David Huebert
Biography
David Huebert grew up in Halifax, NS, and attended a high school (QEH) that has sunk into the sands of time. His writing has won the CBC Short Story Prize, The Walrus Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2020 Journey Prize. In 2020, he released his second book of poems, Humanimus. He is also the author of two award-winning short story collections and the debut novel Oil People, which won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award. David’s work has been published in magazines such as The Walrus, Maisonneuve, enRoute, and Canadian Notes & Queries, and anthologized in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories 32. David teaches at The University of King’s College in K’jipuktuk/Halifax, where he lives and writes.
A self-styled "dirty nature writer," David writes poetry that is influenced, in complicated ways, by environment and machines. He runs workshops on sound poetry, rhyme, basics of poetic form, and writing with animals.
His latest publication, "Speech Acts," was co-authored by his eight-year-old daughter. He has done classroom visits at high schools and junior highs across Nova Scotia and Ontario, and loves to bring music and wordplay into the classroom.
Micro-interview
I did read poetry in high school, mostly in the form of music lyrics! This is the most popular form of contemporary poetry--I talk about this a lot in my workshops. As a teen, I loved the lyrics of Prince, David Bowie, Green Day, and A Tribe Called Quest. I still do!
I started writing in undergrad, and then in my master's degree I submitted my first poem to a contest. Crazily enough, it won! That made me sort of start thinking of myself as a poet, but I still find that strange.
The poet's job is (1) to connect to readers emotionally, and (2) to carve new frontiers of language--our species' most sophisticated technology.
I'd choose "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson. Dickinson's poems are always beautiful, curving neon through the mind. I love her slanted way of writing and thinking. This is also pragmatic--Dickinson's poems are shortish, and they rhyme. Rhyme is a natural mnemonic aide. I memorized several of Dickinson's poems for my PhD exams. I often preach about the value of memorizing poetry. Once you do so, they live inside you.
