Claudia Coutu Radmore read at Eco-Jest-Us [Link for those of you who are joining late.].
Her work is included in Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament (Mansfield Press, 2010), and the Canadian anthology Pith & Wry: Canadian Poetry (Scrivener Press, 2010), edited by Susan McMaster.
Her collection Your Hands Discover Me/ Tes mains me découvrent, in English and French, was published in May 2010 by Éditions du tanka francophone, Montreal. This publication was launched at The League of Canadian Poets in June, 2010, along with Blackbird’s Throat, a chapbook of tanka based on her trip to China, (Bondi Studios in 2009).
An except of her poem snowduckwoman, p. 34-35 of Ode to a Rubber Duck: An Explanation of the Whole World

david suzuki explains how we become
part of each other
exchange molecules constantly
that solids are not truly solid but fluid
all molecules constantly are changing so you and I little duck, are
exchanging molecules too
becoming more and more part of each other
with each bathtub session
so i promise to take you outside
we will both become part of the world
out there beyond the blue door
part of the snow
both become part of the moon
you a snowduck
me a moonwoman
both of us snowmoonduckwoman
moonskystarduckwoman
taking in our duckwoman world

Head of Gusts Magazine and of KaDo Ottawa, she is also heading up editing the Tree Reading Series Chapbooks enterprise. She is currently on the editorial boards of Bywords and ARC, and is the Director of Special Projects for Ottawa’s Tree Reading Series.
Her 12 or 20 interview is up at OpenBook. She just launched Accidentals, another hand-stitched chapbook from Apt. 9 Press which is yet another poetic styling hat from this lady of many hats.

At the League of Canadian Poets blog, a post today is a poem of mine entitled Sandwiched.
It’s from the new project I’ve been working on for last while. It’s somewhere over 8000 words at this point. When it gets to 12,000 words, I expect to take stock and go into a heavy edit.
I’m looking at what physical shape it will take — more towards novel, prose, re-parsed to poem shapes, ghazals, mixed forms? Influences include the sort of dense prose-poem thoughts of Daphne Marlatt’s The Given and Ana Historic, Sheila E. Murphy’s Letters to Unfinished J., a touch of Donato Mancini’s Ligatures, and Lyn Hejinian’s My Life are the seeds, or maybe roots, or maybe stalking thoughts of where this is going, growing.

A third instalment of a poem a day sample from the Eco-Jest-Us readers.
Today: Carol A. Stephen. Carol is a Carleton Place poet, member of the League of Canadian Poets and Canadian Authors Association (the other CAA).

Carol has read at Sasquatch, Dusty Owl and Bywords, BQJ, LCP National Poetry Month blog, CAA’s Byline and TOPS Verse Afire. Contest Honourable Mentions for: Invisible, published in Arborealis anthology, 2008, Ontario Poetry Society. Tea Leaves, CAA 2008 NCWC. Traffic on Highway 7 was Finalist in 2011 CAA NCWC.

Alligators—No Swimming
You could call it swamp,
you could call it “Wetlands”—
that small stand of trees
bulrushes and water.
A sign said, “ Alligators—No Swimming”.
It was an inside joke.
Winters someone would clear
a hockey rink for kids,
white plastic lawn chairs
strategically placed for lookers-on.
It was a landmark for out-of-towners,
You could tell them
“Turn right when you pass the swamp.”
Summer mornings you could see
mist rise around tall marsh grass.
You might see mallards there for a swim
or Great Blue Herons tripoding to cool their feet.
You’d watch for those alligators,
you’d smile.
Then the big box drugstore came,
all bright lights and late nights,
and half the wetlands were gone.
Still, the alligator sign remained your signpost.
This small oasis for birds and beasts
was an autumn feast of reds,
yellows, oranges against a dark blue sky
till they ‘dozed the other side,
made room for a new sign.
Lanark Marsh. It was a lie.
Left only a memory of a wetland.
Someone put up another sign
still warning about the alligators.
They should have warned about the bulldozers.
Rain still collects in the swampy hammock
You can see it if you look—
they haven’t killed it yet
but the herons have gone south.

(Version of February 1, 2011)
Watch for another poem for her upcoming at the League of Canadian Poets Blog for Poetry Month.

You may have seen the post up about Eco-Jest-Us at Local Tourist.
For the next few days I’m going to post a poem a day sample from the Eco-Jest-Us readers. I’ll start out with Alastair Larwill.

He may be packing chapbooks should you happens across him, such as at the next Writers Fest. He will next be performing at Messagio Galore VIII at Writers Fest May 1st. He’ll also be hosting Sasquatch on Sunday, May 22nd at 2PM in the basement of the Royal Oak on Laurier when I’ll be the feature reader.

A writer, musician and environmental activist, he lives steps away from Ottawa City Hall and Parliament Hill, and often writes about the nefarious deeds of his neighbours. He was shortlisted for the 2008 Arc Poem of the Year Award. His poetry has recently appeared in Rogue Stimulus.
Below is a reprint from the chapbook The Delicate Art of Paper Passing – a poem about auto-centric urban planning, smog and concrete. The chapbook is available from the Bywords store.

Une Poésie Concrète
four wooden pegs, a length of string
and freshly poured concrete
a rectangular prison removed from
the world, but still in its embrace.
poetry emerges as the iambic
pounding of construction crews
slipping across a desolate landscape,
surveying the wreckage of the
suburban dream. from concrete boxes
to apartment blocks, a cold metallic
sheen. cars as corpuscles, creeping
through the smog and tangled arteries.

Mike Buckthought ran The Muses reading series — being resurrected soon — watch for news.