Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair (part one, : Jason Camlot and Stuart Ross, + Monty Reid,

[Manahil Bandukwala at the Brick Books table; Leigh Nash and Andrew Faulkner at the Assembly Press table] Another small press book fair! Do you remember my notes from last fall on the ottawa small press book fair [see parts one, two] or my combined notes on Toronto's TIFA Small Press Market/Meet the Presses’ Indie Lit Market [see parts one, two, three, four]? So much small press! And our next Ottawa fair will be Saturday, November 14th at the Tom Brown Arena, so be sure to mark your calendars. Did you know there’s a zine fair coming up in Sherbrooke, Quebec on July 4th? (a handful of issues of Touch the Donkey will be available there gratis, by the way) And apparently there’s another Fisher Library Small Press Fair in Toronto on September 19^th!

Ottawa/Cobourg ON/Montreal QC: Jason Camlot and Stuart Ross have been working a curious sequence of chapbook-length response projects (all part of a larger manuscript-in-progress, “THE SHOOKY SESSIONS (A Litany),” a handful of such appearing recently in print [including titles through above/ground press, № Press and Vallum’s Chapbook Series], one of the latest being Shooky Session 4 (with allergies) (Ottawa ON: Apt. 9 Press, June 2026), subtitled “Paul Celan, Selections / 11 December 2023 / Sarah Burgoyne’s Place.” Each chapbook-length project, it would seem, is composed as a collaborative response to a poetry title pulled off a bookshelf at random, this one being Paul Celan’s Selections (University of California Press, 2005), edited by Pierre Joris. As the note at the back of the chapbook offers: “This chapbook presents poems written during the fourth of seven listening poetry sessions that Stuart Ross and Jason Camlot held between December 5, 2022, and December 18, 2024.” With the other prompt-titles in the sequence, Celan is an interesting selection, given the work can’t help but be a richly generative text. The notion of the “response text” is one that runs the length and breadth of literature, including what one might term straight translation to more abstract translations, from bpNichol’s Translating Translating Apollinaire to Erín Moure’s Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervent Person (Anansi, 2001) to more recent mis-translations by Montreal poet Hugh Thomas. Not that a response is the same thing as translation, or even mis-translation, but I would say the ideas are certainly related. Siblings, perhaps.

As well, Ross is one of but a handful of writers (I would include Gary Barwin in such as well) who seem to be constantly, even perpetually, pushing the boundaries of their own comfort and possibility through projects, including collaboration, all of which can’t help but feed into either author’s solo work. I am very curious to see this eventual published collection, and the way each chapbook-length project might play off each other, possibly. As the poem begins:

The divers are crowned by halos.
They are not brainless,
nor are they flames of vegetable.
Let’s dance around my eyes,
celebrate my glorious decapitation,
my glistening kisser.

Ottawa ON/Grand Lake NB: In case you were unaware, New Brunswick poet russell carisse [see my recent interview with carisse here] has started a chapbook press, sider0xylon press, which debuted at this most recent ottawa small press book fair. One of the first titles is the sequence OPERATIVES by Monty Reid, hand-sewn and produced “on a 1929 LCSmith & Corona Standard #8-12,” each copy individually typed and numbered in an edition of fifty copies. Throughout this ten-part sequence, Reid invokes a slow and considered lyric unfurling that works perfectly in this format, each short section on its own page, allowing each line to properly absorb. As the opening piece, titled “Brush Pass,” reads:

You never know what you’ll be given.

You might not feel the slightest touch
as the messenger passes. 

You never know where it came from
although you suspect a source. 

Your job is not to know. You are the form
the message takes, every time.
 

Ongoing notes: TIFA Small Press Market/Meet the Presses’ Indie Lit Market (part two, : Jacob Alvarado + Drew Lavigne,

[a corner of my table at the TIFA fair, including the shortbread cookies I made] 

Again, this blended sequence, as the weekend of back-to-back small press fairs was a bit of a blur. [see my first post on such here] 

Toronto/Mississauga ON: The debut poetry chapbook by Mississauga poet Jacob Alvarado is I Can Make It All Up To You (Toronto ON: Knife│Fork│Book, 2024), a collection of poems that write around their subjects, their initial prompts; less a sense of being evasive than simply working a different kind of clarity. “Bowie made his deathbed with Kendrick in his headphones,” begins the poem “How Many Times Does An Angel Fall?,” “a shipwreck saluting its reflection. // 3:16 AM: my head hits a wall. / Confetti bursts from my ears like ripped toilet paper.” There’s almost an element of the English-language ghazal (John Thompson, et al) in some of Albarado’s lines, allowing a leap between lines, between couplets, allowing the space between as much narrative space as the space itself. There are times that I do want the author to push further, just to see what else is out there, but there remains a clarity through Alvarado’s lyrics, one that finds itself the occasional wisdom, sharp lines that poke through, such as the final line of “Me and You and Awkward Silence,” that reads: “Depression is a room full of cereal bowls.” I am intrigued by this debut; intrigued by where this particular author might venture next.

Branches

His hands: dew leaves, iced tea, a waterfall.
Dares and truths are both dreams. Two choices; one flesh. 

My shoes were faded by the soaked suede
of summer strolls through sweet grass. 

A clearing. Of throat and brush. 

My legs were oaks. My knees; a forest-fire.

The sun was my heartbeat. Its rays my veins;
its heat my pulse. 

His eyes: acorns, aloe, alcoves.
Needles rained from pine-trees: self-clouding. 

The breeze flew around me but not through me:
    grease in a dewdrop.
Palm sweat: a waterfall, an avalanche, inevitable. 

His back: smooth, steady, slicked. A rockface. 

His mouth: The Devil dawned into God,
The stab of Eden’s gatekeeper, the sun. 

A hickey is a mark of belief.

TIFA fair: Jay MillAr of Book*hug Press, Leigh Nash of Assembly Press + Michael e. Casteels of Puddles of Sky Press

Moncton NB/Toronto ON: From the current poet laureate of Moncton, New Brunswick, Drew Lavigne, comes the chapbook EveningDress (Toronto ON: Anstruther Press, 2025), a title that appears to be his debut, chapbook or otherwise. Lavigne offers poems of narrative richness and gestures that suggest performance, offering descriptive thickness across long lines and evocative meaning. “There is a dress by Paul Poiret,” he writes, to open the title poem, “which I first saw / in James Laver’s Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. / It was called ‘Evening dress: Il a-été primé.’ A fashion plate / from the Gazette du Bon Ton, 1914. / I was ten, and had never seen anything like this / turquoise pleated tunic, over a wrapped hobble skirt, / fastened with a gilded oval gem, bands of the same / fabric twisting down the arms, clasped at each crossing / by round jade jewels.” There is such careful narrative unfolding, unfurling, through his lyrics, one that might provide as much comfort on the stage as on the page.  

Round Mirror

It was easy then to walk into the sky
with my mother’s gilded mirror,
stolen from her dark room, held in my hands outside.
Startling then to find in the disc
that everything was upside down.
With little effort I could fly,
or walk among the branches of trees;
then jump from cloud to cloud: going higher,
seeing everything in a way that was strange and new.
Not understanding the danger of falling.
I tripped on the root tangled ground.
I saw the rolling sky, the black trees, the hard earth,
my face like a desperate man, seeing blood.
I fell into the mirror, shattered on the ground.

what we did on our summer staycation, (part two,

[see the first part of our travels here] Two days (again) at Great Wolf Lodge, Niagara Falls, where I hobbled around in my boot, protecting my still-healing broken foot. Where I was unable to go into the water, which allowed a bit more time with notebook, pen; with reading.

Mother-in-law met us there, with six year old nephew in tow, which allowed for some good cousin visits (Christine's brother moving from England to Halifax this summer, which should allow some more-often cousin visits, perhaps). Our young ladies don't get to see any of them that often [although we were in London not long ago, where our young ladies enjoyed a good handful of cousin days].

Day two included a visit to Christine's great-uncle Charlie in Thorold, to see how he's been keeping. On the way back, catching a freighter through the Welland Canal: That boat is so long! Aoife declared. It must be a million Aoifes! (Christine looked it up: apparently "one million Aoifes" is equivalent to 232 metres).

The children, Christine and Oma even played laser tag (Rose came in fourth place, naturally). We all played a round of mini-putt golf. I sat on the step with notebook and reading material during both evenings, and caught a visit (again) from the local skunk, who toddled by both nights (and even the next morning). He was uninterested in whatever it was I was doing. Before we left, both young ladies and nephew their faces painted.

Back in Picton another few days, we landed just in time to catch the latest PEP Rally at the bookstore, curated by Leigh Nash and Andrew Faulkner of Assembly Press (Christine reads at same in September, by the way), with readings by Sneha Madhavan-Reese, Spencer Gordon and Matthew Tierney! What are the odds? I don't even recall the last time I heard either Spencer or Matthew read.

Curious to start going through Spencer's latest, and I haven't even seen Matthew's yet. And did you know that novelist Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer lives rather close? Was good to see her again (we thought the last time we'd seen each other was at the final Scream in High Park in Toronto, which would have been more than a decade ago).

And, once back at father-in-law's place (where we'd deposited the young ladies, just prior to heading to the reading), another three days of attending them, poolside. Another three days of reading, although we did manage a dinner, just the two of us. Up on a hill, way way up above the water. Did you know a small lake in those hills? And a brewery? A view along the water's edge to nearly-Kingston, nearly-Napanee. Point north, where Roblin Mills, or where my birth mother lives. Point east, where the wind farm sits on the horizon. Point east, where a tower sits, near the town of Bath.

In Picton, where the young ladies saw a handful of turtles along the water's edge, and Rose named one "Reginald," taking a forty-minute video (with my phone) of her new best friend and his adventures. Where they sat at the water's edge.

And then, Sunday afternoon, back to Ottawa. Aoife remains, spending some solo time with gran'pa and his wife for a few days, whereas Rose a day-camp began Monday morning.

Ongoing notes: Meet the Presses

[the view from my table] Given how excited you are about this weekend’s ottawa small press book fair (whether the reading on Friday night or the fair itself on Saturday), I thought it might be worth discussing some of the things I picked up this past weekend as part of the annual Meet the Presses event in Toronto!

And did you see that Nelson Ball won this year’s bpNichol Chapbook Award for his Apt 9 Press title? Copies are long out of print, but you can see the same work in his most recent title from Mansfield Press, which should also be available as part of this weekend’s ottawa small press book fair. Hooray!

Cobourg/Picton ON: It’s good to see Leigh Nash, editor/publisher of Invisible Publishing [see my recent Ploughshares interview with her here] with a new publication, given her trade poetry collection, Goodbye, Ukulele (Mansfield Press, 2010) is more than half a decade old. Her new title, produced through Stuart Ross’ Proper Tales Press, is Outdoor Voices (2016), a collection of twelve short prose poems.

We Are Basically Invincible

Coniferous trees tower like antennae. They record dreams of animals cradled by bough: there is no such thing as safe space. I lick one finger and hoist it to the wind. Somewhere the tide turns over and over and over again. Are we doomed to repeat our mistakes? I listen for falling leaf, slice of sky, the quiver of dew on quiet hive. I turn tail, head for higher ground. I turn tail, around and around and around.

Each poem exists as a slightly off-kilter portrait, blurring at the edges. She captures something, but something that requires a longer attention to truly catch sight of. It’s almost as though her poems skirt surrealism, and concurrently don’t.

My Brother is a Baby Bird

The sky cries cords of tears. They drop from the clouds, escape plans gone astray, ends trawling the earth like entrails. I inhale. Reach for my camera. Cars drift by like ghosts of Sunday dinners past. I pop the flash. A mess of weavers scream for the maples and a low keening rises from the earth: I curl my body over a bird’s broken frame, call my kinfolk in from the rain.

Fredericton NB: For those who might not be aware, the title of Fredericton poet Rebecca Salazar’s chapbook Guzzle (2016), produced by Jim Johnstone’s Anstruther Press, plays with the late John Thompson’s pronunciation of “ghazal.” Unlike Thompson’s infamous work in the ghazal (work that is still managing to influence generations of Canadian poets), composing a looseness of the form that worked to open up a form constructed of five couplets, the nineteen poems in Salazar’s Guzzle aim for a tightness and a fierce precision through those same five couplets. There is something appealing, also, about poems that speak to an uncertainty with such confidence, and even meander a bit with such intriguing precision.

Miss

My doppelganger’s crying in her sleep again.

For all our co-dependence, we are paying twice the price.

If I’m just a young bitch, watch me do young bitch things:

whimper-text my ex, pitch my poor self-worth to his command.

I carry you, love, to the slab. I vacuum

your lungs through your spatchcocked arm sockets.

That flaccid crook of shoulder in the toilet.

That mottled blot of flesh my nearest kin.

Heave your axe at the oak of our overnights.

Go on. Have one more dusky go at my stumps.

Salazar seems to aim for lines that one can bounce a quarter off of, and the effect is striking; unfortunately, the downside is that when lines and/or poems aren’t as sharp, they’re noticed. Such tight, deliberate brickwork can’t help but notice the occasional loose stone. I’m curious to see where these poems might end up: odds are these poems might become a section in an eventual manuscript, or even interspersed throughout a larger project, but I’m hoping that she continues her work in the form, allowing the weaker poems to fall away.

Kink

Wanting you is like waiting for lightning

to strike me each time I smell rain.

The heat stings your skin in sharp swifts,

a spiked roller of dressmaker’s pins.

Come fix me with your pearl eyes

in the wildflowers by the road.

Traces of shell, manure, earth. Rake

the flesh and prepare for a harvest of salt.

The hacked geometry of granite bluffs hatched

across your back. We press you close until it cuts.

Ploughshares : an interview with Leigh Nash, publisher/editor of Invisible Publishing

I'm a monthly blogger over at the Ploughshares blog! And my fifth post is now up: an interview with editor/publisher Leigh Nash on Invisible Publishing. My fourth interview with Cobourg, Ontario poet, editor, fiction writer and small press publisher Stuart Ross, author of the new poetry collection A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (Hamilton ON: Wolsak and Wynn, 2016), is still online here. My third interview with Toronto novelist Ken Sparling, author of the new novel This poem is a house (Coach House Books, 2016), is still online here. My second post, an interview with award-winning Kingston writer Diane Schoemperlen, author of the new memoir This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications (HarperCollins, 2016), is still online here; and my first post, an interview with award-winning Toronto poet Soraya Peerbaye, author of Tell: poems for a girlhood (Pedlar Press, 2015), is still online here.