Michael Lista on Canadian Poetry and Politics
Michael Lista\xa0is an investigative journalist, essayist and poet in Toronto. He has worked as a book columnist for\xa0The National Post,\xa0and as the poetry editor of\xa0The Walrus. He is the author of three books: the poetry volumes\xa0Bloom\xa0and\xa0The Scarborough,\xa0and\xa0Strike Anywhere,\xa0a collection of his writing about literature, television and culture.\xa0His essays and investigative stories have appeared in\xa0The Atlantic,\xa0Slate,\xa0Toronto Life,\xa0The Walrus,\xa0The New Yorker, and elsewhere. He was the 2017 Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University and a finalist for the Allan Slaight Prize for Journalism.
I met Michael at his home in Toronto to talk about his essays in\xa0Strike Anywhere (Porcupine's Quill, 2016) Canadian Poetry, Rupi Kaur, Al Purdy and Wordsworth, common speech and common sense, Carmine Starnino and The Lover's Quarrel, John Metcalf, Leonard Cohen and schmaltz, John Thompson, Dante, Scott Griffin, the Saudi arms deal, Margaret Atwood, MacBeth, long-form investigative journalism, crime reporting, self-interest, radical truth-telling and men crying.\xa0
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