The Factory Reading Series : Tokar, Turnbull + Mannell, July 25, 2014;

with readings by:

Janice Tokar (Ottawa ON)
Chris Turnbull (Kemptville ON)
+ Julie Mannell (Montreal QC)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, July 25, 2014;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Janice Tokar’s [pictured] poetry has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, the Bywords Quarterly Journal, The Peter F. Yacht Club, ottawater and Experiment-O. Her first chapbook, Arrhythmia, was published by above/ground press in April, 2014. An earlier manuscript of  Arrhythmia placed second in the 2012 Tree Press Chapbook Contest.  Jason Heroux, the contest judge, commented: “Janice Tokar's spare, pulsing poems beat with the irregular rhythms of life, death, love and loss, searching for balance in a world where everything always seems slower or faster than it feels.” Originally from Manitoba, Janice resides and works in Ottawa.

Chris Turnbull lives in Kemptville, Ontario. In 2010, above/ground press published a chapbook of her visual and multi-performative piece, continua. Thuja Press published her chapbook Shingles in 2001. Her poetry has been published in The Volta, Ottawater, Convergences, How2, ditch, Dusie, Open Letter, Dandelion, and experiment-o (Angelhouse Press), among others. Occasionally, she has written poetry reviews and interviews, as well as the "On Writing" essay series at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Her sometimes small press mag, rout/e, has more recently become an ongoing footpress project involving placing poems on trails, including pieces from Monty Reid, George Bowering, rob mclennan, derek beaulieu, Amanda Earl, Pearl Pirie, Angela Rawlings (http://scalar.usc.edu/works/stroboscope-magazine/issue-1), Steven Ward, and Jamie Reid. The full-length "Continua" was recently accepted by Chaudiere Books for publication in 2015.

Julie Mannell, originally from the tiny village of Fonthill, Ontario, is a writer of fiction, poetry, and essays, and the founder of The McGill Creative Writing Society. She is currently a blogger for The Huffington Post and her work has been featured in The National Post, Matrix, SubTerrain, and Branch magazine, amongst others. Mannell is the recipient of The Lionel Shapiro Award for excellency in creative writing and the Mona Adilman Poetry Prize. Her work has garnered attention from celebrities like Roseanne Barr who gave her the "Vagenius Award". She currently works and writes in Montreal. Her forthcoming novel is tentatively titled "little girls".

some author activity: Martin, Baus, Hajnoczky, Smith + Robertson,

Camille Martin is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey, as is Eric Baus; Helen Hajnoczky reads every page of Jordan Scott's blert (Coach House Books, 2008) all at once; Camille Martin has twenty poems from a work-in-progress appear online in Stride magazine; Jessica Smith writes on Ron Silliman over at Jacket2; and Maria Lind writes on Lisa Robertson in ArtReview.

new from above/ground press: Braking and Blather, by Emily Ursuliak

Braking and Blather
Emily Ursuliak
$4

His plump thumbs
are paper weights,
pinning the map,
the heft
of his barrel body
thrown forward,
as his index finger
etches possible routes.

The map
is more for Anne and Phyl
than for him:
Mr. Richter, their savior,
every goat track
and clear-cut path
is a memory woven
within a synapse.

An ample Bavarian,
a mountain guide,
he traded Alps for Rockies,
his English words still coated
with guttural German,
when he invites the girls
for an errand run
to Antler Lodge.
The three of them packed
in his crew cab truck.
Bottles of beer,
brought for the trip
jostle in the back.

They stop
at a colossal outcrop.
Mount Swanzy,
named for one
of Anne’s kin,
the mountain’s face
painted tawny
by the last slants
of a fading sun.

The gravel artery
carves higher.
Dusk clutches
the valley below.
The truck rolls
to a halt.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2014
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Emily Ursuliak is the current fiction editor, and a member of the board, for filling Station magazine and an executive producer for the literary radio show Writer’s Block. This spring she was given the Volunteer of the Year Award by the Alberta Magazine and Publishers Association for her work with filling Station. She recently completed an MA in English at the University of Calgary where she worked on her first novel and collection of poems. You can find her work in Warpaint, Blue Skies Poetry, FreeFall, No Press and the anthology The Calgary Project: A City Map in Verse and Visual.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Ryan Pratt reviews Eric Schmaltz's MITSUMI ELEC. CO. LTD.: keyboard poems (2014) + Noah Eli Gordon's FIFTEEN PROBLEMS (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Eric Schmaltz's MITSUMI ELEC. CO. LTD.: keyboard poems (2014) in one post, and Noah Eli Gordon's FIFTEEN PROBLEMS (2014) in another, both at the ottawa poetry newsletter, with even a kind mention of Touch the Donkey over at his blog. Thanks, Ryan!

new from above/ground press: THE RAIN OF THE ICE, by Eric Baus

THE RAIN OF THE ICE
Eric Baus
$4

LOST MOAT

The injured octopus commandeered my limbs. It furrowed a crown of iron from its sponge dome but I felt no cruelty in the creature's cage. The wall of its body was more an annoyed wave. I was being guided, rained into a room where a tiny moon arose. I was being aired out, not raided. I touched the closest tentacle and felt a burned down candle. We were sharing an urn that was groomed for the cliffs. Mute and molting, we grabbed talons. We were born in a town around the block from our remains. We felt sad for our hands. We had loved our lost moat.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
July 2014
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Eric Baus is the author of four books of poetry, The Tranquilized Tongue (City Lights, 2014), Scared Text (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011), Tuned Droves (Octopus Books, 2009) and The To Sound (Wave Books, 2004). He lives and teaches in Denver.

He also has work in the first issue of Touch the Donkey.

Cover image by Brian Lucas.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Irwin, Turnbull, Bowering, Reid + mclennan,

Video of Marilyn Irwin's recent co-featured reading as part of The TREE Reading Series is now online; Chris Turnbull has a new essay up in the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; George Bowering participates in "The Humour Issue Questionnaire" over at Poetry is Dead; Monty Reid is interviewed about Arc Poetry Magazine over at The Review Review; and there's a new interview with rob mclennan over at barsetshirediaries.

Brecken Hancock: Open Book: Toronto's July writer-in-residence

Ottawa poet and above/ground press author Brecken Hancock is Open Book: Toronto's July writer-in-residence! Her first post, "Our lives of no interest: The compulsion to confess," is now online, and you can keep track of her activity throughout the month here. Well done, Brecken!