The room was packed, standing room only and oops faces coming in the door as the hour went on.
Rob Winger was launching The Chimney Stone (Nightwood Editions, 2010) at the Manx, Ottawa last night. A reliably great reader, love how his poems don’t take the conventional path. I can’t project and then wait for the predictable payoff of being told what I already knew. I’ve heard him read some excerpts over the last couple years. They are solidly enjoyable. Look forward to reading it cover to cover.
A polished reader, he’s having fun up there. He has an irrepressible enthusiasm for the ghazal and for life that comes out. (Realize he looks sombre here but both readers have flashes of smiles that are far faster than my camera hand.)
Adam Sol was reading from Jeremiah, Ohio (Anansi, 2008) as the other reader at Plan 99, Ottawa Nov 20.
I should know his name by now but hadn’t heard him in person nor seen the books. Clearly I’d been missing a boat.
Sol, a great reader, has spun an interesting set of constraints for a story. A drifter who believes he is the biblical Jeremiah, and a man who says, why not just travel with him and see where this goes. The characters are distinct. The language playing off contemporary and bedded into raiding the bible for perspective and language. It’s tilted. The journey curious. I look forward to reading this one too.
Both readers have a playful curiosity with the world and a tight way of writing, not tending to blather on. Too much interesting to get on with to dawdle in a line.