Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part two: Stuart Ross, Claire Sherwood + Jeff Blackman,

Here are some further items I recently picked up as part of our thirtieth anniversary ottawa small press book fair [see part one of my notes here]. So many things! And might we see you this weekend at our mini-VERSeFest festival, running Thursday through Saturday? Tickets for the Thursday night reading available now through RedBird Live!

Cobourg ON/Montreal QC: I hadn’t been aware of this wee title by award-winning Cobourg, Ontario poet, fiction writer, editor and publisher Stuart Ross [see my review of his latest poetry collection here; my piece on his recent short story collection here], his a very little street (Montreal QC: Turret House Press, 2023). This is a curious structure, two numbered sequences that suggest a far larger, more expansive work-in-progress, with the eleven-part opening, “1. The Highway,” and seven-part “2. The Doughnut.” There is something in this sequence, this pair of sequences set as part of (possibly) something longer, reminiscent of bpNichol’s novel Still (Vancouver BC: Pulp Press, 1983), the manuscript of which won the 5^th International 3-Day Novel Writing Contest. Across that small book, Nichol described the room he was in with enormous detail; in a very little street, Ross describes a moment across a particular unnamed street, moving out across recollection and points across an expansive lyric map, as the chapbook opens: “One hundred and seven kilometres / of highway. Clouds roar through the sky. // Running shoes dangle from telephone wires. / Clouds of gnats. The smouldering ruins. // And my history: a red-brick barbecue / my father built in nineteen seventy-four. // The backyard patio’s pink and green / ceramic tiles.” Utilizing the highway, the sequence, as a kind of prompt, Ross weaves and meanders across a meditative assemblage of accumulated couplets, driving for as long as he can, just to see where he goes. He writes a highway into a street, and a street into a recollection, allowing the structure as a kind of catch-all for memory, a variation on the book-length poem Vancouver poet Michael Turner wrote on another rather lengthy street, Kingsway (Vancouver BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1995). As Ross writes across his sequence-thread, as part of the second section:

through our streets every day. We saw him
beaming every day. He clutched the handle

and bellowed a song in Hebrew, manoeuvred
the rattling cart. The giant ant mass undulated,

animated. The wheels of Arnie’s shopping
cart screeched against the sidewalk. He wore

baggy jeans and a faded blue T-shirt
that said Hey Hey We’re the Monkees. His shoulders

quaked with the vibrations. The crooked wheels
faced every direction. A hand of lightning

snatched the bag my hand grasped,
tore it from my grip. A doughnut. A doughnut

rose from the paper bag, dangled from
the claws of three white doves. It ascended

Manahil Bandukwala (Brick Books), wishing to recreate the 'grumpy poet' sequence of photos from the prior post,

Montreal QC: The opening reader of our pre-fair event at Anina’s Café (a wonderful new café in Ottawa’s Vanier neighbourhood, I should add) was “Montreal writer, visual poet, and oral storyteller” Claire Sherwood, reading from her chapbook sequence, Eat your words (Montreal QC: Turret House Press, 2024). As she writes at the offset:

This poem is an interrogation of memory, a fluid autobiography. Swirling with intergenerational flavours and aromas. Stirring, blending, beating, scraping the sides of the bowl to find the right words. Struggling with separation, painful endings. Searching for home.

This is a poem struggling to be a poem. Words are impossible to control. Nothing is static. Memory continually reorders and reframes archived slices of the past. Loops and lines write the story. Is it leftovers? Am I home?

Across Sherwood’s twenty-eight page/part sequence, she writes through an accumulation of memory centred around her mother’s cookbook, threading what seem like childhood recollections and precise questions, open secrets and gestures. There’s a lot of information packed in here, and her poems read like lists, offering layers of nuance between lines, one set atop of the other. “Is it dragging your feet,” she writes, early on in the collection. “Is it a leg up / Is it the hand of friendship / Is it losing old friends [.]”

Is it too many cooks
Is it the wrong pan
Is it returned to the oven
Is it a complete shambles
Is it terminal
Is it treatable
Is it roaring back to life
Is it mightier than the sword
Is it easier said than done
Is it one horse and one cow sharing a meadow
Is it ever easy to find the right words

Pearl Pirie, phafours

Kingston/Ottawa ON: I was intrigued to see that Kingston editor/publisher Michael e. Casteels had produced, through his Puddles of Sky Press, a small chapbook item (sixty copies hand printed, hand sewn, within an envelope) by Ottawa poet and publisher Jeff Blackman, his IN THE BRINY (November 2024). Anyone who has seen a Puddles of Sky item knows there is a detailed and graceful ease to these publications, and there is a spare element to these poems I appreciate, one that allows moments of density, hesitation, spark and flourish in contained and compact spaces, such as the poem “In It,” that begins: “Honestly / I want less to do / with my body // but the body / has a poem / I want [.]” There is such an intriguing slow and careful attention here, a perfect blend of text and production. Or the second half of the poem “HR,” that reads:

       how this
     poem ends

     but not yet, friend.

 

 

                        Look,
your ride’s here.

 

Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part four,

[some of the above/ground press spread]

Here’s another batch of items I picked up at the most recent ottawa small press book fair [see part three of this list here; see the most recent list from Toronto’s Meet the Presses]; these lists sure are giving the impression that the small press in Canada is pretty darned healthy and active these days, don’t you think? Why not support one or two of these presses by picking up some publications? Yes. I think that’s the best idea here.

Ottawa ON: I was quite humbled to realize that Pearl Pirie had been working on a plunder of my own works as a manuscript of poems, resulting in the small chapbook rob, plunder, gift (battleaxe press, 2018). As she read from such as part of the pre-ottawa small press book fair event, it was very strange hearing lines I recognized from my own multiple poems (even if I couldn’t place them or their context, necessarily), some going back more years than I care to count.

The old excesses

do you know what horizons hold?

a capacity to hold, hold

could you even see the smoke, imagine

bringing smallpox in blankets & jars

I stand here in past tense

blood rises up from the warm earth & smells

of coincidence, & hey, you too.     blocks

in a caretaker’s grid

& shallow certainties; abrasive noise

I emerge from each breath

pressing keyholes w/ glow-sticks

penetrate the interior

like alien dust

through a river

The effect really is curious, as Pirie composes new poems out of the bones of my own fragments, creating both new poems and a strange kind of collaboration between our words and effects. Still, what really impresses is the extensive list of sources at the back of the collection, seemingly as long as the manuscript itself, and will provide some potential graduate student weeks of entertainment through searching and comparing. Oddly enough, seeing elements of my own words and phrases through her lens provides a fresh perspective upon her own work, and her own approaches, as she herself has developed her own twists, pivots and turns over the past fifteen or so years I’ve been attentive to her writing. As Pirie writes in her notes at the end of the collection:

I’ve read rob mclennan poems with bafflement and then increasing absorption and admiration since the early 90s.

Each poem is a sort of mandala, or twist of the kaleidoscope of context. It is a chance to see again how he pivots, deflects, dives. The poem can enter itself, open-endedly and see where it goes. It doesn’t rely on a papercut of profundity as the kicker of the page.

These poems make centos out of 25 years of his poems between 1993 and 2018. It was rather like corpus work, and a make-your-own-mystery at line and phrase level.

Over the making of these poems, from 59 poem sources, it’s been fascinating to re-read how linear relaying of anecdotes transformed into post-lyrical, non-narrative impressionism that better reflect his worldview of there not being a singular point of view, there not being a need for precious subjects, but a need to see others, listen, watch.

His model of write through — the good, the bad, the neutral, the comic and the undecided — has become a backbone of some of my wiggling movement forward.

Ottawa ON: Cameron Anstee hasn’t been producing as many chapbooks lately through his Apt. 9 Press, but at least he did produce a very graceful item of two poems: constellations, by jesslyn delia smith / Amour de soi, by Jeff Blackman. Produced in a numbered edition of eighty copies, this item isn’t even mentioned on the Apt. 9 Press website yet, so that shows how busy he’s been lately. While we are hoping he returns to producing chapbooks, this small item is quite lovely, allowing for an attention to a single poem each by two Ottawa poets that Anstee has been championing for some time [both have published titles with Apt. 9 Press, and both are also included in the Apt. 9 Press five-poet anthology Five]. “I have this great thought I think but I am on the go,” Blackman’s short poem begins, pushing for a kind of slow attention against his rushed thought that fights against silence. smith’s poem is quieter, writing out her own variation on silence, as the second half of her short piece reads:

a signal, a blip

no one sees

you leave me without

causing harm

i’m there as you found me

an address, a number

a name

The Moose and Pussy (2008-2012): bibliography, and an interview

this interview was conducted over email from January – February 2016 as part of a project to document Ottawa literary publishing. see my bibliography-in-progress of Ottawa literary publications, past and present here

Jeff Blackman’s poetry has appeared in periodicals such as Blacklock’s Reporter, In/Words, and The Steel Chisel, the anthology Five (Apt. 9 Press), and Best Canadian Poetry in English 2015 (Tightrope Books). He keeps warm in Ottawa, Ontario, with his growing family. Visit jeffblackman2001.wordpress.com for poetry and downloadable chapbooks.

The Moose and Pussy #1-5 can be read online here, and copies of issues #6-8 are still very much available through Jeff Blackman via twitter: @jeffblackman2k1

Q: How did TheMoose and Pussy first start?

A: Fellow Carleton student and In/Words contributor Kate Maxfield and I fell in love in 2006, after a courtship hooked to writers’ circles and readings. In/Words is Carleton’s student-run literary press and at the time there were a lot of new spin-off mags, such as the feminist Vagina Dentata, first-year-centric Blank Page, and the French Mot Dit. Our courtship was inextricably linked to writers’ circles and readings, and we were both writing – including lots about our own relationship. It wasn’t long before we thought, heck: let’s start a literary sex magazine. We invited other community-members Jeremy Hanson-Finger and Rachael Simpson to join us as editors, and launched our first issue in mid-2007.

Q: Were there any influences on the journal outside of your immediate circle? Were there any other publications you were influenced by, or were you responding to what you saw as a lack?

A: In a way, yes, we saw a lack. While some of us read Literotica and some read Vice, we weren’t aware of magazines publishing smart sex writing. Even if there were, we still would have gone ahead, because I think it was more an outlet than anything else. It should be noted we were young, early 20s, and definitely not the cool kids. We were outsiders who had found this writing community at Carleton and wanted to make something together, and to an extent get our ya-yas out. Jeremy was especially versed in transgressive literature and felt motivated to disrupt the easy and the safe (he wrote his MA thesis on Pynchon & Wallace), and I think we all had a bit of that: a belief we would turn heads, and that other people would flock to the cause.

Q: How did your experience with In/Words shape the way you approached editing and publishing a magazine?

A: While only I’d been an editor for In/Words, we’d all been regulars to the weekly writers’ circles, monthly open-mikes, and help to make a lot of chapbooks. This community experience led to us all working through selection and design decisions together (at least for the first few issues), as well as the idea that we should print the magazine ourselves (which we did for the first two issues).

However, and In/Words’ editor-in-chief Collett Tracy has rightly said I aimed to leave In/Words in our dust, we definitely dreamt big. We sought out local advertisers, actively solicited art, even bringing student Tanya Decarie (now spoken word champ Twiggy Stardust) on as an illustrator, and got the magazine in stores throughout Ottawa. A few copies even wound up in Toronto and Montreal shops. We wanted to have a core community in Ottawa, which meant we still had Valentine’s Day card-making parties and film screenings, but we loved sending out copies to contributors from around the world. We wanted to go beyond the university, and we thought ourselves rather professional – despite being relative virgins to the world of publishing.

Q: What was the process of soliciting submissions? Did you initially send out a wide call, or solicit from your immediate community?

A: We began local, soliciting work from colleagues in the community. This would have been buttressed by some posters around Carleton campus and emails sent to In/Words contributors. We’d been talking the thing up enough that we knew we could put together an issue largely from our own connections, and it gave us a contributor & reader base which stayed with us. By issue two, if memory serves, we were listing ourselves online via submission aggregators.

So from issue one to seven we went from probably 20 or so submissions to well over a hundred per issue. However for the final huzzah, issue 8 (Codename: Oral) we directly solicited recorded poems from previous contributors, with a focus on community members and favourite contributors.

Q: What kind of response were you getting? Did you hold launches for individual issues?

A: We held launches, some with In/Words and some a la carte. Our 2nd launch was part of a fundraiser for Bruce House, a local residence for people living with AIDS, and we were proud of that one. We broadcast a documentary about the house (by Taline Bedrossian, now with the NGC), and the event was co-hosted by the Dusty Owl at Swizzles on Queen. Good crowd, lots of readers, and we felt we were giving back to a city that had provided a wealth of contributions and inspiration.

Like anything else though, interest waned. For the fifth issue, we launched a la carte at Mercury Lounge. We had high hopes for that one (lots of art, big team, and a different venue) but that event really soured me. We had a number of readers, fair-sized crowd, but sold almost no magazines. Sour grapes I know, but I really can’t stand it when people come to your free event, drink a bunch of beer, but can’t drop five bucks for a student-run magazine, y’know?

Q: Presuming you were paying for the publication out of pocket, right? And how was the journal distributed otherwise?

A: We put a little bit of our own money into it, but largely we were supported by a combination of advertisement sales, Carleton Clubs & Societies funding, and magazine sales. Advertisers mostly included sex shops and head shops (Crosstown Traffic was our most loyal sponsor). We also had a few fundraiser events, like movie night on campus. The magazine was sold at events and a number of stores throughout Ottawa including magazine shops, sex shops, and head shops. We also sold a few individual issues and subscriptions online, and the mag did wind up in some stores outside Ottawa, on occasion.

The idea of including ads and focusing on sales was in part driven by a desire to produce a glossy, high quality magazine, and not have to depend primarily on the school or fundraising. It was really fulfilling to be four students in our early twenties going around town securing ad sales to places like Wicked Wanda’s, and seeing our magazine fly from the shelves of Mags & Fags and Venus Envy. In that way we weren’t like any other literary magazine, at least not since sex shops & book shops intermingled on Toronto's Yonge Street in the 1970’s.

Q: But for the final issue, which listed you as a single editor, the list of editors grew throughout the run of the journal. What was the process of working with so many editors for the journal, and how were final decisions made? Why bring on more editors?

A: For selection, we voted as a committee. For other decisions, we strived for consensus. We brought on more editors in order to alleviate the work load as submissions counts increased, and simply because people were interested.

Q: After eight issues, what was behind the decision to finally suspend the journal?

A: Around issue seven, the last print issue, Rachael and Jeremy moved out of Ottawa to pursue this & that; Tanya would leave shortly thereafter. With the core of the team gone, we lacked the ability to keep up our production schedule (about three issues a year), and decided to focus online. For a couple years the magazine was simply a blog Kate & I maintained. The CD was definitely he last hurrah, one last big to do.

I think also we were getting a bit drained by the hunt for the good content. As any literary magazine editor can attest, you have to read a lot of really bad writing before you find much good stuff. With a literary sex magazine, it was probably doubly so. At a certain point the whole enterprise was just turning us off. The final issue, the audio one, was mostly solicited from previous contributors We used what money we’d saved up and used it to pay an honorarium to all contributors (something we’d never done before), and it was a nice send-off. We were doing again / for the last time, what we had set out to do at first, which was build up from a community of writers a wealth of provocative, meaningful collection of sex writing.

Q: What do you feel your experiences with In/Words and The Moose & Pussy might have contributed to your own writing?

A: Those magazines & their communities were my life for 2007 through 2012, during which time I feel I matured as a writer. Before then I was still the sort of middle-class beat-wannabe who thought every one of his diary entries was inspired. It’s hard to say exactly what the experience of being an editor had on my writing, as at the same time I was hosting writers’ circles and open-mike nights, editing and producing friends’ chapbooks, and taking writing workshops. It’s impossible to figure out what the M&P did for my writing, other than, I hope, make me braver.

Q: Given your experiences with In/Words and The Moose & Pussy, do you see yourself ever returning to literary publishing?

A: If I have a good idea for something new, I’d do it. What’d really excite me would be if someone else with a good idea invited me to help them.

The Moose & Pussy bibliography:

The Moose & Pussy #1: The Inaugural Issue. Fall 2008. Editors: Jeff Blackman, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield and Rachael Simpson. Editorial by Jeff Blackman, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield and Rachael Simpson. Sex You Can Read by Aaron Clark, Andrew Battershill, Anna Sajecki, Ben Ladouceur, Courtney Davis, F.C. Estrella, Jeff Blackman, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, John Cloutier, Kane X. Faucher, Kate Maxfield, Lindsey N. Woodward, Natalee Elizabeth Blagden, Nicholas Surges, Owen Hewitt, Peter Gibbon, Rachael Simpson, Teri Doell and Soggy Tickets. Sex You Can See by Erin Iverson, Joni Sadler, Nicholas Surges, Robyn Riley and Sarah Flathers.

The Moose & Pussy #2. Winter 2008/2009. Editors: Jeff Blackman. Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield and Rachael Simpson. Editorial by Jeff Blackman. Sex You Can Read by Amanda Earl, Anna Sajecki, Ben Ladouceur, Calum Marsh, Daniel Zomparelli, F.C. Estrella, Jason Decker, Kane X. Faucher, Kathleen Brown, Kenneth Pobo, Leah Mol, Lindsey N. Woodward, Marcus McCann, Mark Sokolowski, Nathaniel Moore, Owen Hewitt, Peggy Hogan, Richard Scarsbrook, Sonia Saikaley, Teri Doell, Tricia Van der Grient, Warren Dean Fulton and Poppy Cox. Sex You Can See by Christopher Neglia, Erin Iverson, Jenn Huzera, Ralitsa Doncheva.

The Moose & Pussy #3: For Pseudonyms, Souls. Spring 2009. Editors: Jeff Blackman, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield and Rachael Simpson. Editorial: Kate Maxfield. Sex You Can Read by Andrew Battershill, Andy Sinclair, Bardia Sinaee, Ben Ladouceur, Bill Noble, Brian Brown, Chad Woody, Edward Lemond, Hauquan Chau, J.J. Persic, Jadon Rempel, John Oliver Hodges, Jose Fernandez, juniper n.a. quin, Kevin Brown, Leah Mol, Lindsey N. Woodward, Luke LeBrun, Luna Allison, Madeline Moore, matthew whitely, Rotem Yaniv, Stephen Joseph, Steve Zytveld, Taline Bedrossian, Teri Doell and Tom Mallouk. Sex You Can See by Tanya Decarie.

The Moose & Pussy #4: The Animals Issue, or The Bestiary. Summer/Fall 2009. Editors: Jeff Blackman, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield and Rachael Simpson. Editorial by Rachael Simpson. Sex You Can Read by Ben Ladouceur, Brendan Inglis, Bryan Borland, Calum Marsh, Chelsey Storey, David Brennan, Jamie Bradley, Julie Innis, Justin Million, Kate Maxfield, Kristel Jax, Leah Mol, Mark Burns Cassell, Mark Naser, Peggy Hogan, Samantha Everts, Shannon Rayne, shawn macmillan and Warren Dean Fulton. Sex You Can See by Becky Beach, Kristel Jax and Tanya Decarie.

The Moose & Pussy #5: Versus the Sexless Marriage. Winter 2010. Editors: Jeff Blackman, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield, Rachael Simpson and Tanya Decarie, Editorial by Jeremy Hanson-Finger. Sex You Can Read by Andrew Battershill, Barbara Foster, Chris Weige, Christine Sirois, Danielle Blasko, Jenna Jarvis, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Jessica Azevedo, John Grochalski, Kasandra Larsen, Katie Moore, Ken Shakin, Pippa Rogers, Rachael Simpson, Rotem Yaniv, Stephen S. Mills and Tanya Decarie. Sex You Can See by Kristel Jax and Tanya Decarie.

The Moose & Pussy #6: The Crucifiction Issue. Spring 2010. Editors: Jeff Blackman, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield, Pippa Rogers, Rachael Simpson and Tanya Decarie. Sex You Can Read by Andy Sinclair, Bardia Sinaee, Chad Hammett, Chris Carroll, Gus Ginsberg, Hauquan Chau, Jeff Blackman, Jeff Fry, Jenna Jarvis, Jessica Azevedo, John Harrower, Kristel Jax, Kristy Logan, Marcus McCann, Matt Dennison, Peter Gibbon, Pippa Rogers and S. Gabriella. Sex You Can See by Kristel Jax and Tanya Decarie.

The Moose & Pussy #7: The Back to School Special. Fall 2010. Editors: Jeff Blackman, Jenna Jarvis, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Kate Maxfield, Pippa Rogers, Rachael Simpson and Tanya Decarie. Editorial by Jeff Blackman, Kate Maxfield, Tanya Decarie. Sex You Can Read by Andrew Battershill, Bardia Sinaee, Christian McPherson, Crystie Lovestrom, Danielle Blasko, Dave Currie, David Porder, Flower Conroy, Frederick Blichert, Jess Scott, John Kelly, Josh Nadeau, Lee Minh Sloca, Lisa Slater, Meaghan Rondeau and patrick mckinnon. Peter Gibbon. Sex You Can See by Kaelan Murray and Tanya Decarie.

Valentine’s Day Cards. Winter 2011. Sex You Can Read by Jenna Jarvis, Jeremy Hanson-Finger, Peter Gibbon, jesslyn delia smith, Adrian Lippert and Cameron Anstee.

self-portrait as the bottom of the sea at the beginning of time (chapbook). Spring 2011. Sex You Can Read by Ben Ladouceur.

The Moose & Pussy #8: Oral. Winter 2012. Producer: Jeff Blackman. Sex You Can Hear by Alice Shindelar, Annik Adey-Babinski, Bardia Sinaee, Ben Ladouceur, David de Bruijn, Diane Seuss, Ezra Stead, Ivana Velickovic, Jeff Blackman, Jenna Jarvis, Jeremy Behreandt, M.A. Istvan Jr., Pearl Pirie and Peter Gibbon. Sex You Can See by Illya Kymkiw.

Jane Jordan poetry book give-away: a report,

Last Friday night we had a small gathering of poets in our wee house for the sake of a party/book give-away. Over the past few weeks, we'd been handed nine bins of material--books, literary journals, flyers and even manuscripts--belonging to the late Ottawa poet Jane Jordan [see my original post on receiving such here]. In keeping with the wishes of Jane Jordan's family, who had the hopes of getting her library in the hands of other poets, bins of books were sorted, organized and set out for an evening of conversation, gifting and drinks.

Some of those who came by included Michael Dennis, Alexander Monker, Cameron Anstee, Rachael Simpson, Vivian Vavassis, Jason Christie, Marilyn Irwin and Frances Boyle, with further works distributed to Monty Reid and Jeff Blackman (who were unable to attend). You wouldn't believe some of the items that were available; the photos only hint at the enormous wealth of poetry books, journals and chapbooks. A considerable percentage of the collection focused on works by Ottawa poets during the 1970s and 80s, highlighting her support for and engagement with a number of authors, most of whom had signed their collections to her, including: Irving Layton, Al Purdy, Leonard Cohen, Seymour Mayne, D.G. Jones, Margaret Atwood, Stephanie Bolster, William Hawkins, Marianne Bluger, bill bissett, Cyril Dabydeen, Patrick White, Raymond Souster, Miriam Waddington, Diana Brebner, Dennis Tourbin, Brian Fawcett, Daphne Marlatt, Gwendolyn MacEwan, Phyllis Webb, Milton Acorn, Ted Plantos, Christopher Levenson, Eli Mandel, bpnichol, Steven Heighton and so many, many others.

Thanks so much all who attended, and of course, John White, who was so generous with his mother's books.

Rose, of course, loved the attention. She danced and ran around, in between bouts of colouring.

And did I mention that many works are still available? Should we have a second party for those who might have missed the first?

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jeff Blackman

Jeff Blackman grew up in Thornhill, ON, but now earns his bread & butter in Ottawa. His poems may be found across the Internet, but contact Apt. 9 Press for So Long As The People Are People in which all the words are in the right order. Visit jeffblackman2001.wordpress.com to keep up to date with his projects and performances. He will return in Poem Another Day.

1 - How did your first chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
It was a passport to a community. I'd been attending In/Words readings for a year, and many regulars were showing up with enchanting chapbooks, and figured, why not me too? I put together my best poems of the three or so years' prior, effectively the extent of my experience as a poet. That book was mumble something pink, summer 200?, which In/Words would then republish the following fall.

So Long As The People Are People, I've been thinking, is very similar. It too is a 'best-of-three-years,' roughly spanning the length of marriage thus far with Kate Maxfield. I've had about a half dozen other chapbooks between mumble' and 'People, but these two feel very similar with their focus on politics, isolation, desire for recognition, and relationships. This is also my first return to prose poetry since those early books.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
One of two ways: When I was ten I became obsessed with the collected works of Weird Al Yankovic and spent years writing song parodies no one heard (I was very shy until late in high school). In grade thirteen I fell in love. I'd been writing left-wing rants & short stories for a few years, but it was through poems - mostly stream-of-conscious style mishegas - that I put my feelings together, or at least got out something I could stand behind. In speech I could only praise this person; in writing I had a little more leeway to capture the whole gamut of the romance. I never felt I had to apologize for my poems, though I'm certain some have hurt others. The relationship was over relatively quick but by mid-year I had written a chapbook worth of poems, had I the guts or community to encourage me.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

It varies. Typically I'm a lazy writer and if it doesn't come out great (IMO) at first, it sits around a while. Some of my projects took a while. For instance BLIZZARD: Ottawa City Stories I wrote with Peter Gibbon, which entailed a two-year-long process that saw us begin, develop, mature, and complete whole sequences of poems & storylines, only to abandon them when we realized we'd written ourselves past where we were. It's very important to stay true to the feeling behind a poem. Shiva After Shabbas, which I wrote after my maternal grandmother died, came together in a matter of weeks.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Attempts at "books" first typically flounder for me. I tried writing a set of eight long poems inspired by Super Mario Bros. 3 (and its eight worlds), but a perfectionist streak prevented me from finishing more than a couple. I'm an admittedly lazy guy, and have been finding myself more productive when I just try to write regularly and piece things together as I can. I definitely get hung up on themes, images, phrases, and resultantly wind up with threads I'm sometimes lucky enough to detect.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love doing readings. I used open-mikes as opportunities to test-drive most of So Long As The People Are People's contents. I love entertaining people, and now I have a lot of funny poems, which I know off by heart. I also feel poets should do their darndest to "just get it out there," as my friend Jordan Chevalier would say, and readings are accessible vehicles for that.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I'm terrified of dying, of people I love dying, but am constantly free from threats - so that's been a theme the last year I can't shake. A lot of my work lately has also had a sort of self-help style to it, where the poem's speaker gives instructions or advice. Figuring out how to deal with, I dunno, life, everything, starts with writing usually or, if I'm feeling gutsy, a good talk with Kate or another close friend. Lately those conversations have spawned poems bordering on dictation.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I have no idea; maybe to think of themselves more akin to painters, filmmakers, actors, and other creative types.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Not sure how to answer that. My only recent experience with an editor is for my latest book, and before that poems emerged out of collaborative efforts or were vetted by writers' circles. I have had many good friends read manuscripts of mine and give feedback that's been essential to my development. The best, at least towards 'People, was from Ben Ladouceur, who told that if I'm going to be cryptic I might as be grammatically sound.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

"Write it till it runs clear," said Ivan Coyote, which I read secondhand via Jeremy Hanson-Finger. To me, that means just keep writing it again and again, from start. Destroy old drafts and write what you remember. Get at the current of the art, rather than sit about making sandcastles on the shoreline.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?

I've had a hard time writing fiction lately, and haven't written much critical prose other than an entry in How about some poets? Some Incomplete Memoirs of In/Words. My job (research analyst) demands a lot of mental energy, and I'm writing a lot for that (e.g., literature reviews, case studies, borderline science), so I can only push myself to commit to so many words in my spare time. When I do get myself on a fiction kick, or a critical kick, I guess the appeal is that my perfectionism takes a chill pill, and I can just gush. Makes for hard editing sessions though.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don't have a routine. Most days begin when I finally decide I need to get up for work or other obligations. I usually write at night, but I have no routine. I don't even like buying coffee at the same place, or taking my coffee a consistent way. Routine might do me good, but I enjoy my longstanding approach: write when I want, or feel I must.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Sometimes it's to my own previous titles to recall what I feel remains strong. That can give me a burst of confidence, and that's typically what stalls me (i.e., lack thereof). Emailing old friends (who are also writers) often gets me going too, particularly so if they have something on the go, which might spur me in almost competitive sense. I've conceded I'll always be jealous of my friends' success, so I might as well try to best them rather than mope about it. Talking with Owen "Billy Ruffian" Hewitt helped me figure that one out. Yah – I think it's friends that keep me at.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Pledge.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Absolutely music, above all else. I've already mentioned Yankovic, but artists like The Mountain Goats, Leonard Cohen, Regina Spektor, lately Fiona Apple - I guess a whole range of singer-songwriters really - inspire me. A long trip to the National Gallery or Nature Museum helps too. Sometimes a porn kick can really clear the old noggin too.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I've only read a fraction of his work but Allen Ginsberg is right up there on a throne, in both terms of artistic and life guidance (though I'd never live like he did not in a million years). Lately Wendy Cope has reminded me poetry can be fun (feel like there's a terrible dearth of sad poetry out there, or at least that sad poems are always preferred by mag editors to happy ones). I have a lot of friends who are great writers too, some who I've mentioned, and others I haven't. Some are burning up the reading-scene and major mags; others you need to know to read. They all push me to try more.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Um, broad scope, no? I guess travel indefinitely. That'd be a dream come true.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Funny question, as it's only fair to say I'm a research analyst first and poet/writer second. I guess journalist. I was on that trajectory a while and didn't think it was for me. I'd like to give it a shot one day. That or comedy writer.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

It was liberating. I was that one kid in high school who gave a damn about world events. 9-11 + an inspirational grade 12 English Teacher (Ms. Louise Kee, York Region School Board) = yeah, Jeff, you need to keep writing.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Book: Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries by Molly Caldwell Crosby. It's about the 'sleeping sickness,' encephalitis lethargica, but focussed on major players in the plague's spread through New York in the 1920's. Absolutely haunting; definitely a necessary accompaniment to all these movies where people die by the neighbourhood.

Movie: Beauty is Embarrassing, the Wayne White Story. It just made me feel happy.

20 - What are you currently working on?
Justin Million & I are working towards a number of collaborative products. The first—an attempt at a chapbook—didn't make its deliverable date (the In/Words reunion reading in June), but we did get a chance to read a lot of its poems. It will come out, hopefully mid-summer or so. Think the Strip Club at the End of the Universe. Now picture the two guys out front chain-smoking because being inside makes them uncomfortable. Ok, now steal their diaries.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;