Hello, My Forever Ago, don't worry,
you won't be reading this much longer.
"Blythe brings a mastery of precision and cadence to bear in creating poems that pulse with emotion, complexity and vulnerability
— CBC spring preview [...]
— Quill & Quire starred review [...]
"Blythe’s sense of orchestration is on fullest display…. It’s exciting to see a writer so conscious of building a body of work within and across collections, pursuing not just a set of ideas and concerns but an artistic vision
"Hymnswitch...makes an important contribution to the field of trans poetics
"You...have been invited into an intimate space, to wear the poet’s skin for a moment, to hold his breath
— CV2 [...]
"Strategies of paradox, crystalline hermetic eloquences, are...on display in Ali Blythe’s second poetry collection, Hymnswitch
— The Malahat Review
"I kept handing the book to friends, saying, 'Read this—it’s so smart.' When I finished the last page, I read it again, which is something I almost never do [...]
— Walrus Top Ten Books of 2019 by Zoe Whittall
"I just completely devoured...Hymnswitch
— Writer's Trust Recommended Read by Adam Sol
“Ali Blythe pierces your skins, awakening perceptions you had allowed to settle under the surface.
— matthew heinz, author of Entering Transmasculinity
“Hymnswitch wears the good, solid boots of language to trek through the unsendable here of daily decision
— Derek Beaulieu, Calgary Poet Laureate, 2014-2016
“An intimate, attentive, and patiently affecting book that lives up to all of the possibilities of its title
— TC Tolbert, Tucson Poet Laureate
in the media
WaW
Finalist for 2020 Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize
Winner of the Vallum Award for Poetry 2017
Two National Magazine Award nominations
CBC collections from up-and-coming Canadian poets to read
49th Shelf most anticipated poetry for spring
49th Shelf 26 books to celebrate for poetry month
"Blythe's stark, deft poems build a spectacular debut [...]
— Winnipeg Free Press
"Stunning and true
— CBC
"perhaps incurring the most dog-eared pages ever [...]
— The Puritan
"His thoughts stretched wide, longing in between, Blythe illuminates a world both ruined and beautiful [...]
— Jury Citation, Writers Trust of Canada
"His poetry is a potent form of touch [...]
— The Bull Calf
"intelligent and charming, jangly and jarring, moody, dreamy and a little bit deadly
— herizons Magazine
"Twoism compresses fizzing desire into a staccato mythic-demotic
— The Malahat Review (2020)
"Twoism is heavily coded with binary and dualisms, strewn with cloaks, masks, animal skins and sick blankets, and rich with literary allusion
— Event Poetry and Prose
"wry observation and a chaotic wit....a welcome voice in the dark, cleaving and binding of our immaterial desires to our bodies [...]
— Arc Poetry Magazine
"[Blythe is a] surreal engineer of language
— The Scene London
"[Poems from Twoism] remind me of that feeling when you look up at the sky and and have this realization of how vast everything is and you feel so small [...]
— Quill & Quire
"At the heart of Ali Blythe’s courageous debut collection is a bruising search for identity [...]
— The Malahat Review (2016)
Blythe’s poems are permeable; they breathe; they create space for identities and expressions that wash away, that are “unable to be,” that are unable to achieve being’s solidity and certainty and don’t really want to anyways. [...]
— CV2
"I keep circling back to [Blythe's] poems - they go so simply, steadily to your heart
— @bookgaga
"I photocopied half-a-dozen poems out of this book and mailed them to my friends
— New Book in the House
"You pick up a poetry book and open the pages and sometimes you are transported. And that's what happened to me with...Twoism [listen]
— Sheryl MacKay, CBC North by Northwest
"Blythe’s poetry deftly mingles humour and hardship to capture the beauty and tragedy of the everyday.
— Room Magazine
"the edgy poetry collection that set minds and hearts afire
— Jane Eaton Hamilton, author of Weekend
"Blythe is as disarming as dangerous....In every poem, there is the chance you will be caught unprepared
— Ian Williams, author of Personals
"Right from the first poem, Blythe pulls you down the rabbit hole of desire.
— Betsy Warland, author of Breathing the Page
"Blythe has created Twoism out of muscle and mirrors, shadow and light, throwing words as though they are knives in a circus act; risky, but with steady aim, each word lands sharp and close to the skin.
— Arleen Paré, author of Lake of Two Mountains
in the media
Honour of Distinction from Writers Trust of Canada · Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ emerging writers
Finalist for 2016 Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize
CBC top 10 hottest poetry books
Ali Blythe is the author of two critically acclaimed books exploring trans-poetics: the debut collection, Twoism, and the follow-up, Hymnswitch.
His poems are published in literary journals and anthologies in Canada, England, Germany and Slovenia. He is the winner of the Vallum Award for Poetry, twice finalist for the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Award, and recipient of an honour of distinction from the Writers Trust of Canada for emerging LGBTQ writers.
He lives in Victoria, BC.