[photo of jwcurry, sewing more copies of bpNichol's HOLIDAY] Another fair,
come and gone. In the fall, we celebrate nineteen years of our semi-annual ottawa small press book fair. How did we get here? How did I get here? My thanks to
everyone who participated!
And can you
believe it? Amanda Earl has already posted her post-fair report, here.
Toronto ON: Former Ottawa poet Suzannah Showler has been getting a lot of attention lately, between being announced as a finalist for the 2013 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers from the Writers’ Trust of Canada,
and being included in The Walrus’
list of “the six best writers you’ve never heard of,” as well as the fact
that she has a first trade poetry collection out next year with ECW Press.
Bardia Sinaee’s Odourless Press [see his recent 12 or 20 (small press) questions here] has just released her small chapbook, Sucks To Be You and other true taunts (May
2013) [see Michael Dennis’ recent review of same here], a five-poem collection
of short, polished lyrics. Conversational in tone, these short pieces have
taunt-titles such as “I know you are, but what am I?,” “takes one to know one”
and “stop hitting yourself.” The taunting-aggression is appealing and bring an intriguing
punch to the writing.
why don’t you go home and cry about it?
I have a
feeling about a very slow
apocalypse where
we are all drawn
back to our
hometowns by something
like a magnet
that attracts whatever
inside us is
most mediocre and true.
So, when the
world begins to end,
if you have a
minute, please promise
to tell me
more about all the other
people you’ve
fucked, how they
had skin
almost too firm to register
touch, how
their pussies were basically
luminescent,
and, in particular, I’d like
to know in
what order their clothes
came off when
they undressed,
because I’ll need
something
to think
about when I am caught,
post-apocalyptically,
in Ottawa,
Ontario, the
capital of Canada,
where my
parents still live.
Their other
spring title is Matthew Walsh’s CLOUDPEOPLE (May 2013). Another former Ottawa
poet, Walsh’s CLOUDPEOPLE contains a lyric looseness that occasionally falters,
and could use a bit of tightening, although the poem “I’m Condoleezza Rice”
contains a playfulness and humour that makes up for the occasional awkward
tweak. As he writes in his rhythmic-tone, “I’m Condoleezza Rice / but I can’t
play piano / I can’t play the blues but I can / tell a good riddle.” The leaps
between lines and their disconnect, when done well, are impressive, yet he
loses control when poems are stretched too far, too long. One gets the
impression that Walsh is still working through an apprenticeship of what works
in his writing, and how best to compose each piece. One of the strongest pieces
in this collection is the nine-poem sequence “Cloud Grape,” which manages to
contain the disconnect in a way that brings a spark to each leap. The first
section of the poem reads:
Just ignore
me. I’m feeling
better now. It’s
just been a while
since I turned your ear. I’m Lying
in Sorauren Park watching a woman
count the
rings
on a tree stump. I want
to lean in
and make an
inquiry. How long
it was married to the earth?
I see her
again in Mimico contemplating
a pair of XXL
Scooby Doo underwear
writing in her notepad. Talking to a pigeon. People
can be a real
menace.
Ottawa ON: Between his chapbook through The Olive Reading Series,
and two chapbooks (one, two) with above/ground press, Excerpts from Impossible Books: The Apt. 9 Installment (June 2013)
is the fourth published section of Ottawa poet Stephen Brockwell’s
work-in-progress, scheduled for trade publication sometime over the next year from
Toronto’s Mansfield Press. Edited, published and hand-sewn by Cameron Anstee,
Apt. 9 Press has become one of the more engaged micro presses in the country,
producing some of the most enviable books I’ve seen in a long time. Launched with
two further spring titles by Apt. 9 Press—by Jeff Blackman and Christine McNair—to
a packed house at Raw Sugar Café in Ottawa’s Chinatown, the eight poems in Excerpts from Impossible Books: The Apt. 9
Installment have a slightly different feel from previously-published works
in the same series, not just for the difference in poem-length (ranging from
the short quirk to the longer lyric). Engaging with an ongoing exploration of
voice, science, mathematics and the formal lyric, the poems in this collection
seem less a series of fragments of a larger project than a handful of poems
that encapsulate the project as a whole. Is this a shift in his writing
generally, or simply the focused-end of a lengthy project? Either way, I eagerly
await the finished collection.
from The
Lightning Harvest
Designs for a Practical Capacitor
A Leyden jar
the size of the moon
on the
horizon in Arizona, or
a capacitor
of concrete
from all the
floors of Abraj Al Bait.
A paper
condenser of the recycled
pages of
every printed book, or
the Library
of Congress, each page
of 29 million
volumes taking a small charge.
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