new from above/ground press: Motion & Force, by Melissa Spohr Weiss

Motion & Force
Melissa Spohr Weiss
$5

Compression

In moonrise, cis men croon, pose
penis, sip sermons. Impose roominess.
Soon, moss ripens, minces crimson spines.
I spin poems, iron coins, pin ripe roses
on composers. Sirs piss, semipro. Rinse spoons
in poison. Scoop sonic noise. Impress
me, morons. Moose is risen.
Cross is nicer crisp. Secs (sic)
is remiss. SOS.


About Motion & Force:

This collection responds to and blurs the line between Erin Moure’s Furious and Christian Bök’s Eunoia. In true Bök fashion, each poem strictly adheres to a set parameter, making use of only the letters in their titles. The content of each poem responds to key concepts Moure addresses in the second part of her book, “The Acts,” where she outlines her poetic process.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Melissa Spohr Weiss is a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick. Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Riddle Fence, The Malahat Review, CV2, Prairie Fire, The Maynard, Oakland Arts Review, and elsewhere. She is an editorial assistant for The Fiddlehead and is originally from Kelowna, BC.

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

Joel W. Vaughan reviews Christian Bök's 10 Poems (2016) in Broken Pencil #76

Joel W. Vaughan was good enough to provide a generous (as well as the first) review of Christian Bök's 10 Poems (2016) in Broken Pencil. Thanks so much! You can see the original review here. The review reads:

Christian Bök has become, since the popularity and critical success of his 2001 Eunoia, something of a (divisive) house-hold name in Canadian poetry. It is likely that anyone already familiar with his work has a strong opinion on it, and it is equally likely that 10 Poems will further entrench that opinion, whether it be positive or negative. I happen to really enjoy Eunoia, Bök, and — no surprise — 10 Poems.

These poems extend Bök’s method of linguistic play into a few new interesting corners. In “The Doomsday Song,” he for-mats comic-book style onomatopoeia (think “KROOM! KROOM! KRAKOOM! / KRAKA-DOOM! KA-DOOM!”) into a kind of table of contents, bridging the gap between his deconstruction of English and his tension between language-heard and language-read. In his “Phonological Key”, printed as a poem in itself, he deliberately guides the reader through missteps, so that the pronunciation of subsequent poems is always off-kilter. If “u = ‘oo’ as in lute” for instance, then the “blubbering / rubber gut” in the following poem must be pronounced “bloobering roober goot.”

Bök’s work here then is as opaque as you ask it to be. He places pointed stress on the English language in an effort to decentre it, and the result is a series of poems that are as familiar as they are foreign. I have encountered many who find this frustrating, but just as many who appreciate the game being played. I find myself in the latter category, and recommend above/ground press’s print-ing of Bök just as heartily as I would Coach House’s or Northwestern University’s.

A Soundival of Sorts : Jennifer Baker + others

Rhombus 19 presents "A Soundival of Sorts." April 1, 8 pm, The Happy Goat Coffee Company, 35 Laurel St., Ottawa. An evening of sound poetry, experimental verse, and poetry theatre. Original compositions, plus works by Hugo Ball, Kurt Schwitters, Christian Bök, Caroline Bergvall, bpNichol, The Four Horsemen, Sesame Street, Michael Ondaatje, and others. Performed by students and faculty of UOttawa's Department of English. For more information, check out the Facebook link.

some author activity: Armantrout, eckhoff, Bök + Turner,

Rae Armantrout has a new poem up at The Nation; kevin mcpherson eckhoff has a new essay in the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Christian Bök is interviewed over at Ashberyland; and Michael Turner presents his musical tribute to Vancouver's west side over at Q.

some author activity: Barwin, Beaulieu, Bök + Babineau,

Gary Barwin has some new work up at NewPoetry.ca; Braydon Beaulieu was interviewed by Corey Redekop on his story in the new anthology Those Who Make Us: Canadian Creature, Myth, and Monster Stories (Exile Editions); Christian Bök is interviewed over at the Chaudiere Books blog for The Calgary Renaissance; and Kemeny Babinueau is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: mclennan, Pirie, Kronovet + Bök,

rob mclennan has two new poems up at his blog; Pearl Pirie is interviewed over at the ottawa poetry newsletter, and an excerpt of her new chapbook is also up at Sprung Poems; Jennifer Kronovet is featured on the Drunken Boat blog; and Christian Bök is one of five University of Calgary scholars named this week as Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada.

new from above/ground press: 10 Poems, by Christian Bök

10 Poems
Christian Bök
$4

Karawane, von Hugo Ball

jolifanta bambla o falli bambla
grossiga mpfa habla horem
egiga goramen
higo bloiko russula huju
hollaka hollala
anlogo bung
blago bung
blago bung
bosso fataka
u uu u
schampa wulla wussa olobo
hej tata gorem
eschige zunbada
wulubu ssubudu ulu wassubada
tumba bahumf
kusa gauma
bahumf

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
May 2016
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

The pieces in “10 Poems” were lifted from the website Lyrikline (http://www.lyrikline.org/en/home/), where audio of all ten pieces can also be found at: http://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/and-sometimes-10306#.Vz24Y74tLIV

Produced for free distribution as part of “Christian Bök Unbound,” a Calgary celebration of Christian Bök before he relocated to Darwin Australia, May 29, 2016.

Christian Bök is the author of Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), a ’pataphysical encyclopedia nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award for Best Poetic Debut, and ’Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science (Northwestern University Press, 2001). His book Eunoia won the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize. Bök has created artificial languages for Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley’s Amazon. His conceptual artwork has appeared at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibit Poetry Plastique. His latest work is The Xenotext: Book 1 (Coach House Books, 2015). Until this spring, he taught at the University of Calgary.

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