Maunder - Claire Kelly (Palimpsest Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Maunder.  Claire Kelly.  Palimpsest Press.  Windsor, Ontario.  2017.

To maunder: Move or act in a dreamy or idle manner.

Claire Kelly's Maunder showed up at just the right time and Today's book of poetry couldn't be happier.  Snappy isn't a word Today's book of poetry would commonly use for poems but Claire Kelly is a marvel.  Some of these poems actually leap off of the page and pretty-slap your gobsmacked poetry face.

Kelly can dial in comic at whim but what Today's book of poetry glommed onto was that Kelly never goes to the easy out.  This is master-class material and I'll try to tell you why.  From the very first poem in Maunder you are comfortably in the Kelly kitchen and she can burn.

The Human Gyroscope: A Study in Momentum

Olive Oyl swings and capers

in front of the bar band.

All sinew and bowl cut, zombie arms,

graceless angles. Plumpness on her

would be a joke: champagne thrown in the sea.

Her Popeye hunches his shoulders— 

no can of spinach to be wolfed, just a bottle

of domestic—and observes his feet as if they plot

instead of plod.

Olive's whirligigging. Small breasts jostling

under flimsy fabric. She's

sped beyond                       to another dimension,

(or has discovered dimensionless-ness),

                            She's a wild quark, a string theory jiving.

                            Broken loose, she's neither particle

                            nor wave. Something different.

                            The opposite of inert. A gas that might

                            spark more than mockery.

Cacophony. The drummer's over-the-top slaughter

of his rack-mounted toms ends the set.

It's all intake and outtake now.

Matter collapses into chairs.

Bathroom driven, Popeye pukes

all the way up the stairs and round the bend,

followed by an acolyte of bucket and mop

collecting another sample to be analyzed.

Ears ring with absence of racket.

Olive Oyl downs her whisky and soda.

...

Claire Kelly understands that the punch line isn't always where the best action takes place.  And as a result her syncopated timing is constantly pushing us towards all new and unexpected rewards.

Today's book of poetry isn't kidding about the reward thing, Maunder is literally packed with page after page of aces.  One of Today's book of poetry's closest and dearest friends fancies himself an artist, and he is a fine one, but mostly he is a flaneur, a world-class observer.  Claire Kelly is a flaneur of distinction and you are going to want to hear every word as she shows you the world, not as it appears, but through her reasoned prism and suddenly you begin to see how things really are.

"Fun!"  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, asserted that Maunder was serious fun, adult fun, revealing fun, understanding of the Magi fun.  And just to prove Today's book of poetry's point here is a dandy list poem from Kelly.  And you all know how we like a good list poem here.

curb' N.—

A silver-plated Venetian penknife.

A blind woman's quilting needle.

A hockey stick blade overly bent and technically illegal.

A person who nods.

A chunk cut from the ear of a feral cat.

An albino python stuffed and mounted above a mantle.

The taste of under-ripe but still palatable fruit.

A photo of near-deathbed relatives.

A scar that brings hypnotic comfort.

The artistry between nudity and nakedness.

A prophecy from one unaccustomed to giving good news.

An ever-sullen Irishman.

...

Our morning read was the best of the season so far.  The spring sun has finally broken through here on Dagmar and we've opened up the windows here at Today's book of poetry.  We had several visitors on hand this morning and we lined them up so that they could take their turn with Maunder.  Alex, Otis, Caroline, Sabera and Jean all tackled Kelly and with excellent result.

Today's book of poetry knows nothing about Claire Kelly personally, Maunder is her first book but we are certain it is the first of many.  Another thing we are certain of is that my grandmother was a Kelly too.  So Today's book of poetry acknowledges we might have had a predisposition to Kelly on the off chance we are related.  But truth be told, no Kelly on my side of the family ever had much in the way of sense to rely on.  None of the Kelly's on my side of the family were bookish in any way.

Claire Kelly's Maunder reminds us of why we love poetry in the first place with one wise assault after another.  There is nothing quite like those A-ha! moments where a poem not only surprises you but changes your mind with delight.  Kelly's Maunder is poetry full of opportunity and hope, optimism and just a little experienced dread.

Similes from Pure Sleep

     Linguistically, sleep loss appears to interfere with novel
      responses and the ability to suppress routine answers.
                                         —YVONNE HARRISON and JAMES HORNE,
                                                           from The Journal of Sleep Research

Stubborn as a turntable
spinning Wu-Tang clan
until the neighbours pound
an aggrieved beat
on the 3a.m. walls.

Jagged as the schismatic end
of a too-close friendship,
with hangouts and cohorts divided
by even and odd days
into a checkerboard calendar
of camaraderie and loneliness.

Stiff as the drinks
my mother no longer pours
after finding religion
in my brother's ashtray:
Jesus' bearded visage
radiating from a nicotine-
stained Styrofoam plate.

Pockmarked as the sixth moon of Jupiter
after a mining conglomerate
ceases gouging its smooth surface,
hauling an armada of icebergs
through the solar system.

Sure-fire as taking your six-year-old
to see The Exorcist and,
in the middle of the night
laying green vomity goo
by the bed until he awakens,
terrified, a livewire bundle
of future therapy bills
and sleep deprivation.

...

Whoosh.  If we said that Claire Kelly always plays nice we must have been stringing you along.  Maybe we are related after all?

Today's book of poetry welcomes Claire Kelly to the chorus of Canadian poets, the choir just improved.

Claire Kelly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Claire Kelly’s work has been published in various literary journals, including The Malahat Review, Exile Quarterly, Event, and Prism International. Her chapbook, Ur-Moth, was published in 2014 by Frog Hollow Press. Maunder is her first full-length collection. She lives and writes in Edmonton, Alberta.

BLURB

Rural wanderers and urban flâneurs, the myriad speakers in Claire Kelly’s Maunder, swagger, stalk, tiptoe, and promenade inquisitively through time and place, attentive to the vertiginous strangeness of their own experience, the “symbiotic economy” of self and other. Kelly examines oddity and quiddity alike with resilience, humour, and sonic verve.

—Michael Prior, author of Model Disciple

Claire Kelly

Reads from Maunder

at The Steady, Toronto

Video: LPGAIILitUp

palimpsestpress.ca

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Vancouver - The City Series: Number One - Michael Prior, Editor (Frog Hollow Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Vancouver - The City Series: Number One.  Michael Prior, Editor.  Shane Neilson, Series Editor.  Frog Hollow Press.  Victoria, British Columbia.  2015.

Today's book of poetry rarely looks at anthologies but there are exceptions to every rule and anything that comes through our door from the esteemed Frog Hollow Press is going to get a serious look. Good thing.

Vancouver - The City Series: Number One is the start of a very excellent idea.

Here's what Shane Neilson has to say:

     Frog Hollow Press aims to publish a series of chapbooks which are edited
     by an emerging poet from a Canadian city. This poet will curate 10 other
     poets from their hometown. Each of these poets are provided two pages of
     stage. The poets will not have been published in chapbook or trade book
     forms at the time of our selection process, and their poems are meant to
     reflect the city they live in.

Brauron   

The soles of my feet brown and hard from blisters
earned chasing sunlight patches under cedar cathedral

canopies. I squeezed loam and clutched seeds between
my toes to lay roots everywhere I walked and crowned

myself queen with vines and leaves. This was my
kingdom, promises tucked under lichen, my name pressed

into knotholes. Sun-baked blackberries crushed inside my
mouth. I was always careful to avoid thorns but

my fingers still stained red. My lips still stained red. I wore a
yellow dress so in the late afternoons, landscape turned to

gold. Uncle Jack could see me flickering between trees as
he sat on the patio, vanilla pipe smoke calling me back. "You're

lucky," he said, "There used to be bears here. Big ones. They
used to come right up to the house asking to come in. You're

lucky they're gone now. They're all gone." And when the cold air
curled against me I wrapped myself in quilts and cricket

lullabies, sat under a shimmering river, and drew pictures in
the pin-holed darkness. I don't remember going to sleep back

then, only waking up. No one recognized me when I returned
home. I had to relearn how to tie my shoelaces. The freckles on

my shoulders faded but I kept the yellow dress. It doesn't fit
anymore but sometimes I bring it to my face and it smells of smoke

and ivy. Sometimes I grab handfuls of soil, handfuls of sun. I still
catch myself putting clover behind my ears, humming old

songs from far away. Sometimes my reflection looks more bear
than woman and I think: Oh, so that's where they went.

EMILY CHOU

...

Now that is the way to announce your entry into Canadian letters with authority.  Emily Chou's "Brauron" is a delight.  It is vibrant, clever and full of immense promise.  Marian Engel will love this poem, I think.  We certainly did here at Today's book of poetry.

There are ten interesting reasons to like this chapbook and to feel very hopeful about future editions, Michael Prior has done good work in rounding up these young pros.

Take Megan Jones as another example.  "The Skydiver" is one sublime piece of work.

The Skydiver
              after "untitled" by Chad P Murray

In the unfinished painting,
a man in a red suit
floats above white
clouds, frayed bits
of cotton. The skydiver looks
down onto green-gold fields furrowed
in two by an indigo line.

A bright flame, his body licks
the divide. With arms outstretched
he meets the air--hard, brittle, one million
doors slamming
in a vortex--but the painter hides
in the lee of the easel, making it
look easy. And our bodies
become buoyant, too.

Half the painting is sky, after all.

We look to the diver
for how we should feel:
but his face is all beige
a brushstroke, a question mark.

Green-fields darken where
clouds hunch, still as stunned
rabbits. Will he pull
the cord, releasing the parachute?

The unfinished painting leans
against metal table legs.
The lines of the poem lean
away from the poet: how can language

trick itself out of the plane, and what plummets, there:
the flaming question mark;
the blank sky;
the painter
who pauses to take a photo.
Later, he'll text it to his mother; she will be at Costco.
She will be buying him a bike helmet.

MEGAN JONES

...
Vancouver - The City Series: Number One is a great start to what Today's book of poetry hopes will be a series with as many volumes as we have Canadian cities.  If Today's book of poetry has learned anything from this blog - it is that there is a lot more good poetry out there than anyone realizes. Shane Neilson and the good folks at Frog Hollow Press aim to tap from the source with this smart series and we couldn't be more pleased.

The Man Who Took Photos of Windows
           for Fred Herzog

In one, a life is laid out in the form of watches and fishing tackle, a dented trumpet,
a Coleman stove, a trio of medals from World War II. It was taken
in 1957, in a city that isn't there anymore, even if some of the windows are,
like the one where a woman stands in an open aperture of floral drapes,
the words "Bargain Shop" above her, and behind her nothing at all. It's easy to see
why he took them: the windows were already photos, frame and all,
though no one else noticed at the time. There's one

where a cedar box is being torn up for concrete forms, and another
where a fifty cent top has just begun to spin--it later became a Kodachrome tornado
that rolled down Granville Street, sucking up cigarette butts and bits
of bloody tissue paper. When he took a photo of his West End room, it showed
the window, toothbrush and safety razor on the sill, the same
razor as the man in the window of a Main Street diner, whose features
are blurred but whose fear is there as plain as the words on a menu.

SHAUN ROBINSON

...

That little ditty was one of two excellent poems Shaun Robinson has in this slim little monster. Michael Prior has done some good work in finding these ten unknown, unpublished poets.

Emily Chou  -  Emily Davidson

Ruth Daniell  -  Sugar Le Fae

Megan Jones  -  Darius Kinney

Alessandra Naccarato  -  Shazia Hafiz Ramji

Laura Ritland  -  Shaun Robinson

Sugar Le Fae's "West Coast Winter, a triptych" was a poem I simply adored - but Milo reminded me about our three poem ceiling.

Today's office reading was particularly spirited.  No guests today but the first snow of the season is upon us and I think it has unglued my staff.  I lashed them back to work with my pointed and soul-withering tongue.  They are all off in their corners mumbling mutiny.

I will ply them with sweets later.

Today's book of poetry can only look forward to Number Two, Number Three and so on, of this series.  Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Saint John, St. John's and so on.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Emily Chou is a second-generation Vancouverite who keeps her chin up but still has difficulty seeing over crowds. Her work has appeared in Ricepaper, Room and Lemon Hound. If she's not making comics, writing poems, or attempting a novel (isn't everyone?), she is probably watching dumb cartoons and blathering on about fairy tales.

Megan Jones grew up in small towns on Vancouver Island before moving to Vancouver, where she writes poetry and works in book publishing. Her work has appeared in Lemonhound and Poetry Is Dead Magazine. She is currently working on her first book of poems.

Shaun Robinson was born in 100 Mile House, British Columbia, and currently lives in Vancouver. His poems have appeared in Fugue, lichen and Versal. He will begin his MFA in Creative Writing at UBC this fall.

Michael Prior's poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in publications such as Canadian Notes and Queries, Carousel, DIAGRAM (USA), The Collagist (USA), Cv2, The Fiddlehead, Fjords Review (USA), Geist, Grain,Lemon Hound, Magma (UK), The Malahat Review, Moth Magazine (IRL), Prism International, Ricepaper Magazine, The New Quarterly, This Magazine, Tin House Online (USA) , Qwerty, Vallum, and The Walrus.

Michael was the recipient of Matrix Magazine‘s 2015 Lit POP Award for Poetry, The Walrus‘s 2014 Poetry Prize, Grain Magazine‘s 2014 Short Grain Prize, Vallum Magazine‘s 2013 Poetry Prize, and Magma Poetry‘s 2013 Editors’ Prize. He received runner-up in The Antigonish Review‘s 2014 Great Blue Heron Poetry Prize and The New Quarterly‘s 2014 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest.

Michael’s first chapbook, Swan Dive, was published by Frog Hollow Press in late 2014. His first full-length collection, Model Disciple, will be published by Véhicule Press’s Signal Editions in 2016. Michael holds an MA in English from the University of Toronto and will be starting an MFA in poetry at Cornell University in Fall 2015.

http://www.froghollowpress.com/gallery/vancouver-toc.html 

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.