the green notebook : , regarding a snow day,

Today is a snow day, with school buses cancelled for both children, as well as Rose’s basketball tournament. Her team was scheduled to land at Ashbury College, a private school in Rockcliffe Park. The late Matthew Perry (1969-2023) went there, you know, as did Ottawa poet Max Middle (pseudonym of Mark Robertson). Up to 10cm today, online sources suggest. I should probably move the car up the driveway, for the sake of the snowplow.

Today is a snow day. Each school sends an email, and Christine forwards, to make sure I saw. She is in Edmonton all this week running courses for work. Edmonton, far warmer than here, at least this week. Above zero, she says. Yesterday, we were minus twelve, which was an improvement over the prior few days. Once again, I pick up Etel Adnan, her Surge (2018):

I also hear the air flowing with it, its unbroken surface leading one’s imagination to more water, more destabilization, more wind.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve gone through four drafts of proofs for my collection Snow day (2025), a book out as soon as we clear all corrections. A sequence of sequences, held by the title sequence, one composed at the prompt of another snow day, back in 2019. The snow fell and it fell and both children remained home.

I’m all for a snow day. I’m tempted to return to the extended prose poem, as I did for the original “snow day” poem, six years ago. How different or similar I might play with the form. Where might this go.

Our young ladies in their corners, on their devices. They are eight and eleven years old. The snow, falls. Outside, the snowplow. If everything, seasons. The snowplow, attends. The ground, and the groundless. A stellar cold. For why, the lament. Alta Vista: snow descends in straight lines. These shadows, blue. The rules of the game. Nothing rests. What the tides don’t permit.

Yesterday, a cluster of birds.

Rose is attending a craft. If anyone, to witness. Can I have this box. I want to make something out of this box. Yes, you can have that box.

*

A temporality. Emails, from both of their schools, from the snowplow company. It is here, it is coming. Snow. How many words for it. Remain in your homes, they say. Our young ladies, relieved. Blizzard, onding. An outcrop of flurries.

The air, a crispness. A sharp edge. I brush layers from the car, abandon sentences. Return to the house.

Mid-morning, I tell the young ladies to put away their devices. They spend the rest of the day taking turns coming in to request things or register their complaints of the other. By early afternoon, a silence. They are in the dining room, quietly playing a card game.

As I wrote on social media, responding to another: my poems these days seem to be composed through me stepping directly into the middle of the poem and pushing out in every direction, until I am finally able to free myself.

I used to write poems that began at the beginning and moved their ways forward until finding the end. It seems I do something else, now.

*

Jeff Weingarten prods me via email, reminding me that I agreed to write a blurb for the collected letters of John Newlove, which he’s been working on for more years than he would probably wish to consider. Apparently the collection is due to land in print this year. After a few back-and-forths, we agree on this as my blurb for the back cover:

It is good to hear John’s voice again through these letters, back from those days when letters (well before the advent of emails, text messages) were a stronger means of communication between writers, between poets. As Weingarten offers in his detailed introduction, this is where battles were fought, shots were lobbied, generosities offered and questions answered, all of which John composed in thoughtful detail. Every gesture was for the sake of the work. Weingarten puts the spotlight on an important Canadian poet and the context in which he existed, across a wide-ranging literature.

Winnipeg poet and lawyer Chimwemwe Undi is announced as Canada’s 11th Parliamentary Poet Laureate. From her Scientific Marvel (2024): “All that distance, / built.”

*

The snowfall eases, drifts. By mid-afternoon, the streets and sidewalks plowed, some more than once. More than a few times. I convince the young ladies to get dressed, and we prepare to head out for Aoife’s ukulele lesson. Our first and only outing.

 

VERSeFest (mini) 2024 : a report from the ground,

In case you hadn't heard, we did a mini-"fall into VERSeFest" in November, all part of our rebuilding period for our much beloved poetry festival, heading into our sixteenth year with current plans for spring 2025 programming. Can you believe it? And you know, we do have charitable status, if you are ever open to sending a donation our way. What might spring bring?

And you caught my report on our spring 2024 festival as well, yes?

Our November trio of nights opened on Thursday, November 28 at RedBird Live in Old Ottawa South with the delightful Madeleine Stratford as host, filling in for the scheduled host Stephen Brockwell, who was unable; she played up that she was Stephen Brockwell, "not feeling myself," and looking like another, a poet and translator. The evening held a quartet of stunning readings. Nova Scotia poet Alice Burdick read from her new poetry title with Anvil Press, Ox Lost, Snow Deep (2024) [did you see my recent interview with her here], and it was interesting to hear her stretch the possibilities of her work through the long poem [catch my review of her new book here, in case you missed]. She even conducted a small afternoon in-person poetry workshop as part of the festival on Saturday afternoon,

Following Burdick, Ottawa/Burlington poet Manahil Bandukwala [catch my recent interview with her here] launched her second full-length title with Brick Books, Heliotropia (2024), a book I'm still waiting to get my hands on (perhaps as the mail starts up again), accompanied by her "electric guitar boyfriend," Liam Burke. Our French-language Ottawa poet laureate Véronique Sylvain followed, offering poems from her second collection, which launched only a few weeks prior through Éditions Prise de parole.

And, to close out our opening evening, Cobourg, Ontario poet, editor, writer, publisher, events organizer etcetera Stuart Ross (who had also edited Alice Burdick's latest collection, as well as her prior), launching his new poetry title with Coach House Books, a publisher he offered he'd been waiting decades to work with: The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky (2024) [see my review of such here; see my essay on his short fiction as well here]. The collection does seem a culmination of everything he's accomplished to date, and I'm curious to see where he might go with his work next.

Our second night, Friday, November 29, opened in the Arts Court Studio with an event celebrating fifteen years of Urban Legends (who have been running spoken word poetry workshops, in case you weren't aware), hosting performances by three of their current/former directors, opening with Billie Nell, who I thought stole the show. As they said as part of the event (and others have said over the past couple of years as well), spoken word in and around Ottawa is but a shadow of its former self, and I admire greatly that these folk are working to keep the form current, active and relevant (attend their workshops!).

Apollo the Child [above] is always a solid performer, one of the standards of the Ottawa scene for some time, and he even had copies of a recent publication, with a further publication to appear soon in the new year. Much like Billie Nell, the work of Playto aka Panos was entirely new to me, and he performed a handful of poems that focused on new and recent parenthood (with one of his small children in the crowd, also).

Our second event of the evening was hosted by Ottawa poet and newly-minted VERSe Ottawa board member (with a debut novel forthcoming, you know) Ben Ladouceur. The first reader was Ottawa-favourite Chuqiao Yang (clearly the lighting in the space changed, and these photos seem terrible, don't they?), reading from her long-awaited full-length poetry debut, The Last to the Party (Goose Lane Editions, 2024) [see my review of such here].

Admittedly, I was extra excited to hear from Montreal-based poet Faith Paré, who is doing remarkable work, and even moreso when one considers she hasn't yet a full-length book [see the interview I did with her earlier this year, prior to her winning the Bronwen Wallace Award].

It had been a while since I'd heard Vancouver poet Stephen Collis read in person (most likely in spring 2013; I have a recollection of him reading in Ottawa back then), here to launch his latest poetry title from Talonbooks, The Middle (2024) [see my review of such here]. It is interesting to hear how his work has progressed, becoming more expansive and thoughtful as he moves ever forward, extending his lyric reach ever outward, even as his work becomes more grounded, intimate.

Our final event came the following afternoon (including some attendees from Alice Burdick's afternoon poetry workshop) at The Manx Pub, hosted by Ottawa English-language Poet Laureate David O'Meara and his Plan 99 Reading Series, a packed house to hear our final trio of exceptional poets [catch my interview with O'Meara on his laureateship here]. To open the afternoon was Kingston-based poet, writer and filmmaker Armand Garnet Ruffo [see my recent interview with him here]. He used to live in Ottawa, you know, so a whole slew of audience was there to hear him, especially that he was launching a new title with Wolsak and Wynn, The Dialogues: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow (2024).

Current Winnipeg Poet Laureate Chimwemwe Undi followed, reading from her Governor General's Award for Poetry winning (debut!) title, Scientific Marvel (Anansi, 2024) [see my review of such here], an award she won between announcing our line-up and her landing in Ottawa to read (so extra kudos to O'Meara's curation for this particular event). She did mention how unreal the award seemed to her, and expecting that she could still hear from them that the award was supposed to go to someone else instead, akin to Moonlight [the Academy Award "envelope-gate" debacle from 2017, in case you'd forgot]. I suggested that, no, she was not the La La Land of Canadian poetry.

It was good to have Dutch poet Erik Lindner back in Ottawa! He's read in town a few times over the past decade-plus, starting with an event years back through the Ottawa International Writers Festival. He read his poems in Dutch, and David O'Meara read from English translation, some of which came from his Words are the Worst: Selected Poems, as translated by Francis Jones (Vehicule Press, 2021).

Thank you to our host and our venues, and everyone who helped out! Thank you to the City of Ottawa and the Dutch Embassy for support! Thanks to Brian Pirie for his web design and ongoing assistance! And to the current VERSe Ottawa board, without whom this couldn't have happened at all.

Keep an eye on our website! We're hoping to announce an occasional series of in-person poetry workshops in the new year, and of course our spring festival! We've already been having meetings, you know. And did you hear we're hoping to announce the next nominees for our Hall of Honour come spring? Stay tuned!

VERSeFest (mini) festival, Fall Into VERSeFest: Nov 28-30, 2024 : schedule now online!

VERSeFest (mini) festival, Fall Into VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival : Nov 28-30, 2024 : schedule now online!

readings and performances by Manahil Bandukwala, Alice Burdick, Stuart Ross, Véronique Sylvain, Sergio Guerra aka Cheko7even, Apollo the Child, Playto aka Panos, Stephen Collis, Chuqiao Yang, Faith Paré [pictured], Armand Garnet Ruffo, Erik Lindner and Chimwemwe Undi, and an in-person afternoon workshop with Alice Burdick! Urban Legends! Plan99!

Tickets now available for Thurs via RedBird! https://www.verseottawa.ca/en/versefest

Chimwemwe Undi, Scientific Marvel: Poems

 

AGAINST “MANITOBA”

Build a province of our absence,
and that province comes to pass

And it passes legislation, and the legislation
is profuse with the absence you allege.

I suggest your unseeing has its consequence.

I suggest the coasts unmoor you,
and those distant cities fit your heads.

Your bad spell echoes in this centre
of emptying centres. We measure wheat

in seeds. Your insistence follows
your gaps, a needle

leaving two holes and one stitch.

From 2023-24 Winnipeg poet laureate Chimwemwe Undi comes the impressive full-length poetry debut, Scientific Marvel: Poems (Toronto ON: Anansi, 2024), a sharp and self-aware assemblage of prairie gestures, lyrics and examinations. “Good practice is dissolving my beloved / into traits,” she writes, as part of the opening poem, “PROPERTY 101,” “either useful / or distinct.” Undi is well aware of Winnipeg streets and prior descriptions, citing specific local markers such as prairie sky, Portage and Main and the works of John K. Samson and Guy Maddin, two other Winnipeg artists deeply immersed in articulating their love of this shared space. Undi’s is a love equally thoughtful, critical and filled with light, offering sparkle and wit, humour and deep critique. “A beautiful country,” she writes, to open the poem “GRUNTHAL, MANITOBA (2019),” “so full of breath / The sky as wide open as a howling throat // My throat as wide open as a prairie sky / As blue, as hungry to ungive what’s been taken // You can’t give back what has been taken / Unname the place named what it already is [.]”

This is an impressive collection, one comfortably powerful, without the awkward stretches of so many other debuts; she knows full well what she is doing, without any sense of showiness or hesitation, but a calm understanding of her own lyric, her own strength. “Taking its title,” as the press release offers, “from a beauty school in downtown Winnipeg that closed in 2017 after nearly 100 years of operation,” the lyrics of Undi’s Scientific Marvel investigate and interrogate the landscape of Winnipeg as city and cultural space, articulating alternate perspectives on what had so long been assumed, presumed or simply ignored. She writes a field guide of gestures, expectations, absolute delights and utter losses. “every horizontal edge the city hesitates,” she writes, as part of “FIELD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA,” “and they die in such numbers / with such specifity that scientists / name it and watch unmoved [.]” Undi tethers her lyrics to these local histories, that sense of Winnipeg space, fully acknowledging the self-described lineages through lovely, performative gestures, guttural markers and lines composed as direct offerings turned sideways. “It is bigger than its targets,” the short poem “IN DEFENCE OF THE WINNIPEG POEM” reads, in full, mid-way through the collection, “& still small, & there is nothing to do // & so much to be done, & here // at the centre of a bad invention, // it is, in fact, pretty cold.”

Undi includes, sprinked through the book, a thread of erasures out of the text of “Baker v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration),” a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, in which Mavis Baker, a Jamaican woman who had lived in Canada without status for more than a decade, appealed for fairness in regards to potential deportation, in part due to her having given birth to four children while living and working in Canada. Undi uses these erasures to write of erasure itself, a kind of prairie insistence to set aside what might not fit neatly into presumed categories. Through her interrogations, Undi continues a thread of articulating prairie Blackness that has become more prevalent over the past few years, sitting alongside books such as Bertrand Bickersteth “Writing Black Alberta” through The Response of Weeds: A Misplacement of Black Poetry on the Prairies (Edmonton AB: NeWest Press, 2020) and The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, ed. Karina Vernon (Waterloo ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020). For Undi, specifically, it is Winnipeg, the city that loves to hate to love itself, and all within. “What else // will we cleave? The light before / and after,” she writes, as part of “SPRING, OR SPIRAL IN THREE PARTS,” “the smokeless air.”