Michael Lista (born September 1, 1983) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. He is the author of ''Bloom'', a book of poems about Canadian Manhattan Project physicist

Louis Slotin Louis Alexander Slotin (1 December 1910 – 30 May 1946) was a Canadian physicist and chemist who took part in the Manhattan Project. Born and raised in the North End of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Slotin earned both his Bachelor of Science and M ...

. He writes a monthly column on poetry for ''

The National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Mo ...

'' and lives in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Ontario.

Career

Poems from Lista's debut, ''Bloom'', first began appearing in 2007, when the art magazine ''Border Crossings'' published "Fourteen Poems from Bloom" prefaced by a lengthy editorial introduction in its November 2007 issue. Selections from Bloom then appeared in many of Canada's literary journals and magazines, including ''ARC Magazine'', ''Descant'', ''Event'', ''Maisonneuve'', ''The Malahat Review'', ''Rhythm'', and ''The Walrus''. In the summer of 2008 Canadian poet

Ken Babstock Ken Babstock (born 19 January 1970) is a Canadian poet.House of Anansi ...

selected and read some of Lista's ''Bloom'' poems as part of the Scream Literary Festival's Alumni Night. Excerpts were published in the chapbook Best Practices. Later that summer, while in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Lista received and accepted an offer to publish ''Bloom'' with

House of Anansi Press House of Anansi Press is a Canadian publishing company, founded in 1967 by writers Dennis Lee and Dave Godfrey. The company specializes in finding and developing new Canadian writers of literary fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. History Anans ...

. In the months leading up to its publication in April 2010, Bloom was named one of the most anticipated books of the year by

Quill and Quire ''Quill & Quire'' is a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry. The magazine was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, with a publisher-claimed readership of 25,000. ''Quill & Quire'' reviews ...

, Maisonneuve, and by

Carmine Starnino Carmine Starnino is a Canadian poet, essayist, educator and editor. Biography He was born in 1970 in Montreal, Quebec, into an Italian heritage. His first poetry collection ''The New World'' (1997) was nominated for the 1997 A. M. Klein Priz ...

on the ''Véhicule Press'' Blog. ''Quill and Quire'' named it one of its ten best books of 2010, the first time a book of poems has been so acknowledged since 2006's Airstream ''Land Yacht'' by Ken Babstock. November 2010 saw the inauguration of Lista's monthly column ''On Poetry'' in ''The National Post''.

References

External links

Publisher's web page on Lista

Audio recordings of Lista reading ''Bloom'' in its entirety

''Globe and Mail'' review of ''Bloom'', June, 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lista, Michael 21st-century Canadian poets Canadian male poets Living people 1983 births Poets from Toronto 21st-century Canadian male writers