Biography

Dave Margoshes is a Saskatoon-area writer. He’s appeared six times in Best Canadian Stories and been a Journey Prize finalist. He’s published some twenty books, including six volumes of poetry; the most recent, A Calendar of Reckoning, appeared in 2018. His previous poetry title, Dimensions of an Orchard, won the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Awards Poetry Prize. He’s taught creative writing and led workshops at various locations, and for various age groups. He was writer in residence in Saskatoon in 2001-02 and Winnipeg in 1995-96. For several years, he was involved with Writers in Electronic Residence (WIER), which linked professional writers with high school students via the Internet.

His poetry leans toward the narrative, with an emphasis on detail and concrete imagery. He values precision of language, emotional content and clarity above all else.

 

Micro-interview

Did you read poetry when you were in high school? Is there a particular poem that you loved when you were a teenager?

Not very much. My school experience was not very poetry friendly. But I did start writing poetry in high school, and that led me to start reading it (a cart before the horse kind of thing).

When did you first start writing poetry? And then when did you start thinking of yourself as a poet?

As mentioned above, I started writing poems in high school. I did it in hopes of impressing a certain girl, who was writing poems. It didn’t work, but I did fall in love with poetry. But I didn’t start thinking of myself as “a poet” for a number of years, not till I started getting occasional poems published in little magazines.

What do you think a poet’s “job” is?

A poem is a bit of a snapshot – of a certain moment, a scene, a feeling, a story (compressed). The poet’s “job” is get that snapshot as perfectly in focus as possible. Oh, and as beautiful as possible, for good measure.

If you had to choose one poem to memorize from our anthology, which one would it be?

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.“ I love that poem for its simplicity and wisdom.

Publications

Title
A Calendar of Reckoning
Publisher
Coteau Books
Date
May 2018
Publication type
Book
Title
Dimensions of an Orchard
Publisher
Black Moss Press
Date
2010
Publication type
Book
Poem title(s)
Cancer and In Hospital
Title
Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology
Publisher
Mansfield Press
Editors
Priscilla Uppal
Date
2018
Publication type
Anthology
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