Michael Blouin : part one

Michael Blouin has been a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award, the bpNichol Award, the CBC Literary Award and his first novel won the 2009 ReLit Award. He has been the recipient of the Lilian I. Found Award, the Diana Brebner Award and the Lampman Award. His 2019 novel Skin House won the 2020 ReLit Award for Best Novel and has been included on the NASA/Astrobotics Peregrine Mission to the Moon as well as the upcoming SpaceX lunar landing. His most recent novel is the 2022 revisionist history I am Billy the Kid which will also go to the moon with NASA in 2024. He is represented internationally by Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists.

Photo credit: Paulina Hrebacka

What are you working on?

As opposed to thinking of myself as a poet I tend to think of myself as a novelist who writes poetry. In spite of the fact that I have published books of poetry which have won awards, I am aware through my work as an adjudicator for the Canada Council just what the scope and breadth of current poetic practice encompasses and so when I publish poetry in magazines or books I just try to not get in anyone’s way. So, what I’m working on at the moment is a novel encompassing Elvis Presley, the bombing of Dresden, carnival life in Florida, John Glenn’s orbital flight, and other events. It spans about fifty years and several continents. It’s a natural progression from my other novels, several of which involve the imagined lives of historic figures. I do have a long book of poetry being published in the next year or so entitled “Southbound”, and even though it is made up of hundreds of individual poems I think of it as one continuous narrative, I suppose because that’s what it is.