Josh Stewart, an ESL instructor, martial artist and writer from St. Catharines is set to release his poetry collection, Kawartha Gothic in April 2027, which will be published by the Phylum Press.
In an interview with The Brock Press, Stewart said that the poetry chapbook will be about 75 pages long and include around 50 poems. Most of them are written in free verse, where a poem does not follow a fixed rhyme scheme or structure.
Stewart had previously written two poetry chapbooks, Temptation as a Technical Difficulty with the Anstruther Press in 2015 and the Invention of the Curveball with the Cactus Press in 2008. Each featured around ten to 12 poems, making Kawartha Gothic his longest chapbook yet.
He spoke about how the upcoming collection draws inspiration from Stewart’s family cottage in the Kawarthas, or Kawartha Lakes, a popular cottage region in south-central Ontario about three hours from St. Catharines.
“It’s been in my family since my great-great-grandfather had it built,” Stewart said. “So, I’m the fifth generation of Stewarts to be able to go up there.”
The cottage holds generations of family history, including a long tradition of writing. Stewart shared how he grew up surrounded by literature, as both parents worked as journalists and older relatives published books.
“Two of my great uncles were both publish-off authors, my great grandmother wrote a book on Agnes Macphail, who’s one of the early like suffragette influencers in Canada, so there’s always been a lot of writers in my family,” he said. “I kind of grew up just being around books and around literature as kind of a way of life.”
When asked about how he knew all these details about his family, he shared that it’s because all the books his family has written over time are all up in the cottage, sitting on shelves. Based on his family history, Stewart is the first poet among them.
When he began writing about the cottage, Stewart said he initially had no intention of turning the poems into a collection.
“I was just kind of writing a few one-off poems, but I kind of kept coming back to that,” he said.
Over the past three to four years, those individual poems developed into Kawartha Gothic, a collection that will explore family history, personal memories, nature and the passage of time.
The “gothic” parts of the collection explore the contrast between the cottage’s timelessness and Stewart’s changing perspective as he grows older.
“The gothic side of the book really come from the idea of looking at things from the perspective of having this place that’s been […] timeless in a lot of ways because it’s been in my family for so long, and it seems like a place that doesn’t really change,” he said. “But then it’s coming from the idea of, like, every time I go up there, I’m older, and I’m looking at it from a new perspective.”
Alongside the gothic elements, the poems will be very visual, drawing heavily on the cottage’s natural landscapes, where Stewart uses imagery to reflect nature in the changing seasons. Kawartha Gothic is divided into four sections: spring, summer, fall and winter, with each reflecting the poems’ shifting moods and emotional perspectives.
“I find [that I was] reflecting a lot on nature because obviously one of the defining features of being at the cottage is that you’re surrounded by this beautiful environment and beautiful nature,” Stewart said. “So, a lot of the poems are very visual in that regard as well.”
Some poems explore familiar cottage traditions, including “Opening” and “Closing,” which reflect when families open their cottages in warmer seasons and then close them for winter. Others explore the family history and personal memories tied to the property.
Stewart shared his excitement about releasing his upcoming collection, as he’s been asked numerous times for a long time of when his next chapbook is coming out, the last one being over 10 years ago.
“I think waiting a little longer to publish this was a really good decision because I think that I’m putting out something that has a lot of personal meaning to me,” he said. “[My] formative childhood memories from every summer vacation and all that stuff is from that place.”
Stewart was also pleased to bring Kawartha Gothic to the Phylum Press, a local independent publisher whose focus on environmental issues aligns with the collection’s themes. The Press was founded by Cameron Sauder and Gabriel Graham Piessens, and it publishes a literary magazine, hosts readings and has expanded into book publishing. Stewart became involved in its writing community through readings and a writers’ circle he attends frequently.
“I’m really happy to be publishing this book with an independent local press,” Stewart expressed. “It’s really nice to be able to publish this collection with a local press that’s really close to home.”
Kawartha Gothic will be Phylum Press’s first poetry collection, coming shortly after a novel they published last month called The Seventh City of Refuge by John Whittier Treat. Stewart said he hopes readers come away with a stronger appreciation for the relationship between the natural world and their own experiences.
He also hopes that readers, who may find poetry intimating to read, to approach his collection with an open mind. Stewart said poetry helps writers and readers to create meaning together, rather than relying on a single, correct interpretation.
“What poetry can do that kind of gives it its superpower is it connects personal experience to universal experience very well, and often does that through a visual language,” he said.
“In the case of Kawartha Gothic, the imagery in the poem is largely about the nature and the surrounding area around my family’s cottage. But again, I infuse that with kind of my own personal experiences, [and] I also try and leave room for the reader to be able to infuse their own personal experiences into those images as well.”
Kawartha Gothic is set for release in April 2027, the same time as National Poetry Month, with soft-cover and e-book editions planned. Hardcover copies are still being considered.
Pre-ordering is expected to become available in a couple weeks through the Phylum Press website.