some author activity: Izsak, Christie, Burgoyne, Sweeney, Spinosa, Beaulieu + Ball,

Emily Izsak, Jason Christie, Sarah Burgoyne and Heather Sweeney have new work in the sixteenth issue of where is the river; Dani Spinosa has a new visual poem up at Train : a poetry journal; Derek Beaulieu is interviewed over at Train : a poetry journal; and Ryan Pratt has a new piece on working through the late Nelson Ball's literary archive.

Ryan Pratt reviews Alyssa Bridgman's HEDGE (2017)

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Alyssa Bridgman's HEDGE (2017) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks much! This is actually the second review of Bridgman's debut chapbook, after Greg Bem's review over at Goodreads. You can see Pratt's review here.

Ryan Pratt reviews Marilyn Irwin's north (2017)

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to provide the first review for Marilyn Irwin's north (2017) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks much! You can see Pratt's review here.

Ryan Pratt reviews Bronwen Tate's Vesper Vigil (2016)

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to provide the first review for Bronwen Tate's Vesper Vigil (2016) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks much! You can see Pratt's post here. As he writes:

Vesper Vigil by Bronwen Tate
Published by above/ground press, 2016.

"You sleep, I sigh, we mingle breath like lovers –
I reach a stealthy hand, adjust the sheet.
Somewhere between sentiment and complaint
are words to name the child sleeping here"

So begins Vesper Vigil, a collection of sonnets which chronicle the last weeks of Bronwen Tate’s pregnancy with this perfectly succinct ambiguity – how it feels to be pinned down by what we love most. True to her intent, Tate records both the daily parenting of her young son and the approaching birth of her daughter without getting precious or irate. Instead, she employs a tenderness that seesaws between love and pain, gentle yet sore to touch.

“Will this lumpy baby ever come out?”
Owen considers, replies “I don’t know”.
So we measure days in peaches, bruises,
bruised peaches, it’s the body that chooses."

Tate explores the fragile limits of our bodies – how we feed, grow and injure them – within the framework of domesticated routines that gauge her excruciating wait. Every seemingly casual digression probes one of two spectres, the impending pain or joy. They’re a package deal, of course, and her bittersweet tone acknowledges it. Like the development of a fetus, these sonnets mature in nerves that feel deeply rooted thanks to the sing-song rhyme scheme. Each page can encapsulate hours or weeks. Her choice of form allows that compression rate without sacrificing a fluid rhythm, though – as is common with the sonnet – rhymes occasionally raise an eyebrow. (Did she really play disco, or does it just rhyme with San Francisco, etc.?) In any case, by the time she’s admitted to her hospital room, the anxiety and loneliness of third-trimester pregnancy is palpable:

"I’ve taken Misoprostol, Cervidil,
now sitting, watch contraction numbers rise,
one hand to hold the heart monitor still,
slight lag between the pain and peaking highs.
We left with early fog but found no bed,
paced corridors and watched the shifting crane,
took Owen to a playground, sat and read,
called only to be postponed again.
At two at last they showed me to my room,
this prison of uncertain duration,
can’t leave these walls till baby quits the womb,
perch on window bench, await dilation.
Alone now, I breathe through pains, try to sleep.
The road to you be gentle, dark, and steep."

Reading the above selection, I realize how little I’ve contemplated the psychological effects of pregnancy and childbirth. (Just analyzing Tate's thought that, once admitted, she cannot leave the hospital without first enduring an unknown pain gives my pulse a race.) As someone who looks in on parenthood from the outside, that’s my biggest takeaway from this chapbook. Tate manages to imbue archetypal family dynamics with a memorable dose of personal details, creating an unguarded glance at motherhood in transition.

Ryan Pratt reviews Robert Hogg's from Lamentations (2016)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Robert Hogg's from Lamentations (2016) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks much! This is actually the third review of Hogg's chapbook, after Rebecca Anne Banks reviewed such over at Subterranean Blue Poetry, and Scott Bryson reviewed such in Broken Pencil. You can see Pratt's review here. As he writes:

As its title suggests, from Lamentations is a sampler of poems from an as-yet-unreleased body of work about memory. That this is the compilation’s expanded, second edition implies considerable gestation time. But even without knowing that, the sporadic growth of this manuscript can be measured by dates that accompany each poem, marking when their finished drafts occurred. As a result, Robert Hogg explores the past in layers, writing about his childhood and formative years in the 1950s and 1960s via perspectives he held on dates ranging from the early '90s up until January of this year.

Hogg pokes and prods these breadcrumbs of autobiography for gleanings beyond his own experience. “Roy Rogers – a jazz elegy” and “Summer of sixty-three” deal in fractured, stream-of-conscious details that transpose the youthful significance of its subjects to disquieting uncertainty. He slows his boyhood’s galloping adoration for Hollywood cowboy Roy Rogers to examine the simple “good against evil” doctrine of America’s wild west:

the colorful black and white dazzle of your perfect horsemanship riding
full speed the reins wrapped around the horn those mother of pearl six guns
twirling round your index fingers and firing so perfectly the outlaws seemed
to fall and die but not really it was just like the make-believe we also played
Jesus Roy did you know all that when you practiced your squint in the mirror and
yodelled all those songs on the radio nights we were too young to know any better and
thought it was real romance?

Later, in "Summer of sixty-three", he steadies a romanticized image of his “bohemian goodfornothing but love and lovemaking friends” upon the dulling of years passed:

1325
West Pender
Coal Harbour

place itself
nervous and precarious as this pad
perched on its stilts above a steep ravine

and below near the shoreline the rail yard
abyss we all knew
time was or would be

Tight, conservative stanzas like the above excerpt follow wooly, run-on yarns – sometimes within the same poem – as though the writer is torn between rose-tinted nostalgia and the dislocation of trying to categorize certain memories, decades on. Yet these poems aren’t so much conflicted by age as they are counterbalanced, the wild and restrained Robert Hogg appearing on page in roughly equal measure. The tone’s just right – good natured but deeply felt.

With “Ahead (in memoriam, Bob Creeley” and “Synapse, Mid-Morning, January”, the chapbook takes on true existential colours; the former poem aiding a good friend in traveling the mysteries of afterlife and the latter finding Hogg at present day, kindling a wood stove. There’s no sentiment in this last poem, just small observations on the present moment. And given so much space to interpret, I wonder if "Synapse, Mid-Morning, January" provides such a contrast from the bulk of from Lamentations because it signals the sort of insight one's left with after seventy-odd years on Earth. There's no ego; just a new memory, cut at the root.

Ryan Pratt's Favourite Poetry of 2015 : Jason Christie

Ryan Pratt has posted his "Favourite Poetry of 2015" list, and was good enough to include Jason Christie's fourth above/ground press chapbook, The Charm (2015), as part of his ten-title list of books and chapbooks. Thanks so much! And of course, copies of Christie's title, as well as his prior two (here and here) are very much still available.

Ryan Pratt reviews Roland Prevost's Culls (2015)

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Roland Prevost's Culls (2015) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan! This is actually the second review of Prevost's Culls, after Pearl Pirie reviewed such here. You can see Pratt's full review here.

Ryan Pratt reviews Amish Trivedi's The Destructions (2015)

Our pal Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Amish Trivedi's The Destructions (2015) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan! This is actually the second review of Trivedi's The Destructions, after Rebecca Anne Banks reviewed such over at Subterranean Blue Poetry. You can see Pratt's full review here.

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.

Ryan Pratt reviews Jennifer Kronovet's CASE STUDY: WITH (2015)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to provide the first review for Jennifer Kronovet's CASE STUDY: WITH (2015) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks so much!

Ryan Pratt reviews Karen Massey's STRANGE FITS OF BEAUTY & LIGHT (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Karen Massey's Strange Fits of Beauty & Light (2014) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks much! You can see the original review here. This is actually the second review of Massey's chapbook, after Ronnie R. Brown reviewed it over at Bywords.ca.

Ryan Pratt reviews Jennifer Baker's Abject Lessons (2014)

Our pal Ryan Pratt reviewed Jennifer Baker's Abject Lessons (2014) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Pratt! This is the first full review of Baker's chapbook, after the brief mention Cameron Anstee made here. See Pratt's review here.

some author activity: Prevost, Adams, Rogal, Earl + the 2014 Indie Market,

Roland Prevost is interviewed over at Touch the Donkey; "The Poem as Archive: A Conversation Between Carrie Olivia Adams + Kristina Marie Darling" is now online at The The; Stan Rogal is interviewed over at Open Book: Toronto; Amanda Earl has some visual poems up at Extreme Writing Community; and Ryan Pratt was good enough to mention the press in his report on the recent 2014 Indie Market organized by Meet the Presses!

Ryan Pratt reviews Touch the Donkey #s 1-3

Ryan Pratt reviews the first three issues of Touch the Donkey (one, two, three) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks much, Ryan! Of course, copies of all three are still available, as are subscriptions (whether separately, or as part of the annual above/ground press subscriptions).

Ryan Pratt reviews Megan Kaminski's Wintering Prairie (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Megan Kaminski's Wintering Prairie (2014) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

Ryan Pratt reviews Eric Baus' THE RAIN OF THE ICE (2014) and Emily Ursuliak's Braking and Blather (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Eric Baus' THE RAIN OF THE ICE (2014) here and Emily Ursuliak's Braking and Blather (2014) here in separate posts over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

Ryan Pratt interviews Pearl Pirie over at The Puritan

Ryan Pratt recently sat down for an interview with Pearl Pirie, talking up her most recent chapbook, vertigoheel for the dilly (above/ground press, 2014) as well as her forthcoming third trade collection with BookThug. Their conversation, "I Aim to Work at the Level of Idea: An Interview with Pearl Pirie" is now online in the new issue of The Puritan.

Ryan Pratt reviews Eric Schmaltz's MITSUMI ELEC. CO. LTD.: keyboard poems (2014) + Noah Eli Gordon's FIFTEEN PROBLEMS (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Eric Schmaltz's MITSUMI ELEC. CO. LTD.: keyboard poems (2014) in one post, and Noah Eli Gordon's FIFTEEN PROBLEMS (2014) in another, both at the ottawa poetry newsletter, with even a kind mention of Touch the Donkey over at his blog. Thanks, Ryan!

Ryan Pratt reviews Janice Tokar's ARRHYTHMIA (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Janice Tokar's ARRHYTHMIA (2014) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan!

Ryan Pratt reviews Dennis Tourbin's THE STREAM and other poems (2014) and Camille Martin's Sugar Beach (2014)

Ryan Pratt was good enough to review Dennis Tourbin's THE STREAM and other poems (2014) and Camille Martin's Sugar Beach (2014) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan! This is the second review of Martin's Sugar Beach, after Jack Goodall's review over at the Flat Singles Press blog.