Showing posts with label Roland Prevost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roland Prevost. Show all posts

Thursday, March 21, 2019

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #27; VERSeFest special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #27
VERSeFest 2019 special
edited by rob mclennan
$6


With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2019 participants, including Manahil Bandukwala, Frances Boyle, Klara du Plessis, Amanda Earl, Avonlea Fotheringham, Lea Graham, natalie hanna, Richard Harrison, Harold Hoefle, Bob Hogg, Gil McElroy, rob mclennan, David O’Meara, Roland Prevost, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Renée Sarojini Saklikar

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the eighth annual VERSeFest, March 26-31, 2019]


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

Saturday, December 30, 2017

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

Last night was our annual Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta, once again in our usual space in Parkdale Market's Carleton Tavern [see last year's report here], held as the "office Christmas party" for our informal writer's grouping.

The evening held a myriad of short readings by PFYC regulars and even an irregular, including Anita Dolman, Christine McNair, D.S. Stymiest, Faizal Deen, Amanda Earl, Chris Johnson, Roland Prevost, Frances Boyle and rob mclennan (with absences by Jason Christie, Chris Turnbull, natalie hanna, James Moran, Cameron Anstee, Vivian Vavassis and Claire Farley, all of whom were sorely missed), with an unexpected appearance by new father N.W. Lea (we had a copy of his most recent above/ground press title handy, so managed to convince him to read), and Nova Scotia poet E. Alex Pierce, who gave a short reading as well. Apparently Pierce was in Ottawa for part of the holidays, and Basma Kavanagh sent her an email and told her to get herself down to the tavern, because of all the poets that would be there!


[above, from top: N.W. Lea reading; N.W. Lea listening as Anita Dolman reads; E. Alex Pierce; D.S. Stymiest] Reading to a healthy crowd of friends new and old, the audience included Jennifer Pederson, Grant Wilkins, Janice Tokar, Monty Reid, Josh Massey, Stephen Brockwell, Charles Earl, jwcurry, Marilyn Irwin and Chris Jennings, among others. And we even helped train a new waitress to our shenanigans.

[above: Roland Prevost; crowd scene including Josh Massey; post-reading w jwcurry, Faizal Deen + D.S. Stymiest] Christine and I made a point of reading from works-in-progress (as well as a poem I wrote the day after our prior PFYC Christmas gathering), her from a series of poetry and prose sections on her experience with preaclampsia, and myself a short story in-progress, one of the three I've been actively working on over the past few months. It was good to hear pretty much the entire group reading from new or recent work, from recently-polished poems to completely unfinished works, including a longer piece by Faizal Deen we're hoping will soon make it into an above/ground press chapbook (a section of the same work appeared in the tenth issue of Amanda Earl's experiment-o).

[Monty Reid and Chris Johnston, listening] And yes, I made cookies (lemon icebox and sugar) and everyone loved them. And Frances made cookies also, which were also loved.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #25; VERSeFest special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #25
VERSeFest 2017 special

edited by rob mclennan
$6


With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2017 participants, including Cameron Anstee, Frances Boyle, Jason Christie, Stephen Collis, Anita Dolman, Amanda Earl, Patrick Friesen, Lea Graham, Marilyn Irwin, Gil McElroy, rob mclennan, Uxío Novoneyra, trans. Erín Moure, Pearl Pirie, Roland Prevost, D.S. Stymiest and Janice Tokar.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2017
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the fifth annual VERSeFest, March 21-26, 2017]


To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Friday, December 30, 2016

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

Last night we held our annual PFYC Christmas party/reading/regatta [see the report from last year's event here] at the Carleton Tavern, our "office Christmas party," if you will, for those of us in our informal writer's group [see a history of PFYC here].

Stephen Brockwell provided some fine co-hosting duties, as well as an array of photos (all of these pictures were taken by him). There were short readings by Amanda Earl, Stephen Brockwell, Frances Boyle, Pearl Pirie, Marilyn Irwin, Janice Tokar, myself, Gwendolyn Guth and Roland Prevost, with an array of audience that included Monty Reid, Brian Pirie, jwcurry, Rachel Zavitz, Steve Zytveld, Jason Wiens (Christmassing here from Calgary) and Robert Stacey [pictured at the end, with me]. Most read short selections of new pieces and/or works-in-progress, but for myself, who could only manage a poem or two from the new book (all my works-in-progress aren't yet ready for public consumption).
It was good to hear some new work from Gwendolyn Guth, including a poem since that has been accepted for a forthcoming anthology on motherhood via Demeter Press. Congratulations, Gwen!

Really, much of the enjoyment of the PFYC Christmas event is in hearing new work from poet-friends that perhaps don't read as often as they should, whether Gwendolyn Guth, author of the 2010 chapbook Good People, or Janice Tokar, author of the 2014 chapbook ARRHYTHMIA.
Some of us, including Marilyn, Pearl and myself, even provided some baked goods, with an array of chocolate goodness brought in by Roland and Jan. There was also much merriment! I also brought along copies of a variety of above/ground press items not set to release until January, including the new issue of Touch the Donkey, and above/ground press' 800th item! (What could it be? Stay tuned!)

Unfortunately, weather and circumstance kept a few readers away, including Jason Christie, Claire Farley, Chris Turnbull, Chris Johnston, Christine McNair and Vivian Vavassis. But hey, there's always next year, right?

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

above/ground press on Parliament Hill: Clarke, Earl, Reid + mclennan,

As part of his tenure as current Parliamentary Poet Laureate, George Elliott Clarke hosted a poetry reading in Centre Block of Parliament Hill this past Friday afternoon, featuring poets Amanda Earl, Monty Reid, myself and Romanian-Canadian poet Diana Manole [who posted her own report on the event here]. Incredible thanks to Mr. Clarke and all on the Hill who had helped make such possible!

I was unclear whether or not a poetry reading had been held on the hill prior (apart from, say, Milton Acorn, who used to perform his poetry on the grounds circa 1970, or the complete reading jwcurry did of bpNichol's The Martyrology in the gazebo behind the Parliament Buildings in July 2006), but Clarke claimed this was the first official poetry reading on Parliament Hill, which was incredibly exciting to think about (although I always consider such statements suspect, and am hesitant to back such a claim without further research). Sponsored by The League of Canadian Poets, this year's #NationalPoetryMonth theme was "The Road," to which Clarke appended William Shakespeare as well, and most readers (but for myself) read a short excerpt of Shakespeare's work as part of their performance.

The room was perfect for the event, known as room 256-S Centre Block (I attempted more information on-line of the space, but found little but this array of photos), decorated with maps, and paintings of ships, trains and other modes of transport. The road, indeed.

Clarke later offered that he originally launched Whylah Falls in Centre Block in 1990, also, as organized by his MP, Dr. Howard Douglas McCurdy (I know numerous books have been launched on the hill, having even been in attendance for a mid-1990s event of Anglo-Quebec poets), but this the first, he suggests, with League funding (I'd be curious if there's a list anywhere of prior poetry readings on the Hill).

The crowd was roughly forty or so, predominantly made up of a variety of Hill workers (and even the Romanian Ambassador to Canada!) as well as poets Roland Prevost and Janice Tokar (who were good enough to take these photos with my terrible camera) and Chris Johnson. Clarke's reading included King Lear, Earl's included an array of unpublished work composed around her hospital scare from a few years back, Manole read from her Romanian-English poetry collection B&W, and Reid read a selection of pieces from a number of his published books (given, at that point, I was recovering from newborn and night two of three sleeping at the Montfort with Christine and baby, I'm amazed I recall so well; the afternoon was a bit hazy. I was even wearing clothes I'd been sleeping in...). I read two unpublished poems, including this piece, composed for newborn Aoife.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

the peter f yacht club regatta, 2015

Another year has come and nearly gone, which means we've held our annual Peter F. Yacht Club Christmas party/reading/regatta at Parkdale Market's Carleton Tavern (I seem to have reported on the event from two years ago, but not last year's, for some reason). Pearl Pirie was also good enough to post her own report as well.

Last night was a half-packed house with readings by PFYC regulars Cameron Anstee, Amanda Earl, Marilyn Irwin, Chris Johnson, Ben Ladouceur (pictured, above), Karen Massey, myself, Roland Prevost, Monty Reid (pictured, below), Peter Richardson and Janice Tokar. After an exhausting non-stop four days of Christmas travel and social, six-months-pregnant Christine McNair was exhausted, and sent her regrets, as did more than a couple of others, including at least one unable to appear for the sake of snowstorm concerns.

There were readings, books, chapbooks, cookies and cupcakes, all part of our casual mid-holiday holiday gathering. And drinks. And a few loaves of banana and zucchini bread floating around the room as well. Oh, and festive merriment. Yes, yes.
 
And: even though you missed the event, you can still pick up a copy of the new issue, here. Otherwise, the next events through The Factory Reading Series have yet to be scheduled, but there are already plans afoot for the launch of the next issue of ottawater, and readings by a variety of writers, including Gary Barwin and Julie Morrissy, as well as appearances by Anne Boyer and Ben Ladouceur as part of our slot at this year's VERSeFest; keep an eye out here for details, or keep checking Bywords.ca (obviously). And you know about the above/ground press 2016 subscriptions?

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Michael Lake reviews Roland Prevost’s Parapagus (2012) in Broken Pencil #69



Michael Lake reviews Roland Prevost’s Parapagus (2012) in Broken Pencil #69. Thanks so much! This is actually the first review of Prevost’s second last above/ground press chap (this one has appeared since).

“A backfield dig unearths two gleaming pre-human / Skulls.”
            So begins Roland Prevost’s suite of short poems about an encounter between some archaeologists and the remains of an ancient two-headed woman, the parapagus of the title. The woman’s story emerges delicately through meditations on the life of her anomalous body: “Female adult remains. Survival to maturity / Suggests an acceptance of strangeness.” We catch glimpses of her sex life and the struggle between her two selves, but rather than focus much on the particular deviances of this body, Prevost plays with notions of otherness, exploring how and why it is perpetuated: “Assorted reactions of gawkers, reverencers. / A notoriety: across families, tribes. Across to us, / Three species down evolution’s stream.”
            The perception of otherness goes both ways as Prevost imagines what the two-headed woman would think of us: “They wouldn’t recognize us as kin.” All of this unfolds succinctly in ten swift poems, the titles of which are, at first, frustratingly oblique – [ magical beliefs ] + { meats rendered } or [ passive aggressive ] + { bound } are two such title examples—but upon a second read, they become helpful thematic markers, like an archaeological site, if you will. Parapagus is a short read, but one that will reward an attentive audience.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Pearl Pirie reviews Roland Prevost's Culls (2015) and Amanda Earl's A Book of Saints (2015)

Pearl Pirie reviews Roland Prevost's Culls (2015) and Amanda Earl's A Book of Saints (2015) as part of her ongoing "95 Books" list. Thanks so much! You can see her entire post, from which these two reviews are excerpted, here.
161. Culls by Roland Prevost (above/ground, 2015)

A couple of my favorite poems by Prevost in here including Grounded to Airbourne. because I like the sense of refusal to accept a scene as prescripted. Even within the poem there’s a questioning of the interpretation,
[...] A dragonfly close-up,
my solitary index offered as a perch. Its seeming
friendliness, ad hoc, filled-in. As with all fictions.
Willing fools, we cram every blank with connection.
Ah, truth of how the brain connects and constructs. Rather than make a poem of pursuing one chain of interpretation, it cracks open wider. And how it is said with its pause and surge is gorgeous.

Later in Lenses at Both Ends the poem takes what is a common experience, to look out a lens from each end and takes it wider.
Those preposterous red blossoms
on the tallest branches, rest assured
don’t know your name either.
The position in the world, a little humble, a little absurd and called as such, which is not to say life is not loved or stoically dismissed as not really existing but human place in it is not the authority and master over all, but equal among trees and knowledges. It is a heartening point of view.

165. A Book of Saints by Amanda Earl (above/ground, 2015)

I keep saying, no, this is my favourite chapbook from Amanda Earl. This is a different subject and style and yet continuous with the intensity. Here a poem from there at the end of this episode of Literary Landscape. There’s a compassion, elegance, poignancy to the poems. There’s more blunt literal talk than some previous poems, less soundiness, but these still have attention to sound and do not come out shallow for their straightness. Complex and with an insistence on resilient strength. For example Feat of the Guardian Angels, October 2
Does she watch over me
or am I alone?
It’s hard to tell.
I’ve always had the
feeling that I am
protected, but I’ve never
known why. I find no comfort
in death, nor do I understand
those who do. My faith
is in the rocks that tumble
out of the sea after a storm.
In the tumult of the waves,
the raucous calling of the
crows in the dawn
blinded by sleep and
yet I stumble forward.
If you have waves and crows, a poem is apt to stumble me to irritable but somehow she surpasses the elements with the strength and fit of the whole.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

new from above/ground press: Culls, by Roland Prevost

Culls
Roland Prevost
$4

Lenses at Both Ends


Everywhere, the old home’s gone

At the umbilicus
uncertainty engages the game

Those preposterous red blossoms
on the tallest branches, rest assured
don’t know your name, either

All this innocent vegetation
takes green for granted

Your unstoppable eyes
take this all in
even when it wounds

There will never come
an end to your thanks

Fall quietly to your knees

on this green Island
on these bleached white sands

Land your three ships
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2015
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Roland Prevost’s
first trade poetry publication Singular Plurals (Chaudiere Books, 2014) came out last fall. He has been published by Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant, The Toronto Quarterly, ottawater, experiment-o, Ottawa Arts Review, The Steel Chisel, The Peter F. Yacht Club, among many others. He is the author of four chapbooks: Metafizz (Bywords, 2007), Dragon Verses (Dusty Owl, 2009), Our/ Are Carried Invisibles (above/ground press, 2009), and Parapagus (above/ground press, 2012), and has also been published in three poetry collections by Angel House Press. Roland won the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award, judged that year by Erín Moure. He was managing editor of Poetics.ca, and founding managing editor of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics. He lives and writes in Ottawa.

This is his third chapbook with above/ground press, after Our/ Are Carried Invisibles (2009) and Parapagus (2012).

[Roland Prevost will be launching Culls as part of The Factory Reading Series, Ottawa on Friday, September 25, 2015, with Monty Reid, Cameron Anstee + Ryan Pratt]

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Monday, August 31, 2015

The Factory Reading Series: Pratt, Prevost, Anstee + Reid, September 25, 2015

span-o (the small press action network - ottawa) presents:

The Factory Reading Series presents:

Ryan Pratt (Hamilton)
Roland Prevost (Ottawa)
Cameron Anstee (Ottawa)
+ Monty Reid (Ottawa)
lovingly hosted by rob mclennan
Friday, September 25, 2015;
doors 7pm; reading 7:30pm
The Carleton Tavern,
223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale; upstairs)


Ryan Pratt lives in Hamilton, Canada. A contributing writer for The Puritan and Ottawa Poetry Newsletter, Ryan's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Quiddity, Contemporary Verse 2, text Magazine and (parenthetical) zine. He was nominated for a 2014 Pushcart Prize.

Roland Prevost's first trade poetry publication Singular Plurals (Chaudiere Books, 2014) came out in the fall of 2014. He has been published by Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant, The Toronto Quarterly, ottawater, experiment-o, Ottawa Arts Review, The Steel Chisel, The Peter F. Yacht Club and as a dusie “Tuesday poem,” among many others. He is the author of four chapbooks: Metafizz (Bywords, 2007), Dragon Verses (Dusty Owl, 2009), Our/ Are Carried Invisibles (above/ground press, 2009), and Parapagus (above/ground press, 2012), and has also been published in three poetry collections by Angel House Press. He won the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award, judged that year by Erín Moure. He was managing editor of Poetics.ca, and founding managing editor of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics. He lives and writes in Ottawa.

Cameron Anstee lives and writes in Ottawa ON where he runs Apt. 9 Press and is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa. He has published chapbooks with Baseline Press (London ON), above/ground press (Ottawa ON), The Emergency Response Unit (Marmora ON), and In/Words (Ottawa ON). He is the editor of The Collected Poems of William Hawkins (Chaudiere Books, 2015).

Monty Reid was born in Saskatchewan, worked for many years in Alberta, BC and Quebec, and now lives in Ottawa. His books include Garden (Chaudiere), The Luskville Reductions (Brick), and CrawlSpace (Anansi) as well as chapbooks such as Kissing Bug (Phafours), Moan Coach (above/ground) and Site Conditions (Apt 9). Two collections are forthcoming: Meditatio Placentae from Brick, and A Gran Zoo with BuschekBooks. He has won Alberta’s Stephansson Award for Poetry on three occasions, the Lampman Award, national magazine awards, and is a 3-time nominee for the Governor-General’s Award.  He is currently the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine and Festival Director at VerseFest, Ottawa’s international poetry festival.

Friday, March 20, 2015

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #22; VERSeFest special!

The Peter F Yacht Club #22
VERSeFest 2015 special
edited by rob mclennan
[see the link here for information on the previous issue]
[see the links here for information on the 2014 VERSeFest special issue, the 2013 VERSeFest special issue, the 2012 VERSeFest special issue and 2011 VERSeFest special issue]
[see the link here for a history of the publication]
$6


With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars, irregulars and VERSeFest 2014 participants, including Cameron Anstee, Dennis Cooley, dalton derkson, Anita Dolman, Stan Dragland, Amanda Earl, Laurie Fuhr, Daphne Marlatt, rob mclennan, Pearl Pirie, Roland Prevost, Monty Reid, Armand Garnet Ruffo, Janice Tokar, Tom Walmsley and Gillian Wigmore.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2015
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[a small stack of copies will be distributed free as part of the fifth annual VERSeFest, March 24-30, 2015]


To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Monday, December 29, 2014

new from above/ground press: The Peter F Yacht Club #21!

The Peter F Yacht Club #21
edited by rob mclennan
[see the link here for information on the previous issue]
[see the link here for a history of the publication]
$6

With new writing by a host of Peter F Yacht Club regulars and irregulars alike, including Cameron Anstee, Steve Artelle, Jason Christie, Anita Dolman, Amanda Earl and Tom Walmsley, Laurie Fuhr, Marilyn Irwin, Chris Johnson, Michael Lithgow, Karen Massey, rob mclennan, Pearl Pirie, Roland Prevost and Sandra Ridley.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
December 2014
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
[launching tonight at the peter f yacht club annual regatta/reading/christmas party!]

above/ground press 2015 subscriptions still available!


To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

Tuesday, December 9, 2014