National Poetry Month 2016: Chris Turnbull,

"untitled - | aceno para bm & bn |", from [sic]

Chris Turnbull lives near Ottawa and has published two books of poetry, continua (Chaudiere Books: 2015) and "[ untitled ]" in o w n (CUE Books: 2014), alongside work by a rawlings and Heather Hermant, respectively. Recent work includes a rock-based installation at Fieldworks, a visual piece from her [sic] series at h& and a videopoem collaboration with Amanda Earl, from Amanda's poem "until even now". She sometimes plants poems through her footpress, rout/e.

National Poetry Month 2016: Elizabeth Robinson,

Raccoon Stand-off in the Alley (Page of Arrows)

What was once an arrow is now a wand

In former times, it gave off feathers, and now:

green shoots, compost, things meant to be stolen

You demand a ransom on an unknown loss

Once it sent out feather and barb, but now it stops passage with a hiss

After so much effort, the blood wants to calm itself, to scavenge elsewhere

Reabsorb the hiss

Defiance is a good omen   This hiss is the envoy, favorable testimony 

Your tidings are strange

The wand is to point to, not to diminish the loss—No,

it proclaims the loss as good news, conversant with itself

Elizabeth Robinson is the author of multiple books of poetry—most recently, Counterpart  (Ahsahta), Blue Heron (Center for Literary Publishing), and On Ghosts (Solid Objects)—which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, as well as the chapbook Simplified Holy Passage (above/ground press). 

Andy Weaver and Phoebe Tsang at the Boneshaker Reading Series, Toronto

Chaudiere Books author Andy Weaver (author of this) reads with Phoebe Tsang as part of Lillian Necakov's Boneshaker Reading Series, Tuesday, April 12th, 2016 at 1748 St. Clair Ave. W. (St. Clair/Silverthorn Branch of the Toronto Public Library). The reading is free, and begins at 7:00 pm. See the facebook invitation here.

National Poetry Month 2016: Stephen Brockwell,

Farewell with a Guitar


The bronze strings seem harder to bend.
They cut his fingers more than they once did.

His ragged fingernails screak wolf tones
echoing through cracks in the cypress sides.

The 4th and 5th he plays might be
4 and 1/8th or 5 and 1/16th.

He keeps unkempt time, the tempo
of a shabby suit or the tattered flag

of a diminished nation flapping
in gusts before a thunderstorm.

Why did we expect virtuoso
arpeggios from the old troubadour?

He drank at noon from a bottle
he would empty by sunset.

Let him strum a chord here,
in the living room, to close the evening.

Let the gravel in his throat,
more percussive than lyrical,

drone, out of tune and out of time,
his misremembering of an old folk song.

Stephen Brockwell [photo credit: Pearl Pirie] is an Ottawa poet and entrepreneur. His sixth book, All of Us Reticent, Here, Together, will be published by Mansfield Press in 2016.

National Poetry Month 2016: Natalee Caple,

Warning


The music was
      significant. She said it
felt like
            it was playing. The
force
    of
the pavement.

They said, she might maybe she
      had
a drink? Or high?

maybe he grabbed her
      in the
corner

He then punched her grabbed her hair

Extensions?

Warning

He had her
had enough
to drink
and pulled her, grabbed her

Warning

While
  HE wonders was she playing chicken?
        might she
might she
might she
she might

she might play with the challenges of time
she might
suddenly rise "out the pavement”
with all of her bloodied sisters

Warning

Natalee Caple is the author of seven books of poetry and fiction and the co-editor of an anthology of contemporary Canadian writers. The New York Times called her fiction “moving . . . unsettling.” The Washington Post described her writing as “breathlessly good.” Caple’s latest novel, In Calamity’s Wake, was published by HarperCollins in Canada and by Bloomsbury in the US. She is a professor of English, teaching Canadian literature and Creative Writing at Brock University. She has work in The Calgary Renaissance (Chaudiere Books, 2016), a forthcoming anthology of Calgary writing co-edited by derek beaulieu and rob mclennan.

Douglas Barbour reviews Andy Weaver's this (2015)

Edmonton poet and critic Douglas Barbour was good enough to review Andy Weaver's this (2015) over at his electric ruckus blog. Thanks so much! You can see the full review here. This is actually the second review of this, after Marilyn Irwin's review over at her blog. And of course, copies of Andy Weaver's this can be ordered directly, here.

National Poetry Month 2016: Marcus McCann,

Sex at Thirty One

Here’s hunger’s sweet spot, I got extra dough,

have you met my accumulated competencies?,

is what I thought the year would be.

Under its penumbra, I vowed to string

enough fairy lights end-to-end to make waver

the dominant view. That and get off.

It was overly lofty. Bulbs burst not from weakness

but because I dragged them over patio tiles.

As for my body, I was a bad tenant

in an okay apartment. Onto the dartboard of the year

a neighbour corked a missive, through an intermediary,

to please revolve the venetians.

Well. By July, days were also peaking

in their thirties; I scored among the uniformly

over forty at the beach’s ramble, that itch a gift

left by a lover whose story I won't fillet here,

its basic bones being sorrow

and failed largesse. I flagged my heart out,

learned cruising is public service. As winds chilled,

my bed pegs split. I lived between frames

and during the interregnum,

my meetup with college life pulled back curtains

on cravings for order I didn’t realize had cured in me.

Unsettled is how I felt. Like how one bad haircut collapses

the capillaries of our self esteem. The clinic

endorsed my theory of love as infection cluster.

On that topic: to a man who predated this birthday

I said let’s be bandmates on life’s

slutty bus tour. By December I’d red penciled my plan

for outsmarting my own asshole habits. Paper

wore until it ripped. Winter was a smothering ruffle

of short days and longjohns. Loafing around

my actual days, my style shrunk from cool

to “cool dad,” I guess that’s not a sex thing.

I got really into Stevie Nicks. The year

wrapped around itself like a marriage in a headlock

and before I nodded off I caught a glimpse

of the world as I thought it was, a public

of confidantes, conspirators, lieutenants

undressing from their idiot clothes,

us sleazebags, saddos and weirdos, knots of lovers, chains

and chains of clippered buds, impossible to preserve,

seriatim, stamen, John Stamos, satyr, sweat, salt.

Marcus McCann is the author of two books of poetry and ten chapbooks. His work has been awarded the John Newlove Award and the EJ Pratt Medal for poetry. Find recent poems in Best Canadian Poetry 2015, THIS Magazine, Matrix, Riddlefence, The Steel Chisel and Plenitude. @mmccnn