The Factory Reading Series: a Covid-era memorial,

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)
Friday, January 13, 2023
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan,

Comprised as a group memorial for poets lost during the Covid-era, there will be readings and recollections by Cameron Anstee, Rhonda Douglas, James Moran, natalie hanna, rob mclennan, AJ Dolman, Chris Johnson, Chris Turnbull, Stephen Brockwell, Bardia Sinaee, Anita Lahey, Monty Reid and others on numerous poets we've been unable to properly memorialize over this period of pandemic isolation, including: Robert Hogg, Phyllis Webb, Douglas Barbour, Michael Dennis, Steven Heighton, Clare Latremouille, Joe Blades, Richard Sanger, Peter Van Toorn, David Donnell, RM (Richard) Vaughan, Brian Fawcett etc (if there's a Covid-era poet-loss you wish to memorialize at the event, please let me know at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail (dot) com

This event will also mark not only the thirtieth anniversary of The Factory Reading Series (the first event held on Lisgar Street at the late lamented Stone Angel Institute in January 1993) but will see the publication of an accompanying issue of The Peter F Yacht Club.
See last year's virtual issue here
and information on the prior year's stay-at-home issue here

some author activity: Mohammadi, Barbour, MacEachern, Coulton + Robinson,

Khashayar Mohammadi has some new translations of poetry, by Shahin Sadeghzadeh, now up at Asymptote Journal; Edmonton Journal publishes an article on the late Douglas Barbour; Jessi MacEachern is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Valerie Coulton has begun to curate a new series of free pdf poetry chapbooks, palabrosa, which recently posted a new title by Elizabeth Robinson.

some author activity: Barwin, Eleftherion, Barbour, Notley + Earl,

Gary Barwin's "Letraset Canon," "A canon for 3 tenor saxophones," is now up at YouTube; Melissa Eleftherion has a poem in the new issue of Lammergeier; The Book Publishers Association of Alberta has announced that they have renamed their "Speculative Fiction Book of the Year" to the "Douglas Barbour Award for Speculative Fiction"; abstracts are sought for a roundtable on the work of Alice Notley; and Amanda Earl has new visual work posted at Train : a poetry journal.

Douglas Barbour (1940-2021)

Edmonton poet, editor, publisher, critic and occasional above/ground press author Douglas Barbour has died, after an extended illness [see my full obituary for him, posted yesterday, here]. Barbour appeared in more than a couple of above/ground press publications over the years, including as the chapbook Love’s Fragmented Narrative (2005), and Wednesdays’ (2008), produced as part of the online (since disappeared from the internet) “ALBERTA SERIES,” as well as an issue of STANZAS magazine (issue #30, 2002), which featured the first three sections of his collaborative “Continuations,” with Sheila E. Murphy. He was talented, beloved and kind. He shall be missed.

some author activity: Hunter, Barbour, Robinson, Hajnoczky, hanna + Downs,

Carrie Hunter has some new work up at talking about strawberries all of the time; Douglas Barbour is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; and Ben Robinson has a new poem posted as part of National Poetry Month over at the Chaudiere Books blog, as do Helen Hajnoczky, natalie hanna and Buck Downs.

some author activity: Robinson, Bolster, mclennan, Earl, Barbour + Murphy,

Elizabeth Robinson has some new poems online at Conjunctions; Stephanie Bolster had a new poem up at NewPoetry.ca; both rob mclennan and Amanda Earl have new poems up at The Maynard; and Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy are interviewed over at Touch the Donkey.

some author activity: Abel, Hancock, Markotić, Cooley, Graham, hastain, Barbour, Murphy, eckhoff + Pirie,

Jordan Abel is interviewed in the "Six Questions" series for the sake of his inclusion on the 2014 Gerald Lampert Award shortlist; Brecken Hancock has four poems up on Lemonhound; both Nicole Markotić and Dennis Cooley have new poems up at Atticus Review, as well as a short introductory essay on their work by Lea Graham; j/j hastain, as well as Douglas Barbour and Sheila E. Murphy, have new work in the second issue of Posit; there's a new interview with kevin mcpherson eckhoff up at Poets Touching Trees; and Pearl Pirie participates in the "My Writing Process: Blog Tour" meme.

some author activity: Cochrane, Armantrout, mclennan, Higdon, Wilkinson, Butler, Betts, Cooley + Barbour,

[photo of Mark Cochrane reading Cat. on the poetry bus at Vancouver's WORD festival on September 29, 2013; photo credit: Kevin Spenst] Rae Armantrout and rob mclennan both have new work in the second issue of N/A; Hailey Higdon has a new poem posted as part of the "Tuesday poem" series over at the dusie blog; there's a new interview with Joshua Marie Wilkinson over at Under A Warm Green Linden, Christopher Nelson's poetry blog; Jenna Butler guest-edits a Canadian poetry section in the October 2013 issue of Connotation Press online, including new writing by rob mclennan, Gregory Betts, Dennis Cooley, Douglas Barbour and plenty of others.

Some author interviews: McKinnon, Mangold, Landman, Lindner, McNair, Barbour + Butler,

A wide array of author interviews! The full interview rob mclennan conducted with Barry McKinnon for filling Station magazine is now online; Sarah Mangold is interviewed over at seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics; Seth Landman, Erik Lindner and Christine McNair participate in the "12 or 20 questions" series; and Douglas Barbour and Jenna Butler have a conversation over at Canadian Poetries.

some author activity: Poe, McKinnon, Anstee, Pirie, Brockwell, Maguire, Stewart, Butler, Barbour, macLean + Burke

Deborah Poe [who took the above photo, by the by] has some new work in the fifth issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics; Barry McKinnon does as well, with his lecture from the 2nd annual VERSeFest Poetry Festival; a new series of lectures will be presented at a VERSeFest fundraiser on November 15th in Ottawa, by Cameron Anstee, Pearl Pirie and Stephen Brockwell, hosted by The Factory Reading Series; Shannon Maguire reads in Toronto on November 7 with Melannie Gayle and Katie Jordan to help Sarah Pinder launch her new Coach House Books poetry collection (you should totally go); and various authors from moons back, including Christine Stewart and Jenna Butler were part of Douglas Barbour's month-long TRUCK (they all had above/ground press chapbooks in the "Alberta Series," all of which appear online as free pdfs), as do kath macLean and Andrew Burke; and above/ground press makes the Tarpaulin Sky list of titles one can possibly review! (we choose to remain optimistic)

some author activity: mcpherson eckhoff, Weaver, Markotić, Cooley, Reid, Bowering, Hall + mclennan,

kevin mcpherson eckhoff [pictured] was in Ottawa over the weekend, where he launched his new chapbook, and even posed for a number of other pictures; Douglas Barbour has been editing TRUCK over the month of October, and including various above/ground press authors, including Andy Weaver, Nicole Markotić, Dennis Cooley, Monty Reid + George Bowering; Phil Hall is doing a lecture at Queen's in November, as part of a series he's started; and I even have a new poem up at Halvard Johnston's On Barcelona.