Conor Mc Donnell : part one

Conor Mc Donnell is a physician & poet. He is Staff Physician at SickKids Hospital, Toronto, and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is a funded researcher in opioid safety and stewardship and the current Canadian Chair of Patient Safety & Quality Committees for both the Canadian Anesthesiology Society and the Canadian Pediatric Anesthesia Society. His debut poetry collection, Recovery Community (Mansfield Press), was published in 2021.

This chronological bio is to demonstrate what anyone can do with lots of reading, graft and the right people around you

2012: Wrote first poem

2015: First published poems (The Fiddlehead)

2016: First Chapbook (The Book of Retaliations, Anstruther Press)

2017: Second chapbook  (Safe Spaces, Frog Hollow Press)

2018: Short-list & Honorable Mention, The Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize 

2019: Short-list: RawArtReview Charles Bukowski Prize; Runner-up Vallum Prize in Poetry 

2021: Reader with longconmag   

2021: First full Poetry Collection: Recovery Community (Mansfield Press) 

2021: Third Chapbook (In the Museum, above ground press)

2022: …

How does a poem begin?

In stardust, like everything else around and inside us. I suppose there are two ways I know I have sat down and begun to write a specific piece: 1. I constantly write down words, word combinations, lines, long sentences into a notebook or the notes app on my phone. Every so often I run through these and pick at things that grab me and at some point, I begin to transcribe these fragments into a second notebook. All of this is done on the run whether on a break at work, waking up early, whatever. At some point I’ll notice a particular fragment is coalescing, maybe even cozying up to another fragment. Once these make it past another round of notebook trawling and culling, I’ll realize something is starting to happen and give it its own page and a working title. 2. On rare occasion I will jump up from watching a film or whatever random thing and run to pen and paper with an idea that is basically fully-formed that seems to write itself. After first run through I’ll know it’s done. These are always the poems that are accepted first offer for publication and/or get shortlisted; I wish it happened more often.