Fulfilling my obligations to my long-neglected TBR one book a time. Want to know why? I explain it in the first post here. Posting striking lines daily on BlueSky and Instagram

Art is the application of creativity to an object, process, or activity. Creativity is that touch of originality, of whimsy, disorder, randomness, spontaneity; that spark of intuition, of “what does this do?” -ness, of “wouldn’t it be cool if” -ness; the creation, expression, attribution of meaning; that which is called divinity in religious contexts. To be human is to be creative. To be human is to be divine.

That is a whole bunch of five-dollar words with which to start the end of the year. But, as the old saw attributed to Socrates goes, “The unexamined life is not worth living” and New Year’s is traditionally about examining and resolving. So today I am examining and resolving.

I did my first slow reading project in 2024 by reading one chapter of “War and Peace” each day. It was a great way to finally accomplish something I’ve been meaning to accomplish since I was a little kid in the 70’s when, at least in our house, the popular perception held that reading that novel was as a near-impossible feat only accomplished by a vanishingly small number of insanely overly-bookish people and therefore one of life’s great achievements.

How does one follow scaling the Mount Everest of literature? I really enjoyed the ritual of starting each day a little earlier than usual and reading, thinking, maybe even writing a little bit. After considering and dismissing several possible tomes of novels, I settled on tackling another mountain: the huge stack of poetry books and magazines that I had collected but not yet read. Not being satisfied with just reading them though, I set myself the goal to mindfully be creative every day. This took the form of posting a line or two I found striking on my social media each day and then, at the end of the week, posting a short micro-review of the book or magazine.

The goal of this daily posting was not to generate views online, to get that dopamine hit of likes, but to hold myself accountable. I know my brain and if I don’t have some sort of evidence, proof in the form of accomplishments, however small, that can be tallied, torpor and laziness quickly take over. I am really pleased that I posted 35 weeks worth of reading and reacting and pretty much worked my to be read pile down to just a few remaining books. And those remaining books are all new books of poetry I bought during the year. Which is what gave me the idea for my 2026 slow reading project.

I am going to continue reading and posting poetry every morning but my focus for the coming year is going to be Canadian poetry – hopefully mostly new books by people I know, books bought at launches or at Olive readings (www.olivereadingseries.wordpress.com) or books purchased from local bookstores. I am going to supplement the new books with books of Canadian poetry borrowed from the library. Books that come recommended as being “important” Canadian literature. I’m also not ruling out re-reading some of my favourites. Pat Lowther’s “A Stone Diary” has been eyeing me each time I walk by the bookshelf. I may even share some bits of my own works in progress. We’ll see how it goes.

The goal is to stay creative. To keep fuelling that Lunatic Engine. To start each day reaffirming my humanity. To celebrate our shared humanity with the few dozen of you who regularly read and interact with me online. To maybe provide a little review boost to new books of poetry. To that end, if there is something you really think I need to read, please let me know! Comment on a post or send me an email at paul@paulpearson.ca I would really love to hear from you!