Showing posts with label Chris Turnbull. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Turnbull. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

The Factory Reading Series, March 16, 2025: Etcheverry, Manery, mclennan, Turnbull + Wilkins,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:
Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya (Ottawa)
Rob Manery (Vancouver)
rob mclennan (Ottawa)
Chris Turnbull (Kemptville)
+
Grant Wilkins (Ottawa)
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Doors 7pm / Reading 7:30pm
Avant-Garde Bar, 135 Besserer Street, Ottawa


Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya
, Chilean-Canadian poet, lives in Ottawa, Canada. Professor of philosophy, master's degree in Hispanic language and literature, doctor in comparative literature. He was a member of the Escuela de Santiago and Grupo América, Chilean poetic groups of the 1960s-70s. His poetry, prose and criticism have been published in various countries in magazines and books in Spanish and translations into English, French, Italian and Portuguese. He has published art in various media and formats, on paper and virtually. His latest books are Clorodiaxepóxido, poems, Chile, 2017; Los herederos, science fiction novel, 2018; Canadografia, anthology of Spanish-Canadian prose, Chile, 2017; Samarkanda, poems, Canada, 2019; Outsiders, narratives in English, 2020; Orejas y vanguardias, Chile, 2024. Recently appears in the anthologies Wurlitzer, cantantes del recuerdo en la poesía chilena, Chile, 2018; Antología de la Revista Entre Paréntesis Chile, 2018; Antología de la poesía chilena de la última década, (Chile, 2018), Antología mundial: la papa, seguridad alimentaria (Bolivia, 2019), Bolivia, 2019; Anthologie de la poésie chilienne, 26 poètes d'aujourd'hui (France 2021). He is a collaborator and member of the editorial committee of Entreparéntesis magazine, from Chile, and Off the Record magazine, also Chilean. His latest book of poems is Orejas y vanguardias, Chile, 2024.

Robert Manery lives in Vancouver, BC, where he is the editor of Some, a print-only poetry magazine. He is the author of As They Say (BlazeVOX, 2024), It’s Not As If It Hasn’t Been Said Before (Tsunami Editions, 2001), and the chapbooks Richter-Rauzer Variations (above/ground press, 2012), Many, Not Any (Some Books, 2019), and Elegies (above/ground press, 2022).

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. His latest collection is Snow day (Spuyten Duyvil, 2025).

Chris Turnbull's recent book is cipher (Beautiful Outlaw Press 2024). Her most recent chapbook is (Gap Riot Press). She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails or their pieces found on trails.

Grant Wilkins is an occasional poet, printer and papermaker who has made a practice of doing strange things to other people’s words. He has degrees in History & Classical Civilization and in English, and he’s working on another one in Art History. He lives in Ottawa on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

collage by Gary Barwin,

Thursday, July 4, 2024

The Factory Reading Series, July 22, 2024: Clint Burnham + Chris Turnbull,

The Factory Reading Series Presents:
readings by:
Clint Burnham (Vancouver)
+
Chris Turnbull (Kemptville)
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Monday, July 22, 2024
Doors 6:30pm / Reading 7:00pm

Ten Toes Coffee House and Laundry
837 Somerset Street West (at Rochester Street,


Clint Burnham was born in Comox and lives in Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish territories. Recent books include The Goldberg Variations (New Star, 2024), White Lie (Anvil, 2021), and Pound @ Guantánamo (Talon, 2016). He teaches at Simon Fraser University and just got back from a hike. above/ground press recently published The Old Man: new stories (2024) in the "prose/naut" series.

Chris Turnbull is the author of cipher (Beautiful Outlaw Press 2024), [ untitled ] in o w n (CUE Books 2014), and Continua (Chaudiere Books 2015). Her poetry chapbooks, collaborations, and installation pieces are in print, online, and within landscapes. She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails (www.etuor.wordpress.com).

Friday, March 15, 2024

VERSeFest 2024: Reid, drystek, Earl, Dolman, Turnbull, Christie + Mohammadi,

above/ground press authors Monty Reid, nina jane drystek, Amanda Earl, AJ Dolman, Chris Turnbull, Jason Christie and Khashayar "Kess" Mohammadi, among plenty of others, read next week in Ottawa as part of VERSeFest 2024 (March 21-24)! Might we see you there? And in case you weren't aware, there have been an array of interviews with a number of authors reading at this year's festival posted over at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, including an interview with AJ Dolman by Amanda Earl and Sandra Ridley by Margo LaPierre, and interviews with Khashayar Mohammadi and Jason Christie by myself (interviews with Chris Turnbull, Laila Malik + Klara du Plessis to post over the next few days!).

Sunday, January 1, 2023

The Return of The Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta: a report,

Another regatta! It was glorious to have a gathering for our holiday what-sis once more, even with a small crowd (less than twenty people, actually). Can you believe this is the first one held in-person since 2019 [see my report on such here]? The Peter F. Yacht Club, which began in the late 1990s somewhere as an informal gathering/conversation of writers, produced its first issue in August 2003, with our first holiday gathering (most likely) in 2005. And of course, see my 2018 report here, my 2017 report here, my 2016 report here, my 2015 report here, and my 2013 report here. Oh, and did you hear a new issue is forthcoming?

We had a small gathering of readers, including Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, myself, Stuart Ross, D.S. Stymeist, Chris Turnbull and Grant Wilkins! AJ Dolman, James Moran (who has a new collection of short stories, apparently) and Margo LaPierre were scheduled, but life circumstances kept each of them from attending, although I did manage to convince (with little prompting) nina jane drystek to read, which was fun. Given the holiday chaos, between the occasional child-cough and the pre-Christmas storm that came through, Christine and our young ladies were away with family (a bumped visit), with a variety of other PFYC regulars also sending their regrets.

Frances Boyle
I've always enjoyed the idea of a holiday party between Christmas and New Year's, given how (obviously) half the readers might be busy with other activities, but those who are able are desperate to get out of the house (there aren't usually readings between, what, the first week of December and the second week of January?). The crowd at this particular event was small (given Covid, weather and other stresses), but mighty: including folk such as Steve Zytveld, Cathy McDonald-Zytveld, Christine Sung (who brought homemade cookies!) and (for the first time in attendance!) Sara Jamieson.

Jason Christie
D.S. Stymeist
Grant Wilkins
Obviously it was so good to hear from everyone! After so long, also. Some of the highlights included Stuart Ross reading a short poem for the late Michael Dennis [see my obituary for him here], Chris Turnbull reading two poems by the late Robert Hogg [see my obituary for him here], Grant Wilkins' remarkable sound poetry performance, and even Stuart and nina jane performing an improvised sound poem collaboration on the spot! Oh, had I only taken some further photos.

Monday, December 30, 2019

The Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta: a report,


How many years have we been doing this now? The first holiday season event we did was most likely back in 2005, so we’ve been doing this for some time, and this past Saturday night was brilliantly fun, with a more lively crowd than usual, and readings by Yacht Club regulars and irregulars Stephen Brockwell, D.S. Stymeist, Frances Boyle, Conyer Clayton, Michelle Desbarats, Robert Hogg, Marilyn Irwin, Chris Johnson, Margo LaPierre, myself, Lee Parpart, David A. Epstein, Monty Reid and Chris Turnbull, who was accompanied by the pre-recorded voice of collaborator Bruno Neiva.  

Stephen Brockwell
As part of my introductions, I spoke of how The Peter F. Yacht Club originally began as an informal group that met to discuss writing back in 1999, morphing into a journal back in 2003 (which still produces an issue for each edition of VERSeFest). One could describe the entire history of The Peter F. Yacht Club as a way for a small group of us to engage with each other’s work, and get a sense of what each other’s current projects might be. So, what are you working on?

The room was packed! It was good to see so many people I feel I haven’t seen in some time, including Pearl Pirie, Jennifer Pederson, David O’Meara, Rachel Zavitz, Jean Van Loon, Grant Wilkins, Laurie Koensgen, Cathy McDonald-Zytveld and Mia Morgan. Unfortunately, Christine McNair and natalie hanna had to send their last-minute regrets (and were missed, obviously).

Robert Hogg (seated) speaking to Craig Carpenter
What was interesting, also, was that Craig Carpenter, a poet I haven’t seen or heard much from in some twenty years (since he left Ottawa for parts unknown) appeared out of the ether to record the audio of the event. The final editor of the late, lamented Carleton Arts Review back in the late 1990s (not long after my own tenure as same), he was in Ottawa throughout the 1990s in part as a student at Carleton University, writing poems as a member of Jim Larwill’s informal writing group, the OmniGothic NeoFuturists (you’ll have to find Jim to find out what he thought that all meant). Apparently Carpenter is currently in Kelowna, British Columbia at UBC, working with Karis Shearer, and assisting in digital transfer of literary readings from dozens of archived cassette tapes (etcetera).

D.S. Stymeist
Stephen Brockwell opened the event with three really sharp poems produced in homage, including one for Stuart Ross [one of the readers at last year’s event] and another for his mentor, Peter Van Toorn, all of which I hope to see in print soon. How does his work manage to remain so sharp? D.S. Stymeist, author of a debut collection from Frontenac House, read a couple of poems from his current work-in-progress, resting behind the bar for both support and added effect. Frances Boyle included a couple of poems from her new poetry title, This White Nest, recently out with Quattro Books (and she has a collection of short stories out this spring with The Porcupine’s Quill, Inc., also). And Conyer Clayton read from a selection of prose poems, including from her most recent above/ground press title (and did you know she has a full-length debut out this spring?).

Michelle Desbarats
Michelle Desbarats is utterly delightful, and it was grand to hear her read from new poems, especially with the admission that she is working on a new manuscript. Can it already have been more than twenty years since the appearance of her debut? I would love to be able to produce another chapbook as well (to follow this one I produced around the same time as her debut). I’ve also been very pleased to see the re-emergence of Robert Hogg over the past couple of years [see my review of his two latest chapbooks here], and his poem playing with the Robert Creeley phrase, Dig-it, was amazing.

Margo LaPierre
Chris Johnson read two poems that included raccoons. Is this a new theme, a new thread, emerging in his work? And Margo LaPierre read some new poems that sparkled. I’ve only heard her read a couple of times now, so clearly need to hear further, to get a better sense of what it is she’s working on. I also read a couple of poems, from my work-in-progress “Book of Magazine Verse” [some poems from the same manuscript live here], including one for Frank O’Hara’s birthday (which I have already scheduled to post on my own blog in March, for O’Hara’s actual birthday; watch for it).

Lee Parpart
Lee Parpart was in town from Toronto, and read a couple of poems, which was fun, as did her American pal, poet David A. Epstein, who not only read a couple of curious poems, but offered an invitation to us Ottawa “Peter F. Yacht Clubbers” to their Connecticut Yacht Club. Oh, the boating we could do. And Monty Reid regaled us with a sequence around sex, constructed from stories heard and collected.

a very attentive audience
The collaboration between Chris Turnbull and Portugese poet Bruno Neiva sound fascinating (apparently there’s already a chapbook produced of such I have yet to get my hands on); Chris was able to provide some audio of Neiva reading some selections from their work-in-progress, and then Chris read a couple.

Monty Reid
listening to Bruno Neiva's audio
It was a grand event! I am very pleased, and also, very exhausted. And then a group of us landed downstairs, for lengthy conversation and hijinks. How did I only manage to get home at 1:30am?

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

The Peter F. Yacht Club regatta/reading/christmas party!

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan;

The Peter F. Yacht Club annual regatta/christmas party/reading

at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs)
233 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale Market)
Saturday, December 28, 2019
doors 7pm, reading 7:30pm


with readings from yacht club regulars and irregulars alike, including Frances Boyle, Stephen Brockwell, Conyer Clayton, Robert Hogg, Chris Johnson, Margo LaPierre, Lee Parpart, Monty Reid, Chris Turnbull and rob mclennan (and most likely some others).

remember how much fun last year was? or the year prior? or 2016? or 2015? or 2013? or 2012? etc


Thursday, August 15, 2019

report: the above/ground press 26th anniversary reading/launch/party!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out this past weekend to the above/ground press 26th anniversary reading/launch/party over at Vimy Brewing Company! (and can you believe the 26th anniversary BIG SUMMER SALE ends today? I mean, really...) It was a grand event, celebrating twenty-six years of continuous activity and nearly a thousand (so far) publications going all the way back to those wayward days of summer 1993 (according to a poster, the first official event was July 9, 1993, back before most of you, and now, a couple of above/ground press authors, were even born). I've posted a couple of reports over the years from anniversary events (but never as many as I probably should), including the 25th anniversary (but not the second one, from the ottawa international writers festival, unfortunately), the twenty-third anniversary (including the Toronto event that same year) and the nineteenth anniversary (where are the rest? oh, the days and the years get away from me). Thanks so much to everyone who came out to read, listen and otherwise assist and help celebrate! (and to Pearl and Brian Pirie, who were kind enough to provide photos.)

photo by Pearl Pirie
I wore my snappy "above/ground press" t-shirt produced for last year's event (by Troublemaker Print!) but couldn't get anyone to purchase any (although more than a couple of attendees and readers wore theirs from last year). You can dress like me! I offered. That's not a selling point! Anita Dolman kept yelling, from the back of the room. I disagree, obviously (might it have helped if I'd shaved? No time! No time).

Christine was, of course, home resting given her recent medical thingies, but otherwise well. But there were a great deal of others around to assist in the above/ground press mayhem, including natalie hanna (who kindly worked the door), Anita Dolman (who kindly worked the book table for the second year in a row), Robert Hogg, Roland Prevost, Janice Tokar, Stephen Brockwell, Jean Van Loon, Grant Savage, Michelle Desberats, Hugh Thomas and maria erskine, jwcurry and plenty of others. It was a good crowd.

photo by Pearl Pirie
The first reader of the evening was Marilyn Irwin, who read from her fourth above/ground press title (and ninth chapbook overall), the day the moon went away, a chapbook already being discussed as her strongest work-to-date. There is something really powerful happening in Irwin's poems these days; crafting a rawness into shapes that feel effortless, and serene (and so obviously are not).  

photo by Brian Pirie
Pearl Pirie launched Eldon, letters, her fifth above/ground press chapbook, made up of a chapbook-length epistle to her late father, which included photographs and other archive materials alongside a lyric prose composed directly to him, that loss and some unanswered questions. Pearl was, also, easily the best dressed in the room (an idea everyone in the room easily agreed with).

photo by Pearl Pirie
I was very taken with Stuart Ross' latest, NINETY TINY POEMS, which is his second above/ground press collection (have you seen the blog I curate celebrating the fortieth anniversary of his own chapbook enterprise, Proper Tales Press?). Composed of nine poems, each of which has ten tiny sections, he had joked that he was working on a manuscript of "one thousand tiny poems," which might not actually be completed (but held to this singular chapbook). After the reading, he said that the positive response to the poems and his reading made him reconsider this idea (I would be very interested to see how far he might be able to go with this; wouldn't you want to see what Ross could do with ONE THOUSAND TINY POEMS? Honestly: who wouldn't? And if someone wouldn't, would you even want to know that person?).

photo by Pearl Pirie
Stuart's reading bled directly into Conyer Clatyon's reading, as Conyer appeared at the podium for the sake of an improvised collaborative sound poem or two with Stuart, before Stuart left the stage, and sat down. And Conyer begin to read from her above/ground press debut, Trust Only the Beasts in the Water. There is something about Conyer's prose poems I'm quite fond of, the flow of them; and it makes me curious to see her full-length debut next year, appearing with Guernica Editions.

photo by Pearl Pirie
After a wee break, there was Kyle Kinaschuk, who was good enough to travel from Toronto to read from his chapbook debut, COLLECTIONS-14. Given I hadn't heard him read before, let alone hadn't actually met him yet, I was curious to hear how he might perform some of these works. He did a magnificent job, speaking a bit to the compositional process of writing poems prompted by his father's death, and the baffles he utilized for the poems, put together from details of his father's life. He had mentioned that this was one section of what might be a book-length quartet of sections, and I am very much looking forward to seeing what that might look like.

photo by Pearl Pirie
Hamilton writer Gary Barwin (who also has a chapbook press, serif of nottingham, which turns (or turned) thirty-four years old this year) read, as part of his set to launch Dust of the Wren: poems and translations, a selection of unpublished pieces, suggesting that part of the appeal of the chapbook form is the quick ease with which new work can be disseminated. I'm absolutely fascinated with Barwin's comfort in visual poetry and surrealist lyric even as he has become the author of bestselling fiction, with a new novel already slated with Random House for 2021; and did you know he has a selected poems out this fall? There is an awful lot going on with his work, so it is very exciting to see it finally being taken seriously.

photo by Pearl Pirie
One of my favourites is Kemptville poet Chris Turnbull, who has long been, quietly and confidently, working in large forms utilizing lyric, the fragment and visual elements against ecological concerns. Did you see the piece I did on her work for Jacket2 magazine a while back? This chapbook, contrite, is the second of a projected trio of linked works, following Candid, a title produced as part of one of the dusie kollektivs (a work that is available free online, also).
 
There. Don't you feel bad you missed it all now? We will just have to do another for next year, then!

And should I mention: the event was successful enough I immediately took three more chapbooks to the printer the following day? And am preparing two more?

And: watch this space for the announcement for 2020 above/ground press subscriptions, yes? Sometime over the next month or so. I mean: the press produced sixty-seven chapbooks last year, so the subscription rate is a pretty good deal, I must say...

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

new from above/ground press: contrite, by Chris Turnbull

contrite
Chris Turnbull
$5


skip. rock.



                        a side-arm motion sets momentum or observation flittering.



                      here, rock, crow, hut, ice, creep, filter.



     shove land.
 coordinates hang.



we met at the waste-field













II



duplication is a dream.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
August 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Chris Turnbull
is the author of continua (Chaudiere Books 2015; now a homestay at Invisible Publishing 2019) and [ untitled ] in o w n (CUE Books 2014). She has published several chapbooks: Shingles (Thuja1999); continua 1-22 (above/ground 2010); and Candid (hawkweed 2019). Undertones, a collaboration with text/artist Bruno Neiva, is forthcoming in summer/fall 2019 with Low Frequency Press (Buffalo). Other visual and text based work and collaborations can be found online, in print, and within landscapes. She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poems are planted on trails: www.etuor.wordpress.com. A collaborative chapbook with a rawlings, The Great Canadian (Low Frequency Press 2016), combined Turnbull’s photographs from rout/e with rawlings’ text from her ongoing echolology.

Candid was previously published as part of Dusie Kollective #8 and is also online at http://dusie.blogspot.com/2016/12/dusie-kollektiv-8-curated-by-rob.html. It is the first of three interconnected chapbooks. contrite follows Candid much like a riffle: “guess a spokesperson of it all” was published as a broadside in above/ground press’ 25th Anniversary collection (2019); other pieces were published in The Capilano Review 3.35 (Spring 2018) and Café Review (Spring 2019: ed. Bob Hogg).

This is her second chapbook with above/ground press, after continua 1-22 (2010).

[Chris Turnbull will be launching in Ottawa on August 10th as part of the above/ground press 26th anniversary launch/reading/party]

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 at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com