Stratford Poet Profiles: David Stones

David Stones was one of the Stratford poets who submitted to Heidi Sander’s Canada Is Our Poem contest. His piece “Canadian Springtime” is one of three shortlisted for an upcoming anthology.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The idea of Canada can mean many different things. For David Stones, especially now, part of it is about expression.

“I think during these very challenging times, expressing your love for our great country of Canada is really important,” Stones said, referring to the repeated threats to Canada’s sovereignty made by American politicians last year (and continue to make this year as well). “I think that was one of Heidi's drivers in putting the (Canada Is Our Poem contest) together in 2025, was the fact that we felt, I think all of us, that even our sovereignty was being questioned, if not threatened. And it was a time to sort of collectively put our thoughts together and express our love for our country with all its quirks and all its wonders.”

Stones is not unknown among Stratford’s literary circles, being the city’s first-ever poet laureate. Like many other poets in Stratford, he submitted works to local poet Heidi Sander’s Canada Is Our Poem contest in 2025. His poem “Canadian Springtime” was one of three that were shortlisted for the upcoming anthology.

“Canadian Springtime” is a true story about Stones’ youth playing hockey on Darlington Bay, as he explained.

“I remember when spring was coming we were always kind of scared,” Stones laughed. “Because the ice was frozen where we were, but beyond that ice, you could see the curling waves of Lake Ontario. And every now and then you'd miss the net and the puck would just go about a mile and disappear in the water. You didn't want to go after it, but that was the Canadian springtime.”

Stones reflected on the use of self in writing. While the poem is very personally rooted in his memory, at no point does he refer to an “I” in the stanzas. As he said, that is a conscious decision to focus on the story-telling aspect of the piece, rather than the self. While he does use “I” on occasion for certain pieces, he tends to do that sparingly.

“I don't want to write about myself, and I don't want to use poetry to express thoughts about my own emotional state or physical state. I want to use it to tell stories and to extend a lot of life's metaphors into my verse,” he said.

Stones also shared that his poems often start with one idea, one title, or even one line.

“I keep in my journals, I keep lists of titles,” Stones said. “Things that occur to me, odd collections of words. ‘I think that would make a great title,’ and I build on that,” Stones said.

“… That is a feature of good poetry, that the word combinations are surprising and unusual and very poignant. They open the door to interpretation because you want to engage the reader or engage the listener if you're performing the poem. So rather than being just concrete, you're suggestive, leaving the door open, as I say, to their interpretation and that builds reader involvement in your work, which is, I think, a very important feature of good poetry.”

Stratford Poet Profiles is an ongoing series by the Stratford Times, casting a spotlight on some of the Stratford poets who submitted to Heidi Sander’s Canada Is Our Poem contest. An upcoming anthology with selected works from the contest will be out in spring.