Phlip Arima

Writer, performance poet, and artist, Phlip Arima was born in Toronto and continues to live in the city today. His father is Japanese-Canadian.  Arima’s personal website includes samples of his work. Published chapbooks include The Nihilistic Disintegration of Hope (Toronto: PhlipEnt Publications, 1992), Quackled (Toronto: PhlipEnt Publications, 1993), and a chapbook of flash fiction Static Evolution (Press On, 2007). In 2002 he released a compilation of eleven spoken word poems on a CD from PhlipEnt titled The Inside Edge.

Poetry

Beneath the Beauty

Toronto: Insomniac Press, 1996.
e-book (Access restricted to TMU community members)

Publisher’s Synopsis

[Arima’s] work is gritty and rhythmic, passionate and uncompromising. His desire to tell the stories of real life pushes his poetry to the edge of prose.

Poetry

Breathe Now

Ottawa: BuschekBooks, 2008.

Poetry

Damaged: Poems

Drawings by Thomas Hendry.
Toronto: Insomniac Press, 1998.
PS8551 .R762 D35 1998
e-book (Access restricted to TMU community members)

Publisher’s Synopsis

Arima examines society and portrays its harsh realities with uncompromising sensitivity. Damaged honestly explores the themes of neglect, abuse, drug addiction and loss without romantic airs.
Streetwise, gritty, mature, these poems are not for the overly-sentimental.

Poetry

Pin Pricks

Toronto: Quattro Books, 2014.
PS8551 .R762 P56 2014

Publisher’s Synopsis

Pin Pricks is a collection of deceptively simple poems and aphorisms.  They leap from identity issues to survival issues, from the solidly grounded to the surreal, from sombre to witty to frighteningly harsh.  Insightful and provocative, they remind us that we are all intimately connected, struggling, fortunate to be alive.

Fiction (Short stories)

Broken Accidents

Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2003.
PS8551 .R762 B76 2003
e-book (Access restricted to TMU community members)

Publisher’s Synopsis

In Broken Accidents, Phlip Arima presents fictions in which the mundane and the surreal collide, and humour and sadness paint opposite sides of a revolving door. Filled with absurd conversations, monologues and sardonic descriptions of warped realities, Broken Accidents twists and squirms with incisive metaphor yet maintains a child-like wonder and curiosity.

Anthology (Poetry)

Playing in the Asphalt Garden

Toronto: Insomniac Press, 1994.

Partial contents: Crowded rooms subway platforms / written by Phlip Arima ; designed by Mike O’Connor. Arima’s contribution is poetry.

Publisher’s Synopsis

[This] is a collection of poetry and short stories by four new Canadian writers. Jill Battson, Phlip Arima, Stan Rogal and Tatiana Freire-Lizama write from perspectives of and about the urban landscape. They capture the energy and edginess of the unique urban experience.