• Poetry

    inevitable step

        inevitable step     young tiko’s dreams scatter to pieces, hang from the baobab tree,   a boom of a thousand drums in the imagined luanda’s stadium where tiko’s feet, swift as birds, chased a soccer ball of rags   gravel, grass and cloth burrow in tiko’s stump   in the boot of europe, a church-going father designs devices in explosive greens and sands, calls them butterflies, toys gliding to the ground in the thousands. his sister quit valsella last month and greets him with a banner at the end of the day   home at night, in the undermining silence, missing another goodnight kiss, the father clings…

  • Poetry

    a foot in two worlds

    a foot in two worlds     on south terraced slopes vineyards rose in awnings of foliage feet lifted me up ten-foot ladders through green nearer the divine fingers easily pinched the dangling blue thirsty skin touched every soft fruit of the earth but not tin or plastic heels digging into grapes it was love stomping through the eve in granite vats tannin tingling skin before bed before blowing out the candle the blood of christ on my lips then hers   ©1998paulodacosta

  • Interviewing

    Erin Mouré – Dialogues and Polylogues

      Erin Mouré is one of Canada’s most respected and eminent poets. Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Furious, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Domestic Fuel, the QSPELL Award for Poetry for WSW, Mouré has published twelve books of poetry, including A Frame of the Book (aka The Frame of a Book), which was co-published in the U.S. by Sun and Moon Press, and Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person, shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize and the City of Toronto Book Award. Her most recent collection, O Cidadán, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2003. Mouré lives in Montreal and writes with a…

  • Interviewing

    Robert Kroetsch – Imagining Alberta

    One of Canada’s most accomplished authors, Robert Kroetsch was born in Heisler, Alberta in 1927. Kroetsch’s contribution to Canadian literature includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry. His first novel, But We Are Exiles was published in 1965, and in 1969 his novel The Studhorse Man won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. His most recent book is the long poem The Hornbooks of Rita K. He lives in Winnipeg. filling Station spoke with Robert Kroetsch during his Markin-Flanagan’s 2002 Distinguished Visiting Writer Residency at the University of Calgary.   Robert Kroetsch: I grew up in rural central Alberta on a big farm. It was before the Second World War. This farm…

  • Interviewing

    Fernando Aguiar – Visual Poetry

    Fernando Aguiar has published five anthologies of Visual Poetry and contributed to over thirty international anthologies worldwide. In the last twenty years he has participated in hundreds of individual and collective exhibitions, as well as poetic performances. paulo da costa interviewed him this winter in Lisbon, Portugal. paulo da costa: What inspired the use old illustrations in your recent work of Visual Poetry? Fernando Aguiar: Fifteen years ago I found a bunch of old magazines with fine quality illustrations. They had been passed down from my grandfather to my father and eventually to me. I loved the illustrations. Beautiful wood cut prints ­ impeccably pressed. It would have taken months…