new from above/ground press: The Baroness and her Ex Read Orgasmic Toast: To Whom It May Concern, by Grant Wilkins

The Baroness and her Ex Read Orgasmic Toast: To Whom It May Concern
Grant Wilkins
$5

              Art!


When our statesmen and orators called out
concerning our love of dog-eared bibles and flame-flagged men,
the earth was thus provisioned for the idleness of the pious
and the omnipotency generated by the Elizabethan intrigue
and accidental antiquity of our Malted Milkshakes.

The ancient critics would pronounce this the greatest
achievement in lyricism of which they knew,
and so we will nudge it, kick it, prod it, push it and
broadcast it by all of our best endeavours
and senseless relentless pleasures
upwards and onwards
into the realm of Art!

 

* * * *

These poems are a response to “The Baroness Elsa Project,” an exhibition of art, poetry and performance inspired by the dadaist artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, which showed at the Carleton University Art Gallery in Ottawa from September 28 to December 12, 2021. The exhibition was curated by Heather Anderson and Irene Gammel.

The motivation to write the poems came from my participation in “Cosmic Chemistry,” an experimental performance and improvised choral event that followed the exhibition, organized by CUAG and led by Gabriel Dharmoo and Kathy Kennedy.

Special thanks to Glenn Nuotio for inviting me to participate.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2023
as part of above/ground press’ thirtieth anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[Grant Wilkins will be launching this title in Ottawa as part of the above/ground press 30th anniversary reading/launch/party on August 12!]

Grant Wilkins is an occasional poet, printer and papermaker from Ottawa who has made a practice of doing strange things to other people’s words. He has degrees in History & Classical Civilization and in English, and he likes ink, metal, paper, letters, sounds and words, in no particular order.

This is Wilkins’ third chapbook with above/ground press, after Reading The Great Classics Of Canlit through Book 5 of bpNichol’s The Martyrology (2022) and In Which Archibald Lampman / Translates Arthur Rimbaud (2023). A fourth launches later this week.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com