​HOME

INSTITUTES:
Scientists for Love
Rocket Science Room 
General Audience

POETRY:
Hypotheticals
​
STOP-MOTION:
​Tales for Troubling Times
13, un ludodrame sur Walter Benjamin
Dinosaurs
My Brother's Wedding
Four Very Short Stop-animations

INSTALLATION:
Lady Into Fox
Timepiece (a work in progress)
Rare Birds
Real Time
The Red Show
​
SCULPTURE:
Prototype
People Product
Narrative Odds

CURRICULUM VITAE
​
CONTACT:
leighkots [at] yahoo.ca

HYPOTHETICALS

While science has provided a useful metaphor to explain the world, it has just as often proved to be as fallible as the flawed humans who lean on it. In this refreshingly speculative collection, Leigh Kotsilidis questions the linguistic roots of ‘the hypothetical,’ both as they apply to the scientific method’s faith in certainty, and to the word’s alternate meaning as something that is merely ‘supposed to be true.’ Under Kotsilidis’s wide-angled, open-hearted lens, scientific method slowly begins to blur into poetry, both reinforcing and undermining what we believe about ourselves and the world.


Coach House Books
ISBN-13: 9781552452493
112 pp, Paperback
Oct 8 2011
$17.95 CAD

Cover Art: Holli Schorno


'There's a beautiful recklessness in the combination Leigh Kotsilidis imagines, careful invitations in the sounds and shapeliness that let understanding not be reduced or distorted. These poems wrangle with the vocabularies of explanation, pronouncement, commerce, argument and fact, allowing them, more often than not, to self-destruct, so that we can glimpse in the rubble and wreckage and aftershocks something we are not always in a position to remember.'    
– Dara Wier


READ AN EXCERPT OF HYPOTHETICALS HERE.


REVIEWS:
The Bull Calf, Spring 2014
Lemon Hound: Poetry & Poetics/Reviews, September 2012
Literatured.com, July 2012
American Scientist, May 2012
NewPages Book Reviews, February 2012
Carmine Starnino's Top Ten of 2011
Telegraph-Journal, Fall 2011
Rover: Montreal Arts Uncovered, Fall 2011
Montreal Review of Books, Fall 2011


INTERVIEWS:
Northern Poetry Review, 2011
rob mclennan's blog: 12 or 20 questions (second series), 2011


PURCHASE HYPOTHETICALS:
Coach House Books
Amazon
Chapters


OTHER PUBLICATIONS (journals & small press):
2014     “For Christ’s Sake”, Hazlitt online, Random House of Canada, weekly poem.
2013     Rare Birds (installation excerpts), Apogee Magazine, Spring 2013.
2012     The Best Canadian Poetry In English 2011 (An Anthology featuring selected poets who published poems during              2011), Tightrope Books. (1 poem)
2012     Flukes of Nature (excerpts), Event Magazine No. 41.2
2011      “By Any Name,” “Before Meteorologists,” “The Tin Woodsman Turns Partisan,” “Rodeo Romance”, The Winnipeg
            Review, Issue 5, Fall.
2009    “what are we driving ourselves into”, Prairie Fire No. 30:3.
2009    “Supposition No.1”, Prairie Fire No. 30:3.
2009    “Supposition No.2”, Prairie Fire No. 30:3.
2008    I.V. Lounge Nights (An Anthology featuring selected poets from the I.V. Lounge Reading Series), Tightrope                 Books. (3 poems)
2008    “Diagnoses”, Prism international. No. 47:1 Fall.
2009    “Ambitious Birds”, Fevered Spring Almost Instant Anthology, Toronto Small Press Fair Group.
2007    The Hoodoo You Do So Well (An Anthology of poetry from the Banff Centre for the Arts Writing Studio                     2007), Littlefishcartpress. (10 poems) 
2007    This Grace (An Anthology featuring four poets), Littlefishcartpress. (10 poems)
2005    “Artificial Reef”, The Fiddlehead No. 226 Winter.

​
SELECTED READINGS:
* 2017     Blanc de Blanc (Backyard Sessions), Montreal, Quebec. 
* 2016     Port Credit Library, Mississauga, Ontario.
* 2016     The Garnet, Peterborough, Ontario.
* 2015     Café L’Insouciant (Lapalabrava Reading Series), Montreal, Quebec.
* 2015     Chez Boris (Lawn chair soiree Reading Series), Montreal, Quebec.
* 2015     Atwater Library (Quebec Writers’ Federation, Rapid-Fire Reading Series), Montreal, Quebec.
* 2015     Molly’s Coffee House (odd sundays Reading Series), Fredericton, New Brunswick.
* 2014     University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick.
* 2014     High Park (The High Park Reading Festival, Toronto, Ontario.
* 2014     Café Résonance (Résonance Reading Series), Montreal, Quebec.
* 2014     The Elora Poetry Centre (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Elora, Ontario.
* 2014     Atwater Library (The Atwater Poetry Project), Montreal, Quebec.
* ​2013     The Sparrow (LitPop Reading Series #2), Montreal, Quebec.
* 2013     The Common (The Common Reading Series), Toronto, Ontario.
* 2013     Tranzac (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Toronto, Ontario.
* 2013     Beaver House (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Elora, Ontario.
* 2013     Historic Kissing Bridge (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), West Montrose, Ontario.
* 2013     Words Worth Books (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Kitchener, Ontario.
* 2013     Wired Up Pugs Café-Bistro (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Cambridge, Ontario.
* 2013     Cedar House (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Paris, Ontario.
* 2013     The Station Coffee House & Gallery (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Brantford, Ontario.
* 2013     Chiefswood National Historic Site (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Six Nations of the Grand River                      Territory, Ontario.
* 2013     Argo Books, Montreal, Quebec.
* 2012     The Corner Bookstore (The Best Canadian Poetry Anthology), New York City, USA 
* 2012     Lillian Vernon Creative Writing House (The Best Canadian Poetry Anthology), New York City, USA
* 2012     York University, Toronto, Ontario.
* 2012     Revival Bar, 783 College Street (The Best Canadian Poetry Anthology), Toronto, Ontario.
* 2012     Niagara Artists Centre (Grey Borders Reading Series), St. Catharines, Ontario.
* 2012     Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.
* 2012     Chiefswood National Historic Site (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Six Nations of the Grand River                      Territory, Ontario.
* 2012     The Station Coffee House & Gallery (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Brantford, Ontario.
* 2012     Brown Dog Cafe (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Paris, Ontario.
* 2012     Wired Up Pugs Café-Bistro (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Cambridge, Ontario.
* 2012     Gallery on the Grand (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Kitchener, Ontario.
* 2012     Historic Kissing Bridge (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), West Montrose, Ontario.
* 2012     Elora Farmers Market, Bissell Park  (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Elora, Ontario.
* 2012     Tranzac  (Fish Quill Poetry Boat Reading Tour), Toronto, Ontario.
* 2012     Casa del Popola (The Golden Hour), Montreal, Quebec.
* 2012     Placebo Space (The Golden Hour), Toronto, Ontario. 
* 2012     New York Mills Cultural Center, New York Mills, Minnesota, USA
* 2012     Lawnya Vawnya Festival, St. Johns, NL (more details TBA)
* 2012     Robson Reading Series, UBC, Vancouver, British Columbia.
* 2012     Art Bar Poetry Series, Paupers Pub, Toronto, Ontario. 
* 2012     Cobourg Poetry Workshop, Cobourg, Ontario.
* 2012     Barnhill's Books, North Carolina, USA
* 2012     High Point University, High Point, North Carolina, USA
* 2011      Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Cafe, Boulder, Colorado, USA
* 2011      Equinox Brewing, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
* 2011      Coach House Toronto Fall Launch, The Dance Cave, Toronto, Ontario. 
* 2011      The Artel, Kingston, Ontario.
* 2011      Montreal Fall Book Mega-Launch,The Sparrow, Montreal, Quebec.
* 2011      University of New Brunswick's Poetry Weekend,  UNB Memorial Hall, Fredericton, New Brunswick. 

---