Ongoing notes: mid-September, 2025: Claudia Coutu Radmore + Kim and Léa Roger Abi Zeid Daou,

September,once more. Keep in mind: The Factory Reading Series later this month ,featuring Irish-Australian poet Nathanael O’Reilly, who is coming upfrom Texas, Michael Lithgow (who recently returned to Ottawa from half adecade in Edmonton) and Ottawa poet Ben Ladouceur (launching his new above/ground press chapbook). There are probably other updates to keep track ofas well, but it can be hard to recall everything. I say: check out www.bywords.ca

Ottawa ON/Montreal QC: There are moments goingthrough Ottawa poet Claudia Coutu Radmore’s work that I’m occasionally surprisedby, whether the chapbook I produced through above/ground press, or this latesttitle, someone is lying (Montreal QC: Turret House Press, 2025); momentsI’m surprised her work isn’t better known than it is. Over the years, she’s hadchapbooks I’ve heard of through multiple presses, from Alfred Gustav Press to Apt.9 Press to Shoreline Press to Aeolus House Press to Catkin Press (and even garnered a bpNichol Chapbook Award), but full-length collections I rarely hear of, asthough she’s finding presses that are underselling the quality of her work. someoneis lying is a collection of poem-blocks, each piece set as single stanzaprose poems. Her poems offer a propulsion, one with precise angles and a delightfulattention to sound and collision. Listen to the opening of the poem “rawvocabulary and water,” for example, that jangles across the lyric: “from aplace beyond thought / where language originates in / where it resides proceduretakes / us halfway there after that w / need raw something feels each / thoughtcrumbles falls to pieces […]” Going through this work reminds me of Amanda Earl,another Ottawa poet doing stellar work, under the radar for long enough that itbegins to frustrate, wondering what certain editors might be thinking. A smarteditor at a small press, I should think, should be putting some of these chapbookstogether into a full-length collection.

CO: I’ve been moving through siblings Kim and Léa RogerAbi Zeid Daou’s collaboration, The Taste of Sun (Ethel Zine, 2025). Bothare PhD candidates and extensive creatives, with Kim also the author of thechapbook You are Memory, and I Archive (Cactus Press, 2023). TheTaste of Sun is a collection of four pieces of short prose with anepilogue. “My dad tells me to always remember the big picture—the point—whilealso adding my special touch.” opens the title piece. “This story is theperfect example of a flashbulb memory, which I learned about in an Introductionto Cognition class.” This is a book about family, about fathers; a heartfeltexploration and declaration of love and admiration. “My dad was always ahead oftime. He felt in his heart,” continues the title piece, “what is right,equitable, and just, long before the culture catches up. He taught me love isbeyond time.” These first-person pieces are curious in their approach to form,a blend of postcard fiction and first-person postcard memoir pieces. As well, Iwould be curious as to what the original prompt for such a project was, and ifthe two of them have been working on further of these. I could see afull-length collection of these, certainly.

Epilogue

On our walk

Dad hands me a daisy.

He holds my hand.

And closes his eyes.

In his warm palm

I feel close to my heart.

I asked what he thought,

As he looks at the blueof the sky.

He says thank you thankyou thank you.