Jessica Thomas-Drake reviews Amanda Earl's Aftermath or Scenes of a Woman Convalescing (2019)

Jessica Drake-Thomas was good enough to provide the first review of Amanda Earl's Aftermath or Scenes of a Woman Convalescing (2019). Thanks so much! You can see the original review here. AsDrake-Thomas writes:

“The first blooms of spring make me cry. I thought I/would never experience them again,” the speaker says in Amanda Earl’s chapbook of poems, AFTERMATH, or Scenes of a Woman Convalescing.

The poems are excerpted from a longer, multi-part poem that Earl wrote following a bout with pneumonia, full body sepsis and a toxic mega colon (from Notes). I had never really thought about how much poetry is in the art of healing. Not until I read this book. When we first meet the speaker, she is healing, following surgery. As the work progresses, the reader sees how the speaker grows and heals.

“I am giddy with love for/the trees, the rain and the wind,” the speaker says. “I say inappropriate/thing because I am happy. There is no wall for/me anymore. I am in love with you. You are alive./ I am alive. The ghosts surround us.” There’s such joie de vivre, particularly after where the speaker began the book.

“I left her on the bed, my/counterpart,” the speaker says. “She is in ICU and dying. I floated out of/her and yes, there is a doubling. I feel her silence. I/fill oblivion white sheets with colour.”

There’s such a sense of blooming, and rebirth in these pieces, but there’s also a sense of how far the speaker has come. This is shown through the small things, like the first taste of a tomato, or or the first time spring comes again. There is an appreciation of life, and a recognition of struggle. Her body has betrayed her, and modern medicine has brought her back. There’s so much poetry in the art of healing, and how a person returns to feeling well and alive again.

I absolutely loved this chapbook. I haven’t read anything like it before. Earl weaves spell-like pieces that draw the reader in. Her verse is both lovely and aching. Rumi once said that “the wound is where the Light enters you.” He meant that it’s our pain and how we choose to overcome it that helps us to grow, and that is evident here in Earl’s work.

It’s another example of excellent, absolutely top-notch work that has been published by Canadian above/ground press.

new from above/ground press: bodega night pigeon riot, by Amanda Deutch

bodega night pigeon riot
Amanda Deutch
$5

Subway to Crescent Street
saucer magnolia petals
smoke stacks & antennae








litter island life urban
archipelago shit smeared on
F train seats

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Amanda Deutch is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. Her poems have been published in the New York Times, The Rumpus, Cimarron Review, Public Pool, Black Earth Institute, and Cosmonauts Avenue. The author of six chapbooks, her most recent book is Surf Avenue and 29th Street, Coney Island (Least Weasel Press, 2018). She has been a writer-in-residence at The Betsy Hotel (Miami) and Footpaths to Creativity (Azores). Deutch works as a Library Specialist for youth throughout the five boroughs of New York City and is the Executive Director of Parachute Literary Arts. Her poems can be found at www.amandadeutch.com.

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Amanda Earl reviews chapbooks by Irwin, Lea, Baus, Dean and Kasimor,

beloved above/ground press author Amanda Earl was good enough to provide first reviews for a small handful of above/ground press titles, including Marilyn Irwin's the day the moon went away (2019), N.W. Lea's Five Mothers (2019), Eric Baus' Euphorbia (2020) and Lessa Dean's The Desert of Itabira (2020), as well as a second review (after John C. Goodman discussed such over at Otoliths) of Mary Kasimor's disrobing iris (2019), among some other titles discussed, in her "a few notes on some recent chapbooks" over at her blog. Thank you! You can see her original review here. As she writes:

Marilyn Irwin – the day the moon went away (above/ground press, August, 2019)

I am a fan and a dear friend of Marilyn’s so it comes as no surprise that I enjoyed this chapbook, from the snail on the cover to its reappearance in a poem, to the poems on not having a baby. there’s a sweet sadness to the work, mixed with a practicality about life and a concern for the environment. there’s concern. I have several favourites in the collection, but I’m particularly fond of “hum,” which begins “the first definition/of suicide/begins/with monks/robes/indistinguishable/from/skin cinder”—an unusual and memorable image. I want a book by Marilyn soon please, publishers. and so should you.

N.W. Lea - Five Mothers (above/ground press, October 2019)

I am a big fan of Lea’s writing. It’s contemplative, unusual and minimal. There is humour, playfulness, unique and powerful imagery and a consistency of tone throughout the chapbook.

Mary Kasimor - disrobing iris (above/ground press, November 2019)

I began reading these poems and then got so excited by the incantatory and exquisite imagery and sound play that I had to read them aloud. the poem “dropped stiches” stayed with me long after I read it the first time. This is a symphony of melancholy and grief, rebellion. I loved them.

Eric Baus – Euphorbia (above/ground press, January 2020)

i enjoyed these microscopic observations and musings of/on nature. These are powerful prose poems that delighted and fascinated me. The only thing I didn’t like was the font, which could have been Futura or Arial, I’m guessing but probably wrong, and what appears to be boldface for the entire collection. It is the opposite of the work for me. It is shouty and brash. That’s not what I’m reading. I’m reading softer, more subtle and delicate observations and musings.

Here are two of the poems that resonated greatly with me:

Pattern Anguish

Hawks glide above other hawks to kill escaping sky, a faraway star burning their faces.
Hum, Hurts

So the rosin, as the rain was, flowered its watts, precipitates a leaf, has been one, exhausts the teeth of animal speech, a siren under wool, hums, hurts.

Lessa Dean – the Desert of Itabira (above/ground press, January 2020)

This is an excerpt from a novella in verse entitled Manuelzimbo; a found poetry project based on the work of Elizabeth Bishop. I can’t wait to read the entire novella. The excerpt is mesmerizing. It evokes the desert paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe for me, extremely visual and startling: “We are taken to a red temple/a woman in a cloak of bones/greets us in a language/none of us know”.

I am in love with the dark imagery of this work: “The dynasty of violence threads our sleep/leaves bruises each night we shower ourselves/in superstitious rituals drink snake blood/   leave on the drowned green light”

This work also evokes the haunting imagery of the poetry of Sandra Ridley. I envisage a collaboration between Dean and Ridley. I think it would be wing-swept and haunting.

new from above/ground press: ALAS & ALACK, by Stan Rogal

ALAS & ALACK
Stan Rogal
$5

My problem is I’m one of those soft machines that sometimes explodes

for no apparent reason.

My problem is I’m futile; floating in a void.

My problem is I’m counter-productive to the existing order.

My problem is mind the gap.

My problem is your basic Existential Angst & its accompanying

pathetic hang-dog attitude.

My problem is fear of my own existence (if, indeed, I do exist,

outside myself). [Italics mine]

My problem is I’m an accident constantly happening.

My problem is I’m a Zombie flick that lacks teeth & faints at

the sight of blood, especially my own.

My problem is I lack nomenclature.

My problem is I’ve seen the best minds of my generation

destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…

My problem is, okay, I only wish I’ve seen the best minds of my

generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…

My problem is I sing the body electric, though slightly off-key or in the wrong key

altogether & what’s it to you?

My problem is they have a name for the winners of the world &

I want a name when I lose.

My problem is I’m on a mission from God.

My problem is the devil made me do it.

My problem is I’d walk a mile for a Camel.

My problem is is it live or is it Memorex?

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Stan Rogal lives and writes in relative obscurity in the hamlet known as Toronto. He has been rumoured to have published widely and is the apparent author of 25 books (6 novels, 7 story and 12 poetry) and several chapbooks (most with above/ground press). He is a former Master bowler and retired dart champion. 

This is Rogal’s fifth above/ground press chapbook, after In Search of the Emerald City (1997), “THE CELEBRITY RAG: Opá” (STANZAS #44, March 2006), All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (2004) and muscle memory (2018).

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

some author activity: Clayton, hanna, Unsworth, Claxton + Johnson,

Conyer Clayton recommends five books (including natalie hanna's above/ground press debut) as part of the TPQ5 over at The Poetry Question; Lydia Unsworth has a new essay in the Talking Poetics series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; a portrait of 2020 Governor General's Arts Award-winner Dana Claxton is now online; and Chris Johnson is interviewed in the Six Questions series at the Chaudiere Books blog.

new from above/ground press: Montcorbier, by Guy Birchard

Montcorbier
Guy Birchard
$5

In this the thirtieth year of my life

Having stomached all disgrace

Neither most foolish nor half wise

Notwithstanding all the clouts

Received

At the hands of Thibault d'Aussigny

Bishop though he be, making the sign of the cross

Down the street, he's no one to me. 

Nor Monsignor nor my lord

I had from him nowt but shite

I owe him nor fealty nor homage

Am nor his serf nor bitch

Who fed me on corn dodgers

And water one whole summer

Proved pure stingy, "beneficent" less than tight,

God render unto him what he to me. 

And if anyone objects

And calls this blasphemy

Well, feel me, it aint idle

Bad-mouthing

I have worse to say

If that's mercy he was showing

Jesus king of paradise

Commend, body and soul, the like to him.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Shy Canadianismo by nature (“having none hath no care to defend it”), Guy Birchard has been just a mother tongue poetry bum these many years with small official second language.  

This is Birchard’s second chapbook with above/ground press, after VALEDICTIONS (2019).

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 at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com