Clever postman doesn’t ring even once, just uses 3 elastic bands and hangs it from the handle. No delivery notice and running about after delivery trucks and it being on trucks when I check the post office.

Books in the mail. What’s better?
Contents, usually. More to come. Always more to come.
btw, the previously mentioned performance by Amal, Rusty has some scoop on.
And think I’ll take this weekend off pesbo. See you flip side.

AB Series hosts Richard Truhlar this evening at the Mercury Lounge.
Truhlar (“poet / fictioneer / text-sound composer /”pataphysicist / concretist / visual artist”) has been publishing poetry since the 70s.
Along with other avant-garde writers, he was responsible for such publishing imprints as Kontakte, Phenomenon Press, Teksteditions and Underwhich Editions. He has done sound poetry, electronic music, boardsides, chapbooks and anthologies, experimental fiction and poetry.
He has had several books of his literary works published by Mercury Press, including The Hollow and other fictions, A Porcelain Cup Placed There, Utensile Paradise, Figures in Paper Time, Parisian Novels, The Pitch, Dynamite in the Lung. He and Beverly Daurio edited an anthology of short stories The Closets of Time in 2007. As a performer, he was a member of the progressive new wave band Warm Jets, of the sound poetry quartet Owen Sound, and of the electroacoustic chamber ensemble Tekst.
If you haven’t already you can read more at the 12 or 20 questions on him.
Coming up this fall is season 4, opening with icons Nobuo Kubota and Penn Kemp. There seemed to be a universally wowed audience last time Penn Kemp was in town with a great fun show. (And I missed it. Second chances come.)

Dempster was the reader at Tree (vid clip) last October and if you missed him (or are missing him), he’s back in town this month as the next feature at Plan 99 this Saturday at the Manx.
He’ll be teaching at Banff School of writing this fall and tomorrow is the drumroll…

Press Release – Tuesday May 18, 2010
YORK REGION AUTHOR FINALIST FOR PREMIER’S ARTS AWARD
York Region author and poet Barry Dempster has been selected as one of six finalists for the Premier’s Award of Excellence in the Arts. The Premier’s Award recognizes outstanding achievement and contribution to arts and culture in Ontario during a significant period of time.
Six finalists are chosen from various arts disciplines and each is given $2,000 with one finalist selected who will receive $35,000 and will name an emerging artist in their field to receive a prize of $15,000.
Barry Dempster was born in Toronto and educated in child psychology. He is the author of a novel, a children’s book, two volumes of short stories and eleven collections of poetry. He has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for literature twice, for his first book, Fables for Isolated Men (Guernica) and for The Burning Alphabet (Brick Books) which won the Canadian Authors Association Chalmers Award for poetry.
From 1990 to 1997, he was Poetry and Reviews Editor for Poetry Canada Review which quickly became one of Canada’s most esteemed literary magazines. During this time, Dempster became known for his helpful, supportive rejection letters, his astute book reviews and his “New Voice” discoveries of some of Canada’s finest poets.
He is currently the senior acquisitions editor with Brick Books where he has discovered and edited many of Canada’s best emerging poets. He has been on the faculty at The Banff Centre as mentor for the Writing Studio twice, the Wired Writing program and the Writing with Style program in fall 2010.
He has read across Canada and Ontario many times, in England and the U.S. and is in constant demand at author reading series and festivals.
Dempster lives in York Region where he runs a very popular film series “Southlake Cinemania” which has raised over $100,000 to support literacy in the community. He presents an annual Poetry Gala to packed house for National Poetry Month where he presents 5 important new and established writers. He served on the East Gwillimbury Library Board for 10 years and was the chair for 5 during which time a new library was built in Mount Albert. He has been the Writer-in-Residence at the Richmond Hill Public Library twice where he has met with over 150 budding writers and attracted large attendance in his inspiring writing workshops.
He runs two book discussion groups and regularly conducts 10 week writing courses in short fiction and poetry. In 2009, the Barry Dempster Young Writers Award was created to acknowledge his role in inspiring young students to value their writing ability and recognize the power of words. He has presented writing workshops in many schools and universities in Ontario where he engages the students with his love of words.
The award ceremony will be given by the Ontario Government and will take place Thursday June 10, 2010 in Toronto and will be hosted by CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi.

Jane Holland’s has a workshop on editing, posted in relation to the Mxlexia Women’s Poetry competition which closes July 26.
Her 2nd workshop suggests messing with text mechanically to see what turns up under the leaf duff of intent.
So to rummage the tool box… that cento again, machine-translated to Japanese to English to Greek to French to Portuguese back to English.

OR the limitless d’ friends I nail of the word n’ to it
no tuna exists that is understood leaving piece contact
d’ entrances of l’ air. To the numerous reputation such order.
Thus, as for numerous habitual people this it [traylizei] floraison
that they had turned, [aimoforo] to the silt éclectique
and [kokkalo] of the hammer.
This appreciates commisération where the perfume
is good savageness – or considers me that AM.
with respect to with all the women
as for this spouse who delivers the fear and the arm
that seems to the window that agitates it what
[kalosorizetai], l’ explosion that is the door that nobody s’ we open due:
It s’ he extends with its point toe, innocently.
Seguidamente nobody that the bomb must be surprised
nervosité that [etraylise] as nobody as [little ekeino] [descending yours]
where return, does not rub its note that great headings.
It is the new accident of method knowing is the unknown collection.
However, l’ [I] the central way that if finds only.

It is a sort of telephone game that manufactures some entirely new data. The result has a certain charm of oddity and the new rhythm of penultimate language scrapes out the unevenness of registers.
And once more to continue the spins from there thru French to German to English to Japanese to Spanish to English. What is to be found in translation?

Or d’ There is no border;
Nail n’ of the friend; I; Word; ;
That. n’ It is not; thunfisch;
As far as that part d’ One
is based on contact; It is including; ;
l’ Entrance; ; Air. That class of indication
of many call. Therefore, it is related
to much people, generally the one
that [traylizeiblühen] qu’ That s’ l’
In relation to, [aimoforo] was given return;
Mud and [kokkalo] Eklektiker of the hammer.
This like commisération, savageneßbon
or qu’ of I; of the perfume of the real point;
It is conceited; . It is related to all the women,
he is related to this partner of the union,
the fear and the source of the weapon of window
of the thing and l’ It seems the way so;
It vibrates, [kalosorizetai], l’ ; Explosion
and s’ which is the door; Person; ;
We abrimos due: That s’ ; That extends innocent
with the toe of the point.
The tension of the pump is due to surprise,
like the person of the thing the person of Next
[etraylise] the way [weniges d’ In the point
where the return does not observe
does not rub ekeino] [the pen rises],
the one of the great title. C’ As far as new accident
of the method of it must know, is a unknown collection
that is. At least l’ ; [I] As soon as it types the discovery in center.

Love how the second one ends. It doesn’t need to be all right or all sensible or all nonsense or all flow but is there a grain there that’s fresh?
There’s a pleasingness to: “where the return does not observe /does not rub ekeino] [the pen rises],//” & in the inversion of “with the toe of the point.”
There’s a pleasure for my ear and tongue, a something in “they had turned, [aimoforo] to the silt éclectique/ and [kokkalo] of the hammer.”
Some new things to chew on and see what digests how.
All life’s a gamble and we are each more addicted gamblers on speculative runs than we’d probably like to admit. I want not so much a whole entire flawless day, but the occasional relenting, an ease, a flutter or gut-full-yes of one good moment to carry me over to the next win.

Join us on June 8th at Umi Cafe to experience the glorious and internationally adored Amal El-Mohtar!
Winner of the Rhysling Award for speculative poetry, editor of Goblin Fruit magazine, and recently-published author of The Honey Month, she’ll grace us with myth-laced and sensual poetry and, I hear through the grape vine, might just give us a rendition of Song for an Ancient City in ARABIC!
Truely, a night you don’t want to miss!
~ Amazon Syren

And in other Ottawa performance new, the Kymeras now have a site. Their next performance of storytelling and poetry? June 25: Earthborn.