Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part one: Bardia Sinaee + George Bowering,

Another fair has come and gone! Thanks to everyone who participated, from exhibitors to volunteers to readers to audience! And did you see I made shortbread? Be sure to save the date for this November, when the fair will turn thirty-one years old. That’s pretty exciting, yes? I’m already working on dates for June and November 2026 (which feels a million years away, I know). And of course, see my reviews from last fall’s thirtieth anniversary ottawa small press fair here (parts one, two, three), or last fall’s Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Small Press Market (parts one, two, three, four) or even my notes from last spring’s ottawa small press book fair (parts one, two, three). So much small and micro press activity! Here are the first of my notes from what I picked up this time around:

Ottawa ON: The latest from Ottawa poet Bardia Sinaee, author of Intruder (Anansi, 2021) [see my review of such here], is the chapbook Flinch (2025), a title, according to the colophon, “was co-published by Skunkworks and Horsebroke Press [a press run by Ottawa poet Jeff Blackman] in Ottawa in May 2025 and distributed as issue 33 of These Days Zine.” There’s almost a wistful distance, a wistful quality, to these poems, offering a bit of distance across first-person observations so deeply personal, even intimate. “I can’t / remember why / I walked into / this room,” the poem “Still Life” begins, “with its / packed-away smell / & painting / of a water mill [.]” There’s such a lovely and delicate nuance to these short musings, these short narratives, one that holds an edge but not by displaying that edge; one that provides a clarity beyond clarity, and into a far deeper understanding of beauty, and life, such as the last three stanzas of the two-page final poem in the collection, “Love Poem,” that reads: “I don’t / miss the cancer / or the ward / but the time / we snuck into // the shower / we thought / would be our / last together / I loved shampooing / your hair // it was like / breathing / under water [.]”

Household items

after receiving the literary prize
I upgraded to ocean-friendly tuna
I finally cleaned the microwave
then thinking better of it
ordered a new microwave 

spruce tips in antique pinch bowls
reed diffusers in lavender oil
I curated the air
carrying on like I had always
known refinement 

we are instructed to do the negative
the positive is already
within us, wrote Kafka
who would have liked
to be a loaf of hard bread 

that’s why I keep my mind
smooth as a pearl
grown from a splinter
a poem is not a wild animal
roving the page 

a poem is not a journey
it is always already here
anyone can access it
with only a few household items
& ten thousand dollars

Phil Hall, Canadian poet

Vancouver BC/Cobourg ON: From Stuart Ross’ Proper Tales Press comes an odd assortment of poems from Vancouver writer and troublemaker George Bowering, the chapbook Phil Hall (2025), a collection with a photograph of Perth, Ontario writer and editor Phil Hall by Paul Elter on the front and back cover, as well as within, although the poems in this collection may or may not have anything to do with that particular Phil Hall. These are poems by Canadian poet George Bowering that reference Canadian poet Phil Hall, playing with a slightly fictional Phil Hall that may or may not resemble the actual writer. As the opening piece, “Notes on the Life of the Canadian Poet Phil Hall” begins: “Phil Hall once took a jar of sand from a beach on the west coast of Costa Rica to Chad and emptied it into the Sahara. A companion reported him as saying, ‘Find that, you arseholes.’” These pieces are delightfully odd, with narratives running from the entirely plausible into the completely implausible, running a fine line between the two until, of course, Bowering takes the whole surrealist play up a level. With poem-titles including such as “Phil Hall and the Chickadee,” “Phil Hall and My Mother,” “Phil Hall’s Macaw” and “The Mallade of Phil Hall,” this is a delightfully odd and entertaining small collection, one I entirely recommend you pick up a copy of. Although, I probably should have asked: What does Canadian poet Phil Hall think of all of this?

Phil’s Fiction

Over a warm October week in Oliver I wrote a terrific love poem to my wife, who was visiting friends in Cumberland.
            Then one afternoon it rained, so there was no orchard work, so Phil Hall sat down for an hour and wrote what I knew was a better poem for her.
            They were nice about it. They sent me a postcard from Cumberland.
            I decided to quit poetry and wrote a story about lost love and orchard work.
            Phil wrote a story while having lunch with some of my Vancouver friends. It won a prize in a Victoria literary magazine.
            Over seven years I wrote a novel about a matricide in Vancouver. It made the short list in a national creative writing contest. Phil came in the winner. And wrote three other books on the short list under pen names.
            They sent me a nice postcard from Ottawa.