Ongoing notes: early August, 2025: Peter Van Toorn + david hadbawnik,

Hey!Are you following the above/ground press substack? Lots of new stuff overthere. 

Montreal QC: I was curious to see a new chapbook ofpoems, a coffee break (Montreal QC: Turret House, 2025), by the late Montreal poet Peter Van Toorn (1944-2021), especially given that his lastpublished work was the collection Mountain Tea: & Other Poems (Montreal QC: VehiculePress, 2004) [see my notes on such here], a collection originally published byMcClelland & Stewart in 1984 as Mountain Tea & Other Poems. Justprior to the publication of that 1984 title, Van Toorn had a stroke, and, as I’maware, didn’t publish any further new work through the remainder of his life. Movingthrough an author’s archive for the sake of publishable work is an interesting endeavour—I’vedone my own excavations through the work of Andrew Suknaski, for example, andkeep hoping that someone might wade through the archives of Artie Gold to seewhat might be buried there—working a fine line between original authorialintent, especially for an author as reticent as Van Toorn, and continued publicinterest (especially if the work is publishable). One can point to a recent posthumoustitle by the late Joan Didion (1934-2021), her Notes to John (2025), awork that one can’t entirely know (at least from this distance) if such wouldhave even been considered publishable (although if it sits in one’s literary archive,one can argue it is all fair game).

Not that the line inquestion lacks refinement in the sense of finesse—they are skillful enough—but theylack seriousness. And worst of all, these lines try to borrow power from theircontext, by their close association with the tradition of the sacred. So, theycome to be a beggar dressing up and putting on airs—in clothes borrowed withoutpermission from a rich cousin.

VanToorn’s work has long been known for a particular precision, as well as a deceptiveease, of a lyric fine-tuned across years, so this short eight-poem prosesequence is intriguing. There is an ease here, and a further openness to thelines assembled here, in comparison to the poems of Mountain Tea—one couldbounce a quarter off of those lines, certainly. This is a lovely, sleek thing,and it does make me curious as to whether or not there might be somethingfurther in that archive of his. What else might such boxes and file-foldershold?

Eden Prairie MN: From American poet david hadbawnik’s polispress comes his chapbook as it happens (2025), published as a sleekchapbook dedicated “for Tina and Elliott,” but made up of a single, extendedpoem “for alice notley,” published as an elegy and homage for the legendary American poet who died earlier this year (1945-2025). “she learned to speak with thedead,” the sequence opens, “whose voices go in a continuous / dark loop acurrent / between this and that / white noise / perhaps heard through / ameasure of trees / or birdsong in spring / all she or you or anyone had to do /was stop breathing and the voices / come through no language [.]” There is animmediacy, even a rawness, to hadbawnik’s ongoingness through this sequence,one that suggests a fresh project potentially far larger than the current selection.Might there be more?

Ride into big sky. The lightgoing on
and on. Above trees abovebuildings is
that the sea is that traceof shipwreck or
morning sun? When we stepdown from the car
into splendor of green recedingwhen
we mouth the words thatjangle open doors
will our breath describea line that seems like
darkness falling? My armthrust around you
your slim shoulderlaughter of beard trails and
in California is it always?This way
and that sand wigglingwet in between
like a dog’s nose or thesmell of found money
or a glimpse of skin as askirt shifts and
legs uncross or a newbeginning