Chris Jennings reviews Andy Weaver's this (2015) in Arc Poetry Magazine

Ottawa poet and critic Chris Jennings was good enough to review Andy Weaver's this (2015) online at Arc Poetry Magazine. Thanks so much! This is actually the fourth review of this, after Joel W. Vaughan's review in Broken Pencil, Douglas Barbour's review over at his electric ruckus blog, and Marilyn Irwin's review over at her blog. You can see Jenning's full review here. And of course, copies of Andy Weaver's this can be ordered directly, here.

Arc Poetry Magazine presents Ottawa Poetry Awards Reading

Each year, Arc Poetry Magazine is proud to honour Ottawa poets. We are pleased to present  finalists for the Archibald Lampman Award for the outstanding book of poetry published in 2015 by a National-Capital area author.   Also featured are winners of the Diana Brebner Prize competition, which honours emerging poets in the Ottawa area. 

The readings will take place at Pressed, 750 Gladstone Ave, Ottawa, Ontario at 7:00pm on Tuesday, October 4 [Nicholas Lea will not be in attendance].

The award is named in honour of Archibald Lampman (1861 – 1899), one of Canada’s finest nineteenth-century poets. Lampman moved to Ottawa in 1882, and much of his metaphysical nature poetry was inspired by the National Capital region.

The Archibald Lampman Award will be presented on October 19, at Ottawa City Hall, in conjunction with the Ottawa Book Awards. Congratulations to the finalists and their publishers!  Arc would also like to thank judges Liz Howard, Shane Book and Sachiko Murakami.

 The Lampman finalists are: 

David Groulx   Wabigoon River Poems  (Kegodonce Press, Neyaashiinigmiing, 2015)

A ferocious, erudite collection centred around an unflinching epic poem, breathtaking in its wide-ranging look at oppression, revolution, and survival. 

Nicholas Lea, Understander  (Chaudiere Books. Ottawa, 2015)

A brilliant book of compact lyrics, where themes of alienation and fragility meet dark humour and hope. 

Pearl Pirie, the pet radish, shrunken: (BookThug, Toronto, 2015)

Pirie rubs words until they spark and fume, turning the common into an uncommon blaze. Every line is joyful in its eccentricities, and eminently re-readable as it tumbles through language.

The event will also feature the finalists for the Diana Brebner Prize, given for a poem by an emerging Ottawa-area poet not yet published in book form.   The 2015 winner of the Brebner Prize is Claire Farley for her poem ‘NU’. Farley lives and works in Ottawa where she is the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal Canthius.  The Brebner Honourable Mention went to Susan J. Atkinson, whose poems have appeared in literary journals in the U.S. and Canada. She was named one of the Hot Ottawa Voices by the Tree Reading Series. 

For further information contact Arc Poetry Magazine at arc@arcpoetry.ca.

N.W. Lea's Understander shortlisted for the Archibald Lampman Award!

Congratulations to Chaudiere author N.W. Lea, whose second poetry collection, Understander (2015), has just been shortlisted for this year's Archibald Lampman Award, alongside titles by Pearl Pirie (the pet radish, shrunken) and David Groulx (Wabi­goon River Poems). The annual $1,500 Archibald Lampman Award acknowledges an out­stand­ing book of poetry by a National Cap­i­tal Region author pub­lished during the previous calendar year. See Arc Poetry Magazine's announcement for such here. The Archibald Lamp­man Award will be pre­sented in con­junc­tion with the City of Ottawa Book Awards on Octo­ber 19, 2016.


Copies of Understander are still very much available, as are copies of Lea's debut collection, Everything is Movies (2007).

As the judges said of Understander:

In this bril­liant book of com­pact lyrics, themes of alien­ation and fragility meet dark humour and hope. Part Baude­laire, part Bashō, Nicholas Lea’s pre­cisely-focused poems exam­ine the raw edges of being. Ques­tions, equiv­o­ca­tions and mis­di­rec­tions abound, as Under­stander walks with ner­vous aplomb along the edge of the abyss, but never falls in.

Nina Jane Drystek reviews Roland Prevost's Singular Plurals (2014)

Ottawa poet Nina Jane Drystek reviews Roland Prevost's Singular Plurals (2014) over at the Arc Poetry Magazine website. Thanks much! This is the second full review of Prevost's first trade collection (not counting a small mention by Pearl Pirie, here) after Douglas Barbour's review over at his electric ruckus blog. You can see Drystek's full review, here. And of course, copies of Singular Plurals can be ordered directly here.

Monty Reid interviewed on Arc Poetry Magazine

Chaudiere author and Arc Poetry Magazine managing editor Monty Reid is interviewed over at The Review Review on all things Arc, including their special issue, "The North."

Pearl Pirie's (etc) random acts of poetry; a report by Kathryn Hunt;

Pearl Pirie [photo credit: Brian Pirie] & others' random acts of poetry; a report by Kathryn Hunt.

How Poems Work: Jesse Patrick Ferguson on John Newlove's "God Bless the Bear"

is now up on the Arc Poetry Magazine website;