Touch the Donkey : new interviews with Straumsvåg, ryan, Solomon, Lockhart, Dulin, Davis + Higgins,

Anticipating the release next week of the forty-sixth issue of Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], why not check out the interviews that have appeared over the past few weeks with contributors to the forty-fifth issue: Dag T. Straumsvåg, brandy ryan, Misha Solomon, D. A. Lockhart, Dominic Dulin, Jordan Davis and Larkin Maureen Higgins.

Interviews with contributors to the first forty-four issues (more than two hundred and eighty interviews to date) remain online, including: J-T Kelly, Jennifer Firestone, Austin Miles, Alice Burdick, Henry Gould, Leesa Dean, Tom Jenks, Sandra Doller, Scott Inniss, John Levy, Taylor Brown, Grant Wilkins, Lori Anderson Moseman, russell carisse, Ariana Nadia Nash, Wanda Praamsma, Michael Harman, Terri Witek, Laynie Browne, Noah Berlatsky, Robyn Schelenz, Andy Weaver, Dessa Bayrock, Anselm Berrigan, Alana Solin, Michael Betancourt, Monty Reid, Heather Cadsby, R Kolewe, Samuel Amadon, Meghan Kemp-Gee, Miranda Mellis, kevin mcpherson eckhoff and Kimberley Dyck, Junie Désil, Micah Ballard, Devon Rae, Barbara Tomash, Ben Meyerson, Pam Brown, Shane Kowalski, Kathy Lou Schultz, Hilary Clark, Ted Byrne, Garrett Caples, Brenda Coultas, Sheila Murphy, Chris Turnbull and Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Stuart Ross, Leah Sandals, Tamara Best, Nathan Austin, Jade Wallace, Monica Mody, Barry McKinnon, Katie Naughton, Cecilia Stuart, Benjamin Niespodziany, Jérôme Melançon, Margo LaPierre, Sarah Pinder, Genevieve Kaplan, Maw Shein Win, Carrie Hunter, Lillian Nećakov, Nate Logan, Hugh Thomas, Emily Brandt, David Buuck, Jessi MacEachern, Sue Bracken, Melissa Eleftherion, Valerie Witte, Brandon Brown, Yoyo Comay, Stephen Brockwell, Jack Jung, Amanda Auerbach, IAN MARTIN, Paige Carabello, Emma Tilley, Dana Teen Lomax, Cat Tyc, Michael Turner, Sarah Alcaide-Escue, Colby Clair Stolson, Tom Prime, Bill Carty, Christina Vega-Westhoff, Robert Hogg, Simina Banu, MLA Chernoff, Geoffrey Olsen, Douglas Barbour, Hamish Ballantyne, JoAnna Novak, Allyson Paty, Lisa Fishman, Kate Feld, Isabel Sobral Campos, Jay MillAr, Lisa Samuels, Prathna Lor, George Bowering, natalie hanna, Jill Magi, Amelia Does, Orchid Tierney, katie o’brien, Lily Brown, Tessa Bolsover, émilie kneifel, Hasan Namir, Khashayar Mohammadi, Naomi Cohn, Tom Snarsky, Guy Birchard, Mark Cunningham, Lydia Unsworth, Zane Koss, Nicole Raziya Fong, Ben Robinson, Asher Ghaffar, Clara Daneri, Ava Hofmann, Robert R. Thurman, Alyse Knorr, Denise Newman, Shelly Harder, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Biswamit Dwibedy, Emily Izsak, Aja Couchois Duncan, José Felipe Alvergue, Conyer Clayton, Roxanna Bennett, Julia Drescher, Michael Cavuto, Michael Sikkema, Bronwen Tate, Emilia Nielsen, Hailey Higdon, Trish Salah, Adam Strauss, Katy Lederer, Taryn Hubbard, Michael Boughn, David Dowker, Marie Larson, Lauren Haldeman, Kate Siklosi, robert majzels, Michael Robins, Rae Armantrout, Stephanie Strickland, Ken Hunt, Rob Manery, Ryan Eckes, Stephen Cain, Dani Spinosa, Samuel Ace, Howie Good, Rusty Morrison, Allison Cardon, Jon Boisvert, Laura Theobald, Suzanne Wise, Sean Braune, Dale Smith, Valerie Coulton, Phil Hall, Sarah MacDonell, Janet Kaplan, Kyle Flemmer, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, A.M. O’Malley, Catriona Strang, Anthony Etherin, Claire Lacey, Sacha Archer, Michael e. Casteels, Harold Abramowitz, Cindy Savett, Tessy Ward, Christine Stewart, David James Miller, Jonathan Ball, Cody-Rose Clevidence, mwpm, Andrew McEwan, Brynne Rebele-Henry, Joseph Mosconi, Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy, Oliver Cusimano, Sue Landers, Marthe Reed, Colin Smith, Nathaniel G. Moore, David Buuck, Kate Greenstreet, Kate Hargreaves, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Erín Moure, Sarah Swan, Buck Downs, Kemeny Babineau, Ryan Murphy, Norma Cole, Lea Graham, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Oana Avasilichioaei, Meredith Quartermain, Amanda Earl, Luke Kennard, Shane Rhodes, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Sarah Cook, François Turcot, Gregory Betts, Eric Schmaltz, Paul Zits, Laura Sims, Stephen Collis, Mary Kasimor, Billy Mavreas, damian lopes, Pete Smith, Sonnet L’Abbé, Katie L. Price, a rawlings, Suzanne Zelazo, Helen Hajnoczky, Kathryn MacLeod, Shannon Maguire, Sarah Mangold, Amish Trivedi, Lola Lemire Tostevin, Aaron Tucker, Kayla Czaga, Jason Christie, Jennifer Kronovet, Jordan Abel, Deborah Poe, Edward Smallfield, ryan fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Robinson, nathan dueck, Paige Taggart, Christine McNair, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Nikki Sheppy, Kirsten Kaschock, Lise Downe, Lisa Jarnot, Chris Turnbull, Gary Barwin, Susan Briante, derek beaulieu, Megan Kaminski, Roland Prevost, Emily Ursuliak, j/j hastain, Catherine Wagner, Susanne Dyckman, Susan Holbrook, Julie Carr, David Peter Clark, Pearl Pirie, Eric Baus, Pattie McCarthy, Camille Martin and Gil McElroy.

The forthcoming forty-sixth issue features new writing by: Kirstin Allio, kemeny babineau, Joseph Donato, Beatriz Hausner, Matthew Walsh, Nicole Markotić, Lisa Pasold, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas and Emily Izsak.

And of course, copies of the first forty-five issues are still very much available. Why not subscribe?

Included, as well, as part of the above/ground press annual subscription! Which you should get right now for 2025! And you know about the above/ground press 32nd anniversary reading/launch/party happening in Ottawa on August 7th? tickets are available!

We even have our own Facebook group, and a growing (new) above/ground press substack. It’s remarkably easy.

Ongoing notes: late August, 2012

Do you know where summer disappeared to? I had rather hoped there’d be a bit more of it, around. But with autumn comes so many other things that a boy can look forward to (some forty days to the wedding, she tells me…). This past weekend, I was able to spend a day or so with my sister’s wee children (as she and her husband went to a golf tournament). A later August day, too cool for the swimming pool, so they played on a mound of dirt. Really?

And I’m sure you’ve been following my progress as editor during my month-long tenure at TRUCK, or the current above/ground press magnificent summer sale, celebrating our nineteen long years? Or the fact that I’ve now posted information on the fall 2012 ottawa small press book fair, now eighteen years old?

And why is it I get so many American chapbooks (which I love) and so few Canadian ones (which I would like to have the chance to also love)? Most of the chapbooks I receive by Canadian writers, it seems, are those produced by non-Canadian presses (Corrupt Press, Tinfish, dancing girl, unarmed). What’s even that about? I ask, I beg, I request…

Corvallis OR: From Sacrifice Press, I recently received a small handful of chapbooks they were attempting to produce monthly (the press is currently on hiatus), including Trick (March 2010) by Chris Kraus, 32 SNAPSHOTS OF MARSEILLES (April 2010) by Guy Bennett, whomeanswhat (June 2010) by Lars Palm, and Proverbs, From the INBOX Project (November 2010) by Jonathan Ball. Over the past few years, Winnipeg filmmaker and writer Jonathan Ball has been producing increasingly interesting works, and there’s already a new title forthcoming (but you just have to wait for it).

Possible Interpretation: Here talk means carries weight, in the sense that

it is influential. Life’s a bitch and then you marry one. Love is blind. Drink

deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There’s no accounting for taste.

Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. Jove

but laughs at lover’s perjury. Rules are made to be broken. A coward dies

a thousand times before his death. The valiant never taste of death but

once. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. What you see is what

you get. You can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. A good

surgeon has an eagle’s eye, and lion’s heart, and a lady’s hand. All’s well that

ends well. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t play golf. There ain’t

no such thing as a free lunch. Rolling stone gathers no moss. Fools rush in

where angels fear to tred. You can’t get there from here. Advice when

most needed is least heeded.

Ball’s chapbook Proverbs, From the INBOX Project suggests that this is part of a larger, book-length project, and the collage aspect of the work makes me interested to see how the work will hold together as a larger manuscript. Where is all of this leading?

Possible Interpretation: A need kept a secret will never be addressed. A

fellow describing the distinction between coral and king snakes. Life’s a

bleach and then you dye. It’s not the size of the boat.

The back of Los Angeles writer, translator, publisher and editor Guy Bennett’s 32 SNAPSHOTS OF MARSEILLES includes the note: “32 poems of 32 words on 32 places in Marseilles. Each poem can be read in 32 seconds or less yet contains thought enough for 32 minutes of reflection or more. The author accepts that only 32 people will ever read or see these poems but would not be disappointed to be proven wrong.” It’s a bold statement, certainly, that each poem “contains thought enough for 32 minutes of reflection or more.” The poems are quick and certainly sharp, with a meditative quality I quite liked. There’s far more than here than meets the initial eye.

place de lorette

      where the wind is

      good the wall

  flat plastered

      with paintings children

made elderly women hobble

      the slope smooth

samba trombones

  with

  flies buzz

hand stuck out

window shakes

        handkerchief

Los Angeles CA: Nearly a year later, tricklings of dusie 5 kollectiv items appear still, with the appearance of Larkin Higgins’ poetry chapbook of materials, implements (2011). I’m very intrigued by the poems included here, intrigued by the stretches of open space, the lines pulled apart from themselves to understand the pauses and gaps inherent, echoing some of the rare spaces of poet Emily Carr.

No Sinecure : influenced by aire

was not tied                    was not sealed    flew

open from the force of the impact

Duplicate boxes

 already packed                                          and

in my pocket

                                                                 three things to-

gether in my hand?

   bee-brooch

   too puzzled

   too keen

the cheapest shot in the game                  dear

ones

                        fool’s errand

   some things are worth pay-

ing                   certain risks