AJ Dolman
Alt text: Dolman has short purple hair and smiles at the camera against a light purple background. They are dressed in a black top and black blazer, wearing a pendant necklace.
Biography
AJ Dolman’s (they/she) debut poetry book is Crazy / Mad (Gordon Hill Press, spring 2024). A professional editor, Dolman is also the author of Lost Enough: A collection of short stories (MRP, 2017), and three poetry chapbooks, and co-edited the international anthology Motherhood in Precarious Times (Demeter Press, 2018). Themes recurring in their writing include Madness, perception, gender, sexual orientation and art.
Dolman’s poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Bi Women Quarterly, Canthius, Arc Poetry Magazine, QT Literary Magazine, The Quarantine Review, Imaginary Safe House, Canadian Ginger, The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Grain, On Spec and Utne. They are a bi/pan+ rights advocate living on unceded, unsurrendered Anishinaabe Algonquin territory.
Poetics Statement
“I came to poetry as an allophone, looking for a way into language, and as an outsider, looking for a way in. What I found is an entire way to explore living and experience. I believe poetry, at its best, can act as one of the most distilled forms of communication, coming as close to conveying pure thought or emotion as we can get using language. Its potential and range are as infinite as those of the poet who creates it and the reader or listener who engages with it.
When you find a poem you truly connect with in the moment, that connection is visceral and fundamental. It validates either that you are not alone in how you have experienced or understand the universe, in all its beauty and horror; or that others are out here searching, too. In this way, poetry can be enormously freeing and/or connective, and sometimes very healing, as well. ”
Sample of Poet's Work
Stonewall / Autonomy
for Martin Boyce
I wasn’t born then,
but I believe in reincarnation,
which is to say that I believe
a body is a body is a body,
until it belongs to a cop
Scarred and incomplete, my body is mine,
is a brick, a stiletto, a machine gun, a home;
is the memory of abuses before it
and after. Is the same as my queer mother’s
before mine, yet so different, so mine
Delaney poses a question about writing the body:
“When have you felt gender euphoria?”
and it occurs to me I don’t
always notice love, but I notice
when it’s missing. My first memories
are of a hate so deep it would have
choked a lesser man. It takes a lifetime
or more to understand such anger
as a type of love. A fistful of stones
says you still believe you deserve better,
that a body is a body is a body,
unless it belongs to a cop
(Originally published in Spotlight Series #97, spring 2024.)
Delusions of grandeur
Canada, there’s no one left who isn’t here already. We slogged
to your shores by dimestore mukluk and boatload
to steal your thunder, and we have.
Canada, there’s no boom in your swing anymore. Just
a steady, nasal drip.
Canada, my people came from lowlands and we’re sick
of drowning in your mists.
Canada, your profile said you were taller than this
Canada, stop sitting there taking it.
Stand up for yourself, you patsy.
No one cares about your existential angst.
Canada, we are not amused.
Canada, I don’t mean to worry you, but
have you always had that mole there?
Canada, stop your bloody whining. America never loved you,
and you’re better off without her. Everybody knows
she was only doing you because you were next door,
and you have no self-esteem.
Canada, Big Business says your railroad can’t get it up anymore.
Canada, we both know how long it’s been since your last spike
Canada, it’s fucking cold up here,
and this snow’s not melting fast enough.
What do a few more dead seals matter?
You killed thousands of them with your dragnets and firearms;
you’re just complaining because it’s not as much fun this way.
Poor Canada: “My buffalo are all gone. Boo hoo”
Canada, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,
but you’re run by a minority.
Canada, if we still had an ice floe …
Canada, I’m so grateful I present as a white woman
so I can just be medicated instead of missing.
Canada, I don’t believe you anymore
My parents came here with twenty bucks in 1960,
but it cost more than that to bury them below the permafrost.
Canada, they never went on welfare, so how about
we make a deal, eh?
Canada, your food banks are stocked with Cheezies
and broken promises.
I think we forgot to pay the hydro bill.
Canada, you’re kind of cute when you get angry
Canada, I’ve heard that you go both ways, too.
Don’t pretend you’ve never done this before.
Canada, you’re doing alright for your age,
except for the fur in your ears, and the wheezing
Canada, you should always carry protection;
don’t think it can’t happen to you.
Canada, you’re not too big to fail
Canada, watch out for the junkies;
they’re the only ones who understand you.
Canada, I stole the idea for this poem from a dead American.
Canada, I’m not sorry the way you want me to be
(Previous version published as “Canada” in Hamilton Arts & Letters 10.2, December 2017; Revised version published in Crazy / Mad (Gordon Hill Press, 2024).
Slippery slope thinking
No song or star or launch to spark,
just a lonely ring around my finger,
feeling of being further behind
than I was before, slipknot, dragonknot,
berber, loops meant to silk the rough
A passage, then clumsy tangle, snag
in the carpet where hammer toe catches,
scuff of prairie dust to knee, hairline tear
in cloth, a rift in a nail
going all the way down, unhealable,
ass to floor, a magpie pecking
at another bird’s nest
outside the sliding door
(Crazy / Mad, Gordon Hill Press, 2024.)
