Accidents After Happening

Accidents After Happening is for anyone who has a taste for immediate, meaningful poetry that sings, laments, and decries but also celebrates life in our modern world.


“One of the most imaginatively inventive poets in the country.” — Pacific Rim Review of Books


The accidents of Priest’s collection are definitely not all “happy.” They move through a full range of human emotions: dread, grief, anger, ecstasy, lust and empathy. Plus some magic levity. This is poetry you will want to recite aloud: lyrical love poems, sonnets, satires, ghazals, curses, and bitter invective. These are not snobby poems — they want and welcome readers who love euphony, who enjoy tasteful eroticism, who rage at injustice. People who grieve and gush — smart people who think critically and form their own opinions. And for those with a taste for “brevity forever.” Accidents After Happening also contains a whole new catalog of Priest’s aphorisms, proverbs, maxims, and sayings — the kind of work that recently prompted Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood to take to Twitter and praise Priest’s “snappy funny spot-on micro poems — plus much more.”

Celebrated as “the people's poet,” Priest’s words have been debated in the Ontario legislature, posted in the Transit system, quoted in the Farmer's Almanac, embedded in cement, sung on Sesame Street, and turned into two hit songs: “Song Instead of a Kiss,” a number one hit for Alannah Myles, and the recent top ten hit by Indigenous balladeer Julian Taylor “Seeds (They Tried to Bury Us).”