Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 67

Gale Marie Thompson, Mountain Amnesia: Poems

 

A Rank, Bleak Devotion

That violence lies inwriting is not so far
from the truth. This isthe animal I knew before

I started, whose neck I wishedto rub my own against.
She brings the word mercyinto the field.

Her mouth staggers overthe counting, the one
and one and one of bodiessoaked in oil. In the blue

of gathered facts itfeels the same: splattered
mouth, bloody bulb of thesign. I keep practicing

the problem, To getback at, to get back at, the letters
written on a field ofdark paper, disorder.

I make lists. I peelonions beneath my skin
and push them out of me. Iwake up

in the morning andrealize that a sex dream
can also be a sexual assaultdream. Mercy, healing—

these are words I’venever used in a poem before.
Can I write into her, shewhose own wool

touches mine? A blunterway to say: am I a body
who depends on otherbodies? I make lists.

A loved posture can alsobe a speech act.
This is how it begins. Whatwill seep will seep.

Havingdeeply enjoyed North Georgia poet Gale Marie Thompson’s second full-lengthcollection, Helen or My Hunger (Portland OR: YesYes Books, 2020) [see my review of such here], I was very excited to see her latest: Mountain Amnesia: Poems (Fort Collins CO: The Center for Literary Publishing, 2023),winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry. As final judge Felicia Zamora writesof the collection: “Mountain Amnesia stretches thin the fibrous tissuesof grief that inhabit the body, mind, and ether of existence from burrowingtraumas. These lamentations expose the weight of abuse, longing and loss,unanswered prayers, and an inescapable natural law: ‘this I know: that evenevil men die.’” There’s such an unflinching sharpness to these poems, andThompson’s is a fierce and precise first-person lyric of violence, dark survivaland a weighted grief. “In the time it took to produce / this sentence,” shewrites, to open the poem “Turnover,” “the spinal // shadow of my house hasleaned / its wet angle over the yard // so completely, a massacre / so small—yetloved, like // the family lick of the herd— [.]” In this third full-lengthcollection, Thompson continues her engagement through densely-packed lyricsthat explore dark paths, dark threads: a thread I’ve increasingly seen across Americanpoetry these past few years, whether exploring titles by YesYes Books generally(including recent titles by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach [see my review here], Alycia Pirmohamed [see my review here] and Allison Blevins [see my review here]), ortitles such as Jenny Molberg’s The Court of No Record (Louisiana StateUniversity Press, 2023) [see my review of such here] and Claire Schwartz’s CivilService (Minneapolis MN: Graywolf Press, 2022) [see my review of such here].“There must be an aphorism here / about thunder and discipline,” she writes, aspart of “The Law of Jocasta,” the poem Felicia Zamora quotes from as part ofher blurb, “how its roll and hone engraves / from inside. Even Queen Elizabeth/ once remade herself a virgin / in this soggy, pink light. Because / this I know:that even evil men die. / It’s constitutional. It’s the law.”

Setas a quartet of numbered groupings of poems, Thompson’s poems don’t merelyexamine, but simultaneously dismantle and reassemble; one might describe thepoems in this collection as as exploring the dark shadows of human experience. “Marchkilled so much this year / just like every year. I hear that death exists,” shewrites, as part of the poem “No Witness,” “I hear it and I hear it, / but I keepmy mouth away from the wind, / I keep its noises muddied in the woods.” It is abook of survival mechanisms, witness and deep grief, and composing these piecesas a way to push through to the other end, or at least, as close as might bepossible. As part of her December 2021 ’12 or 20 questions’ interview, shedescribes her then-work-in-progress, a manuscript she responds via email is anearlier iteration of Mountain Amnesia:

I’ve been working on thismanuscript called Dummy Prayer for a number of years now, and new poemscome in each year and change its face a bit more each time. During the pandemicI’ve been hiking and reading in the mountains around where I live, and evenbefore the pandemic I was living a pretty isolated life here in North Georgia.Over the last few years, I’ve had a few friends pass away unexpectedly, as wellas some other losses and oblivions and changes that (like always) have affectedmy relationship with the world. So, all of that together means that my poemsare very much influenced by the messiness of nature in Appalachia, along withthe messiness of loneliness and grief, of a longing for connection. In thesepoems, nature is constantly working on its own disappearance. The rottingplants and animal bones and organic matter are housed in the same world as theramps and bellflowers on the verge of opening. All this to say, I’ve beenthinking quite a bit about how we connect with each other, or, to quoteAdrienne Rich, “the grit of human arrangements and relationships: how we arewith each other.” The frictions in communicating public and private experiencesto each other. And so I was thinking about these arrangements, how we keep eachother alive, and that’s a huge part of Dummy Prayer.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Brandon Reid

Brandon Reid [photo credit: Kevin Cruz] holds a B.Ed. fromUBC, with a specialization in Indigenous education, and a journalism diplomafrom Langara College. His work has been published in the Barely South Review,The Richmond Review and The Province. He is a member of theHeiltsuk First Nation, with a mix of Indigenous and English ancestry. Heresides in Richmond, BC, where he works as a TTOC. In his spare time, he enjoyscooking, playing music and listening to comedy podcasts.

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

Istopped worrying about what happened to me, as I no longer had to protectmyself to finish the book; I don’t sleep as much, now. I still take care ofmyself, of course (from time to time), but I no longer feel I have a duty tofulfill. The book also gave me confidence I didn’t have before. I would behesitant to call myself a writer, but now I’m proud to do so. I have apublished book out, that’s quite the accomplishment.

Beautiful Beautiful is my debut novel, althoughI self-published a book called Angel Hair Pasta on Amazon before. It wasabout a female chef working in LA and Seattle. It almost made me a toonie. Istill enjoy that book—it has satisfying sections of modernist first-personwriting—but Beautiful Beautiful is a much more thorough, meaningfulwork.

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

WhenI was six or so, my friend and I had a competition who could make the bettercharacter/fighter. I came up with a multi-headed dragon that could only bestaggered by firing a fireball from the sun into its chest—wasn’t clear how itcould ever be defeated. We drew our characters, and then created backstoriesfor them. I continued creating characters, and I’d usually act out their storiesby myself in the park or living room. Then one day, a relative bought me ajournal, so I tried writing down these oral stories I was telling myself. They hardlywent anywhere, but that was the genesis. I drew and wrote a lot in school, too,during lessons, to keep myself occupied. I’d burn through several drawing booksa year, as most teachers were kind and encouraging enough to bestow as many asI requested.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writingproject? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Dofirst drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work comeout of copious notes?

Itreally depends. Generally, I try and let ideas blossom for a few weeks beforestarting, even if I’m eager to use new premises. Words flow easily while I’minspired, and incubation can generate inspiration. It’s not like an ice-creamcone, where you have to lick it all at once. I force myself to meet a word count,once I’ve begun writing a manuscript. I write at least 2,000 words a day, whichtakes approximately 2 to 3 hours. Some manuscripts require more research orthought, like I wrote a lot of sci-fi, which involved constant googling andconversing with ChatGPT about existentialism, aliens or space technology. Sci-firequires lots of details.

            My first drafts are usually completelydifferent than the finished works. My words aren’t precious to me, so I likesacrificing them for something better. To be honest, I don’t think themanuscripts always get better; the first drafts are like sketches, which havetheir appeal, opposed to the meticulous final-drafts. It’s like Bob Dylanversus the Beatles: the former preferred minimal takes, usually, while thelatter would sometimes perform dozens of takes, especially in the later years. BeautifulBeautiful was linear in the beginning, then I utilized in medias res later,shifting parts around. Stephen King said try and write the first draft in threemonths, so I aim for that, then lend myself as much time required in theediting process.

4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are youan author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or areyou working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I’monly concerned with writing books at this point, so that’s my initialintention. I think of certain scenes, like a storyboard, and then I work fromthe beginning until the end in one constant flow. I don’t plan a lot of it, Ijust add scenes that make sense—one after the other, shifting from positive tonegative—progressing until the end. I may have a clear idea of where I’d liketo end up, but I usually can’t predict the result. It’s like decoding a moviein my head: I’ll write a scene, then the fog will clear, and the best wayforward is revealed.

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

Ithink they aid the creative process in the same way teaching does, in that Igauge the reactions of the audience, and realize what works and what doesn’t.That being said, I recognize reading aloud is different than reading quietly. Ienjoy sharing pieces intentionally crafted to be spoken, but I don’tnecessarily desire to read my books to people—it’s a different experience, auditoryinstead of visual, that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing?What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do youeven think the current questions are?

Wow,those are great questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. I would say I’m equallyconcerned with the theoretical as I am the plot. This is evidenced by the titleBeautiful Beautiful itself, as I strive to uncover the aesthetics ofwords and literature. I’m constantly thinking about why I write, the highermeaning. To me, Redbird is a songbird, singing the words. You can read into thedifferences between Indigenous and Western storytelling with BeautifulBeautiful. You may also apply a feminist reading using the internal logicof the tarot, that water and earth represent femininity. Or perhaps one may enjoyreading Raven as the archetypal raven. There were many lenses I applied to thebook. Of course, there’s plenty of cheese, as well.

            There are so many questions I tryanswering through writing: what’s the difference between depicting dialogue andcommuning with spirits? How can I better articulate the thought chains of mymind? Does this work better to reach into the reader? Stuff like that. Mywriting is me capturing epiphanies I have along the way—about myself, aboutothers, about life. I hope that makes it exciting for the reader.

            One current question I’m fascinatedwith, is what can a human do that an AI won’t be able to? I heard AI will developto the point it will be able to produce literature of any kind upon request. “Iwant a sequel to The Return of the King,” you’ll say, and your wish will begranted. What, then, will set humans apart from AI? It’s something I’mconstantly thinking about, how to stay ahead of the robot, basically.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being inlarger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writershould be?

Tobring book clubs together. I think most popular books help establish acommunity or tackle pressing issues. I don’t read many contemporary books. They’reoften too focused on plot for my liking. I enjoy reading books I either hardly comprehendor that are inventive with language. It’s a viable function, for a writer toappeal to the masses, but I realize most of my literary influences diedpenniless or lacked popularity in their times.

            I think it’s fair some writers excelat marketing and business, but I’m interested in writers who convey a mind-setnot yet found in literature, above all else. The writer is one who documentstheir experience reaching into the realm of spirit so all may behold a glimpse,because even that is insufficient to describe the vision I have of what writingis. Sometimes it’s easy to explain what is seen, other times, simplicity onlymars the glory of that sight unfolding. Writers fall somewhere along thatgradient, and they’re all equally writers.

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

It’sa difficult question. As I said earlier, some of my first drafts areinteresting and enjoyable. The editor is someone who hones the work so it’saccessible for readers. In that sense, they’re essential; I wouldn’t expect AngelHair Pasta to be found on bookshelves. I view working with an editor as acollaboration, and I really enjoy that element of the process. If it’sdifficult, it’s only difficult because we both set a standard that I ultimatelyhave to reach, so I have to push myself which I wouldn’t say is easy or lovely,it’s hard work that requires dedication and focus. I feel all the better forit, however.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (notnecessarily given to you directly)?

Ateacher gave me an appropriate grade for a mediocre piece of writing Isubmitted, then at the end of their comments, they wrote, “Keep writing!”That’s all it took to encourage me to keep at it.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres(fiction to journalism)? What do you see as the appeal?

Writingfor journalism was easy, it was interviewing people while seeming credible thatwas difficult. Journalism is a fantastic foundation for writers, as it teachesyou to make a word count, respect deadlines, write concisely, edit thoroughly, handleinformation accurately, format well, and accurately record dialogue. There’s arich tradition of journalists who learned the essentials then branched outcreatively. Hunter S. Thompson is a classic example; he really blurred the linebetween each. The appeal for me is, there’s only so many ways I can objectivelywrite about a situation before getting bored and seeking the alternative meansof expression fiction offers.

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

Iwake up, put on headphones, listen to Spotify for an hour or two, get up, makemy bed, adore the sun, brush my teeth, get an espresso, check the web, pray,meditate, exercise, stretch, adore the sun for noon, make myself a cappuccino, hopefullysit down to some fresh fruit and madeleines supplemented with vitamins, then,generally speaking, I’m in peak writing-form. That all goes out the window if Imust head out to work.

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

Usually,music or reading other books. Inspiration can come from anywhere, though. Couldbe something I read online, something someone said to me—usually comes out of thinair. I force myself to meet my word-count, regardless, otherwise I don’tbother. Sometimes it’s good to sit around, waiting for inspiration, but if I’mimmersed in writing, I trudge on, even while uninspired by what I’m writing, asI know I can improve it in the edit. Craft endures while inspiration falters.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Smolderingsage smoke.

14 - 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?

Asa polymath, I’m a strong believer all my experiences affect my writing. Cookingallows me to better capture the senses affected while cooking, which helps metranslate them to the page. It’s true, reading books helps writers learn thecraft, but you get to a certain point—where you develop your voice, yourability and your style—that you don’t necessarily need to be an avid reader. John Lennon said something similar, in that he didn’t listen to popular music, as itwas all variations of music he heard growing up.

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

Idon’t know if I’d consider them important to me, more so integrated into myconsciousness—probably the same thing. You know, James Joyce is my biggestinfluence. Aleister Crowley restored my faith. Moby Dick was a profoundnovel for me. Most writers that influenced me have passed.

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

I’dlike to travel across Canada, perhaps by train. I feel that’s a true Canadianexperience.  

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, whatwould it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doinghad you not been a writer?

I’dtry being a musician. I’ve played various instruments throughout my life:guitar, piano, drums, saxophone. I wrote many songs in my 20s, and performedthem with a friend, but I didn’t really desire to play for anyone but us.

I promised myself, inhigh school, that if I was still single and had nothing going on by 23, I’ddrop everything and join the army. I wound up quitting my job, at 23, to write over3,000 words a day by hand, every day, for a year. I suppose I fatigued myselfmanifesting various partners through writing, instead.

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

Ijust found myself alone, a lot, so I manifested my own worlds of companions. Writingis the ultimate solitary act, after all. Perhaps I made a shell of sorts.Writing got me through many troubling times, as did playing music. Writing satisfiesme more than anything else, so I keep doing it. It sort of avoids definitionbeyond that.  

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the lastgreat film?

Irecently finished Dante’s Paradiso, of all things. It was fun, followingthe rhythm, but it was an archaic version that was difficult to comprehend,which I state too often I enjoy.

I don’t watch many films. I used to. I watchedTitanic a few months back. Go ahead and laugh if you want. I’m prettysappy.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’mcurrently working on a novel about Raven, from Beautiful Beautiful, utilizingmy experience in the culinary industry.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

 

erica lewis, mahogany

 

baby, baby

kiss my lips
ain’t no harm
to moan
rhythm
and change
of rhythm
gave you my life
transmissions
to my white blood
some faraway
satellite
six-foot hole
inside my chest
cobalt ribs
as intimate
whisper
the truth is
i see you
i see you
and god grew
tired of us
fucking
on the ghost
of the truth

Thelatest from San Francisco poet erica lewis (and the first of her works I’veseen, although I did realize I published some of her work in an issue of G UE S T [a journal of guest editors] a while back) is the full-lengthcollection mahogany (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2023). mahoganydescribes itself as the third in lewis’ “box set” trilogy, followingcollections the precipice of jupiter (P-Queue/Queue Books, 2009) and camera obscura (BlazeVox [Books], 2010), both of which were composed alongsideartist Mark Stephen Finein, as well as murmur in the inventory (Shearsman,2013), daryl hall is my boyfriend (Barrelhouse, 2015) and mary wantsto be a superwoman (Third Man Books, 2017), the latter two being the firsttwo collections of this now-completed trio. Citing this collection as one composedto bear witness, her “project notes” at the end of the collection offers that mahogany“was written during the years I care gave for my mother, Mary. Her long illnesswas the best and worst time in my life. For five years I shuffled between SanFrancisco and Cincinnati, six months by six months.” Threading their sharedappreciation of Diana Ross, she offers that, much like the first twocollections in this trilogy, “mahogany uses the music of a (oncepopular) pop artist that I grew up listening to. Each poem takes its title froma line of a Diana Ross and The Supremes song or a song from Diana’s successfulsolo career—the poems are not ‘about’ the actual songs, but what is triggeredwhen listening to or thinking about the music. I’m thinking about what happenswhen you take something like a pop song and turn it in on itself, give it adifferent frame of reference, juxtapose the work against itself, against otherpop music, and bring it into the present.”

Thereis something compelling in the way lewis composes her rhythmic suite of lyricsset across sound and nuance, echoes and repetitions, chants of song and intimatespaces. The poems write from the space of care and slow loss, grief and appreciation;the poems write of witness, providing a space through which her mother remains,intact and vibrant. “the day has passed / and gone inside,” the poem “i’mhere” begins, “i want to have / something to say / about my own destiny /there used to be / a voice in my head / telling me everything / was going to beokay [.]” lewis composes long lyric first-person threads, each of which rundown the page from her Diana Ross title-prompt, wrapping her mother in arms andcare and loss. The heartbreak and care across this collection is palpable, deepand intimate. “do you / love yourself,” the poem “i don’t want to live”begins, “we must travel / in the direction . of our fear / and now the frontieris gone [.]”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Joshua Chris Bouchard

Joshua Chris Bouchard is the author of Burn Diary (Buckrider Books) and Let This Be the End of Me (Bad Books Press), the latter of which was shortlisted forthe 2019 bpNichol Chapbook Award. He wrote or co-wrote five chapbooks, and hispoetry appears in Event, CV2, Carousel, Poetry Is Dead,PRISM international, Arc, and more.

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

My first chapbook, Portraits, openeda new world of publishing, collaborating, and sharing the work as opposed tojust writing it for my own edification. It was a feeling of: This what poetsdo, and I feel connected to that tradition. I wanted to be a writer, topublish, to do live performances.

The biggest difference between my worknow and my work then is more focus. The work then was a big release of emotion,experiences, and ideas. The work now is more deliberate with themes and overallpurpose.

It feels different. After the Toronto launchof my first full-length collection, Burn Diary, I felt a very deepmelancholy. I couldn’t figure out why. Eventually I realized it’s because thework changed, and I have changed. And change can be frightening sometimes. Orfeel like some big loss. But it’s also necessary and good and signifiesprogress. It’s best to always move forward.

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

My introduction was through music. Lyricsand the feeling of music. We all know that feeling when we hear ourfavourite song. It’s undeniable. I would listen to metal and hardcore and think:These people are saying something that is true and meaningful to them, and Iwant to do that too. I also listened to hymns at mass and was really movedby them. This fervent kind of expression and devotion.

I journaled and wrote lyrics toimaginary songs. I would show them to anyone who gave a damn. Everyone thought,I think, that something was wrong with me. My grandmother found one of myjournals and was very concerned, which made sense. I was writing about traumaand abuse and horrible things. I think that’s why I liked poetry more thanfiction or non-fiction. I didn’t want to construct narratives. I wanted to letit all go – everything I was feeling without rules – and poetry allowed that.

3 - How long does it take to start anyparticular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is ita slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, ordoes your work come out of copious notes?

I think I write new projects at a decentclip. I’ll think about the idea of something for a long time and piece ittogether in my mind. When I sit down to write it’s almost already formed, sothe actual process of putting it on the page doesn’t take very long.

First drafts can take a lot ofdifferent forms. Some of my earlier chapbooks were not changed much from thefirst draft besides minor edits. But Burn Diary was shaped and reshapedfrom the original version quite a bit over years.

When I was just starting out, therewas this impulse to throw caution to the wind: just write, leave it all on thepage, see what happens. Keep everything as is, let it be raw, let it be faulty.But now there is a more deliberate process. I’m older, maybe wiser, life isdifferent. The writing is different too.

4 - Where does a poem usually beginfor you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a largerproject, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

A poem starts with a thought that Ican’t let go. I obsess over it. It could be a word, phrase, or image. Usually,it’s a feeling that I don’t know how to make sense. I work it out on the pageand wrangle it until some kind of path comes from it. Usually, they start asshort pieces that I curate into a larger thematic work. For example, BurnDiary was written over years with poems from different times of my life. Itwas then laid out into a large book, rearranged, heavily edited, paired down toits core.

5 - Are public readings part of orcounter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doingreadings?

I love doing readings and have done afair share. I don’t think about performing when I’m writing and I don’t thinkabout writing when I’m performing, but performing has the same importance aswriting. The poem on the page has a life and the poem read aloud has a life,but they’re both born from the same source.

The poem on the page is read bysomeone alone in their house and they have a specific relationship to it intheir mind. They can take their time, reread it, leave notations in the margins.The experience of a poem at a performance is very different. It’s read aloud asit’s intended to be experienced by the author. They hear their voice and see theirbody. I like to do as many public readings as possible, and I think I cut myteeth in the literary scene at open mics and other live gigs. I wouldn’t be thesame poet I am today if it weren’t for readings.

6 - Do you have any theoreticalconcerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answerwith your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

My goal used to be pure emotionalexpression, even to a fault, even if it meant chaos. I resented anythingacademic or stuffy or pinned down by arbitrary rules. I hated anything that I perceivedas artistically oppressive or authoritarian. Poetry was an act of rebellion.

But now, things are much less clear.My views on myself and the world vary. If anything, I want to elicit a visceralreaction from readers. I want readers to gasp, swoon, cry, laugh, be horrified,glad, complacent, petrified. Again, the feeling when you hear yourfavourite song or read your favourite poem. It’s there, deep down in the belly.What is that? How does it happen? I think it’s the connection between you, theworld, and the artist. Or maybe that’s all bullshit. I don’t know! Mu!

7 – What do you see the current roleof the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you thinkthe role of the writer should be?

I think writers have a very important partin larger culture, even if they sometimes inflate that sense of importance incertain contexts. Many people have said that writers are the political andcultural barometers of any given society, and I think that is very true. A verylarge part of the writer’s goal – maybe their only goal – is to account forwhat is going on in the world in a very concrete way and hold up that unapologeticmirror and say: This is what we are, and this is what are we doing.

There is also the writer who exploresthe more metaphysical and introspective aspects of life: This is what I’mfeeling as a human being. I think there is a place for both and, anyways,those aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Ultimately, I think writers have amoral and artistic obligation to call it as they see it. Be a human and expressyour humanity.

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

It’s nearly always essential. I feel I’mthe best judge of my work but that can get you only so far. When you liveinside your head all the time you get lost in the corridors of your thinking.An editor is there to guide you and be honest with you. They need to tell youthat the idea/word/poem/phrase isn’t good or not doing what you want it to do.

Sometimes an editor can hurt you becauseyour work is so precious that criticism can feel like an axe to the head, but theyalso give you power to make something the best it can be. I have written manypoems that I thought were very good, only to have a good editor (or generalreader) tell me that the poem doesn’t make any sense to them. There needs to bea stable conveyer of meaning from author to reader otherwise there is no pointin sharing the work outside of yourself, and editors will help you build that.

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

This may not be the best advice – Ihave heard many inspiring things from people about creativity – but it’ssomething my high-school history teacher told me. He was subbing for theWriter’s Craft course, and we were writing poems. He looked over my shoulderand asked: What’s that line break for? Why is it there? I didn’t knowthe answer.

He told me that everything you do in apoem needs to have purpose, even line breaks. That stuck with me. To this day Iremember that when writing poems: Does this line break or word have purpose?What is it I’m really trying to do? I also find music-recording engineerSteve Albini inspiring. Specifically, his lectures on the creative process and howthe capitalist industry impacts artists.

10 - How easy has it been for you tomove between genres (poetry to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?

I’m a visual thinker, so it’s easy togo from poetry to photography. Photography works out a different part of theartistic brain muscle. You see it as a whole rather than lines left to right,it’s a physical object, and it exists outside my mind. I didn’t create it, it’salready there, its meaning subjective based on the observer. I also sing in aband and have dabbled with visual art. Again, a different muscle at work, butit’s all part of the same nervous system. It’s about expression. Photographycan express something that poetry can’t; music that poetry can’t; poetry whatneither photograph nor music can’t. I’ll go back and forth without much trouble.

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

I’m fastidious. I write between 5am –9am on Saturday and Sundays. I work a full-time 9-5 gig, so weekends are my bestopportunities to sit and put the words down. I rarely write anything during theweek, except maybe a few notes or lines I think are promising. I think somepeople are obsessed with writing; they are incapable of doing it. They willwrite all day if they could, any chance they get, or they will sit down andwrite a large work from start to finish in nearly one sitting. I sometimes wishthat were me, but it’s not. I love to write but life itself always takesprecedent.

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

Music is always my first creativepalette cleanser. Music doesn’t demand the same things from a listener aspoetry does from a reader. I can lie there and let it wash over me. Again,music hits a different nerve and stimulates a different part of your emotions.The second thing is just living, which sounds very vague and boring, but ithelps me a lot. Go to the park. Go grocery shopping. Buy an overpriced eclair.Go to the mall, the worst mall you can find. Malls are incredibly inspiring.They are so oppressive and offensive. Go to the food court and just watchpeople eat. Invariably I will get that feeling again and ideas start to come.

13 - What fragrance reminds you ofhome?

I love this question. It’s the smellof fire in autumn. Campfires or from home fireplaces. It’s that smell duringtwilight when it’s kind of cold, there’s a good wind, and the scent of burningwood is everywhere as you walk down the street. It elicits an image of safety,peace, warmth. Or gasoline.

14 - David W. McFadden once said thatbooks come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work,whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Music and movies are huge influences.Music for the feeling and film for the visual. This reminds me of going to amovie theatre in the early afternoon on a summer day. You’re in the theatre fora few hours, it’s dark, whisper quiet, and you may even be totally alone. Youbecome engrossed in the film, the characters, the story. The film ends and youwalk out, and the sun suddenly pulverizes your senses. You feel like you’re ina dream or like you’ve somehow transformed into a new person. You’re a bitwobbly and stupefied. You’re not the same. I love that feeling. I want people tofeel like that after they’re finished reading my poems.

15 - What other writers or writingsare important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Shunryū Suzuki is an important writerand teacher for me. He wrote Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind which, when I wasyounger, was like a bible to me. To this day I go back to it occasionally andread passages. Suzuki was a Japanese Zen Master, and the book teaches the practiseof Japanese Zen and its basic philosophical tenets. It can be incrediblycomforting when I feel utterly defeated by life. My friend Alex once said abouttherapists: Sometimes you just need someone to tell you you’re not a pieceof shit. That’s what Suzuki does for me. He reminds me that I a human beingwho is flawed but…not a piece of shit.

16 - What would you like to do thatyou haven't yet done?

I have always fantasized aboutbuilding a cabin in the woods and living there for…maybe forever. Have you seenthe Dick Proenneke documentaries? Proenneke went to Alaska in the 1960s andbuilt a cabin by hand and lived there alone for 30 years. He documented thewildlife there and wrote in his journals and that was about it. Not at all likeThoreau or something like that – he was the real deal. I’d also like to write anovel. Ideally a good one.

17 - If you could pick any other occupationto attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would haveended up doing had you not been a writer?

Psychologist, neuroscientist, or theoreticalphysicist. You know, the usual. Or a drummer.

I might have been a miner if I neverstarted writing. I would have followed the path of my father and grandfatherback home. Some kind of skilled trade. Right now, I’m an Editorial Manager at adigital PR company and have been doing that for 8 years. I suppose I would justbe doing that, but not sure if I would have ever got there if it weren’t forwriting. Maybe some other corporate gig. Living life and paying bills likeanyone else.

18 - What made you write, as opposedto doing something else?

Solitude and lack of money. It wassomething I could do completely alone, any time, any place, and virtually for free.If I had more money, I might have gone straight to buying an instrument andtaking music lessons. It was also kind of easy. I didn’t really have to try atit. It came very naturally to write down all my thoughts and feelings. I felt Iwas good at it and later was good at shaping them and later was good andreading them aloud. Was I delusional? Maybe, but here we are!

19 - What was the last great book youread? What was the last great film?

I’m nearly finished reading A CaseAgainst Reality by Donald Hoffman. It’s a non-fiction book by a cognitive/neuroscientistthat theorizes on the nature of objective reality and human consciousness,under a cognitive and evolutionary-psychological context. It basically arguesthat objective reality as we perceive it is not actually there, and is morelike a shadow of an underlying reality we can’t understand, which is requiredto survive as animals. I am not sure I agree (or understand) it all but it’sfascinating.

Some months back I finally watched Aftersun,a UK film by Charlotte Wells. A devasting movie about a daughter and father whois not mentally well. It’s sort of an homage to the director’s late father. Ialso just rewatched Come and See by Elem Klimov. A true classicabout the absolute horrors and brutality of war. Painful to watch at parts butcertainly one my favourites. The actor who played the kid, Aleksei Kravchenko, wasjust unreal.

20 - What are you currently workingon?

I’m working on a new poetry collection, but I just started. I’mnot sure what it’s going to be yet, but I think it’ll be calmer and quieterthan my last collection. So far, it seems funnier. I’m also working on anon-fiction collaborative project. We’re just in the process of outlining itall. I think it will be good to stretch into a different genre. I also sing in aband called LINENS and we’re getting ready to record our first EP.

Overall, I have this sense of terror and dread about the future,but that can also be a good feeling. It propels me forward. Onwards.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Ongoing notes: late December, 2023 : Karen Solie, Paola Ferrante + HR Hegnauer,

Anotheryear, another what? And so it goes; if you can imagine, The Factory ReadingSeries will be turning thirty-one years old in January (keep your eyes out foranother event come the new year), and above/ground press as well, by thesummer. Madness! Just what might 2024 bring? And hey, publishers should bemailing me more chapbooks! I’m really not seeing enough these days.

Montreal QC: I was very intrigued to see a chapbook byKaren Solie, WELLWATER (2023), produced as “Vallum Chapbook Series No. 37”by Montreal’s Vallum magazine. Solie is a writer that doesn’t seem topublish chapbooks that often, and I don’t think I’m aware, offhand, of any by herover the years save for those days prior to the publication of her debut, herchapbook Eating Dirt (1998) that appeared with Victoria chapbookpublisher Smoking Lung Press (although a quick Google search offers that afurther chapbook, Retreats, appeared with Toronto’s Junction Books in2017). Otherwise, Solie is the author of six full-length collections: Short Haul Engine (London ON: Brick Books, 2001), Modern and Normal (BrickBooks, 2005), Pigeon (Toronto ON: Anansi, 2009) [see my review of such here], The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out (Anansi, 2015), The Living Option: Selected Poems (Northumberland UK: Bloodaxe Books, 2013)[see my review of such here] and The Caiplie Caves (Toronto ON: Anansi,2019) [see my review of such here]. Solie writes of basement suites, landscapes,foxes, and trees of a particular park, offering echoes of content familiar toanyone who follows her work; first-person lyric observations finely honed andcrafted across a line any bird, to paraphrase Don McKay, would trust to lightupon. As the poem “THE TREES IN RIVERDALE PARK” begins: “Diagonal pathsquadrisect a square acre / white as the page in February.”

Thefourteen poems in WELLWATER offer a curious grouping: as much as Solieis an author of individually-crafted lyric narrative poems, her collectionsoffer an ebb and flow of deliberately-structured book-length compositions, anda shorter selection, then, moves in a slightly different manner; enough that I amcurious to see how these poems interact with the book that might eventuallycome (her author biography does offer that a new collection is due to land in2025). “I can’t make it right. Not the shadow lying on the snow,” she writes,to open the poem “BAD LANDSCAPE,” “not the snow, terrain sloping crudely toward/ the poor outcome of a structure neither representational / nor abstract, andthe sketched-out town beyond / ill-proportioned, depthless, and basic. There isn’tany sense / of an origin, of what Plato called the lower soul, / toanimate what’s lacking with the spark of its / remainder.”

Toronto ON: Another title I picked up not long ago from Toronto publisher and poetry bookseller knife|fork|book [see my prior notes on othertitles from the past few months here and here and here] is Toronto writer PaolaFerrante’s THE DARK UNWIND (2022) [see her recent ’12 or 20 questions’ interview here], a chapbook of poems wrapped in lyric anxieties, climate changeand the Anthropocene. “The dinosaurs that didn’t die went slamming intowindows,” the poem “Descendants” begins, “dazzled / by the colour of a gold. Insteadof flight, they had their houses built / on tree tops, over many single bladesof grass; they learned to run / on fossils of their dead.” Wrapped in culturalmarkers and large-scale historical trauma, this assemblage of first-personnarrative lyrics an intriguing offering, and one, I hope, that will lead into afollow-up to her poetry debut from a couple of years back. There’s an increasedsharpness to her lyrics, and clear evidence of a honed line and fine eye. Listento the ending of the opening poem, “Asch’s Line Study In The CurrentAnthropocene,” that reads: “Before the river in the sky became a mudslide, / westood for elevator talk about the weather as though we’d never / tried to buythe rain, as though the rain was not canaries, slamming / into windows. Wechose, but stood in grocery lines and talked of / whether, as though we couldstill choose a time to see, as though / we’d get to choose when the power wouldgo out.”

Brooklyn NY: Another title lost upon my desk until arecent mini-excavation is Excerpts from CONTRADITION AND NIGHT : GRACE (PortablePress @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2021) by Denver, Colorado poet and designer HR Hegnauer,published by Brooklyn poet, writer, editor and publisher (etcetera) Brenda Iijima. Hegnauer is a poet I’ve been aware of for some time but hadn’t yetread, author of the full-length collections Sir (Portable Press @ Yo-YoLabs, 2013) and When the Bird Is Not a Human (Subito Press, 2018), aswell as a handful of chapbooks, none of which I’ve seen, and now, curious as towhy her work wouldn’t have made it across my radar before. Set in two sections,this work-in-progress excerpt offers the opening section “CONTRADICTION,”subtitled “To speak against,” a cluster of individually-numbered and repeated “DAY”poems, followed by the section “GRACE,” subtitled “The unmeried divine,” acluster of individually-numbered and repeated “Thought” poems. As the openingpiece to the short collection reads:

DAY 1

Life is like a small busin the desert of your human. You can’t feel the heat unless you’re standing inthe dirt. In which case you must ask yourself, would you like to stand in thedirt?

I look out the windowtowards the desert. Black walnut, organ pipe, saguaro, jumping cholla, sage,brittle brush, globe mallow, fish hook barrel, prickly pear, ocotillo.Scorpion, rattlesnake, collared lizard, horned lizard, fox, rabbit, coyote. I can’tsee the people.

Hegnauer’swebsite describes this chapbook as “vignette essays,” which I’m curious about;intrigued, even. I’m curious, also, about the divide between “CONTRADICTION” and“GRACE,” between “DAYS” and “THOUGHT,” wishing to know a bit more about whatmakes those divisions, those divides. And where the presumably-eventual full-lengthcollection might meet amid those clear demarcations. “It’s the sparseness that’sso loud here.” she writes, to open “DAY 5,” “Look up, look across the / desert.All that emptiness shows me at least twelve miles of itself, but / puttingmeasurements in the desert is not a natural thing to do.” There is an enormousamount going on in these pieces, and these poem-essays are as deeply thoughtfulas her lines are striking. As the poem “Thought 6” reads, in full:

“How do you say? My familyhung themselves because too much torture,” you say.

Six nights by truck. Now itis time to walk. Get out and walk.

Om mani padme hum.

“Okay. Where does the sunset? Okay. We’ll go that way.”

A bit of yak butter toeat.

“Our eyes became sick. Becauseof the snow and the sun. You know, eye sick.”

Om mani padme hum.

“If we die, then we dietogether. But if we are life, then we are life together.”

Thirteen years old. Om mani padme hum. Where does the sun set?

new from above/ground press : Houbolt, Koss, Robinson, Dardis, Tucker, Oniță + Carr/mclennan

; But Then I Thought, by Kyla Houbolt $5 ; A PANDEMIC INVENTORY, SPRING-SUMMER 2020, BROOKLYN NY, by Zane Koss $5 ; Between the Lakes, by Ben Robinson $5 ; with the lakes, by Colin Dardis $5 ; The Last Horse / Prologue, by Aaron Tucker $5 ; Misremembered Proverbs, by Adriana Oniță $5 ; river / estuaries, by Julie Carr and rob mclennan $6 ;

AND DID YOU SEE THAT JASON CHRISTIE WON THE 2023 bpNICHOL CHAPBOOK AWARD IN NOVEMBER FOR HIS 2022 ABOVE/GROUND PRESS TITLE?   (second printing now available, as well as a Jason Christie bundle); and groundwork: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023) is now available! see my introduction over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics!

keep an eye on the above/ground press blog for author interviews, new writing, reviews, upcoming readings and tons of other material; see the previous batch of backlist from October-November 2023 here;

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
November-December 2023
as the final batch of the above/ground press 30th anniversary
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy of each
and there's still time to subscribe for 2024!

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button (above). Scroll down here to see various backlist titles, or click on any of the extensive list of names on the sidebar (many, many things are still in print).

Review copies of any title (while supplies last) also available, upon request.

Forthcoming chapbooks by Julia Polyck-O'Neill, Sacha Archer, Dale Tracy, Melissa Eleftherion, Kyle Flemmer, Saba Pakdel, Lydia Unsworth, Katie Ebbitt, Russell Carisse, Micah Ballard, Cary Fagan, Amanda Deutch, Kyla Houbolt, Gary Barwin, Blunt Research Group, Phil Hall + Steven Ross Smith, Peter Myers, Terri Witek, Pete Smith and Angela Caporaso (among others, most likely); what else might 2024 bring?

merry holidays and christmas! etcetera,

This is the image on our holiday cardthis year, which was taken during that fateful Guardians of the Galaxy ride atDISNEYWORLD [see my report on that particular adventure here]. This picture was snapped well after mybody had gone entirely limp, as I began to make my peace with death (it took afull two days for me to recover from that ride). There are many regrets upon takingthat ride. I shall never mention this experience again. I will point out, aswell, that I did not choose this image as our holiday photo. We shall speak nomore of it.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Emily Osborne

Emily Osborne is the author of Safety Razor (Gordon HillPress, 2023) and Biometrical (Anstruther Press, 2018). Her poetry, shortfiction and Old Norse-to-English verse translations have appeared in journalssuch as Vallum, CV2, Canthius, The Polyglot, The Literary Review of Canada andBarren Magazine. Emily’s poetry has been shortlisted for several prizes, andwon The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry 2018. Emily has a PhD inOld Norse Literature from the University of Cambridge. She lives on BowenIsland, BC, with her husband and two young sons.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life?How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feeldifferent?

My first chapbook (Biometrical, Anstruther Press,2019) and full-length collection (Safety Razor, Gordon Hill Press, 2023)definitely came as a fulfillment of a life-long goal. As a child I wrotecopious amounts of poetry and stories and always dreamed of publishing a book.When I was focusing on my academic studies, that drive was directed into publishingarticles and working on a critical book. After I decided to leave academia in2016 and focus on my creative writing, one thing that was emotionally difficultwas all the partial academic article manuscripts and book manuscripts I knew Iwould likely never publish. Holding my first chapbook and book took away a lotof that sting. And I am now working on a book that uses the knowledge I gainedduring my PhD studies in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature, which feels likeanother fulfillment and justification that the years in dusty libraries werenot for nought. But more on that below!

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

I grew up in a house filled with books of poetry. My motheris a poet who did a PhD in Modern American poetry. The seeds were sown early. Ilove crafting prose as well, but poetry has always felt like the most naturalhabitat for me. After finishing a PhD and postdoctoral fellowship where Ifocused on poetry, it isn’t surprising that I was first inspired to writepoetry once I turned my attention back to my creative writing.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writingproject? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Dofirst drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work comeout of copious notes?

I’m definitely a snail, picking up little bits of dirt andpine needles as I inch along. Often I will think through a draft for a longtime, mulling over an idea, researching and taking notes, thinking upinteresting vocabulary. I make copious notes. Then, when I sit down to actuallywrite, the process can be very quick or very slow. Most poems I will edit alot. I’m a perfectionist regarding vocabulary and rhythm and work with imagery,bending and shaping an image until I feel it’s doing all it can. Most poems Iwill workshop with a writing group or with my husband, and then re-edit.

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

I quite enjoy readings and find it very helpful to see howaudiences respond to my poetry when read aloud. One of the things I miss aboutworking in academia during my PhD and postdoctoral years at Cambridge and UBCis the opportunity to lecture. I absolutely loved sharing material withstudents and seeing what kinds of insights and questions they brought to thetexts. For me, one of the benefits to hearing an author read their work is thatyou can (hopefully) hear some background about the piece and learn about whatmakes that author tick. In my experience, a minority of people find thisannoying and prefer to hear the poem or prose alone; most, however, enjoy thechance learn about the author and context. And the opportunity afforded byreadings to meet new writers and readers is always amazing. I only wish I hadthe chance to do more readings, but right now, living in a remote location withtwo little kids means I cannot do as many as I would like.

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

Essential and (at least so far), not at all difficult! Todate, editors have only suggested minor changes to my poems, but all feedbackand affirmation is incredibly helpful. On my chapbook I worked with Blair Trewartha and onboarded all of his suggestions. Same story with my full-lengthbook where I worked with Shane Neilson. While a suggestion to change a poem cansometimes feel jarring, every time I have stepped back and thought about how Ican use that suggestion to make the poem better, the result has been a betterpoem.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (notnecessarily given to you directly)?

Curiosity is one of the most powerful tools a writer canpossess.

This, to me, has been so much more valuable than the moreoften repeated advice, “Write what you know.” Sometimes I think people getstuck on this latter advice about writing what they know, and cannot movebeyond it, essentially writing the same poem over and over. Or else, the poemdoes not contain enough meat in it because it fails to address otherperspectives, circumstances, etc. I think the most effective writing occurswhen you are curious enough about a subject that you will assess it from many angles;even if it’s something you already know about, there is so much more to learn!

12 – What fragrance reminds you of home?

Scents that remind me of my childhood home in SouthernOntario are: snow, hot tarmac in summer heat, freshly-baked bread, Ivory dishdetergent.

Scents that remind me of my current home on Bowen Islandare: damp pine needles, cedar wood, my husband’s light roasted coffees, variouschildren’s breakfast cereals gone soggy.

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?

Scientific facts are constantly inspiring me with ideas forpoems and stories – it’s a challenge to elegantly work these amazing factsabout the universe or the body into art, to engage in this dialogue between theways the world works on our perceptions and the ways language works on ourperceptions. My debut Safety Razor has lots of science sprinkledthroughout, touching on memory, weather, DNA, linguistics, and ultrasoundwaves. I’m the kind of person who loves learning new things and loves findingconnections among things I hadn’t previously viewed as connected. Film andvisual art often find their way into my poems as well, although in a generalsense as opposed to directly ekphrastic works describing a painting or filmscene. Perhaps ekphrasis will be a future project!

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

For writing, I would love to write both an adult fantasynovel and a children’s fantasy novel. I have ideas for both, but not enoughtime to write them at present! Also I would love to write and publish morecriticism and reviews

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, whatwould it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doinghad you not been a writer?

In an alternate life, I am a professor of Old English andOld Norse Literature. In a second alternate life, I am an art historian. In athird alternate life, I am a ballet dancer. In a fourth alternate life, I am aprofessional chocolate taster. About this last one, I’m only partly serious. Ieat way too much chocolate and have been described many times as a “hound dog”because I have very sensitive faculties of smell and taste.

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

Most of my reading or tv-viewing time these days is with mykids, and I’m therefore obliged to select from kid-friendly material. Myhusband and I just finished reading the kids E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Webat bedtime. I avoided reading this as a kid because I couldn’t get “into”animal stories. I grew up in a house where severe allergies prevented us fromhaving pets and I didn’t develop relationships with animals until later inlife. Wow, what a powerful story! I found myself smiling and teary throughoutand impressed by the championing of humility, a virtue which seems largelyforgotten these days.

The last great kids’ film I watched was The Song of the Sea(2014). Breathtaking visuals, spot-on narration, with a story that is bothcomplex and simple to allow children to engage on many levels. My 4yo wanted towatch this over and over and, for once, I didn’t mind the repetition!

19 - What are you currently working on?

Finishing off a draft of an anthology of translations ofskaldic poetry – a form of verse composed in Scandinavia between the ninth andfourteenth centuries. I’m so excited about sending this out to publishers andsharing this genre with the world. To date, there is no easily accessible andlyrical anthology of this genre, but it is incredibly fascinating and rewardingto read. These are the actual words of the Vikings and their descendants, andtheir poems give us a view of Viking Age and Medieval Scandinavia that isdifficult or impossible to find elsewhere.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

rob's year in review! writing, books, chapbooks, travel etc

I’musually so focused on reviewing, publishing, interviewing and actual writingthat I tend to forget to broadcast elements of my actual literary work in thisparticular forum, so why not an overview? This past year saw an array of events, activity and chaos, although most of my actual literary production this past calendar year has been focused on non-fiction(book-length lyric essay) projects: the first half of the year, attempting tocomplete the manuscript of “Lecture for an Empty Room,” and, since June,pushing this new non-fiction project, “the genealogy book,” both of which I’vebeen posting excerpts of on my enormously clever substack (among other prose-specificprojects and threads, including a potential book of short essays on prose writers, and a handful of short stories, both from what might be a secondmanuscript of very very short stories, “Little arguments,” and a secondmanuscript of actual short stories, “Very suddenly, all at once”).

Oh,and my poetry title World’s End, came out with ARP Books in October, andit is lovely. This is the collection that immediately precedes the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022). And Invisible Publishingproduced groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 a few weeks later, and it is gorgeous (see my introduction for such here). They hold the best of the second decade volume in their catalogue as well, if you’re looking for copies (I have a few of thefirst volume in storage, so prod me if you’re looking for that).

Ispent a month across January-February working a poem sequence, “edgeless :letters,” that was produced as a chapbook through above/ground press in July. Honestly,I spent the year even saying to myself that I wasn’t really writing poems, and certainly, the bulk of my 2023 was working on prose projects, but Ithink I now have the core of another poetry manuscript, “edgeless,” that just needsa couple further items to be complete. Around the same time that “edgeless :letters,” was composed, I was also putting what became the finishing touches ona further poetry manuscript, “Autobiography,” some of which has appeared in theonline chapbook Poems for Frank O'Hara's birthday (Palabrosa, 2023) and theprint chapbook The Alta Vista Improvements (above/ground press, 2023), as wellas through Horseshoe Literary Journal and the Chaudiere Books blog (and my own website, naturally), and issues of Arc Poetry Magazine, Eventmagazine, Grain magazine, periodicities: a journal of poetry andpoetics, Qwerty magazine, Stride magazine, South DakotaReview, The Peter F. Yacht Club and Volt: A Literary Magazine. Oh, and that call-and-response chapbook-length Covid-era collaboration Denver poet Julie Carr and I were working also appeared as a chapbook through above/ground press! I have a few excerpts of the writing diary I composed around such posted as part of my substack, by the way.

Summersaw the thirtieth anniversary event celebrating three continuous decades (andnearly thirteen hundred titles) published through my above/ground press; it wasa great event! I posted a report on the reading, naturally, which you should read here. There were some other readings I organized across the year, as The FactoryReading Series slowly returns to life [Pearl Pirie was good enough to even post a report on one of those events this past year]. the ottawa small press fair, which I co-founded and organize, landing at the thirty year mark next fall, may have moved over to Tom Brown Arena permanently, by the way.

Ieven got interviewed a bunch this year! Including: by Hollay Ghadery for River Street Writing, November 2023 : by RC Weslowski and Kevin Spenst for Wax Poetic, August 2023 : by Erin Bedford for Pinhole Poetry, July 2023 : by Susan Johnston, CKCU, May 2023 : by Valerie Coulton, Palabrosa, May 2023 : by Sam Szanto, 20 Questions, February 2023 : and by Lori Hettler, The 40 but 10 interview series, January 2023. I keep a running list of links of various interviews with me over here. And did you see I finally added a page to a variety of links to reviews of my work on my author page? After years of complaining that no-onetakes my work seriously, I thought that perhaps I should maybe give folk theopportunity to attend to those who actually had?

Thisyear had a bunch of travel as well, which has been a huge relief, after thatperiod of Covid-lockdown. I like posting reports on these travels, if for noother reason to recall what it is I’ve actually been doing (and for folk outside these events, a bit more knowledge of what various corners and communities might be up to), across thewhirlwind of other activities, and you can catch reports on my readings at the Horseshoe Literary Festival in Corner Brook, Newfoundland in October, for ARP Books in Winnipeg in October and at the Art Bar in December. I was solo with the kids back in January, when Christine was at Banff Writing Studios, we went to Picton to visit father-in-law and his wife in July, did a bigridiculous drive with the kids a bit later [parts one, two and three], attended a two-day Adams Family (birth mother's family) reunion in August and went to Disneyland in November. Without these reports, how to keep track of it all? The Disney jaunt was interesting, although the three months prior to that was completely overloaded, including two book deadlines (for On Beauty and groundwork), with Corner Brook and Winnipeg thrown into the mix, so everything since that time did involve a bit of a collapse (although now that I've a collection of short stories accepted and forthcoming, it is a bit more of a push to further this novel I began during those early months of Covid; the story actually continues the thread of a couple of the stories in that particular book, which themselves follow a particular thread from my second published novel, missing persons, that The Mercury Press produced back in 2009...).

Christine and I are slowly working to think about fall 2024 touring, by the way. She has her third full-length title, Toxemia, a lyric/non-fiction hybrid memoir, out in the fall with Book*hug, and my collection of short stories, On Beauty, lands around the same time with University of Alberta Press, so we're thinking a bit of a tour might be in order. We've not done such a thing together, and my last really big bout of extended touring (beyond one-off readings here and there) was back in 2006 [part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten], before I landed my year as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta; since Christine and the kids, there really hasn't been the opportunity to repeat such a thing, especially together, so we're finally taking it. We're currently seeking options that might have funding attached, so we can afford to travel around a bit? Would be good to get to Fredericton, Montreal, St. Catharines, Peterborough, Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Hamilton, Victoria, etcetera. Very exciting, yes?

And keep in mind I'm still working on my thirteenth annual 'best of' Canadian poetry titles list for the dusie blog, which most likely lands on January 1st over there. See last year's list here! In case you aren't aware, I have been writing and posting some one hundred and fifty book reviews online (between blog and periodicities) over the past few years (I have yet to do a proper 2023 count, but I will include such as part of my 'best of' list), so it is good to get a handful of 'worth repeating' reviews out every year. Oh, and I'm reading in January in London, Ontario with Karen Schindler for Antler River Poetry: might we see you at that? Don't worry if you are unable, naturally; I'll most likely post a report.

Valerie Witte, A Rupture in the Interiors

 

[ 2.2 ]

We are bodiesof evidence | a cadaver’s skin found frozen
in a glacier |To recover from shedding she discovered
a wall ofpungent herbs | impressions
made inminerals disturbed | where winters pass dormant, the physical
record issparse | A root ground to powder: why were things so difficult
to swallow | eaten bywarblers or washed away | rain, then two opposing
clines concealarmor | external, evolution
of feathers | Fleeceflower,the blood cleaned cold | and the female
bigger still,without a mouth does not feed | but draws | for draping
fabrics, belts| repel a moth
mugwort,babies by rocking | a cigar waved carefully
as if rollingcould alleviate | Absence extinguished before
contact butonce it was dropped | And singed her |

I’mstruck by the lineation and threads of Portland, Oregon poet and writer Valerie Witte’s latest full-length poetry title, A Rupture in the Interiors (PortlandOR: Airlie Press, 2023), following a variety of her poetry and hybrid titlesincluding a game of correspondence (Black Radish, 2015), The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow (with Sarah Rosenthal; Operating System,2019) and the chapbook Listening Through the Body (above/ground press,2021), not to mention her forthcoming collection of experimental essays, One Thing Follows Another: Experiments in Dance, Art, and Life Through the Lens of Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer (punctum books, 2024). A Rupture in theInteriors is structured through nine numbered sections—“1. IN THE COILS,” “2.FURS FOR THE FIELDS,” “3. AND THE MANY SHAPES OF CLAWS,” “4. AN INFERIOR BLUEAND FAST,” “5. IN UNPROTECTED WATERS,” “6. WHERE FEW LINGER,” “7. A FAITHFULLYRENDERED MARK,” “8. TO BE RENT AT THE SEAMS” and “9. AND IF WE DISAPPEAREDPERMANENTLY”—with individual poems numbered within (the above poem, “[ 2.2 ],”for example, being the second poem in the second section), offering theassemblage as a single, ongoing book-length poem-thread. Witte’s lyric isknitted, stitched; a lyric that plays not simply with threading as imagery andcontent but as structure, and her threads are myriad, almost polyphonic and multi-directional,writing on perception and the body, and the very idea of what holds, howeverprecarious it might sometimes seem, everything together. “When we aretransformed clawless | out of water,” she writes, to open the poem “[ 6.4 ],” “|Also / red | garments are tents of deprivation by means of leaves/ or lungs: ventilation | lost | Any organ unusable at times, decayed / couldresemble | bellows [.]” Each individual poem propulsive, a kind of self-containedpulse across the larger and much broader, quilted, design. Or, as she offers inher “AFTERWORD”:

One night years ago, I dreamtI wrote a book called Silkyard.

I didn’t know then what theword meant—an orchard of mulberry trees; a length of fabric, measured; an openspace where one might wander or forage, that could be transposed onto thewritten page. A story of transformation, metamorphosis. Various threads likethese brought together to form a tapestry of sorts—their own rendering of a randomnight’s dreamscape.

With this series ofimages and interpretations in mind, and the compulsion to follow the directivedelivered to my dream-self, I began to write this book. I interwove thelanguage from texts exploring the history of silk and the anthropology of humanskin with my own experiences, in particular the minor physical traumas relatedto skin and hair, seemingly superficial flaws that nonetheless, over alifetime, take not only a physical but also an emotional toll.

The result was Silkyard[until the time of spinning], which became A Rupture in the Interiors,a text that traces the path of an individual through the course of a personaljourney while also tracking that of the human species as a whole.