I finally saw Nox in person and the cheap, small person in me noticed that someone couldn’t figure out it was in a box and tore into it literally on the shelves and I thought, 1) egad, stupid people 2) wonder if it will show up in the discount bin.
Don Share pointed out that the University of Chicago Press gives away a free e-book per month which is different than all the free reading material one can’t avoid by nature of living. These are more vetted for one. Previously they were giving away the Chicago Manual of Style and Anthony Powell’s A Question of Upbringing. This month it is Robert Pinsky’s Thousands of Broadways.
You can rent The Sound of Poetry / The Poetry of Sound, edited by Marjorie Perloff and Craig Dworkin for $7/month as an ebook, or buy in cloth for $70.
Local places don’t always carry such. Libraries can’t carry something for every niche. And to order in but not take once you see in person can only be done so many times with a bookstore. But then, if you are going to rent, is that a solution? The democratization of knowledge started with free public libraries. A middle ground for renting ideas in pixels? Hm…

A Tree poetry workshop group. Editing it down is the subject of the current set of workshops I’m leading at Pre-Tree. [Pic from my 365 project.] On the wall a poem by Mark Truscott in Nature (BookThug, 2010). January 25th is the next and people can bring 5 copies of something to roundtable.

Peter Richardson was the feature with Alison Pick that day.

Alison was kind of launching two books. When her previous came out, Dream World, she missed the reading tours since she got pregnant in the window of time. Consequently the book still feels new to her.
The next Tree readers will be the Poet Laureate of Canada, Pierre DesRuisseaux and Dean Steadman, below.

Other Tree pics here.

Also recently in Ottawa was Marie-Josee Houle doing her rollicking accordion during Cafe Nostalgica.

The feature reader was rob mclennan reading from new work, just on the cusp of the release of two new collections, kate street (Moira, Chicago) and 52 flowers, (or, a perth edge) — an essay on phil hall (Obvious Epiphanies, Japan). It was a packed house. I’d guess somewhere around 55 or 60 people.

Sheri-D Wilson and Eliz Robert doing Insta-Translation, Eliz mimicking tone and body language and content of the stories Sheri-D told into Spanish and French. Sombreness and laughter are contagious.

Kevin Matthews did poems in English, French and machine translation and with Banjo plucking.
Feb 20 is the next AB Series with David McFadden and Angela Carr.

Desk Space is back from hiatus with Carleton Wilson and Rachel Lebowitz.

Organized to satisfy the ever-increasing audience for poetry in Ottawa and across the country, VERSeFest is being staged by a collective of 14 Ottawa poetry groups (VERSe Ottawa), representing the wide spectrum of written and spoken word—page and stage—in a series of readings, performances (including a slam competition and a bilingual showcase), workshops, and discussions.
A cooperative festival among several of the poetry groups in town: Tree Reading Series, Capital Slam, The Muses Reading Series, Plan 99, Dusty Owl Reading Series, Factory Reading Series, AB Series, ARC, Sasquatch Reading Series, Urban Legends, blUe MOndays, In/Words, Oneness Poetry Collective & Voices of Venus.
VERSe Ottawa a celebrates our vibrant poetry community with VERSeFest, March 8 to 13 2011, at the Arts Court, 2 Daly Avenue at Nicholas. [Info also at FB]

Wednesday, February 23, 2011
8pm-10pm,
The Press Club, 850 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Admission is free.
The Pivot in February: Pearl Pirie, reading from Been Shed Bore (Chaudiere Books) alongside Carolyn Smart (Hooked, Brick) + Adam Seelig (Every Day in the Morning (Slow), New Star Books)
If you’re in the Toronto area, hope I can see you while I’m in town.
Can’t wait? Want to go to Pivot right away?
You’re in luck. Pivot is tonight with Catherine Black (her experimental memoir A Hard Gold Thread is forthcoming with Guernica Editions, fall 2011), Claudia Dey (her non-fiction: How to Be a Bush Pilot: A Field Guide to Getting Luckier, HarperCollins) and Melanie Janisse (with her poetry collection Orioles in the Oranges, Guernica).