Video recordings of mclennan + Brockwell's readings in New Orleans

Megan Burns at 17 Poets has posted YouTube videos of Stephen Brockwell (reading from his recent above/ground press chapbook) and rob mclennan's readings in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 10, 2012. Check out mclennan's report of the event here.

Ryan Pratt's Recent Reads: Ottawa's Poets & Presses

Ottawa writer and blogger Ryan Pratt posted a nice note on his blog yesterday, in response to a package of chapbooks I handed him at a recent talk Pearl Pirie and I did for the OIW. Thanks, Ryan! He's also recently become one of the (ir)regular contributors to the ongoing ottawa poetry newsletter blog, so hopefully we might see a bunch more write-ups by him in the future. See the original post here.

Any writer who has spent time in Ottawa can attest to its reputation for literary excellence. For my part, shopping at the biannual Small Press Book Fair and attending readings around town have resulted in the cozy “local section” of my home library. Among the manifold stapled spines that jut out in all colours and sizes, I’ve collected publications from Bywords (their Quarterly Journals plus two chapbooks from John Newlove Poetry Award winners), Apt. 9 Press, AngelHouse Press and above/ground press.

The two titles I’d purchased from above/ground, a press created and operated by rob mclennan, were totally unique to one another: Green Wind, by Ken Norris, details the foreign and domestic sides of a trip abroad with straightforward yet poetic prose, whereas mclennan’s own 16 Yonge presents a long-form poem that analyzes Toronto’s concrete edge at the docks.

On account of someone’s generosity and kindness, I’ve wandered into a deluge of above/ground press chapbooks to further clutter my reading nook. There’s Stephen Brockwell’s Excerpts from Impossible Books, The Crawdad Cantos, a compilation that should be of particular interest given that Stephen will be hosting a writing workshop in Ottawa July 7th, and several of rob mclennan’s recent titles to choose from. I’m taking them in one at a time but it doesn’t help when Goldfish: studies in fine thread, a kaleidoscopic look at happenstances that reveal a relationship beyond the fish tank, rewards constant revisiting.

Besides above/ground, I’ve been introduced to a smattering of other authors and presses: Monty Reid’s Contributor’s Notes (Gaspereau Press), some unarmed chapbooks (journal #64: Unwanted Unarmed includes a crowd of wonderful writers), and poems working in conjunction with the School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (featuring Sandra Ridley and Pearl Pirie, among others).

Needless to say, I haven’t had the opportunity to dive into most of these works with the attention they deserve, but what I’ve read so far, even in passing, warrants mention. Support these chapbook presses by seeking out their treasures online or by checking out your local Small Press Book Fair (I know Ottawa’s Spring Edition will be happening June 30th – details here).

Stephen Brockwell's Summer Heat Poetry Workshop - Ottawa

On Saturday, July 7th, Ottawa poet and above/ground press author Stephen Brockwell will be offering The Summer Heat Poetry Workshop at the Carlingwood Branch of the Ottawa Public Library. The workshop will help poets invest more verbal energy into their poems.

A single poem chosen from up to five pages of work from each participant will be work-shopped to improve musical energy with a sharp focus on voice, tone, rhythm, syntax and line. Participants will be encouraged to share their work on a free social networking website prior to the workshop. Participants will be able to comment on each other’s work in an encouraging environment moderated by the workshop leader. The initial online collaboration will set the tone for an intense but positive three hour face-to-face workshop at Carlingwood Library.

Please send your poems to Stephen Brockwell at least one week prior to the workshop. Email poems to sbrockwell@yahoo.com, or drop them off at the Carlingwood Library. A list of suggested reading from previous workshops will be provided for reference.

Stephen Brockwell is the author of five books, including The Real Made Up (ECW) and Fruitfly Geographic (ECW) which won the Archibald Lampman award. With Stuart Ross, Stephen edited Rogue Stimulus: the Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament (Mansfield). Stephen was recently the featured reader with rob mclennan for the 17 Poets series at the Goldmine in New Orleans, Louisiana. Samples from his current project, Excerpts from Impossible Books have been published by above/ground press.

For more information on the workshop, contact paul.tyler@ottawa.ca

Shannon Maguire reads as part of Un/Certain Words at Wilfrid Laurier University, May 28, 2012

Un/Certain Words: Two Nights of Literary Readings
May 27th and May 28th
Wilfrid Laurier University
Veritas Café in the Graduate Lounge
First floor, Student Services Building
7:00-9:00 p.m.

During Congress 2012 in Waterloo, Ontario, please join us at Wilfrid Laurier University for “Un/Certain Words,” two incredible nights of fiction and poetry featuring an international line-up of authors, including winners of the CBC Literary Award, the Confederation Poets’ Prize, the Bliss Carman Poetry Prize, the Australian/Vogel Literary Award, the Far Horizons Award for Poetry, and finalists for the Pat Lowther Award, the Trillium Award and the Governor General’s Award.  Don’t miss this chance to hear some of the best writers in the country during their Congress visits!

May 27 will feature readings by Amanda Jernigan (Groundwork), Carrie Snyder (Hair Hat, The Juliet Stories), Darren Bifford (Wedding in Fire Country), Warren Heiti (Hydrologos), Lucy Alford, and Lacey Beer.

May 28 will feature readings by Brian Henderson (Nerve Language, Sharawadji), Chris Banks (Winter Cranes), Rob Winger (Muybridge’s Horse), Jamie Dopp (The Birdhouse Or), Kristel Thornell (Night Street), Shannon Maguire [photo by Pearl Pirie] (Vowel Wolves and Other Knots), Tanis MacDonald (Rue the Day) and David Walter-Toews (The Complete Tante Tina).

All Congress delegates, Laurier and UWaterloo students, and members of the public are welcome. Admission free. Snacks provided courtesy of Congress 2012; cash bar.

The Graduate Lounge is located in the Student Services building, just off the Quad on the Laurier campus. Just look for the Congress beer tent – the Graduate Lounge is immediately to the west of it.

For more information, please contact Tanis MacDonald at tmacdonald@wlu.ca

Fenn Stewart: Poets in Profile, Open Book: Toronto/Ontario

above/ground press author Fenn Stewart, author of An Ok Organ Man (2012), answers questions over at Open Book: Toronto.

new from above/ground press: Richter-Rauzer Variations by Robert Manery

Richter-Rauzer Variations

Robert Manery

$4

each exposed

consolation

without knowledge

without aversion

seems exact

indeed

never uttering

never diminishing

else

elusive

indeed

seemed

yet we

grasp

and we

grasp

within (from “Dilemmas”)

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

May 2012

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Robert Manery studied with Bob Hogg at Carleton University in the 1980s. In response to Rob’s complaint about contemporary poetry, Bob suggested that he should read the language poets. This suggestion led to Rob’s continuing interest in the possibilities and limits of meaning-making. It also led to his collaborations with Louis Cabri, hosting literary events, including Bob Hogg’s seminar on Charles Olson’s The Special View of History, and then publishing hole magazine and hole books. Rob has published one book of poems, It’s Not As If It Hasn’t Been Said Before (Tsunami Editions). He currently teaches academic writing at Simon Fraser University where he is pursuing a doctorate in education.

Cover image/design by Robyn Laba.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 402 McLeod St #3, Ottawa ON K2P 1A6 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Amanda Earl's above/ground press 2012: notes on four chapbooks

Ottawa poet, publisher and blogger Amanda Earl (author of a couple of above/ground titles of her own as well) was good enough to review a small selection of recent chapbooks -- Rae Armanrtout's Custom (2012), Sarah Mangold's Cupcake Royale (2012), Fenn Stewart's An OK Organ Man (2012) and j/j hastain's we / cum ::: come / in the yield fields / amongst statues with interior arms (2012) -- thanks, Amanda! See a link to the original review here.

Rae Armantrout's Custom.
This chapbook is composed of four poems, three of which are series poems. In minimal language, Armantrout juxtaposes philosophical musings with tangible and fanciful images. She has a delightful sense of irony: "Someone says, "Dream bigger," handing us/an RPG." America appears as desperate and out of control.  Bored souls hang from the ceilings. There is some syntax play, such as a poem that ends with the adverb "when." Also common expressions are tampered with, such as "Let volumes speak volumes." There is a feeling of strangeness, of not belonging, throughout the chapbook: "someone else's terrain." What we see on screen or in a role playing game vs what is happening in reality, how that changes our expectations to reflect the fantasy. "On screen/men discover/that their mothers/are imposters,/that their world's/unreal." There is a lack of progress, "zero surface tension," "lines of ants," "a string of stragglers on death march," an actress rooting for a lone cloud. "We maintain a critical distance."

Sarah Mangold's Cupcake Royale.
In Cupcake Royale Mangold juxtaposes the language and imagery of cake with the trappings of everyday life:  colour coded medications, compost, stir-fry, sweater-folding. The main form used in the chapbook seems to be accumulation, not necessarily of objects; sometimes short, declarative sentences in the form of objective observation, instructions, same grammatical categories, incomplete thoughts. Somehow it comes across as subversive, this juxtaposition of cake with the everyday: "I'm somewhere in the middle/injectable drugs/vanilla      buttercream". 

Fenn Stewart's An OK Organ Man
In this chapbook, Stewart's wordplay is prevalent, including puns, foreign languages, alliteration, assonance, repetition, words of three syllables or more & anagrams. By taking text from 18th century philosophers  such as Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, John Locke etc., Stewart has ensured that the chapbook will have an old-fashioned, antiquated feel which is juxtaposed with a general feistiness or rebellion against the conventions of the era from which she is pilfering & gives the work a certain cadence evocative of times gone by. "under what conditions -- say, heroic butchery -- / might I make manifest this trepidation? / what is it but a segment/ or a fluke of sin". The chapbook also contains a level of metatext about language itself: "this ruddy syntax," "for language, beasts, and creatures are conducive," "but really, I'm/your girl for discourse". 

j/j hastain's we / cum ::: come / in the yield fields / amongst statues with interior arms (above/ground press, 2012)
in this chapbook j.j. hastain offers us prose poems that treat abstract concepts as tangible objects: "Liquid light or herds of manic." Much of the work deals with gender as fluid, as a non binary construct: "Gender here, our interactive contour." The text is full of unique & dream-like imagery, poignant observations, provocative paradoxes: "Extracting blossoms from a slaughter house." "A single ant carries the large body of a splayed moth." The poems are chock full of sensuality, poems formed of sentences of varying lengths & styles that careen drunkenly & wildly along. The work is visually strong. I can easily imagine some of these poems being illustrated with paintings or as surreal films" Like the rust colored sunflower that (while soft on its exterior) when cut turns the water it depends on bright pink." The author is a skilled soundsmith, each sentence deliberately muted or  cacophonous, depending on hastain's intent.