A poet is plunderphonics. Living in the surreal but grasping the environment by the neck to what exists. Then it’s translated to words and redefined universally. A poet is not just a stagnant identity itself, nor is it a made identity. Anyone can be a poet as long as one holds firm to expressing themselves. I feel there is no label.

Just as it is impossible to perform tasks such as making a shirt without a seam as stated in the ballad, the process of bringing the poet’s thoughts in unison with the poem can be, if not, just as impossible as the tasks stated in “Scarborough Fair”. My playing with the consciousness of the poem is the key feature of this collection. It often starts out with a rant of mine and like a seed sown beneath the soil, it will continue to grow and as it grows, I begin to manipulate the formation of words, the rhythm and musicality of the idea in which the play on of living words brings my naked poem into life. It’s almost like the phenomena of playing with fire.

STANFORD CHEUNG

Any Seam or Needlework (The Operating System, 2016)

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 10TH

knife | fork | book @ Rick’s Cafe | 281 Augusta Avenue | Kensington Market

Doors open 6:30PM | Reading 7PM

Stanford Cheung is a poet and musician from Toronto. He is the author of 2 chapbooks most recently “Any Seam or Needlework” published by The Operating System (2016) as part of their Of Sound::Mind Series. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his work appears in Ricepaper, Nomadic Journal, X-Peri Magazine, Zoomoozophone Review and elsewhere. A winner of numerous international piano competitions, he has performed throughout the US, Canada, and Asia at venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, The Royal Ontario Museum, The Living Arts Centre with the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra and everything in between. Presently, he studies at University of Toronto.