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Poet and pediatric anesthesiologist Conor Mc Donnell joins the podcast to talk about how he lets his readers do the work when it comes to his poetry.

Mc Donnell discusses how he balances writing with a demanding medical career, why his long poem “What We Know So Far” grew out of news headlines and medical language, and how wordplay, notebooks, and “accretive” composition shape his projects.

Along the way they get into language as a virus (via Burroughs), the influence of David Lynch and M. John Harrison on narrative structure, the musicality of poetry (Joy Division, New Order, Smashing Pumpkins), and why writers should be willing to train and even lose some readers in order to reach the right ones.

Find all of Conor’s work at https://www.conorgmcdonnell.com/

Dr. Conor Mc Donnell is a poet and physician at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. He is the author of two collections of poems (most recently, This Insistent List) and three chapbooks. His poetry has appeared in various Canadian and international publications as well as noted medical journals such as JAMA and CMAJ. He is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and Editor in Chief of Case Repertory, a Narrative Based Medicine Lab publication which seeks to engage and promote the voice of the patient in collaboration with their health-carers. He is a frequently invited international lecturer on pediatric perioperative care, error prevention and opioid stewardship, and he is current Vice-President of the Canadian Pediatric Anesthesiology Society.

CREDITS
Opening song is “We Got the Poison” by Electric Candles
Podcast production by Dan Vadeboncoeur