The Emily Valentine Poems - Zoe Whittall (Invisible Publishing)

Today's book of poetry:
The Emily Valentine Poems.  Zoe Whittall.  Invisible Publishing.  Halifax & Picton, Nova Scotia.  2006/2016.

- 10th Anniversary Edition 

Zoe Whittall first published The Emily Valentine poems in 2006.  Today's book of poetry somehow missed it back in the day but is delighted to have our muggy little paws on this 2016 reprint. 

Whittall likes the prose poem and she likes lists, well, as it happens, Today's book of poetry is a big fan of both and Whittall does not disappoint.  The Emily Valentine poems just cut right to it.

Gender and desire get thrown around with alacrity, Whittall never misses a beat.

Dirt Road Wedding

In Vancouver for a family wedding

I am foot sore lost

in the bridal shop,

lungs heavy.

Everyone asks me,

"Where's your boyfriend?"

and I say,

"In 1989."

...

In the third section of The Emily Valentine poems, Part III: Scraps Against the Screen Zoe Whittall writes letters to Judy Blume, Boy George, Axl Rose, Rayanne Graff, Molly Ringwald, Corey Haim and Emily Valentine.  They are hilarious.

Whittall was a much younger woman when these poems were written so we can understand her obsessions with these cultural iconic cut-outs from her youth - but what we need to notice, AND WE DO, is how sharp Whittall keeps her tools.  Zoe Whittall is best known as a novelist but then so is Michael Ondaatje, and they both burn poems with the best of 'em, highest order stuff.

Dear Boy George,

When I told my mother I was going to marry you as soon as I

was old enough to take the bus to Montreal by myself and go

see you at your concert, she said that probably would never

happen. And it didn't. Please explain.

My love forever,

Zoe

...

Today's book of poetry rolled through The Emily Valentine poems like an old Cure song, sad, but with so much intelligent energy that the poems are irresistible.

Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, led our morning read with much robust laughter.  Whittall's big sense of humour is the under-coat on all these poems but it doesn't take much reminding that the serious side of Zoe Whittall is stone cold.  Today's book of poetry could listen to these poems all day long.

On Discovering

1. On re-discovering my love of pot:

Did I just ! brush my teeth ! for an hour?

I remember this feeling from recess!

2. On discovering how to love myself again:

my red bra falls out of my purse and onto the counter at the

Portuguese bakery where I buy my coffee on the mornings after.

The bakery is between our houses exactly. The woman with the

stubby band-aid makes me a latte without flinching.

3. On re-discovering self-esteem on January 2 :

Having .23 in my chequing

.47 in my savings

and a two day old coke hangover

is no reason to feel as bad about myself

as I do right now

...

Today's book of poetry enjoys Whittall's fiction, who wouldn't?  But we want more poetry.  This Tenth Anniversary Edition of The Emily Valentine poems is a balm, a great teaser, but we certainly want more.

Today's book of poetry has the Zoe Whittall poetry blues.

Zoe Whittall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Zoe Whittall is the author of four novels, most recently The Best Kind of People (House of Anansi, 2016) and Holding Still for as Long as Possible (Anansi, 2010). She published her third collection of poetry, Precordial Thump, in 2008 with Exile Editions. She works as a TV writer and novelist in Toronto.

BLURBS
“This reminds me that I would like to know everything about this person.”

      —  Eileen Myles

“Zoe Whittall’s poems are snake bite cures masquerading as candy.” 

     —  RM Vaughan

“Zoe Whittall might just be the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler…” 

      —  The Globe and Mail

invisiblepublishing.com 

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Outdoor Voices - Leigh Nash (Proper Tales Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Outdoor Voices.  Leigh Nash.  Proper Tales Press.  Cobourg, Ontario.  2016.

Our apologies to Clint Burnham and Sarah Moses - This was the only photo we could find with of Leigh Nash's Outdoor Voices

Sent Milo, our head tech, to the stacks this morning to see what he could dig up on Leigh Nash.   Milo didn't come back empty-handed.  2010 was a good year for Nash, Milo was able to find Landforms (Apt. 9 Press, 2010) and Goodbye Ukulele (Mansfield Press, 2010), both breached the surface and landed on the poetry beach.

Goodbye Ukulele predates the beginning of Today's book of poetry by a few years otherwise we'd have been on it like white on rice.

Proper Tales Press reminds us of what we've been missing with Outdoor Voices, an all too short Nash blitz of her particular twist on the human tug of war.  In Nash world the particulars all eventually add up to vision/mood/images that provide ample satisfaction to the reader even if the answers remain slightly beyond reach.

Pay Attention

Half-empty crystal tumblers litter the table, wet hearts
shimmying in candlelight. The ceiling fan yawns with each
pirouette. Leftover beers shift in the cooler like melting
icebergs, slip below the watery surface like widowed seahorses.
There are not enough mouths. This party is a shared dream and
I'm waiting for the tide to rise. Out the window, hooves clop to
a stop. I lean forehead to pane: a lonesome mare lists like tinsel
against the inky sky. I rub my eyes.

...

Nash belongs to several possible schools of poetic charm but Today's book of poetry couldn't nail down her directives any more than pull a rabbit out of one of my hats.  But Today's book of poetry is always in, Nash starts up her engine and we are in, we are curious, foot forward followers.  People, myself included, often confuse the ride and the destination but Nash seems to know that they are one.

Today's book of poetry is taking liberties but we're going to nab a poem from Nash's Goodbye. Ukulele for today's post.  Our Jr. Editor, Kathryn, was rifling through Goodbye, Ukulele during our morning read and insisted we include "A Real Thorn In My Side" in today's blog.  Kathryn was adamant, her threat included her repeating how much she could be "a real thorn in my side."  Kathryn also made a couple of somewhat threatening hand hand gestures that implied physical harm.

A Real Thorn In My Side

I wolfed down three hearts.
They were salty as olives,
delicious. This was supposed to be
conductive to great work. Instead,
the gas bill arrived twice this
week, and the cat ate my chequebook
and vomited incorrect addition
on the rug. I'm tired of cleaning up
someone else's mess. What
would it take to come home
to windows glowing
like gift boxes, a smoky fire,
a dinner party where all the guests
wore fancy hats and screamed,
where I didn't have to lift a finger.

...

Today's book of poetry will admit that I am a Leigh Nash fanlet.  We've met in passing but with my aging eyesight and bad Badorties memory I'm afraid I wouldn't recognize her if we met again  -- unless of course she was holding up one of her poems.  Today's book of poetry is confident we'd recognize a Nash poem for its particular lion claw on globe grasp of humour.

In Outdoor Voices all the poems are almost post-card sized, uniform in size and wit and ready to be sent air mail.  Leigh Nash can burn, burn, burn.  Outdoor Voices is a very tasty appetizer, Today's book of poetry is looking forward to the next full collection from Nash.  Everyone should.

And That's the Way It Is

There's the moon again, slitting open the night like a cutlass.
And then I'm driving a Cutlass down the California coast,
switchbacking from cliff to cliff like a hummingbird. Like a tired
horse I lay my head down every few days, slip into dreamless
sleep. When I wake, my body is covered by the sun's blanket,
limbs buzzing drunk. I squeeze back into the driver's seat, ready
to test my luck.

...

Leigh Nash opens Outdoor Voices with this little epigraph from Joshua Clover:

      "The crows hate her for her beauty, she is ugly as a poet."

Nash has a major league sense of humour, right up there with her fine poems.  The crows adore her as much as we do.

Leigh Nash

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leight Nash makes books for a living with Invisible Publishing and The Emergency Response Unit, and in her spare time teaches yoga and reads tarot cards. Her first book of poetry, Goodbye, Ukulele, was published by Mansfield Press in 2010. Leigh lives in Picton, Ontario.

Leigh Nash

Reads from Goodbye, Ukulele

Video: Mansfield Revue

propertalespress@gmail.com

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

The last white house at the end of the row of white houses - Michael E. Casteels (Invisible Publishing)

Today's book of poetry:
The last white house at the end of the row of white houses.  Michael E. Casteels.  Invisible Publishing.  Halifax & Picton, Nova Scotia.  2016.

Today's book of poetry went back to the stacks today to see what we could find on Michael E. Casteels.  Turns out we had more than we remembered, less than we want.  Casteels has published more than a dozen chapbooks and we were only able to turn up three of them.  The Robot Dreams (Puddles of Sky Press, 2013), solar-powered light bulb and the lake's achy tooth (Apt 9 Press, 2015)

and check engine. rhinoceros. tungsten (Puddles of Sky Press, 2015).

Today's book of poetry has written about both The Robot Dreams and check engine. rhinoceros. tungsten. and you can check those out here:

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2013/11/the-robot-dreams-michael-e-casteels.html 

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2016/04/check-engine-rhinoceros-tungsten.html 

It was easy to like those chapbooks but now, with considerable glee, we present the last white house at the end of the row of white houses and Today's book of poetry couldn't be happier to see Casteels with a trade collection.  And this one is a corker.

Casteels seems to have a mastery of a certain kind of romantic ennui, these poems are loving but gently sad.

Universe Composed Of Mostly Nothing,

New Study Indicates

Suddenly we're weightless,

columns of light

slice through us

and a gentle breeze

blows us further apart.

For a while we drift,

waving farewell to our hands,

whispering goodbye

with lips already distant

to ear that were barely even here.

...

We were pretty happy here in the Today's book of poetry offices when Casteels book arrived, it's great to see him get the opportunity to let the ya-ya's out, to canter, skip, sprint and cavort.  The last white house at the end of the row of white houses gives Casteels a platform to spread his considerable wings.  And we loved the title of this book, a big old juicy long-assed title.

Casteels mixes clinical detail of the day to day with an imagined reality that lives just beneath our skin and just beyond our grasp.  The result is a strangely familiar poetic that can be both consternating and comforting depending on whether Casteels is slamming on the brakes or hammering down on the gas.

The Map

Somebody dropped a map on the sidewalk downtown

and no one stopped to pick it up. Now it's dark, the

streets are empty, and the map is alone. It shivers as the

fingers of a heavy breeze grab the edge of a page and

start pulling. The map spreads out in all directions. It

crawls over fire hydrants and parked cars, mailboxes,

phone booths. It climbs up lampposts and stop signs. It

smothers building and bridges. The map unfolds until

it blankets the entire city at a ration of one-to-one.

The next morning, no one is late for work. Their keys

are right where they left them. No one misplaces a wallet

or searches for a missing sock. The lost dog arrives at

the front door and barks to be let in. No one stops to

ask for directions. No one honks a horn or slams on

their brakes. Everything inhabits its own space and

everything feels right at home. But the map, now one

with its city, longs for a pocket to nestle in. It wants to be

folded and pressed against another map, a map of some

foreign city whose streets are beautifully unknown.

...

Today's book of poetry was impressed with the straight out punching power in The last white house at the end of the row of white houses.  Casteels is a Sugar Ray Leonard poet.  These poems come at you from every direction but the power behind the punch is always right on target.

Milo, our head tech, took over our morning read today, he's been a Casteels fan ever since The Robot Dreams got stuck in his noggin.  Milo said that he found Casteels poems "twist like real life, tease like dreams."  We liked that.

The Red Light

I'm already late and speeding,

praying the light doesn't change.

It does and I stop.

I tap my fingers against the wheel,

twist dials on the dash. In the rear-view mirror

I examine the spaces between my teeth.

The light hasn't changed.

I rummage through the glovebox,

remembering the spearmint gum.

I count spare change in the ashtray.

Minutes pass. I consult the

owner's manual. I read it

cover to cover and still

the light remains. At sundown

I begin to worry. I take only

short sips from my water bottle.

I flick the high beams off and on,

signalling in Morse code. It's getting late.

Radio hosts abandon the airwaves.

I watch the moon drift overhead.

Night after night

the moon wanes

until crescent, and then

into nothing. I've been

counting the days on my 

fingers and toes. Seasons

shift and skew. I engage the

wipers when it rains, crank the

defrost when it snows.

On humid summer evenings

I roll down the window

and let me arm dangle.

A faint breeze stirs my thought

and I wonder about Goldie.

Is she swimming in circles

or just floating in the archway

of that tiny plastic castle? I hope the water

is fresh, that her bowl is clean, I hope she wants

for nothing. And sitting here, bathed in the glow

of this godforsaken light, I wonder

if she'd even remember me.

...

Obviously we here at Today's book of poetry are big admirers of Michael E. Casteels, his third appearance on our page puts him in the rarefied atmosphere of our repeat customers, our favourites. The last white house at the end of the row of white houses will present Casteels to a much wider audience and we here at Today's book of poetry know they are in for a treat.

Michael E. Casteels

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael e. Casteels is the author of over a dozen chapbooks of poetry. In 2012, he was nominated for The Premier’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts, an emerging artist award. He lives in Kingston, where he runs Puddles of Sky Press.

BLURBS
“Have you seen Michael e. Casteel’s first full-length book of poems? It’s here, in front of your face. It begins with a wolf at the door and ends by waving farewell to our hands. Inside you’ll find everything you need: robots, a possum’s sneeze, and coffins filled with jelly donuts. The Last White House at the End of the Row of White Houses is one of the most exciting debuts to appear in Canadian poetry. Brilliant, strange, beautiful and encouraging, Casteel’s poetry is a repair kit for the human spirit.”

      — Jason Heroux, Hard Work Cheering Up Sad Machines

“Worlds of invention, humour, insight and the energy that is language. Michael e. Casteels’s first full-length collection is rich with empathy for robots and the sea, and the brilliant, delicate, outrageous leaps the mind makes when given words and our lives.”

     — Gary Barwin, Moon Baboon Canoe

Michael E. Casteels

"Particles"

video: Small Books, Big Country

invisiblepublishing.com

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Sideshow Concessions - Lucas Crawford (Snare/Invisible Publishing)

Today's book of poetry:
Sideshow Concessions.  Lucas Crawford.  Snare/Invisible Publishing.  Halifax & Toronto.  Canada.  2015.

WINNER OF THE 2015 ROBERT KROETSCH AWARD FOR INNOVATIVE POETRY

Lucas Crawford's first book of poetry, Sideshow Concessions, is a stunner.  We meet a bearded lady and the world's fattest man, both of them hungry for love and wedged into a prosaic poetic style that frequently finds itself confessional and disarming.  These disarming poems can also be as dangerous as having identity being both a weapon and a curse.

Crawford is ploughing some tough earth with this gender politic poetry but Today's book of poetry has never cared much about plumbing.  We are interested in poems smart enough to take us places we haven't been, fill our heads with wonder and if we are lucky - to fill our hearts with the same.

Our concern has always been whether or not the poetry pot boils, whether or not the poetry cooks. Lucas Crawford can flat out burn.

Scar Tissue Looks Good

On Pomquet Beach

     for B.

I can only go in up to my nipples, I warn;

they're freshly lanced, still leaking.

Campfires here witness the stealth sex

of people passing through

on their way to the Cabot Trail. But it's in the plain sight

of hot daylight that we two transgender guys disrobe

to air out wounds and wind tales.

His nipples are like scar tissue;

he moved too much, too fast, post-surgery.

     (Rum-clumsy is a stranger's bathroom, I once

     watched my lover dot her chest with cover-up.

     dabbing red pre-pimples mid-party. The world's

     strangest bingo that in this moment strikes me as

     charmingly Martian.)

A shallow pool holds a hot population of jellyfish,

which we sit down to meet. One is inside out but

what can we do? They've got no brains--they're like amoebas.

A baby almost shimmies up my shorts and five big ones

are pinned down dry on the shore by three rocks each.

     Later I read that jellyfish never die; they death-defy

     by morphing back into cystic blobs and starting over.

Before we shake out sand and drive back, I march in once

more with keen cold feet since the last dip

ought to be deepest.

We'll slip into the poetry reading late,

Scottish-sunburned, smelling

of salty pina coladas and few could guess why we're in 

stitches.

     I'll take off for Montreal,

     meet a Westerner named Laura

     who tells me she spent a day in Antigonish

     and got a ticket

     for parking in the priest's spot

     in an otherwise empty lot.

     She asks: How could you stand living in a wee town

     where nothing interesting ever happens?

...

If you want a real slap and tickle you have to read Crawford's poem "Canadian Literature Premises" with your tongue firmly in cheek, or elsewhere.  If you are at any sort of loss for a good title or even a good premise for a poem - this one supplies ample material while gently sticking a knife in the side of Canadian Lit.

Crawford isn't much for sacred cows.

Sideshow Concessions has it share of sad humour and unnamed demons but Today's book of poetry sees Crawford's book as a daring shot across the bow, a confident declaration of arrival.

My Last Meal

A cup of orange juice squeezed

between the retired pope's thighs.

A gallon of diet orange soda pop

because (aspartame haters be damned)

I'll burp my goodbyes.

I'll gnaw of Lloyd Robertson's kidneys, I will.

Chase them with a guava milkshake and

that assassin some would call a pink anti-depressant pill.

An enema (from) an enemy.

Another too-whipped bowl of organic cream.

Anything but another cauliflower-as-pizza-crust meme.

A Ziplock of frozen tuna tartare

to ice my burning hip.

Eggs cooked to 63 degrees,

atop ropy cheap beef cheeks.

     More cheese

Mom's tuna noodle bake

Jamon iberico and

champagne (no fakes)

More gristle

More salt

No sweat

No wake

...

Lucas Crawford's blunt and beautiful assessment of us all is at times haunting and almost always hopeful.  There is ample ground for frustration and anger and that plays out as well - but Today's book of poetry sees Sideshow Concessions as both a healing and a learning tool and we don't often get to say that.  

When Today's book of poetry mentioned earlier that Crawford could "burn" my choice of words was both a theft and a tribute to what I love best.  If you are lucky enough to have seen the insanely good Bertrand Tavernier film Round Midnight you'll know that the main character, Dale Turner, is played by the sublime saxaphone player Dexter Gordon.  Dale Turner had his own lexicon and when he refers to someone having the craft, the voice, the tone - he says that they can "burn".

My Fattest Aunt

went through our back deck, but just one leg's worth.

This leg dangled in the deck's dark underbelly,

where the black cat would go in a thunderstorm,

where only the bug-brave would hide

when others were seeking.

The rest of her was left on deck,

applying the pressure of her pounds

to a ring around her thigh.

Later it was bruised first-degree purple,

shame-shade of a varicose vein gone feral.

The toes that led the leg's way through the wood

did not reach the ground. They sought earth,

craved gravity to help bear the load. My mother,

like an adrenalized logger

who deadlifts a timbered trunk from a toe,

tore the siding off the deck, crawled under, and built a 

tower of stones

under my aunt's foot, bringing her down to earth

by raising the earth up to meet her.

      My fattest aunt is at odds with her world.

     She taught me lessons:

     How to love imported salami bought on credit.

     How to deal with adults throwing tantrums.

     That fat falls but floats.

     One day, she'll push herself

     up through the soil

     as a cat's cradle of roots.

     No, it won't be soon,

     and I can't tell you how I know.

...

Sideshow Concessions was the 2015 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry winner.  My startlingly brilliant young niece Hillary once told me that her favourite poet was Karen Solie and wouldn't you know it, she was the judge for the 2015 contest.  Here is what she had to say about Lucas Crawford's poetry:

     "Sideshow Concessions is fresh, honest, heartbreaking, and funny, with turns of phrase

     equally intelligent and moving."

Today's book of poetry couldn't have said it better.

Lucas Crawford

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lucas Crawford is the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowment Lecturer at Simon Fraser University, where he teaches in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. His poetry has appeared in Room, Rampike, PRISM International,The Antigonish Review, SubTerrain online, Other Voices, and The Nashwaak Review, as well as the anthology Between: New Gay Poetry. Crawford’s poems won the the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s Atlantic Writing Competition and are currently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He’s based in Vancouver.

invisiblepublishing.com

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.