Exciting update! The Garbage Poems will be published by Brick Books in September 2025, and they’ve agreed to print the book with full-colour illustrations throughout. To help support the extra costs of colour printing, they’re running a pre-order fundraising campaign. If you can, please support the project by ordering a book in advance, and check out the fun art, merch, and other perks available.
All words except titles transcribed from garbage pulled out of the swimming hole in Flatrock, Ktaqmkuk/Newfoundland.
Wondering which piece of garbage a word comes from? Move your cursor over the poems to find out.
The cluster-pak of body, water, will.
We, the cold open falls, the certified fountains
of no moderation. We are this 
. This skin! Why?
Why not? We are the famous flavour.
We adidas-punch our way into the water.
Twist-happy and thick with chances.
the special extract in the root beer of not aging,
the sparkling under-king, the carbonated wet dream,
the premium formula good stuff. We are,
this.
your body wonderful, the water,
the biodegradable 
of this hand
and the storm brewing below it.
Take this in, all particles of it.
There was risk, yes, and you swallowed it,
sparkling, to be where you are.
are more. That these warning fumes
are only unattended marketing.
May cause a Costco-size irritation.
Are not valid, not applicable.
the perfect temperature. Use as directed
or not: This is your time, your new everyday
flavour of possible. Tip your full face back
and drink it in. This uncareful 
.
This place is famous for love, all brands
and standards. We who come here know love
is a verb, and we love with open hands.
On the road in, on the rock, in the falls, we leave love
wild, leave it wet and within reach. We love
without calculating or quitting or letting up.
We taste love, tumble in it, break it open on the rock.
We bleed from love and come back with more.
We light love on fire, breathe it in, leave it
like a small hot wish when we go. But we will learn,
or leave, or get careful, so come look now:
