Hugo Wong/B次元官网网址 staff

From Sept. 22-24, 14 Canadian authors from across the country will descend on the Mary Winspear Centre for the Sidney and Peninsula Literary Festival. This is the last of three author profiles.

On his website, Gary Barwin lists 17 books that he has written or edited B次元官网网址� mostly poetry and short fiction.

In 2016, his first novel for adults, Yiddish for Pirates, was short-listed for the Giller Prize, and now he has new book of poetry, No TV for Woodpeckers.

His output is remarkable, perhaps due to a rather productive form of procrastination.

B次元官网网址淥ne thing that I do when IB次元官网网址檓 working on a larger project is I have a cheat project. Some people clean their fridge and I wrote poetry.B次元官网网址�

When he was a middle-school music teacher in Hamilton, Ont., author Gary Barwin would do a unit on pirate songs each year. When researching that era, it is impossible to ignore the historical events of that era: war, mercantilism, adventure, colonization. That led him on the road to Yiddish for Pirates, his first novel for adults.

Told through the eyes of a 500-year old Jewish parrot named Aaron, the book was about Moishe, a young Jewish boy who eventually joins Christopher Columbus on his voyage to the Caribbean.

Like any good swashbuckling tale, there are fights, narrow escapes, treasures, and impossible loves, but it is suffused with questions on Jewish identity, colonialism, and much more. It also bursts with puns and Yiddish jokes and phrases.

He approaches his poetry and prose the way he writes his music. B次元官网网址淚 guess I think about writing very much like music. IB次元官网网址檓 creating melodies; IB次元官网网址檓 following the sound of the language and the cultural resonances that the language has. They have a music and a rhythm and a history and a tonality.B次元官网网址�

For more information about the Sidney and Peninsula Literary Festival, visit www.sidneyliteraryfestival.ca.