The WAR Series: Writers as Readers, with Ben Ladouceur

The WAR Series: Writers As Readers gives writers an opportunity to talk about the books that shaped them, from first loves to new favourites.

Today we welcome Ben Ladouceur, the author of Lime Kiln Quay Road (above/ground press). Lime Kiln Quay Road is a long poem about the author's time spent living in a hamlet called Blaxhall, in Suffolk, England. His first full-length collection, Otter, is forthcoming from Coach House Books in 2015.

Read on to hear from Ben about the writing lessons he's learned from influential books, the best book he's read recently and why his autobiography title involves the checkout line at No Frills.
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The WAR Series, Writers as Readers

The first book I remember reading on my own:
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

A book that made me cry:
And Once More Saw The Stars by P.K. Page and Philip Stratford (from Buschek Books).

The first adult book I read:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

A book that made me laugh out loud:
Monodromos by Marian Engel.

The book I have re-read many times:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

A book I feel like I should have read, but haven't:
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

The book I would give my seventeen year old self, if I could:
A really unintimidating cookbook.

A book I feel strongly influenced me as a writer and why:
Love Alone by Paul Monette. Showed me that poems written for therapeutic reasons can still be meaningful to people aside from the author. Also, White Stone by Stephanie Bolster, which showed me that a book of poems can be way more than the sum of its parts if you work crazy hard. Also, Super Flat Times by Matthew Derby. Also, Purgatorio and King Lear and A Wrinkle In Time and everything by PK Page, and many of the chapbooks that were published by Carleton University’s In/Words Magazine during my undergrad.

The best book I read in the past six months:
The Group by Mary McCarthy.

The book I plan on reading next:
The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell.

A possible title for my autobiography:
Getting To Checkout At No Frills And Then Realizing You Left Your Wallet At Home: A Life of Ben Ladouceur.

Ben Ladouceur writes poems in Toronto. Coach House Books will be publishing his first full-length collection, called Otter, in the spring of 2015.

For more information about Lime Kiln Quay Road please visit the above/ground press website.