Canadian Poets Series #32 : Alice Burdick

Alice Burdick writes poetry, essays, and cookbooks in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. She is the author of Ox Lost, Snow Deep, 2024, Anvil Press/a feed dog books [see Amanda Earl's review here; see my review here];  Deportment, 2018, Wilfrid Laurier University Press [see my review here]; Book of Short Sentences, 2016, Mansfield Press [see my review here];  Holler, 2012, Mansfield Press;  Flutter, 2008, Mansfield Press [see my review here];  and Simple Master, 2002, Pedlar Press. Her most recent title, Ox Lost, Snow Deep, a book of long poems, was shortlisted for the 2025 Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award and longlisted for the 2025 Raymond Souster Award. Her practice often includes collaboration, and recently her poetry has been used in Woodlight, a series of three films created by Hear Here and Erin Donovan. These films have been  included in the Toronto Short Film Festival, NAC’s Capsule, Dance Made in Canada and Canadian New Music Network’s Forum Showcase. Her poems have appeared in Aubade: Poetry and Prose from Nova Scotian Writers (Boularderie Island Press, 2018), GUSH: Menstrual Manifestos for Our Time (Frontenac House, 2018),  Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence, An Anthology of Surrealist Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press, Fall 2004), as well as other anthologies. She is the author of many chapbooks, folios, and broadsides since 1991. Recent poems can be found via the Spotlight series, NewPoetry, The Pi Review, The Miramichi Review and Brooklyn Rail, and repeatedly at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics here and here, with recent interviews via poetry mini interviews, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics and Touch the Donkey. Her essays have appeared in Locations of Grief: an emotional geography (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020) and My Nova Scotia Home: Nova Scotia’s best writers riff on the place they call home (MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc., 2019). She has authored three cookbooks for local publisher Formac Publishing.  She visits elementary and high school English classes as a “Poet In Your Class” through Poetry in Voice/les Voix de la Poésie, and leads workshops through the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia. She has done numerous readings over the years in many different venues,  including VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival, the Brooklyn Rail Reading Series, the Halifax Word on the Street, and The Scream in High Park Literary Festival, Toronto .  From 1992-1995, Alice was assistant coordinator of the Toronto Small Press Fair, and has been a judge for various awards, including the bpNichol Chapbook Award.  She is also a mentor, freelance editor and manuscript assessor.