Richard Stevenson

In Casting Out Nines, memories and reflections fuse East and West in a jazz bop a la Kerouac, a sort of “high school haiku.” Irreverent, flippant and sparkling poems about friends, school, dating, sex, drinking, partying, music, teachers, joy, sadness and sex evoke all the concerns of teenagers with a mischievious cool. Within the confines of the seventeen syllable form, Richard Stevenson muses on the complicated joys and turbulent difficulties of being a teen, inspired by his own experiences in the early seventies. Reading Casting Out Nines, one imagines a Fast Times at Ridgemont High as scripted by Basho.

Praise for Windfall Apples: Tanka and Kyoka:

English has long been a dance of many times and places, and is becoming more so all the time. Poems in English, especially those that draw on other languages, forms and literatures, are sites of innovation and interest. Stevenson’s tanka and kyoka make a contribution to that way forward: they look elsewhere and back, to make the here and now something new and remarkable, something to look forward to.
Jonathan Hart

Richard Stevenson lives and teaches in Lethbridge, Alberta. He received the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for poetry for From The Mouths of Angels (Ekstasis Editions, 1993). His other Ekstasis Editions titles are Flying Coffins, Nothing Definite Yeti, Hot Flashes, A Charm of Finches, Bye Bye Blackbird and The Emerald Hour.