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The Sunday Magazine

Poetry is a sugar cube in the bitter coffee of everyday life, says Pino Coluccio

His day job is in an office, but Canadian writer Pino Coluccio’s passion is writing poetry. He crafts sharp, witty poems about the absurdities of modern life, some of which are collected in his latest book, Class Clown.
CBC Radio ·
Canadian writer Pino Coluccio crafts sharp, witty poems about the absurdities of modern life, some of which are collected in his latest book, Class Clown. (F. Sgro)

This segment originally aired on April 1, 2018.

Many poets have paid their bills by working mundane office jobs.

For decades, the Canadian poet Raymond Souster worked at a bank. Wallace Stevens spent most of his life working at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company in Connecticut. Charles Bukowski was a letter filing clerk in a Los Angeles post office.

You have to work, you have bills to pay ... but, luckily, you have pizza, you have beer, you have wine, you have gelato, you have your bike, you have your friends, and you have poetry. Poetry gives me that little sugar-cube in an otherwise black and bitter cosmological cup of coffee.- Pino Coluccio 

Canadian poet Pino Coluccio is part of that lineage. By day, he works part-time as a federal public servant in downtown Toronto, and at Nordstrom's.

Many poets have paid their bills by working mundane office jobs. Pino Coluccio is one of them. (Courtesy Pino Coluccio)

By night, he writes sharp, witty poems about love, death and the absurdities of modern life.

He spoke to Michael Enright about how rock music turned him into a poet, why he writes poems that rhyme, and the role poetry plays in everyday life.

Click 'listen' above to hear Michael's interview with Pino Coluccio.

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