St. Cats gets Ottawa’s troupe of Messagio Galore…sound poetry from the 1880s to the arrangements not conceived for sound, from the Italian futurists to the contemporary compositions alongside Ottawa artist Dennis Tourbin who did visual poems.

If you are in the Windsor area, come out to hear sound poetry. From European dadaist to Frank Zappa and acoustical experiences that defy categorizing.

You never know with a drop-in workshop how many will attend. Sometimes 4, sometimes 20 by serendipity. This week’s session was led by LM Rochefort on the Imagists, the principles, the legacy, examples and DIY time. (Oct 23rd is time to share what you’ve worked on and talk about how to voice your poems effectively.)
There was also an assignment for those willing to take it to read 5-20 poems by imagists and spend 15 minutes a day for 2 weeks reading/absorbing poems by the imagists such as Pound, Wallace Stephens, WCW, H.D., etc.


The open mic was full and diverse including this silent piece of road sign trips by Daniel Lehan.

There was a tribute to John Newlove by Steve de Paul ending with God Bless the Bear.

The double-bill feature was Méira Cook who also read at Collected Works on Wednesday from her novel.

Her poetry collection sold all copies, which is always nice to see. It is about walking into Winnipeg and into citizenship. She described the development of the collection which was to be in her voice before a young brash braggy female elbowed in and then joined by an old male curmudgeon, a perhaps washed up poet. Then plot started weaving in. You never know what a book will do.
It had some striking uses of language, such as “each breath like a snap of knuckles”, “o, father with a face like a fist in a pocket” “thawing winter with each zinc white breath out”. I’ve put the book on order.
She described herself as a warm-up act for Zwicky. Zwicky, gracious in turn, described herself as the cool down act for Cook.

Jan Zwicky, who is also an essayist and has books on philosophy read from poetry and from her novel,

The Book of Frog. The sizeable stack shrunk fast after her reading in comic style from the surrealist scenes. Hint: Al is an invisible albatross who emails the keyfob-sized cement fob who gives advice to his human companion.
For the moment i”m deep into another novel, The Path to Ardroe by John Lent. It’s absorbing poetic stuff.
The next Tree will have Lisa Downe and Peter Sanger which unfortunately I’ll have to miss since I’ll be out reading in London and in St. Cats.

On top is the much banged about prototype but below is the start of the cover stock being shaped by fire. When that’s done, assembly and binding. Almost there. Over a year of talking, pitching, collecting, editing, designing and layout – almost there.
They’re going to be a beautiful setting for some striking poems.
Where There’s Fire should be out by the end of the month and officially launched in Ottawa at the small press fair.
Who’s in it?
Jacqueline Bourque spent the better part of her career in Ottawa where she worked as a communicator for a public sector organization. She is currently working on a suite of ekphrastic poems on Frederick Varley’s paintings.
Frances Boyle’s poetry and fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines in Canada and the US. A version of the poem included here was previously published in Freefall, Spring/Summer, 2012.
Mary Lee Bragg published the novel Shooting Angels in 2004, and has had short fiction and poetry published in Ascent, Bywords, Grain and several anthologies, including Sugar Mule and Sweet Cuba.
Laurie Koensgen is an original member of the Ruby Tuesdays. She thanks the poets for their guidance and fine sensibilities. She currently works in Cultural Services at the City of Ottawa. Her poem, included here, will shortly appear as part of a collaboration at Blink Gallery called Observations on Two Rooms with Meaghan Haughian’s painting Love Come Here. (It’s part of Collaborations, curated by Jaenine Parkinson with the vernissage tomorrow.)
Robin K. Macdonald is working on a memoir of travels of walking through North Manitoba.
Pearl Pirie coordinated the Tree Seed Workshop group since 2009. She is always looking for facilitators to spark discussion. Her books, chapbooks, reading schedule and poems can be be found at www.pearlpirie.com
LM Rochefort is a stellar event organizer who is making her mark on Arc, and is the crown jewel in the Ruby Crown. She provides cheers, ears, inspiration and tea (but did not write her own bio).
Deborah-Anne Tunney’s poems are in the anthology A Sea of Alone: Poems for Alfred Hitchcock. She is working on single collection of Hitchcock ekphrastics.
Jean Van Loon’s fiction has appeared in The Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, Queen’s Quarterly, Ottawa Magazine’s summer fiction issue and The Journey Prize: Stories. Her poems are appearing like stars you never noticed before.

By the way, not to mix with the flame-stage, the burnt bits mark up the rest of the book but from charcoal art comes this solution which is a fixative that seals without making it glossy. For smudges that transferred to backs of books or so, a white erasers is a much better solution than trying to wash paper.

I like it best when my brain is pulled like a fitted sheet, pleated at corners in tension.
These books are from different places and perspectives and yet they all aim to provoke a change, not give a comfort.

Currently reading, in part thanks to Black Squirrel Books,
Texistence (2008, Xerox Sutra Editions) by Geof Huth and mIEKAL aND,
p. 36, 39

fossilitate
azzle-addled

The words aim to make new words. With new words, perhaps we can move towards new frames of perception, build towards newer still. Or at least get to the same, but faster in the short-hand compression of a word.
Direct and Devious Ways (1993,The Muses Co) by Katharine Beeman,
p. 17

3rd position
I was sure there were men like that. Men who only existed for women’s pleasure, to give women pleasure in one specific way. Men who considered themselves finger virtuosos. Men who had studied 1001 ways to caress nipples. Men who did tongue exercises every day.
I knew they existed because nearly everything you could think of did.

The poems range from race unity, unions, deforestation, canoeing, surrealists who omitted female voice and action. They’re lively.
Bumping into her writing was a surprise. I have her chapbook from a few years ago and hadn’t realized she was publishing her writing around the time I was learning to write cursive. There’s a high tension energy, even in her poem to Milton Acorn’s funeral,

we howled, love
love lllooovvveee
so that even you could hear
all the way back a monht ago
before you were underground.

Against Paradise by Shawna Lemay (2001, M&S),
p. 7,

Make arrangements to have my remains
disguised as
holy knick-knacks.
I’ll design reliquaries of gilt and smoked glass
lined with plush crimson.
Wrist bone, fifth rib, index finger

Rather than revisit history and leave it intact but in updated syntax she loops back and questions as well, p 30 the poem starts conversationally with a fragment. We pop into the debate underway.

Speaking of confessions.
I rather think of Peggy Guggenheim more
as a foiled Cleopatra
than the female Casanova.

I don’t know the point of reference but I have reason to find out. The writing is fierce. It doesn’t aim to incant itself to sleep. It doesn’t ride an idea until it peters out then with a spark of an ant’s flame-thrower ending. It may pipe up at any point in the poem. It doesn’t read as uneven so much as alive.
and A Shropshire Lad (1923 edition from Grant Richards Ltd) by A.E. Housman
p. 7

Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover ;
Breath’s a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad : when the journey’s over
There’ll be time enough to sleep.

He makes me laugh too as in LXII
“‘Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme/ your friends to death before their time.
Come pipe a tune to dance to, lad.// Why if ’tis dancing you would be,
There’s brisker pipes than poetry,[…]oh many a peer of England brews
livier liquor than the Muse/ And Malt does more than Milton can
[…]And nothing now remained to do/but begin the game anew.”
Other books are blipping thru these should do me for a couple days.