After the Hatching Oven explores chickens: their evolution as a domesticated species; their place in history, pop culture and industrial agriculture; their exploitation and their liberation. Alexander takes us deep into the world of this common species, examining every conceivable angle: chicken politics, antics, pretenses and pleasures. These poems delight in the mastery of language and intensity by which Alexander has thought his way into the very cells of his subjects through riffs on Ted Hughes’ Crow, a Burger King ad campaign and a public health advisory for bird flu, as well as self-translations.

David Alexander recently released his second chapbook, Modern Warfare, from Anstruther Press. Alexander’s poems have appeared in journals such as Lemon Hound, Poetry is Dead, and The Malahat Review and were shortlisted for the Walrus Poetry Prize (2014), Arc’s Poem of The Year (2014) and the Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award (2016). Poems from After the Hatching Oven have appeared in subTerrain, CV2 and The Puritan. He lives in Toronto, ON.

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“Intermittently funny, heart-wrenching, clever, and quirky, the book’s potpourri of forms is connected by inventive images and consistently exquisite line breaks. In the sonnet “Elegy”—a standout—Alexander stitches together sarcasm, outrage, and caring description as his speaker looks at an oven-ready roasting chicken.” - Canadian Literature, January 25, 2019, reviewed by Neil Surkan

Canadian Literature