Revised Edition: LukivPress (Victoria, BC, 2022).

An excerpt

Local Boys

We practised dying,
The local boys and I,
Contorting in Untouchable
Shadows, falling over board fences,
Jerking, twisting in pain on weedful
Lawns, practising for the big contest.
"Let's find out who can
Die best!"
The Eliot Ness of 27th Avenue,
The boy with the Tommy Gun, yelled:
"Ratatatatatata!" He fired gleefully
At a "Valentine's Day" line up
Of Olivier-performers
Scattering like bats.

Sometimes I won, and that was
A great day, to die, twitching in the sun,
Better than all the other boys.

The author

Dan Lukiv, published in 19 countries, is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). As a creative writer, he apprenticed with Canada's Professor Robert Harlow (recipient of the George Woodcock Achievement award for an outstanding literary career), the USA's Paul Bagdon (Spur Award finalist for Best Original Paperback), and England's D. M. Thomas (recipient of the Cheltenham Prize for Literature, Orwell Prize [biography], Los Angeles Fiction Prize, and Cholmondeley award for poetry). He attended The University of British Columbia (creative writing department), the acclaimed Humber School for Writers (poetry writing program), and Writer's Digest University (novel writing program).