Last Night of the Earth Poems by Bukowski
It contains my favourite poem of all time, and so many other things that are beautiful.
Ngugi wa Thiong’o
He made a genre ALL his own. He also influenced me greatly with his views on culture, language, and the ever-present nature of oppression in modern life.
Imajica by Clive Barker
Every youth needs someone a little bit like them to look up to – to see pride in yourself – especially when your identity guarantees violence against you. He was my hero at the time (14 yrs old).
Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach
Monkey Beach blew my mind. It came at a time when outsiders dominated Indigenous narratives – I also loved the subtle communications between spirit world and human world.
Leonard Cohen – Stranger Music
Just like Charles Bukowski and Clive Barker, I was in my teenage years – and this book helped form so much of what I knew about the world, and lyric, and poetry.
Tyler Pennock is a poet and writer who was adopted form a Cree and Métis family in the Lesser Slave Lake area of Alberta. They’ve authored one collection of poetry, Bones, with another on the way (blood). They currently live in Toronto.