After unplugging from internet for a 10-day trip to the Sunshine Coast in mid-August, I was thrilled to find out that my poetry chapbook Full Mondegreens–co-authored with the endlessly talented Andy Verboom–won first prize in Frog Hollow Press’s chapbook contest. This chapbook is my most formally ambitious poetic endeavour, and I have to credit Andy with inventing the “Mondegreen” form and inviting me into his mad scientist poetry lab to experiment with it. A spinoff of homophonic translation, the mondegreen pushes the institution of the misheard lyric (“cross I bear” –> “cross-eyed bear”), translating a poem back into itself through a refracted sound map. That might sound complicated, so here’s an example: “Do not go gentle into that good night” –> “Doom wrought surrender in the catfood fight.”

The chapbook is due out late 2016, and, given the lovely book matter Frog Hollow creates, I’m super excited to get my hands on it.