Apr 2, 2018
Jason
Guriel is a poet and critic whose work has appeared in such
publications as Poetry,
Slate, Reader's
Digest,
The
Walrus,
Parnassus, Canadian Notes
& Queries,
The New
Criterion, and
PN
Review. His poetry has
been anthologized in The
Best Canadian Poetry in English, and in 2007, he was the first Canadian to receive the
Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry magazine. He won Poetry's
Editors Prize for Book Reviewing in 2009. His essays and reviews
are collected in The
Pigheaded Soul (The
Porcupine's Quill, 2013). Guriel lives in Toronto,
Ontario.
We
met at the Toronto Public Library on College in rooms where the
Osborne
Collection is kept. The collection was donated in 1949 by the
English librarian Edgar Osborne in
recognition of the Library's outstanding service to children.
We
talk among other things about The Pig
Headed Soul, the key to
being a good critic, poems not poetry, obsessing, ''The
Case Against Reading Everything', Carmine Starnino, 'culture' writing, confessional
criticism, pop culture essays, the adoration of poet Peter Van
Toorn, 'world class' poet Robyn Sarah, the importance of pleasure,
thoughts the culture wont allow itself to have, "I
don't care about your Life',literary community, honesty in criticism, response to
reviews, Chris Wiman, Clive James, Michael Hoffmann's
Behind the Lines,
William Logan, Jill Bialoski and
plagiarism, the Griffin Prize, dirty money, and
diapers.