Biography
Leah Horlick is the author of three collections of poems: Moldovan Hotel (Brick Books, 2022,) For Your Own Good (Caitlin Press, 2015), and Riot Lung (Thistledown Press, 2012). In 2016, Leah was awarded the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT2Q2S+ Emerging Writers and For Your Own Good was named a Stonewall Honor Title by the American Library Association. Leah lived on unceded Coast Salish territories in Vancouver for nearly ten years, during which time she and her dear friend Estlin McPhee ran REVERB, a queer and anti-oppressive reading series. She was the 2022-23 Canadian Writer-in-Residence with the Calgary Distinguished Writers Program, and is now living happily back where she grew up, as a settler on Treaty Six Territory & the homelands of the Métis in Saskatoon.
Micro-interview
I read voraciously in high school, often under my desk during class. (Sorry, teachers, and thanks for looking the other way.) Being Jewish, I read a lot of Leonard Cohen, and was also deeply inspired by the work of my friend and mentor Adrienne Gruber.
As a child I had an excellent hiding spot between a bookcase and a wall, which is what brought me into proximity with poetry - and later, the presence of beloved community members and family friends Martha Blum, Anne Szumigalski, and Elizabeth Brewster. I was also very fortunate to have an active public library system a few hours away from where I grew up; they ran summer writing workshops for teenagers, which gave me an invaluable sense of possibility.
I return often to a quote from Toni Cade Bambara which reads, "The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible."
My piece "For You Shall Be Called To Account" was inspired by the ways in which the legacy of the Holocaust has invaded my intimate relationships, and my struggle to navigate that particular form of haunting in my body, in relation to other bodies.
I always keep Brandi Bird's heart-shattering collection "I Am Still Too Much" (Rahila's Ghost Press) close by on my bookshelf. Their poem "19" speaks deeply to me and would be a distinct pleasure to memorize: https://poetryinvoice.ca/poems/19