Andy Weaver, Haecceity
From Burlington-based poet and York University professor Andy Weaver comes the second installment in our Mentor Series, and the first book we’re printing by a white dude (!) in the form of Haecceity, a segment of Weaver’s larger project, The Loom. Haecceity is encyclopedic in its study of love, looking to Weaver’s beautiful family and asking the hard questions: what is this love thing? how do I write it down? can words ever encode what I feel in this home? Weaver borrows, steals, reworks, and pays homage to a series of poetic and academic predecessors, keeping a comprehensive list of influences and sources at the back of the chapbook. Weaver’s lines are sprawling, spilling over into new lines, new stanzas, and attempting to say as much as he can about a feeling he knows he can never truly speak.
This chapbook is printed on white paper with a sand-coloured cardstock cover (designed by Dani Spinosa and beautifully, painstakingly typeset by Kate Siklosi). Each chapbook is lovingly wrapped in a ribbon of text, requiring that we break something to get at the good stuff.