non-stop. He is the guest who refuses to go home at a decent hour and so, to be polite, I let him speak his words. He gives…
-
Obligatory reading for the North American Luso Diaspora – impressions by Diniz Borges
Diniz Borges on Beyond Bullfights & Ice Hockey (essays) Just began to read this new book of essays by paulo da costa. The first essay is amazing. Paulo is a great writer. The title of the book is great. Indeed, beyond some of these stereotypical cliches that we slap in the Portuguese experience in North-America. Paulo writes from a Portuguese-Canadian experience, not very different from ours here in the US. I will continue reading this great book of essays and it will be, I’m sure, one of future articles for the Portuguese language press in the US and in the Azores. Congrats to Boavista Press for the publication. Acabo de…
-
New book: Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey
Beyond Bullfights and Ice Hockey Essays on Identity, Language and Writing Culture A book of twelve essays, musings, thoughts, inner conversations, arguments and rambles written over the course of two decades. For those who believe the book is obsolete and has been overtaken by other cultural platforms and technologies in our increasingly fast-moving times, I remind myself that the book is a marker of sanity for the human spirit. It will always be a measure of how far we humans have fallen off our cultural and spiritual balance. The book is an intimate match to the rhythm of our consciousness, our state of being present in the world, our hunger…
-
Mass Storytelling
– paulo da costa Sunday morning in my neighbourhood. Cars pull into parking lots and doors slam shut. This domino of bangs echoes a timeless, proverbial Big Bang of life-changing events. The amiable people exchange smiles and jovial greetings as they stroll with purpose to their varied gatherings of devotion. In high-ceilinged buildings they will soon congregate and listen to stories of creation, parables of morality, illustrations on righteous conduct. They will sing hymns of worship and pray recurrent supplications for health, wealth and peace. On the radio, after having rescued the greedy, bankrupt bankers and the automobile barons, another politician extols the value of the goods economy…
