some author activity: Mangold, Smith, Clayton, o'brien, Solomon + O'Reilly,

Sarah Mangold has a new poem up on the Chaudiere blog as part of National Poetry Month (who also has a short write-up she did on her most recent title at the Poetry Society of America site), as does Dale Martin Smith, Conyer Clayton, and katie o'brien; Misha Solomon has a new poem up in the Poetry Pause series via The League of Canadian Poets; and Nathanael O'Reilly has new work in The Elevation Review.

some author activity: Spinosa, Siklosi, Beaulieu, Swensen, Smith, Ross + Schmaltz,

Dani Spinosa writes on Kate Siklosi for Open Book, Kate Siklosi also has some new work up at Poem Atlas, as does Derek Beaulieu; Cole Swensen has new work up at The Brooklyn Rail, as does Dale Smith; Stuart Ross has a new poem online as part of National Poetry Month at the Chaudiere Books blog; and Dani Spinosa writes on Eric Schmaltz for Open Book.

new from above/ground press: from Riot, September 2016, an Inside Out Journal, by Dale Smith

from Riot
September 2016, an Inside Out Journal
Dale Smith
$5

Faded leaves hang limp in evening sun. Worried cyclists keep close to curb. Pale sky’s scrim a crib holding no one. Dead things collect in words. To speak of origin brings a quiet rain to ruined global interface. Like messages from stars, light years distant. To grieve or share caravan soul worry. Hold tightly to rafts, the current flows outward, naked, disastrous fool. A beard and exposed torso. Five-days old, born in passage over Mediterranean shame. Image flashes beyond borders. Simultaneity of needs washed clean by hunger’s devotion.

   Stand in trashy yellow field where

   dirty underwear plastic garbage

   eat rations a fate or ratio of

   circumstance the Navigant sun north

   lunar pulse of waves widening long

   mother to love openly sideways

   enter Lesbos on orange life vest already

   squeezed no air lungs like dry leaves grow still

   rocks there are cameras to mediate

one’s digital window. The subway car is overheated. A child cries. Drunk white man covered in face tattoos screams. Beyond one a membrane prevents seeing through remnants of oneself. Not even the color of a concept can restore the ore or ire animating crisis. The dead are not as good. It is not okay.

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

Cover image by Stacy Blint

Dale Smith lives in Toronto, Ontario, where he teaches at Ryerson University. His writing appears in Brick, Brooklyn Rail, Chicago Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. He is an editor, with Robert J. Bertholf, of An Open Map: The Correspondence of Robert Duncan and Charles Olson and Imagining Persons: Robert Duncan’s Lectures on Charles Olson. His most recent poetry is Sons published by Knife Fork Book in 2017.

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

above/ground press in Toronto : a report,

[Braydon Beaulieu, reading] above/ground press recently celebrated twenty-three years via an event in Toronto [don't forget the Ottawa event for same next week!] with readings and launches by above/ground press authors Braydon Beaulieu, Ashley-Elizabeth Best, Sean Braune, Stephen Brockwell, Sharon Harris, Hugh Thomas and Aaron Tucker at The Steady Bar and Cafe. Thanks so much to all who participated!

[the crowd] The crowd was good, with a variety of Toronto writers (and non-writers, most of whom I didn't know) attending, including Ken Sparling, Dale Smith, Natalie Zina Walschots, Kateri Lanthier, Richard Greene, Stan Rogal, Hazel Millar, Shannon Bramer, Jay MillAr, Teresa Yang, m erskine, as well as poet Doyali Islam, who generously donated her time and energy to work both door and book table. The venue, of course, worked perfectly, with thanks to them, as well as to Aaron Tucker, who secured it for me.

[Stephen Brockwell] Stephen, of course, was good enough to speak briefly to the volume and enthusiasm of the press over the years, especially given how close the press is to eight hundred publications (a dozen or so, I'd say, and still counting). Sometimes I'm even baffled by the amount of material I've produced through the press, although to me, the first decade is somehow the most impressive (that's when the struggle was far more than it has been since).

[Sean Braune] I was thinking back across the years, and this might have actually been the third above/ground press event I've organized in Toronto, and not the second. My records show an event from November, 1997 with myself,  Natalee Caple and Stephen Cain (both of whom were reading from recently-released above/ground press titles) along with Ottawa poet Jim Larwill, and my recollections suggest another event around the same period, with Una McDonnell and Stan Rogal (both of whom were reading from recently-released above/ground press titles; see his listed here) and Ottawa poet b stephen harding. Both of those events were held at the Imperial Library Pub on Dundas Street.

[Hugh Thomas] It almost makes me think I should be attempting anniversary events and/or general above/ground press readings in Toronto a bit more often. Although at least two in the crowd didn't understand, at first, that above/ground is an Ottawa-based publisher, and wondered why I'd pointed out the rarity of the Toronto above/ground press reading. Heck, at this point, I probably have enough authors around that I could easily do more than a couple of cities, whether Montreal, Vancouver or even an American city or two. The one time I did an above/ground press feature in New York, as part of the Boog City series in January 2004 (for the sake of the tenth anniversary anthology), we had to fly everyone in (Brockwell, myself and Clare Latremouille).

[Hazel, Shannon and Ashley-Elizabeth at the end of the evening] The high points were plenty and the performances great; the highlights would also include the fact that I hadn't actually heard Braune or Beaulieu (now that he's relocated from Calgary to Toronto) read before (both of whom are also reading at the Ottawa event), the stellar reading that Hugh Thomas gave, or even the fact that Shannon Bramer appeared (I've barely seen her in years; remember that chapbook I produced of hers, moons back?).

[myself with Dale Smith and Stephen Brockwell, pre-reading] A lovely bonus to the day was the fact that I was able to meet up for a pre-reading drink with Dale Smith at the Duke of York, a wee pub just close to our hotel. Stephen Brockwell met up with us later, once he'd arrived via rail.

some author activity: Paige, Ladoueur, Poe, Robertson + The Factory Reading Series,

Abby Paige has a new essay, "On the Invention of Writing," posted as part of the "On Writing" series over at the ottawa poetry newsletter; Ben Ladouceur is interviewed by Ruckus Readings; Deborah Poe writes on Megan Burns, and Lisa Roberston writes on John Clare, over at Lemonhound; and Pearl Pirie was good enough to post a report on the recent Factory Reading Series event with Dale Smith, Hoa Nguyen and Mari-Lou Rowley.

The Factory Reading Series presents: Nguyen, Smith + Rowley, September 21, 2013

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:
The Factory Reading Series
 
with readings by:

Hoa Nguyen (Toronto)
Dale Smith (Toronto)
+ Mari-Lou Rowley (Saskatoon)

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Saturday, September 21, 2013;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)

Born in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Hoa Nguyen [see the profile on her up at Open Book: Toronto here] studied Poetics at New College of California in San Francisco. With the poet Dale Smith, Nguyen founded Skanky Possum, a poetry journal and book imprint in Austin, TX where they lived for 14 years. The author of eight books and chapbooks, she currently lives in Toronto where she teaches poetics in a private workshop and at Ryerson University. Wave Books published her third full-length collection of poems, As Long As Trees Last, in September 2012.

Dale Smith [see his "12 or 20 questions" here] teaches at Ryerson University, Toronto. With Hoa Nguyen he published 10 issues of the always-hip and controversial journal, Skanky Possum. His book, Poets Beyond the Barricade: Rhetoric, Citizenship, and Dissent (University of Alabama Press), was published last year, and Slow Poetry in America (Cuneiform) is forthcoming in winter 2014. His poems, reviews, and essays have appeared in the Best American Poetry 2002, Bookslut, Chicago Review, Jacket, New American Writing, and more.

Poet and interdisciplinary adventurer Mari-Lou Rowley [see her "12 or 20 questions" here] has encountered a timber wolf, come between a black bear and her cub, interviewed an Italian astronaut, found over 44 four-leaf clovers, and written nine collections of poetry. Her recent book, Unus Mundus (Anvil Press 2013) was awarded second prize in the John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Award. Suicide Psalms, also published by Anvil in 2008, was shortlisted for a Sask Book Award. Her work has appeared internationally in literary, arts and science-related journals including the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (US) and Aesthetica Magazine’s (UK) Creative Works Competition (finalist 2011). She was one of 20 invited participants in Creative Writing in Mathematics and Science at the Banff International Research Station in 2010.She recently received a Joseph Armand Bombardier Doctoral Award to pursue n interdisciplinary PhD at the University of Saskatchewan in new media, neuroplasticity and empathy.