While working with In/Words and his own DIY press, award winning poet and Carleton alumnus Dalton Derkson is pursuing his master’s in fine arts with a concentration in creative writing at University of Guelph-Humber campus.
He said he found his love of poetry during a second-year workshop through the university, but unlike many poets who confine their writings to scrawling in personal journals, he created a means to bring his work to the public by creating the Hurtin’ Crue Press.
According to Derkson, it was originally a medium to self-publish his own work which he believed “not up to the standards” of professional companies. He said it quickly transformed into an entity that promoted amateur Canadian poetry.
It grew from a medium intended to make hard copies of his work, to a platform that shared, and continues to share, the musings of many other poets.
Derkson described the experience of publishing as “crafting something.”
“At the end of the day, I’m not really a publishing press. I’m more of a hub, a community. I’m just trying to try to develop art in that way. I don’t make money off it. I’m losing money off of everything,” he said. “It’s a syndicate. A community.”
When asked about the style of entry Derkson accepts in the Hurtin’ Crue Press he laughed and said they’ll take “just about anything.” He emphasized his appreciation for honest and raw work, stating he preferred pieces that spoke with truth in them over ones with flowery imagery and lofty symbolism.
Carleton professor Collett Tracey taught Derkson in a fourth-year seminar class on the rise of small Canadian presses and modernist poetry.
“It was wonderful to see him learning about the history of the type of little magazines that he, himself had unknowingly continued the tradition of,” Tracey said in an email. “Dalton has shared several of his magazines with me, and poems that he has written, and I am thoroughly impressed. His work is intense, direct and powerful.”
Derkson said Carleton is a great place to be a young writer and Ottawa overall has a brilliant slam poetry scene along with many independent magazines and presses.
He said Canada has a bright future to look forward to and that he was excited to see what lies ahead. According to Derkson, Canada as a country is on the brink of forging its own identity in poetry but needs another push.
“We don’t have our finger on it yet,” Derkson said.
Through Hurtin’ Crue Press Derkson is publishing a collection called Ottawa Poems shortly.
“Even now that he has moved to Toronto, he remains part of the editorial team of In/Words in the capacity of building our writing community outside of Ottawa, outreach, and in vetting submissions to the magazine and press,” Tracey said.
In his last year at Carleton Derkson was awarded the 2014 Lillian I. Found Poetry Prize, and was runner up in the Carleton University English Literature Society’s Flash Fiction Contest. He said he encourages others to follow in his footsteps.
“Come up out of the basement. We’re all up here drinking beer, writing poetry, and having a good time,” Derkson said.
