post ghost press: Deglane, Jordan + small poems for the masses

what’s left of the wild animals,

the rainforests, the savannahs,

will eat human corpse after corpse

until their descendants no longer

hear tales of the soft-skinned

two-legged monsters. (Wanda Deglane)

I’m pleased to see the emergence of another micro poetry press, especially in Ottawa, over the past few months, with publications appearing regularly by post ghost press, “a tiny publisher of microchapbooks and other strange projects, committed to publishing something new, weird, and lovable every month.” Three recent publications I’ve managed to get my hands on include the anthology zine small poems for the masses volume one (September 2018), things that will happen after the end of the world no one will be around to witness, a poem by Wanda Deglane (2018) and CALCIFICATION by Susannah Jordan (2018). I really like the updated 1990s cut and paste feel of these tiny zines, full-colour sheets of images with text literally cut and pasted in as strips. small poems for the masses volume one is the first volume (obviously) of a series of small anthologies focused on the small poem, and this current volume, at least, includes a single poem per poet, one to a page, with pieces by Alex Everette, Frances Boyle, Juliana Rupchan, Kristin LaFollette, Katy DeCoste and Erin Emily Ann Vance—but for Boyle and Vance, the contributors to all three of these publications are entirely unknown to me, and the lack of author biographies, a peeve I seem to forever hold, is less of an issue here (although it makes it far more difficult to provide links for authors, if I have no idea where they are situated, or anything about them). This is a press that appears to favour and focus on the emerging, and there is a good energy to these small publications, one that easily comes through every publication.

athena

when we drive the ravine rushes by

you sound lost feel lost are lost in

your red flannel your levis your doc martens

everything orange and blue blurry

and neat– something about fall feels

lost– and dirty– like a t-shirt shed in the

backseat of the volkswagen and never

taken inside to be washed like the coffee

cup you keep reusing without rinsing

because it’s just coffee without any milk (Katy DeCoste)

For anyone interested in their publications, they do have an extensive website, as well as an Etsy store, and will be tabling this June, for the first time, at the ottawa small press book fair.