that could be me: a poetry showcase from frontenac house
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That Could Be Me A Poetry Showcase
from Frontenac House
ContentsEric Barstad A Gloss on Our Painted Gods ....................................4David Bateman & Hiromi Goto Wait Until Late Afternoon ...........................................5David Bateman Invisible Foreground ..................................................6 Impersonating Flowers ...............................................7 ’tis pity .....................................................................9Ven Begamudré The Lightness Which Is Our World, Seen from Afar .....10Jocko Benoit Standoff Terrain.......................................................12Diane Buchanan Between the Silences ...............................................13 unruly angels ..........................................................14Douglas Burnet Smith Learning to Count ....................................................15Lori Cayer Attenuations of Force ...............................................16Ron Charach Forgetting the Holocaust ...........................................18Weyman Chan Before a Blue Sky Moon ...........................................19Nancy Jo Cullen Untitled Child..........................................................21 Science Fiction Saint ................................................22 Pearl ......................................................................23Adebe D.A. ex nihilo .................................................................24Dymphny Dronyk Contrary Infatuations ...............................................25Jannie Edwards Falling Blues ...........................................................26Arran Fisher Static Mantis ...........................................................27J. Fisher Death Day Erection .................................................28 bulletin from the low light .........................................29Keith Garebian Children of Ararat ...................................................30Leslie Greentree guys named Bill ......................................................31 go-go dancing for Elvis ............................................32Rosemary Griebel Yes. .......................................................................33Karen Hofmann Water Strider ..........................................................35Kevin Irie Dinner at Madonna’s ...............................................36 Angel Blood: The Tess Poems ....................................37Alexis Kienlen She Dreams in Red ..................................................38 13 .........................................................................39
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ISBN978-1-897181-55-3
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The Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
Laurie Macfayden White Shirt .............................................................40Sid Marty Sky Humour ............................................................41 The Rider With Good Hands ....................................42S. McDonald Confessions of an Empty Purse ..................................43Edited by Ken Mitchell Rhyming Wranglers .................................................45Catherine Moss Swallowing My Mother ............................................46Jim Nason Narcissus Unfolding ................................................47William Nichols Fallacies of Motion ..................................................48Lisa Pasold Weave ...................................................................49 A Bad Year for Journalists .........................................50 Any Bright Horse .....................................................53Sharron Proulx-Turner she is reading her blanket with her hands ..................54Kirk Ramdath Love in a Handful of Dust .........................................55Nikki Reimer [sic] .......................................................................57Pierrette Requier details from the edge of the village ............................58Ali Riley Wayward ...............................................................59 Tear Down ..............................................................61 33 Million Solitudes.................................................63Patria Rivera Puti/White .............................................................64 The Bride Anthology ................................................65Anna Marie Sewell Fifth World Drum .....................................................66Zaid Shlah Taqsim ...................................................................67Bob Stallworthy From a Call Box ......................................................68 Optics....................................................................69 Things that Matter Now ...........................................70Richard Stevenson Wiser Pills ..............................................................71Rosalee van Stelten Pattern of Genes .....................................................72 Pavlov’s Elephant ....................................................73Yvonne Trainer Tom Three Persons ...................................................74Joanna M. Weston A Summer Father ....................................................75Sheri-D Wilson Autopsy of a Turvy World .........................................76 Re:Zoom ................................................................78 Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe .......79
Other titles from Frontenac .............................................................................81
A Gloss on Our Painted Godsby Eric Barstad
978-0-9732380-1-3, $14.95
Eric Barstad currently lives with his partner Erin and their two cats
— Finnegan and Pickles — in Brooks, Alberta. Eric completed his
MA in English and Creative Writing at the University of New Bruns-
wick in 2001 and now runs Shadow Box Creative Media, a web
development company that builds websites for non-profit organiza-
tions. Eric published A Gloss on Our Painted Gods with Frontenac
House in 2003.
For OrpheusLate summer and the red death of leaves.He walks as if asleep and whispers to himself a poem. About loss, of course, about death and love. A typical poet? Yes, and the first.
He fingers a scar on his chestfrom love-making. He hasn’t noticedthe birds, the trees, the rocks that have rolledbehind him. The insects humming in time with him. Seven black bearsfollowing like paparazzi. He hasn’t shielded his eyes from the sun that hasn’t moved. Then he sits.Looking around at the same clouds and treesand birds as this morning, the seven black bears and the flies that won’t bite him, he imagines he’s walked in a circle, or worse, not at all. He believes this is his new tragedy, dementia from loss and death,and love.
So caught up in his next sorrow, he doesn’t hear the footfalls of women in the forest, the blood sounding in their ears like a song.
Wait Until Late Afternoonby David Bateman & Hiromi Goto
978-189718-130-0, $18.00
David Bateman is a spoken word poet and performance artist
based in Toronto. His most recent performances, A Brief History of
White Virgins or The Night Freddy Kissed Me, and What’s It Like?
were presented in Vancouver, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal,
and Toronto during the winter of 2009. He teaches drama, litera-
ture, and creative writing at a variety of Canadian post-secondary
institutions.
Hiromi Goto is the award-winning author of Chorus of Mushrooms,
and The Kappa Child. She has also written a children’s novel,
The Water of Possibility, and a collection of short stories, Hopeful
Monsters. Her most recent publication is a young adult novel, Half
World, published by Penguin Canada. She and David Bateman
collaborated on and showcased a performance piece entitled The
Cowboy and the Geisha.
D twentytwothe condensation of these ice cubes in a glass
squat blunt drunken penile objectsbobbing labial petals
on a damp spent towel
H twentythreecondescensionglassy eyed wetness
slops over the lip licking the skina sticky hand
Invisible ForegroundDavid Bateman
978-1-897181-78-2, $15.95
“A glorious chameleon on page or stage, Bateman tries on as
many styles and forms of poetry in his new Quartet collection as he
does costumes. Invisible Foreground is as balanced as a practiced
set of gams in high heels …. A poetry of extreme originality, it
will linger on the skin of all your senses until it sinks in for good.”
—Laurie Fuhr, Fast Forward
Shortlisted:
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry
Watching Grown Men Cry1
over cappuccino with a warm shot of whiskey beside a thin young woman on a barstool in a lounge named “East of Never” under pressure in a late night board meeting when his son will be the east-ern star by nine in a first grade play named “Heaven” after stand-up sex with his golfing buddy in a fully equipped RV while the wives are at the spa when the flirtatious lesbian economy of the straight women he works under excludes and excites him before undressing for dinner in full frontal perusal of twenty-five years of living he will never get back beside the pane-fused light of a sun razed moon on a surreal jigsaw on a commode in his den regardless of pomegranate salad sun dried children sent to camp she asks him to go down on her again with his shallow feet awakening in a sudden stream of light and some fragility in shadows
2
inside a posh holding bin for new psychiatric patients interrogating $2000 red leather Barcelona knock-offs below a wreath of holiday wealth imagining belief in small paternalistic doses without regard for nothing less than fine wine praise for middle aged women sunglasses and scarves beyond question the faint vivacious tremor of her lower lips inside identity defined by birth certificates driver’s licences genital configurations and undotted sin above reproach for moody playoff seasons male menopausal breath beneath cribbage boards plastic pegs hedge clippings and the news of the world unless heaven allows foundational bliss and flood insurance
Impersonating Flowersby David Bateman
978-1-897181-11-9, $15.95
Rated PG, these poems loosely chart an adolescence – moving
swiftly into middle age – experienced without parental guidance.
As the poet morphs from poodle to petal, finding solace in Haiku
(and other profound decorative forms) he considers a timeless re-
visionist anecdote – When he was just a little girl he said to his
mother, “What will I be?”
Impersonating Flowers answers some of the questions his mother
was afraid to ask.
Destiny (to have), Nicosia, 2006 to have met for those five fabulous seconds it may have been more but it felt like five knuckledpummelled minutiae of time
to have made that wrong turnaway from the Lydras Palaceand into this racialized gaze
to have lost one’s self in the zirconian glowof your right lobe
to have, at five foot seventowered over your immensedwarfish masculine beauty
you short exquisite man you!you lightly bearded angel!
to have spent those last few hoursin the Turkish Republic of Cyprushunting for the blue and black of those manageable evil eyesto wrap in socks to pack and carry home to envious comrades
to have been lost among window shades and torn curtains for a quarter of an hour assimilating death zones negotiating alluring tourism
remembering how we rode to empty reservoirslay down on soiled sleeveless tank tops in deserted asphalt riversthrusting hips and buttocks into sand and gravel
to have sung of arid shorelines
to have been blown by vacant riverstoward an orange skyfucking into night
to have been rendered empty dreamersto have spoken of the placemats you had sewn from the flat backs of his designer shirtsrequiem cuffs turned into napkin rings
to have howled in adobe homes and patio housesfrom Limasol to Phoenix
to have seen the Nicosian youth on motorbikes crossing checkpoints for same sex love
to have travelled without your auntand made such faint relations
’tis pityby David Bateman
978-1-897181-67-6, $17.95
Currently based in Toronto, David Bateman is a visual artist, per-
formance poet, and playwright whose most recent performance
piece, Does this Giacometti Make Me Look Fat? or Art Immuno
Deficiency Syndrome, was presented in New Orleans in the spring
of 2010. A Brief History of White Virgins or The Night Freddy
Mercury Kissed Me was presented across Canada in 2009, and
his spoken word monologue What’s It Like? has been presented
in Montreal, Toronto, Peterborough, and Cyprus (2010). He has
taught literature and creative writing at a variety of Canadian
post-secondary institutions. His two collections of poetry, Invisible
Foreground and Impersonating Flowers, have been published by
Frontenac House (Calgary). Frontenac has also published his col-
laborative long poem entitled Wait Until Late Afternoon, written
with poet/novelist Hiromi Goto.
pleasurehe does not see the sky as more beautiful and bright in the dying light he has always known that blue is blue and radiant and that clouds are soft and tantamount to the pillows of a goddess roughly pushing luck and privilege in and out of lives
he does not stare more keenly at the moon and stars he has always known that precious celestial cars have driven him to worlds he craved and cherished
he does not regret the solid diving into pleasure to have arrived here with so much sensation thrill and leisure and then to perish
there is something perfect in the deconstructed pose of willows meant to weep and droop and plummet to the ground
like fonts of leaves rooted in the earth with trunks that smile and frown groaning merrily sheathed by blades of grass on mounds of dirt
tall proud flowers desolate and happily bound by inches ashes dust and earth
The Lightness Which Is Our World, Seen from Afarby Ven Begamudré
978-1-897181-02-7, $15.95
Ven Begamudré was born in South India and moved to Canada
when he was six. He has also lived in Mauritius and the United
States. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.
He has an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College
in Asheville, North Carolina. He has been writer-in-residence for
the University of Calgary’s Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writ-
ers Programme, the University of Alberta’s Department of English,
the Canada-Scotland Exchange, Regina Public Library, McMaster
University’s Department of English, and the Yukon Public Libraries.
Shortlisted:
City of Regina Writing Award
Tafelmusik Performs the “Other” Brandenburg ConcertosThat white winter I turned thirteen, I saw my first string quartet. The Vaghy Quartet. Four men so brave they faced down five hundred pairs of pupils more used to skits on that stage than strings. Don’t ask me what they played. All I would ever remember was the cellist. He was black. A lot of my heroes were black back then – Sidney Poitier, Arthur Ashe – but an Indian kid had to find heroes where he could. And better than serving ace after ace, Ashe wore glasses. Now Poitier tries to act wise in the shadows of less gentle men. Ashe is dead. My heroes have names like Kingsley, Te Kanawa. Jon Kimura Parker – a Japanese Canadian I met calls him a Halfer.
Turning thirty-seven today, I find myself far from home as usual, in a church of all things, while a bearded giant in a cummerbund plays an oboe, bent over it as if over a straw. Washington McClain: good name for a man who might’ve been a linebacker once. I love it when he lifts his eyes from the music. Not to me;to the first violin, those belled cheeks asking, Allegro?Molto? Later, taking his bows with the rest, he seemsunaware of the stir his trousers cause, the dye more indigo than black. Outside, blizzards pound the seaboard from Labrador to Alabama. The power is out in Tennessee.
Back in our mixed neighbourhood, as in white collar and blue,Robert Holmes the ex-Roughrider renovates his house. He grins. I grin. He says, Howza goin’. I say, Howza goin’.Other times, near the corner store, I see other black men. They can tell I’m not one of them.
And though they ignore the whites hurrying past the cathedral, they often stop and say hello. Sometimes we shake hands. Brothers passing in the street? I don’t think so. But they take me back to the summer I looked up from a book
and what should I see but a black man carrying his cello down our lane? It was late afternoon and it was perfect: that a man should carry a cello home at quitting time; that such men live and work and play among us, and always have. So tell me something, J.B.:
When you were trying to score that job from the Margrave of Brandenburg, did you ever guess how many savage breasts your music would one day soothe?
Standoff Terrainby Jocko Benoit
978-1-897181-39-3, $15.95
Jocko Benoit was born in Montreal and raised in Cape Breton,
and explored the rest of Canada one university at a time until ar-
riving in Edmonton, where he lived as a poetic marauder with the
Stroll of Poets. He has written one previous collection of poetry,
An Anarchist Dream, and his poems have appeared in magazines
in Canada, the U.S., England and Australia. His stories have ap-
peared in On Spec and Tesseracts. His screenplays have been
shortlisted in competitions in Canada and the U.S. He divides his
time between Calgary and Washington, DC.
ScopingThe terrain is to be assessed in terms of distance, difficulty or ease of travel, dimension, and safety. — Sun Tzu
Her perimeters seem easily mapped,Standard grid – though the usual squaresBulge from her curves. But try to breechHer fears, surmount her inhibitionsAnd I’m caught in a nervous barbed wire smile.If I look long enough at her eyesThe pupils become Rorschach blots.
One day her face sags, the next it isImpenetrable. She is the floor of a lake,The deepest parts seeming close enoughTo touch. Her moods are an open bookRifled by crosswinds.
Perspective is difficult in this heat.One minute she seems to be miles away,Back to me, a concentrated point of disinterest,And then I find I’m surrounded, in the centreWhere she camps. She shuts and locks the doorThe way she might a telescope.
Between the Silencesby Diane Buchanan
978-0973238-08-2, $15.95
Diane Buchanan is a poet and essayist who has lived in and
around Edmonton, Alberta all her life. The last thirty years have
been spent on a thoroughbred horse farm where she and her hus-
band of forty-three years raised four daughters. She began to write
after retiring from nursing and returning to University at the age
of fifty. Her first book of poetry, Ask Her Anything was published
in 2001. Her next book Unruly Angels will be released in July of
this year.
Shortlisted:
The Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Award
The HitchThere’s no crease in his baggy jeans,though the crotch reaches his knees and his pant legs drag over unlaced running shoes.A grungy elbow pokes through his sweatshirt as he stuffs thin hands into back pockets and rocks side to side taking a wide stance in front of the judge who beginsto read his probation orders: Keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
He’s fourteen, just pleaded guilty –again to shoplifting. As he drops his headdark clumps of hair fall forward to cover pimples and a scowl exposing scabby skin at the back of his neck while shoulder wings jut and flex, bony, featherless, grounded:Keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
A familiar phrase heard over and over in youth court, but not on the TV he watches, not in the music he listens to, not in the movies he sees, not on the streets where he’s tryingto exist. Does this young man knowwhat that phrase means or, are they just empty words to him:Keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
All he did was steal some foodbecause he was hungry. All he didwas run away from an abusive home.All he did was get bornto a woman who didn’t wanthis kind of reminder around. Howcan he possibly understand:Keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
It’s a teasing echo in this courtroom.If only it came with a recipe. If onlyit could be bottled, could nourishhungry youths like this one herewaiting for the judge’s recitation to ceasebefore he’s released, free to leavewith a hitch of those jeans, a scratch,a timid grin and these words, which,hopefully, he’ll carry beyond these courtroom doors:Keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
unruly angelsby Diane Buchanan
978-1-897181-54-6, $15.95
Diane Buchanan is a poet and essayist who has lived in and
around Edmonton, Alberta all her life. The last thirty years have
been spent on a thoroughbred horse farm where she and her
husband of forty-three years raised four daughters. She began to
write after retiring from nursing and returning to University at the
age of fifty. Her book of poetry, Unruly Angels, about the drug
court in Edmonton, Alberta, was published in 2011.
Cowboy CourageIt’s Thursday morning in Calgary’s flashy new steel and glass courthouse. The Stampede’s over but here there’s still reason to celebrate. It’s graduation day in Courtroom 505. This man’s no cowboy but he’s shown he’s got the guts to ride a bucking bronco through the agony of withdrawal and win. It hasn’t been easy. It’s hard enough to last eight seconds, let alone fourteen months. But he’d already had a fifteen year struggle with the rankest of stock. And though there’s no silver buckle at the end of this ride, his prize is the rest of his life. He’s got his health, a home, and a job. He’s going to use what he learned while hooked on the horns of crystal meth, heroin and Listerine to help those who are still trying to survive the spurs and burrs of an addict’s life on the streets. This man doesn’t want to forget that ride, the many falls, the pain of landing, of being trod upon again and again. But to-day he’s in the winners’ circle with his family, his friends and his colleagues. Today, it’s white Stetsons off for his cowboy courage.
sobriety off the horse the pinch of new boots
Learning to Countby Douglas Burnet Smith
978-1-897181-37-9, $15.95
Douglas Burnet Smith is the author of over a dozen books of po-
etry. His work has won the Malahat Review’s Long Poem Prize,
and has been nominated for a Governor General’s Award and
the Atlantic Poetry Prize. He has been Writer in Residence at a
number of universities in Canada and the U. S., and has served
as President of the League of Canadian Poets, as well as Chair
of the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada. He teaches
at St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and
at the American University of Paris. He divides his time between
Canada, France, and Argentina.
One of three poetry books listed on the Globe &
Mail’s Globe 100 Best Books selection for 2010
Shortlisted:
The Atlantic Poetry Prize
Closure in the Contemporary Italian NovelA little after midnightin an un-named piazza
where disappointment over anonymitytrickles out of the fountain
and the heat of the dayleaks from old stones.
Steady bus-drone, a sirencompeting with a car-alarm.
Then, a tone higher, a canine cry turnsevery head on a café’s terrace
inside toward the bar: it’s an old man – black suit and black hat, bare feet, jaundiced
white shirt, mouth frozenopen in a toothless howl
that crescendos into a shrieking laugh.His fist shakes
a battered blue paperbackat everyone, and he shouts
So come finisce! So come finisce!I know how it ends! I know how it ends!
Attenuations of Forceby Lori Cayer
978-1-897181-31-7, $15.95
Lori Cayer’s first book Stealing Mercury (The Muses’ Company)
won the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award and was a finalist for the
McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award. She is a past winner
of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer.
Shortlisted:
Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry/
prix Lansdowne de poésie.
Excerpts from the Dictionary of Winds—found poem from essay of same name by Ivetta Gerasimchuk
AAnemophile (phobe)
I admit I never thought about this:ventivacts—traces, figures of wind erosionthe work of wind and time—allow for findingone’s bearings in the future. The dictionaryof winds insists that when you look, thereon the smooth surface of the lakea hard body oscillates underthe impulse of applied force.
BBachelor Wind (Crazy Wind, Dark Wind,
Married Wind)
Let’s assume that the little person has measuredeverything—the number of constructions
equalto the number of phenomena.Abstract words, lists, appear and disappear not
inan entirely clear way;in the first place, they can be interpretedany way you like; such mystification sewnwith white threads. Constellation located.Something familiar relative to whichyou can determine your position.
DDictionary of Winds (Degree of Certainty)
Sooner or later, a person assignscharacteristics of infinity to the things most
dear.Depending on what you want to see—a point,a straight line, time.This rushing movement is inclinedto reduce the essence of a thing to its origin.Then follows the story connected to inaccu-
racy.An optical effect often caused by windThe absence of calm.This series of simplifications, a crown of
clouds.What remains is only to console ourselves.
HHall of Winds (Cave of Winds)
Precisely then, there exists merelyone single movement of air, a single windarranged in compass points. Absolutetime on behalf of the convenience of man.It is required that a point of referencebe constant and noticeableat scholarly symposia and in grocery stores.The hall a creationnot of man, but of the winds themselvesIt is an excellent landmark.
MMeasurement (Hypertime, Infinity)
Nothing other than dots.Under the figures of the windsa year flies by unnoticed.Given the required observation of the
conditionsof similarity, you can measure anything at allby anything at all.A similar equality of a part and its wholeis also inherent in zero.Science begins from the moment measurement
begins.
TTower of Winds (Grammatical Time)
It is not obligatory to conduct an inventoryat the Tower of Winds.(E)ventus (e)ventus est.An event is wind. Wind is an event.You need to come here, to the sandwhere it seems nothing has changed,but each grain of sand lies in a new place.In an infinite number of cyclesthe common denominator is also equal to
infinity.
WWind Rose (Wind City, Wind Mill,
Wind of the Seven Mountains)
Resurrect the picture that has just departed into the past.
To say that I was interested in history is merelybecause of the cliffs. We were warned,waited for it, when all kinds of junkperceived by us as eventsare crammed into it.Notions of a better life have been reflectedin various risky expeditions.It is worth noting, in some strange dictionary,part of I is equalto I itself.
Forgetting the Holocaustby Ron Charach
978-1-897181-46-1, $15.95
Winnipeg-born Ron Charach is the author of eight books of poetry,
among them Dungenessque, winner of the Canadian Jewish Book
Award for Poetry in 2003. His work is widely published in national
and international journals and anthologies of writing by doctors about
their craft. Now residing in Toronto, Charach combines a physician’s
candid eye for the foibles and betrayals of the body with a psychia-
trist’s compassion for the suffering of the mind. He creates poems
around the memorable image, the anecdote that initially seems to
say little, yet opens to reveal a great deal about the human condition.
In Forgetting the Holocaust, Charach reflects on his life as a Jew
raised in post-Holocaust Canada. His poems look back on a life of
accomplishment and reflect, sometimes with broad comedy, some-
times with great confessional power, on what it means, coming
from such a beginning, to be a good Jew, a good son, a good man.
LudochkaNot for you the pleated skirts, you who dazzled us in the coat closet at the back of the class, butt slinking out of the elastic-waisted jeansyou called “suicides”.Not for you the comfort of only being imagined,as you slowly peeled yourself beforethe rapt attention of our blessed eyes.
Just minutes ago our minds were a hazeof the strangest form of boredom, and awashwith those black-and-white films of naked bodies in heaps at Birkenauthat Mrs Lesnitsky forced into our gaze.
Decades later, you and I would meet again. Under pancake make-upyou played the vamp so well no one would have pegged you as offspring of a single mother with broken English,you, who flashed your tomboy body for the boys in a dark room of damp winter coats,dripping scarves and limp mittens.
It took you a while to remember me. But once, when you slowed the spinning of your pelvis, you cast me a longing look not as if you wanted me to want you more than anyone else in that little room did, but as if, in a way I only understood years later,I might become an ally in your counter-offensive to take back the flesh.
Before a Blue Sky Moonby Weyman Chan
978-0968490-35-8, $14.95
Weyman Chan, who lives and works in Calgary, is married with
two daughters. His poems and short stories have been published in
many journals and anthologies. His poetry also appears in Many
Mouthed Birds: Contemporary Writing by Chinese Canadians.
Before a Blue Sky Moon is his first book, and deals with themes of
childhood, displacement, loss and redemption both spiritual and
secular, the meaning of personal love, and at the same time gives
us stunning and magical insights into a Chinese Canadian family.
His second book, Noise From the Laundry (Talonbooks), was nomi-
nated for the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.
Winner:
The National Magazine Awards Silver Medal for Poetry;
Stephan G. Stephansson Award, Best Alberta Poetry Book, 2002
Snow poemI want to write a poem about snow and the naming of snowin the word our Step Mom re-trained us to say in Chinese – thloot meaning snow – as she held a piece of beef jerky out for usto say each word of our mother tongue
in 1968 we were reclaiminglike daylight savings the tongue that would repatriateour love for anyone who dared to marry our fatherto save his four kids from the foster homes.
Dad and Step Mom talked about Heng Ha, the homeland:Sah Vun, Thlum Gup, Bahk Sahjeweled villages on a shepherd’s pathto stone-hedged grave markers, each one in the shape of an inverted omega,carved into rainy hillsides.
They never saw snow until they came to Canada
if your eyes move with it the snow will hold still while the earth meets up with it never to own or to be owned
Step Mom warned us about heaven, when we were bad. There’s a heaven, she’d tell us. “Yu-ga hin.”She had eyelashes that seemed the perfect altar of warmthto die on
snow is the one thing that holds still while we float free between lattice and rivulet snow is the anchor of our moderation
but snow kept her alone in the house constantly sweeping out the grey airyelling at us to step backwhen we walked in dusted with snowflakes
and years later on the morning my mother-in-law diedher last eyes looking out followed that gentle whiteout it hushed her breathing and I wondered how anybody could stand open-mouthedlooking upwardhoping to cradle-catch that illusion of fallinginto its own vowel – its no,negation, have-not of heavenfollowing the s
and if snow could be a poem about the body when in other seasons a fish could dream air out of wateror a tree could bend sugar out of light,then snow would talk about disbelief,its six-sided dissolutionin the millionsproving that the smallest touch lasts
why her, why this falcon-like fall from recovery, only to believe with all the science of your heart that all we haveis this body
this body taken by storms and dart frogs, excoriations that bend leaves at night with our children’s voices crying for us
this bodycaught in the middle distance where life stops freezing or burningand begins to know itself.
I skated on the river todayamazed that this distance could be mother to waterand that water could have made me
to remember a word like thlooton a day like today where the sun spoke to melike an old friend –
Yes I remember you when you left me yesterday and I’ve slept without you in the world anticipating nothing until now.
Untitled Childby Nancy Jo Cullen
978-1-897181-27-0, $15.95
In 2006 Nancy Jo Cullen’s life partner died after a long struggle
with mental illness and addiction. Untitled Child examines the tra-
jectory of the end of the marriage between the two women and
the author tries to understand her role in a series of painful events.
Nancy Jo Cullen is the author of two previous collections of poetry,
Science Fiction Saint and Pearl. Nancy Jo Cullen lives in Toronto
where she is at work on an MFA in Creative Writing at the Univer-
sity of Guelph–Humber.
Santa MariaOh Mother of JesusThis world is still at warThe beautiful girl down the street has been murderedAnd we are empty as prayer
If we are made up of our lossesThen we are as thin as KleenexLiving in hope for the deadOur breath unable to rest in
Our lungs search for solace in the new suburbiaWe shovel; we sowOur lawns so expertly mowedWe are the post-modern somnambulistsShopping for God and the perfect diet
And you souls in PurgatoryHave you any insight for us sinnersWho have the sons and daughters to prove it?
Oh Mother of Jesus you crazy so-and-soIs this what you imagined it would come toWhen you slapped your insubordinate son
What does resurrection matter when the dead lie in our armsAll beyond the presence of our fingertips
Science Fiction Saintby Nancy Jo Cullen
978-0968490-37-2, $14.95
Science Fiction Saint, by playwright and poet Nancy Jo Cullen,
investigates the space between a more traditional lyric line and the
experimental use of form and language. A provocative work that
shimmers with risk and offbeat humour.
Nancy Jo Cullen was the 4th recipient of the Dayne Ogilvie Grant.
The grant is given annually to an emerging gay or lesbian writer
who demonstrates great promise through a body of work of ex-
ceptional quality.
Shortlisted:
The Gerald Lampert Award;
The Stephan G. Stephansson Award;
Alberta Book Awards Trade Fiction Book Award
facing west everything in panorama there are things that seem like silence; cars passing on an always somewhere highway, voices of boys calling out across the afternoon and Evelyn’s chickadees chattering in the blue spruce. how terrifying, that blue spruce, when you imagine it crumpling – no, crashing – onto your roof. it would spell the end of you all, your grisly demise featured on the six o’clock news. families around their kitchen tables would click their tongues in horror. after that no one who’d ever loved you could sit under a blue spruce without feeling a pang. at your funeral all your ex-lovers would sit in a row. humbled by your sudden death, and a little bit destroyed. because there is was no one like you. they realize that now. and good, you think, they figured that out. except you won’t be thinking. you won’t be. you will be ashes for the compost heap. and that makes you not fearless, but dizzy. it makes you want to scream or puke or have intercourse. because of the force with which you can be pushed against a bed. because of friction.
this is a moment that can not be controlled
everything inside you is a weed
washed in the panic of nothingness you understand. not yourself, but what it is that takes strangers to public washrooms their hands stroking their genitals. not love, just that instant of being perfectly alive with no attachment to another. and no idea of the consequences of a blue spruce ringing with chickadees
Pearlby Nancy Jo Cullen
978-1897181-03-4, $15.95
Pearl is a poetic exploration of the life of the legendary Pearl
Miller, early Calgary’s most famous, and successful madam. Cul-
len fuses traditional lyric lines and experimental uses of form and
language to fabricate a biography of Calgary’s mythical brothel
keeper.
Nancy Jo Cullen was the 4th recipient of the Dayne Ogilvie Grant.
The grant is given annually to an emerging gay or lesbian writer
who demonstrates great promise through a body of work of ex-
ceptional quality.
Winner:
Alberta Book Awards Trade Fiction Book Award
Shortlisted:
The City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize
The Future of ScentBefore the everyday use of plastic: Mud, horse shit and burning coalA damp wool blanketDiesel, spat from the trainFungal sheets, jismRye splashed against a windowsillA brisk westerly delivering dust and the promise of spring, or winter depending on which corner you stood
The odor of a pipe, sweet until after the Spanish flu then sorrowfulVinegar on the morning floorsThe ears of an unwashed man (always too close to the nose)The piss of a tomcat on an inside wallA new deck of cardsRosewater and glycerin rubbed lightly on tired skin,Funereal in retrospect
Cloves inside a toothBaked applesThe tight smell of ten days of thirty below zeroFresh cut lilacs in a bowl (again, in retrospect, funereal)Toast and saskatoon jelly
Regret unmitigated by capital assets
ex nihiloby Adebe D.A.
978-1897181-34-8, $15.95
Adebe D.A. is a writer whose words travel between Toronto and
New York City. She recently completed her MA at York University,
where she also served as Assistant Editor for the arts and literary
journal, Existere. Her work has been published in various North
American sources, including Canadian Woman Studies Journal,
The Claremont Review, Canadian Literature, CV2 and the Toronto
Star. She won the Toronto Poetry Competition in 2005 to become
Toronto’s first Junior Poet Laureate. Ex Nihilo is her debut collection.
Adebe D.A. was one of 16 writers longlisted for the Dylan Thomas
Prize for her book ex nihilo. Global in scope, the £30,000 University
of Wales Dylan Thomas Prize is awarded to the best published
or produced literary work in the English language, written by an
author under 30.
English LiteratureWhy,Because chiaroscurois where I belong. That and I was once Pushkin’s wife. O, my darling octoroon your Russia is doing alive and well, but your Ethiopia is still squinting into the sun, blind and full of lighttrying to find empire in uptown Harlem but all we get is gentrification petrification talk about holy war, race war, war on warwhile the Church of Nazareth on 144th stands a burned-out shell, waiting.
Contrary Infatuationsby Dymphny Dronyk
978-1-897181-10-2, $15.95
Dymphny Dronyk is a writer, artist, mediator and mother. She is
passionate about the magic of story and has woven words for
money (journalism, corporate writing) and for love (poetry, fiction,
drama, mystery novels) for about 30 years. She lives in Calgary,
has three almost grown children and works in the “oilpatch”, in
stakeholder relations.
Shortlisted:
Gerald Lampert Award;
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry
Soldier, SailorMake love to me like a soldier.Your new uniform hangs starched and tough on the closet door.Leaning against the rocker, your gungleams maliciously in the moonlight.Afterwards, I will hold you, troubledand spent, your desperate arms too tightaround my neck.In sleep, macho dreams stumble from your mouth,like men in midnight trenches.You leave me nothing to believe in.It is absurd to put that much faith in fate.In the morning the rattle of your belt buckle wakes me.Your bus leaves at noon.August heat will stick you to your seat.You don’t know it yet, butall your generals are insane.
Make love to me like a sailor,it is a course we have travelled many times. Your thick sweater lies curled on the rug.Gumboots trip over themselves in the doorway, brass pea coat buttons are polished, happy.The concertina plays a slow waltz to itself.Afterwards, I fall into the deepest slumber,drowning in a cove of your warmth and scent.At least I can dream of this madness –your absence is finite and planned,your infidelity something I can trust.At dawn we rise from well-charted sheets,and I make coffee, French and black.You shave, singing a sea shanty, and swagger over the floor like it’s a pitching deck.
Falling Bluesby Jannie Edwards
978-1-897181-36-2, $15.95
Jannie Edwards was born in South Africa and now lives and writes in
Edmonton, Alberta. Her second book of poetry, Blood Opera: The
Raven Tango Poems, was a collaboration with visual artist Paul
Saturley and was adapted for the stage by Edmonton’s Theatre
Prospero. Jannie Edwards’ website is www.jannieedwards.ca.
Shortlisted:
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry
Grand CanyonAt the rim, she wings it.A twitch of big bang dust, houndedthrough the gouged, high noon cathedral, seething.
Darkness swallows light from the bottom up.
Ego, love child of desert rat and turkey vulture,orphaned in the Great Unknowing,scritches and circles, sniffingthrough the carrion alphabetfor some sounds to speakto this hugeness.
Awk, says Raven, disappearing.
Static Mantisby Arran Fisher
978-0-9684903-4-1, $13.95
Arran Fisher was born in Brisbane, Australia, and raised in Saska-
toon, Vancouver, and Calgary. He has a philosophy degree from
the University of Calgary, where he studied writing under Nicole
Markotic and Fred Wah. Since then he has travelled to Europe,
the United States, and Japan, where he took part in the All-Japan
Aikido Demonstration. He is cofounder of the rock band, The Sum-
merlad.
Shortlisted:
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry
“Write lots of shit” he advised. We walked to the library as he spoke. The lie prayery, where I promised eternal devotion in exchange for the chance to get laid before I graduated. Or else I didn’t. And in this I lie as in a bed with two pil-lows and a woman I push away because it’s too damn hot for a snuggle or maybe I’m just not dead enough for damnation in return for ly-ing directly to the Almighty. But enough about God all right let’s focus on the matter at hand, usually the right but the left now ‘cause it’s like someone else came towards me and said “Is this the library?”
She was unfamiliar with the buildings but had something in her eye. A glint or dust or just a drop of water. She wanted to find the library or was unfamiliar with the language and wanted to know the time. It was 4:27 and the library was in front of us and I knew she’d find it if only I told her, but I lied and said “Move over a bit, I’m too hot” and left it at that inter-section, kitty-corner from the cathedral. God saw my misdeed and the sky opened up and either rain or locusts fell upon the city. Like a good book with many insects among its pages, but like a bad book because it closed soon after as it tends to do in the prairies, and I found
myself in a bus shelter with the girl and an arm-load of damp books about cats and dogs and heterologicality. Grelling and the one about the thunderstorm and the pet loving girl from out of town. They had a whole lotta books about pets and a few of them can be most lovable companions.
“Is this the library?” Her eye winked and I saw she wanted directions, but I don’t know shit about pets and I’d rather sleep in comfort than swelter in her arms. I prefer a good sci-fi before I lie. The drop in her eye, but her arms were full and the ground wet, so instead I offered to hold her pets so she could wipe. That wet patch which is always left over between us reminded me of the downpour from the heavens like an open book full of locusts or tadpoles. It was cold, but the sun was com-ing out and the businessmen were folding their umbrella-like wings or solar panels.
Death Day Erectionby J. Fisher
978-0973238-05-1, $15.95
J. Fisher was born in Edson, has lived and worked in Victoria’s down-
town core and is now in Calgary. His first short story “for what it’s
worth” was published when he was 19. He spent his early 20s as
a wildly unsuccessful blues singer and lyricist. His love of the word
propelled him thru his failings until, in 2004, he managed to bring
together the pieces which would make up his first collection, Death
Day Erection. His poems continue to appear in e-zines, reviews and
publications all over North America and Europe.
Shortlisted:
Alberta Book Awards: Book Illustration of the Year
God’s animalsmust to stay away from telephones must there’s no love there strong enough wet enough on the other end to corral the lust the sucking chest wound that come about after a couple cocktails.
Bathroom mirrors are the nitemare especially flourescent-lit men’s rooms in dive-bars after three days spent sucking floor you can see right back to the real problem just under the lunatic dermis pores tell the tale.
Late nites heavy-intake hefty bills too much smoke no sleeping or eating properly or at all, swapping spit with fat.
Ugly people in bad taverns junkies help you sleep alone always refused. It’ll have to do this incessant need for fuelling gives meaning to exhaustion and carnal musings. Playing part in phony revolution causes a great thirst.
bulletin from the low lightby J. Fisher
978-1-897181-07-2, $15.95
J. Fisher is the Quintessential counter-culture archetype, a James
Dean incarnate… Fisher’s strongest work blends base abstractions
with complex allusions. Nevertheless he achieves some dexterous
sleights of hand (it’s all in the wrist) and a sense of alienation only
the young can cherish.
—Anne Burke, Prairie Journal
into the arms of GodTue 2 May 2006 11:32 aM
Eden works the Government strip but she’s not really there at all she blows her mind out in the alleys before the johns come calling flashing cash and cock, promising to do their worst stuffing it in, taking it all out one trick at a timeEden smokes a steady blue stream perched outside the diner all day see, she can’t sleep in the daylight ’cause she knows when the sun goes down it’s back to work down on her knees, down to business screaming without speaking spreading the disease and her own lonelinessEden takes a moment to lean over the rail on that famed Blue Bridge time between the poisonings to reflect on how it all came to this memories like a slow-fisted drag pull up upon her past
simply release the fingered grip and it’s into the water, back into the arms of God but no, not today she’ll stick it out as her spike heels click against the worn asphalt she shakes her thoughts like water from her curly brown locks catches the first car door for another short ride to nowhere
Children of Araratby Keith Garebian
978-1-897181-32-4, $15.95
Keith Garebian is a widely published, award-winning freelance
literary and theatre critic, biographer, and poet. Among his many
awards are the Canadian Authors Association (Niagara Branch)
Poetry Award (2009), the Mississauga Arts Award (2000 and
2008), a Dan Sullivan Memorial Poetry Award (2006), and the
Lakeshore Arts & Scarborough Arts Council Award for Poetry
(2003 & 2010). This is his fourth book of poetry.
Istanbul in Darkness, GrievingHouses, streets, ghettoes of childhood.The world almost forgetting these existed.Your city has always hidden its ruins,its black bile, its melancholy.
Cities, like families, expect love and luckthe way lovers do in the acceptance of bodies, in their imperfections.
We live in different fantasies of the same museum:bric-à-brac, photographs, locked glass cabinets,silent pianos, beaded curtains, large heavy carpets,and an old nanny who can no longer read love lettersfrom a dead suitor.
Outside the semi-darkness of these relics,the streets are weary, light declining on the surfaces of fallen down mansions, crowds huddled in winter’s thick coat, night rubbing its cold into streets and lives. Battered streetlamps, old wooden houses, concrete apartments, chiaroscuro of decay.
Age, neglect, dirt, and humidity confuse the tourist’s eye, misinterpreting the value of the colour black.Dark haze on smoky morningssettles on rooftops or in eaves and gardensleft untended – not the pretty tints of etchingspainted by foreign hands.
Darkness is a cover for the eyepeering at ghosts and shadows. Darkness makesa moral point. This darkness a grieving for what has fallen into ruin.
guys named Billby Leslie Greentree
978-0968490-36-5, $14.95
Leslie Greentree was born in Grande Prairie, Alberta, and has lived
in various parts of BC and Alberta, including Salmon Arm, Mc-
Bride, Dawson Creek, Crowsnest Pass, Calgary, and Lethbridge.
Her first book, guys named Bill, was published by Frontenac House
as part of their poetry series Quartet 2002.
Leslie Greentree was the winner of the Howard O’Hagan Award
for Short Fiction.
guys named BillRian and I step off the planebreathing yellow hibiscustossing alohas to smiling swarthy menthey drape us with leis kiss us on the cheek
I’m here to recover from Billshake myself clean at lasttwo weeks in which to re-enter the worldprepare myself for the manwho waits to buy me dinneron our return
I did send Bill a postcard from San Francisco airport –something about a man in a dressI don’t know –it was a layover we weresleep deprived and a little drunk
everyone in Hawaii is named Bill
we have our pictures takenin Honoluluglorious parrots astride each shoulderthe tousled man who chats us upis Bill, the Parrot Guy
the bartender at our hotelis Bill – Bill the Bartenderhe loves us it’s nice to meet aBill who doeshe puts extra rum in our Mai-tais we laugh at his jokes
and then there’s the nightwe join a table of singing Australians the dark-haired one with frecklesis Bill of the Australian NavyI haven’t kissed a man in almost a year butI’m used to kissing Bills
I’ve put away a lot of beerwith guys named Bill
go-go dancing for Elvisby Leslie Greentree
978-0973238-02-0, $14.95
go-go dancing for Elvis by Leslie Greentree is the story of two
sisters: the beautiful sister, who travels the States as a dancer for
an Elvis impersonator, and her more conventional sister, who stays
home and renovates her house. It’s a story of love, jealousy, be-
trayal, and the people who used to have our phone numbers. Most
of all it’s a story about Hawkeye Pierce and power tools.
Shortlisted:
The Griffin Poetry Prize
black go-go bootsit’s stylized sixties the black boots are to her kneesbut the tank top with the silver spaghetti straps and her tinyskirt only nod to the originals the colours arecarefully psychedelic
the first photograph shows her and Elvis laughingher go-go boot draped lightly over his satin thighhair pulled high on her head ponytail cascading over hershoulders slapping her in the face as she gyrates
the second is of her in the classic pose arms pumpingclenched fists hair flying boots planted firmlytwo feet apart her head is down eyes closedI can feel the music here something like Jailhouse Rock orhis bastardized version of Hound Dog
she’s having the time of her lifewhen she wore her boots to supper she felt wild and modgetting such a kick out of this outfitlike the kid who used to put on the old clothesfrom Mom’s dress-up boxElvis told her to go back to the room and changehe’s had enough of looking at that crap every nightdoes he really have to take his work with him to supper?
part of me is glad to see that even a go-go dancer for Elviscan be made to feel like an idiot be spoken to in that waybut I still want to drive to their hotel in Renoand kick his ass
Yes.by Rosemary Griebel
978-1-897181-77-5, $15.95
Born in the farming community of Castor, Alberta, Rosemary
Griebel grew up on the prairies. There she experienced nature as
both immense and intimate. It’s common to say that there is little
room to romanticize nature when the lives and deaths of animals
are commonplace and all around you. Yet Rosemary, currently
Special Projects Manager with the Calgary Public Library, where
she has worked for 20 years, always knew experience as both
something to be felt and something to be spoken of. Rosemary’s
poems have been published on CBC’s radio program Anthology,
in national journals, in the Calgary Transit’s “Poetry in Motion”
series of in-vehicle posters, and in chapbooks by Leaf Press.
Yes. is Rosemary Griebel’s long-awaited first book, an intimate
journey through love and loss, an affirmation of the importance of
curiosity, passion and vision.
INSOMNIAYou may have heard this before – an ancient Egyptian meditation called quiet ears can cure insomnia. You plug the ear canals with your thumbs and listen for a high pitched singing in your head. If you give yourself over to it, the sound will carry you into sleep.
Outside, the moon is yawning over the city –and the neighbour has arrived home. He opens a square of light to the night.
My husband moves in his sleep, pulls the blanket to his shoulders. He is curled up, his ear pressed toward dreams. Now I understand how loversfly around each other night and day – how close and secret are the passages of love.
Apparently that melodic sound is always in the head – we just need to listen. The way birds hear a choir of light, and in darkness start to sing.
Across the river, wolves in the zoo are howling. You may have heard this too – imprisoned animals cry out for their kind, knowing they are out there somewhere. All creatures have an instinctive geography that goes beyond fences and cities. It is a map of belonging.
Even my own father would call out to my mother in the night. He could hear her walking above him in heaven, opening doors, looking for him.
Right now the wolves are hearing things their keepers can not – the sound of jazz bars closing, the clock-tick and night noises of humans: distressed crying, love making, and someone at a small window writing the world while a distant keening in her head will not lead her back to sleep.
It is 3 a.m. I would like to wake my love so we could talk, or lay our heads together like heavy hymn books, and listen.
Water Striderby Karen Hofmann
978-1-897181-19-5, $15.95
Karen Hofmann grew up in the Okanagan Valley, completed a BA
and MA at the University of Victoria, and now teaches English and
creative writing at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British
Columbia. She lives at the edge of a former pine forest with her
husband, many children and small animals, and the constant fear
that she has forgotten to do something important.
Shortlisted:
The Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize
Long BeachI am mesmerized by the young man zipping his girlfriend’s wetsuit, jealous of the way he braces his feet and yanks, as if her skin were familiar to him as his own watch face.
I envy them as I envy the otters anchored in kelp knots, rocked and static in the moving sea, their eyes sealed tighter than abalone, their pelts shiny as inner tubes, as harpoon steel.Here on the beach I have been sandcastling with my children, constructing a simulacrum of well-being. We are sticky with flotsam, glitter with mica, salt, fish scales;
everything is gritty, ridged, creased. The sun slips a notch in its slow curl and I wade in, cast for my lost skins but bring in the usual old boot of cartoons, and each frame
analogous to something – not loss, but something like the pattern of sand ripples, or I have been here before, or the cogs and gears that work the tides.
The young in their neoprene sleekness return to the water I climbed out of.The seam where the ocean opens is sewn and opens again.
Dinner at Madonna’sby Kevin Irie
978-0973238-00-6, $14.95
Kevin Irie was born and lives in Toronto. His poetry has been pub-
lished in periodicals and anthologies in Canada and the United
States, Australia and England, and has been translated into Spanish
and Japanese. He won first prize in the 2000 poetry competition in
Rice Paper for his poem “Tashme” which appears in Dinner at Ma-
donna’s. He was a finalist in the prestigious CBC Literary awards for
his poem “Viewing Tom Thomson (A Minority Report)”. Kevin is also
the author of two previous books, Burning the Dead, and The Colour
of Eden, which was a finalist for the City of Toronto Book Award. An-
gel Blood: The Tess Poems was also published by Frontenac House..
Entering VeniceShe looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,Rising with her tiara of proud towersAt airy distance … –Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Spanning the breadth,the back of Venice:graffiti scribbled across bare walls,a gorgon’s coilwrithing against the water,slick tentacled creaturescaught in low tide.
Sprayed ropesscale Castello, Cannaregio;green, pus yellow,to tow the sight past wallswhere a gangrenouscut in a portalmarks a gash as welt and whip.
Hearts become serpentsswallowing their tails;their purple, not royal, but bruised.Damp worms, eels,plucked from the oceanthat wrings them outtill they seep faint blood.
Here, words are vinesof an invasive speciesborne by aerosol winds;
signature set as its own gaudy subject,cheap paint as netting,lattice. Scar.
Not beauty but what defines it.
Venice: a catch lashed in painted nets.
Each launch,a finned creaturemoving incloser …
Angel Blood: The Tess Poemsby Kevin Irie
978-0973238-04-4, $15.95
Adopting the posthumous voice of a wronged girl from 19th-cen-
tury fiction makes for a bold imaginative leap on Irie’s part. Yet
he enters into Tess’s situation so thoughtfully, and his diction is so
exact, that he ends up making a success of it.
—Harry Vandervlist, Alberta Views
Longlisted:
2005 ReLit Awards
Higher EducationSchool taught meI wasn’t my parents.
School gave me a way to growagainst them. My educationa distance they couldn’t crossas I wandered further into myself.
Each page was a new place they couldn’t find me,chalk across slatelike a trail escaping.
You’re too smart for us now,my mother once told me
though I said nothingto prove I was.
She Dreams in Redby Alexis Kienlen
978-1-897181-12-6, $15.95
She Dreams in Red is the story of journeys – from China to Cana-
da, to Indonesia, to Mongolia into the mysteries of the human heart
and romantic relationships.
Exploring the author’s unique cultural background and history,
travels and encounters with love and loss, these poems attempt
to make sense of the world with simple images painted in clean
brushstrokes.
Alexis’s new book 13 will appear in September.
chinese caféi want to eat chinese all the timeivory chopsticks between my fingers,porcelain bowls in my palms.
i want to sit on the red vinyl seats,crack cookies between my canines,floss my teeth with fortunes.
i love those old chinese cafés,jasmine, chrysanthemum, or green tea.
i want to savour pork dumplings,dribble hoisin, garlic and black bean sauce over rice,want to twist and drip noodles into my mouth,lick my lips.
i crave those wontons,thrust my tongue deep in the custard tarts.
this chinese café stays open all night.
13by Alexis Kienlen
978-1-897181-53-9, $15.95
Alexis Kienlen is originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She is
of mixed ethnic heritage: Chinese, French, German, and English/
Scottish. She holds an International Studies degree from the Univer-
sity of Saskatchewan, and a Graduate Diploma in Journalism from
Concordia University. Alexis has lived in Montreal, Wainwright
Alberta, Grande Prairie Alberta, Vancouver, Indonesia and Mon-
golia. Her poetry, fiction and journalism pieces have appeared in
numerous publications throughout Canada. She has written two
poetry books, She Dreams in Red and 13.
the one who slippedwe have all heard about the little monster who stepped out of the shadows, showed her face to a child.
in the quiet stillness of the night the child’s scream summoned bleary-eyed parents.
the little monster, terrified, could not get away fast enough. she had snarled her fingernails in the child’s hair, mesmerized by soft curls, the perfume of newness, perfect apple softness of the child’s cheeks.
we were all familiar with the scene. in a moment of silence we imagined the child’s sleepy, trusting gaze, the holy moments between them.
awe as the monster touched the soft skin of the other.
she would have held the small one close to her, to absorb the warmth, the feeling of life,
anything to suck out the loneliness, the dullness of endless wanting.
the child would take time to remember memories of fear.
children have to learn how to be afraid, to recognize the difference between awake and dreaming.
a child has to learn how to scream.
White Shirtby Laurie Macfayden
978-1-897181-40-9, $15.95
Laurie MacFayden grew up in southern Ontario and has lived in
Edmonton since 1984. She spent 30 years as a sports journalist,
most recently at the Edmonton Journal. She left the news media in
June 2007 to focus on her own writing and visual arts projects.
This is her debut collection of poetry. She blogs at spatherdab.
wordpress.com and her art lives at www.lauriemacfayden.com.
Shortlisted:
23rd annual Lambda Literary Awards, lesbian poetry category.
Co-Winner:
Golden Crown Literary Society Award, lesbian poetry category.
hoboyou would call me a nobodyi myself prefer the termemotional vagabond
i am a nobodyand my mother’s given up on mebecause i’m hopping boxcarsin search of language for the unseenfor another thousand waysto say the things i was forbidden to sayshut up shut up shut up
my mother would call the train tracks dangerousbut i take comfort in their stretchtheir long steel hum,the way they just go off towards an ending you cannot seeyou know that ultimatelythey must come to a halt out theresomewhere on the other side of trestles and tunnelsand the dangers of unmarked crossings
you would call me a drifteri myself prefer not to be called
Sky Humourby Sid Marty
978-1-897181-43-0, $15.95
Now a singer-songwriter, author and poet, for 12 years Sid Marty
was a park warden, spending hours patrolling the mountain back-
country with saddle and pack horses; he wrote many of his early
poems literally in the saddle, composing them in his head while on
patrol far from home.
Sky Humour, originally published in 1999 by Black Moss Press,
is now available in this revised edition with a new cover from
Frontenac House.
Sky HumourAt last the ranger quitshis dusty circuit through the firs
Doped on light he seeks the coolof a roof, paper work. But a single sheetfalls on his wrist like a hot towel
Deer flies, horse flies, house fliesmoths and bees, thud as heavily as sparrowsagainst the screen. They make a kind of music
His head drops on his arms, glued with sweatto the clammy desktop
Outside the clouds roll in but they are thunderheads of smoke
Ash falls softly on the cabin roofa parody of winterAll promise of rain is just sky humourClouds “Just empties goin’ back”as farmers say
A humming bird comes hopefully to fana yellow helmet flowering on the steps
The sleeper would have fed this visitorBut now his mouth yawns, stupid with defeat
He dreams into the heat of Mexico
He’s there at the volcano’s rimwhen the molten climax seedsa year of rain
The Rider With Good Handsby Sid Marty
978-1-897181-45-4, $15.95
A selection of horseback verses from three earlier books, Head-
waters, Nobody Danced With Miss Rodeo and Sky Humour to
illustrate the various rites of passage of a life lived close to the
earth in the mountains and foothills of British Columbia and Al-
berta, in the late decades of the last century. The book concludes
with newer material that smacks of an even earlier time, since it is
written in the rhyming tradition that never went out of style on the
western ranges.
Sid Marty is the author of five books of non-fiction and three poetry
collections. His recent prose work, The Black Grizzly of Whiskey
Creek, was short-listed for the Governor General’s Award in Non-
Fiction and shared the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book
Festival. In 2008, he was awarded the Grant MacEwan Literary
Arts Award for his contribution to the literatre of Alberta.
Packing Dynamite“The thing to remember”he saidBull Durham bag suspended archly from one pinky“is to keep your dynamiteand your blasting capsin two separate places”
Caps were in my saddlebagsdynamite packed on the mareAnd back and forth my horsesbattled for the leadbanging pack-box and saddleroughly togethereight miles up the riverto the camp above Twin Falls
My sun tan flaked offand I was a white and shining angelready to take wingAll in white piecesof a horse shit bomb
Confessions of an Empty Purseby S. McDonald
978-1-897181-33-1, $15.95
S. McDonald was born, raised and continues to live in Toronto.
Ze grew up in pre-gentrification Cabbagetown and Regent Park.
Ze has performed zir alternative spoken word performance pieces
at various venues including Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s annual
Rhubarb! Festival and Paddy’s Playhouse. Ze is the love child of
Christine Jorgensen & John Rechy & the spiritual godchild of Jac-
queline Susann.
regent park will be there foreverI’ve got to tell you this:
It’s 1974 andI’m 14 years old.I’m in Grade 9,my first year ofhigh school.
De La Salle, an all-boysCatholic high school.
I took the streetcarand subway back andforth to school everyday.
I was fat with flat, oily hair and pimples galore.
wouldn’t that be a great drag name?Ladies and Gentlemen put your handstogether and give it up forPimples Galore!
Anyway:I had no friends. None.
I lived a life so insular,so deeply, so profoundlyinside my headit felt both physicallyand psychically painfulto even be outside in the world.
This is what I would doriding the subway every day wherebetween Bloor and Summerhillsubway stations it was above ground.
Outside. Lots of trees and green.In the winter it would be coveredin snow in a very soft, pretty way.Sitting in the subway car, looking out the windowI would think of the scenefrom
Valley of the Dollswhere Barbara Parkinswas taking the train back fromNew York City to Lawrenceville.
She’s looking longinglyout the window of the train:
Her hair is in a sophisticated upsweep.Her make-up is perfection.Her black leather gloved handsclutch her mink coat about her throat.
Her perfect, perfect face achingwith a sweet, serene melancholy… at life.
Every day as I rodethe subway betweenBloor and Summerhill:
as I looked out the train windowI saw myself,Marsha:with sophisticated upswept hair,perfect make-up, my black leather gloved handsclutching my mink coat to my aching throatto keep the screaming inside
my perfectly made-up eyes,so catlike and desperate,looking longingly outthat subway windowinto my future.
for that few minutes every dayI was myself on that subway.
I was Marsha riding into my future,riding away from everybody and everythingthat still clung to my skin and stained my heart,that cut my soul to the core at every turn
understand:
I didn’t see myself “as” Barbara Parkinslooking out that subway window.
I saw myself looking out that window.
It was my perfectly made-up face.
It was my hair in that sophisticated upsweep.
and most importantly:.
It. Was. My. Mink. Coat.
I knew it then and I know it now:
Regent Park will be there forever
And I will always, always be me; Marsha …
Rhyming WranglersEdited by Ken Mitchell
978-1-897181-13-3, $18.95
Ken Mitchell is a well-known Canadian playwright, actor and nov-
elist, with over 25 books to his credit, including the legendary
“country opera” Cruel Tears. His drama about Norman Bethune,
Gone the Burning Sun, toured the world in the 90s. Mitchell grew
up on a family ranch near Moose Jaw, and went on to become a
professor of English at the University of Regina. He lives in Regina
with his wife, the scholar Jeanne Shami.
Rhyming Wranglers includes not only poets from pioneer times,
and the current stars of the cowboy poetry festival circuit, but such
major outlaw poets as Sheri-D Wilson, Sid Marty, Doris Daley and
Corb Lund. You will find they all speak the authentic lingo of the
cowboy. Especially in the poem “On the Missouri Coteau” written
by Ken himself.
On the Missouri CoteauSure good to see ole Henk again ridin with our crew along the trail on the big coteau. Bin years since he was through. He left here for the rodeo, then took up tendin bar and livin the life of a vagabond with a banjo and guitar.
But there’s heavy lines across his face and his eyes seem kinda dull as if them years he spent down South been etched inside his skull. “Boys,” sez he, “I’m tickled green to be sitting by your fire cause all the fancy bars I’ve seen can’t set a tone no higher.
“Way out here on the high plateau your spirit gets a shake like the smell of coffee on the boil, a thing you don’t mistake. That grub we ate was what I craved, each night in every town. Your venison and biscuit pie in taverns can’t be found.
“Oh, I’ve sampled horses’ doovers in the bistros of Orleans and all the bins on the Broadway – but they can’t match Donny’s beans. And smart talk? Well, I heard lots, in some courtrooms here and there but I tell you men, my learning began when I heared ol’ Wally swear.
“As for music, I took in a few big concerts in my days, but I still prefer the steady purr of a crackling pinewood blaze. Or the plaintive howl of a coyote prowling through yon aspen wood is gonna affect the hair on your neck, like no soprano could.
“‘I’ve wandered the world, looked at great art, your Leonardos and Vince Van Go, but if you wanta study a masterpiece, take a sunset on the coteau. Look at it there, all purple and gold, ’gainst a blue like a robin’s egg. No painter I know can capture the flow of those shapes on heaven’s lake.
“So pour me out another cup of Slim’s black-as-hades brew; the coffees I been sippin late are thin as Moose Jaw stew. I’ll just sit and reflect a bit on the loneliness of bars, and the music of the Big Coteau, and the distances of stars.”
Swallowing My MotherCatherine Moss
0-9684903-3-6, $13.95
Catherine Moss lives in Calgary and has often spent summer and
fall hiking in the high country. Her favourite destinations involve
the transition from forest to alpine tundra.
Writing Above Timberlineabove eight thousand feet the energy of emptiness pushes back larch lifts up stone valleys
alpine tundra rejects formal script it splashes lichen graffiti orange yellow grey/green on rock cut to the core by snow wind the wildness of an open page
Narcissus Unfoldingby Jim Nason
978-1-897181-48-5, $15.95
Jim Nason is the author of two books of poetry, If Lips Were as Red
and The Fist of Remembering, the latter an emotionally rich and
honest account of the death of his partner from cancer, and a novel,
The Housekeeping Journals (Turnstone). While his subject matter has
often been about death and dying, his poetry is filled with light. In
many ways his is the truly philosophical view that wastes no time
mourning what might have been but is eager to embrace all that life
might teach even in the deepest of sorrows.
Narcissus Unfolding inspires its readers to re-examine how they
are loved in a world that’s often disappointingly real. Yet, once
accepted, once understood, real, flawed, failing love is seen in all
its unfolded glory – and embraced.
HorseYou sink into the rose-print sofa you bought at the Salvation Army, wake slowly into morning. Sunrise is fire through a crack in the curtain, circling your feet like an improbable halo on the pine floor, the consoling warmth. Hung above the Medici vase, a black and white photograph of a thoroughbred – foaming flank of neck, strong legs weak with rain and mud, zero percent body fat you would say if the horse were naked like a man – maybe the man who spends an extra ten minutes in the steaming shower across from you at the gym, wanting eyes on his lonely chest, loving the world of sit-ups and iron, hating himself for what he craves – you see this in the way he looks at your own fit body, how he soaps his rough thighs, bends slowly to massage his knees, by the way he hangs his beautiful head – hot water dripping down around the scalded circle of his neck like a flaming lei of pink roses.
The horse’s wet mane and ballsy stance, framedin slick hardwood – complex weave of petal and thorn, you want to touch it,smell the sexy mix of lime powder and hay, hear the steady grind of oats like gravel between his massive teeth, heavy tail swatting flies from his tensed-up rump, stomping in the stall, the water bucketspilling, sunlight over piss-soaked straw.
Fallacies of Motionby William Nichols
978-1-897181-35-5, $15.95
William Nichols is a public policy consultant based in Edmonton.
Born in Moose Jaw, his travels have always brought him back to
the prairies. Poetry is a counterpoint to the words he produces for
business and government.
William’s muse is dyslexia. Though his is a mild disability, it cre-
ates a continual tension between the mind, the eye and the page.
A printed page can have as many possibilities as a blank one, as
the letters slowly swim into words, possibilities are discarded, and
meanings emerge.
Heat Lightningthunder at a distanceclatter of cutlery in a slammed drawera dog bark multiplies itself down the alley a harley a sirensqueal of a gatean engine startscar lights swerve from a driveflash photography down the streetlight kicks at the curtainharleys sirens harleys sirens harleyscoins going round in a dryerleaves thrash the wallsmall birds cry from hidden placesthe summer ends this waybox spring creakingwaiting for black violenceor the hush of raindreams lay bedridden detecting conspiracies from scant evidencesirens harleys sirens harleys sirens harleys
Weaveby Lisa Pasold
0-9732380-7-0, $15.95
Lisa PasoLd has been thrown off a train in Belarus, mushed huskies
in the Yukon, learned to polka at Danceland, and been cheated in
the Venetian gambling halls of Ca’ Vendramin Calergi. She grew
up in Montreal, which gave her the necessary jaywalking skills to
survive as a journalist. She currently divides her time between a
tiny house in Paris and various borrowed addresses in Toronto.
Awards/Award Nominations
Shortlisted:
Alberta Book Awards Trade Fiction Book Award
which part isn’t the one you want? it seems a long time ago, when my husband made three
we married in a rush, he was sent back after two weeks. they were in france by then. he left me a painting of the alps.
you want I should explain love like a cake? I cut that cake into pieces, one for each of my stale loyalties. I have worn the prettiest expectations for people like you.
as for love, haven’t you learned that lesson yet? everything coexists. three is a better number than two, it is more believable.
let me give you an example. something impossible. what if you disappeared for three years; who would you find in your home when you returned?
would she invite you in? would she lend you clean clothes? would she give you her clean hands. or send you out ahead of her
kiss you once and push you forward through the woods. would the cake in your pocket crumble, its pieces now dry?
A Bad Year for Journalistsby Lisa Pasold
978-1897181-01-0, $15.95
Pop music jingles, statistics, the frames of text and camera se-
lecting the world’s headlines for our perusal. A stroll along the
Champs Elysees jammed against the slum of Kibera — A Bad Year
for Journalists feeds the jagged, seductive language of media into
the emotional cusinart lives of the media’s flawed and courageous
practitioners.
Shortlisted:
Alberta Book Awards Trade Fiction Book Award
personal private newsif there’s too much of it, we are drowned; if there is none of it, we are starving. is there no other word for what we lack?
the volunteers all given white rubber gloves, cheap paper masks, a prayer of their preferred religious affiliation. bowing heads.
the empty tap coming away in his hand. how water falls upon us or sweeps us away. how we die if it isn’t surely clean.
something about compassion. put it on an aeroplane stampedwith initials, crosses or crescents.
maybe he should have kept his southern accent, stayed thoroughly Johnny Cash, all drunk tank and motel.
there are two satisfactions: of looking without flinching, or else the satisfaction of flinching. he can’t say the latter.
he has a sudden craving for pistachios, must be something to dowith the flavour of the air this morning, its lack.
there are no new ways of describing movement in water. malarial, with long curved beaks and words like plumage.
so does the truth comfort? or does the truth makes us despair—he isn’t sure of his job’s description.
if he has to confess to a totem animal, he says “lion, or hyena” yet knows himself a civet, nocturnal, solitary.
instead of the elephants, he finds himself watching a former model sitting in yoga position on the roof of her jeep.
the hopeful heart: giraffe sailing through the landscape, a secretary bird,then he’s on a little airplane leaving Nairobi.
the stylist says “what bloody use are flamingos” while the driver’sguard dog lopes quietly down to the wet.
haute couture shoot on the carved veranda of the Serena Hotel; sun-lit,palm-reflectioned, he mutters “i’m lost here.”
taking a bite of the hibiscus because its petals should be edible, consistentdisappointment when they’re not. spitting colour.
overhears “those tourists known as journalists.” unable to look around;holding to speed because the very breath depends on it.
brilliant pages for Figaro Magazine. he examines the prints for signsthat he’s still here. he can’t remember.
the smallest spider he has ever seen, crawling across cracked leather of a hotel lobby desk. “the peace process crawls…”
he’s there, camera flash as a coalition spokesman admits peacekeepers tortured the rebels to death; room boiling, unsurprised.
all next day, streets empty as everyone watches football. how he wants to join them, free his mind from everything but soaring energy.
unable to prove his equal interests in what is kept, what is thrown away.
the river overflowing its banks: the surge, pull, he thinks “how beautiful” but catches himself; a global language of operational synergy.
Any Bright Horseby Lisa Pasold
978-1-897181-55-3, $17.95
Lisa Pasold’s first book of poetry, Weave, was hailed as a master-
piece by Geist magazine. Her second book of poetry, A Bad Year
for Journalists, was nominated for an Alberta Book Award. Her
2009 novel, Rats of Las Vegas, was described as “enticing as the
lit-up Las Vegas strip and as satisfying as a winning hand at poker”
by the Winnipeg Free Press. Lisa has taught creative writing at the
American University in Paris and led writing workshops in places
such as Dawson City, Yukon, and Winter Park, Florida. Lisa grew
up in Montreal, which gave her the necessary jaywalking skills to
survive as a poet and travel writer. While working as a journalist,
Lisa has been thrown off a train in Belarus, mushed huskies in the
Yukon, and been cheated in the Venetian gambling halls of Ca’
Vendramin Calergi. Her latest book of poetry, Any Bright Horse,
was published by Frontenac House in spring 2012.
If Marco Polo had never travelled to meet the Great Khan. If he had never returned.
If in middle-age, he had not felt uneasily sedentary, stifled by the narrow canals of Venice.
If he had not then accepted command of a vessel sailing to triumph against Genoa.
If the naval battle had not been lost.
If Polo had not been held, a prisoner of war, in Genoa.
If he had not been imprisoned alongside a bored writer of Arthurian romances, languishing in a neighbouring cell of Genoa’s Palazzo di San Giorgio Jail.
If this fellow inmate, Rustichello, had not written down the stories Polo recounted.
If they had not collaborated, arguing through their various languages and dialects, until Rustichello penned Polo’s complete narrative in an ungrammatical but highly romantic French.
If this Book of Marvels had not been read rapturously even by priests, had not been recopied and translated variously and finally printed, for wide distribution, in 1477.
she is reading her blanket with her handsSharron Proulx-Turner
978-1-897181-18-8, $15.95
Sharron Proulx-Turner is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta.
Originally from the Ottawa river valley, she’s from Mohawk, Al-
gonquin, Wyandot, Ojibwe, Mi’kmaw, French, Scottish and Irish
ancestry. She’s a two-spirit mom of three adult children, Graham,
Barb and Adrian, mother-in-law to Harold, and nokomis to Willow,
Jessinia and Mazie. Sharron’s work appears in several anthologies
and journals.
your wind a song & deep inside the hand hillsfor margie faccini-lee
that sea of frozen grassescaught in a wind& bendingwhose underwater wavesfill whole fields with spring
their scents your spirit your walka magnifier of your naturalrare beauty
knowing you is like playing hopscotch on the surface of the water, the chalk returning to its watery home, the rocks to throw from number to number, too, gone back to the bottom of fish creek, & me jumping anyway, the memory working its way from thigh to knee to calf to heel, heel to toe, heel to toe, heel to toe.
to meyou’re like summer sweetgrasslong & fragrant & generousyour wit your mind your humour
you’re a brilliant storytelleran artistwhere everything you touch
transforms to something delicate & finesomething alive
for you, margie leewords seem clumsy & uneven& youa soft red leafthe same leaf found under barbed wirein mid-winterperfect stillrich & supple & pressed nowinside the pages of a bookmaria campbell or linda hoganlee maracle or beth brant
you hold onto gracelike a child holds a dandelionfor her motherwith deep joyat that time of daywhen morning meets the sky& yours are prairie skiesbursting brilliant redbold & breathtakingagainst a periwinkle blue
Love in a Handful of Dustby Kirk Ramdath
978-1-897181-47-8, $15.95
Kirk Ramdath is a mainstay among Calgary’s poets and spoken-
word artists. His “Passion Pitch” poetry series has brought together
a wide range of writers to share their words and music, drinks
and discussion in an era when the open mic reading, so fertile a
ground for many writers practicing today, has been abandoned.
He has organized poetry in the park readings and as well as some
of the readings in the Single Onion series. Kirk’s poetry has ap-
peared in chapbooks, journals, and on stage – he was one of the
first readers in the Calgary Spoken-Word Festival’s “Smart Men,
Hot Words” readings. His poetry is noted, appropriately, given the
reading series he founded, for its passion and sensuality.
“Ramdath’s poetry doesn’t posit a better world, it demands it. Ram-
dath’s dust is an incendiary device in mid-ballet.”
—Bob Holman
marquez could do you justice (but for now the task is mine)when i think of youmy hands do not tremble with weakness my eyes do not fill with tears no longer does thinking of you stir the embers of my desire into arousal
still, i am not lying when i declare you are the most beautiful woman i have ever seen i would give my life for one more kissthen i would kiss you as if stopping meant deathfor as the fullness of life becomes a vast nothingnessin the moment of deathso has the pleasure of your lips made the fullness of life without your kiss seem like a vast nothingness
an empty playground that i fill with secret thoughts of you i fill my soul with things that were dear to you you love the writing of marquezso i read the story of fermina daza and florentino arizo
the opening line connects bitter almonds to the scent of unrequited love at first it is easy for me to play the role of florentino arizobecause he worships fermina daza and like me, he cannot swim in the character of fermina daza, i see youwith your aura of self-possessionyour secret chord of strengthyou never betray your calamity
navigating the disorder of the street in your own time and space like a bat in the darkness6
but florentino arizo becomes a rejected manwho purgatories his body countless times to dull the pangs of despised love all the while he cares more for the hairs that fall from his head than the women in his bed all the while he hopes for the death of the husband of the woman he claims to love all the while,a deceitful worm
this is not the legacy that your love leaves in me i never cherished a worduntil i spoke your nameand then i knew —the highest concept can be namedi was changedwhen i said you were beautifuli was not speaking, i was breathingmy love for writing is woven with my love for youinto this tapestry of wordsinto knowledgethat there is no higher purpose for wordsthan to breathe love into the world
[sic]Nikki Reimer
978-1-897181-38-6, $15.95
Nikki Reimer is a poet, blogger, curator, arts event planner,
and cat photographer, in East Vancouver. Reimer was a founding
editor of (orange) magazine, a co-editor and designer of KSW’s
W12: All Music issue, and creator of the disjunct! performance
series. She has blogged for Lemon Hound and the Vancouver
International Writers & Readers Festival. Reimer lives in Vancou-
ver where she is a member of the Kootenay School of Writing
and a board member at W2 Community Media Arts. She blogs
at www.nikkireimer.com/blog.php. [sic] is her first full-length
book of poetry.
Shortlisted:
The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award
from Illness Narrativesfor centuries, Ukrainian bards have sung of a forsaken brother who flees barefoot across the steppes, holding thorns to his chest to prove to himself that he is still alive
please respond to the social imperative to martyr oneself;clutch thorns to chest and march down hastings streetwork the job to job the work to job the work to work the job to job to work to job we all go to work in the panopticon but some of us are frillier than others corporate whore says why can’t i wear pink boots and fishnet stockings to work?why can’t i flee barefoot across false creek?trapped inside, under glass: ignore the cushy union lunchbreakwe like to drive the sidestreets at night blue tv set glow soothes an earnest canadian actress on a 52-inch screenare these vitamins or medications? do you have psychiatric problems? to co-opt this meat and potatoes monologue, adjust the satellite dish listen – zombie heads chatter on location
details from the edge of the villageby Pierrette Requier
978-1-897181-24-9, $15.95
Pierrette Requier, a long time member of the Stroll of Poets Soci-
ety of Edmonton, facilitates the Wind Eye Poetry Seminars. Her
poetry has appeared on CBC’s Wild Rose country, in Legacy: Al-
berta’s Heritage Magazine, Other Voices: Edmonton’s Journal of
the Literary and Visual Arts, and in the anthology Writing the Land:
Alberta Through its Poets.
Shortlisted:
Alberta Book Awards Best Poetry Book, 2010
Longlisted:
Alberta Reader’s Choice Award, 2010
balloonMémère’s face always watchful something could happen a chimney fire a drown-ing a heart attack a storm a drought the neighbour hanging himself poor man not quite right from fighting at the front and jealous not wanting anybody near his wife and keeping one’s mouth proper watching your words quand on échappe les paroles on n’sait jamais où qu’i’ peuvent lander and eating sparingly you could run out of food have to keep some for les passants eat with your mouth closed always taking small bites and small slightly slurpy sips of piping hot tea and keeping your mouth clean wiping it with a home-made Five Roses flour bag serviette many times patting your mouth dry free of crumbs and saliva sometimes i felt a burst of light behind her face that she might cluck or guffaw but she didn’t burst spit out didn’t drool even a bit this guffaw is a balloon stuck in my chest i want to explode it
Balloonassise sur le bout de sa chaise ma mémère sappe sa tasse de Nabob tea brûlant prend de petites gorgées pincées elle a toujours la mine un peu inquiète comme si elle watch tout le temps on n’sait jamais i’ pourrait y avoir un feu de cheminée une noyade une tempête une sécheresse une attaque de coeur p’is le voisin qui s’est pendu le pau-vre y était pas toute là après avoir passé au front à part ça c’était un jaloux fallait pas toucher ni parler à sa femme et qu’i’fallait watcher nos paroles les mots ça s’échappe on n’sait jamais où qu’i’ peuvent lander it’s best to keep your mouth proper that’s what you have to do au commencement sur le homestead c’était pas facile de trouver d’la grub fal-lait toujours garder de la nourriture pour les passants mémère mange la bouche fer-mée prend de petites bouchées “Pas trop pour moi pas trop pour moi” elle s’essuie la bouche avec une serviette de coton faite de sac de fleur Five Roses pour s’assurer qu’il n’y reste pas de graisse ou une seule miette je crois parfois voir s’allumer dans ses vieux yeux une petite flamme d’humour se lever aux coins de ses lèvres un p’tit sourire com-me si elle allait pouffer de rire peut-être même s’esclaffer mais non faut qu’elle s’en aille j’ai une envie folle de crever la membrane d’la balloon d’inquiétude qui se gonfle dans ma poitrine de faire péter la crainte
Waywardby Ali Riley
978-0973238-03-7, $14.95
Sacred Heart of Elvis. In Toronto, she acted in several theatre pro-
ductions, including The Lorca Play, for which the company won
a Dora Mavor Moore award for best performance by a female.
Her poetry has appeared in Geist, The nth Position Anthology,
Matrix, This Magazine, Event and the Moosehead Review, and
she has performed at festivals, schools, and hootennannies
across the country. She currently lives on a farm between Nanton
and Vulcan, Alberta.
Shortlisted:
The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award
Ghost DaughterYou can’t talk to your daughtershe rolls her eyesshe looks daggersscreams “Hypocrite!”screams “Stolen Land!”Her scars are a drugnothing stops the bloodin her headlike letting itflowacross to showdown to goladders up her armsher legsladders to her headladders to her hearther wristsher anklesdown her right thigha gracefulnot-quite-healedsnakeshe’s traded her birthrightfor a beat she can dance todark cornercrimson tideX carved through a new pair of tights
she fondles a matchbookif she were a boyshe might try arsonor bar fightsbut she is a girlso she takes it outon the nearestavailablebit of flesh.
A delicate operation – opening yourselfto pins and needles,the harsh white lightof a small porcelain room
“She’s indestructible” they say“She couldn’t destroy herselfeven if she tried”and try she doesfitting and gnashingsexing the chaos.
You thought you saw hercreeping into the master bedroomknife between her teeth – leading an army ofvengeful children.
The nation’s bathrooms are fulladolescents acting outa dimly rememberedascetic past –they are possessedovercome
their bodies host old soulsan angry tribecenturies deadthey are fastingseeing visionsbloodletting.
a sleeping shaman liesin your bathtubas you floss your teethhe opens one eyewhispers“we shall live again”
You can’t talk to your daughtershe runs the gauntletfrom back door to bedroomshe shoots through the family roomlike an arrow
wearing that jacket you despisea ghost shirtdeflecting your gaze, your questionsHer door slams upstairsher music beginsartillery bassbassbassnow her footstepsare dancingdancinglike a warrior.
Tear Downby Ali Riley
978-1897181-04-1, $15.95
A disgruntled Disney™ employee, a Spanish mystic and a fever-
ridden Supervixen are a few of the tenants of Tear Down. An
assemblage of myth, architectural narrative and trigger-tale, the
collection draws inspiration from Catholic saints, garage bands,
the Seven African Powers, performance art, and the history of lip-
stick. Whether its characters are fasting in the desert, casting spells
in suburban kitchens, or losing an eye in the gender wars, Tear
Down takes a wry and visionary look at impermanence, the mean-
ing of home, and finding solace in a fallen world.
HausfrauWomen decorate with an eye to how the world should be. Mother of Pearl, Arms of Mary—what is worse than the dresser-top detritus of a man? His clutter is driving me mad. While he works out of town I redecorate. I want magic. I fuss around altars. I arrange things. A pebble, a smudge stick, heads of the Virgin. I place bits of bone, second-hand fur and Nana-bling, put glitter everywhere. This is embarrassing, but I like to decorate and cook. It’s something I really know how to do. Growing up, in my family, a wife was not considered a decent thing for a woman to want to be.
* Men decorate with representations of them-selves. See, that’s what guys don’t understand. You wonder why your girl-roomie keeps mov-ing your plastic Frankenstein toy back to your bedroom—even though it’s the only object that’s yours in the realm of pink-fluff and faux surfaces. The plastic toy is so male, so clearly you—monster hands held helpless in front of your face.
Well-meaning kitten-strangler. Unwitting child-murderer.
*You call. The date is made. I wait on the back porch. I practise meditation though I’m not fit to breathe. My throat seizes with larcenous wow and flutter. My heart pounds like a shop-lifter’s. I maintain outward silence, try to fight the gibbering brain-innards of monkey-mind.
*The lady next door waters her Astroturf™ while I wait for you. She sprays the sidewalks, goes to the bay window and polishes her Hümmel figurines—Dutch children kissing. They remind her of the Old Country. The distance between This und That. A place where everyone behaves behind lace curtains. A flat-earth world outside these treacherous ranges.
*A woman’s memory is spiked silver claws pierc-ing a mattress, Freddy-style. Show-dog sex is my Old Country. We war horses are ponies that never forget a trick.
*I continue to wait, dry-mouthed, for the black reeds and uncharted marshes of your body. The sun is scary, so I wind-bathe in the shadow of a cedar. I am hungry to delineate your spacious gaze. I flip through The Mapping of Canada.
A rumble of thunder perks my ears: it could be crunchy gravel. A reason to run, poodle-like, to the picture window.
You arrive. You smile. I walk away and you catch my sleeve like stucco. Your twinkle dis-appears with the promise of a riding. Your eyes matte with porno-glaze. Shell-shock.
*We lock and roll. We are our own stunt doubles. We step into our lost sluttiness like a Comeback Special, Liza-style—arms out-stretched—thank you—in the spotlight, prom-ising the crowd I’ll never leave showbiz again...
An affair is a playground, not a house. Show-dog sex keeps our hearts safe. We pull all our old specialties out of mothballs. Later I hide my ripped knickers at the bottom of the trash can.
We are triple digit, triple threat. Man-Eater and Lady-Killer. Cannibal and felon, both former addicts to the Playing Field. We left the Wide World of Sport long ago but today we are Soop-ah-Stars! Of slag. Of shag.
33 Million Solitudesby Ali Riley
978-1-897181-56-0, $17.95
Ali Riley’s first poetry collection, Wayward, was short-listed for the
Gerald Lampert Memorial award, and her second, Tear Down,
was short-listed for the Re-Lit award. She was born in Calgary
and was the singer/songwriter of the seminal psycho-country band
Sacred Heart of Elvis. In Toronto her produced plays included dog
dream, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Hole in My Heart the Size
of My Heart. She was a contestant in the BookTelevision reality
show The Three Day Novel Contest, and her three-day novel, Hag,
won the Walrus Magazine/SLS literary contest. Her writing has
appeared in Geist, The nth Position Anthology, Matrix, This Maga-
zine, Event, The Moosehead Review, Alberta Views and Walrus.
Her third book, 33 Million Solitudes, explores Canadian themes
of isolation and survival with a 21st century twist, and reimagines
the fur trade as a modern metaphor for love. She lives In Nanton,
Alberta.
The Beginning of the Long Dash Solitude of a Daredevil
I want someone to wrap me in a pink blanket and feed me soup, but the world would stop. By day the disgraced man convalesces, no plans for the immediate or any other future. His doings, f that’s what they are, must be covert, unseen by nanny-cam, by infrared.He’s given up on dares, Fears the sounds of a stunt gone wrong.
He speaks in complicated metaphors about grain elevators, breached boxcars. The elevator in the distance, the one you haven’t reached yet? I ask. Does it say Death, or Intimacy?He allows that it doesn’t say Desire. Passed that one long ago, he says. O the world of sensuality only leads to misery of expectation.
Pretty pessimistic, I tell him. I’m in favour of happening. I leap over tall buildings because I can. I don’t want medals.
Why is it the wounded can’t face you? They swaddle themselves. Talk to the window. A war nurse doesn’t mind a splash of other people’s blood.
Eventually he will be three Safeway bags full of bleached dry bones to be carried out of the house.I want to motor across canyons, leap into something rickety because it feels heroic. Skidding tires, a crash landing my dumb Viking heart.
Puti/Whiteby Patria Rivera
978-0973238-09-9, $15.95
Patria Rivera is a Toronto poet and editor. Her first poetry col-
lection, Puti/White, launched by Frontenac House in 2005, was
shortlisted for the 2006 Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Born and
raised in the Philippines, she lives with her family in Toronto’s east
end.
Shortlisted:
Trillium Award for Poetry
Winner:
Global Filipino Literary Award for Poetry
Sitting down for tea with the First Lady, 1954The sepia photo captures my mother in her one-and-only favourite frock – palm-frond silk shift with a shirr of chiffon draping the bodice – while the other women, artfully made up in their pompadour hairdos, smart city clothes, smile widely for the cameras.
An afternoon tea with the First Ladyon her first visit to a rice-farming town in the plains of Nueva Ecija.
The woman in the picture wants to disappearinto her shadow: she has never drunk tea except to sip salabat with rice cake. It is much too hot for an afternoon of empty talk. Had they let her, she would’ve stayed by the river to finish the day’s wash,scrubbed off the day’s grime,the full torment of strange faces, with her work-scabbed hands. But the presidential aides hustled her offto the municipio to keep companywith the President’s wife. Photo opportunity, El Presidente, recently proclaimed “Man of the Masses,” knows how important appearances can be: The First Lady spendsan afternoon with the local mayor’s wife. She wouldn’t let on how she survived the day,how the sour camias soaked in burnt sugar went with the well-coiffed ladies and their two-toned nails. She grips a Spanish fan, a memento from her abuela. She appears tight and vestal, her thin lips feigning a smile.
The Bride Anthologyby Patria Rivera
978-1-897181-09-6, $15.95
The ways of love are long and torturous. They include the ability to
start over after things have blown up as well as the fine art of re-
membering the good times and forgetting the bad. The convoluted
paths of love never fail to beguile. Catch this poet as she runs after
the fickleness of love and longing.
“Rare Species”, a poem from this book was Second prize winner
of the Eric Hill Award of Poetic Excellence
Fearless dressesShe cuts out dolls and dreams from an old Vogue catalogue, mixing shirts and skirts, pants, pleats and Pythagoras,
the clickety-clack of the shears dulling herto submission, as if it were her
metal-to-metal impulse not to negotiate the intake valvesof frowned-upon choices,
the remarkable assemblages constructed from found objects, a desire without fronts or backs or sides,
like some vendeuse pirouetting the choreographer’s impressions flat on the ocean,
calibrating her emotions to the second,then as now, curbing her tendency towards a tight-lipped lower case “a”.
Fifth World Drumby Anna Marie Sewell
978-1-897181-25-6, $15.95
Anna Marie Sewell is an Edmonton writer who performs theatre,
prose and song. A Status Indian by Canadian government stan-
dards, Sewell sees her heritage as far more complex and varied.
Her 2007 Honour Songs project was part of Edmonton’s Cultural
Capital initiative and she edited the 2009 Stroll of Poets Anthol-
ogy. Fifth World Drum is her first book-length collection of poetry.
Shortlisted:
Alberta Reader’s Choice Award, 2010
journey prayerenough light for the journeyand breath enough
enough fire for the journeyand love enough
enough road for the journeyand will enough
and all along the way to hearthe song that you are.
Taqsimby Zaid Shlah
1-897181-08-6, $15.95
A native Calgarian, and of Iraqi heritage, Zaid Shlah now resides
in the east bay, CA. His poetry has appeared in literary magazines,
journals and anthologies in both Canada and the U.S. In May of
2005, he was awarded the American Academy of Poets Award.
His first book of poetry is titled Taqsim (Frontenac House, 2006). He
teaches English literature and composition at Solano Community Col-
lege and Diablo Valley College in northern California.
Letters To A Young Bride“My girl,”
and that this will have pleased you, is not enough, will provoke the scoffers into fits of rage, for what ownership have I over you, to what end does your pacified self serve mine? and this is no defense, but that you broke free, allowed me gentry status that afternoon under a redwood in Bothe State Park, you jarred the lines of symmetry, slugged rapture from the sauvignon, left grocers’ chocolate on the rim, the cork still floating, pushed in by my tremulous hands, you softened and warmed, to produce from my pocket this ring.
“Dear,”
the whole of you lying complacent inside that couch of a word worries me
that the propped pillow of hun, softening at my neck, might slip into two deferent bodies angling for sleep
you recall that afternoon spent shooting tequila over warm beer
creaking into the bookstore’s basement to slur each other love
saying our first goodnight, then staying the night instead –
amazing the sound of my name, how it leapt from your arabic tongue
From a Call Boxby Bob Stallworthy
978-0968490-31-0, $13.95
BoB staLLworthy is a transplanted Maritimer who has lived in Cal-
gary for 25 years. He has written four full-length books of poetry,
and an ongoing e-book called In Silhouette containing the pro-
files of Alberta authors. He has also written book reviews for The
Calgary Herald as well as a regular column for WestWord (the
Writers Guild of Alberta magazine), and has written and pub-
lished poetry in literary magazines across Canada.
Cold Callsthe fifteen year old’s girlfriend calls to say she won’t be going to the dance Friday with him
the twenty year old just landed his first real paying jobsits in a cubicle with phone and phone book
the thirty-five year old salesman in danger of losing his job pays a visit to an unknown customer “the very latest ... the very best on the market”there’s been no appointment no referral
the fifty year old police sergeantthe younger cops give him the visits to parentshe’s got kidsseen it all anyway
the eighty year old voice left on the answering machine taped words death going cold turning around and around
they come just before quitting timebefore supper before bedtime
they come at the most inopportune times
Opticsby Bob Stallworthy
978-0973238-06-8, $15.95
Focusing on intensely personal experiences, Optics shows vision
as a trick of light. We see through a glass barrier we’ve placed
between ourselves and our world, often filtered by the warps and
swirls caught in that glass. We stand behind a window that is
growing dark in early winter, not even noticing the creeping dark-
ness across the glass blocking our vision. The poems explore the
world reflected back by a simple piece of glass.
Shortlisted:
City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize
First Thunderstormthe crashlifts me off the bedand I’m not sure in its aftermathwhether I cry outor whether I just dream itI watch the lightning scythethe sky into bits and piecesremember the first thunderstormyou carried me to the windowwe watched the light tear up the skywhat frightened me awake tonight crash of thunder fear that you aren’t there now that I will have to explainthe flash of lightthat obliterateseverything even memory
Things that Matter Nowby Bob Stallworthy
978-1-897181-26-3, $15.95
Things that Matter Now examines how reactions to persons and
events change with age; how memories lose their power to control;
how there is choice in those things one reacts to – in short, the
things that matter now.
Shortlisted:
W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize;
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry.
A Man Without ChildrenI’m a man without children, that much is clear, and I ask myself what the world will be like when I am no longer on it or should that be in. I wonder will it close over my head like water closing over a man who has fallen overboard. The man realizes that the people standing on the disappearing deck are waving good bye. He cannot see any line of shore. He has swallowed more water than he has breathed air and he has not yet touched the ocean floor
I asked a man this question once, but he was forever get-ting lost in whether it was his turn or mine to buy the next round. He was a man sitting at a wooden table made sticky by the beer bottles that stood like small children waiting for a parent to pay attention. And this man answered my ques-tion with a long pull on his bottle of Moosehead Ale and a burp. A long burp, that much is clear
Wiser Pillsby Richard Stevenson
978-1-897181-20-1, $15.95
The joke used to go, “Wiser Pills: take just one and you’ll be wis-
er,” as the cynical victimizer offered a rabbit raisin to the callow
youth. From rabbit raisins to psychedelics, the edict of better living
through chemistry had Sixties boomer kids dropping this, smoking
that, snorting something else, or poking it directly into their veins to
grow taller, get smaller … . Join poet Richard Stevenson on his own
exploration of the rabbit warren of consciousness from childhood
rites of passage, through dumb jobs, to middle age complacency
as the perimeter of that age-old symbol of acquisitiveness, the im-
maculate lawn, grows smaller and smaller and the poet’s wry grin
grows wider …
Action DachshundGrack! Grack! Grack! yourselves ya damn dumpster divers! Have yer grackle grack attack in someone else’s compost! This is my crib, yadig?
Keep your paws off my ka-nish or I’ll gnosh on the lot of you! I’m scampafterous, lithe and wienerish. Ain’t inbetweenerist.
Backatcha! Backatcha! Backacha! I’m Action Dachshund, not some brown lyin’-on-the-sidewalk log, but an on-the-job dog. Ya thieves!
Got no peers! Got no peers! I’m the alpha male here— bow-legged, balls-to-the-breeze, nasty Eine Kleine dachshund.
Ain’t no random action Pull toy boy, Ain’t no scamper-back-of-the-pantry putz. I’m Action Dachshund! Action Dachshund!
Pattern of Genesby Rosalee van Stelten
978-0968490-32-7, $13.95
Rosalee van Stelten CD, QGJM served in the Royal Canadian
Navy (Wrens) during the Cold War. Her working life has taken her
from Quonset hut, to palace, to cattle ranch, and from the Atlantic
to the Pacific oceans. She is the only royal yachtswoman in HMY
Britannia’s history. Born in Thunder Bay, raised in Winnipeg, and a
Calgarian for many years, she now lives in Victoria, BC. A widely
published free-lance writer, she has authored three books of poet-
ry. She was awarded The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002.
We Never Went to Santa Fewe never went to Santa Fesipped Margueritas, tasted fajitasbartered with natives for turquoiseand silver, strolled leaf-laced courtyardsmeandered museums, stood hushedin the mission of Guadalupe
never pressed palmsto pale warm adobeembraced beneath diamondsin dark desert sky, slippedbetween sheets smokedwith scent of mesquite
postponing pleasurefor all our tomorrows, forgettingthe gift of today
Pavlov’s Elephantby Rosalee van Stelten
978-1-897181-23-2, $15.95
Rosalee van Stelten has won many awards for her poems,
including: Finalist, Canada’s Cowboy Festival, Calgary; National
poetry contest; Gold watch award, Calgary Herald; Christmas
story contest; and Alberta Senior’s Games, Culture Division,
bronze medal for poetry.
Bow River glacial and green, the river river curls, falls through lofty canyon canyon walls, runnelled sides carved carved by wind and rain into sandstone fingers fingers that point to belts of spruce and pine pine mountain crags, scudding clouds clouds
azure sky from which an osprey osprey streaks with piercing cry, skims skims the frothy stream, then strikes strikes its talons clutching trout trout back arched, scales shedding shedding crystal water drops drops
along the river’s edge, hieroglyphics hieroglyphics pressed in sand: track of coyote coyote claw of bear, beside a lodge lodge built by vanished beaver beaver and, in dappled clearing clearing a bonfire’s charred bones bones
Tom Three Personsby Yvonne Trainer
0-9684903-8-7, $14.95
Yvonne Trainer holds a BA in English, an MA in English/Creative
Writing, and a PhD in Contemporary Literature with a special top-
ics area in Medical Humanities. She has published one chapbook,
four books of poems and over 400 poems and poetic articles in
literary journals. Her latest interests have been in Canadian Ab-
original Poetry and Ekphrastic Medical poems, and in Creativity
and Neuroscience and how science is changing the writing of
biographies and autobiographes. She lives in Western Canada
and is presently spending the summer preparing to write full-time
for the year.
Learning the LanguageWhat kind of life was that? Jimmy at St. Paul’s Mission School bent like a question mark in a desk writing “I must not speak Blackfoot” one hundred times every time his tongue slipped
At that school he learned a powerful new language
silence.
A Summer Fatherby Joanna M. Weston
978-1897181-05-8, $15.95
Joanna M. weston grew up on the North Downs of Kent, under
one of the main bombing runs to London. She left England at aged
18 for Canada where she has lived ever since, becoming Ca-
nadian on February 15, 1965, the day the maple leaf flag was
adopted. She is a full-time writer of poetry, short-stories, children’s
books and poetry reviews. She has published internationally in
journals and anthologies and has two middle-readers, The Willow-
Tree Girl and Those Blue Shoes, in print.
“poignant and spare in all the good ways”
— Richard Stevenson, The Danforth Review
The Child Who Died My childhood’s soul awoke this dying night And walked the rooms I walk, that were her own; (from John Jarmain’s Poems)
green cot broken in my father’s war blue dress gift to an artillery gunteddy bear squashed in an overseas grave
no one remembers the child who died of sirens and the whisper pulling silence
I died slowly, and watched it happen each bomb, each plane, took a small piece and wrote another letter of my name on the sky
each bursting house buried another limb until I was gone, without lamentto search for my childhood self and the father who died but I cannot reclaim the dead
Autopsy of a Turvy Worldby Sheri-D Wilson
978-1-897181-17-1, $15.95
Since founding the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival in
2003, Sheri-D has worked to present the largest Spoken Word Fes-
tival in Canada. Driven by the passion to connect people, voices
and ideas she organized SWAN (Spoken Word Arts Network,
2007 & 2005), produced the 2008 National Slam of Canada
and since 2007 has been the Program Director of the Spoken
Word Program at Banff Centre
www.sheridwilson.com
Ma and Tight Corners: Tipsy Curvy “It goes like stink!” ~ Ma, 1969
It was a turquoise 1957 Chevy with the truck engine.
And Ma would drive that old jalopy around corners, hell bent like a Formula One demon on speed, and she’d yell, Hang on! We’d be in the back seat changing from our school clothesinto our brownie uniforms,and she’d take the corner with a fighting spirit, on two wheels,and we’d hang onto the seats for dear life, gripping with our fingertipstill our lips turned psych ward white,and then both car doors on one side would go flying open, no holy shit handleswe’d hang on to that front seat with the fake fur seat covers so we didn’t go flying out…Whoaoooo...…and then the corner would be over and the heavy ’57 Chevy doors would come flying shut.
Bang! Bang!
And we’d go back to changing our clothesand eating our Kentucky Fried Chicken right out of the barrel, like pros,finger lickin’ good, back then, before seat beltsand car seats and sun block and water wings.
Back then, when they’d give us matches to play withand guns to shoot the bottleslined up on the fencefor fun.
Back when you could ride without a helmet, feel the wind in your hair.
Back then.It was a turquoise 1957 Chevy with the truck engine.
Because of Ma I’ve never been afraid of the dark. She taught me how to stay on my toes,dance with danger. And she’s funny. Damn, she’s funny. Always makes me laugh.
Sometimes
it scares me when I think I might be like her, on two wheels.
Hang on!
Re:Zoomby Sheri-D Wilson
978-1897181-77-5, $15.95
Re:Zoom – a book of no return.
How can we return?
We resume,
but never from where we left off.
We continue from
some other place.
Winner:
Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry
Shortlisted:
The ReLit award.
Re:member SnapshotWhat does it meanwhen you take in a roll of thirty-six shots and they only develop eleven?
I don’t knowI guess some didn’t turn outMaybe they were over-exposed
What does it mean when you start the roll with one loveand end the roll with another?
I don’t knowI guess some didn’t turn outMaybe they were over-exposed
What does it meanwhen you have two loves on the same rolland you’re not with either of them anymore?
I don’t knowI guess some didn’t turn outDid you drop your camera?
Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universeby Sheri-D Wilson
978-1-897181-60-7, $19.95
The “Mama of Dada” Poet, film-maker, educator, producer and activist
Sheri-D Wilson has 7 collections of poetry; her most recent, Autopsy of
a Turvy World (2008, Frontenac House). Her last collection, Re:Zoom
(2005, Frontenac House), won the 2006 Stephan G. Stephansson
Award for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the CanLit award. She has
2 Spoken Word CDs (arranged by Russell Broom), and 4 award-
winning VideoPoems, all produced for BravoFACT. Awards Include:
CBC Arts Top Ten Poets in Canada (2009), ffwd Readers’ Choice –
Best Poet (2007-2010), Global TV’s Woman of Vision Award (2006),
SpoCan Award (2005), Bumbershoot Heavyweight Title for Poetry
USA (2003). Since founding the Calgary International Spoken Word
Festival in 2003, Sheri-D has worked to present the largest Spoken
Word Festival in Canada and since 2007 has been the Program Di-
rector of the Spoken Word Program at Banff Centre.
WHY CALLIOPE LOVES POETRYIt’s a gateway drug to profound intelligence
If she were a dog it would be the off-leash park
It’s where geeks go to talk dirty, nerdy wordy, beyond yes and no; and you can cry Nintendo tears
It’s the epitaph, the epigraph, and the epiphany
She can astral travel without anyone noticing cause they are too
She crosses the bridge and never looks back
She is a brobdingnagian humanitarian and she detests Walmart
She’s a layman Shaman with ears of corn eyes of peas and head of oral tradition-alities
The luminaries of the subterranean are coming
She’s fond of happy Mediums or should I say jovial intermediaries slow motion fireworks of the heart Aura Borealis—she can hear the sky sing
When she hears glass wind chimes her body tingles like she’s just been visited by a late night incubus it reminds her of Ulysses
The only money she loves is a sand dollar and the only celebrity she follows is a starfish
Nothing is written in stone and she can decipher the Emerald Tablet in the iris of her lover’s eyes
OTHER TITLES FROM FRONTENAC HOUSE MEDIA
In ThIs Placec a l g a r y 2 0 0 4 – 2 0 1 1
PhoTograPhs by george Webber / Words by arITha Van herk
In This Place: Calgary 2006 - 2011George Webber & Aritha van Herk
Canadian Photography ISBN 978-1-897181-59-1 192 pages, Hardcover, 9” x 12”, $40.00
In This Place … is about Calgary.
But it is not the customary view, the postcard tourist view, the sou-
venir view, the view that lies solely on the surface, oblivious or
indifferent to the life that unfolds below that surface, and beyond.
This book is about the images, both written and graphic, of the
themes that define the city. The overlooked, the feral, the discard-
ed, the unexpected and mysterious. It is about looking backward
and forward, inwardly and outwardly, like glimpses through a
train window. It is about the images, both written and graphic,
that piece together all those the hundreds of little clues to create a
grand patchwork that identifies a place you might otherwise not
see. These images are about a city that is transforming itself. They
are a little reminder that you cannot take things for granted.
Visual Orgasm: Highlights of Canadian GraffitiAdam Melnyk
Canadian Art ISBN 978-1-897181-50-8 108 pages, Paperback with flaps, 9.5” x 8.5”, $35.00
Visual Orgasm showcases the history of Canadian graffiti and its
American inspiration, featuring Canadian graffiti artists and im-
ages of the last thirty years. The foreword is by graffiti legend
Zephyr, known for his graffiti in New York in the 1980s. Author
Adam Melnyk is recognized as the leading authority on Canadian
graffiti, having collected images on his site, now www.visualor-
gasm.com since 1998.
RECENT RELEASES
13 Ways to Kill Your CommunityDoug Griffiths and Kelly Clemmer
Political Humour ISBN 978-1-897181-42-3 160 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $19.95
Let’s suppose you have a really ambitious goal in life – you want
to kill your community! You want to drive away people, eliminate
jobs, undermine businesses, and you won’t quit until the whole
place is in ruins. Don’t know how to go about it? You’re in luck
– here is a handy manual, chock-full of proven ideas, for the up-
and-coming town wrecker. This is the book for you!
But suppose you have a different goal – you want to save your
community. You want to promote growth, ensure prosperity, build
for the future. Well, you too can benefit from 13 Ways. All you
have to do is follow the advice in reverse, and before you know
it, you and your neighbours will have built a thriving, successful
community that’s the envy of everyone.
All Roads Lead to ManyberriesRon Wood
Political Humour ISBN 978-1897181-41-6 224 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $21.95
“With sharp wit, bold characterization and a keen eye for observ-
ing what is important – and funny – to Canadians, Ron Wood
once again caricatures the political leadership and the small town
foibles of this country. Sounds rather Leacock-ian doesn’t it? As
a former political backroom communications advisor, Wood has
all the necessary scalpels. It’s easy for the reader to imagine the
characters in this book with their concerns, their plots and their
humorous approaches to life in a small Alberta town.” -- Leacock
jury discussing Ron Wood’s And God Created Manyberries when
it was short listed for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Award for
Humour. All Roads Lead to Manyberries is the sequel.
And God Created ManyberriesRon Wood
Political Humour ISBN 978-1897181-15-7 191 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $19.95
Fictional political satire, written in the form of tongue-in-cheek ban-
ter in a small-town prairie saloon. The result is a refreshing antidote
to political correctness, sloppy thinking and lazy journalism.
On the surface, a bunch of old-timers are sitting around drinking
beer and complaining about taxes and the government. But first
impressions are deceptive – this is not mere tavern talk. Listen more
closely and you’ll find scalpel-sharp dissections of double-talk, po-
litical correctness, hypocrisy and lazy thinking. Nobody is spared:
inept and uncaring governments, both federal and provincial;
self-serving politicians demanding credit and glory without having
earned it; everyday guys who always want more than their share
and more than they give; and members of the media whose stock
in trade is trivia at the expense of real news.
CANADIAN POLITICAL HUMOUR
Amazing Flights and FlyersShirlee Smith Matheson
Canadian Aviation History ISBN 978-1897181-29-4 288 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $19.95
Flight can be a combination of thrills beyond compare – and
sudden full stops. The stories inAmazing Flights and Flyers encap-
sulate nearly every human emotion and scenario, and range from
the early days of the 20th century to the present.
Maverick in the SkyShirlee Smith Matheson
Canadian Aviation History ISBN 978-1-897181-16-4 112 pages, Paperback, 8.5” x 5.5”, $9.95
Aviation adventures are Shirlee Smith Matheson’s specialty.
In Maverick in the Sky the author paints a fascinating portrait of
flying ace Freddie McCall, one of the most successful fighter pilots
of World War I.
McCall’s bold spirit might well have been inherited from his clan
motto Dulce Periculum – Danger is Sweet. His amazing wartime
accomplishments, his extraordinary flying skills, his fiercely inde-
pendent barnstorming character and his self-reliant entrepreneurial
spirit make him one of Canada’s most spectacular mavericks.
CANADIAN AvIATION HISTORy
MOON NIBBLERThe Art of Pat Strakowski
ANdREw OkOPhotography by John w. Heintz
Moon Nibbler: The Art of Pat StrakowskiAndrew Oko
Canadian Art ISBN 978-1-897181-28-7 182 pages, Hardcover, 11” x 11”, $40.00
Pat Strakowski’s sculptures are created from papier-maché
adorned by found objects as varied as ancient Japanese coins,
Mexican ceremonial trinkets and wasps’ nests from the local neigh-
bourhood. Strange creatures abound in the artistic world of Pat
Strakowski. Warriors sprout deer horns to enhance their communi-
cation with the gods. Cats with serpent tails guard the household,
lurking beneath the staircase to attack intruders. Deformed angels
mourn the agonies of war. A young girl, suspended perpetually in
mid-air, performs timeless skipping rituals. By placing Strakowski’s
work in the perspective of myth in the contemporary world, An-
drew Oko draws on the ideas of thinkers as diverse as Roland
Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Aldona Jonaitis, to create a frame-
work that greatly enhances even a casual appreciation of the art
of Pat Strakowski.
Breathing Stone: Contemporary Haida Argillite SculptureCarol Sheehan, Photography by Jack Litrell and John W. Heintz
Canadian Art ISBN 978-1-897181-22-5 192 pages, Hardcover, 12 x 9, $50.00
Breathing Stone presents extraordinary sculptures by contempo-
rary argillite artists of Haida Gwaii- the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Carol Sheehan introduces the reader to Haida culture and the his-
torical realities that have shaped this unique art form. She outlines
how argillite sculpture is produced and how it can best be appreci-
ated. Personal portraits of 15 sculptors and their work, illustrated
by nearly 200 colour photographs taken in artists’ workshops, gal-
leries, collectors’ homes and on-site in Haida Gwaii, demonstrate
like nothing else the power and richness of this art form.
CANADIAN ART AND ARTISTS
[sic] Nikki Reimer Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-38-6 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
‘Tis Pity David Bateman Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-57-7 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
13 Alexis Kienlen Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-53-9 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x8.5”, $15.95
13 Ways to Kill Your Community Doug Griffiths and Kelly Clemmer Political Humour, ISBN 978-1-897181-42-3 160 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $19.95
33 Million Solitudes Ali Riley Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-56-0 80 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Alberta Anthology 2006 A.G. Boss Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-06-5 168 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $18.95
Amazing Flights and Flyers Shirlee Smith Matheson Canadian Aviation History, ISBN 978-1897181-29-4 288 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $19.95
And God Created Manyberries Ron Wood Poetry, ISBN 978-1897181-15-7 191 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $19.95
Angel Blood: The Tess Poems Kevin Irie Poetry, ISBN 978-973238-04-4 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Any Bright Horse Lisa Pasold Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-55-3 112 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Attenuations of Force Lori Cayer Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-31-7 93 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Autopsy of a Turvy World Sheri-D Wilson Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-17-1 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
A Bad Year for Journalists Lisa Pasold Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-01-0 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Before a Blue Sky Moon Weyman Chan Poetry, ISBN 978-0-968490-35-8 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Between the Silences Diane Buchanan Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-08-2 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Breathing Stone: Contemporary Haida Argillite Sculpture Carol Sheehan , Photography by Jack Litrell and John W. Heintz Canadian Art, ISBN: 978-1-897181-22-5 192 pages, Hardcover, 12″ x 9″, $50.00; Paperback, $35.00
The Bride Anthology Patria Rivera Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-09-6, 96 pages Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
bulletin from the low light j. fisher Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-07-2 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Children of Ararat Keith Garebian Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-00-3 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Clarence’s Engine Trudy Cowan Children’s Book, ISBN 978-1-897181-00-3 96 pages, Paperback, 11” x 8.5”, $14.95
Confessions of an Empty Purse S. McDonald Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-33-1 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Contrary Infatuations Dymphny Dronyk Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-10-2 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
details from the edge of the village Pierrette Requier Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-24-9 112 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Dinner at Madonna’s Kevin Irie Poetry, ISBN 978-0-973238-00-6 88 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $14.95
ex nihilo Adebe D. A. Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-34-8 72 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Fallacies of Motion William Nichols Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-35-5 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Falling Blues Jannie Edwards Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-36-2 72 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Fifth World Drum Anna Marie Sewell Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-25-6 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Forgetting the Holocaust Ron Charach Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-46-1 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $16.00
From a Call Box Bob Stallworthy Poetry, ISBN 978-0-968490-31-0 88 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $13.95
COMPLETE ALPHAbETICAL LIST OF FRONTENAC TITLES
Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe Sheri-D Wilson Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-60-7 112 pages, Paperback, 6″ x 9″, $19.95
A Gloss on Our Painted Gods Eric Barstad Poetry, ISBN 978-0-973238-01-3 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $14.95
go-go dancing for Elvis Leslie Greentree Poetry, ISBN 978-0-973238-02-0 88 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $14.95
guys named Bill Leslie Greentree Poetry, ISBN 978-0-9684903-6-0 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $14.95
Impersonating Flowers David Bateman Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-11-9 88 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Invisible Foreground David Bateman Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-78-2 88 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
In this Place – Calgary 2006-2012 George Webber and Aritha van Herk Photo Essay, ISBN 978-1-897181-59-1 192 pages, Hardcover, 12” x 9”, $40.00
Learning to Count Douglas Burnet Smith Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-37-9 88 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
The Lightness Which Is Our World, Seen from Afar Ven Begamudré Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-02-7 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Love in a Handful of Dust Kirk Ramdath Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-47-8 80 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Maverick in the Sky Shirlee Smith Matheson Canadian Aviation History, ISBN 978-1-897181-16-4 112 pages, Paperback, 8.5” x 5.5”, $9.95
Moon Nibbler: The Art of Pat Strakowski Andrew Oko Canadian Art, ISBN 978-1-897181-28-7 182 pages, Hardcover, 11” x 11”, $40.
Narcissus Unfolding Jim Nason Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-48-5 80 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Optics Bob Stallworthy Poetry, ISBN 978-0-968490-06-8 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $13.95
Pattern of Genes Rosalee van Stelten Poetry, ISBN 978-0-968490-32-7 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $13.95
Pavlov’s Elephant Rosalee van Stelten Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-23-2 72 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Pearl Nancy Jo Cullen Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-03-4 64 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Puti/White Patria Rivera Poetry, ISBN 978-0-973238-09-9 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Re:Zoom Sheri-D Wilson Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-77-5 104 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Rhyming Wranglers Ken Mitchell Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-13-3 88 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $18.95
The Rider with Good Hands Sid Marty Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-45-4 88 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
‘Tis Pity David Bateman Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-57-7 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Science Fiction Saint Nancy Jo Cullen Poetry, ISBN 978-0-968490-37-2 88 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $14.95
She Dreams in Red Alexis Kienlen Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-12-6 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
she is reading her blanket with her hands Sharron Proulx-Turner Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-18-8 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Sky Humour Sid Marty Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-43-0 102 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Standoff Terrain Jocko Benoit Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-39-3 80 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Static Mantis Arran Fisher Poetry, ISBN 978-0-968490-34-1 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $13.95
A Summer Father Joanna M. Weston Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-05-8 80 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Swallowing My Mother Catherine Moss Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-08-9 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Taqism Zaid Shah Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-08-4 96 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Tear Down Ali Riley Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-04-1 104 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Things That Matter Now Bob Stallworthy Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-26-3 72 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
13 Alexis Kienlen Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-53-9 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Tom Three Persons Yvonne Trainer Poetry, ISBN 978-0-968490-38-9 72 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $14.95
Unruly Angels Diane Buchanan Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-54-6 112 pages, Paperback, 6” x9”, $15.95
Untitled Nancy Jo Cullen Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-27-0 80 pages, Paperback, 6” x9”, $15.95
Visual Orgasm: Highlights of Canadian Graffiti Adam Melnyk Canadian Art, ISBN 978-1-897181-50-8 108 pages, Paperback with flaps, 9.5” x 8.5”, $35.00
Wait Until Late Afternoon – OR distilled, decanted and debauched David Bateman and Hiromi Goto Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-30-0 120 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $18.00
Water Strider Karen Hoffman Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-19-5 104 pages, Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, $15.95
Wayward Ali Riley Poetry, ISBN 978-0-973238-03-7 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $14.95
Weave Lisa Pasold Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-07-5 88 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
White Shirt Laurie MacFayden Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-40-9 80 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Wiser Pills Richard Stevenson Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-20-1 96 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $15.95
Yes Rosemary Griebel Poetry, ISBN 978-1-897181-49-2 84 pages, Paperback, 6” x 9”, $16.00