I came to poetry through music: strange rhyming songs and lullabies as a kid, an absolute obsession with lyrics as a teenager, and now as an eclectic collector of songs that remind me of poems in some way. So I’m recommending music—interesting music that you may not have heard before, Joshua Burnside’s Ephrata. I happened upon it a few years ago, encouraged by an album write-up that mentioned the many hours he spent on his own in a small room, recording all sorts of different sounds, and then layering them together with melody and his poetic lyrics. It sounded to me like he was doing poet’s work, and if you give the album a listen, I think you might agree.
https://joshuaburnside.bandcamp.com/album/ephrata
— Erin Bedford is a poet and novelist. Mentored by poet Betsy Warland through Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, her short work has appeared in Temz Review, Train, GUEST, Catamaran Literary Reader and is forthcoming with EVENT magazine. She is the founder and editor of Pinhole Poetry, a digital poetry journal and chapbook press.
