Drank, Recruited

Winner of the 2024 Nelson Ball Prize

Longlisted for the 2024 League of Canadian Poets Pat Lowther Award

I drank once for the want of it, twice to be rid of it.
I drank the first time because I was afraid to drink the second time.
I drank the first time to prepare myself to drink the second time.
I drank the first time so I had to drink less the second time.
I drank the first time without knowing so the second was my first time.
I drank once to be recruited, twice to recruit others.

Drank, Recruited is about knowing through thirsting; drinking through wanting. Love as a silken rug which stretches from thought to fact so that there be aliveness where there is certainty, and life where there is fact. With a voice of eruptive sincerity and intimate incisiveness these poems are scenarios of language-making and relation.