Wait, What? by Richard-Yves Sitoski
Second place winner of the 2022 Don Gutteridge Award for a full-length poetry manuscript.
A harrowing, humorous and surreal trip into a psych ward and out the other side. If you can lose your head while all about you are keeping theirs, this book is for you.
Advanced praise
“Richard-Yves Sitoski offers the reader an open hand through his poetry's unmapped turns and deep surrealism. He lets us know he's here for the joke, the truth, and the message. No words are wasted getting to the themes of absurdity and futility. These poems have the reader thrown into a Dali-esque landscape anchored by meaning and self-effacing humour. These poems are little logic whiplashes. With just a few words, Sitoski will leave you in another dimension wondering how you got there so quickly, and deeply.”
- Charlie Petch, author of Why I Was Late
“Throughout Wait, What? the poet is utterly present, witnessing with exquisite, unflinching acuity his life from conception on. Wait, What? articulates keen perceptions on every page with finely honed lines that are an intense delight. These poems give the reader pause (and sometimes a jolt!) to ponder what it is to be human. A fearless, often funny stylist, Sitoski is a poet to watch and wait for more.”
- Penn Kemp, Canadian poet, novelist, playwright, and sound poet
Richard-Yves Sitoski (he/him) is a songwriter, performance poet, and the 2019-2023 Poet Laureate of Owen Sound, on the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. His poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, The Fiddlehead, Arc, and elsewhere. He won the John Newlove Award in 2021, and was the second place winner of the 2022 Don Gutteridge Award. His most recent works are the chapbook How to Be Human (Bywords.ca, 2022) and the full-length collection Wait, What? (Wet Ink Books, 2023).
