[Gap Riot Press (my table faced the back of theirs)]
See my first post on what I collected at the fair, here; and my second post here;
and my third post here. Just how much did I even collect at this fair that you
missed out on? There were so many things! And I am totally going to keep
pushing these two other fairs: TODAY’S MEET THE PRESSES IN TORONTO and the 25th anniversary event for our own ottawa small press book fair nextweekend, on November 23rd (and pre-fair reading the night prior). I will see you at one of these events, at least, right? I mean: how can
you resist such small press marvelousness?
Ottawa/Burlington ON: Part of what I’ve found
intriguing about Ottawa poet nina jane drystek’s work over the past couple of
years has been realizing the wide range of experimentation and formal/stylistic
shifts she’s been exploring. I think it was Chris Johnson who had pointed it
out to me, how one can’t necessarily get a handle on drystek’s ongoing work due
to the wild, experimental shifts from prose to lyric to visual to sound: she
refuses, it would appear, to hold to the same structures for too long, more
interested in exploration than positioning. One of her latest publications is knewro suite (Simulacrum Press, 2019), a
triptych of works for multiple voices: “wokern 3vs, kewro suite part one [ three
voices ],” “krownervs, knewro suite part two [ two voices ]” and “3 noks werv,
knewro suite part three [ three voices ].” From the first to the third piece,
the three threads exist separately but concurrently, weave into each other, and
then exist, again, side by side but with short breaks of breath and space.
drystek
has been working with Ottawa poet jwcurry for a while now through the most
recent incarnation of his ongoing Messagio Galore sound poetry ensemble [see my report on an earlier incarnation of such here], and
curry is great for bringing people out of themselves, as well as encouraging
participants to bring new, original works to the group for potential inclusion.
One thing I know, also, is how curry has discussed the difficulty, as well as
the openness, of attempting notation for sound works, given the lack (perhaps
deliberately so, in some cases) of any kind of standardization in sound poetry
notational symbols (I suspect even to attempt such a structure might be
near-impossible, although not completely impossible). The lack of such a standardization
means that different performers might perform even a singular piece entirely
differently. I would be interested in hearing this work performed, not only
once, but multiple times, and listening to hear both the differences, and the
potential repetitions between performances.
Vancouver BC/Toronto
ON:
Vancouver writer, artist and editor (including for The Capilano Review) Matea Kulić’s second chapbook, following Frau. L (Perro Verlag Books by Artists,
2016), is PAPER WORK (Anstruther
Press, 2019). PAPER WORK is an
assemblage of short clever pieces that play with formality, paperwork and
perspective, turning the daily grind of office labour into something that concurrently
twists into the directly surreal and absurd, even if just by speaking plainly
of what has long been taken for granted.
Weather
[Drafts]
By the time you arrive back at the office your
feet are soaked.
The sky—verging
opened up on top of you.
At your desk, the big left toe peeled off the
right sock, the big right toe peeled off the left.
A man was washing himself in the window of a
rundown shop—you recall now—
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes as you passed
by & continued
on
the way
to your livelihood.
Kulić’s
poems include a form letter for acknowledging, rejecting or accepting cultural
works for production, responding to generic emails, an attempt to change
marital status for GST payments, lunch breaks, forms, forms and more forms. These
poems are absolutely delightful, and I want to see more of them.
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