Diane Tucker, Emily Falvey & Gwendolyn Guth at the Carleton Tavern

a rare Ottawa reading by three exceptional writers;

lovingly hosted by rob mclennan, the small press action network - ottawa (span-o) & Chaudiere Books

readings & launches by:

Diane Tucker, Vancouver
Emily Falvey, Ottawa
+ Gwendolyn Guth, Ottawa

Friday, October 3, 2008
doors at 7pm, readings at 7:30
at The Carleton Tavern (upstairs), 223 Armstrong Street (at Parkdale), Ottawa

Diane Tucker was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she got a B.F.A. from the University of B.C. in 1987. Her first book, God on His Haunches (Nightwood Editions, 1996) was shortlisted for the 1997 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her second poetry book, Bright Scarves of Hours, was published by Palimpsest Press in September 2007. Her work appears regularly in journals in Canada and abroad and her first novel is due in 2009 from Thistledown Press. Diane lives in Burnaby, BC with her understanding husband, two scandalously beautiful teenagers and Doxa the spotty dog. She will be launching her second poetry collection, Bright Scarves of Colour (Palimpsest Press).

www.dianetucker.info
http://www.palimpsestpress.ca/bright-scarves-hours-p-297.html

Originally from Nova Scotia, Emily Falvey is currently an Ottawa-based independent curator, art critic, and fiction writer. Her poetry and prose have appeared previously in Descant, decalogue 2: ten Ottawa fiction writers (Chaudiere Books, 2007), and Departures (above/ground press, 2008). She has written essays for public galleries across Canada, and in 2006 she received the Contemporary Curatorial Writing Award from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. She was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Ottawa Art Gallery from 2004-2008.

http://www.chaudierebooks.com/books/decalogueII.html

Gwendolyn Guth is an Ottawa-based poet and mother of three boys. Her chapbook, A Flash of Longing, appeared in 2000 by Friday Circle, and she has published in Bywords.ca, ottawater.com and as an above/ground press broadside.

info: rob mclennan at 613 239 0337 or az421@freenet.carleton.ca

rob mclennan poetry reading at The Ottawa Art Gallery

a poetry reading by rob mclennan, as part of the exhibit "Evidence: The Ottawa City Project," curated by Emily Falvey

Thursday, September 25, 2008, doors 7pm ,reading 7:30pm
The Ottawa Art Gallery, Arts Court, 2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa
info: 613 233 8699 or info@ottawaartgallery.ca

with works by David Barbour, Claude-Philippe Benoit, Marlene Creates, Pat Durr, Tony Fouhse, Lorraine Gilbert, Vera Greenwood, Colwyn Griffith, Greg Hill, Kenneth Lockhead, Deborah Margo, Uta Riccius, Michael Schreier, Carl Stewart, Jeff Thomas, Eric Walker and Justin Wonnacott. 5 September to 16 November, 2008;

so the poem is not a description
so the city is not
-- rob mclennan, ottawa poems (blue notes), 24

Ottawa is sometimes mislabelled a boring city. In truth it is one of the most paradoxical places in Canada—a perplexing mix of wealth and poverty, summer heat and winter cold, nationalist and regionalist, poor arts funding and rich cultural heritage. While the relationship between these elements may at times be maddening, it is rarely dull.

The word "desire" comes from the Latin de sidere, which means "from the stars." The idea that Ottawa is missing something—that it is desirous—is an inevitable part of its constellation of paradoxes. Such feelings generally arise anywhere there is conflict or contradiction. It is possible to misconstrue this sensation as a dearth of excitement, thus accepting the banality that some feel is Ottawa's fate. Like anything paradoxical, however, it is equally possible to experience desire as a call to adventure, to the quest to discover the missing "thing," which may be merely hidden. From this braver, more creative perspective, Ottawa is a complex riddle that demands to be solved.

In 2007, local poet rob mclennan published The Ottawa City Project (Chaudiere Books), a book of poetry whose playfully bureaucratic title belies a poignant engagement with a hidden Ottawa. The artists involved in Evidence, like many working in our city, have undertaken similar "Ottawa City Projects," charting the fragmentary proof of an alternative Ottawa, a living city that is constantly changing. Through their work, we are invited to explore its margins, those overlooked regions where chance wears its provisional path through the urban landscape, a disturbing and beautiful phenomena that landscape architects refer to as "desire lines."

— Emily Falvey, Curator of Contemporary Art

http://www.ottawaartgallery.ca/exhibits/2008/evidence/index-en.php

a review of rob mclennan's The Ottawa City Project

on the Northern Poetry Review;