Chris Banks
@chrisbanks6625.bsky.social
I’m a Canadian poet with eight collections of poems - Bureau of Useless Splendour forthcoming ECW press (Fall 2026). https://www.onlypoems.net/poets/chris-banks https://linktr.ee/royal.banksy
Reposted by Chris Banks
sad minds think alike,
Mary Ruefle
Mary Ruefle
November 13, 2025 at 3:17 PM
sad minds think alike,
Mary Ruefle
Mary Ruefle
Anger is a mine happy to be stepped on.
*
If you don't want to feel someone's pain, give them advice.
*
Over and over, the terrible weakness of the powerful.
*
The know-nothing and the know-it-all are that same guy!
from "Vectors 6.2: Just Saying" in APR by James Richardson
*
If you don't want to feel someone's pain, give them advice.
*
Over and over, the terrible weakness of the powerful.
*
The know-nothing and the know-it-all are that same guy!
from "Vectors 6.2: Just Saying" in APR by James Richardson
November 23, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Anger is a mine happy to be stepped on.
*
If you don't want to feel someone's pain, give them advice.
*
Over and over, the terrible weakness of the powerful.
*
The know-nothing and the know-it-all are that same guy!
from "Vectors 6.2: Just Saying" in APR by James Richardson
*
If you don't want to feel someone's pain, give them advice.
*
Over and over, the terrible weakness of the powerful.
*
The know-nothing and the know-it-all are that same guy!
from "Vectors 6.2: Just Saying" in APR by James Richardson
Wrote a few poems this weekend. I’m feeling good about the new direction I’m going in.
November 23, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Wrote a few poems this weekend. I’m feeling good about the new direction I’m going in.
Wrote a new poem today. Edited and stripped it down to 12 tight lines.
November 19, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Wrote a new poem today. Edited and stripped it down to 12 tight lines.
New Sluggo tattoo. By Sammuelfrost
November 15, 2025 at 6:40 PM
New Sluggo tattoo. By Sammuelfrost
Getting a tattoo of Sluggo from Nancy comics this morning. I always thought Sluggo was a little misunderstood.
November 15, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Getting a tattoo of Sluggo from Nancy comics this morning. I always thought Sluggo was a little misunderstood.
My copies of Best Canadian Essays 2026 arrived this afternoon. Thanks to editorBrian Bethune for selecting my essay “Black Hammers Falling” orinally published in The New Quarterly for the anthology. And thanks BIblioasis for publishing this series!
November 13, 2025 at 10:23 PM
My copies of Best Canadian Essays 2026 arrived this afternoon. Thanks to editorBrian Bethune for selecting my essay “Black Hammers Falling” orinally published in The New Quarterly for the anthology. And thanks BIblioasis for publishing this series!
Reposted by Chris Banks
The room is
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
November 13, 2025 at 12:13 AM
The room is
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
Jack Gilbert. You read him and you read him and the poems almost become like old jokes you have heard before until suddenly one hits you like you've never read it. Whoa. This poem is dynamite.
November 12, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Jack Gilbert. You read him and you read him and the poems almost become like old jokes you have heard before until suddenly one hits you like you've never read it. Whoa. This poem is dynamite.
Reposted by Chris Banks
Oh how I love this poem.
From Ada Limón's book, Bright Dead Things. Get it here: bit.ly/adabright
#poetry #booksky #writing
From Ada Limón's book, Bright Dead Things. Get it here: bit.ly/adabright
#poetry #booksky #writing
November 9, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Oh how I love this poem.
From Ada Limón's book, Bright Dead Things. Get it here: bit.ly/adabright
#poetry #booksky #writing
From Ada Limón's book, Bright Dead Things. Get it here: bit.ly/adabright
#poetry #booksky #writing
Reposted by Chris Banks
New author photo. My daughter took it.
November 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM
New author photo. My daughter took it.
Seeing The Lemonheads in Toronto at the end of the month with my step son. I missed them thirty years ago and always regretted it.
November 8, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Seeing The Lemonheads in Toronto at the end of the month with my step son. I missed them thirty years ago and always regretted it.
Getting a Sluggo tattoo next week. Why? I grew up on Nancy comics.
November 8, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Getting a Sluggo tattoo next week. Why? I grew up on Nancy comics.
Wrote some descriptive copy for the Fall 2026 catalogue about my forthcoming poetry book Bureau of Useless Splendour out next year!
November 8, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Wrote some descriptive copy for the Fall 2026 catalogue about my forthcoming poetry book Bureau of Useless Splendour out next year!
Hey just a reminder that my last poetry book Alternator is awesome even after being out for two years. There is a long poetry sequence made of six couplet ghazals and a section of non rhymed autobiographical sonnets and a middle section of lightly surreal poems. It’s the business.
November 3, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Hey just a reminder that my last poetry book Alternator is awesome even after being out for two years. There is a long poetry sequence made of six couplet ghazals and a section of non rhymed autobiographical sonnets and a middle section of lightly surreal poems. It’s the business.
My stepdaughter was on the KCI school bus that toppled over yesterday near London ON. Olivia is okay and her friends are okay but everyone is very shaken up. The driver of the bus died. The kids were on a two day overnight field trip to Pelee Island. Very surreal.
November 3, 2025 at 1:29 PM
My stepdaughter was on the KCI school bus that toppled over yesterday near London ON. Olivia is okay and her friends are okay but everyone is very shaken up. The driver of the bus died. The kids were on a two day overnight field trip to Pelee Island. Very surreal.
Reposted by Chris Banks
"love poem" by Danez Smith, from Bluff (@graywolfpress.bsky.social).
October 25, 2025 at 10:31 PM
"love poem" by Danez Smith, from Bluff (@graywolfpress.bsky.social).
Halloween was successful.
November 1, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Halloween was successful.
Two new poems coming out in a future issue of Event magazine! Nice to get into a Canadian periodical again after a few years.
November 1, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Two new poems coming out in a future issue of Event magazine! Nice to get into a Canadian periodical again after a few years.
Reposted by Chris Banks
Thanks so much to @chrisbanks6625.bsky.social for his review of my @gaspereaupress.bsky.social book over on his wonderful website The Woodlot! the-wood-lot.ca/2025/10/28/t...
The Acutely Observed: A Review of Ian LeTourneau’s Metadata from a Changing Climate (Gaspereau Press, 2025)
by Chris Banks I have been dipping into Ian LeTourneau’s latest collection Metadata from a Changing Climate for the last week, out with Gaspereau Press (2025), and this book really does a wonderful…
the-wood-lot.ca
October 28, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Thanks so much to @chrisbanks6625.bsky.social for his review of my @gaspereaupress.bsky.social book over on his wonderful website The Woodlot! the-wood-lot.ca/2025/10/28/t...
It’s been an interesting week. Lots of writing and sending out a manuscript of poetry essays out to publishers.
October 26, 2025 at 8:47 PM
It’s been an interesting week. Lots of writing and sending out a manuscript of poetry essays out to publishers.
Reposted by Chris Banks
There is such poignancy in that single end-stopped line that opens the poem
'Just Once' by Anne Sexton
#poetry
#poemoftheday
'Just Once' by Anne Sexton
#poetry
#poemoftheday
October 8, 2025 at 5:55 PM
There is such poignancy in that single end-stopped line that opens the poem
'Just Once' by Anne Sexton
#poetry
#poemoftheday
'Just Once' by Anne Sexton
#poetry
#poemoftheday
Those Graves in Rome
There are places where the eye can starve,
poets.org
October 19, 2025 at 3:57 PM