Ryan Pratt reviews The Calgary Renaissance

Ryan Pratt was good enough to provide a new review of our anthology, The Calgary Renaissance (2016), over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks so much! You can see Pratt's full review, here. This is the second review of the book, after Douglas Barbour was good enough to discuss such, here. And of course, copies of the anthology are still very much available.

Amanda Earl at IFOA @ Harbourfront Centre, October 21: 2pm + 4pm

Chaudiere author Amanda Earl has two events at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto on October 21!
Studio Theatre, Harbourfront Centre
235 Queens Quay West
Toronto M5J 2G8

Events Amanda Earl will be involved in:

In Conversation: Chantel Acevedo & Amanda Earl
October 21 2017 - 2:00 PM

Chantel Acevedo and Amanda Earl discuss the stories of resilient and free-spirited women with Susan G. Cole.
Poetic New Worlds
October 21 2017 - 4:00 PM

Spend an afternoon with poetry and discover new worlds.

more information, as well as on tickets, here: http://ifoa.org/participants/amanda-earl

Christine McNair interviewed over at Open Book

Chaudiere Books co-publisher/editor Christine McNair was interviewed recently for Open Book on her latest poetry collection, Charm (2017). You can read the interview here.

rob mclennan : two new(ly published) short stories

Chaudiere Books author/co-publisher rob mclennan has two recent short stories appear online, including "A dream about vegetable soup" over at The Airgonaut, and "Songs my mother taught me" at Queen Mob's Teahouse. 

And of course, copies of his shorter story collection, The Uncertainty Principle, are still available for ordering here.

Chris Jennings reviews Andy Weaver's this (2015) in Arc Poetry Magazine

Ottawa poet and critic Chris Jennings was good enough to review Andy Weaver's this (2015) online at Arc Poetry Magazine. Thanks so much! This is actually the fourth review of this, after Joel W. Vaughan's review in Broken Pencil, Douglas Barbour's review over at his electric ruckus blog, and Marilyn Irwin's review over at her blog. You can see Jenning's full review here. And of course, copies of Andy Weaver's this can be ordered directly, here.

National Poetry Month 2017 : Anita Dolman,

Spring snow

Has made liars of us all, breath steaming

like coils of chimney smoke

sheathing the blocks of factories who churn

out compressed sand, bricks of indifference,

paving stones to sink at smart angles,

scar sidewalks for a skip-hop game

previously unplayed above wetlands,

kids on scooters , wheels stuck

in the muck between plans

of rotting pressboard

and wounded asphalt,

wait for something solid to lead them.

Dead rendering plant bleats its low horn

into the wind, car parts in broken lots

dream of automation, robots

quivering across salted earth.

Dumb luck, small rubber tire

snags on the city’s grid, a kid flies

ass over teakettle over ass over

Toddler sniffs against the lingering

cold, fingers wound

through the metal diamonds

of a softball fence.

Snow-mist lifts from the outfield,

mysterious and foreign

as melting dog shit.

Anita Dolman’s debut short fiction collection, Lost Enough, has just been published by Morning Rain Publishing. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in journals and anthologies throughout North America, including, recently, Matrix Magazine, Ottawater, Bywords; and Triangulation: Lost Voices. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, and was a finalist for the 2015 Alberta Magazine Award for fiction. Follow her on Twitter @ajdolman.

National Poetry Month 2017 : rob mclennan,

Portrait of a deer

To slide, my ruined mouth. An unlocked door. Burlesque: how stars react. At such a thought. A cavalcade of fresh grass. Doe. One hundred acre wood. Unseen, this whistled blacktop. Asks: what risk, in rewriting a beloved book? Tether, history. Go west. Talk to me of rest. Confessional: your hand, this scratch of leaves and logs. A spritely fox, or groundhog. Burrow. What eighty years ago was open field. The path is overgrown. We follow fenceline, sand. This much, impossible. A glimpse of sleep.

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. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry collection A perimeter (New Star Books, 2016). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Christine McNair), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). He is “Interviews Editor” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse, a regular contributor to the Ploughshares blog, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

National Poetry Month 2017 : N.W. Lea,

Psuedo-Confession of the Sun Worshipper

Heartsick ripple

in the air.

Traversing long pauses,

I just shrink.

Obsession with the qualities.

Sorting out terrors, nights.

A wandering water-bearer,

a terrible government.

I shake the day

off, like lies.

Crucial horizon.

Walking was important—

to ward off the jumpiness,

the testiness, express

a certain ghostly check mark.

The woody hand-off,

the wizard-listening ....

When will our sun intervene

in these supermatters?

Unleash

our own slow leak

light.

N.W. Lea’s second book of poems, Understander (Chaudiere Books, 2015) was a finalist for the 2016 Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry. He currently lives and writes in Dawson City, Yukon with his partner and two cats.