Completion of The A B Series Second Season & Looking Ahead to Season Three

Four upcoming events promise to make for a very exciting completion to The A B Series second season (autumn 2008 to spring 2009). The first is a reading by Christian Bök taking place today at 5pm in The Canadian Tulip Festival's beautiful Mirror Tent.

bill bissett reads on May 23rd at The Mercury Lounge. On the evening's program is a set of readings by a varied cast of performers to be given in bill's honour.

Paul Dutton reads on June 6th at The University of Ottawa and on June 7th at Galerie Montcalm in Gatineau, Quebec.

Following a pause for the summer, The A B Series is back on October 3rd for the commencement of season three (autumn 2009 to spring 2010) with a performance by American sound poetry ensemble, The Be Blank Consort.

ABSERIES.ORG

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CHRISTIAN BÖK in The A B Series
Presented in association with The Canadian Tulip Festival
Saturday May 16 at 5pm
Host: Max Middle

Tulip Festival - Mirror Tent
Festival Plaza
110 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario

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On Saturday, May 16th, The A B Series presents CHRISTIAN BÖK's first reading to take place in Ottawa since 2002! Produced in association with The Canadian Tulip Festival, the event starts at 5pm in The Festival's beautiful Mirror Tent.

BÖK is the author of Eunoia, Coach House Books' bestselling work of experimental literature, and winner of the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence. The book is a is a five-chapter book in which each chapter is a univocal lipogram – the first chapter has A as its only vowel, the second chapter E, etc. Each vowel takes on a distinct personality: the I is egotistical and romantic, the O jocular and obscene, the E elegiac and epic (including a retelling of the Iliad!). Last year, Eunoia was published in the UK where it quickly went to the top of best selling lists for poetry. His first book, Crystallography, was published by Coach House Press in 1994 and was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

BÖK has created artificial languages for two television shows, Gene Roddenberry’s 'Earth: Final Conflict' and Peter Benchley’s 'Amazon'. Bök has earned many accolades for his virtuoso performances of sound poetry (particularly the ‘Ursonate’ by Kurt Schwitters). His conceptual artworks have appeared at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibit 'Poetry Plastique'. He is working with scientist, Stuart Kaufmann, to compose "living poetry" whereby short verse is encoded into a sequence of DNA to be implanted into a bacterium. He plans to document the progress of the publishing experiment and make related artwork for subsequent exhibition in galleries. Bök is Professor of English at the University of Calgary.

BÖK's reading will be followed by a brief Q&A.

The A B Series gratefully acknowledges the support of The City of Ottawa and The Canada Council for the Arts.

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For more information, see The A B Series web site at ABSERIES dot ORG or contact A B Series Artistic Director, Max Middle, by telephone (613) 237 4309 or email: director at abseries dot org.

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TICKETS available at the Mirror Tent Box Office

Adult $16

Student $12

Reserved Section $28

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a reading by bill bissett followed by a tribute in bill's honour!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Doors open 7:00pm

Performance at 8:00pm
Venue: The Mercury Lounge

Cost: $10 at the door

Host: Max Middle

originalee from lunaria a far distant planet way past venus 312 bill came 2 eryh on th first childrns shuttul from ther ovr 400 yeers ago in lunarian space time kontsrukts hes bin sent as an impressyunist onlee altho he wud love 2 undrstand erthling wayze he askd wudint yu 2 ths end he has alwayze wantid 2 xploor langwage in all its wayze at leest in poetree n wantid alwayze 2 spell mor n mor closelee on th page how each word sounds in that pomes ear a life time at leest devosyun most recent book sublingual 2nd most recent book ths is erth thees ar peopul both from talonbooks n from red deer press deth interrupts th dansing a cd with pete dako followd by ths is erth thees ar peopul also with pete dako musician extraordinaire n luddites 86- 91 remix cd just releesd also a paintr most recent show upstares galleree toronto summr 09 now a doktor from tru universitee n resipient uv th george woodcock life time acheevment award hes working now on nu book n nu paintings evree 6 months or sew th lunarian assemblee remoovs th filld tapes uv impressyuns from bills hed n he starts agen emptee hedid 4 a whil

"I know who the great poets are. William Bissette of Vancouver. An Indian boy. Bill Bissette, or Bissonnette." (Jack Kerouac, 1967)

Margaret Atwood's "astral twin" and James Reaney's "one-man civilization", living legend bill bissett comes to Ottawa for a feature reading in The A B Series.

bill's READING WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A POETIC TRIBUTE to be made BY SEVERAL SPECIAL GUESTS READING FROM bill's OEUVRE and from the anthology, 'radiant danse uv being: A Poetic Portrait of bill bissett' edited by Jeff Pew and Stephen Roxborough.

radiant danse uv being and books by bill bissett will be available for sale.

The A B Series gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for this event. This event is also made possible by The Writers' Union of Canada.

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The A B Series is looking forward to hosting two performances by Paul Dutton. The first performance will take place on the evening of June 6th, and will be presented in association with The University of Ottawa English Department.

Paul Dutton evening performance
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Doors open 7:30pm / Performance at 9:00pm
Venue: 1848 - University of Ottawa Campus Bar
$10 at the door (free for U of O English Dept students)


Paul Dutton matinee

2pm
Sunday, June 7, 2009

Venue: Galerie Montcalm

Free (a hat will be passed)

Paul Dutton is a poet, novelist, essayist, and oral sound artist who is internationally renowned for both his literary and musical performances. Throughout the last four decades he has published, recorded, and performed his work in various contexts, solo and collaborative, in print and film, on TV, radio, and the Web. He has taken his art to festivals, clubs, concert halls, and classrooms throughout Canada and across the United States, Europe, and South America. Dutton’s artistic focus continues to be the exploration of consciousness and perception through the creation of multisensory works, employing written poetry and prose, visual poetry, and the sonic dimensions of language and oral expression. He was a member of the legendary Four Horsemen sound poetry quartet (1970–1988), along with Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Steve McCaffery, and the late bpNichol. He joins his soundsinging oralities to John Oswald’s alto sax and Michael Snow’s piano and synthesizer in the free-improvisation band CCMC (1989 to the present). He recently formed Quintet à Bras in company with two French poets and two French instrumentalists. The most recent of his six books is a novel, Several Women Dancing (Mercury Press, 2002), the latest of his five solo recordings is the CD Oralizations (DAME Records, 2005).

For a taste of what they might expect of at the performance, the following Web sites provide samples of Paul's published writing and of his sound recordings, plus commentary on other of his published works:
http://www.chbooks.com/archives/online_books/aurealities/
http://www.ubu.com/sound/dutton.html
http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/dutton/ldutton1.htm
http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/am_130/
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Dutton.html
http://www.unlikelystories.org/dutton0107.shtml

The A B Series gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for this event.

The incomparable Robin Blaser

ROBIN BLASER 1925-2009. One of the progenitors of the "open form," an ongoing poem sequence not necessarily written with specific end-boundaries in mind, Robin Blaser first came to a wider public attention through editor Don Allen's seminal anthology, The New American Poetry, 1945-60 (1960). Quoted in his early 1960s "Vancouver Lectures" from The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer (Wesleyan, 1998), the late Jack Spicer said that "Robin Blaser once said in talking about a serial poem that it's as if you go into a room, a dark room, the light is turned on for a minute, then it's turned off again, and then you go into a different room where a light is turned on and off."

Full obit by rob mclennan at xtra.ca.

Some Notes on the Print History of William Hawkins’ Ottawa Poems

"Give this meaning as you may, or must,"

William Hawkins, #27 (from Ottawa Poems)

I’m a newcomer to Ottawa poetry, but by no means a newcomer to Ottawa. I was born here, and raised, and am presently on the verge of completing my “higher” education in the city. I’ve been working to catch up on our literary history, as well as present, and am fascinated by anything that makes an effort to write Ottawa in the way that other cities seem to have been written with greater regularity. Naturally, the first time I came across the title, Ottawa Poems, I set out to find and read it. I’m not going to attempt a critical reading of the poems here. Suffice to say, I love the book and think its poems wonderful. My concern here is with the bibliographic history of the book, and the various incarnations of the poems in Hawkins’ published books. I think that these are fascinating notes from the perspective of book history, and I will resist drawing conclusions from them. I think the print journey of the poems themselves more than justifies a brief account here.

The book was published by Nelson Ball’s Weed/Flower Press in July 1966 (and reprinted in 1967). Weed/Flower had been created the previous year, 1965, and ran for the following eight. Jack David wrote an annotated, descriptive bibliography of the press that was published in Essays on Canadian Writing (Number 4, Spring 1976). According to David, Ball purchased a “pre-WW II mimeograph machine [...] for $35” (34), and proceeded to mimeograph everything produced under the name. Along with Hawkins, Ball published the likes of George Bowering, bp Nichol, John Robert Colombo, Victor Coleman, John Newlove, himself, and a score of others.

Like many others produced by Weed/Flower, Ottawa Poems has a wonderful cover design by Barbara Caruso. A series of overlapping, thick black lines look like poorly laid out streets, and two hands offer the only recognizable point of reference on a thick, brown cover stock. The interior pages are mimeographed from a typewriter proof onto brown paper. Hawkins is credited simply as WM HAWKINS.

The book is a set of twenty-eight relatively brief lyrics in a mere thirty six pages. Roy MacSkimming, in his introductory essay to 2004’s Dancing Alone: Selected Poems, writes “because they belong to a loosely linked sequence, these are more abstracted and discursive poems than the tighter, imagistic, self-contained pieces in Hawkins. And perhaps because they often look outward to the surrounding society, they’re also more anxious and fearful, occasionally a touch paranoid” (15). This sequence is disrupted and broken differently in all future appearances of parts of the book.

His first selected poems, The Gift of Space (new press, Toronto, 1971), would reprint only twenty four pieces from the book. The twenty four retained would be renumbered sequentially, suggesting a new, coherent and complete edit. The pieces removed were #8 (POEM IN RED INK), #20 (THE LAST POEM FOR PEOPLE), #24 (CHARACTEROLOGY), and #26 (ALMOST A POEM). Interesting, if accidental, #21 (SORRY, THIS IS IT) in the Weed/Flower edition is printed 19^th in The Gift of Space, but numbered 21, only to be succeeded by a second #21 (HELLO FROM THE SHADOWS), #23 originally.

A further iteration of the poems comes in 2004 in Dancing Alone: Selected Poems (Broken Jaw Press, Fredericton, Cauldron Books 5). In this edition the original numbers are restored, and the excised poems are left as gaps. This time twenty two poems are printed, removing six. Those cut are: #8 (POEM IN RED INK), #9 (A STUPID CANASTA POEM), #13 (So much of me is not), #20 (THE LAST POEM FOR PEOPLE), #24 (CHARACTEROLOGY), #26 (ALMOST A POEM). The four removed in The Gift of Space are still absent, #9 and #13 have been freshly cut.

As has been widely documented, 1966-67 were landmark years in Hawkins’ publishing career. On top of Hawkins (Nil Press) and Ottawa Poems, he was anthologized in Raymond Souster’s seminal New Wave Canada: The New Explosion in Canadian Poetry (Contact Press) as well as in the A.J.M. Smith edited Modern Canadian Verse (Oxford University Press).

New Wave Canada came first in 1966. Hawkins appeared in its pages alongside early work from Michael Ondaatje, Daphne Marlatt (then still Daphne Buckle), Robert Hogg, bp Nichol, Fred Wah and Victor Coleman among others. Hawkins' biography in New Wave Canada appeared in quotation marks, and is reproduced in its totality below:

What’s to say in a biography? All my life I’ve worried about the propriety of our definitions. Because the times are as they are I’ve lived in fear, movies my only escape, economics keeping me from more drugs, booze & girlies than I was able (meagre, really) to steal. I have stolen every single idea I have heard, transposing them into my own terms. A wife & two children share my scene & seem happy. I write poems because I like to.

Living now in Ottawa. (171)

Whether selected by Souster or by Coleman (who aided Souster in the editorial choices of the anthology), Hawkins is afforded 11 pages in the book. The poems included are drawn from Hawkins and Ottawa Poems. However, reproductions from both are marked by changes in numbering. For example, from Hawkins, “Mysteriensonaten” #1, #3 and #4 are reprinted as #6, #10 and #7 respectively. In the case of Ottawa Poems, #5 (how can I describe the anger) is reprinted as #7, #11 (your hair electric) is reprinted as #17, #13 (so much of me is not) is reprinted as #24, and #16 (“BEAUTY WILL NOT WAIT”) is reprinted as #25.

New Wave Canada itself has a convoluted print history (see Bruce Whiteman’s “Raymond Souster’s New Wave Canada: A Bibliographical Note”). His appearance in New Wave CanadaModern Canadian Verse did not reprint any of the Ottawa Poems, but did print three from Hawkins; “Spring Rain”, “A New Light” and “The Wall.” directly resulted in his appearance in Modern Canadian Verse, when A.J.M. Smith “happened upon the page proofs [of the book]” (MacSkimming 15) as a result of Coleman’s work at Oxford UP at the time. These poems are listed as “uncollected” (xxi) in the acknowledgements.

Some of the poems also saw periodical publication before the book proper. #24 (CHARACTEROLOGY), often excised from later versions, was printed in 1966 in IS one, edited by Victor Coleman in Toronto, and signed “William Hawkins, ‘WM’ ”. #26 (ALMOST A POEM) was printed in Volume 63 (edited by Nelson Ball), number 5 (Summer 1966). This is approximately coincident with the publication of the book. Interestingly, in both these cases, the poems are not numbered but rather stand alone, resisting any allusion to the larger sequence. Volume 63 also printed 5 of the “Mysteriensonaten” poems in the Winter of 1965, numbered up to 8, suggesting that a larger sequence existed prior to the edited four poem set that appeared in Hawkins; this potentially solves the problems posed by the “Mysteriosonaten” poems in New Wave Canada discussed earlier.

#5 (how can I describe the anger) was printed as #7 in issue 19 (July 1966) of the magazine El Corno Emplumado, published out of Mexico City. It appeared in a group of thirteen Canadian poets in the issue (alongside George Bowering, Fred Wah, John Newlove, Nelson Ball, Daphne Buckle and Red Lane among others).

Alphabet, edited by James Reaney, apparently printed one, or some, of the poems according to the credit in the book itself, though I have not been able to find the excerpt(s) in question. However, I did find the wonderful ad below for “Poster Poems by the Fabulous WM. Hawkins” that appeared in Alphabet number 5 (December 1962) before a selection of four “King Kong” poems.

I do not have access to WEED magazine, stopping me from chasing down that reference as well. If you do have a set, or know which poems appeared, and when, sent me a note (cameron.anstee@gmail.com) and I will amend these notes. Equally, any information relating to other editions of these poems would be very much appreciated (for example, did any of the Ottawa Poems appear as Poster Poems?)

I think that these sorts of incongruities and inconsistencies make a strong case for the need to pursue bibliographic work on modern Canadian poetry. I think that they make clear the greater arc of a poem, or book’s, life. Certainly, the Weed/Flower Press edition of 1966 is the authoritative printing, but later editorial choices, as well as earlier little magazine publication help to illuminate the development of the poems over a span of forty years. I think that this is especially true in the case of book-length sequences, or longpoems, where small changes alter the whole. The Ottawa Poems did not end conclusively with their first collected appearance. Hopefully they’ll continue to be read and won’t end anytime soon.

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Works Cited

David, Jack. “Weed Flower Press.” Essays on Canadian Writing 4 (Spring 1976): 34-41.

Hawkins, William. Dancing Alone: Selected Poems. Fredericton: Broken Jaw, 2004.

--. The Gift of Space: Selected Poems 1960-1970. Toronto: new press, 1971.

--. Hawkins. Ottawa: Nil Press, 1966.

--. Ottawa Poems. Kitchener: Weed/Flower Press, 1966.

Smith, A.J.M. Modern Canadian Verse. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1967.

Souster, Raymond. New Wave Canada: The New Explosion in Canadian Poetry. Toronto:

Contact Press, 1966.

Whiteman, Bruce. “Raymond Souster’s New Wave Canada: A Bibliographical Note.” Papers of

the Bibliographic Society of Canada XX (1981): 63-65.

(Mostly Poetry) Highlights of the Ottawa International Festival

Here’s what stood out for me as the most unique, bold and memorable:

Garry Thomas Morse, Death in Vancouver (Talonbooks, 2009), a selection of short prose bits with crazy compelling characters, tight, precise and breathtaking language and imagery and opera! The man can sing. call what he brought to the festival stories, call them poems. i don’t really care. they’re just damn good. i’ve started his book and am enthralled by its originality. His writing reminds me of local writer John Lavery’s work; they both are adept at linguistic acrobatics and are skilled in painting memorable and unusual characters.

Martha Baille, The Incident Report (Pedlar Press, 2009)-Baille presents a series of stories from the point of view of a librarian about the eccentric dramatic personae who frequent a library, including Rigoletto. the prose is tight and precise with lovely arcs and rhythms that sounded like poetry to me.

Jeremy Dodds, Crabwise to the Hounds (Coach House Books, 2009)-Dodds is someone who can play adeptly with language. In his first poetry collection he contorts everyday expressions much in the way Robert Priest does with his aphorisms in Time Release Poems (Ekstasis Editions, 1997.)

Matthew Tierney, the Hayflick Limit (Coach House Books, 2009)-inventive and precise.fun to see the relationship between science and the everyday in Tierney’s poems. the poetry masterclass that Dodds and Tierney participated in was interesting in that there were physicists in the audience and people who wanted definitions of terms like anti-matter. the whole thing was as wonderfully absurd as poetry events should be.

rob mclennan, Gifts (Talonbooks, 2009)-i’ve read these poems as drafts and also there’s one in there for me so i’m clearly biased, but i always enjoy hearing rob read. his poems have a delicious cadence and wonderful images.

Adeena Karasick-Amuse Bouche (Talonbooks, 2009)-a friend told me i would enjoy her language play and punnery and i did, so much so that i wanted to claim one of the poems as my own. i wish i’d written it. the subtitle of this book is “Tasty Treats for the Mouth” and i concur heartily. i enjoyed every bite. the book is a joy with colourful bits clipped from those air flight safety cards. i love all the linguistic twists and turns in this book and in Karasick’s reading.

Marcus McCann, Soft Where (Chaudiere Books, 2009)-once again, i am very biased here. not only is Marcus a dear friend but we are also in a poetry group together; however, i am not the only one who is gaga over the wit and language shenanigans McCann uses in his work.

The main thing all of the above writers had in common in their work is that they seem to be willing to take risks, to push a line beyond predictability. They aren’t sentimental; they don’t wax poetic over the heart or a white horse or a big mangy dog or say condescending things about the working class. Their rhythms are their own and not evocative of Edgar Allen Poe.

I found their presence and their work inspiring and appreciated the opportunity to hear them and to meet them. This is what I love about the Ottawa International Writers Festival…it exposes audiences to new and bold writing.

BC Scene Literary Events

www.bcscene.ca

Al Purdy Day, A-Frame Fundraiser

The Al Purdy A-Frame Fundraiser had an event as part of Pre-Writers Festival on Al Purdy Day April 21 in Ottawa.

Sean Wilson did the initial introductions of the 8 readers to share their favorite Al Purdy poems thru the decades and a sample of their own as part of Al Purdy Day.

Each person's brought out a different aspect, facet and tone of the poet from quiet wonder to story telling drama, the comic mystic of what the beavers know and aren't telling to self-deprecating humour. (I'll mostly only describe the Purdy ones but if anyone else wants to provide missing titles or details, please complete the picture.)

Books were on hand for sale as well as a donation box to contribute to the keeping and upkeep of the A-frame as a writer's retreat. A total of $285 was raised for the cause.


Luna Allison read from The Dead Poet and a used bookstore find, an anthology with one of his poems.

I was altered in the placenta
by the dead brother before me
who built a place in the womb
knowing I was coming:
he wrote words on the walls of flesh...

Stephen Brockwell read Purdy's poem of Helen and Menelaus and Agamemnon, a less often read one of Purdy's, unfortunately. An absorbing retelling of the story.


Michael Dennis read a poem of Purdy's early drafted soldier days, being entrusted even with a wooden gun being a foolhardy idea. Even the pigeons learned it was safe to not fly away from him on patrol. And he read from his own, one set in a mining camp at Christmas and the brawl that ensued.


Gwendolyn Guth described going to try to find the A-frame and finding Purdy's grave. (If you missed it, you should ask her for the story.) She read her tribute poems on him from The Ivory Thought: Essays on Al Purdy. In it 17 writers, scholars, critics, and educators appraise and reappraise Purdy’s contribution in essays in tributes, as part of a 2006 conference on him.


Kathryn Hunt, reading from the Last Picture in the World.

little point of land
like a small monk
in a green monastery
meditating

Jim Larwill read a Acorn tribute to Purdy and from the argument between Milton Acorn and Al Purdy while they lived in the A-frame. He is rallying for an Ottawa contingent to go to Marmora's people's poetry fest, Purdyfest, on Aug 1. The other picture is Jim Larwill performing The Raven, a bird associated with Purdy and Acorn.


Rob Winger read from Hockey Players and one about a pub brawl and beer like daisies called A Sensitive Man.

Sean Zio read a Purdy poem dedicated to Margaret Laurence and his elegy poem, Be Good.

Here's a 1978 Interview with Purdy and vid links to CBC Archives on Purdy.

Carleton University's Poetry Night at the MacOdrum Library

Left to right: President Rosanne Runte, David O’Meara and Rob Winger

Patti Harper, the Department Head of Archives and Research Collections sends in this report and photos about the event on April 1. Room 503, the Rare Book Room is open to the public and has a great collection, including old broadsides, zines and first editions of books such as Phyllis Webb's Naked Poems.

MacOdrum Library held its inaugural poetry reading night on April 1st to promote the Modern Poetry Collection within the Archives and Research Collections, bringing together the Carleton and Ottawa communities. Carleton’s own Rob Winger was Master of Ceremonies with President Rosanne Runte and local poet David O’Meara presenting selections of their work. The evening also included David presenting some of his favourites from the Collection as well as participating in a Questions and Answer session with the audience. The evening also showcased some of the gems from the collection including broadsides, magazines and books.

Stay tuned for another poetry night in the fall.

A Strong Week in April

Daily for poetry month there has been even more than usual lit events.

Last night Wayson Choy read as part of the year round writers festival. Meanwhile Jason Camlot read at Tree. (The next Tree is a Tulip Tree - All Open-Mic on April 28, followed by Stephanie Bolster May 12th but we're getting ahead of the month.)

AngelHouse Press, which now has an essay series going, is presenting a poem a day at National Poetry Month.

Tonight is chock-full of options in Ottawa Lit. To name just 2: The Oneness Poetry Showcase features Ian Keteku a.k.a. Emcee E with Erin Felepchuk on piano at the East African Restaurant. The Ottawa Arts Review hosted a panel discussion at Ottawa U. [Details at the bottom here]

Tomorrow is the penultimate of the Canal Mug Series. It will be Anne Le Dressay and Stephen Brockwell at the Sunnyside Library. April 23rd it'll be Nadine McInnis and Glenn Kletke.

There's a Plan 99 reading with Stephanie Bolster this Saturday and a Capital Slam.

On Sunday the 19th there's a Dusty Owl at the regular Swizzles bar but it's a double-header with it also being the partnership with Bywords to launch of the new Bywords Quarterly Journal.

Meanwhile over at Sushi 88 on Somerset, there's another Dusty Owl event, it's the first of 3 of the season's workshops. Pearl Pirie will do Firestarters, inspiration prompts. You can buy 2 workshops for the cost of 3. The next two will be Oni [link autoloads sound] teaching social action slam poetry, and in June, Ian Roy will expand horizons with drawing out short stories.

To look ahead to the 22nd, The A B Series features: Clifton Joseph, John Sobol and Robert Priest at The Mercury Lounge. On the following Sunday, April 26, Claudia Coutu Radmore will be at Sasquatch to launch her new chapbook: Ode to a Rubber Duck: An Explanation of the Whole World. People are invited to bring their rubber duckies and own odes.

Including the Writers Festival and BC Scene -- some highlights are in the previous post -- there are 3 to 7 lit events on daily for most of April. Check the full listings.

Carleton and the Writer's Festival

A brief amendment to Amanda's excellent and thorough post below on the Writer's Festival:

A reminder to all Carleton University students that all events in this edition are free with a valid student card (unless otherwise noted). In the Fall, 500 tickets were made available to Carleton students and that number has been boosted this time around. This is hopefully an indication of a developing and ongoing relationship between Carleton and the festival (with several faculty members hosting events again). If you're a Carleton student, attend and make us of this wonderful opportunity. This program will hopefully continue to be a part of the Writer's Festival in the future, but it clearly must be a success in order to encourage repetition.

I lament that I will no longer hold a valid card come the Fall edition...

Poetry Events at the Ottawa International Writers Festival

The festival begins on April 22 and goes until May 2 and marks its first official season at the new Saint Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and Humanities, 314 St. Patrick St near the Byward Market. There are lots of great events taking place this spring at the festival. The best deal is the festival pass, which you can buy at $85 until April 21. The programmes are scattered all over town and the full schedule complete with bio and youtube links is over at www.writersfestival.org.

Nicholas Hoare Books will be on hand to sell you copies of books to have signed by the authors.
There are 3 poetry cabarets, a masterclass writing workshop and two other poetry events taking place at the spring edition. Here’s what’s happening poetry wise.

Saturday, April 25, 2009
Dusty Owl Presents Urban First Nations Poetry with Mosha Folger, Rob Friday and friends; hosted by Steven Zytveld-6pm

Mosha Folger is an independent writer/photographer and spoken word artist.

Rob Friday is the 2008 recipient of the Bywords John Newlove Poetry Award for his poem “Manatee”.

Poetry Cabaret # 1: Jeanette Lynes, Marcus McCann and Molly Peacock, hosted by Stephen Brockwell-8pm

Jeanette Lynes is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently It's Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems (Freehand Books). She is also the author of a novel, forthcoming from Coteau Books. Jeanette has been a writer in residence at Saskatoon Public Library and Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek, B.C. She teaches at St. Francis Xavier University and co-edits The Antigonish Review.

Marcus McCann is a poet and journalist. He is the editor of Capital Xtra, Ottawa’s gay and lesbian newspaper. Soft Where (Chaudiere Books) is his first full-length collection.

Molly Peacock is the award-winning author of five volumes of poetry, including Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems. Her poems have appeared in such leading publications as The New Yorker, the Paris Review, and the Times Literary Supplement. Among her other works are How to Read a Poem and Start a Poetry Circle and a memoir, Paradise, Piece By Piece. Before she emigrated to Canada in 1992, she was 1 of the creators of Poetry in Motion on the Buses and Subways in New York City, and she served as an early advisor to Poetry on The Way. Recently she toured with her one-woman show in poems, The Shimmering Verge produced by the London, Ontario based company, Femme Fatale Productions. Peacock is currently the poetry editor of the Literary Review of Canada and the general series editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English. She lives in Toronto with her husband, Michael Groden, an English Professor at the University of Western Ontario. Her website is: www.mollypeacock.org.


Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Poetry Cabaret #2: Spotlight on Talonbooks with Garry Thomas Morse, rob mclennan, Adeena Karasick and bill bissett-8:30pm

Garry Morse is a Vancouver poet and writer with two books of poetry published by LINEbooks, Transversals for Orpheus (2006) and Streams (2007). He has created more than thirty chapbooks of poetry and is the chief editor of an online read-only hyperclack of fresh writing called Lexican Radio. His work has been featured in a variety of publications, including Canadian Literature, The Capilano Review, filling Station, The Vancouver Review and West Coast Line, and his manuscript Go Medieval was selected as a runner-up for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. In 2008 Morse received the City of Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist. When not pursuing literary endeavours, he is the lead developer for estudent.ca, and he sings in the chorus for OperaProCantanti.

rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa (since 1989), even though he was born there once (1970). The author of a dozen poetry collections, most recently The Ottawa City Project and a compact of words, as well as a collection of essays, subverting the lyric: essays and Ottawa: The Unknown City. As an editor, he is putting the finishing touches on collections of essays on the works of Andrew Suknaski, John Newlove and George Bowering, as well as There Is No Mountain: new & selected poems by Andrew Suknaski. Editor/publisher of above/ground press and STANZAS magazine, rob regularly posts essays, reviews and other writing at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com.

Adeena Karasick is a poet, media-artist and the award-winning author of six books of poetry and poetic theory, The House That Hijack Built, The Arugula Fugues, Dyssemia Sleaze, Genrecide, Mêmewars, and The Empress Has No Closure. Marked with an urban, Jewish, feminist aesthetic that continually challenges normative modes of meaning production, and engaged with the art of combination and turbulence of thought, her work is a testament to the creative and regenerative power of language and its infinite possibilities for pushing meaning to the limits of its semantic boundaries. Karasick has lectured and performed worldwide and regularly publishes articles, reviews and dialogues on contemporary poetry, poetics and cultural/semiotic theory. She is Professor of Literature and Cultural Theory at BMCC, City University of New York. Forthcoming is Amuse Bouche: Tasty Treats for the Mouth.

bill bissett, winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award first garnered international attention in the 1960s as a pre-eminent figure of the counter-culture movement in Canada and the UK. Author of over 70 books of published poetry, bill is a pioneer of sound, visual and performance poetry—eschewing the artificial hierarchies of meaning and the privileging of things (“proper” nouns) over actions imposed on language by capital letters; the metric limitations imposed on the possibilities of expression by punctuation; and the illusion of formal transparency imposed on the written word by standard (rather than phonetic) spelling. bill composes his poems as scripts for pure performance and has consistently worked to extend the boundaries of language and visual image, honing a synthesis of the two in the medium of concrete poetry. He writes and paints out of studios in Vancouver and Toronto.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Poetry Cabaret#3: Carolyn Marie Souaid, Zoe Whittall, David O’Meara; hosted by Rob Winger-6:30pm

Carolyn Marie Souaid is a poet, teacher, and book reviewer for The Montreal Gazette. The author of four books, she has appeared at many literary festivals across the country, and was part of a Canadian delegation of poets sent to Paris in December 2005 to participate in an international forum on the inhumane treatment of prisoners of conscience. She is the co-producer (with Endre Farkas) of two major Montreal events: Poésie en mouvement / Poetry in Motion (the poetry-on-the-buses project, 2004) and Cirque des mots / Circus of Words, a multilingual cabaret of performance poetry (2005, 2006). Three of her books have been shortlisted for the A.M. Klein Prize. A French translation of “Snow Formations” was published by Les Éditions Triptyque in 2006.

Zoe Whittall’s first novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts, was named one of the best books of 2007 by The Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire magazine. She won the 2008 Dayne Ogilvie award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. Now Magazine awarded her the title of Best Emerging Author of 2007. She has published three books of poetry, Precordial Thump (Exile, 2008), The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life (McGilligan Books, 01) and The Emily Valentine Poems (Snare Books, 06). Her work has been anthologized widely, with poems appearing in Breathing Fire 2: Canada’s Best New Poets edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane and many others. The Globe and Mail called her "the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler…”. Her second novel, Holding Still For As Long as Possible, is forthcoming from House of Anansi press in fall of 2009. Born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, she’s lived in Toronto since 1997.

David O'Meara was born and raised in Pembroke, Ontario. He lives in Ottawa, where he tends bar at The Manx Pub. His first book of poems, Storm still, was published in 1999 and was short-listed for the Gerald Lampert Award. His second collection, The Vicinity, was shortlisted for the Trillium Poetry Award.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Poetry Masterclass-Why Poetry Antimatters: Metaphor, Entanglement and Particle Poetics with Jeremy Dodds and Matthew Tierney, hosted by David O’Meara-noon

Jeramy Dodds lives in Orono, Ontario. His poems have been translated into Finnish, French, Latvian, Swedish, German and Icelandic. In 2007 he held a residency at the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators on the island of Götland, Sweden. He is the winner of the 2006 Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award and the 2007 CBC Literary Award in poetry. He works as a research archaeologist and co-edits for littlefishcartpress.

Matthew Tierney's poetry has been published in many literary journals in Canada and Ireland. He was born Kitchener, Ontario, and grew up in Toronto, where he now lives. Several years ago, he spent some time in Japan teaching English, and returned home by way of the Trans-Mongolian Express, an offshoot of the Trans-Siberian Express, one of the last transcontinental train routes. This journey and others around Asia and Europe form the experiences in Full speed through the morning dark. A second manuscript, The Rocket Scientist, is an epistemological tour of hard and soft sciences: cosmology, quantum physics, neurology, psychology and economics, among others. In particular, it grapples with the idea of intelligence—what it means to be an intelligent species, an intelligent person. The manuscript was awarded the 2006 K.M. Hunter Award for Literature.

BC Scene Poetry Night with Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, Evelyn Lau and Robert Bringhurst-hosted by Alma Lee-8:30pm

Patrick Lane is the author of 21 books of poetry, and has received many awards for his writing, including the Governor General’s Award for Poetry (1979), the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry (1988), and two National Magazine Awards. Lane lives near Victoria, British Columbia, with poet Lorna Crozier.

Lorna Crozier’ Crozier's work has won numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award, the Pat Lowther Poetry Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, and the First Prize for Poetry in the CBC Literary Competition. She has published fourteen books of poetry, most recently, Whetstone. Crozier also edited Desire in Seven Voices and, with Patrick Lane, Addicted: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives in British Columbia, where she teaches at the University of Victoria.

Evelyn Lau has written seven books, including the bestselling short story collection Choose Me. Her bestselling first book, Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, was published when she was 18 and adapted into an award-winning film for television by the CBC. In 1992, Evelyn became the youngest poet ever to be nominated for the Governor General's Award, for her collection Oedipal Dreams. She lives and works in Vancouver.

Robert Bringhurst is a poet, typographer and linguist, well known for his award-winning translations of the Haida storytellers Skaay and Ghandl, and for his translations of the early Greek philosopher-poet Parmenides. His manual The Elements of Typographic Style has itself been translated into ten languages and is now one of the world’s most influential texts on typographic design. Among his most recent publications is a pair of essay collections, The Tree of Meaning (2006) and Everywhere Being is Dancing (2007). Bringhurst lives on Quadra Island, off the British Columbia coast.

Go buy your tickets NOW

Poetry, Poetry, Poetry

To celebrate National Poetry Month and get a daily dose of poetry, visit the following sites:

AngelHousePress’s National Poetry Month features 30 poets from around the world celebrating the nation of poetry.

the League of Canadian Poets' Poetry Planet Blog, a different poem each day by Canadian poets, representing each province.

Seen Reading’s 30 in 30. Poets read one of their own poems aloud and cover a favourite poem of another writer.

The Afterword, National Post Interviews Canadian Poets Daily

the New York Review of Books is posting daily poems that they’ve published over the years.

Daily Lit in conjunction with the magazine Poets and Writers will e-mail you the poetry of late great poets in a series called Masters of Verse

And if you'd like to celebrate in person as well as virtually, check out www.bywords.ca for all the poetry events happening this month.

Celebrate Poetry Month with a Night of Poetry

The MacOdrum Library Archives and Research Collections
Celebrating Poetry Month with the Carleton University Library Modern Poetry Collection

Join Master of Ceremonies Rob Winger for the inaugural Poetry Night featuring the Modern Poetry Collection, part of the Archives and Research Collections at the Carleton University Library. Listen to poetry readings by Ottawa's David O'Meara as well as view a selection of material from the collection while mingling with other poetry enthusiasts from the university and the greater Ottawa community.

The Modern Poetry Collection contains material from Canada's small press movement (1960s and 1970s) including rare broadsides; first and rare editions of modern and contemporary Canadian and North American poets; and print editions of Canada's "little magazines" like Arc, Poetry Magazine, Tish, Preview, Contact and First Statement--there is something for everyone!

Date: April 1st 2009
Place: Library Staff Lounge (Room 153), Carleton University Library, 1125 Colonel By Drive
Time: 7:00pm, Doors open at 6:30pm

Cash bar and refreshments provided.

For more information please contact Lloyd Keane, Archives and Research Assistant: lloyd_keane@carleton.ca or call 613-520-2600 x2739

[text copied from a poster in the Carleton English Dept.]

Haiku Events

The Haiku North America will be held at the National Library in Ottawa from August 5-9. Early bird registration for the conference ends May 31.

The Haiku Canada Conference, which had tentatively booked for Ottawa this year, will be in Vancouver May 15-17 to spread the wealth of access. The Haiku Canada speakers include:

Winona Baker
Janick Belleau
Marco Fraticelli
Joanne Morcom
Michael Dylan Welch

and Alice Frampton leading the kukai

Early registration closes March 30th.

Gary Barwin & Gregory Betts perform THE OBVIOUS FLAP in The A B Series

The A B Series presents

THE OBVIOUS FLAP

performed by electronic sound poetry duo

Gary Barwin & Gregory Betts

**

Doors open 7:30pm, show 8pm
Friday, February 20th, 2009 The Mercury Lounge 56 ByWard Market Square Ottawa, Ont. Admission $7 at the door

**

Gary Barwin (Hamilton) and Gregory Betts (St. Catharines) perform THE OBVIOUS FLAP, a performance text with dialogue, mixed-media and sound poetry. As part of the evening's program, Betts and Barwin launch Chora Sea, a chapbook published by Toronto's Emergency Response Unit. Publishers, Leigh Nash and Andrew Faulkner, will be in attendance.

**

BIOS:

Poet, writer, composer, and performer, GARY BARWIN lives in Hamilton, Ontario. His work has been performed and published internationally. His books include frogments from the frag pool (poetry; with derek beaulieu), Doctor Weep and Other Strange Teeth (fiction), Raising Eyebrows (poetry) and Outside the Hat (poetry). A new book of poetry, is forthcoming from Coach House. His PhD thesis was a composition combining live computer processing, spoken text, and electronics. He can be found at garybarwin dot com and serifofnottingham dot blogspot dot com.

GREGORY BETTS is the author of If Language (2005), Haikube (2006), and The Others Raisd in Me (forthcoming, Fall 2009). He is the Co-Editor of PRECIPICe literary magazine and curates the Grey Borders Reading Series in St. Catharines. His poetry, essays, and manifestos have appeared in books, journals, and anthologies across Canada and in six countries besides. He currently lives in St. Catharines where he teaches Canadian and Avant-Garde Literature at Brock University.

**

Raffle with book prizes from publishers BookThug, Brick, University of Ottawa Press and ECW + gift certificates from local restaurants to be awarded.

Chora Sea and other literature will be available from the book table.

The A B Series thanks The Mercury Lounge, The City of Ottawa, our volunteers and raffle sponsors for their support.

**

For more information: Max Middle Artistic Director The A B Series (613) 237-4309

ABSERIES dot ORG

farewell to Steve Sauvé

On Saturday January 17, 2009, Steve Sauvé left this world, and underlined his indelible mark on the spoken word poetry family.

Steve was a poet and organizer integral to Ottawa's local spoken word scene, and to Ottawa's presence in the Canadian spoken word community. Most of us were struck first by his sense of humour, and next by his ethic of being truly himself, disarmed and disarming.

We knew Steve as a survivor. In recent years, he faced medical setbacks that would have crushed most of us. Instead of despairing, he treated them with humour -- though not lightly.

It was as if his response to peril was to lay bare his core self, rather than to be guarded. He confronted terrifying situations with an emotional presence that most of us don't have the guts to open up in our safest places, let alone in performance.

The most touching instance of this in my own memory was when he read his poem "Heart," about his own brushes with death, at the 2005 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Vancouver. He was part of the Ottawa slam team at that festival; we all spent some lovely time together exploring and bonding. When he took the stage, no-one in the hall that night could have been prepared -- even those of us familiar with the piece's content -- for the intensity of that particular performance. He wrought, from his own grave and painful experiences, something of beauty, and delivered it in a way that touched us all unforgettably.

Though relentlessly modest off-stage, Steve was never one to undervalue his loving relationships, and never afraid to expose them to the trial of the limelight. He let us all see how much he was loved and loved in return, and he wanted us to remember our part in that, and to treat it with due respect and joy.

I'm not trying to make him out to be a saint. I knew Steve only as well as my few years on the Ottawa spoken word scene allowed, but he always -- always -- shone positivity and courage on those of us around him. He remains with us in the nuanced and unexpected ways he continues to influence our work, our points of view, and our sense of how much we mean to each other. This part of Steve cannot be taken from us, and we are grateful.

Through Ottawa, and across Canada, the impact of his passing is still unfolding. Most of us just find it pretty hard to believe. Please watch, in due time, for various tribute projects that are currently in discussion; as we celebrate the facets of Steve's life that have made us who we are -- as artists, and as friends. If you have a part to play in that, please feel free to contact me at ktm7@mac.com.

Long live bwana geek.

Steve Sauvé (Oct 12, 1975 - Jan 17, 2009)

very sad news this week. Steve Sauvé, spoken word poet, passed away today.

Steve was a loving and beautiful person, not to mention very talented. He was a member of Capital Slam, 2006 Ottawa CBC Poetry Face-Off Finalist; Member of the 2005 Capital Slam TeamMember of Ottawa 2004 Wordlympics Team; to name just a few of his accomplishments.

He will be missed greatly.

Here's his myspace page

MESSAGIO GALORE in The A B Series

jwcurry performing MESSAGIO GALORE take V on April 13, 2008

photo courtesy of Ben Walker

The A B Series presents jwcurry’s

MESSAGIO GALORE

7pm

Saturday, 24 January 2009

City Hall Art Gallery

Main Floor

Ottawa City Hall

110 Laurier Avenue West

Ottawa, Ont.

Admission: $15 at the door (or more or less according to your ability)

Program for MESSAGIO GALORE take VI provided at the door with admission.

General seating

Door prizes / raffle tickets

Cash bar / Appetizers

On January 24th, 2009, The A B Series is delighted to present jwcurry's MESSAGIO GALORE. It promises to be another astonishing act combining curry's acute editorial acumen with the crew's extreme technical skill. Incomparably well informed on Canadian and international sound poetry, Ottawa editor, publisher and producer jwcurry has awed audiences with the previous five productions of MESSAGIO GALORE. This performance will indubitably mark another historic development in the trajectory that curry has charted for MESSAGIO GALORE. With this production, The A B Series brings the best in sound poetry to Ottawa. We're expecting a full house so come early, have a drink, a snack and enjoy the ninety-minute performance.

MESSAGIO GALORE is a celebratory investigation into what constitutes sound poetry, surveying its com- & ex-position through the writing & reading (& listening & rewriting & reading) of Canadian and international works. MESSAGIO GALORE take VI will be read through the lingual acrobatics of jwcurry, John Lavery, Roland Prevost, Carmel Purkis, Sandra Ridley and Grant Wilkins. It takes as its outer formal structure a 4-voice arrangement of John Cage's Lecture On Nothing and incorporates material by Hugo Ball, Four Horsemen, Claude Gauvreau, d.a.levy, Sam Loyd, Mike Patton and Frank Zappa.

Following the performance, a raffle will be held to celebrate the launch of The A B Series web site with the following prizes: a combination book/gift certificate prize from Nicholas Hoare, a prize pack from Coach House Books, a gift certificate from The Great Canadian Theatre Company, double passes to The Bytowne Cinema, The Dig Your Roots CD collection from National Campus Radio Association, a double pass to any production in The National Arts Centre's Fourth Stage 2009 season, gift certificates for local restaurants and more to be announced.

The A B Series thanks The City of Ottawa, our volunteers and raffle sponsors for their support. Many thanks to Ben Walker who has generously provided photos of Messagio Galore take V, one of which appears above and others can be found on The A B Series web site.

More info on MESSAGIO GALORE take VI:

ABSERIES dot ORG

or from:

Max Middle

Artistic Director

The A B Series

director at abseries dot org

tel: 613 859 8423

A B SERIES WEB SITE LAUNCH

Dear friends,

It is with great pleasure that The A B Series announces the launch of its official web site at ABSERIES.ORG. Visit the site to see what's happening in Ottawa's reading series for performance, sound and experimental poetry.

Launched in November 2007, The A B Series has quickly become one of the most dynamic reading series in Ottawa. Performers from Ottawa-Gatineau, across Canada as well as The Netherlands and The USA have graced The A B Series stage.

The A B Series was initiated in late 2007 by current Artistic Director, Max Middle. The first event in The A B Series' inaugural season took place on November 1st, 2007 in Ottawa's City Hall Art Gallery with readings by three book touring Calgarians: William Neil Scott, Natalie Zina Walschots and ryan fitzpatrick. The A B Series saw the completion of a very successful inaugural season (Autumn 2007 – Spring 2008) on June 12th, 2008 with a reading by Christopher Dewdney. The second season (Autumn 2008 – Spring 2009) was launched in October and proceeds apace with major productions to be staged early in 2009.

In its brief history, The A B Series has drawn consistently large and enthusiastic audiences to its events. Legendary Dutch sound poet Jaap Blonk performed in The A B Series on June 6th, 2008. Attendance at this event was one hundred and thirty: the best attended sound poetry production in Ottawa's history.

On January 24th, 2009, we are very keenly anticipating hosting jwcurry's next execution of Messagio Galore. It promises to be yet another astonishing act combining curry's acute editorial acumen with his and assistants' extreme technical skill. This performance will indubitably mark another historic development in the trajectory that curry has charted for Messagio Galore. See abseries.org for details on the program and who curry's assistants will be. At fifteen dollars suggested donation, we humbly contend that it will be one of the best values in the history of the performing arts. We're expecting a full house so come early, have a drink, a snack and stay after the ninety-minute performance for door prizes and a celebration of the launch of The A B Series web site.

On February 6th, 2009, The A B Series in association with Kevin Matthews presents four acclaimed Australian poets/spoken word artists on The National Arts Centre's Fourth Stage. They are Alicia Sometimes, Emilie Zoey Baker, Justin Ashworth and Sean M Whelan, each of whom hails from UNESCO's recently announced City of Literature, Melbourne. On 4 February 2009, they land in Vancouver to start their debut North American tour. The A B Series hosts their second North American performance. After which, they leave for Montréal's 2009 Festival Voix d'Ameriques and several engagements there; later in February, they perform in New York's Bowery Club and at The Green Mill Bar in Chicago.

On February 20th at The Mercury Lounge, The A B Series presents a collaborative performance by Gary Barwin and Gregory Betts. They will be reading from The Obvious Flap, a performance text in progress that includes dialogue, mixed-media and sound poetry.

A very special thank-you goes to Brian Pirie for designing and realizing The A B Series web site. While you're on The A B Series web site, make sure you view the photos Ben Walker has generously provided of Messagio Galore take V, which took place in April 2008. Many thanks to the following for providing photographs: Ben Walker, Pearl Pirie, Charles Earl and Natalie Zina Walschots.

The A B Series is currently preparing for these and several other momentous productions to take place in 2009. We're very much looking forward to seeing you in the New Year; in the meantime, come visit us online.

Best wishes,

Max Middle

Artistic Director
The A B Series

rob’s poetry recommendations;

Since I never got a chance to answer Amanda Earl’s question about poetry recommendations, I thought I should do it here. Two of the best poetry books over the past year that I would more than recommend would be Vancouver writer and filmmaker Colin Browne’s The Shovel (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2008) [see my review of it here], as well as Toronto writer Margaret Christakos’ What stirs (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2008) [a review is forthcoming on The Danforth Review]. Why were neither of these on the GG poetry shortlist? Speaking more generally, I would recommend anything by American poet Sarah Manguso; how did she get so damned good?

Poetry Recommendations for Christmas

If you're thinking about giving the gift of poetry to your family or friends over the holidays, you might be interested to hear a few recommendations by some of Ottawa's local poets. Like any other gift, poetry is a matter of personal taste, tis true, but if they're your friends, i wouldn't be surprised if they are interested in poetry, so here are a few possibilities; all these books can be purchased through your local independent bookstores, such as Books on Beechwood, Collected Works, Mother Tongue, Perfect Books, and Nicholas Hoare or directly through the publishers.

Mike Blouin

Some Days I Think I Know Things: The Cassandra Poems, Rhonda Douglas, Signature 2008
The Luskville Reductions, Monty Reid, Brick, 2008

Amanda Earl

Decalogue: ten Ottawa poets (Chaudiere Books, 2007)
includes poetry by Stephen Brockwell, Michelle Desbarats, Anita Dolman, Anne Le Dressay, Karen Massey, Una McDonnell, rob mclennan, Max Middle, Monty Reid and Shane Rhodes; this is a great overview to what's going on in contemporary poetry in the National Capital.

Marcus McCann

Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008 ed. by Stephanie Bolster (series ed Molly Peacock), (Tightrope Books, 2008)

This is the first book in a new series collecting the best poetry that appeared in Canadian journals in the previous twelve months. It's controversial & compelling - the intro is worth the price of the volume ($18.95) on its own. Bonus: the anthology includes work by current or former Ottawans like Shane Rhodes, Craig Poile and John Barton.

Susan McMaster

Ronnie R. Brown's "Night Echoes" (Black Moss, 2006) is a rich romp through a wise woman's dark, moving, and hilarious dreams, Nadine McInnis's "Two Hemispheres" (Brick Books, 2007) mixes science and madness in a personal and at the same time historical narrative that grips from the first page, and Colin Morton's "the Local Cluster"(Pecan Grove Press, 2008) -- full of sounds and images drawn from the streets of our town over several decaudes -- will rouse responses from any longtime Ottawan.

Christine McNair

Karen Houle. During. Gaspereau Press: 2008. (not local but good)

Roland Prevost

Guess I'd feel ok recommending Robert Kroetsch's "Completed Field Notes" (University of Alberta Press, 2001).
Certainly experimental enough, but also accessible enough, fun enough & wide ranging. I know I'd have been very happy to get it as a gift too. (Um, in fact I did get it as a gift, & I was glad to get it.) I know it's not exactly what people would expect, but it's an excellent read & also Canadian too.

Rob Winger

Troy Jollimore's Tom Thompson in Purgatory (Margie / IntuiT House, 2006) is a nice recent one. Failing that, tell everyone to buy the new edition of George Bowering’s Kerrisdale elegies, (Talon Books, 2008) [also pooka press in Vancouver published a beautiful limited edition run, but perhaps that's out of print?]