report from the mansfield launch, toronto: mclennan, brockwell, dennis etc

This past Monday night in Toronto, Mansfield Press hosted an evening of book launches, including five poetry titles—Amy Dennis' The Sleep Orchard [see my review of such here], Anton Pooles' Ghost Walk, Candace de Taeye's Pronounced / Workable, Corrado Paina's Changing Residence: New and Selected Poems and Stephen Brockwell's Immune to the Sacred [see my review of such here]—as well as my suite of pandemic essays, covering the first one hundred days of original Covid-19 lockdown, essays in the face of uncertainties [I also have copies available, if anyone is so inclined]. It was a very good night! Although the lighting was odd, and more than a wee bit distracting (it kept changing colours, which meant the lighting shifted, and we all each stumbled a bit during our individual sets, finding difficulty with seeing properly). And yes, most if not all of the crowd were masked (unmasking only to read, obviously). And our dear publisher, Denis, was even good enough to post a small report on the event, as well as a lovely post referencing me, my book, and some of my own ongoing reviewing and interviewing work.

Everyone gave stellar readings, naturally. It was particularly interesting, as I hadn't actually heard most of these writers read, so that was good. And there were plenty of folk there I hadn't seen in some time, from Stephen Cain and Sharon Harris, Andy Weaver, Jennifer LoveGrove, Phlip Arima, Carol Harvey Steski and Catherine Graham! Stephen and I travelled to Toronto by train, only staying overnight, but managing to catch a good amount of breath after a flurry of other recent activities and events. Oh, and we saw Mark Goldstein prior to the event, who was unable to come through, but at least we managed to get a good update on his doings. And I got to hang out with Jennifer LoveGrove after! I can't even remember the last time I got to do that. It was curious to realize that the upstairs space of the venue was actually where I'd launched with Mansfield prior, back in 2019, for A halt, which is empty, launching alongside Tim Conley and others. Doesn't that seem like forever ago?

Jennifer LoveGrove

And I even manged to convince Stephen to play pinball with me! Right at the end of the evening, last to leave (naturally). Oh, and did I mention we saw David O'Meara on the train ride back home the next morning?

rob launches the pandemic essays in toronto on dec 5th! with other mansfield authors launching! you should come out!

Mansfield Press
Book Launch — Join Us! 

Toronto: Monday, December 5 · 7:00 pm
Monarch Tavern, 12 Clinton St.

Stephen Brockwell
Immune to the Sacred [see my review of such here]

Amy Dennis
The Sleep Orchard

Candace de Taeye
Pronounced / Workable

rob mclennan
essays in the face of uncertainties

Corrado Paina
Changing Residence

Anton Pooles
Ghost Walk

For media enquiries or further information call 416-532-2086

or contact info@mansfieldpress.net

www.mansfieldpress.net

Ongoing notes: Meet the Presses (part six,

[Gary Barwin, composing; whether a poem, an email or himself, I do not know]

God sakes, how much, exactly, did I pick up at this Toronto’s Meet the Presses’ annual Indie Literary Market [see part fiveof my notes here; and my most recent post on what I gathered at the ottawasmall press book fair]? Even more than this! Will I keep going? How did I even get all of this material home?

Toronto ON: from Gap Riot Press comes Pennsylvania poet Abby Minor’s latest, the chapbook Real Words for inside (2018), following her debut, Plant Light, Dress Light (dancing girl press, 2016). Real Words for inside is a single, extended lyric with a further, shorter poem, “Water Coda,” set at the end, as well as a short excerpt tipped in, which is itself printed on handmade paper (“This paper is filled with wildflower seeds. Plant it and watch it grow.”). Writing a first-person sequence of stitched-together narratives, Minor’s poem (as this collection does feel like a single poem) is expansive and exploratory, writing out meditations on family relations and other personal/interpersonal details that get a bit complicated, and even messy. How does one become, and even be? How does one manage to exist, or even move through the world at all, let alone gracefully and in a way that remains emotionally and physically healthy? As she writes: “Crisscrossing the West Virginia- / Pennsylvania border with gunpowder on their hands / these are the men from whom I come & you can tell / when you talk to me / that I am made of energy & / particles.”

In the beginning was I went

to a sleepover party at which

the party trick was everyone

tries on the mother’s wedding dress & have her

picture taken & go out back

and dare to lick the salt lick. I loved

my neighbor & I loved her mom who

gave me chocolate yoohoo sticks but

I didn’t want to put it in I cries

and called to go home it was too

big for us we stuck out

the top like tiny dehydrated climbers

on a great, snow-covered mountain.

I cried & called to go home I didn’t want

to be a mystery I wanted

to be funny. I rode home shot-

gun in my dad’s pea-green

Chevy in the dark in the foot-

hills of the Allegheny Front.

Toronto ON: Another from Anstruther Press is Anton Pooles’ latest, the chapbook MONSTER 36 (2018), following his self-published collection FAR FROM MAN (2017). MONSTER 36 is a collection of short, first-person scenes, composing lyrics akin to miniature films. These are curious short pieces, and Pooles’ narratives twist and contort in unusual ways, providing both a directness and a surreal bent, articulating out a kind of dark and darkness that even the monsters might be fearful of.

THE SEA

She placed the note on the kitchen counter and opened the blue-glass window to let sea air fill the room. Her blue dress trapped the wind and she sailed down from where her hill house stood like a weathervane. Down from the hills and the winds and everything else that rises, down to the shore where the lighthouse’s ray spins like a doll in a music-box. Down there she dances slowly.