above/ground subscriptions look appetizing for 2012:

There are a whole bunch of publications in the works for 2012, including new publications by Rae Armantrout, derek beaulieu, Sarah Mangold, j/j hastain, Kathryn MacLeod, Allison Grayhurst, Lars Palm, Fenn Stewart, kemeny babineau, rob mclennan, a collaboration by Andrew Burke + Phil Hall, and plenty of others.

I’ve had mine for years. Chapbooks and broadsheets are like the movie trailers of forthcoming books. See more here and here.

The scene as the last few got their final assembly and stapling.
With Claudia Coutu Radmore, I co-edited this Tree Press/phaphours press co-production.

Poems by: Barry Dempster, Sylvia Adams, Frances Boyle, Terry Ann Carter, Pearl Pirie, Claudia Coutu Radmore, L.M. Rochefort, Guy Simser, Gill Foss, Rona Shaffran, Carol A. Stephen, Gillian Wallace & Margaret Malloch Zielinski.
Copies will be at the the Peter F Yacht Club reading/Xmas Party tonight and there will be a launch at Tree sometime early next year.

Oh brain, why compete with Pooh Bear? (How many repetitions before uptake?)
I remember being indignantly put out that the universe should not have mentioned Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst before when she is already 3 books in and I so liked Apologetic for Joy.
Then going thru my shelves I found her 2009 chapbook Outlasting the Body and I had her name in The Malahat as well. In interview she said, “I believe that the act of making something is an act of hope. And hope, while not the opposite of despair, resists it.[…] the fact that we’re making it [art] means we’re alert – engaging and interrogating how we can be in relationship with each other and our circumstances.”
An advantage of print is that ability to time travel back to earlier works. Which I’ll have to do.

The Page gleans the quippable, quotable of poets and reviews. Recently:
Daisy Fried remarked in the NYT: “Leibowitz seems to think that poets deploy their poems primarily as evidence for biography.”
Heh. It’s my pet peeve — that search for the “real story” of the poet’s life, assuming verbatim non-fiction in poetry.
Alice Oswald at The Guardian said: “I think it’s often assumed that the role of poetry is to comfort, but for me, poetry is the great unsettler. It questions the established order of the mind. It is radical, by which I don’t mean that it is either leftwing or rightwing, but that it works at the roots of thinking. It goes lower than rhetoric, lower than conversation, lower than logic, right down to the very faint honest voice at the bottom of the skull.”
Something deeper than thought, an instinctual movement thru sound to rearrange perceptions, past and future. Now, that’s more like it.
Robert McCrum at the Guardian said, “45. Writing can’t be taught; better reading can.”
That implies that romantic essentialism that a writer just is. I don’t think so. Yes, better writing can be taught but given the best exemplars the dull mind will still notice only the similar to dullness within it. It’s an incremental movement always.
Thinking can be taught and better thinking can be taught but it progresses slowly. Insect who have shorter lives perhaps get up to speed faster on how to perceive and filter but humans in slo-mo infancy take decades to go the short distance over the longest routes.
P.S. Advent Book Blog has posted the book I recommended.

Fed Wah has been appointed the new Laureate for a 2-year term.
An email from the government of Canada:

December 20, 2011 (Ottawa) – The Speaker of the Senate, the Honourable Noël A. Kinsella, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Honourable Andrew Scheer, today announced the appointment of Fred Wah as Canada’s next Parliamentary Poet Laureate, effective immediately. Mr. Wah is the fifth poet to hold this office.
“As a distinguished poet, editor, and teacher Fred Wah is known across Canada for his interest in a range of subjects,” said Speaker Kinsella. “Mr. Wah brings forth a collaborative approach and unique perspective to his work inspiring younger poets, students and others both nationally and internationally with his reflections on Canadian culture. ”
“Fred Wah’s poetry is grounded in Canada’s political and social landscapes, ” said Speaker Scheer. “He has done much to encourage and promote the importance of literature, culture and language within Canadian society.”
Mr. Wah was selected by the Speakers upon the recommendation of the Selection Committee composed of Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages; Daniel J. Caron, Deputy Head and Librarian and Archivist of Canada; Robert Sirman, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts, and Sonia L’Heureux, Assistant Parliamentary Librarian.
Reflecting on his nomination, Fred Wah intends to share his enthusiasm for new poets and artists, and will bring to the position the passion and dedication he brings to all his work. “My work as Parliamentary Poet Laureate will continue to engage poetry as it represents our homes and migrations, our questions of history and identity. I’m grateful for the opportunity to sustain poetry’s presence in our national imaginary. ”
Mr. Wah has been writing and publishing since 1965. Author of five limited-edition chapbooks and 18 books, his repertoire includes the 1986 Governor General Award-wining poetry book Waiting for Saskatchewan. Fred Wah has consistently challenged and thrilled readers and has had a major influence on multiple generations of writers.