Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Ground Rules launch: a report,

On Saturday, December 7, 2013, we celebrated the publication of the first title in our Chaudiere Books re-launch at The Manx Pub. Thanks so much to David O'Meara and The Manx Pub for hosting the event, and Sean Wilson and the Ottawa International Writers Festival for their sponsorship, and ongoing support. Lovingly hosted by myself, we launched Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013 [see ordering information here] to a packed house with readings by contributors Marilyn Irwin, Stephen Brockwell and Sharon Harris. We even had copies available of the limited-edition chapbook I simply began: above/ground press at 20 [an interview with rob mclennan] (Ottawa ON: Apt. 9 Press, August 2013), a lengthy interview with myself on the beginnings and history of the press that Cameron Anstee conducted [read an excerpt of such here], as well as the previous above/ground press anthology, Groundswell: the best of above/ground press 1993-2003 (Fredericton NB: Broken Jaw Press, 2003).

Marilyn Irwin has been doing quite well lately, from her 2013 Diana Brebner Award win to poems in this year's issue of New American Writing. Part of her reading included a new poem longer than a single page (as she said during her reading, anyone familiar with her work would know exactly how shocking an idea like that is). Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture of her (but hopefully someone else did).


Stephen Brockwell, while reading from his reprinted chapbook, Impossible Books (the Carleton Installment), included in the new anthology, was good enough to read a poem in the anthology by Stephanie Bolster. Brockwell's chapbook was an earlier work-in-progress excerpt (one of two such fragments of the same work produced through above/ground press) from what has newly appeared as The Complete Surprising Fragments of Improbable Books through Toronto's Mansfield Press. Notice, too, if you skim the crowd behind this photo of Stephen Brockwell, you can catch glimpses of Brian and Pearl Pirie, Cameron Anstee, Ben Ladouceur, Christine McNair and Monty Reid, among others.

Toronto writer and artist Sharon Harris read from a scattering of works, including her "more fun with 'pataphysics," originally produced by above/ground press as an issue of STANZAS and reprinted in the anthology, as well as a number of pieces from a couple works-in-progress. Harris is originally from Sarnia, Ontario, and read a couple of poems composed on and around her hometown (including some stories that don't seem restricted to those from Sarnia, and could easily be Ottawa Valley stories).

Writer, book conservator, designer and new co-publisher Christine McNair, who is also my lovely wife, designed and produced the book (which is absolutely gorgeous). If you can imagine, two weeks plus earlier, she managed to approve cover stock for the anthology from her hospital bed in the midst of a thirty-seven hour labour. We were enormously happy that she was able to be on hand for the event with our other co-production, two-and-a-half-week-old Rose, making this the baby's first public outing (basically, her first non-baby outing) and first literary reading. We suspect there might be many more such readings in her future!

If you were unable to make the event, fret not; the entire reading was recorded, and will be posted come spring as part of the first Chaudiere Books podcast. Expect to see at least one more Ottawa launch with different readers around the same time, and schemes are cooking to see launches in Toronto, Montreal and even Calgary. Have you joined our Facebook group yet, to keep apprised of updates? And of course, we will be announcing our Indiegogo campaign in the New Year, as well as our 2014 forthcoming titles. Stay tuned!

Saturday, December 07, 2013

Now available! Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013

Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013
ed. rob mclennan

poetry / $24.95
ISBN 978-0-9783428-7-6














Working out of Ottawa, poet and publisher rob mclennan's baby, above/ground press, marks a second decade of the production of broadsheets, chapbooks, magazines, and anthologies that trace out the best shapes of the best of contemporary Canadian (and, increasingly, international) poetry. From the span of that second ten of years, he has compiled this book of traceries: a selection of work by writers ranging from the likes of the late Artie Gold, and Robert Kroetsch, to the living derek beaulieu, Rachel Zolf, Eric Folsom, Natalie Simpson, etc., all collected here as representative of a decade's aesthetic count.
    from Gil McElroy's "Introduction: An Integral"
Edited by rob mclennan, with an introduction by Gil McElroy, Ground Rules features writing from the second decade of one of the most active micro publishers in Canada, selected from a series of hundreds of publications lovingly edited, produced and distributed by editor/publisher rob mclennan. A follow-up to Groundswell: best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003), Ground Rules includes a wide range of work by Artie Gold, Mark Cochrane, Suzanne Zelazo, derek beaulieu, Stephanie Bolster, Amanda Earl, Nathanaël, Lisa Samuels, Rachel Zolf, Sharon Harris, D. G. Jones, Julia Williams, Eric Folsom, Gregory Betts, Natalie Simpson, Aaron Tucker, Monty Reid, William Hawkins, Emily Carr, Cameron Anstee, Helen Hajnoczky, Marilyn Irwin, Stephen Brockwell, Robert Kroetsch and rob mclennan.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Artie Gold, “doublet”

Mark Cochrane, “Rotator Cuff at 33 1/3,”

Suzanne Zelazo, “SUIT”

derek beaulieu, dream poem for dieter roth #1
derek beaulieu, untitled #3

Stephanie Bolster, “Night Zoo,”

Amanda Earl, "ivre,"

Nathanaël, “what exile   this”
STANZAS magazine, volume 1, issue #29

Lisa Samuels, "The Museum of Perception”
STANZAS magazine, volume 1, issue #33

Rachel Zolf, "the naked & the nude”
STANZAS magazine, volume 1, issue #40

Sharon Harris, “more fun with 'pataphysics”
STANZAS magazine, volume 1, issue #43

D. G. Jones, standard pose

Julia Williams, MY CITY IS ANCIENT AND FAMOUS

Eric Folsom, NORTHEAST ANTI-GHAZALS

Gregory Betts, The Cult of David Thompson

Natalie Simpson, The writing that should enter into conversation

Monty Reid, cuba A book

William Hawkins, the black prince of bank street

Emily Carr
]
& look there goes a sparrow transplanting soil
                    ]            [3 eclogues]

Cameron Anstee, Frank St.

Helen Hajnoczky, A history of button collecting

Marilyn Irwin, for when you pick daisies

Stephen Brockwell, Impossible Books
(the Carleton Installment)

Robert Kroetsch, Further to Our Conversation

rob mclennan, The creeks,

In August, 2013, Ottawa's Apt. 9 Press published the limited-edition chapbook (click to read the excerpt - I simply began: above/ground press at 20 [an interview with rob mclennan]) a lengthy interview with rob mclennan on the beginnings and history of the press conducted by Cameron Anstee.

to order: add $5 for postage, and paypal (here) or cheque to Chaudiere Books, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa Ontario Canada K1H 7M9

Monday, December 02, 2013

Sharon Harris interview on CHUO-FM89 this Wednesday at 5pm;

Tune in to Click here Wednesday at 5 pm, on CHUO-FM89 for an interview with Toronto poet Sharon Harris, reading alongside Ottawa poets Marilyn Irwin and Stephen Brockwell at Saturday's launch of Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013 (Chaudiere Books) at The Manx Pub, 5pm.

Click here is a one-hour interview-based program broadcast on CHUO-FM89 (and at www.chuo.fm) Wednesdays at 5 p.m. It deals with the arts, socio-political issues and community events.

NEW! Listen to archived editions of the show. Click on "CHUO On Demand": http://chuo.fm/show/click-here

Follow Click here on Twitter: @clickhereradio

Thursday, November 07, 2013

book launch! Ground rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013



Produced to begin the re-launch of Ottawa literary publisher Chaudiere Books, co-publishers rob mclennan and Christine McNair invite you to the launch of Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013.

Co-sponsored by our friends at the Ottawa International Writers Festival and The Manx Pub, the event will feature readings by three of the book’s contributors: Sharon Harris (Toronto), Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa) and Stephen Brockwell (Ottawa). The event will be (lovingly) hosted by Chaudiere Books co-founder, editor and co-publisher rob mclennan.


5pm, Saturday, December 7, 2013

The Manx Pub

370 Elgin Street, Ottawa

Sharon Harris [pictured] is a Toronto artist/writer whose poems have been anthologized in The Broadview Introduction to Literature, The Last Vispo, and Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry. She is the author of chapbooks from bookthug, In Case of Emergency Press, and above/ground, and her first full-length collection, Avatar, was published by The Mercury Press. She has written articles for Geist, The Globe & Mail, and Open Book Toronto;  is a past contributor to Torontoist and Word Magazine; and her work has been published in The National Post, dANDelion, The Capilano Review, Drunken Boat, The Volta, broken pencil, and Vallum. I Love You Toronto, her exhibition of photographs, appeared in newspapers, magazines, and on radio and television across Canada.

Marilyn Irwin’s work has been published by above/ground press, Arc, Bywords, and New American Writing. A graduate of Algonquin College’s Creative Writing program, she has three chapbooks: for when you pick daisies (2010), flicker (2012), and little nothings (2012). She won Arc Poetry Magazine’s Diana Brebner Prize this year.

Stephen Brockwell cut his writing teeth in the eighties in Montreal, appearing on French and English CBC Radio and in the anthologies Cross/cut: Contemporary English Quebec Poetry and The Insecurity of Art (both VéhiculePress, 1982). George Woodcock described Brockwell's first book, The Wire in Fences (Balmuir, 1987) as having an extraordinary range of empathies and perceptions. Harold Bloom wrote that Brockwell's second book, Cometology (ECW Press, 2001), held rare and authentic promise. Fruitfly Geographic won the Archibald Lampman award for best book of poetry in Ottawa in 2005. His Complete Surprising Fragments of Improbable Books is newly out from Mansfield Press. Brockwell currently operates a small IT consulting company from the 7th floor of the Chateau Laurier and lives in a house perpetually under construction.

Working out of Ottawa, poet and publisher rob mclennan’s baby, above/ground press, marks a second decade of the production of broadsheets, chapbooks, magazines, and anthologies that trace out the best shapes of the best of contemporary Canadian (and, increasingly, international) poetry. From the span of that second ten of years, he has compiled this book of traceries: a selection of work by writers ranging from the likes of the late Artie Gold, and Robert Kroetsch, to the living derek beaulieu, Rachel Zolf, Eric Folsom, Natalie Simpson, etc., all collected here as representative of a decade’s aesthetic count.
                        from Gil McElroy’s “Introduction: An Integral”

Edited by rob mclennan, with an introduction by Gil McElroy, Ground Rules features writing from the second decade of one of the most active micro publishers in Canada, selected from a series of hundreds of publications lovingly edited, produced and distributed by editor/publisher rob mclennan. A follow-up to Groundswell: best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003), Ground Rules includes a wide range of work by Artie Gold, Mark Cochrane, Suzanne Zelazo, derek beaulieu, Stephanie Bolster, Amanda Earl, Nathanaël, Lisa Samuels, Rachel Zolf, Sharon Harris, D. G. Jones, Julia Williams, Eric Folsom, Gregory Betts, Natalie Simpson, Aaron Tucker, Monty Reid, William Hawkins, Emily Carr, Cameron Anstee, Helen Hajnoczky, Marilyn Irwin, Stephen Brockwell, Robert Kroetsch and rob mclennan.

Copies of the book will be available at the event. See the OIWF link to the event here.

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Paying Attention: Poetry and Spirituality : a workshop by Anne Le Dressay

Chaudiere Books author Anne Le Dressay will be teaching a workshop on Poetry and Spirituality through the new SpiritArt program sponsored by the Anglican church. The workshop takes place at All Saints Sandy Hill, 317 Chapel Street, Ottawa on Saturday, November 16, from 9:30 to 12:30. Here's the description:

Paying Attention: Poetry and Spirituality
Poetry is a close relative of prayer and mystical writing. It is a tool for self-knowledge and for connection to the world and its maker. Explore its possibilities  by reading, hearing, meditating upon and especially writing poetry. We will use some of the psalms in Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy as well as other poems as a framework for this workshop. If you have a favourite short poem (on any topic), please bring it along.

For more information: http://www.spiritartprogram.ca

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Chaudiere Books: our rebuilding year,



Since Ottawa literary publisher Chaudiere Books was founded by Jennifer Mulligan and rob mclennan in 2006 the press has produced an impressive thirteen titles of poetry and fiction (including a couple of anthologies) by writers both emerging and established. Originally founded in part to advocate for the enormous amount of literary activity around Ottawa, Chaudiere has produced single-author titles by a number of locally-based writers including Nicholas Lea, John Newlove, Anne Le Dressay, Monty Reid, Pearl Pirie, Marcus McCann, and Clare Latremouille. Attempting to engage Ottawa writers in a conversation with writers across Canada, the press has also produced works by Meghan Jackson, Michael Bryson, and Joe Blades. Unfortunately, due to a series of life events and sundry other things, the press has been unable to keep to a regular schedule since 2010.

Co-founder Jennifer Mulligan officially left the press earlier this year to focus on her work in film and Ottawa poet, designer, and book conservator Christine McNair has stepped in to fill the role of co-publisher. With the assistance of Monique Desnoyers (web designer) and Stephen Brockwell (sage advice); we've been enormously busy over the past few months (apart from the fact that McNair and mclennan are expecting a child any day now) working towards a return to a proper publishing schedule, beginning with the publication of our first new title in December.

This is a rebuilding year for Chaudiere Books, and we will be announcing an Indiegogo Campaign in January 2014 which will feature a whole slew of incentives from our backlist; new and old limited edition rarities from writers both new and established; and a few surprises. The campaign will coincide with announcements of forthcoming titles and launches in 2014.

The first title of the official Chaudiere Books re-launch is Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013, edited by rob mclennan with an introduction by Gil McElroy. In many ways, Chaudiere Books has always been the trade extension of the chapbook publisher above/ground press and this title cements and even clarifies the associations between the two presses.

Ground Rules features writing from the second decade of one of the most active micro publishers in Canada, selected from a series of hundreds of publications lovingly edited, produced and distributed by editor/publisher rob mclennan. A follow-up to Groundswell: best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003), Ground Rules includes a wide range of work by poets Artie Gold, Mark Cochrane, Suzanne Zelazo, derek beaulieu, Stephanie Bolster, Amanda Earl, Nathanaël, Lisa Samuels, Rachel Zolf, Sharon Harris, D. G. Jones, Julia Williams, Eric Folsom, Gregory Betts, Natalie Simpson, Monty Reid, William Hawkins, Emily Carr, Cameron Anstee, Helen Hajnoczky, Marilyn Irwin, Stephen Brockwell, Robert Kroetsch and rob mclennan.

“Working out of Ottawa, poet and publisher rob mclennan's baby, above/ground press, marks a second decade of the production of broadsheets, chapbooks, magazines, and anthologies that trace out the best shapes of the best of contemporary Canadian (and, increasingly, international) poetry. From the span of that second ten of years, he has compiled this book of traceries: a selection of work by writers ranging from the likes of the late Artie Gold, and Robert Kroetsch, to the living Derek Beaulieu, Rachel Zolf, Eric Folsom, Natalie Simpson, etc., all collected here as representative of a decade’s aesthetic count.”
                        from Gil McElroy's “Introduction: An Integral”

The Ottawa launch of Ground Rules is scheduled for Saturday, December 7th 2013 at The Manx Pub and is sponsored by the Ottawa International Writers Festival. Lovingly hosted by rob mclennan, the event will feature readings by three of the book’s contributors (to be announced over the next couple of days). Watch for details via the Chaudiere Books blog, as well as our Facebook page!

lovingly,

Christine McNair and rob mclennan
publishers

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Anita Dolman judges this year's Carleton University Writing Competition


Enter the Carleton University Writing Competition

Do you have the "write" stuff? Then send us your original, unpublished short story, work of creative nonfiction or poetry.

The Carleton University Writing Competition is open to all Carleton staff, faculty, students (full-time or part-time), alumni and retirees.
Deadline: The contest opens September 9, 2013 and closes December 18, 2013.
Categories: short story or creative non-fiction; and poetry (any style or form)

Cash prizes awarded to winning entries.

Full details and rules at http://carletonnow.carleton.ca/writing-competition/

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

ottawa public library: a poetry reading & a workshop,

Chaudiere Books authors rob mclennan and Monty Reid will be reading as part of a group reading (along with Chris Jennings, David Groulx, Rhonda Douglas and Deanna Young) at the Main Branch of the Ottawa Public Library (120 Metcalfe Street) on Monday, October 7, 2013 at 7pm. In partnership with Versefest.

Also, rob mclennan will be running a poetry workshop at the Rosemount Branch of the Ottawa Public Library (18 Rosemount, at Wellington Street West) on Saturday, October 19, 2013 from 1-3pm. Pre-registration required.

Check here for information on either/both.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

a new poem by Anita Dolman

Anita Dolman, one of the authors featured in the anthology Decalogue: Ten Ottawa Poets (2006) has a new poem, "Leap," now online in the September issue of Bywords.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Michael Dennis reviews Pearl Pirie's been shed bore (Chaudiere Books, 2010);

In his ongoing series of poetry reviews over at his blog, Ottawa poet Michael Dennis reviewed Pearl Pirie's been shed bore (Chaudiere Books, 2010) yesterday [see the original review here]. Copies of the book are still available, here. Thanks so much, Michael!
Today's book of poetry:  been shed bore.  Pearl Pirie.  Chaudiere Books.  Ottawa, Ontario.  2010.

crossing the shallow acreage
A snake rail fence had been zigging long before
holes filled in with the river that drank the posts as dunked donuts.  Drought-lift
shifted moss up for air.  The punky wood titled to fern-dry, greyed as Dorian.  A shake
of wind drops cedar fans over its lank frame.  The bark rose
around it all.  The unfelled trees shifted their lucky lottery weights in wind.  Light
of river winked, said something inarticulate.  Sun answered in crude same.  Pickle-
warted planks where branches had been shed bore no choice but bear.  Pickle-
thick posts with knots and nubs, strung wire after auger set up other sidelines.  Before
electric fence's zap, before chain link factory imports, there was that stack -- light
work, so far as farm grunt can be -- No shoulder to shovel and stone to lift.

5-rails is normally high enough to keep any old Bessie on your rocky ground.  A rose
hedge?  she'd nose through, scratches or not.  Some say there's a shake
a wobble, once you take it over 10 rails high;  you'll need a joint or wire.  A cedar shake
roof sort of fuss-pot use -- to get all aligned right.  Now, there's a why for you.  A pickle
of a bother to try that.  Think of how the fence first rose:

Split into rails, without nails or saws, lengths like fingers folded before
prayer, but mind that rails like prayers are best kept at home.  It would lift
a stink to stick that panel, ambiguous light
weight width of boundary, kinked against neighbour who might light
into you over the inches that are his, never mind that the benefit is common.

...

This excerpt is from one of the many poems I really enjoyed reading in Pearl Pirie's been shed bore.  It suits all my traditional narrative poetry desires and then some.  But this is just a sampling of what is to come, for Pirie offers a fun house of animated choices as she tries out styles at disparate ends of the spectrum.

desire's first ojala

I wish I were close/ To you as the wet skirt of/ A salt girl to her body.
   -Kenneth Rexroth

desire's first ojala broke
from Arabic to Spanish to her
the word     the wild travel of etymology of hunger
no food can state
              the distances flash   continents
                        centuries    classes
bedroom eyes to blinked
eyes that third time 'round   recognize
understand these things
                       as Mary did
            marveling in her secret heart
the dry lips of the Angel

we must not look at these
not hear the anguish foretold
             press joy against the losses
       cast your mind from the stones
the child who is still the twinkle
will be the pillar on which religions
& fevered night sweats & lives will
thrash around, crumble

...

Stylistically been shed bore offers a plethora of choices and the unendingly exuberant imagination of Pirie who comfortably stakes out her space as she explores a wide range of poetic forms.  The choices I'm offering here reflect my biases, but Pirie has far more to offer than just these narrative driven poems.

just kiss me then

a tangle, a lip of the tongue
some flaw in the ointment
the flu in the augment?  more/less
the fly in the argyleness,
the flay in the target.  bite some
sorry for that sleep of the tonne
er, that slip of the tone, of the done
a tangle, a
aaas they say, lewd lisp sinks shits, um,
moose lips split hips, waits makes hates.  come
on mouse, mouth!  sooner started is
fast done, mere fish in the pen.  bless!
a flesh in the pan, no, wait one -
a tangle, a

...

This fine first book shows the dexterity Pearl Pirie brings to the page with confidence gained from the wide publication of many of these poems in journals, periodicals and anthologies.

we are each other's backgrounds

a life timed in apologies
a stone house

against the dementia incoming
back of hand raised

to punish guff the arm swings
forgets itself at elbow

what isn't never happens, again
and again remembering

when now is 30 years ago
when I scraped professions of

regret?  I was forepaying this

...

What I have been clumsily trying to express is my admiration for those poems I loved in this collection, and there were many.  But equally, my awe at Pearl Pirie's comfortable range, this book is so much thicker than it appears.