Brian Michael Barbeito

About Me

I am a poet, essayist, and translator; I was born in Ontario, Canada and reside in the greater Toronto area. Published collections of my work include Vignettes: prose narratives, Postprandial: a prose poem novel, and Notes from November’s Noon: a chapbook in fictional letters. I am a Pushcart Prize nominee for the short story The One Single Note (Lunatics Folly, 2011), and for the short story Motel by the Stereo Sea (Mungbeing Magazine, 2012). Some of the publications my writings have appeared in include Glossolalia, Otis Nebula, and Whisperings Magazine. Currently I am working on a compilation of short stories called Electric Light, and the novel Autumnal, Light and Dark.

Brian1750@hotmail.com

https://twitter.com/BrianMBarbeito

https://www.facebook.com/Fictional.Vignettes

Why do you write?

Writing, in one form or another, is simply a common and trusted thread. What fuels it is probably the age old practice of relating a story in order to connect with self and others. There is also the effort to express something unique, and if possible, to express it in a new way, or at the least, an honest way. I enjoy all forms of writing including correspondence, poetry, prose, essay, criticism, the novel, and others, but the short form seems to be like a favorite jacket or friend. One of the highlights of my writing journey was being sent a copy of The Big Red Book (Rumi), by the American translator Coleman Barks. This small gesture, along with his words of encouragement, was no small gesture at all. I have been revisiting the work of Malcolm Lowry, specifically Under the Volcano. I am also reading a book called Rilke and Andreas-Salome, which contains the twenty-five year correspondence between Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome, and The Book of Love and Creation, by Paul Selig. For music I am listening to The Velvet Underground and also Lana Del Rey.

Any favorite authors? Books?

Thackeray Beckett Styron Hemingway Mailer Miller Rumi McCarthy Rilke Dos Passos Steinbeck Styron Conrad Camus Doctorow Melville Cervantes MacGrath Huxley Lee Wolfe Rimbaud Lowry McCullers Nin Joyce Golding Burroughs Wallace Thomas Celine Heller Whitman Blake Burgess Lorca Plath Gibran Sartre Kerouac Purdy Straub Campbell Hesse Hamsun Smith Emerson Del Vecchio Dostoevsky Shultz Solzhenitsyn