Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 72

Dorothea Lasky, The Shining

 

BLUE CHRISTMAS

I am so excited
I am dancing with mysister
In the front of therestaurant
Two men look at us andsmile

We are wearing theclearest blue dresses
That look like the sky inthe middle of the spring
There is a pretend antagonismto our song
But we know that wereally love each other

Years later they willfilm us as children
Wearing matching dressesagain
But the blue will bemuted
Soon after they will showus chopped up

As always they will beobsessed
With the violence men cando to us
But I was only evertrying to do my job
I only ever wanted to bea movie star

Thelatest from American poet Dorothea Lasky, following her essay-quartet, Animal (Seattle WA/New York NY: Wave Books, 2020) [see my review of such here] is thepoetry collection, The Shining (Wave Books, 2023). Riffing off itsnamesake film, as the press release offers, Lasky’s The Shining “is anekphrastic horror lyric that shapes an entirely unique feminist psychologicallandscape. Here, Lasky guides us through the familiar rooms of the OverlookHotel, both realized and imagined, inhabiting characters and spaces that havebeen somewhat flattened in Stephen King’s text or Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptations.” Lasky fleshes out the asides to the main action, almost as a darkturn (if one might say) akin to Tom Stoppard’s 1966 play Rosencrantz and GuildensternAre Dead, or even Steve Englehart’s run through West Coast Avengers#17-24 (1987) that ran alongside and through early Avengers and FantasticFour histories. Through her usual playful swagger of dark turns, Laskyutilizes the bones of the source material to carve out lyrics sharp enough to drawblood. “I was Dorothea Lasky,” she writes, to close the poem “TIME,” “Now myname is nothing / But I never forgot my name / Did you [.]” Lasky’s poems aredark and complex, writing of innocence revealed and lost, writing slant acrossa horror lyric. “The key to surviving in here,” she writes, to open the poem “STRANGEHUMOR,” “Is to pretend every room is haunted / Even when it isn’t [.]” Laskywrites from and within spaces King and Kubrick could never hope to fathom,offering a sequence of horrors that exist not purely in the extraordinary but acrossmore familiar spaces. Through Lasky, background characters move from meredecoration to flesh, and to acknowledgment and even, finally, agency. “What islanguage / Is the question I ask the large peacock,” she writes, as part of thepoem “MARRIAGE,” “Who sits at the end of the bed / Smiling the grin of demons /Bending its neck to get a good look at me [.]” It is through Lasky, finally,that these characters are allowed their own stories.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Ruth DyckFehderau

RuthDyckFehderau [photo credit: Manikarnika Kanjilal] has written two nonfictionbooks with James Bay Cree storytellers: The Sweet Bloods of Eeyou Istchee:Stories of Diabetes and the James Bay Cree (2017, 2nd Ed 2020)and E Nâtamukh Miyeyimuwin: Residential School Recovery Stories of theJames Bay Cree, Vol. 1 (2023).Her work has been translated into five languages and she has won manyliterary awards. She sometimes teaches Creative Writing and English Lit at theUniversity of Alberta. These days, she lives in Edmonton with her partner. Sheis hearing-impaired. I (Athena) isher first novel.

More here: ruthdyckfehderau.com

First, rob, let me just say thank you! I appreciatethis opportunity!

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

My first and second books were written along withJames Bay Cree storytellers: The Sweet Bloods of Eeyou Istchee: Stories ofDiabetes and the James Bay Cree (2017) and E nâtamukw miyeyimuwin: Residential SchoolRecovery Stories of the James Bay Cree, Vol. 1 (2023). It’san incredible honour to hear and then write their stories, to work closely withElders, and to have my writing published under their imprint. So this novel, mythird book (though I started it first), is a very different experience and hasa different function. Even though it’s fiction, it’s more personal to me insome ways because I have chosen all the material. And in other ways it’s lesspersonal. (Writing the stories of others teaches me about myself.) Both thenovel and the Cree books require all my craft; in that way, they are similar.

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

I have always considered myself a fiction writer.That I have two non-fiction books out now, with another couple commissioned, isas much a surprise to me as to anyone. 

3 - How longdoes it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writinginitially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear lookingclose to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I prefer to write slowly. I love writing and try tosavour the process. And no, first drafts tend to look nothing like finaldrafts. I try things out, examine them from many angles, and delete whatdoesn’t work. Nothing is precious. For me, writing really is rewriting. Oftenmany times. 

(That said, the books I write for the James BayCree come with a fierce sense of urgency. The remaining survivors of IndianResidential School are aging, and many of them want to participate in theproject, so I’m trying to gather as many stories as I possibly can, and I dowork at a slightly faster pace on that project.)

4 - Wheredoes a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short piecesthat end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a"book" from the very beginning?

It depends on the material, I think. A storychooses its own genre and length and structure. Different every time.

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

I love them! Reading stuff out loud to an emptyroom (or to my partner) is part of my process, part of how I know if mycharacters are authentic or contrived. Reading finished pieces isn’t part of mycreative process, really, since the stories are finished, but I do enjoyit. 

6 - Do youhave any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions areyou trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the currentquestions are?

Questions change and shift with the politicalclimate, and that’s important. Those shifts often teach us to see those we’vemarginalized and help us to figure out how to be kind – and, for me, questions thataddress marginalization, kindness, and respect are the questions that matter. (Andthey’re timeless, really. Writers have been asking these questions forcenturies. I could go on…)

But I think a novel suffers if it’s about an idea(or a plot) rather than about a character.

7 – What doyou see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they evenhave one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think writers should write stories that compel them,stories driven by the characters themselves, because a character struggling tosee their way through the world around them is (I think) always revealing andalways relevant.

8 - Do youfind the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (orboth)?

The process of working with a good editor, turningover every word and phrase with another thinker, is a very great pleasure. Somepresses don’t use editors very much any more, and (I think) the writing suffersfor it.

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

From a Cree Elder named Tommy Neeposh: “Listen. Ifyou don’t listen, you’re like a tied-up dog, walking in circles, always seeingthe same things, never knowing more than you know now.”  (It’s the epigraph in E nâtamukw miyeyimuwin: Residential School Recovery Stories of the James Bay Cree.)

10 - Howeasy has it been for you to move between genres (non-fiction to fiction)? Whatdo you see as the appeal?

I don’t see them as very different, really. Thepoint is to use craft to tell a good story. The source of the material isdifferent but the skills are the same.

11 - Whatkind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How doesa typical day (for you) begin?

I eat, I sleep, I write, I read,I exercise. I do some version of these in some order every day no matter whereI am in the world.

And it’s not always easy. Thelast time I lived in Nairobi, for instance, our neighbourhood had regularbrownouts, so I had to be sure to have a laptop battery that could hold 8hours’ charge, and to have it fully charged at the start of each day.

And exercise. In one place inthe North, for instance, some months were too cold for most outdoor exercise,the community gym hours conflicted with my schedule, and most buildings had lowceilings. I couldn’t even really do burpees or jumping jacks, let alone jumprope. So I figured out horizontal exercises. In Dhaka, I also couldn’t gooutside (security problems) so I ran stairs in our 6-storey building. But itwas so hot and I didn’t want to cover up in order to sweat and also didn’t wantto disrespect my Muslim neighbours by being in a shared space in workoutclothes. So I waited ‘til midnight when they (who woke early for morningprayers) were asleep and exercised then. Running in Johannesburg was its owntorment because the altitude is 1000+m higher than Edmonton. While living inPoland, way back in ’02, the guys at the gym kept trying to be chivalrous andlift the weights for me (eye roll). Etcetera. Eating and sleeping can alsorequire enomous creativity in some places, but you don’t want this to be anovel.

12 - Whenyour writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of abetter word) inspiration?

First, I usually work on two pieces simultaneously,and when I need a break from one, I go to the other. Second, I move. I usuallystand to write and do a good deal of pacing. If I’m stuck, I go for a run orlift some weights or do some yoga. The physical act of motion helps movethrough a writing or thinking clot as well.

13 - Whatfragrance reminds you of home?

Boreal forest after rain. Edmonton smells amazing.(Well, not so much these smoky days, but most of the time.)

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

All of the above. But also - people influence mywork. All the time. What they say, how they move, what they pay attention to.People are “forms,” right?

15 - Whatother writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your lifeoutside of your work?

Many of my closest friends are writers or artistsof some kind and they influence me a great deal. I also think it’s extremelyimportant to read stuff that’s very different from what I write. But here’s alist of writers whose work I regularly return to, specifically because theymake me think long after I have finished reading their books. So, here, in noparticular order:

Judith Herman, Elizabeth Strout, Tom Spanbauer,Tomson Highway, Octavia Butler, Stephanie Nolen, Barbara Gowdy, Pat Barker,Rebecca Makkai, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Gaetan Soucy, NK Jemisin, Philip Pullman,David Chariandy, Ursula K. LeGuin, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, AliceMunro, Mark Haddon, Lauren Berlant, Anthony Doerr, Judith Butler, ChandraMayor, Tola Rotimi Abraham, Emma Donaghue, Candas Jane Dorsey, Aritha Van Herk,Pauline Holdstock, Eden Robinson, Amia Srinivasan, Shyam Salvadurai, Anna MarieSewell, Fred Stenson, Lee Maracle, Jacqueline Rose, Ann-Marie Macdonald, EsiEdugyan, Virgina Woolf, Joseph Conrad, Shani Mootoo, Linda Alcoff, GloriaSawai, Hannah Arendt, John S. Milloy, Joanne Episkenew, Michael Ondaatje,Yasuko Thanh, JM Coetzee, Willa Cather, Timothy Findley, Jeanette Winterson, ToniMorrison, Elizabeth Knox, Michelle Good, Michel Foucault, Neil Gaiman, ShermanAlexie, Chinua Achebe, Astrid Blodgett, Richard Wagamese, Nalo Hopkinson,Jeffrey Eugenides, Olga Tokarczuk – yeah, I better stop. I’m not even half waythrough.

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

Grow really old. See some more places.

17 - If you couldpick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, whatdo you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Oh wow. Any number of things. I like making things.I would have enjoyed being a filmmaker, though my hearing loss might havecaused problems. Before hearing loss, I was a part-time musician. I starteduniversity thinking I would go into medicine, and I still think I would’veenjoyed it. I appreciated working with folks living with brain injuries anddevelopmental disabilities (which figured prominently into I (Athena)) and could have made a career of that. Also enjoyedbeing a prof and could have done that full time. I love being outside, grew upon a farm, and don’t shy away from physical labour so that opens up otheropportunities. For this novel, I had to learn quite a bit about geology andtotally see the appeal. I could do almost anything if it paid my way to travelmore. Especially if I could write about them after.

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

I love stories. What a privilege to write them.

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

I recently re-read a favourite: The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moonby Tom Spanbauer. Impresses me every time. And I recently re-watched one of myfavourite films: Antonia’s Line (Dir.Marleen Gorris)

20 - Whatare you currently working on?

Marketing the two books that I launched this year. Thinkingabout the next novel. Nearly half way through gathering and writing the storiesof Indian Residential School survivors for E nâtamukw miyeyimuwin Vol. 2.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Spotlight series #91 : Jennifer Hasegawa

The ninety-first in my monthly "spotlight" series, each featuring a different poet with a short statement and a new poem or two, is now online, featuring San Francisco-based poet Jennifer Hasegawa.

The first eleven in the series were attached to the Drunken Boat blog, and the series has so far featured poets including Seattle, Washington poet Sarah Mangold, Colborne, Ontario poet Gil McElroy, Vancouver poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Ottawa poet Jason Christie, Montreal poet and performer Kaie Kellough, Ottawa poet Amanda Earl, American poet Elizabeth Robinson, American poet Jennifer Kronovet, Ottawa poet Michael Dennis, Vancouver poet Sonnet L’Abbé, Montreal writer Sarah Burgoyne, Fredericton poet Joe Blades, American poet Genève Chao, Northampton MA poet Brittany Billmeyer-Finn, Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer from Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1 territory) poet, critic and editor Joshua Whitehead, American expat/Barcelona poet, editor and publisher Edward Smallfield, Kentucky poet Amelia Martens, Ottawa poet Pearl Pirie, Burlington, Ontario poet Sacha Archer, Washington DC poet Buck Downs, Toronto poet Shannon Bramer, Vancouver poet and editor Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Vancouver poet Geoffrey Nilson, Oakland, California poets and editors Rusty Morrison and Jamie Townsend, Ottawa poet and editor Manahil Bandukwala, Toronto poet and editor Dani Spinosa, Kingston writer and editor Trish Salah, Calgary poet, editor and publisher Kyle Flemmer, Vancouver poet Adrienne Gruber, California poet and editor Susanne Dyckman, Brooklyn poet-filmmaker Stephanie Gray, Vernon, BC poet Kerry Gilbert, South Carolina poet and translator Lindsay Turner, Vancouver poet and editor Adèle Barclay, Thorold, Ontario poet Franco Cortese, Ottawa poet Conyer Clayton, Lawrence, Kansas poet Megan Kaminski, Ottawa poet and fiction writer Frances Boyle, Ithica, NY poet, editor and publisher Marty Cain, New York City poet Amanda Deutch, Iranian-born and Toronto-based writer/translator Khashayar Mohammadi, Mendocino County writer, librarian, and a visual artist Melissa Eleftherion, Ottawa poet and editor Sarah MacDonell, Montreal poet Simina Banu, Canadian-born UK-based artist, writer, and practice-led researcher J. R. Carpenter, Toronto poet MLA Chernoff, Boise, Idaho poet and critic Martin Corless-Smith, Canadian poet and fiction writer Erin Emily Ann Vance, Toronto poet, editor and publisher Kate Siklosi, Fredericton poet Matthew Gwathmey, Canadian poet Peter Jaeger, Birmingham, Alabama poet and editor Alina Stefanescu, Waterloo, Ontario poet Chris Banks, Chicago poet and editor Carrie Olivia Adams, Vancouver poet and editor Danielle Lafrance, Toronto-based poet and literary critic Dale Martin Smith, American poet, scholar and book-maker Genevieve Kaplan, Toronto-based poet, editor and critic ryan fitzpatrick, American poet and editor Carleen Tibbetts, British Columbia poet nathan dueck, Tiohtiá:ke-based sick slick, poet/critic em/ilie kneifel, writer, translator and lecturer Mark Tardi, New Mexico poet Kōan Anne Brink, Winnipeg poet, editor and critic Melanie Dennis Unrau, Vancouver poet, editor and critic Stephen Collis, poet and social justice coach Aja Couchois Duncan, Colorado poet Sara Renee Marshall, Toronto writer Bahar Orang, Ottawa writer Matthew Firth, Victoria poet Saba Pakdel, Winnipeg poet Julian Day, Ottawa poet, writer and performer nina jane drystek, Comox BC poet Jamie Sharpe, Canadian visual artist and poet Laura Kerr, Quebec City-area poet and translator Simon Brown, Ottawa poet Jennifer Baker, Rwandese Canadian Brooklyn-based writer Victoria Mbabazi, Nova Scotia-based poet and facilitator Nanci Lee, Irish-American poet Nathanael O'Reilly, Canadian poet Tom Prime, Regina-based poet and translator Jérôme Melançon, New York-based poet Emmalea Russo, Toronto-based poet, editor and critic Eric Schmaltz, San Francisco poet Maw Shein Win, Toronto-based writer, playwright and editor Daniel Sarah Karasik, Ottawa poet and editor Dessa Bayrock, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia poet Alice Burdick and poet, writer and editor Jade Wallace.
 
The whole series can be found online here .

Kristi Maxwell, Goners

 

Wood Bison
an extinction

text a future female alace hatchet,
fur à la carte, a peltgrave. The temper
part prayer, part leak,the purr all cave.
A plump hurt kept—a gruffmeal.
Grace gave tact a lamp. Thehurtle felt
my fault. Thump, thump,late heart.
Laugh a Greek laugh. Yelpmy hug. Pray
the reef make, cheer thereef up. He may
mute a pager. Errata: Hemay mute me.

Louisville, Kentucky-based poet Kristi Maxwell’s eighth full-length poetry collection is Goners (Grinnell IA: Green Linden Press, 2023), winner of the 2023 Wishing JewelPrize, a prize I hadn’t even knew existed until now. According to the back ofthe collection, Goners is the fourth winner of this particular prize, “awardedannually for a manuscript that challenges expectations of what a book of poemscan be. Named for an essay in Anne Carson’s Plainwater, the Prizechampions work that questions the boundaries of genre, form, or mode whileengaging the rich possibilities of lyrical expression.” The list of priorprize-winning titles include Dennis Hinrichsen’s schema geometrica (2021),Robin Tomes’ You Would Say That (2022) and Bruce Bond and WalterCochran-Bond’s Lunette (2023).

AsMaxwell writes to open the collection, “Extinction Is a Problem of Form: A Noteon Process”: “These poems are lipograms, writing that excludes one or moreletters. They take as their starting place the names of endangered species andemerged out of a desire to manage my own climate despair. Specifically, I’mworking with a variation of the beautiful outlaw—lipograms that do not use theletters in the title, the name of the endangered species, a variation I’ve cometo call an extinction—to explore what happens when what is endangered isinstead absent—gone.” I’m fascinated by the idea that she is exploring andexamining extinction through erasure, setting absence against absence, brilliantlyinterlocking form and content, and this is a book of extinction itself, witheach poem set with the subtitle “an extinction.” The sound and syntax ofthese poems are staccato, offering quick lines and dense lyric that write directlytoward and around each poem’s stated subject. Curiously, I’m finding that Gonersshares a syntax echo with Canadian poet Christian Bök’s infamous andaward-winning Eunoia (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2001), both titles offeringa gymnastic twist of sound and meaning, although Maxwell’s Goners isbuilt with narrative purpose, however blended and repurposed. The poems offer linguisticleap, sonic texture and bounce, where meaning isn’t simply the result of herparticular self-imposed structures but is part of the hand that leads. Through seventy-twopoems on seventy-two newly and recently extinct species, this is a stunning andevocative lyric with a sad prompt and important purpose.

Giant Panda
an extinction

chromosomes form self’sreef—we reek of luck.
Shells overwhelm shore’sbosom: less jewelry, more leech.
Overwhelm me, Yoko. Be myovum’s yolk.
My Elmer’s flubs, fuseslobe & bulb, skull & bloom.
Messy crumb of uscrumbles more. We’re else.
Summer schemes brooks,muumuus, church of
mushrooms—morels. We seeksome. We’re our souls’ humus,
yes? We observe lemursfloss creeks, loose
bush from rock. Reefer-less.Here, for you, four brews,
cheese, chemo for yourcells, emo for your moons. Some hero.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Matt Broaddus

Matt Broaddus is a poet and writer from Virginia. His debut full-length collection, Temporal Anomalies , is now available. He is also the author of the chapbooks Two Bolts and Space Station . His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Annulet, Fence, and Mercury Firs. He’s received support for his writing from Cave Canem, Community of Writers, and Millay Arts. He lives in Colorado and works at a public library.

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

My first chapbook, Space Station, was published by a group of enthusiastic readers and editors at Letter [r] Press. This was a chapbook of hybrid prose/poem blocks set on a space station with Žižek and Warren Zevon and werewolves running around—it was pretty weird stuff, and I wasn’t sure there was any place for me to get it published. But it ended up finding the best home with Letter [r] Press, where they printed a limited run (75 copies) with such care. It was letterpress printed on beautiful paper and had Japanese stab binding in different glittery thread colors. It was this incredibly beautiful object that they made out of my words. It changed my life knowing that there are people out there who will see what you’re doing and be excited about it. There are people out there who will want to collaborate and celebrate the work you’re doing. I still feel so much gratitude to them. Writing has always been very private for me and still is. But my experience with Space Station helped me see that I should just create what I want to create. There will be people who appreciate it.

My more recent work is an outgrowth, in many ways, of my experience with Space Station. I worked with another dream press when Ugly Duckling Presse published my second chapbook, Two Bolts. UDP always makes beautiful book objects and it was no different with my chapbook. Both chapbooks make up sections of Temporal Anomalies, my first full-length book. And, again, I worked with a wonderful team—this time at Ricochet Editions. So Temporal Anomalies is basically of a progression of smaller projects that fit together into this larger book about time, Blackness, and making things.

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

I started writing poetry as a child. But I didn’t read that much poetry as a child or even in high school. For me poetry was tied to music. My favorite poems as a young person were lyrics. I took undergraduate workshops in both fiction and poetry and pretty quickly realized plot was difficult for me and I just wanted to play with language. To some extent, that’s still the case.

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?

My process has changed dramatically since I began writing poems. I’m very guilty of perfectionism and this quality made writing poems an excruciating experience for a long time. But my process has started to get quicker as I shed this notion that I needed to be perfect. Both Space Station and Two Bolts had specific forms that I used to write into, that Julia Cameron/Artist’s Way idea of filling the form. So those poems were written quickly, Space Station in about a month and Two Bolts over a semester of grad school. I’ve seen my process change into one more about accumulation now. I think I learned this from Matthew Rohrer, my teacher and mentor at NYU, who encouraged me to just write the next poem. That idea made more sense to me than to bog down trying to perfect something. Of course I do revise and obsess and fight with drafts, but I try to avoid letting a single line or single poem prevent me from moving on to the next experiment.

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?

A poem usually starts for me with a bit of language that I overhear or receive subconsciously. Many poems start with my wife, the poet Kodi Saylor, saying something incredible. I’ll often respond, “That sounds like a line of a poem,” and she’s usually like, “Well, go and write it then.” Usually that little snippet of language has some rhythmic quality that suggests a next line. That’s usually enough to get started. I let the rhythm and associations of sound and image suggest themselves and just go with it. The poem emerges. I try not to overthink it, but of course I do sometimes. Currently, I’m much more of a writer of short pieces that accumulate into a larger project. The stakes are lower for me that way which is important for me to combat the voice of the perfectionist that lives inside me.

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

I used to think I didn’t like doing public readings, but I’ve done a few this year and really enjoyed them. I get very nervous about the whole process—I feel silly and inadequate reading my little poems, but I’ve tried to take a different, gentler mindset recently where I acknowledge that I can only do what I can do. I don’t have to do or be anyone else as a reader. I love reading with friends—I’ve read twice this year with the magnificent poet Kelly Hoffer and had a lot of fun both times. Those sorts of readings come to feel like they’re almost collaborative events more than the individual readings that make them up. And I get a lot of inspiration from hearing others read their work. Listening to poems leads me to write poems.

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?

I am concerned with various traditions and legacies of experimental Black artists, particularly poets. I’m interested in Black diasporic artists and arts. I’m interested in histories of the Atlantic World that lead to nation-states still wrestling with how race determines social mobility and status within their citizenship structures. Questions about how to make art (or just live a creative life) within such an economically precarious and exploitative era are also on my mind. But I have tended to approach these issues by asking questions about artistic process and what Black artists and writers are expected to do versus what they want to do. I want to have fun. I want to be surprised. Not in a flippant way, but through an engagement with other artists, other processes, and experimentation.

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

I think writers have many roles. They can be truth-tellers, they can imagine new possibilities, they can uncover what is overlooked or has been ignored. I’m not sure what I think the role of a writer should be, but I think imagination is key. Imagining alternatives to the world we find ourselves living in seems important. For a poet, that can happen through reconsidering how one uses language and how language is used around us.

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

It’s exciting to work with an outside editor. It’s someone who cares about my work and very often can see what I cannot. It’s essential.

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

Persistence is more important than talent in pursuing a creative life.

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 wouldn’t say I have a routine. I journal in the morning, but it’s not what I would call writing. Then on most workdays I go to my 9-5 job. Most of my writing happens late at night, usually right before I should be going to sleep.

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

Various places. One of the simplest ways to get inspiration is to listen to a recording of a poetry reading. There are great readings scattered all over the internet. Pick a poet you like, see if there’s a recording of a reading on youtube or somewhere else. Listening to poems begets poems.

More and more recently I’ve begun to do other arts to get inspired. I wouldn’t say I’m good at drawing but a series of blind contour drawings I’ve done has led to a series of poems in response. I’m also painting more recently. These other artforms can help me relax into writing or get excited about it again.

A lot of what is inspiring is rethinking and experimenting with process. If I’m stuck I like to try doing something different. Making a cyanotype print, for example. What does that process tell me about writing? Maybe nothing, but maybe it does show me something new, a new approach to writing. There’s also an art studio very close to my home, and I love to take classes there, especially bookmaking classes—learning how to bind books, how to make different book forms has become a growing obsession for me. Thinking about the materiality of the book form continues to inspire me.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I like the smell of juniper which I associate with the west, both California, where I went to college, and Colorado, where I currently live.

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

I agree with the statement that books come from books, and certainly I’m very influenced by what I read. But like I mentioned earlier, many art forms influence me. Book arts and artists books are more and more interesting to me because I just love the book form, all the variations it can take, and the physical material itself. Architecture is a growing interest. I’ve been obsessed with this book Toward a Concrete Utopia which is a collection of photographs, images, and scholarly essays on the architecture of the former Yugoslavia which was this blend of brutalism, Le Corbusier, and other local and modernist impulses. The material environment we envision and live in says a lot about the state of a society. I’m trying to get something about that across in recent poems. I’m also a huge nerd—I adore Star Trek in almost all of its iterations. I love the utopian vision, the possibilities, the challenges of imagining such a universe. Sci-fi/speculative stuff filters into my poems quite often.

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

This is an impossible question to answer adequately. I admire and have been influenced strongly by the work of Nathaniel Mackey, Brenda Hillman, Don Mee Choi, Tomaž Šalamun, Matthew Rohrer, Bob Kaufman, Robin Coste Lewis, Tyehimba Jess, Rio Cortez, Marwa Helal…but there are so many others I’m going to leave out here. I love so many contemporary voices in poetry and they all teach me how to write when I read their work. I think the work that Alicia Wright at Annulet and Ian Lockaby at Mercury Firs are doing is so cool and important. They are promoting the new voices, promoting translation, promoting thoughtful engagement with contemporary writing, especially poetry. And there are so many others doing this work who don’t get the credit they deserve. It’s such important work.

In terms of non-poetry stuff, I love reading histories. Olivette Otele’s The African Europeans, Michael A. Gomez’s African Dominion, and The Golden Rhinoceros by François-Xavier Fauvelle all come immediately to mind. Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities and Achille Mbembe’s work are exciting to me in terms of theory. Also, The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing introduced me to a concept of precarity that now I can’t stop seeing everywhere.

But I also must say I love reading novels. I love Haruki Murakami’s novels. I love Cesar Aira’s novels. Renee Gladman’s Ravicka novels are excellent. I love love love science fiction. Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books are some of my favorites. Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan series is also fantastic.

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

So many things. I’d like to write a science fiction novel. I’d like to do more painting. I’d like to learn more book forms and make artist books. I’d like to really learn letterpress printing—I’ve done a bit, but I’d love to have my own press or have easy access to a press. I’d like to collaborate with friends on books and maybe start a small press one day.

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?

I’m tempted to say that if I could try another occupation I’d like to be an architect. Or work in urban planning in some capacity.

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

I think I wrote because it was an artform that involved time and iteration. I’m terrible at telling stories because I get distracted by providing context or setting things up. I don’t have to do that in poems. I can engage with an idea or an image or an event and write into a creative understanding of that thing. And I can actually write a series of poems trying to figure out how I feel or what I think about an object, event, idea.

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

The last great book I read was the first Spanish to English translation of Ennio Moltedo’s Night which came out about a year ago from World Poetry Books, translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz. It’s a book about living under the Pinochet regime. Prose poems written in this incredible style, incredible sentence structure, surreal elements and very strong language of socio-political protest and condemnation. The last great film I saw was Everything, Everywhere, All at Once . I waited a long time to see it but recently checked it out. So unlike anything I’d ever seen before, so frenetic and wild and funny. After watching it I cried in my wife’s arms for a good half hour. I haven’t been moved by a film like that in ages.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I like to have fifteen things going at once. That way if I’m stuck or annoyed with one thing I can work on something else. I’ve been doing an erasure project connected with the Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. That text is a collection of everything Arab writers had to say about medieval West Africa. Of course many of these chroniclers never visited the places they wrote about in West Africa so there are huge errors and inventions. I’ve been working through the text, doing my own erasures of these chronicles. It’s a mixture of creative play and historical investigation.

I’m also working on a series of poems and drawings in response to Toward a Concrete Utopia. My process has been to do a blind contour drawing on an image in the text and then write a poem in response both to the original image and what I learned about the image in the process of drawing it. It’s a way of learning how I make lines, thinking about space, and an experiment in the idea that there are no mistakes. Blind contour drawing shows me how I see.

I’m also working on a novel with speculative elements that’s drawing on my day job at a municipal library.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

above/ground press: 2024 subscriptions now available!

The race to the half-century continues! And with nearly THIRTEEN HUNDRED TITLES produced to date and nearly thirty-one years, there’s been a ton of above/ground press activity over the past calendar year, including MORE THAN FIFTY TITLES (so far) produced in 2023 alone (including poetry chapbooks by Robert van Vliet, Stephen Cain, Geoffrey Olsen, Heather Cadsby, Grant Wilkins (three chapbooks this year!), nina jane drystek, Sophia Magliocca, Jennifer Baker, Karen Massey, rob mclennan (two chapbooks!), Jérôme Melançon, Monty Reid, George Bowering + Artie Gold, Brad Vogler, Andrew Gorin, Julia Drescher, Ken Norris (five chapbooks in three years!), Joseph Donato, Samuel Ace, Stuart Ross, Leesa Dean, Jessi MacEachern, Jordan Davis, Nick Chhoeun, Ben Jahn, William Vallières, Derek Beaulieu, Isabel Sobral Campos, Mark Scroggins, Laura Walker, Nathanael O'Reilly, Lindsey Webb, Jason Heroux and Barbara Henning, all of which are still in print), as well as issues of the poetry quarterly Touch the Donkey [a small poetry journal], the occasional journal G U E S T [a journal of guest editors] (with 2023 issues guest-edited by Laurie Fuhr and Adam Katz) and two new issues of The Peter F. Yacht Club. 2023 also saw the continuation of the Report from the Society series, producing individual festschrifts (as this period could use some more positive) celebrating the work of Pearl Pirie, Nikki Reimer, Jessica Smith, Brenda Iijima and Amish Trivedi! And there are plenty more coming! Part of the fun is that none of the subjects have a clue the projects are even happening until finished copies land on their doorstep.

The Factory Reading Series is gearing up for some events again soon (including next week!), but have you seen the virtual reading series over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics (with new monthly online content, by the way; the pandemic-era extension of above/ground press). And the next edition of the ottawa small press fair is November 18th! with a reading upstairs at the Carleton Tavern the night before, even!

One can't forget the prose chapbook series that above/ground started during the pandemic-era, with new titles this year by Evan Williams, Jamie Hilder and Ryan Stearne, with a further forthcoming by Joan Naviyuk Kane! Forthcoming items through the press also include individual chapbooks by Saba Pakdel, Lydia Unsworth, Katie Ebbitt, Colin Dardis, Russell Carisse, Micah Ballard, Cary Fagan, Amanda Deutch, Kyla Houbolt, Gary Barwin, Adriana Oniță, Noah Berlatsky, Blunt Research Group, Phil Hall + Steven Ross Smith, Zane Koss, Peter Myers, Gil McElroy, Ben Robinson, Miranda Mellis, MLA Chernoff, Terri Witek, Pete Smith, Marita Dachsel and Kevin Stebner (a couple of which have already been sent to the printer, by the by), as well as a whole slew of publications that haven't even been decided on yet.

Oh, and groundswell: the best of the third decade of above/ground press, 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing) is available for pre-order, yes? but you probably already knew that.

2024 annual subscriptions (and resubscriptions) are now available: $75 (CAN; American subscribers, $75 US; $100 international) for everything above/ground press makes from the moment you subscribe through to the end of 2023, including chapbooks, broadsheets, The Peter F. Yacht Club and G U E S T and quarterly poetry journal Touch the Donkey (have you been keeping track of the dozens of interviews posted to the Touch the Donkey site?). Honestly: if I’m making sixty or seventy titles per calendar year, wouldn’t you call that a good deal? I mean, it all does seem ridiculous.

Anyone who subscribes on or by December 1st will also receive the last above/ground press package (or two or three) of 2023. Why wait? You can either send a cheque (payable to rob mclennan) to 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1H 7M9, or send money via PayPal or e-transfer to rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com (or through the PayPal button at robmclennan.blogspot.com).

Stay safe! Stay home! Wear a mask! Wash your damned hands!

Cecil Giscombe, Negro Mountain

 

There had been a gate atthe driveway, but only

the poets remained, grownover by the hedges that stopped on either side

of the entrance from thestreet. What do hills

summarize? Origin stories?Right

and left separated longbefore this. Bait me, love

—I can pass until I speak.(“First Dream”)

Thelatest from Berkeley, California poet Cecil Giscombe is the collection NegroMountain (Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2023), a collectionthat explores and articulates how history bestows and shapes names, includinglegacies of alteration, altercation, witness, erasure and the long thread.Giscombe is a poet I first heard of through his being paired with Prince George, British Columbia poet Barry McKinnon by Louis Cabri for the eighteenthepisode of PhillyTalks (February 2, 2001), a series of paired readings and conversation—the audio and transcript from which can be found here—two poets paired for their particular examinations oflandscape, history and geographic space across the extended lyric. Giscombe’sinfamous collection Giscome Road (Dalkey Archive, 1998), which originallyprompted the pairing, is an articulation of, around and through the town ofGiscome, British Columbia, a town named after one of his own ancestors, a shortdrive north-east of Prince George. Much like McKinnon, Giscombe favours thelong, lyric stretch, and I would find it interesting to hear him read certainof these poems aloud, to catch how he marks his breaks, his breath, such as thepoem “Seven Mountains,” a poem that includes “The mountaintops // are bare rockin wave-like patterns, there’s often // as not // a fat saddle between // theridges. // Who do you think you saw?” Both projects—Negro Mountain and GiscomeRoad—are specifically attuned to a history of Black settlers and a responseto those settlers, and how naming shifts, alters and even mangles acrossinterpretations. “Negro Mountain,” as he writes, named for an individual who isalmost completely unknown, but for the colour of his skin and the event of hisdeath. As he writes to open this new collection:

Negro Mountain, in theAllegheny Range of the eastern United States, is a long ridge that straddlesthe Pennsylvania-Maryland border and the Maso-Dixon Line. The ridge has beenknown as Negro Mountain since the late eighteenth century because of “an incident”that took place there in the 1750s—in a skirmish between a band of Englishspeculators, led by Thomas Cresap, and a party of Native Americans, a Black manaccompanying the English group was killed by a shot fired by one of the NativeAmericans. The Black man’s name (as it has been handed down in Pennsylvaniastories) was Nemesis or Nemises. Brantz Mayer—in his 1851 book on the Iroquoisleader Logan and the Cresap family—notes that “Negro Mountain [is] where agigantic African who belonged to [Cresap’s] party bequeathed his name in deathto the towering cliffs.”

The ridge’s name,however, has been a matter of public controversy since the 1920s when the USGeological Survey declared Negro Mountain’s highest point to be the highestpoint in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The Black man—called Nemesisor Nemisis in the architecture of stories—who died on the ridge still calledNegro Mountain is beyond reach. The mountain—the “very long shadow”—survives.

Thecollection is shaped across a quintet of sections, akin to a suite: “SevenDreams,” “The Negro Mountain,” “Camptown,” “Overlapping Apexes (for EdRoberson)” and “Notes on Region.” Through Giscombe, history speaks as aliving, ongoing thread, one that attempts to work and rework bearings across anenormous sense of distance, both temporal and physical. There are dangerousshapes in those hills, some of which still work to reveal themselves, enough tocause any traveller to, through the finding, discover themselves lost.

Camptown’s the long footof Negro Mountain.

Please yourself, form’sharsh and anything

could slip across abridge in the wee

hours, when traffic’s notheavy, from one place

or another to Camptown.

Please yourself.

I was a ship on thestormy ocean—stay off me, brother,

I write from bottomlessdescription and

I still might be amonster. (“Camptown”)

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jill Mceldowney

Jill Mceldowneyis the author of the full length collection Otherlight(YesYes Books) and the chapbook Airs Above Ground (Finishing Line Press). She is a founder and editor ofMadhouse Press. Her previously published work can be found in journals such asPrairie Schooner, Fugue, Vinyl, Muzzle, and other notable publications.

1 - How didyour first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent workcompare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Otherlight is my first full lengthcollection! I’m super excited about it–publishing a full length collection issomething I’ve been chasing for almost 10 years so it feels amazing to have itout in the world. I’m incredibly lucky to have been able to bring this book outwith YesYes Books–working with them has been nothing short of absolutelyamazing.

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

Iactually started out as a fiction writer! I took an Intro to Poetry class in undergrad to fill my required credits. Theclass was taught by Josh Young who, about half-way through the semester, waslike “You need to be a poet.” That kind of decided it for me honestly.

3 - How longdoes it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writinginitially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear lookingclose to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

Iwrote Otherlight very quickly. Ittook me about 3 months to write the first full draft and then I spent about twoyears revising it and rewriting it. I used to be able to write so fast–I wrote2 full length manuscripts while in grad school. Now, my process is much slowerwhich I actually think is more in line with the material that I’m writing aboutand thinking about.

Iusually start out with a plan for a chapbook and then see how things go. I lovereally concise, straight to the point books so that process really makes sensefor me.

4 - Wheredoes a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that endup combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book"from the very beginning?

I’mdefinitely a “book poet.” I don’t know if that’s an actual “thing” or not butI’m always writing toward a book or a full length manuscript. I’m not the poetwho can write a singular stand out poem. I love the challenge of working on amanuscript and the way verse lends itself to world building and creating anatmosphere. Building a world for the poems to live in is one of the most funparts of the whole process.

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

X

6 - Do youhave any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions areyou trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the currentquestions are?

Otherlight as a whole is particularlyinterested in interrogating grief–what it means to individual and what it meansto live with unresolved grief. I really wanted this book to–as closely aspossible–depict grief and the processing of loss. It bothers me when the end ofa book wraps up grief so neatly at the end and gives the impression thateverything is okay. It doesn’t really work like. In the last few poems of Otherlight I wanted my reader to get thesense that the speaker was working through their loss, their grief–but wasn’tnecessary working their way out of it.

7 – What doyou see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they evenhave one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

X

8 - Do youfind the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (orboth)?

Idefinitely have my “first readers” who I send everything to. Caroline Chavatel,who works with me on Madhouse Press, is a brilliant editor. Katherine Sullivanwas the editor for Otherlight. Working with her was so amazing–her attention todetail made the book that much stronger. It was a gift to have an editor whosaw what the book could be from the start.

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

X

10 - Whatkind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How doesa typical day (for you) begin?

I definitely don’t have a strict writing routine–I have to writewhen I can now. I'm a lawyer and that is a job that can definitely be allconsuming. I have to be kind of crafty with my time and how I work in poems. IfI have a 5-10 min break between meetings or research or drafting a legal brief,I’ll try and draft something–anything–even if its just a line. I take a lot ofvoice memos now while I'm driving and craft poems out of them later.

11 - Whenyour writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of abetter word) inspiration?

Interestinglyenough whenever I feel stuck or like I can’t write–I go read a novel. Readingprose really helps me when I get stuck. I also I have books that I just keepreturning to and rereading that just make me want to write poems. Just to namea few, some of those books are AmpersandRevisited by Simeon Berry, CarolinaGhost Woods by Judy Jordan, Fieldnoteson Ordinary Love by Keith S. Wilson, AHunger by Lucie Brock-Broido.

12 - Whatfragrance reminds you of home?

Lavender.

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

X

14 - Whatother writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your lifeoutside of your work?

Having a life outside ofbeing a “poet” is definitely important for me and my work. Even just having ajob that is not academia or poetry related is really healthy I think. It worksfor me. I spend time riding my horse, doing other types of art.

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

X

16 - If youcould 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?

Itwould certainly be nice to be a full time writer. :) Right now I’m working intax and immigration law full time but I love poetry

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

X

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

I’mworking my way through all the books I bought while I was in law school anddidn’t have the time to read. I just finished Yellow Rain by Mai Der Vang and thought it was absolutelybrilliant.

19 - What areyou currently working on?

I’m currently working on a manuscript that is investigating adult friendships, childhood, nostalgia. I’m also heavy into the revision process on a manuscript that continues my study with grief, trauma, violence.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Shane Book, All Black Everything

 

Going Forward

At last the Barbudos wearsuits,
selling, selling into thedeep

rhythms of the screen
cycling its venomouslight rail

up and up, reversewaterfall
nano fork circuitousareole grease slit,

frost on the pain.
In the instep is shootingvolts.

In the walking is wisdom.
Who this man

will not stop writing?
Him is have job.

Everything amped up
is unreal-realeverything.

“Grenades detonate
when I enter thebuilding.”

It takes a muscle
to fall in love.

Thelatest from poet Shane Book is All Black Everything (Iowa City IA:University of Iowa Press, 2023), a follow-up to his Congotronic (University of Iowa Press, 2014), and a collection that Montreal poet Kaie Kellough describes on the back cover as a book that “[…] proposes an expansive,global poetics, which is equally a poetics of Black diasporan fluency. All Black’spoems ride the crosscurrents of history and popular culture through AfricanAmerica, the Caribbean, West Africa, the United Kingdom, and Canada. As referenceswhirl and constellate, All Black’s language grows dense and intricate.” Throughsharp, short lyrics, Book offers a narrative display of wild collage that providesa clear through-line, writing a mix of culture, shape, reference, sound andgeographies. His poems are rife with humour, swagger and declaration, eventurning his fierce and steady magpie gaze upon himself: “You try living in a pigeonpen above a / series of car repair shops / and love motels for a while—,” hewrites, to open the poem “I Know I’ve Reached Peak Shane,” “then come talk tome.”

Book’slyrics showcase a different kind of magpie poetics than, say, Perth, OntarioPhil Hall: whereas one might say Hall’s lyrics carry a weight and assemble asequence of light and shining objects, Book’s poems collect a myriad of momentsof weight through his travels, but one approached with a counterbalance oflightness in the line, such as across the play of poems including “The BestPozole in Santa Cruz,” “The Nervous Hunger of an Ox” or “Mexico City Stole My Wife,”a poem that begins: “Lingonberries the last diet hope, // she-blogger knitting together// a freedom, marauded through // by the state farmers and the  blue // cornet l’amour. Turns out // fingersup to the Beyoncé birthers.” There is such a joyous bounce and bop to hislyrics, one that dances across the line to further line through a sound andsyntax that refuses, much like the author, to remain still or static. To travel,as one knows, is to better understand not only home, but what we carry fromthose places we are from, and Book knows full well, exploring and examiningthreads of diasporic conversation and communities against a counterpoint ofglobalization and global politics. It is the combination of all of the abovethat provide a through-line to his own foundations, even as he offers the poem “DadBod,” that begins: “I want to be happy // fuck you. Low rider magazine //easy-load for the AK // in a Black Liberation // Army birthday // type o’ way. Firstthing // Imma do is grow // my movement beard, // feel some type o’ way. // Butyou must live // in the Midwest, // be so inside // these landscaped // breather// like a new gold scarf // underwater.”

 

Jim Johnstone, Write Print Fold and Staple: On Poetry and Micropress in Canada

 

            When considering the impact of micropress it’s importantto recognize that small publishers aren’t simply extensions of largeroperations. derek beaulieu and Jason Christie touch on the disjunction betweensmall and large publishers in a 2004 issue of Open Letter dedicated to “CanadianSmall Presses / Micropress,” positing that:

It is crucial to considerthe small press as a non-entity or an amorphous totality because to give itpre-eminence, to define the small press in its entirety, would be to make of ita structure capable of registering with the same presence as ‘CanadianLiterature’ in the media and with casual readers. The small press would then besubject to the same ideological baggage of canon formation and capitalist obligation.

At the hear of thisargument is thee notion that micropresses have the power to equalize thepublishing landscape. But if they’re hard to define, and nearly impossible totrace, then how do they democratize, and who benefits from their presence?
            Part of the answer lies with the authors who close micropressesover the continuum of publishing houses that publish trade books. There’sfreedom in printing material without bowing to the pressures of commercial expectation—acommitment to the art of writing itself. Saying this, I’m less interested inthose who use micropresses as developmental territories, levelling-up totraditional publishers when they’ve established a presence in the literarycommunity, than those who commit to disseminating their work ephemerally, evenafter publishing trade books. Authors who traffic in chapbooks and pamphletsare able to distribute material that wouldn’t fit, or is frowned upon at largerpresses, highlighted by transgressive, unusual, or unpopular subject matter. Inthis way, they benefit from the creative potentiality of micropress, whichallows for risk and encourages publishing in real-time.

Iwas very pleased to be introduced to Toronto poet, editor and publisher JimJohnstone’s latest, the small critical folio Write Print Fold and Staple: On Poetry and Micropress in Canada (Kentville NS: Gaspereau Press, 2023). Thistitle is so new that he’s travelling around with copies as part of a tour for hislatest poetry title [see my review of such here]. The book exists in threeparts: “Write, Print, Fold, and Staple: Four Principles of Micropress,” “StartSmall, Stay Small: Khashayar Mohammadi and the Creative Potentiality ofMicropress” and “In Praise of the Mayfly: A Survey of Canadian Micropresses.” Johnstoneapproaches this critical folio as not simply someone interested in the form,but as someone existing deep within the consideration and ecosystem of smalland micro press. Johnstone is a writer, editor and publisher, having co-founded Anstruther Press in 2014 with his wife, Erica Smith (a press still verymuch active), and more recently, editing full-length collections throughPalimpsest Press, as well as the occasional anthology. He not only understandsthe ethos and approach of small and micro press publishing, but is an activeparticipant, having been such for quite some time, and he opens his overviewwith a description of his own small press beginnings, from working sixteenissues of Misunderstandings Magazine, his time as part of Cactus Pressto his eventual co-founding of Anstruther (he also guest-edited an issue of GU E S T [a journal of guest editors], produced through above/ground pressnot that long back).

            Since these origins, one of Anstruther’s main initiativeshas been to form an editorial collective to scout manuscripts from poets acrossthe country. The net cast by having editors in cities like Halifax,Fredericton, Montreal, London, and Vancouver means that we’re able to tap intowriting communities outside central Canada, and at the same time extend thepress’s visibility to writers looking to publish first chapbooks, both of whichare important parts of our mission. Moreover, pairing poets with editors hasallowed those involved in the Anstruther bookmaking process to develop experienceon either side of the publishing divide.

Whatis most compelling about this small folio is in just how effectively it worksto provide an overview of some of the small and micro-press publishing activityin Canada at this particular moment, providing information on the nature of chapbookpublishing, and focusing on a wide range of publishers currently and formerlyactive in various corners of the country—something that had previously been thepurview of journals such as the late, lamented Open Letter: A CanadianJournal of Writing and Theory (1965-2013). Honestly, I can’t even think ofa Canadian overview since that particular issue of Open Letter thatJohnstone quoted above, the “Canadian Small Presses and Micropresses” issue,guest edited by derek beaulieu & Jason Christie (Twelfth Series, No. 4:Fall 2004). Also, the 1989 issue that holds ten interviews with British Columbia poet/publishers, conducted and edited by Barry McKinnon, is alsopretty cool. Curiously, the focus on Toronto-based poet and publisher KhashayarMohammadi in the second chapter is interesting, offering an example of a writerand translator able to get work out into the world that might have been difficult,if not impossible, without the assistance of small press:

            Mohammadi’s trajectory is an exemplar of the kind of markan author can make by staying small. Moe’s Skin is an ambitiousbeginning, consisting of a single long poem with multiple sections. Printed onyellow cardstock, its cover features a Velvet Underground-like banana peeledback to reveal a figure that looks very much like the author. While the bookonly retailed for $10, it’s thirty-two-pages long, and was hand sewn in anedition of one hundred copies. Contrast this with what came next for Mohammadi—theperfect-bound, Coach House Books-printed Dear Kestrel, published by Knife|Fork|Bookin 2019—and you have an illustration of how varied micropress endeavours canbe. For my money, Dear Kestrel is the most aesthetically-pleasing objectKnife|Fork|Book has published to date, with 80 lb Mohawk Loop Straw cardstockused for the cover, overlaid with tan ink so that the title almost looks likeit’s been burned into wood.

TheCanadian small and micro presses that Johnstone gathers and discusses as partof his survey, each with an individual write-ups (with full-colour photographsof titles by each), include above/ground press (1993-present), The Alfred Gustav Press (2008-present), Apt. 9 Press (2009-present), Baseline Press(2011-present), Collusion Books (2020-present), Ferno House (2009-2014), Frog Hollow Press (2001-2022), Gap Riot Press (2017-present), Jackpine Press(2002-present), Junction Books (1999-present), Knife|Fork|Book (2017-present),Model Press (2020-present), No Press (2005-present), Rahila’s Ghost Press (2017-2022)and Thee Hellbox Press (1983-85; 2005-18). Obviously works such as these rarelyaim to be complete, but I would have been curious to see his take on pressessuch as Proper Tales Press, AngelHousePress, puddles of sky press, The Blasted Tree or Simulacrum Press, for example [see a further list of active Canadiansmall and micro presses at the Small Press Interactive Map curated by Kate Siklosi], or even Gaspereau Press itself. Either way, this is one of the most comprehensive critical titles I’veseen on contemporary chapbook production in some time, and a fantastic introductionto both an opening as well as a deeper understanding of contemporary publishing.As he writes of his own approach to publishing and production, one might evenconsider this an ethos for all the editor/publishers mentioned, a question posedbefore citing the four principles of small publishing (ideal units for poetry,value in small, chapbooks are democratic and large presses depend on the small):

Assembling books by handhas stuck with me, and one of the reasons I’ve been able to persist is thatAnstruther titles are produced in much the same way as the books I made inelementary school—folded and stapled—only now with the aid of a printer andphotocopier. These are the tools of the trade for those interested inmicropress at a base level, a place where many poets learn and expand theircraft. But who chooses to stay small? And is there value in ephemeral,hand-distributed material in the digital age?