above/ground press: Brecken Hancock

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:
The Factory Reading Series:

with readings by:

Aaron Tucker (Toronto)
Brecken Hancock (Ottawa)
Christine McNair (Ottawa)
+ rob mclennan (Ottawa)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, April 29, 2017
doors 2pm; reading 2:45pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Aaron Tucker is the author of the novel Y: Oppenheimer, Horseman of Los Alamos (Coach House Books) as well as two books of poetry, Irresponsible Mediums: The Chess Games of Marcel Duchamp (Bookthug Press) and punchlines (Mansfield Press), and his latest chapbook with above/ground press Catalogue d'oiseaux. His current collaborative project, Loss Sets, translates poems into sculptures which are then 3D printed (http://aarontucker.ca/3-d-poems/); he is also the co-creator of The ChessBard, an app that transforms chess games into poems (http://chesspoetry.com).

Currently, he is an uninvited guest on the Dish with One Spoon Territory, where he is a lecturer in the English department at Ryerson University (Toronto), teaching creative and academic writing. You can reach him atucker[at]ryerson[dot]ca

Brecken Hancock's poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Puritan, Arc, Best Canadian Poetry in English, Best American Experimental Writing, The Globe & Mail and Hazlitt. Her first book of poems, Broom Broom (Coach House, 2014), was shortlisted for the ReLit Award and won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. It was also named by The Globe & Mail's Jared Bland as a debut of the year, and appeared on a number of year-end best-book lists, including the National Post, All Lit Up, and BookThug's Best Reads. She lives in Ottawa.

Ottawa poet Christine McNair's second poetry collection Charm came out from BookThug in 2017. Her first book Conflict (BookThug, 2012) was a finalist for the City of Ottawa Book Award, the Archibald Lampman Award, and the ReLit Award, and shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Her chapbook pleasantries and other misdemeanours (2013) was shortlisted for the bpNichol chapbook award. McNair lives in Ottawa, where she works as a book doctor.

rob mclennan’s most recent titles include The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014), the poetry collection A perimeter (New Star Books, 2016) and the chapbook snow day (above/ground press, 2018). His poetry title Household items (Salmon Poetry, 2018) should be out soon, hopefully. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com. He also runs a reading series (this one!) three blocks away from where he was born.

Scott Bryson was good enough to review Brecken Hancock’s above/ground chapbook, The Art of Plumbing (above/ground press, 2013) in Broken Pencil #64. Thanks, Scott! This is actually the fifth review of Brecken’s chapbook, after recent reviews by Joseph LaBine (here), JM Francheteau (here), Michael Dennis (here) and Ryan Pratt (here). There are a few copies of Hancock’s chapbook still available, here, or you can simply pick up her first trade collection, Broom Broom (Coach House Books, 2014), which also includes the piece.

Plumbing, let alone the history of plumbing, is not typically considered enticing subject matter. The recounting of ancient pipes that’s presented here – organized in date-stamped anecdotes – is mostly pretext, mercifully (though even when it’s not, these anecdotes are rarely mundane).

            At its core, Brecken Hancock’s The Art of Plumbing is a study of human relationships, some mythical, through time – between family members, men and women, husbands and wives, citizens and The Church. In 1183 BCE, “Clytemnestra guts Agamemnon in the bath,” for his infidelities. In 415 CD, “anxious that nudity nurtures licentiousness, early Christian fathers preach against public bathing.”

            Bathtubs and bathing are the most consistent fixtures in this timeline, and an anecdote from 2323 BCE seems particularly relevant to its undercurrent: “Archimedes stumbles into a method for gauging the volume of irregular objects. Stepping into the bath, he spots water rise…” The lesson typically taken from this tale is to be patient and await a breakthrough, but a different interpretation here proves apt. The same story was relayed at a crucial point in the 1998 movie, Pi, with an unusual take on its moral: “You need a break, you have to take a bath or you will get nowhere,” warns the film’s mathematician Sol Robson.

            In a moment of abrupt, autobiographical lucidity at the chapbook’s end, Hancock comes to the same conclusion: “I need to soak. Gathering my split hair from the pillow, I ruse from the television news, from the navalia proelia [simulated naval battles] on our sheets.” It’s a fitting conclusion; there are hints of a veiled personal journal throughout this narrative.
            The Art of Plumbing is a moving read, less for what we see on the pages – though these are eloquently-written historical sketches – than for the subtext that emerges from between its stanzas.