a bunch of poems, interviews + a new book soon + a review of a prior book + some other things (with a guest appearance by sean braune,

Hey! It's me and Toronto poet (and above/ground press author) Sean Braune! We hung out together recently, the first in a long time, so that was cool. It has been a while since I've done one of these, so thought it worth mentioning that I've a poem up at Pamenar Press online, "Reading Kaveh Akbar’s Pilgrim Bell by our new inflatable pool," a piece I composed during the same period I was working a review of that book [see that here; remember?]. Otherwise, I had two poems up at Blood + Honey, another up at George Murray’s NewPoetry, a further at Scrivener Creative Review, even more over at Noir Sauna, and another at Colin Dardis’ Poem Alone. An interview I did some time ago, conducted by Victoria Cole for Horseshoe Literary Journal, is now online (I only found out recently! did you see my 2023 post from being out in Newfoundland, for their literary festival?) and interviewed again, more recently, by Mia Funk for the Creative Process. Despite my claim that I've barely been poem-ing, it has been a year for such over here. I'm probably waist-deep into a further collection, ever since returning home from Ireland (and attempting to shape random notes and thoughts together into something coherent).

Don't forget that my fall poetry title, the book of sentences, is up for pre-order (I do have copies on-hand, if such intrigues). Plans are afoot for a fall Ottawa launch in October, so keep your eyes peeled for that (announcing that soon, with a new essay on the collection, over at my substack). And did you see this real nice review that Paul Pearson did of my poetry title, the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022)?

Paul Pearson, Lunatic Engine

 

            The book you hold in your hands came together slowly over the course of a much-interrupted decade. I do not need to describe all the delays and peregrinations that came next, the cul-de-sacs, dead ends, pits and valleys. Somewhere in all of this was a transition. Somewhere we stopped being young newlyweds. Somewhere we stopped being angry at our upbringing. Maybe it was Galileo, maybe it was the poetry. Maybe it was the kids, the garden, the funerals, the crushing routine boredom. Or maybe it was trying to figure out how I could answer the questions my children will inevitably ask. I will say that I am happy that this collection does not end where it began.
            So back in the snow at Emerald Lake, I was holding what I thought to be a book of answers. It turned out to be as treacherous as all books are and became a book of questions in my hands, asking me: What do you value? What are you striving for? Does the endless, repetitive minutiae of daily life mean anything? What will you stand for? Who will be the witness? How have we as a species survived? Why can’t we see that we have too many different words for the same concepts?—of course the Tower of Babel confused all of our names for God. Did you really think that there was a difference between science and religion? What do you believe? (“RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: DIALOGUE CONCERNING THE TWO CHIEF WORLD SYSTEMS”)

From Edmonton poet and Olive Reading Series co-founder Paul Pearson comes the full-length debut, Lunatic Engine (Winnipeg MB: Turnstone Press, 2020), a poetry collection with a hefty, multiple-part preface/introduction, outlining how, why and how much this book owes a debt to American writer Dava Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (Penguin Books, 1999), a book “based on the surviving letters of Galileo Galilei’s daughter, the nun Suor Maria Celeste, and explores the relationship between Galileo and his daughter,” and Letters to Father: Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623-1633 (Penguin Books, 2001), an assemblage of letters translated, introduced and annotated by Sobel. Through the poems of Lunatic Engine, Pearson interplays two distinct threads—of both celestial (including notions of God and of Galileo’s explorations of the universe) and domestic examination—and writes out, as part of his preface, a semi-facetious “INTRODUCTION: THEMES FOR BOOK CLUB,” that lay out the six concerns of the larger collection: “The relationship with your father, stargazer, absent parent,” “The death of your mother,” “The love poems, your relationship with your spouse,” “Becoming a father (and the deep concern that you’ll do it right),” “The mirror world of Galileo and his daughter—another complex but loving relationship” and “The drive to understand the universe, then and now, given the tools we have.” It is a curious way to not only shape a poetry collection, but to offer as outline those same structures. Rife with footnotes, his preface offers, these “are also fragments from the letters between Galileo and his daughter—as if they were commenting on phrases in this book,” and the interplay is intriguing. “To be so close to the truth,” he writes, as part of “SINCE THE LORD CHASTISES US / WITH THESE WHIPS,” offering the footnote: “it is certain that when we possess this treasure / we will fear neither danger nor death [.]”

Within the framework of a collection of seemingly traditional, first-person lyric narratives, Pearson’s Lunatic Engine offers a more complex structure for the book-length poem. The only comparison I can think of, off the top of my head, might be with Vancouver writer Michael Turner’s American Whiskey Bar (Vancouver BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1997), a novel about the making of a screenplay that included the screenplay, and the faux-story of how the process of writing and producing the screenplay all went to hell: a relatively straightforward narrative within a larger and more complex framework. “this is the first two body problem,” Pearson writes, to open the poem “OBSERVANT EXECUTRIX OF GOD’S COMMANDS,” “a daughter of God and the father of science separated / what Galileo’s eye augmented by bending / light to curiosity.” Pearson’s poems offer explorations on some pretty hefty concepts, and the interplay of the minutae of daily interaction in curious ways, writing on faith, marriage, parenting and loss, and the possibilities and impossibilities of all of the above.

IN THE VERY FACE OF THE SUN

the first draft of this was an imagined account of the
teenager next-door’s death by driving too fast down the
dump road the late afternoon sun flashing on the nearly
still beaver-dammed creek just off the shoulder a sharp
turn taken over undercut gravel crumbling and the old
truck is on its side

water pouring into the cab from below sun pouring in
from above

the second draft of this was all about the science the
immutability of the heavens the immobility of the Earth
Galileo and the Nova of 1604 the true word of God an
authority even higher than the Bible

Copernicus pulled the pin on the heliocentric grenade
then promptly died before it could go off

Galileo picked it up tested its weight through math
and motion even before his telescope and his satellites
holding that grenade in the very face of the sun and its
spots its clouds its vapours attracted from the aether

when you get to the end of all of this you’ll look back and
know this is the point

the quality of miracles isn’t what it used to be^5-20

caught between the metonymy of dump roads and grenades
and the memory of your first childhood encounter with death
you’re sitting suspended immobilized
the mutable sun blinding you
as the immutable waters rise

  

__________
5-20 obliging me to hide in silence

 

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Paul Pearson

Paul Pearson is the co-founding editor and chapbook designer for the Olive Reading Series. His poems have appeared in Descant and Event, and the anthology Writing the Land: Alberta Through Its Poets from House of Blue Skies. Raised in a mining town in the mountainous back-country of southeastern British Columbia, Paul has since relocated to Edmonton where he lives and writes with his wife and two children. Lunatic Engine is his debut collection.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

- My first book, Lunatic engine, is coming out with Turnstone in April 2020. This damn thing took me more than a decade to write so it didn't so much change my life as become my life.  That being said, the book I'm working on now is much more focused. Its kind of like I got all the yips out with the first one and now I can really get down to some serious work.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

-Its odd, isn't it? As kids we are exposed to much more prose than poetry. Sure there is the obligatory Shel Silverstein we were all read back in the 70's but for the most part, fiction dominated and I always assumed I would be a novelist when I grew up. Then, in Junior High, I won a district-wide Remembrance Day poetry contest that our Language Arts teacher made everyone enter as a homework assignment. I found my price at age thirteen: $50 and the thrill (and corresponding fame, short-lived as it may be) of reading my work in front of an audience.

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?

- I am an extremely slow writer. Big Ideas come quickly but sit and marinate for months as I try out various things, make false starts, fart around. Every now and then though, something will come out pretty much fully formed. Its that adrenaline hit that keeps me going.

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?

- Almost every single poem I've ever written has started with the title. Back in my student days, poems were standalone little things. I found it hard to keep any writing momentum up that way though and very quickly I discovered that I need a frame, a box, some restrictions, a reason, a thing. Nothing I write now isn't part of something larger.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

- One of the reasons why Andy Weaver and I cooked up the Olive Reading Series was that we believed that poetry needs to be read aloud as much as it needs to be examined on the page. For me, these two facets of poetry are inseparable. I quite often try things out on open stages, see how a piece lives (or dies) when exposed to the open air and an audience. And while I read prose silently, I always read poetry aloud, a habit for which my kids have mocked me endlessly.

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?

- This is a big question. I don't write poetry because I figure I've got something to say. I love playing with language, the facets of sound. But I also don't use language for only its sound, its rhythm. For me, its all about generating the largest emotional impact with the fewest words. I write poetry to try to make a genuine connection through rhetorical tricks other than a logical progression of arguments. I love sound, and play, and multiple (contradictory) meanings, and imagery, and rhythm, and allusion, and non sequitur, and shape, and humour, and hyperbole and yes, litotes, and all the other tools and tricks you learn in English classes - though not punctuation, I seldom use punctuation in my poems. I use all of these not to make a point, not to convince you of something, but to connect to something, to connect to you. To share.

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?

- Ok. My current experience is that there is a desperate dearth of critical thinking in the various public spheres with which I come into contact. The commodification of our very attention now trumps genuine discourse. If it isn't viral consumerism overwhelming your feeds, its someone with an ideological bullhorn shouting at you. With the vast majority of content coming AT you, finding an arena where there is as much listening as telling, as much back as forth, is becoming absolutely essential. Writers are the ones who create that space for discourse, for rhetoric, debate, conversation, exploration. And closer to home for me, it is poetry that attempts to do this on an emotional level.

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

- I find the process of working with an outside editor absolutely exhilarating! Writing is such a solitary pursuit 99 per cent of the time. A good editor, someone who sees and understands what you're doing, what you're attempting to do, is like having a co-conspirator. Chances are no one is going to read your work as closely and as deeply as your editor.  When you have a good one, there is nothing like it.

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

- I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Don McKay when he was writer in residence at the U of A back in the 90's. He taught me to look at each poem as its own thing. Sometimes the title of a poem is also its first line, sometimes it is not.

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

- Building a career in the civil service and then having kids really put a crimp in my days. "Lunatic Engine" was written mostly in school hallways and poolside at the YMCA and in the observation area at the gymnastics club. It was great! Swimming lessons gave me 90 minutes uninterrupted every Wednesday evening. Choir rehearsals, piano lessons, and gymnastics, were all opportunities for both positive parenting and writing time. Now that the kids are older though and have fewer activities, I find myself having to schedule writing time in my outlook calendar the same way I schedule dental appointments and haircuts. Seriously, can we all just agree and institute a Universal Basic Income program now so that I can quit my job and do what I really love? A close friend of mine reminded me last week, when I was complaining about not having enough time to create, that I'm closer now to retirement than to my 20's and that I'll still have a good 2 or 3 decades left after that. And with that I finally understood the true meaning of "cold comfort."

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

- Music. Because writing involves so much of both sides of the brain, I find it necessary to regularly switch off the left brain and give the right brain a little slack in the reins. And sleep. Seriously. A few years ago I was finally diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. Testing showed I would stop breathing an average of three times each minute. I was given a CPAP machine to to keep me from dying in the night. The first morning I woke up after a real 7 hour sleep, I thought I had been reborn:  do you people feel like this ALL THE TIME ?!?!?! So much easier to write when you're not falling asleep all the time.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

- There's a certain type of synthetic fibre used in some stuffed animals. The teddy bear my grandfather gave me when I was born smelled a certain way. A couple of my kids' stuffed animals had that same smell. More than any food or environmental odour, a certain polyester does it for me.

13 - 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?

- I am a complete omnivore for sensory input. As noted above, music tops the list but I'm also very visual and I spend a lot of time with photography and graphic design. But that's not where I generally get ideas for books. I get ideas for books from other ideas. I listen to a ton of audiobooks and podcasts. I'm a total sci-fi junky and science in general provides me with a lot of inspiration. I really think there is something to the emerging theories of ideasthesia, that semantic representations induce sensory reactions and that is the basis for consciousness. There is no difference between sensory perceptions and thought. Mind and brain are one.

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

- The list of writers or writings that have been important for my work is a long, long list. For poetry, Brenda Shaughnessy's The Octopus Museum has its tentacles firmly wrapped around me right now. I also just discovered the fiction of Claire North. The Sudden Appearance of Hope and The First 15 Lives of Harry August blew my mind this winter. And when is Ada Palmer going to publish the next Terra Ignota novel? Charles Stross is always a delightful indulgence as well. Since his passing last year I've slowly been re-reading Patrick Lane. He was hugely formative for me in my undergraduate years, alongside Sheila Watson. The Double Hook is still my favourite novel by a Canadian. And Tom King's short fiction. Jeepers!  And like you rob, a special corner of my heart has been set aside for Richard Brautigan. I'm also going to play the stereotypical English major right now and say that I am never far from Shakespeare. My beat up copy of the Pelican Shakespeare and the King James version of the Old Testament are nearly always within arm's reach.

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

-  Huh, now that's an interesting question and one that makes a number of assumptions. Publishing a book has been my number one goal since I was a kid. While I've been working towards that I've been really lucky and done a lot of other really cool stuff and have generally enjoyed what could be called success in our culture. The drive to be successful in your career fueled by the constant pressure to consume though crushes like Boethius' wheel of fortune. Its exhausting. And we also place a lot of importance on doing stuff in our culture, don't we? I'm going to push back on this question. I have spent my life striving, working. I've done a lot of stuff. There have been vacations, yes. but I've never really spent a significant amount of time with nothing to do. There has always been a fast-approaching end to unstructured time. I'm also going to be honest and tell you that I've pretty much had it with our culture here in North America. All of our forms of public discourse are broken and I despair of them ever being functional again. I've never been to Europe. The art I came of age in is all English writers, Italian painters, French musicians. My political sensibilities markedly Nordic. Sue is of French descent and trained as a fine dining chef. She's in the same boat as me. What would I like to do that I haven't yet done? Give my house and lot back to the Papaschase from whom it was stolen. Then get the hell off this continent and do nothing. For good. 

16 - 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?

-  Rather than go into the civil service and arts administration, I think I would have been a good graphic designer. Another creative pursuit that requires both sides of your brain but one that has a chance of paying more than poetry currently does.

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

- There's no way to answer this question. There's something to do other than to write? I have though been involved in a number of conversations with other white, male, cis-gender writers about privilege. A common question is: Our voices have been prioritized for so long, what right do we have to continue taking up air space? How can we use our power and privilege to address the horrific inequalities rather than to continue to help perpetuate them through complicity? Thus my answer to Question 19 below.

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

- See question 14 for some of the books that have impacted me recently. And see question 19 below for yet more. Film is interesting. I spent more than a decade heavily involved in film in a professional capacity. I watched on average more than 200 films a year. When I got out of it almost two years ago, my eyes were full. I think I may have watched a dozen films in the past year. My appetite for films does appear to be slowly starting to come back. The last mainstream film I saw that I liked was Knives Out. That Rian Johnson knows what he's doing. They really, really should have let him do the last Star Wars film - what an abomination The Rise of Skywalker was. Okay, maybe I'm still turned off film.

19 - What are you currently working on?

- The next book is called "Tarzan and the Robot Gods at the End of Time" and I figure I'm about half way through. The major bits of source material include Burrough's Tarzan books, history and criticism of Surrealism and mainstream books about quantum mechanics and string theory. This project is absolutely bonkers and I love it!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

The Peter F. Yacht Club, issue #8 (the Edmonton issue)

; regatta/reading/launch ;

lovingly hosted by your captain, rob mclennan

with readings by:
Paul Pearson
Marita Dachsel
Jonathan Meakin
& Christine Stewart

Tuesday, November 6, 2007 ; doors 7pm/readings 7:30 at The Black Dog Freehouse, 10425 Whyte Avenue (downstairs)

info: az421@freenet.carleton.ca




author bios:

Paul Pearson lives and writes in Edmonton where he has been a member of the poetry community for almost two decades. Paul has had poems published in, and been an editor of, a number of small magazines including being a founding editor and chapbook publisher of the Olive Reading Series. Paul spent a number of years working for the Alberta Government and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts as the Writing and Publishing Consultant. Since being bumped up to other, non-literary duties last year, Paul has re-discovered both the time and energy to write.

Marita Dachsel's [see her "12 or 20" here] first full-length book of poetry, All Things Said & Done, was published this spring by Caitlin Press. She was born and raised in Williams Lake, BC, and has lived in Kamloops, Dawson City, Vancouver, Auckland and Montpellier, France. She has an MFA in creative writing from UBC and has been published widely in Canadian literary journals. She had been a contributor to the online magazines sweetspot.ca and sweetmama.ca and has written for The Globe and Mail. She's dabbled in playwriting and screenwriting, but finds herself most at home with fiction and poetry. She currently lives in Edmonton with her husband, Kevin Kerr, and their son, Atticus.

Jonathan Meakin emigrated from England to Canada in 1992 and has since lived mostly in Edmonton. He co-founded The Olive Reading Series and has had poems and reviews published in England and Canada. In addition to writing poetry and fiction, he researches and writes on late nineteenth-century Canadian literature. Currently, Jonathan works part-time on a Ph.D. in English and full-time as an arts development consultant for the Government of Alberta.

Christine A. Stewart [see her "12 or 20" here] is from Vancouver and currently writes and teaches experimental poetry and poetics in the English and Film Department at the University of Alberta. She is researching the work of experimental women poets in Western and Eastern Canada, and exploring alternative forms of scholarly analysis. She is author of the chapbooks Pessoas July: or the months of astonishments (Vancouver BC: Nomados Press, 2006), From Taxonomy (Sheffield, England: West House Press, 2003), Daddy Clean Head (Vancouver BC: Lumpe Presse, 2000), A Travel Narrative (Hamilton ON: Berkeley Horse, 1994) and The Barschiet Horse [with Lisa Robertson and Catriona Strang] (Hamilton ON: Berkeley Horse, 1993).

link to issue here

an interview with Adam Dickinson, Olive Reading & chapbook series, Edmonton AB
this interview was conducted over email from March 2005 to June 2005

Adam Dickinson is one of the founders of the Olive Reading and chapbook series in Edmonton, which he recently left in the capable hands of a small group newcomers, including Kristy McKay and Douglas Barbour. In 1999 he won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize from the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick, and his first book of poetry, Cartography and Walking, was published by Brick Books in 2002. He completed a PhD in English at the University of Alberta, and started a postdoctoral fellowship at York University in Toronto in September 2005. The Olive series takes place at Martini's Bar & Grill (9910 109 Street) with a featured reader and an open set. Upcoming readings include poet Olga Costopolis-Almon (Tuesday, February 14, 7pm), The University of Alberta's senior poetry class (Tuesday, March 14, 7pm) and tba (Tuesday, April 11, 70m). For more information on the current Olive reading and chapbook series, email oliveseries@hotmail.com

rob mclennan: How did the Olive series get started?

Adam Dickinson: Beer, really. And the fact that there was not a suitable venue in Edmonton where one could drink beer and listen to more literary poetry. Andy Weaver, Paul Pearson, Jonathan Meakin, and I were the original founders. We wanted to offer a series that featured interesting and challenging poetry in an intimate environment away from the university. From the very beginning we deliberately set the Olive up as something distinct from the university. We wanted to have our beer and our literature. Martini’s Bar and Grill very kindly agreed to let us host the reading series on their premises; they even provided us with a sound system. It was challenging to find a venue at first. Andy has some funny stories about the strange looks he got when broaching the idea at some bars in the Whyte Ave area of Edmonton (the centre of Edmonton’s drinking world).

We always wanted to be more than just a reading series; we had aspirations to be a small press. Initially, we decided to produce a small chapbook of each featured reader’s work to distribute free of charge. The chapbook served the dual purpose of advertisement and memento – the audience always had something to take away from the reading. It was always our intention, however, to produce more elaborate and ambitiously designed chapbooks. Finances limited the scope of our achievements at first. The four of us paid for the chapbook production every month for the first three years of the Olive’s existence. Eventually, we were fortunate enough to receive some small advertising revenue and some significant funding from APIRG (Alberta Publish Interest Research Group). It was at this point that we could afford to pay our readers and to produce to limited edition, specifically designed chapbooks. We were thrilled when Don McKay agreed to let us publish one of his manuscripts (Varves, 2003). We were also thrilled to publish an invocative work by Shani Mootoo (What My Eyes, 2003).

rm: Why do you think Edmonton didn’t have this before you started? The University itself seems strong when it comes to writers and writing, and NeWest Press as well as the University of Alberta Press are strong literary presences. Yet before you, there was still this lack at the level at which Olive exists. Why do you think that was?

AD: I suspect that this kind of regular series didn’t exist before us because of the considerable ongoing organizational effort that it requires. Also, we had to pay for it ourselves at first (which limited the number of interested new members). You’re right; Edmonton has a strong literary presence. The university has several fantastic emerging writers in the creative writing program. We were fortunate with the Olive in that we hit upon a receptive venue and we exploited the various talents of our collective to initially get the series off the ground. There is a lot of inertia to overcome when starting something like this: in addition to the logistics of the reading itself, we had to develop and maintain a regular audience. As you well know, these things take effort and time. We were also fortunate in the early going to have the support of some established writers, in particular Doug Barbour. He has been a fervent supporter and invaluable resource for us over the years. There aren’t too many readings he has missed.

rm: Of the group of you that founded Olive, I do know there are a few different points of view when it comes to stylistic preference. Were there ever readers that came through that perhaps you wouldn’t have chosen, but impressed upon your own work? How did the creation of a reading and chapbook series affect you (or anyone else in the group, as you saw) as a writer?

AD: There were certainly situations where one of us was more keen than the others on having a certain reader. However, there was never a situation where we had someone read that another group member opposed. We try and have tried very hard to represent a balance of poetic styles and interests.

There have been readers who surprised me and inspired me with their excellence; however, I’m not sure I can say that these writers necessarily impacted my work. A good poetry reading for me is a generative experience inasmuch as it makes me want to go home and write poems – it doesn’t make me necessarily want to write like someone else. The Olive has certainly made me feel more a part of the Canadian poetry community (a relatively intimate scene as it is). It has been wonderful to be able to provide a venue for writers from across the country.

rm: Since the series started, a number of the original members have moved on, such as Andy Weaver and Paul Pearson. Who are the newer members of the Olive group, and how have they added to the dynamics of the series?

AD: The Olive has indeed seen some transition in the past couple of years. Paul Pearson was the first to move on (because of work commitments) followed shortly by Jonathan Meakin. Andy and I brought on three new members to fill the significant void left by these founding poets. Roger Davis was the first to join us, bringing his considerable expertise in and enthusiasm for poetry. Roger did his PhD in Calgary studying the journal Open Letter as well as experimental Canadian poetry. Theresa (T. L.) Cowan also became a part of the Olive collective. In addition to her fine spoken-word and performance work, Theresa’s organizational energy and exceptional hosting talents have been invaluable. Lisa Martin-DeMoor joined the Olive in the spring of 2004. Lisa has perhaps the most complete perspective on the Olive because prior to joining the editorial board she was a regular at Olive readings, presenting her outstanding poems. Lisa has, consequently, become intimately acquainted with both sides of the Olive event. She has handled the difficult work of zine production for the past year. Several new members are set to join the Olive as well: Kristy McKay (formerly of Ottawa and also the publisher of the SPIRE broadsheet series); and Sheri Benning (a poet and PhD student at the University of Alberta). I have learned recently that I will depart for Toronto at the end of the summer; Roger Davis also has decided to leave, given work and family commitments. Thus, this coming fall the Olive will have completed its transition from a collective of four male poets to one of four female poets. The Olive is in very strong, creative hands.