today is my fifty-fifth birthday,

Where does the time go? Oh, I don't even ask those questions anymore. Do you remember where I was last year? I've been wearing my 'birthday boy' pin since Monday, given I prefer to take the whole week as 'birthday,' as you already know. My birthday always falls into March Break, so there were only rarely opportunities to acknowledge such with school pals from the farm, especially with mother's ill-health and the usual array of distance and farm work.

When I sent this pic to my brother Darren the other morning, he responded with a face-slap emoji. It matters not! We take the whole week.

What is happening currently? Fifty-five, hm. I care not for the number, but I don't feel much different than five years ago, or twenty-five. Age might be a number, and we all imagine ourselves held at a particular age, with mine being well younger than this. It is a strange thing, certainly.

Our young ladies (Rose has been requesting lately I keep her image off the internet) have been in enough activities over the past few months--Aoife's ukulele lessons, German classes, Embers, ringette practices and games, and Rose's practices and performances through the Anglican Girls' Choir--that they both rebelled against any March Break camps or activities, preferring to simply have a few days they didn't have to do anything or go anywhere. Even still, Rose had a choir practice, and each of them had an afternoon with one of their friends. We also managed a couple of days earlier in the week at the cottage, slipping the bounds of the National Capital Region for Sainte-Adele (we did manage New Year's there, which I seem not to have posted about, as well as Thanksgiving). We went to the cottage, and I sat nearly three days with notebook, and a mound of books I never quite got through as much as I would have hoped. The snow was perfect for building, but Rose wasn't feeling up to it, so we let them lay fallow for a bit. Once they're back at school it will be back at the routine and the running around (multiple days have them either back-to-back or overlapping or simultaneous activities, so I get it).

I've been feeling underwater since November, but I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel, he says, optimisticallly (unless that's simply me having a stroke, which isn't impossible). Next week is VERSeFest, in case you're around (I've been Artistic Director and Board President for over a year now, which I'm still confused by). I'm producing a new chapbook by American poet Eileen Myles for the event, and our schedule is packed with incredible performers. Have you gone through our list yet? The workshops by Myles and Phil Hall might have a space or two left as of today, but who knows. Things fill up fast.

These days, I'm hoping to be circling the ends of the manuscript for "the green notebook" (some two hundred single-spaced manuscript pages, if you can believe it), as well as "the genealogy book" (excerpts of both projects I've been posting for months now over at my substack), two different creative non-fiction/book-length essay projects I've been deep within, for well over a year now (most likely longer than that). I'm not entirely sure where I might send either of these manuscripts, but I am hoping to have something worth sending out around May or June, possibly. I already completed a further manuscript of short stories last year (see one of those stories here, which landed online this week at Leon Literary Review), a process of some seven or so years. The novel-in-progress that plays with certain of the same characters that move through both collections of short stories (begun during that first Covid summer) I've yet to complete, so once those two larger non-fiction projects are completed, I'm hoping I can more seriously work to complete the thing (should I send it to that publisher who turned down my short stories with "we can't sell short stories. let us know if you have a novel"?). It would be good to get that project finished and out, since I've so many further thoughts of what might be fun to work with, work on, etcetera, beyond that. I mean, my novel-in-progress "Don Quixote" was started in 2007, after all. I'm still adding short essays to a slowly-growing manuscript, "reading in the margins : essays on prose writers," the bulk of which I've also been posting to my enormously clever substack. I'm in the midst of at least a further four pieces at the moment.

And poems? Oh, I've been poking at poems for a while now, although far slower than I would prefer. I'm still mid-way through a manuscript of response-poems, some of which has already appeared online; as I've been describing the project:

Fair bodies of unseen prose is an homage text for, around and after American poets Laynie Browne and Rosmarie Waldrop, furthering my exploration around and through the lyric sentence and prose poem. All poem titles (which appear in italics above each brief prose poem) are taken in order from the last line or phrase of each poem in Browne’s In Garments Worn By Lindens (Tender Buttons Press, 2019), itself an homage text to Rosmarie Waldrop, with all of Browne’s titles taken from Waldrop’s Lawn of Excluded Middle (Tender Buttons Press, 1994). As my own sequence progresses, echoes of texts by both poets resound throughout, especially from Browne’s In Garments Worn By Lindens and Practice Has No Sequel (Pamenar Press, 2023), Rosmarie Waldrop’s Blindsight (New Directions, 2003) and Gap Gardening: selected poems (New Directions, 2016), and the collection Crosscut Universe: Writing on Writing from France, edited/translated by Norma Cole (Burning Deck, 2000).

In early 2023, I reviewed three recent titles by Laynie Browne, and quickly realized just how much affinity there was between her work and my own, an element of which is certainly due to our shared love of, and deep influence from, the work of Rosmarie Waldrop. Browne and I soon exchanged books, and In Garments Worn By Lindens prompted this response.

I've also been prodding at some longer, extended poems, really gearing up, it would seem, to a manuscript I'm itching to get to (I've been assembling titles and scraps for a few years now, honestly), once the non-fiction projects are completed. As well, there's a further poetry project I've been working on for about nine weeks or so, but it is too early to speak of such a thing as yet. One poem a week, responding to prompts. I'm hoping I can get to a year or more, if possible, get a book out of this thing. We shall see. Beyond that, my poetry collection the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press) is out in mid-October (it has a cover!), a direct follow-up (with cover design echoes) to the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022). Should I let them know I completed a third in the trilogy well over a year ago? Once we're further through the process of this current collection, I'll most likely send that one along. A trilogy of poetry titles, if you can believe it. Separately, Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025) exists as a kind of side-project simultaneous to the gap between the book of smaller and the book of sentences, with a further manuscript of sequences simultaneous to the gap between the book of sentences and "Autobiography" (the manuscript for that second gap title is currently sitting with a Canadian press for consideration). I also have a forty-ish page essay out soon with Spuyten Duyvil as well, once I've the attention span to sit down with the final manuscript and get that to the publisher, A river runs through it: a writing diary , collaborating with Julie Carr, an essay composed around the call-and-response work we did across early Covid-lockdown, produced as the chapbook river / estuaries (above/ground press, 2023), and since carved up and reworked in our own individual directions. Probably April or May? The only hold-up right now is my own attention span. And then, of course, the manuscript of short short stories I've been poking away at for more than a decade, as a follow-up to The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014). Where would I even send that? I've been posting short excerpts from that manuscript over at my substack for a while as well, if such strikes your interest. Oh, and I'm doing a reading tomorrow in Ottawa with a bunch of folk, if such strikes your fancy. I'm considering it the launch of Snow day, so you should come out to that.

Much as last year this time, I still work to dismantle my home office, for the sake of our young ladies having their own rooms. Rose served me an eviction notice some time ago. This is all taking too long.

some Thanksgiving, Sainte-Adèle, etc.

Another weekend, another Thanksgiving [see also; two years ago], at mother-in-law's cottage, Sainte-Adèle, up in them Laurentides (roughly an hour's drive north of Montreal, if that situates you a bit better). Christine, myself, our two young ladies and irritable cat, Lemonade, hosted by my most favourite mother-in-law. I think this is only our third weekend up here this whole year [see also: labour day weekend], unable most weekends due to the array of child appointments: ukulele lessons, choir practices, ringette, German language school, etcetera. What have we done to ourselves?

We saw no deer on this trip, but there was wind. And squirrels, running up and down the side and the back of the building. As ever, I attempt these get-aways as marathon reading sessions, most of the weekend focusing instead on poking through the larger manuscript of my ongoing "the green notebook," recently subtitled "a writing vigil" [see a variety of excerpts of the project at my substack], as well as putting the final touches upon my essay on Christine's new book, Toxemia (Book*hug Press, 2024), thanks in no small part to an assist by Kim Fahner [see the final essay here] (I think at least half the time up there was dedicated to that particular essay). I might have poked at the beginnings of a short story, also. I'm not sure yet. Otherwise, Rose and I did get part of an evening of chess (her eldest sister and I played a great deal when she was roundabout Rose's age, also): we're already rather evenly-matched, so we keep landing into positions where we've almost no pieces left, simply chasing each other around the board into uselessness, but we enjoy it enormously.

Still, there's a whole mound of material I'm attempting to get through. Did you see the new Stephen Cain poetry title? The new Leonard Cohen biography? The new Ashley-Elizabeth Best poetry title? The stacks of brilliant items produced through Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative? I mean, holy crap: previously uncollected or unpublished works by Bobbie Louise Hawkins (what I was most excited about, honestly), Adrienne Rich, Diane Di Prima, Muriel Rukeyser (some very cool things in there), Edward Dorn, etcetera. Have you seen the collection Other Influences: An Untold History of Feminist Avant-Garde Poetry that Marcella Durand and Jennifer Firestone edited? I've been recommending it to everyone. I spent the weekend working up many notes on many things. A flurry of notes, and then the final morning as I woke completely wiped out, unable to do much of anything (Christine did the driving en route home, due to my brain-fog), confirming Covid-positive once we landed back in Ottawa (today is day five: second day the kids out from school), which is very irritating. So the past few days have been fallow: those notes, as of yet, are still only notes.

And the young ladies have been requesting I minimize photos of them in this space, but here's the youngest during a walk we took down the road, on our final evening there. The tower in the background. The slight pink-purple of sunset and encroaching dusk.

end-of-summer something-something, : sainte-adèle

It took us five months [see when we were here last], but we managed another away-weekend at mother-in-law's cottage. Christine, our young ladies and our persnickety cat, Lemonade, three days of Sainte-Adèle, Quebec, just up along the Laurentides. As ever, the leaves were already beginning to turn (before they do back in Ottawa). Naturally, I now approach such awayness-ess as marathon reading sessions, where I attempt to make first-notes on as many books as possible towards potential reviews (I did get through about half of this stack, if you can imagine, although I was also focused on edits on the manuscript-so-far of "the green notebook," my day-book in-progress).

The Maggie Nelson title, LIKE LOVE (2024), was a particular highlight, although there were certainly others (watch my reviews across the next few weeks). I've noticed over the past few years that I tend to pick up a longer book of prose or two for such trips such as these for my reading attention, whether Anne Boyer, Elisa Gabbert, Sarah Manguso or, now, Maggie Nelson, for poolside in Picton, or either in sunroom or on the porch of Sainte-Adèle. I haven't the opportunity for longer prose these days, otherwise (unless stepping onto a flight or a train, which I also get rather excited about, due to the potential for reading). Christine read her mysteries and worked on some things; I moved through a mound of new titles (mostly poetry titles) and worked on some things. The young ladies played downstairs for a bit, ran around for a bit; Rose is reading a series of young adult journals (not sure if fiction or non-fiction, I haven't looked at too closely), including one referencing the War of 1812, so she's learning all sorts of interesting things (that she is telling us, naturally). I am intrigued by what she is picking up.

And apparently one of her school-mates taught Rose chess at one point (which she was then teaching her wee sister), which she only pointed out at seeing Oma's chessboard (you know we have one at home, right? apparently she did not). We played a few games, and she's not bad. I remember teaching my eldest when she was just a bit younger than Rose is now, and we had that as part of our weekly routine for Saturdays, the travel-board we'd pull out in the food court of the Rideau Centre. I suppose I'll have to pull that out now for Rose.

the laurentitudes: eastering in sainte-adèle,

After months of seemingly-unable, we finally managed a weekend into Sainte-Adèle, into the Laurentides, where we spent a few days with mother-in-law in her wee cottage across the Easter long weekend. I know we’ve been there since, but I seem not to have posted a report since we were there for Thanksgiving in 2022 for some reason. Oh, it was good to get out of the daily for a little bit. We considered heading up on Friday, but didn’t quite make it out (Aoife wasn't feeling well), landing Saturday mid-day, instead. We hadn't realized the temperature difference (there was still snow on the ground, and we could see an array of skiers up in all those hills as we drove in). Christine didn't even bring a coat!

The children played games, played outside, played on their tablets, did quiet things. I focused my attentions on the growing mounds of books over the past couple of months I hadn't even had a chance to open yet, for the sake of potential review. I think I managed to start more than two dozen reviews (and a couple of books I realized I didn't think I would have anything, or enough, constructive to say, so those were set aside). There is simply too much remarkable material being produced these days to be able to account for it all (I know I'm seriously behind on Graywolf Press titles, for example, as well as Copper Canyon and Flood Editions; at least Sylvia Legris' new title from New Directions landed, as I was writing this). I sat in the sunroom and I poured through books (and also made significant headway, I must say, through two short stories I've already been months working on, plus a few other odds and sods of note-taking). Christine, on her part, finished reading the book she'd been going through, and went through two different books on L.M. Montgomery (including the short Penguin biography by Jane Urquhart) for the sake of working a small write-up for an exhibition on and around her works.

There were three daily deer, also. The final morning, they even brought along two friends.

At one point on Saturday, Christine pointed out she couldn’t find the cat, but the screen was out of the open second storey window, and we all scoured the house repeatedly, around the house and even walked down the road with the two young ladies, knocking on doors. Have you seen a black and white cat? A full two hours of stress, completely unaware where he might be, although mother-in-law and I weren’t quite convinced he was outside. Half an hour later, I made another attempt to look upstairs, as he simply strolled out of the upstairs master bedroom, blissfully unaware of the stress and chaos prompted by wherever it is he was sleeping. Both children in tears.

We even managed a game of monopoly (the cottage housed the original, but it is incomplete, so we were forced to play the Star Wars Edition), which had some moments of conflict, but no crying, which is always a plus. With the game leaning too deep into bedtime, we even managed to complete the game the following morning, if you can believe it. Can you believe it?

On the drive home, we also made a quick stop to see my sister on the homestead, startled, still, at the new owners across the road from her stripping away trees, bush, fenceline, etcetera. One long continuous field, nearly to and across the next road south and beyond. I'm not used to seeing that far out that way. Our young ladies, on their part, played with their bunny, who then peed all over Rose's jacket. Ah well. Perhaps this was revenge for Aoife placing her bunny-ears upon said bunny's head?

some sainte-adèle, thanksgiving;

We only managed an overnight, but we did get our regular Thanksgiving Sainte-Adèle trip in, at least, spending time at mother-in-law's cottage with her for a bit. Can you believe I haven't done a post on such since 2017? And do you remember my first post on coming up here with Christine? Geez, that was an awful long time ago. Incidentally, that was the same weekend, landing on the old homestead en route back to Ottawa, that Christine met my mother, for the first and only time.

I'm not sure what our young ladies were doing in this particular photo, but I've since declared it the cover photo for their first album. Something moody, experimental. Something with attitude.

I did manage to get some good reading in, including through a 2014 collection of essays by Garrett Caples, and a variety of other publications I've already completed reviews for (whether already posted or soon-to-appear). Am I working on poems? Am I working on prose? Neither, unfortunately, caught up in reviews and what else, having lost a week to the brain-fog of post-dental surgery (implants!), and another week to the brain-fog of a head-cold. I really need to get the rest of this work out of the way so I can get back to that novel. I mean, honestly.

What else? We spent a day or two taking a breath, in the wilds of the Laurentides. There wasn't time for much more, and our young ladies even managed a walk or two, including one with their Oma, where she took this picture.

Thanksgiving: some Sainte-Adèle,

Given I'm behind on everything these days, I'm only now getting to my Thanksgiving post, having spent a couple of days at mother-in-law's cottage over part of the long weekend. The young ladies ran around, as they do, with their cousins, and Christine and I even managed to breathe, just a bit. I made a strudel. Aoife and I did a brief grocery errand in town, which she enjoyed. All in all, it was warm, and quiet. We sat in the sun.

 

(another) weekend in sainte-adele,

We spent the bulk of the long weekend, again, at Christine's mother's wee cottage, nestled in the hills and the wood an hour or so north of Montreal. Christine worked on preparing our fall Chaudiere titles for the printer, I worked on an interview or three, and Rose toddled about, including a bout we went off into Sainte-Adele proper for ice cream and wandering. Lemonade, of course, slept. How different these trips are from, seemingly, not that long ago (here; here) when Christine would work days on the main floor, and I would work days in the basement, meeting up for evening dinner and drinks and conversation. Will those days ever come round again? Perhaps a small version of such, as Rose grows; perhaps in another five or six years.

We might have been up a few weeks ago, but Christine worries this might be our last for the year (despite being only our second time up), given the tenants take over on November 1st. Between her mother and brother caught up in the election, and some of our October, we are most likely skipping Thanksgiving. Might there be another chance? We just don't (yet) know.

And then there was the thunderstorm on Sunday night, that flicked at the electricity and satellite, interrupting our evening stories and internet. The whole building in black, as the rain pounded down on the rooftop and deck. The occasional flash of the whole world, lit sudden and blue.

But I managed no photos of that.

Poets Online Talking About Coffee : rob mclennan,

I was interviewed recently over at Queen Mob's Teahouse in their "Poets Online Talking About Coffee" series, in which I discuss many things, including coffee.

Sainte-Adèle (August,

Why is it taking us so long to get away these days? This past weekend we finally managed to get to mother-in-law's cottage, an idea rarer now than once was [see my post on last year's adventuring here]. We were there last August, for example, and have barely managed anything since.

Rose, now running full-tilt, enjoyed the expansive lawn. She ran, she contemplated, she explored.

There were the moments inside, there were the moments she covered the entire boundary of lawn, there were the moments watching and chasing giant soap bubbles at the front step of the porch. More bubbles, she chirped. More bubbles?

And then, of course, the realization that these have to exist in ALL the stores, simply to make her happy.

She pounded on the plastic horn, even as she yelled: beep, beep!

There was some work, some bits of work. After months of attempting to further my manuscript of short fiction, I managed to poke at a poem or three, and even complete two of them by the time we returned home.

The stories, I hope, will progress again soon. I think I've done all I can with what I have, and need to generate some further ones to round out the manuscript. Lately, I've had a couple of folk even going through the 60-plus pages of stories to see what they might see, and have received some generous and worthy feedback.

There was work, but there was mostly tearing around with Rose on the lawn, down to the park, and even for ice cream (you can't even speak it out loud around her without her presuming she can have some right now; to do otherwise is only to court her disappointment).

We're hoping to get back sometime in September, but is that even possible? A weekend away, returning home Monday morning for the sake of Christine's carpal tunnel surgery on Monday afternoon, opening up the beginning of two weeks of painkillers and home-from-work, which Rose is enjoying enormously, but Christine is finding rather achy.

Sainte-Adèle (August,

After the long weekend, we collected the cat, and made for the Laurentians, to Christine's mother's cottage tucked away in Sainte-Adèle, Quebec. We'd only been talking about coming up here for months, given Christine's year of maternity leave, but we only managed to get our first trip up now (we are hoping to get at least two more in before winter).

A few days of doing not very much at all (which is so unlike me, I suppose). Rose was very uncertain of the lawn, which I'm sure will be quite different next summer, when she's tearing around and we hope the outdoors just might wear her out.

For the first day or so, it was entirely rain. I worked the bbq in-between flays of torrential downpours. Only the last of our full-days had any kind of sun to speak of.

While there, I worked on some edits on a poem-in-progress, a kind of abecedarian (thanks to generous feedback from Julie Carr), worked on some edits/comments for a couple of folk via my ongoing poetry editing services, and poked at a couple of other projects, including the Phil Hall selected I've been working on, and forthcoming above/ground press items by myself, Megan Kaminski and Andy Weaver, most of which should even be available for the big twenty-first anniversary event on the fourteenth.

I have yet to get back into fiction, after receiving some feedback from Sara Cassidy (hoping once we are home).

I've been attempting to prod Christine into return to our non-baby collaborative project [see further information on such here, and also here], but that hasn't quite happened. Yet.

And of course, we are still pushing our big Chaudiere Books indiegogo project; see how far we've come!

Since we haven't a crib, we even experimented with baby Rose sleeping upon the floor for her naps, which even occasionally worked. (Who knew?) Although she was slightly more cranky than usual, given we're off her usual routine and what-not (despite attempting not to be).

And we even experimented with allowing Rose to feed herself raspberries, going through nearly an entire pint. Of course, her hands and her clothes entirely covered with raspberry juice. Christine attempted blueberries a couple of weeks ago, and she loved them (but they seemed far less messy).

Quite the difference from last year. Or even the year before (twice).

And all the books I brought to read, almost none of which I've managed to even open...

Canada Day in Sainte-Adèle

We’ve been at Christine’s mother’s cottage at Sainte-Adèle since Friday night, enjoying a longish and quiet weekend. Christine and I have been picking at our collaboration again, getting some good work done on the manuscript in preparation for our reading at the In/Words Reading Series on July 31^st (we're even, as we speak now, working on the chapbook for the event). We spend the days quietly working in our respective corners, and meet up for dinner, and various evening activities. With the nice weather, there’s even the opportunity to sit an afternoon reading on the deck.

Still: I know, we’re missing David Scrimshaw’s awesome brunch, and various invitations/opportunities to hang about The Carleton Tavern.

I spent about a day listening to nothing but Townes Van Zandt; where the hell have I been? (I feel like the last one to make it to the party, and most of the beer is long, long gone.) Eventually shifted from there to Justin Townes Earle. Some really powerful stuff, and more than a couple of pieces I've set aside to attempt to learn how to play. How did I then end up at Snow Patrol?

Ongoing notes: early September, 2012

Where does all the time go? I’ve been saying this for years, it seems. Currently, we’re on the final of six days (again) in Sainte-Adele, Quebec, hiding out in Christine’s mother’s cottage, quietly working on various projects, just we and our wee cat, Lemonade. Sainte-Adele, where we witnessed the blue moon, what Peyo claimed brought about the birth of another new Smurf (we so far have seen none).

Mere weeks to the wedding, now. Check out the“engagement photo” that Ottawa artist Tom Fowler did for us, recently posted to the wedding blog. Fantastic!

I just had a chapbook manuscript accepted by Gaspereau Press! Watch for spring 2013 for the appearance of Mother Firth’s, a poem I wrote on old Bytown history, my finally own Devil’s Whim…

Vancouver BC: After I complained in the previous “Ongoing notes” about receiving so few Canadian-made chapbooks by Canadian writers, it was a relief to see Vancouver poet and interview Kevin Spenst’s self-published Happy Hollow & the Surrey Suite (2012). As he writes in the colophon:

This chap-book bricolage was finished August 2012 at the Sage Hill Writing Experience: the energy in these poems was siphoned from my fellow writers. Special thanks is due to my workshop instructor Ken Babstock and fellow poets Margot Lettner, Cassidy McFadzean, Ruth Asher, Jacob Scheier, & Brian Campbell. Thank you for helping me get the right mix.

I’ve always liked small workshop chapbooks such as these, and/or works produced when the writer is on any kind of away-trip, whether retreat, vacation or whatever else. The chapbook even reminds me of when I used to receive envelopes of chapbooks from Robert Kroetsch moons ago, works by himself and various students during a previous Sage Hill Experience. It was where I was long ago introduced to the work of K.I. Press, I believe.

In Spenst’s chapbook, the poems run the gamut, and a number work in the immediate “I did this, I did that” mode, with poems for “Lumsden,” “Qu’appelle Valley,” “St. Michael’s Retreat” and “SaskEnergy,” using the material at hand to trigger poems. Still, the poems here that resonate most are the ones that exist beyond these pieces, with all the action sometimes taking over, distracting from what might really be going on; once the material of the immediate has been utilized does the writing happen, where the deepest action occurs.

Uncle Willy’s Buffet

believe it or not was once the stomping grounds of the only Canadian sumo wrestler who’d thrown in the mawashi and come back from Japan never acclimatized to wiping the derrieres of senior sumos but instead ended up at Hans and Willy’s establishment where they charged him for two and he ate like three sittings at Surrey’s very own Mount Fuji in the middle of the restaurant next to Craig and his skater-buddies from Cloverdale with their backpacks stuffed with chicken breasts when no one was looking and around the corner from them was the girl with the “what-the-fuck-are-you-looking-at” hair lip and her “well-don’t-fuckin’-look-at-me-I-gotta-deal-with-her-all-the-time” boyfriend and then through the swinging doors was the dish-pit drop and then the closet with the two-liter of sweet cooler which we took turns chugging and then through the thump-thump doors again, looking at Surrey’s Mount Fuji who was in fact smaller than the glass pyramid atop Guildford Mall, but bigger than the cloth I’d used to wipe my first table under the tutelage of Hans who’d just come from East Germany to start a business with Willy who was from West Germany and who liked my Germanic looks enough to forgive my first wipe of crumbs from the table directly onto the floor and next to them was the manager with hair like Roger Daltry who sold coke on the side and my friend Sigsworth who started a month after me and was always coming down from acid and there I was with my free plate of buffet at the end of the day and all the ice-cream I could stomach.

Davis CA: Every time I think the slew of dusie chapbooks that once flooded my mailbox are over, another one slips its way through, this time equinox (2011) by California poet and publisher Jill Stengel. Equinox, as the title suggests, was “written on the autumnal equinox, 2011 / inconsistencies included with intention.” As she writes:

dear equinox—what will you

bring me—or, rather, what will

I make of you—enough with

the waiting—I move ahead

outward onward into—passive

chalice ruptured

This is a lovely, short sequence: “I am out here raw as the / night sky waiting for you”

New Orleans LA: From New Orleans poet and 17 Poets organizer Megan Burns comes the chapbook a city / bottle boned (Chicago Il: dancing girl press, 2012), a short sequence of etchings on her home town, scratched in small phrases across the white page. As her thirteen-part/page poem begins:

[in the anatomy]

here             rivulet of sweat pathing

a maze of goosebumps

    night flesh

listen to the thunder      deep in no rain

think about a wind that bends bodies

picks up bones       discard:

      rush of featherless flight

      rumor of pretty birds