Jason Guriel's guest appearances

Jason Guriel

Q with Tom Power

The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale

Donald Trump

Quentin Tarantino

Nicholson Baker

Tom Doherty

Harlan Coben

Cory Doctorow

Yann Martel

Sydney Smith

George Eliot

Larry Thompson

Alex Ross

Lawrence Krauss

Margaret MacMillan

Lionel Trilling

Steven Heller

OwlTail

Following the success of his critically-acclaimed debut novel, "Forgotten Work," author Jason Guriel is back with a new book called, "The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles." Like “Forgotten Work,” “Full Moon” is set in a dystopian world many years into the future. Newfoundland has vanished, Tokyo is the new Venice and people are living in hive-like housing due to rising tides. Jason joins guest host Talia Schlanger to discuss the book’s central themes and why he decided to write it in rhyming couplets.

Why Jason Guriel wrote his new book entirely in rhyming couplets

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 &amp; 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. 

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 &amp; 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.

Jason Guriel on Poems, Poetry, Criticism and Critics