Wednesday, July 03, 2019

dusie : the tuesday poem,



The Tuesday poem is nearly six years old, with more than three hundred new poems published to date! Since April 9, 2013, I've been curating a weekly poem over at the dusie blog, an offshoot of the online poetry journal Dusie (http://www.dusie.org/), edited/published by American poet and publisher Susana Gardner.

http://dusie.blogspot.ca/

The series aims to publish a mix of authors from the dusie kollektiv, as well as Canadian and international poets, ranging from emerging to the well established. Over the next few weeks and months, watch for new work by dusies and non-dusies alike, including
Winston Le, Diana Arterian, Manahil Bandukwala, Samuel Ace, Zane Koss, J.I. Kleinberg, Luke Bradford, Sadie McCarney, Shelly Harder, Samuel Strathman, Ariel Dawn, Arisa White, Ian Martin, Charles Rafferty, Andrew Cantrell, Terese Mason Pierre, Guy Birchard, Kimberly Campanello, Franco Cortese, Dale Tracy, Lucy Dawkins, Shannon Quinn, Tom Snarsky, Aja Moore, Paul Perry, Erin Lyndal Martin, Alice Notley and Chad Sweeney.

A new poem will appear every Tuesday afternoon, Central European Summer Time, just after lunch (which is 8am in Central Canada terms).

If you wish to receive notices for poems as they appear, sign up here for the weekly email list.

So far, the Tuesday poem series has featured new writing by Elizabeth RobinsonMegan KaminskiMarcus McCannHoa NguyenStephen Collisj/j hastainDavid W. McFadden, Edward SmallfieldErín Moure,Roland PrevostMaria DamonRae ArmantroutJenna ButlerCameron AnsteeSarah RosenthalKathryn MacLeodCamille MartinPattie McCarthyStephen BrockwellRosmarie WaldropNicole Markotić, Deborah PoeKen BelfordHugh Thomasnathan dueckHailey HigdonStephanie BolsterJessica Smith,Mark CochraneAmanda EarlRobert SweredaColin SmithSarah MangoldJoe BladesMaxine Chernoff,Peter JaegerDennis CooleyLouise BakPhil HallFenn Stewart, derek beaulieuSusan BrianteAdeena KarasickMarthe ReedBrecken Hancock, Lea GrahamD.G. JonesMonty ReidKaren Mac Cormack, Elizabeth WillisSusan ElmsliePaul VermeerschSusan M. SchultzRachel Blau DuPlessisK.I. Press,Méira CookRachel MoritzKemeny BabineauGil McElroyGeoffrey NutterLisa SamuelsDan Thomas-GlassJudith CopithorneDeborah MeadowsMeredith QuartermainWilliam Allegrezzanikki reimer,Hillary GravendyckCatherine Wagner,Stan RogalSarah de LeeuwTsering Wangmo DhompaArielle Greenberg, lary timewellNorma ColePaul HooverEmily CarrKate SchapiraJohanna SkibsrudJoshua Marie Wilkinson, Richard FroudeMarilyn IrwinCarrie Olivia AdamsAaron Tucker,Mercedes EngJean DonnellyPearl PirieValerie CoultonLesley YalenAndy WeaverChristine Stewart,Susan LewisKate Greenstreetryan fitzpatrickAmish TrivediLola Lemire TostevinLina ramona VitkauskasNikki SheppyN.W. LeaBarbara HenningChus Pato (trans Erín Moure)Stephen CainLucy IvesWilliam HawkinsJan ZwickyRusty MorrisonJon BoisvertHelen HajnoczkySteven Heighton,Jennifer KronovetRay HsuSteve McOrmondLily BrownDaniel Scott TysdalBeth BachmannHarold AbramowitzSarah BurgoyneDavid James BrockElizabeth TreadwellShannon MaguireMary Austin SpeakerVictor ColemanCharles BernsteinJennifer K DickEric SchmaltzKayla CzagaPaige Taggart,Hugh Behm-SteinbergLillian NecakovLiz HowardJamie ReidJennifer LondryRachel Lodena rawlingsJenny HaysomJake KennedyBeverly DahlenKristjana GunnarsEleni ZisimatosPete Smith,Julie CarrNatalee CapleAnne BoyerAlice BurdickBuck DownsPhinder DulaiBronwen TateAshley-Elizabeth BestNelson BallLaura SimsCassidy McFazdeanPaul ZitsGeoffrey YoungMichael Sikkema,Renée Sarojini SaklikarEmily IzsakMichael RubyKemeny BabineauMairéad ByrneAmy Bagwell, Jamie SharpeDina Del BucchiaEndi Bogue HartiganClaire LaceyGeorge BoweringMuriel Leung,Michael LithgowBrynne Rebele-HenryKate HargreavesCarrie HunterJennifer BakerRita Wong, Kristina DrakeSonnet L’AbbéMontana RayFarid MatukMichael CavutoMark TruscottVirginia KonchanChristine Stewart and Ted ByrneChris MartinJason ChristieMarie BuckGeorge StanleySean BrauneNatalie LyalinDonato ManciniShannon BramerAnne Cecelia HolmesKiki PetrosinoEmily AbendrothMelissa BullBarbara LanghorstSuzanne ZelazoAaron McColloughÉireann LorsungAlexandra OliverKlara du PlessisDaphne MarlattCAConradSarah DowlingSara Renee MarshallSarah FoxNyla MatukCody-Rose ClevidenceBrian HendersonAdrienne Gruberbp suttonLaura WalkerJessica Popeski,Collier NoguesMark GoldsteinZach SavichJacqueline ValenciaGerry ShikataniJennifer StellaMatthew Henriksen,Sharon ThesenSarah Cook, Eryk Wenziak, 신선영 Sun Yung Shin, Ander Monson, Carrie Etter, Sarah Moses, Julia Polyck-O’Neill, Aimee Herman, Christine Stoddard, Aaron Boothby, John Barton, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Steve Venright, natalie hanna, Melissa Eleftherion, Adam Clay, Jennifer Zilm, Michelle Detorie, Kyle Flemmer, Biswamit Dwibedy, Rebecca Salazar, Ryan Eckes, Kate Siklosi, Lissa McLaughlin, Ashleigh Lambert, Shane Book, Anna Gurton-Wachter, James Meetze, Conor Mc Donnell, Jake Syersak, Domenica Martinello, Stephanie Grey, Christy Davids, Jay Ritchie, Katie Fowley, Emily Sanford, Geoffrey Nilson, Simina Banu, Marty Cain, Chelene Knight, Madhur Anand, Matthew Johnstone, Chia-Lun Chang, Andrew Wessels, Michael Martin Shea, Kimberly Quiogue Andrews and Sarah Blake, Lance La Rocque, Callie Garnet, Kerry Gilbert, Laura Theobald, Felicia Zamora, Eléna Rivera, Christian Schlegel, Janet Kaplan, Stuart Ross, Beth Ayer, Laressa Dickey, Beni Xiao, Annick MacAskill, Jenna Lyn Albert, John Phillips, MC Hyland, Di Brandt, Anthony Etherin, M.H. Vanstone, Sommer Browning, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Madeleine Stratford, Liz Countryman, Jamie Townsend, nina jane drystek, Nicole Steinberg, Lauren Haldeman, Catherine Cafferty, Cath Morris, Kristi Maxwell, Shira Dentz, Taryn Hubbard, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Joel Robert Ferguson, Jane Virginia Rohrer, Elisha May Rubacha, Noah Falck, Rebecca Rustin, Seth Landman, Marvyne Jenoff, Mikko Harvey, Erin Emily Ann Vance, Michael Turner, Heather Sweeney, Tanis MacDonald, Evan Gray, Conyer Clayton, Laynie Browne, Timothy Otte, Tim Atkins, Erin Bedford, Alex Manley, Jen Sookfong Lee, Kirby, Emma Bolden, Ruth Daniell, Lindsay Turner, Brenda Brooks, Rob Winger, Jordan Davis and Avonlea Fotheringham.


Tuesday, July 02, 2019

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jeremy Pataky


Jeremy Pataky is the author of Overwinter (University of Alaska Press). His poetry and essays have appeared in Colorado Review, Black Warrior Review, The Southeast Review, Cirque, Camas, Ice Floe, Anchorage Press, and many other journals and anthologies. Jeremy earned an MFA at the University of Montana and a BA at Western Washington University. He is a founding former board member and Executive Director of 49 Writers, a literary nonprofit in the 49th state, and publisher of Edible Alaska magazine. He splits his time between Anchorage and McCarthy, Alaska. | jeremypataky.com

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Well, for one, publishing the first book helped me to ask new questions, to move on and stop obsessing over old ones. It probably helped me recognize and quit some ticks of voice or style, too. The book also resulted in opportunities, friendships, residencies, conversations, and collaborations that leave me grateful.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
If experience starts in the womb south of a mother’s iambic heart, then I guess I arrived in the world already exposed to rhythm and meter—and then came nursery rhymes, songs, lullabies, tongue-twisters, rhyme, puns. I spent a lot of time alone as a kid, and both listened to and played music. It’s a bit of a wonder that I took to poetry, since I had to leave home, move 400 miles to a city of strangers, and start college before I met a poet or an admitted poetry reader besides my Frost-familiar grandmother. The influence was probably from bookstores, especially Auntie’s in Spokane, Washington, where I spent inordinate amounts of time, and where I eventually discovered lit journals and collections of poems that I read. I was reading a lot by the time I started college and writing more lines than sentences. Seems terrifically unlikely, though, thinking back to when I was where I am from.

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?
Knee-jerk reaction’s that I’m slow. Though some individual poems happen quickly. It varies.

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?
My first book is a collection of poems written over a given period of time, but otherwise more or less isolated. They do work better together, I think, but they weren’t all written toward realization as a book. Now, though, I am working on a “book”, and that “project” feels different. I’ve also gathered hordes of fragmentary prose written over years and written more, which I’m starting to conceive of as another book-in-process and to approach with a bit more organization and intent. I catch myself feeling sure my next book will be another book of poetry, and the next will not.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I enjoy doing readings, yes. When the situation’s right, there’s no revision hack like reading a definitely-not-done draft to an audience and feeling that self-conscious “whoops” at the weak parts. There’s also no pleasure like reading the right finished work to the right audience and experiencing that synergy between writers and readers/listeners—something kind of conversational, almost collaborative. The trouble with readings is that the audience generally can’t read the poem, or re-read it, or pause in the middle and re-read a single line.... The trouble with poetry is some readers need it read to them in order to receive it fully.

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?
My questions involve responsibility and possibility, and how a writer negotiates craft and subject. How’s it possible to bring craft to bear in best honoring our subjects? How do we avoid dishonoring our subjects and questions by being aesthetically lazy in favor of message or interest? How do we fully deploy language without risking lingual indulgence? Subject-wise, I question who I am and how to incorporate care and concerns I have on social justice topics while worrying who am I to even try? I ask questions about race and social justice—especially as an ally reared in the “whitetopia” of 80s-90s North Idaho. For a long time, “political” was a pejorative descriptor for poems, which seems almost unimaginable in the contemporary moment when political poetry is a snorkel we use to help barely avoid drowning in a miasma of fake news and political sewage.

And there are environmental questions. Of course, the political and the environmental have come to overlap. Even a great deal of social justice is environmental. Language is the only technology we have that comes even close to mirroring ecological complexity, and that’s true, of course, in part since language, and our brains whose wiring engenders it, is a product of ecology (see David Abram). Our oldest phonemes are onomatopoeic and our earliest letters are pictographic. We are hardwired to speak, but not hardwired to avoid shitting the bed and then articulately dismissing ourselves of blame, or outrightly blaming others. So if language is natural and we have pushed nature past unprecedented breakage through a combination of our own unimaginative, unsensate cultural apathy, how can one bring language to bear in aid of the nature (inclusive of people and peoples) we damage?

Just as “political” poetry used to do, the label “nature” writing still functions as a serious cold-water turnoff for a lot of (mostly urban or suburban) readers. “Environmental” writing, on the other hand, has gained ground to the point of trending. That’s good, as long as there’s feeling, there, and as long as feeling spurs responsible action, by someone. Of course, an attentive act of writing itself can count as that action, sometimes. As a poet, though, I would also say the distinction between what we mean when we say “nature writing” and “environmental writing” is an important one, though we would have no environmentalism without the natural historians that wrote their observations down. We would have fewer keen observers of the world (which parleys into carers for the world) without some mediocre writing that passes along some passion and knowledge. We would have damaged nature even more without documenting, in all forms, what’s at stake and what’s lost. Those authors do take more than their own belly buttons as subject.


That said, I mostly relate to the crowd that’s had enough nature writing. I have not had my fill of environmental writing, though, especially now that lit has finally woken to the shared Shit Creek we might as well paddle with poems. And since there’s still an incredible amount to learn about the world and we’re discovering that we didn’t learn (or apply our learning) fast enough, we need those observers who not only experience or learn but describe and share. We also need people to temper that pure phenomenological input with poetics, to make something durable and original that is not mimetic but moves us into a space of caring for more than the words on the page or, conversely, the subject of those words. Of course I might not care about your subject if you don’t care for the words you’re dishing it up with. All this is to say that I’m especially interested in ecopoems that gather some knowing about them, some science and experience, some care for some level of detail, as opposed to impression and speculation or regurgitation. Or belly buttons. I like a poem that doesn’t just purport to be in dialog with the social and physical world but that has inherently accepted something from it and entreated the page to engage. A good poem proffers something that matters more than itself, even as it does that thing that people observe good poems do—they say more than they should seemingly be able to say, superseding language’s potential by way of language, slipping into that hyperlingual place where language gives us more than we should seemingly be able to use words to say.

How can one do that over and over again while folding in a care and responsibility for the billions of “others” on the planet, and for the planet itself?

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 think writers can lend eyes, ears, and dreams to a culture, all of which are essential to safe navigation, including course correction when the vessel veers. A writer can attend to truths and meanings to which the self is secondary, without ever failing to bring the self to bear in the pursuit. The writer also stirs the paint bucket of language, preventing settling or separation, enabling us all to keep dipping and brushing the stuff in our world-making pursuits. This stirring, this charting and navigation, requires at least as much discipline and work as it does attentiveness.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)? It’s a lucky and useful intimacy.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Write every day, read a lot, read everything, read anything. Also—spend time alone. Solitude is necessary.

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?
I usually start by making coffee; sometimes, if I’m up unusually early, I’ll write for a while first, but those are rare days. I don’t start every day out writing, anymore; someday I probably will again, but for now I’m usually aiming to get day-jobbing out of the way. Dance the gig jig. I’m a catch as catch can writer, but one incapable of disabling at least a passive/receptive research mode, and I always have a notebook to collect in or folders on the computer to squirrel away morsels to return to. I usually start poems by hand, finally typing them up when they’re too scribbled to remain legible, and then I continue drafting on a printout, etc.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I read and re-read, watch films, hike and get outside, listen to music or podcasts and make things with my hands, call writer and artist friends, go to readings and lectures, click back through old photographs, waiting for forgotten shards to surface, waiting for new connections between known points. Work on my cabin or do projects on my land. Cook. Depends on where I’m at, what time of year, what kind of stalled it is.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Woodsmoke, coffee, Labrador tea. The pungent aroma of cottonwood buds in spring. The odor of ripe highbush cranberries in late fall. Fresh-baked salmon. Chainsaw exhaust and bar oil. Hot laser printer toner. Stovetop popcorn with cheap parmesan (olive oil and cast iron, preferably), with nutritional yeast and Bragg’s. Blueberry sourdough pancakes. The smell of tent nylon (or whatever it’s made of).

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?
Music has always been an influence — both lyrically and tonally. I’ve become increasingly moved by visual art and feel like I’ve borrowed framing techniques or processes from artists, as well as a broader notion of collaboration.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
W.S. Merwin (rest in peace). Gary Geddes, a mentor and friend, has had a terrific influence in many ways, including introducing me to Daphne Marlatt, Tim Lilburn, Don McKay, each important in different ways. Deep respect for indigenous poets Joan Naviyuk Kane and Cathy Tagnak Rexford. Many more, too.

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

Transit the Northwest Passage. And/or go by sailboat… or any ship that’d take me… to Antarctica.

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?
Maybe photography

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Couldn’t help it/didn’t think about it till after its going on was a foregone conclusion.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Micrograms by Nicole Walker. And probably The Ballad of Buster Scruggs by the Cohen brothers.

19 - What are you currently working on?
For poems, I’m writing from my home in the north about the lyric and scientific properties of glacier ice, sea ice, permafrost, glaciated and deglaciated landscapes, and their shifting cultural significance in a time of political and environmental upheaval. I’ve been writing sentences and paragraphs and maybe even essays, too, but I don’t want to spook them by talking about them.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;



Monday, July 01, 2019

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


[Michael e. Casteels of Puddles of Sky Press and Cameron Anstee of Apt. 9 Press]

Happy Canada Day! I’ve been on the farm all weekend caregiving my pa, so here are some notes I put together on some of the items I collected as part of our most recent edition of the ottawa small press book fair (can you believe the event will be twenty-five years old this fall?).

Oh, and did I mention Christine heads off to Sage Hill tomorrow for ten days? Working to get some heavy lifting done on that third manuscript (after our trip last fall for the sake of her research, that saw her a couple of days in the British Library; remember that?). It also means me solo with the kids for ten days, which should most likely be fine (and I’ll watch a bunch of nighttime teevee that she hates, obviously).

Ottawa/Paris ON: Once again, Ottawa poet and Apt. 9 Press publisher Cameron Anstee furthers a conversation about great writing through archival materials, through Nelson Ball’s A Letter to Amanda Bernstein and a Checklist of Weed/Flower Press (Apt. 9 Press, 2019), a small collection produced in a numbered first edition of one hundred copies. A legendary poet, publisher, editor and bookseller, Nelson Ball ran the infamous Weed/Flower Press from 1965 to 1973, and this small collection is centred around Amanda J. Bernstein, Rare Books Librarian, University of Sheffield, England, who was working to purchase and catalogue the Weed/Flower collection, and asked Ball some questions around the press, its origins and how it worked. As Anstee writes in his introduction:

One of the most remarkable features of this latest phase of Nelson Ball’s career—and perhaps most exciting, next to his prolific output of new poetry—has been his newfound willingness to make public statements on his life and work. During his multi-faceted career, Ball has been resistant to offering public self-assessment. He has rarely given public readings or interviews and he does not write essays—personal or critical—preferring to let his work speak for itself. This restraint is admirable, but for long-time readers and followers of his small press efforts, it has left a vacuum. What does he think about his poetry, or about poetry generally? What drove him as an editor and publisher? What does he see as the role of the bookseller?

For someone such as myself, interested in poetry and publishing, the history of small press generally and Nelson Ball specifically, this collection is absolute gold: beautifully produced, gracefully compiled and rich with new commentary from Ball on numerous elements of his Weed/Flower Press, and by Cameron Anstee, who has been quietly and methodically spending his attention on that which might otherwise have been completely lost. As Ball writes: “This is my sole attempt to write about Weed/Flower Press (WFP).” And that, itself, is stunning. Toward the opening of his letter, Ball continues:

It’s difficult for me to assess what influence WFP may have had, or to separate the influence of WFP from that of my own poetry. Until I joined the Internet in the year 2000, I was largely unaware that I or my press had been of any influence, except for enthusiasm shown by John Curry and Stuart Ross. I’m now aware of having influenced a wider group of young writers.

Here is the first entry, for example, in Ball’s “Commentary on the Books and Authors”:

Ball, Nelson. Room of Clocks: poems (1964-65). Kitchener, weed/flower press. 1965.
Barbara and I eloped and married in a civil ceremony in Ottawa (distant from Toronto, in order our relatives not learn of this because we were both still students). We married in January 1965. We stayed at Bill Hawkins’ house but it got too cold, so he passed us on to his artist friend Christopher Wells and his wife Peg who had a warmer house. We asked no one to accompany us to the ceremony (Magistrate’s Court located in Ottawa’s No. 1 Police Station building) because we regarded this as nothing more than paper work. We had agreed to stay together for five years and then reassess our relationship. Barbara and I celebrated by having supper at a Honeydew Restaurant (a chain of very middle class eateries). I told Barbara during supper of my idea of starting a low cost poetry press using a Gestetner stencil duplicator to publish a magazine and chapbooks. My plan was to get commercial printers to print covers while I would print the insides, collate, staple and fold. Barbara liked that idea. I may have already told you that years later she told me that a major reason for marrying me was that I was a poet. She had read and liked my poems in Volume 63 and wanted to meet me. Likewise, I used some of her drawings in Volume 63, and I wanted to meet her. We first met in the Fall of 1964. I kne of precedents for how I planned to publish. Bill Hawkins had shown me mimeographed magazines (Tish and Motion) and books. I had been taught how to use a Gestetner during my early teens when I volunteered to print the weekly events calendar for the church my family attended. I gathered poems for the first issue of Weed during 1965 and decided to print a chapbook of my own poems before the end of the year to get started on this publishing venture. The book looked crude. I determined to do better.

[Elisha May Rubacha of bird, buried press] 

Peterborough ON: As part of the introduction to Peterborough poet Katherine Heigh’s debut, PTBO NSA (Peterborough ON: bird, buried press, 2019), she writes: “This collection consists of found poetry constructed from the titles of local Craigslist ads. The sort of ads from which these poems are constructed no longer exist. In March 2018, after the United States passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, Craigslist eliminated all personal ads, including those in the “casual encounters” section. While FOSTA and SESTA are ostensibly included to curtail sex trafficking, many sex workers have spoken out about how such legislation makes their lives tremendously more dangerous. Furthermore, most ads listed in ‘casual encounters’ did not appear to be posted by sex workers or those seeking their services. Many of the casual encounters ads listed in the Peterborough area seemed to have been posted by closeted people, especially those from outlying rural communities.” These are odd little lyrics, crafted from Craigslist ads, composed, one might suspect, as found poems or found lines collaged into poems. Either way, she highlights the lyric throughout these poems, as well as an occasional loneliness throughout; seeking a connection, somehow, through the anonymity of Craigslist. There is something uncomfortable about these poems, given Heigh utilizes the desperation, and potentially the direct language, of anonymous strangers for these pieces; this is something I’m uncertain about, that discomfort, and whether she should even be using such, but that discomfort might entirely be her purpose and point. Either way, with her forthcoming chapbook To the People Who Used to Live Here with Toronto’s Gap Riot Press, I am curious to see where her work is headed.

Fleming College & Trent University

Crossdresser class is in session for Fleming and Trent.
Cruising the gym, I need help.

Can I borrow your wife’s sexy clothes?

Long and thick leathermen in Peterborough area
looking for dildos spoil me.