Jacob McArthur Mooney
Biography
Jacob McArthur Mooney - Photo Courtesy of Author, by Elyse Friedman
Jacob McArthur Mooney was raised on the eastern side of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Mooney is the son of two, as he calls them, “Come-From-Aways” of Montreal and Winnipeg. Today Mooney lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his wife, novelist Alexis von Konigslow, and their son Oliver.
Mooney holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Guelph University, where he studied as a member of the program’s first class. Mooney has written three collections of poetry, and was a long-time writer for the poetry blog Vox Populism. He has contributed to The Canadian Encyclopaedia, served as Guest Editor for The Best Canadian Poetry 2015 In English, and continues to work as a poetry columnist for several publications.
Mooney’s poetry collections have received high praise. The New Layman’s Almanac received positive reviews from both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. Folk made Best of the Year lists at The Globe and The National Post, and was shortlisted for both the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Don’t Be Interesting won Arc Magazine’s Poem of the Year contest and the Prairie Fire/Banff Centre Bliss Carman Award. Mooney was also nominated for a National Magazine Award and has been named to the 2012 and 2013 editions of Best Canadian Poetry.
Mooney holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Guelph University, where he studied as a member of the program’s first class. Mooney has written three collections of poetry, and was a long-time writer for the poetry blog Vox Populism. He has contributed to The Canadian Encyclopaedia, served as Guest Editor for The Best Canadian Poetry 2015 In English, and continues to work as a poetry columnist for several publications.
Mooney’s poetry collections have received high praise. The New Layman’s Almanac received positive reviews from both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. Folk made Best of the Year lists at The Globe and The National Post, and was shortlisted for both the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Don’t Be Interesting won Arc Magazine’s Poem of the Year contest and the Prairie Fire/Banff Centre Bliss Carman Award. Mooney was also nominated for a National Magazine Award and has been named to the 2012 and 2013 editions of Best Canadian Poetry.
Additional Information:
Author's Twitter Page
Entries for The Canadian Encyclopedia
Tree Reading Series: July 24, 2012
Tree Reading Series: June 14, 2016
Author's Twitter Page
Entries for The Canadian Encyclopedia
Tree Reading Series: July 24, 2012
Tree Reading Series: June 14, 2016
Those who arrived with graduate degrees
ready to lie fallow on the land and fashioned subdivisions
out of dormant fields.
Those who could speak with some detachment about
the famous local facial features
imported from Europe and left
to fester through centuries
of stubborn
interbreeding. Notice the pronounced zygomatic arches
and the straightened, simian jaw line.
Those who looked in from the periphery
of raucous public meetings, who voted every time
but never saw a single leftist get elected.
Those whose children grew up in the back rows
of civics classes, who slouched in tourist coffee shops shone on
by cable TV. Who bought imported music and
couldn’t believe their bad luck when
(for all their practised nonchalance)
the visiting media
(whose names they knew)
would always pull from the crowd
the most toothless
authenticity available
to pester with questions engineered
to pinch the face of the catastrophe.
Yessir, I’ll talk awhile. Are you here to ask
about my zygomatic arches?
Published in Folk. McClelland & Stewart, 2011.
Republished here with the author’s permission.
ready to lie fallow on the land and fashioned subdivisions
out of dormant fields.
Those who could speak with some detachment about
the famous local facial features
imported from Europe and left
to fester through centuries
of stubborn
interbreeding. Notice the pronounced zygomatic arches
and the straightened, simian jaw line.
Those who looked in from the periphery
of raucous public meetings, who voted every time
but never saw a single leftist get elected.
Those whose children grew up in the back rows
of civics classes, who slouched in tourist coffee shops shone on
by cable TV. Who bought imported music and
couldn’t believe their bad luck when
(for all their practised nonchalance)
the visiting media
(whose names they knew)
would always pull from the crowd
the most toothless
authenticity available
to pester with questions engineered
to pinch the face of the catastrophe.
Yessir, I’ll talk awhile. Are you here to ask
about my zygomatic arches?
Published in Folk. McClelland & Stewart, 2011.
Republished here with the author’s permission.
Critical Analysis: The Rural-Social Landscape in "Songs for the Cool Kids in Towns without Traffic Lights"
Erica Marrison (Acadia University)
Jacob McArthur Mooney’s “Songs for the Cool Kids in Towns without Traffic Lights” is a work reminiscent of the mixed social landscape in rural Atlantic Canada. It depicts the educated either returning to the town they have left or arriving for the first time. They are outsiders either way. Mooney reflects upon the nature of the academic in this often-idealized rural landscape through the imagery of farm fields lying "fallow." The land is tilled, fertile, but not fertilized: it remains the same, though academia changes and is changed.
Mooney states: “The primary subjects of the poem we’re looking at all have that open-facedness at their disposal: they’re young and smart and savvy” (Personal Interview). We are dealing with young adults in the poem, which creates conflict between the up-and-comers and the deep-rooted conventions. The poem takes on the vulnerability of being progressive in a conservative setting, and how that vulnerability creates a fragile beauty:
I don’t want to dismiss the kid in the coffee shop, but I also think that it’s the natural momentum of art to take that kid and imbue him with a kind of spirit that gives him moral and aesthetic powers above the gritty nowhere that created him. And that’s art but art is so often a monster to everybody else, you know? (Personal Interview)
The poem toys with the seams of the rural and the urban, insinuating a sort of simplistic splendour in the intersection of these two worlds, such as to say that we cannot have one without the other. There is a lack of freedom in this rural landscape – where academia occupies the evergreen, Mooney ascribes the conservative to constructed space. And, oddly, the constructed seems more natural than nature:
I read that poem now and take the side of the speaker at the end… I didn’t used to. Maybe I’ll come around again and say, you know, at least the coffee-drinking teenagers were looking outward critically, at least they had discursive things to say about the world. But for now I’m with the guy with the weird cheekbones who is kind enough to answer questions straight and humble enough not to hope he gets asked. (Personal Interview)
Works Cited (for analysis):
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. Folk. McClelland & Stewart, 2011, pp. 20-21.
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. Personal Interview. 2017.
Jacob McArthur Mooney’s “Songs for the Cool Kids in Towns without Traffic Lights” is a work reminiscent of the mixed social landscape in rural Atlantic Canada. It depicts the educated either returning to the town they have left or arriving for the first time. They are outsiders either way. Mooney reflects upon the nature of the academic in this often-idealized rural landscape through the imagery of farm fields lying "fallow." The land is tilled, fertile, but not fertilized: it remains the same, though academia changes and is changed.
Mooney states: “The primary subjects of the poem we’re looking at all have that open-facedness at their disposal: they’re young and smart and savvy” (Personal Interview). We are dealing with young adults in the poem, which creates conflict between the up-and-comers and the deep-rooted conventions. The poem takes on the vulnerability of being progressive in a conservative setting, and how that vulnerability creates a fragile beauty:
I don’t want to dismiss the kid in the coffee shop, but I also think that it’s the natural momentum of art to take that kid and imbue him with a kind of spirit that gives him moral and aesthetic powers above the gritty nowhere that created him. And that’s art but art is so often a monster to everybody else, you know? (Personal Interview)
The poem toys with the seams of the rural and the urban, insinuating a sort of simplistic splendour in the intersection of these two worlds, such as to say that we cannot have one without the other. There is a lack of freedom in this rural landscape – where academia occupies the evergreen, Mooney ascribes the conservative to constructed space. And, oddly, the constructed seems more natural than nature:
I read that poem now and take the side of the speaker at the end… I didn’t used to. Maybe I’ll come around again and say, you know, at least the coffee-drinking teenagers were looking outward critically, at least they had discursive things to say about the world. But for now I’m with the guy with the weird cheekbones who is kind enough to answer questions straight and humble enough not to hope he gets asked. (Personal Interview)
Works Cited (for analysis):
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. Folk. McClelland & Stewart, 2011, pp. 20-21.
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. Personal Interview. 2017.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. “The Alias Tax.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 11 Apr 2011.
---. “Always, somewhere, there will be a chance of rain.” Numéro Cinq, numerocinqmagazine.com.
---. “Babushka Lady to Umbrella Man.” Malahat Review 194 (Spring 2016): 30.
---. “Central National Extension Play.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 41.
---. “The Circuit, or How Could a Poet be Earnest.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 13 Apr 2011.
---. “Dead Reckoning.” Canadian Notes and Queries 81 (Winter/Spring 2011): 35.
---. “Digital Photo of Lassie the Dog.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 44.
---. Don’t Be Interesting. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2016.
---. “Excerpts from the Future Memoirs of Roger Ebert.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 39-40.
---. Folk. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2011.
---. "'For Sutherland's Churchill' and 'Triptych of the Lost Kandinskys, 1992.'" Long Con Magazine, longconmag.com.
---. “I Curate a Museum Through the Book of Revelation.” Event 43.3 (Winter 2014/2015): 56.
---. “I Have Many Banjos.” Heine Site, heinrichmanoeuver.blogspot.com, 12 Jun 2010.
---. “Leo X as Leo III in the Room of the Fire in the Borgo.” Prism International 54.3 (Spring 2016): 65.
---. “Love Poem After Industrial Society and Its Future.” Prism International 54.3 (Spring 2016): 63.
---. The New Layman’s Almanac. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2008.
---. “New Republic.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 42-43.
---. “On Airport Road.” My Favorite Bullet 9.1 (July 2009). Myfavoritebullet.com.
---. “On Spectacle.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 36-38.
---. “Pennsylvania.” Terrain, terrain.org, 9 Sep 2006.
---. “Robin Ventura.” Hazlitt, hazlitt.net, 28 Oct 2013.
---. “Sin of Omission.” The Walrus 7.5 (June 2010): 45.
---. “The Specializationoff Labour.” Prism International 54.3 (Spring 2016): 64.
---. “Station and Vicinity.” Canadian Notes and Queries 81 (Winter/Spring 2011): 34.
---. “Teeth.” The tEms Review, thetemzreview.com.
---. “Three Poems.” 3:AM Magazine, 3ammagazine.com, 23 Feb 2010.
---. “Ty Cobb Was No One’s Antihero.” Deadspin, deadspin.com, 11 Jun 2015.
---. “Unisphere at Midnight.” Prairie Fire 32.2 (Summer 2011): 64.
---. “What Humans Like.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 34-35.
---. “What Names.” Canadian Notes and Queries 81 (Winter/Spring 2011): 35.
---. “Will the last book blogger in Canada please turn off the lights?” National Post, nationalpost.com, 1 May 2012.
---. “You Need to be a Parasite.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 12 Apr 2011.
---, et al, eds. The Best Canadian Poetry In English 2015. Toronto: Tightrope Books, 2015.
Secondary Sources
Bernier-Cormier, Dominique. “On the future, writing process, and ‘Don’t Be Interesting.’” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. PRISM International, prismmagazine.ca, 13 Apr 2016.
Callanan, Mark. “Don’t Be Interesting.” Rev. of Don’t Be Interesting by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Quill & Quire, quillandquire.com.
Carey, Barbara. “An almanac of the social world; A virtual zinester offers mischievous, postmodern spin on the ol' compendium.” Rev. of The New Layman’s Almanac by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Toronto Star 6 Apr 2008: ID.8.
Doudareva, Jenya. “Inferred Views // Ex-Libris.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Weird Canada, weirdcanada.com, 11 May 2015.
Fowler, Adrian. “the delicate line/Palilalia/Repose/Repose/The New Layman’s Almanac.” Rev. of The New Layman’s Almanac by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Journal of Canadian Poetry 25 (2008): 48.
Guri, Helen. “The Trillium Conversations: Helen Guri and Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. National Post, nationalpost.com, 19 Jun 2012.
Howell, Stevie. “Maybe the opposite.” Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Arc Poetry Magazine, arcpoetry.ca, 31 Jul 2012.
L’Abbé, Sonnet. “Folk, by Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Globe and Mail, theglobeandmail.com, 13 May 2011.
Lindsay, James. “There Are Lots of Good Non-Poetry Things to Assign Your Time To.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Open Book, obt.mugo.ca, 18 Apr 2016.
McLennan, Rob. “Jacob McArthur Mooney Answers Rob McLennan's Questions.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Open Book Toronto, m.openbooktoronto.com, 8 Jun 2009.
Mockler, Kathryn. “Jacob McArthur Mooney: Poet.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Rusty Toque, therustytoque.com, 4 Jun 2012.
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. “Book Review, 419 by Will Ferguson.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 20 Apr 2012.
---. “Book Review: The Way of the Fight, by Georges St-Pierre.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 12 Apr 2013.
---. “Canada Reads Poetry: Jacob McArthur Mooney on Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person, by Eirin Moure.” Rev. of Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person, by Eirin Moure. National Post, nationalpost.com, 19 Apr 2011.
---. “Neither destination nor journey.” Rev. of The Road In is Not the Same as the Road Out by Karen Solie. National Post, nationalpost.com, 14 Apr 2015.
---. “The Blomidon Logs/liminal.” Malahat Review 198 (Spring 2017): 95. Print. Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. In the Next Room, inthenextroom.blogspot.com, 22 Apr 2011.
---. "30 After 30 Under 30." Rev. of 30 Under 30 ed. by a.m. kozak. Arc Poetry Magazine, arcpoetry.ca, 11 Aug 2017.
St. Louis, Wanda Waterman. “In Conversation With . . . Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Voice, voicemagazine.com, 1 Aug 2008.
Sampson, Mark. Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Free Range Reading, freerangereading.blogspot.com, 7 May 2011.
Showler, Suzannah. Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Bull Calf, thebullcalfreview.ca.
Spenst, Kevin. “Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Kevin Spenst, kevinspenst.com, 5 Mar 2011.
Taylor, Jess. “‘The One I Could Believe in:’ Jacob McArthur Mooney on the Pivot Reading Series.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. the Town Crier, towncrier.puritan-magazine.com, 6 Sep 2013.
“Toronto Poets – 5 Question Series – Jacob McArthur Mooney.” The Toronto Quarterly, thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.com, 9 May 2010.
Walker, Meg. “The 23½ Hour Day.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. What’s Up Yukon, whatsupyukon.com, 15 Sep 2011.
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. “The Alias Tax.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 11 Apr 2011.
---. “Always, somewhere, there will be a chance of rain.” Numéro Cinq, numerocinqmagazine.com.
---. “Babushka Lady to Umbrella Man.” Malahat Review 194 (Spring 2016): 30.
---. “Central National Extension Play.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 41.
---. “The Circuit, or How Could a Poet be Earnest.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 13 Apr 2011.
---. “Dead Reckoning.” Canadian Notes and Queries 81 (Winter/Spring 2011): 35.
---. “Digital Photo of Lassie the Dog.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 44.
---. Don’t Be Interesting. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2016.
---. “Excerpts from the Future Memoirs of Roger Ebert.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 39-40.
---. Folk. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2011.
---. "'For Sutherland's Churchill' and 'Triptych of the Lost Kandinskys, 1992.'" Long Con Magazine, longconmag.com.
---. “I Curate a Museum Through the Book of Revelation.” Event 43.3 (Winter 2014/2015): 56.
---. “I Have Many Banjos.” Heine Site, heinrichmanoeuver.blogspot.com, 12 Jun 2010.
---. “Leo X as Leo III in the Room of the Fire in the Borgo.” Prism International 54.3 (Spring 2016): 65.
---. “Love Poem After Industrial Society and Its Future.” Prism International 54.3 (Spring 2016): 63.
---. The New Layman’s Almanac. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2008.
---. “New Republic.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 42-43.
---. “On Airport Road.” My Favorite Bullet 9.1 (July 2009). Myfavoritebullet.com.
---. “On Spectacle.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 36-38.
---. “Pennsylvania.” Terrain, terrain.org, 9 Sep 2006.
---. “Robin Ventura.” Hazlitt, hazlitt.net, 28 Oct 2013.
---. “Sin of Omission.” The Walrus 7.5 (June 2010): 45.
---. “The Specializationoff Labour.” Prism International 54.3 (Spring 2016): 64.
---. “Station and Vicinity.” Canadian Notes and Queries 81 (Winter/Spring 2011): 34.
---. “Teeth.” The tEms Review, thetemzreview.com.
---. “Three Poems.” 3:AM Magazine, 3ammagazine.com, 23 Feb 2010.
---. “Ty Cobb Was No One’s Antihero.” Deadspin, deadspin.com, 11 Jun 2015.
---. “Unisphere at Midnight.” Prairie Fire 32.2 (Summer 2011): 64.
---. “What Humans Like.” Windsor Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 34-35.
---. “What Names.” Canadian Notes and Queries 81 (Winter/Spring 2011): 35.
---. “Will the last book blogger in Canada please turn off the lights?” National Post, nationalpost.com, 1 May 2012.
---. “You Need to be a Parasite.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 12 Apr 2011.
---, et al, eds. The Best Canadian Poetry In English 2015. Toronto: Tightrope Books, 2015.
Secondary Sources
Bernier-Cormier, Dominique. “On the future, writing process, and ‘Don’t Be Interesting.’” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. PRISM International, prismmagazine.ca, 13 Apr 2016.
Callanan, Mark. “Don’t Be Interesting.” Rev. of Don’t Be Interesting by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Quill & Quire, quillandquire.com.
Carey, Barbara. “An almanac of the social world; A virtual zinester offers mischievous, postmodern spin on the ol' compendium.” Rev. of The New Layman’s Almanac by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Toronto Star 6 Apr 2008: ID.8.
Doudareva, Jenya. “Inferred Views // Ex-Libris.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Weird Canada, weirdcanada.com, 11 May 2015.
Fowler, Adrian. “the delicate line/Palilalia/Repose/Repose/The New Layman’s Almanac.” Rev. of The New Layman’s Almanac by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Journal of Canadian Poetry 25 (2008): 48.
Guri, Helen. “The Trillium Conversations: Helen Guri and Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. National Post, nationalpost.com, 19 Jun 2012.
Howell, Stevie. “Maybe the opposite.” Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Arc Poetry Magazine, arcpoetry.ca, 31 Jul 2012.
L’Abbé, Sonnet. “Folk, by Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Globe and Mail, theglobeandmail.com, 13 May 2011.
Lindsay, James. “There Are Lots of Good Non-Poetry Things to Assign Your Time To.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Open Book, obt.mugo.ca, 18 Apr 2016.
McLennan, Rob. “Jacob McArthur Mooney Answers Rob McLennan's Questions.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Open Book Toronto, m.openbooktoronto.com, 8 Jun 2009.
Mockler, Kathryn. “Jacob McArthur Mooney: Poet.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Rusty Toque, therustytoque.com, 4 Jun 2012.
Mooney, Jacob McArthur. “Book Review, 419 by Will Ferguson.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 20 Apr 2012.
---. “Book Review: The Way of the Fight, by Georges St-Pierre.” National Post, nationalpost.com, 12 Apr 2013.
---. “Canada Reads Poetry: Jacob McArthur Mooney on Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person, by Eirin Moure.” Rev. of Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person, by Eirin Moure. National Post, nationalpost.com, 19 Apr 2011.
---. “Neither destination nor journey.” Rev. of The Road In is Not the Same as the Road Out by Karen Solie. National Post, nationalpost.com, 14 Apr 2015.
---. “The Blomidon Logs/liminal.” Malahat Review 198 (Spring 2017): 95. Print. Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. In the Next Room, inthenextroom.blogspot.com, 22 Apr 2011.
---. "30 After 30 Under 30." Rev. of 30 Under 30 ed. by a.m. kozak. Arc Poetry Magazine, arcpoetry.ca, 11 Aug 2017.
St. Louis, Wanda Waterman. “In Conversation With . . . Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Voice, voicemagazine.com, 1 Aug 2008.
Sampson, Mark. Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. Free Range Reading, freerangereading.blogspot.com, 7 May 2011.
Showler, Suzannah. Rev. of Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney. The Bull Calf, thebullcalfreview.ca.
Spenst, Kevin. “Jacob McArthur Mooney.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. Kevin Spenst, kevinspenst.com, 5 Mar 2011.
Taylor, Jess. “‘The One I Could Believe in:’ Jacob McArthur Mooney on the Pivot Reading Series.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. the Town Crier, towncrier.puritan-magazine.com, 6 Sep 2013.
“Toronto Poets – 5 Question Series – Jacob McArthur Mooney.” The Toronto Quarterly, thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.com, 9 May 2010.
Walker, Meg. “The 23½ Hour Day.” Interview with Jacob McArthur Mooney. What’s Up Yukon, whatsupyukon.com, 15 Sep 2011.
