Forty-One Objects - Carsten René Nielsen (The Bitter Oleander Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Forty-One Objects.  Carsten René Nielsen.  Translated by David Keplinger.  The Bitter Oleander Press.  Fayetteville, New York.  2019.

Forty-One Objects by the Danish poet Carsten René Nielsen, translated by David Keplinger, is one of those books that fills your poetry heart with pure poetry joy.  Nielsen writes poems that instantly made Today's book of poetry think of Stuart Ross's surrealist poetry.  Stuart Ross, recent winner of the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize, is Canada's premiere surrealist.

These poems, like Ross's, are filled to over-flowing with clever leaps of faith, secret wisdom about the inner workings of it all, genuine humour.  There is a constant flow of original thinking.  With many poets, good and the other kind, the reader often feels the lines and/or subject is one the reader already knows or expects.

Nielsen doesn't row that way.

Chalk

I tried to write on the blackboard, but the chalk left no

trace. As if the board were made out of metal, or the chalk

were a rusty nail. Not that it mattered. My students were

sitting, as my students do, silently screaming with closed

eyes, their hands pressed against their ears. So quiet it was

in the room, one could hear the insects flying against the

large windows. Were my eyes two small suns, or was the sun

shining so brightly that summer that we were all lit up from

inside? I don't know. It is you who remembers this.

💥💥💥

David Keplinger has done some superb work translating Carsten René Nielsen.  This past year Today's book of poetry spent considerable time and joyous effort in an attempt to translate Norway's  

Dag T. Straumsvåg but with very little success.  Clearly Keplinger has tools Today's book of poetry doesn't.  These translations sound, feel and read as though were written in English first.  Keplinger has inhabited Nielsen words until they belong to them both.  With two cooks in the kitchen things can often go wrong, not these cats, they both know how to burn.

Forty-One Objects is excellent evidence of something Today's book of poetry has long believed.  The poetry world is endless and filled with remarkable voices.  As readers we have to take our hats off to small presses like The Bitter Oleander Press for bringing great voices from other languages within hearing range.

Jewelry Box

The youngest of the sisters, the loveliest one, was given a

jewelry box. If one tried to open it, it buzzed painfully in

one's fingers, and the hair on both head and body stood up.

After several attempts in vain, the girl ended up in the dog

basket, where she lay, peeing. "Just give her a cigar," said

Uncle, "I'm longing for Chinese girls, and we have to move

on!" And on we went, in the middle of the night, onwards

on the same bicycle to the dentist. A molar was found in

an oyster, and later a silver spoon among the instruments

in a drawer. "Milk teeth," laughed the dentist incessantly,

"Milk teeth," while unsteadily he pointed at my mouth.

💥💥💥

Today's book of poetry is trying to get caught up on a big backlog.  Our intern Maggie has returned to the real world.  Kathryn and Milo are busy Kathryn and Miloing.  Max, our rarely seen and cranky Senior Editor, has been busy working on a personal project that seems to be coming along nicely.  The rest of us have been scraping ice off of the lane way and reading what comes in the mail.

Poets like Nielsen give Today's book of poetry optimism, hope.  Certain people just know how to burn, they are able to dance from birth.  

Glasses

Tired of listening to Tim Burton playing the guitar, Schubert

explaining how a person does his tax returns, and Joseph

Brodsky telling about his experiences as the new dogcatcher

in town, Jesus Christ - also known as "The Weasel"  - tunes

into a radio station where jazz is played. It's Mingus with

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, at an elegy dedicated to Lester Young,

who wore such a hat. Jesus always confuses Prez with Buster

Keaton, but then again, his eyesight isn't what it used to be.

He has often thought about getting glasses but is afraid -

even with the crown of thorns - to be confused again with

John Lennon.  

💥💥💥

January is only half over is how Today's book of poetry was feeling when we opened Forty-One Objects.  By the time Today's book of poetry was finished Nielsen's poetry we were more of the "wow," January is already half over.  Hope goes a long way.  Today's book of poetry wants you readers to get a big slice of it.  Carsten René Nielsen is serving it up.

Just as a final note, Today's book of poetry wanted to be sure to say that Stuart Ross writes good poetry of every stripe, not just surrealist poems.  Dag T. Straumsvåg is cut out of the same general mold, excellent poems of every stripe.  And on a personal note these two men are friends with Today's book of poetry.  Their books are treasured.

Carsten René Nielsen

ABOUT THE POET

Carsten René Nielsen, born 1966, is a Danish poet and author of ten books of poetry and one book of flash fiction. His first book published in 1989 was awarded the Michael Strunge Poetry Prize. The prose poems Cirkler (Circles, 1998) won him critical acclaim throughout his native Denmark. Recent collections include the prose poems Enogfyrre dyr (Forty-One Animals, 2005), Husundersøgelser (House Inspections, 2008) and Enogfyrre ting (Forty-One Objects, 2017). He has won several fellowships from the Danish State Foundation for the Arts. In the United States two of his books in translation have been published: his selected prose poems, The World Cut Out with Crooked Scissors by New Issues in 2007, as well as the prose poems House Inspections, by BOA Editions in 2011, both books translated by David Keplinger. In 2014 a selection of Nielsen's poems was published by EDB Edizioni in Italy under the title 8 animali e 14 morti. He lives in Aarhus, the second largest city of Denmark.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

David Keplinger is the author of five books of poetry including The Prayers of Others (2006), winner of the 2007 Colorado Book Award, and The Clearing (2005), both from New Issues Poetry & Prose, as well as The Rose Inside: Poems (Truman State University Press, 1999), chosen by Mary Oliver for the T.S. Eliot Prize of that press. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He is also the author of World Cut with Crooked Scissors (New Issues, 2007), which he co-translated with Danish poet Carsten Rene Nielsen. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Florida Review, AGNI, Nimrod, and Minnesota Review. He currently teaches at American University in Washington, D.C.

                                                                                                                               David Keplinger

bitteroleander.com

799

DISCLAIMER

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.

Motel of the Opposable Thumbs — Stuart Ross (Anvil Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Motel of the Opposable Thumbs.  Stuart Ross.  Anvil Press.  British Columbia.  2019.

The North Star

for Laurie Siblock

The first time I meet Laurie I walk into her house and

hand her a jar of pickles. Her father's side of the family

is Ukrainian, and therefore she loves pickles, she must

love pickles, I have brought her some pickles. I hand her

two roses, each rose is orange, one for her and its echo

for her cat, who has recently died, a rose for each. In

the park near the beach, she wraps her arms around a

tree too thick for her to wrap her arms around. Her

smile is composed of her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her

teeth, her nose, the depths of her, the air that surrounds

her. Across the lake is Rochester, you'll find Rochester

there, where Frederick Douglass launched the North Star,

his abolitionist newspaper, in eighteen hundred and

forty-seven.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry finds it utterly impossible to be impartial when it comes to Stuart Ross and his poetry.  Motel of the Opposable Thumbs is the seventh Stuart Ross title Today's book of poetry has had the pleasure of writing about.  That is, by far, the most Today's book of poetry has written about any other poet, go figure. 

Here is a list of those titles and the links to the blogs/reviews:

You Exist. Details Follow (Anvil Press) - posted June 23/2013

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2013/07/you-exist-details-follow-stuart-ross.html

18 Goddamn Centos (Proper Tales Press) - posted February 10/2014

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2014/02/18-goddamn-centos-stuart-ross.html

In In My Dream (Book Thug) - posted April 27/2015

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2015/04/in-in-my-dream-stuart-ross-book-thug.html

Cobourg Variations (Proper Tales Press) - posted February 27/2015

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/02/cobourg-variations-bunch-of-poems-and_27.html

A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (A Buckrider Book/Wolsak & Wynn) - posted May 27/2016

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-sparrow-came-down-resplendent-stuart.html

Pockets - (ECW Press) - posted January 4/2018

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.com/2018/01/pockets-stuart-ross-ecw-press.html

Today's book of poetry will do our best to be unbiased — but there are plenty of reasons for our enthusiasm.

Today's book of poetry is Michael Dennis and my last book, Bad Engine (Anvil Press), only exists because of the efforts of Mr. Ross.  Ross went through all of my published poems and most of my unpublished work and, picked what he liked best and put together his selection of my poems for Bad Engine.  Then he edited them.

For the many dozens of other Canadian poets who've been edited by Ross, you'll know instantly what I mean when I say that a Ross edit means you have better poems.  Stuart contacted Anvil and told them he was working on a collection of my poetry.  Anvil said yes.  Anvil said yes.  Life changing for me.  Another day at the poetry office for Stuart Ross.

My second book of poetry from Anvil Press, Low Centre of Gravity, will be appearing in 2020, this time I picked the poems, but with Stuart's help, and of course he edited it.  I agreed with virtually every edit he suggested.  

All of that to say that Today's book of poetry and Michael Dennis owe Mr. Ross.  We are old friends.  A couple of weeks ago Today's book of poetry had wooden signs laser cut by my brilliant brother-in-law, and secret poetry fan, Steven Predko.  Mr. Predko knows and admires Stuart and his poetry.  The signs were free because they were for Stuart.  What signs you ask?

These signs!  Our guest room is now proudly called the Stuart Ross Guest and Reading Room.  Sir Bill Bissett, Frank Davey, the late Richard Huttel and a small herd of other poets have stayed in our guest room.  Now it is official, Stuart Ross has a room named after him.

Which brings us back to Motel of the Opposable Thumbs.  My dear friend Stuart Ross has always been a fine poet.  But like good wine, he is improving with age.  Today's book of poetry has long believed that Mr. Ross was one the best poets in Canada, Motel of the Opposable Thumbs proves my point.

Toronto Poem

Toronto, the taxi cabs flow mournfully

through your hunchbacked streets. Anxious

towers reach into the white-haired clouds

that throw shadows over

your tired, sweaty people, who squeeze

between each other on self-conscious

sidewalks cracking open beneath the

weight of fearful commerce and

vanishing newspapers. Your edges ripple

and fade into devoted car-worshipers.

Your tired mechanics and surgeons

work deep into the noisy night,

Jewish poodles sniffing at

their inquisitive ankles.

💫💫💫

Stuart Ross is the most recent recipient of the prestigious Harbourfront Festival Prize for contributions to Canadian literature.  Some of the other previous recipients of the Harbourfront Festival Prize include Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Christopher Dewdney and so on.  Titans.  The prize was totally deserved, Stuart's work in the Canadian poetry world has spanned over forty years and includes his publishing others through his own Proper Tales Press, workshopping all over the country, and encouraging other writers.  

You can read about Stuart's Harbourfront Festival Prize here:

https://www.cbc.ca/books/stuart-ross-to-receive-10k-harbourfront-festival-prize-for-contributions-to-canadian-literature-1.5286918

Stuart Ross was also the recipient of the 5th Kitty Lewis Hazel Millar Dennis Tourbin Poetry Prize which is awarded by Today's book of poetry.  Motel of the Opposable Thumbs easily explains the Today's book of poetry award.  The Harbourfront Festival Prize is for his contributions to the literary community, and as far as I can tell, my experience with Stuart Ross and Bad Engine is only one small example of the tireless work Ross has been doing for other poets for decades.

Motel of the Opposable Thumbs proves what Today's book of poetry has been saying since we first met Stuart Ross back in the late seventies, early eighties, he is one of the most wildly imaginative and innovative poets we have.  Motel of the Opposable Thumbs continues Ross's excellent oeuvre and will expand the hold he has on his many devoted readers.  In recent years Mr. Ross has allowed a new compassion to be seen in his work along with his already considerable glee.

Stuart Ross, the poet, has been on a trajectory all his own for a long time and his poems continue with a brisk and often surreal, scatological logic, his newest poems bring him closer and closer to exposing his very big heart.  Motel of the Opposable Thumbs is unpredictable, but that in itself should be expected, Ross has never been predictable.  What Ross has always been, and remains, is full on unique, original.  There isn't anyone writing poems in Canada who can do what Stuart Ross does.  Motel of the Opposable Thumbs prove it.

Motel of the Opposable Thumbs

in memory of Sydney Ross

We soar through the night. Bugs spatter our windshield.

My father, he's alive again. Steers with one hand.

Our headlights bounce the road. Air whips our hair.

He sucks on smoke. I clutch a bag of chips.

The moon sucks on clouds. A bat flits by.

My father flicks on the radio. The highway spasms.

A dark rectangle. VACANCY ruptures the horizon.

"We'll stop here." My father's deep rumble.

I'm nearing sixty. He is long dead.

He sits on the edge of his twin bed. I sit on mine.

Mould in the bathroom. A spider on the lampshade.

"And the nurse slid the ring from my still, withered

hand and handed it to you in the corridor." Light sputters.

The Coke machine rattles. I slide under the covers.

The highway goes silent. I can't warm my hands.

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry admitted from the start of today's missive that we were utterly incapable of being unbiased when it comes to Mr. Ross.  He changed the trajectory of my life for the better when he put his hands on my poems.  How do you pay that back?  Read Motel of the Opposable Thumbs and there is every chance Stuart Ross's poems will change your poetry trajectory.

Stuart Ross

ABOUT THE POET

Stuart Ross is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and small press activist living in Cobourg, Ontario. He is the award-winning author of twenty books of poetry, fiction, and essays, most recently Pockets (ecw Press, 2017), A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent (Wolsak and Wynn, 2016), and A Hamburger in a Gallery (DC Books, 2015). Stuart has taught workshops in elementary and high schools across the country and was the 2010 Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University. Visiting schools and working with students of all ages is his favourite part of his writing practice. Stuart is at work writing nearly a dozen different poetry, non-fiction, and fiction manuscripts.

BLURBS

“An admirably light touch: a democratic sense that all risks are created equal; an irrepressible need to play the clown, even when it results in self-sabotage; Ross’s stylistic hallmarks are on full display in Motel of the Opposable Thumbs.
     — Jesse Eckerlin, Quill & Quire

“[With Pockets,] Stuart Ross develops a fragmentary, dreamlike novel that is startling, sometimes silly and marbled with melancholy.”
     — Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press

“The wit and irreverent wisdom of Stuart Ross has been a mainstay of Canadian poetry for years, but in A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent we also see him at his most vulnerable … grappling with our mystifying world with his trademark affection and fury.”
     — Adam Sol, Canadian Jewish Literary Awards citation

Oath of Allegiance to Poetry by Stuart Ross

Video: Wally Keeler

anvilpress.com

790

DISCLAIMER

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.

On the Count of None - Allison Chisholm (A Feed Dog Book/Anvil Press)

Today's book of poetry:
On the Count of None.  Allison Chisholm.  A Feed Dog Book.  Anvil Press.  Vancouver, British Columbia.  2018.

There's more going on in Allison Chisholm's bag of tricks On the Count of None than Today's book of poetry could keep track of.  Just to get started there are a series of horoscope related poems, one for each sign of the zodiac.  These poems were full of laugh out loud moments.  Chisholm's humour is often right under the surface of things.  Once you hit that stride these poems take on a whole new charm.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

If you are not yet moving at top speed, you very soon

will be.

Reach out to a close ally.

Consult an expert at low volume.

The results will be pleasing: an abundance of

greenery in the shadows of Venus.

Be prepared for a strong reaction.

💫💫💫

Note of full disclosure:  Anvil Press also publishes my work.  I'd like to think that Today's book of poetry operates without influence and/or favouritism.  Our mission remains to write about books of poetry we like.

Today's book of poetry figured Chisholm's poem "Worldly or Otherwise: is a thinly veiled mission statement so we thought we should take a look.  Today's book of poetry should know more about Allison Chisholm, we've had the pleasure of breaking bread together.  Allison was the emcee for a reading Today's book of poetry did in Kingston last year with Sadiqa de Meijer and Stuart Ross.  And we've shared beer at the Carleton Tavern.

Worldly or Otherwise

On this side of the world we put things in order:

hairpins, asthma inhalers, glasses of milk.

We edit our obituaries and euthanize our old ambitions.

We underwrite our uncertainties and pause to remember a voice.

On this side of the world we believe in suicide the old-fashioned way.

On this side of the world we strike out inscriptions left in books.

We keep your rumours at the edge of our vision.

We cast out broken skeletons and infiltrate audible gasps.

It's another type of sinking—here, on this side of the world.

💫💫💫

Sadly, the truth is that Today's book of poetry knows virtually nothing about Chisholm except that we like the way she gets around a page.  Stuart Ross we know like the back of our own hand.  Mr. Ross is the Editor for A Feed Dog Book, his imprint at Anvil Press.

It is hard for Today's book of poetry to pretend that there is no bias when it comes to Ross but in truth we can't wait to get our hands on any book he's had an influence on.  Today's book of poetry knows from personal experience that Ross makes any poem he touches better.  He is a superior editor.

Allison Chisholm benefits from the care Ross puts into his poets work.  On the Count of None is precise, smoothly carved, the sharp edges are within the language, the poems themselves are otter slick.

Yours

for nelson

I

tried

out

your

big

sigh.

💫💫💫

Any poet publishing a poem for the Paris, Ontario poet Nelson Ball is going to curry favour here in our offices.  All of you regular readers will remember Nelson Ball from the several books of his we've gushed over in previous posts.  Nelson Ball is a genuine hero in the poetry/small press scene here in Ontario.  Allison Chisholm manages to capture and compliment Captain Ball in one short breath.  Lovely.

Today's book of poetry discovered a reoccurring character, she appears in at least seven poems.  Who is this "Ellen?"  What does she want with us?  What does her presence mean?  And why does she have three "Dollhouse (s)?"  It doesn't really matter, Ellen had our full attention every time she popped up with a sage flurry.

Woman Does Backflip Before Slipping

into Shadows

Dear Abby,

How do I measure

Some level of risk

A comfortable silence

And a single sailing season?

How, Abby,

Do I wrestle

This pirate stronghold

An instant foreboding

And a legendary creature?

Dear, dear Abby

Is there a fine line

Between a daylong battle

And a misty morning?

Abby—

Sun filters through leaves

Snow covers all in sight

I hear popping and crackling

As Mom drops bacon into the pan.

Life is an expenditure

And I need some capital.

Sincerely,

Ellen

💫💫💫

Our morning read was a snappy little dance.  The sun is shining and it's almost the weekend, everyone was in summer clothing and a good mood.  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, was all over Chisholm and handed out our reading assignments with aplomb.  Allison Chisholm's perky On the Count of None got us all thinking this morning.  These poems never try to pull the wool over your eyes but that doesn't mean that Chisholm won't happily pull the rug out from beneath your feet.   Poetry wise.

Allison Chisholm

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allison Chisholm lives and writes in Kingston, Ontario. Her poetry has appeared in The Northern Testicle Review, the Puddles of Sky chap-poem The Dollhouse, The Week Shall Inherit The Verse, and the Proper Tales Press chapbook On the Count of One. She played glockenspiel in the Hawaiian-dream-pop band scub. Her photography has been exhibited in the Tiniest Gallery.

BLURBS

“Allison Chisholm’s poems are plain-talking spirals of wit and description. She walks the reader along a path of surprises— a straightforward line steps to another straightforward line, but getting there involves Escher-like angles. What a great first book, full of a persuasive and clear form of surrealism!”
      – Alice Burdick, author of Deportment and Book of Short Sentences

“There are lots of rewards among these lines. I like especially the poems that implicitly and pointedly criticize our culture— and I love Allison’s deadpan humour.”
     – Nelson Ball, author of Certain Details and Walking

“Allison Chisholm introduces us to a world where things are at once placed in careful order and blown delightfully apart. There are surprising pleasures tucked into these succinct poems.”
     – Jaime Forsythe, author of I Heard Something and Sympathy Loophole

anvilpress.com

766

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.

Nelson — Dag T. Straumsvåg (Proper Tales Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Nelson.  Dag T. Straumsvåg.  Proper Tales Press.  Cobourg, Ontario.  2017.

Not that Today's book of poetry won't/can't take responsibility, but I do have to tell you that Milo, our head tech and digital Prince, isn't in the office this morning.  That I was able to take a photo of Dag T. Straumsvåg's Nelson is an accomplishment.  I had help.  Odin, our former head of security, returned for a visit this morning and we were so damned happy to see him that we felt drunk.  All of that before mumbling out an apology to Dag, Today's book of poetry is sorry our cover photo is sideways.  Damned Commodore 16.

As any of our regular readers knows — Today's book of poetry is a big fan of the Canadian poet Nelson Ball.  Nelson is the current champion of doing the most with the least, but his lean poetry is never sparse.  Today's book of poetry is not alone in our admiration (we have written about Nelson Ball several times over the years) of Sir Admiral Nelson Ball.

Norwegian poet Dag T. Straumsvåg wrote Nelson with his Highness Mr. Ball in mind, a tribute to be sure, but Dag wasn't intending to mimic Ball's style.  And he doesn't, Straumsvåg is a little closer in style to Stuart Ross, the irrepressible poet/publisher and all around mensch.

Dag T. Straumsvåg does capture Nelson Ball's whimsy though, a bit of his clear light.  These poems fall like a light rain but every image acts like a seed.

Winter Morning

Coldest

day

of the year.

The fly

on

the windowsill

rubs

its front

legs 

together,

trying

to make 

fire.

...

Old Dag T. had a dark hue to his sense of humour, just the way we like it.  Today's book of poetry wanted to ask him about the Death Metal scene in the Botswana of his memory.  Now there's a poem that packs a Kung-Fu poetry punch.  

For such a small press Proper Tales Press continuously ups the ante with the breadth of their titles and authors.  Regular readers of this blog will know that Proper Tales Press publisher Stuart Ross (who we have written about several times on our blog) is a close friend of Today's book of poetry.  Our guest room is named after the man.

Mr. Ross casts an awfully wide net and it shows.  Proper Tales Press has a long and consistent record of original voices and Dag T. Straumsvåg joins an excellent chorus.

Many of the poems in this collection were written in English, those that were translated from Nynorsk read like they were written in English as well.  Invisible.

At The Bar

you'd better leave now

the waitress says in a friendly voice to the man

she points toward the door and the grainy dark outside

you'd better leave now

...

Our morning read was flat out zany.  Odin was back in the fold for the day and that brought a tear to my eye that I wanted no one to see.  I pretended I was sneezing when I pulled out my big hanky.  Thomas was happy to see Odin as well, Odin taught him what he knows.  So we let Odin lead the show.  These short poems were worth reading slowly.  This little collection left a big impression on us all.

Sometimes poems just seem to fit into your head space,  Dag T. Straumsvåg seems to have whittled his work down to fine, smooth projectile that always finds its mark.

Options

We're offered amnesia

and we accept.

We can make good friends

out of blue clay.

We can count

the buttons on our shirts,

make history.

Our sleep is calm, roaming

with darkness in the hills,

learning to whistle.

...

Today's book of poetry hopes that every time someone reads Dag T. Straumsvåg's Nelson the poetry Gods nod a little more gently in Nelson Ball's way.  Nelson won't barge in uninvited, remains polite and well behaved.  That sly Nelson.  That sly Dag T. Straumsvåg.

Photo: Kapitonova

 Dag T. Straumsvåg 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dag T. Straumsvåg was born in 1964 and grew up on the west coast of Norway. He is the author and translator of four books of poetry, most recently The Lure-Maker from Posio (Red Dragonfly Press, 2011), translated by Robert Hedin and Louis Jenkins. A selection of his poems is included in Robert Hedin: At the Great Door of Morning—Selected Poems and Translations (Copper Canyon Press, 2017). His poems have appeared in numerous journals in Norway and North America. He lives in Trondheim.

"June"

A poem by  Dag T. Straumsvåg 

Video: Motionpoems

propertalespress@gmail.com

689

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

Pockets - Stuart Ross (ECW Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Pockets.  Stuart Ross.  ECW Press.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

Anyone who has read Today's book of poetry knows about Stuart Ross.  

But just so we are clear from the beginning Today's book of poetry loves Stuart Ross as though he were my brother.  Stuart edited my last book, Bad Engine, and I sincerely hope he edits my next book, Low Centre of Gravity.  I love Mr. Ross enough that K and I have named our guest room The Stuart Ross Room.  Just last year Stuart Ross's A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent won the 4th annual prestigious Kitty Lewis Hazel Millar Dennis Tourbin Poetry Prize sponsored by Today's book of poetry.

You can see that here:   

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2016/05/a-sparrow-came-down-resplendent-stuart.html

Today's book of poetry will go you one further, Mr. Ross will be spending a couple of nights here, at the Today's book of poetry headquarters, next week.  All of this lead just to be clear of the road we're plowing, Today's book of poetry remains convinced that Stuart Ross, inspite of being my buddy, is one of Canada's very best writers.

Pockets, the most recent Stuart Ross publication is ostensibly a novel.  But it is a novel constructed of short prose poems.  That's where we come in.  And as much as Pockets holds it narrative these short prose poems have no trouble standing on their own.  Ross mines some familiar territory in Pockets visiting family terrain and his brother in the clouds.

Mayakovsky had his "Cloud in Trousers" and Mayakovsky might not be a bad, but brief, comparison to our surrealist inspired Ross.  The language Ross employs in Pockets results in his most accessible work to date.  Ross is only a few generations away from being a beautifully sad Russian himself.  And make no mistake, even when Ross is punching out prose he remains a poet at heart.  And I always remembered Mayakovsky's 'Trousers' as red.

。。。

                   As I sat cross-legged on the floor on my parents'

                   bedroom at lunchtime watching The Flintstones on

                   television, I felt a tickle on the knuckles of my right

                   hand. It was a daddy-long-legs. Or maybe it was the

                   1955 movie Daddy Long Legs, starring Fred Astaire

                   as Jervis Pendleton III and Leslie Caron as Julie

                   Andre. Whichever it was, it scurried across the back

                   of my hand and vanished.

。。。

This book recycles the dreams and the horrors of childhood through the challenging lens of a beautifully fractured memory.  Wherever there is a broken seam Ross applies his masterful Kintsugi thinking.

。。。

                  I pedalled my new red bicycle to the end of the

                  block. I looked back at our house. My brother stood

                  at the foot of the driveway watching me. He wore

                  a white T-shirt and blue jeans. I was not allowed to

                  ride any farther than the stop sign. I looked at the

                  grey-and-yellow triplexes a block away. Marky lived

                  in one. I rode past the stop sign and up, up, toward

                  the triplexes. I wobbled from side to side on my red

                  bicycle. My brother snitched. The slam of my father's

                  footsteps as he strode after me along Pannahill Road

                  was like a series of meteors hitting the earth. I stood

                  with Marky looking at my new bicycle, and soon my

                  father's shadow fell over us. His large thumb came

                  down and squashed me into the concrete. Marky

                  examined the smudge on the driveway in front of the

                  triplex he lived in.

。。。

These untitled micro-chapters fit together like Lego blocks built by William S. Bourroughs and his wild Brion Gysin friend.  Stuart Ross simply never fails to delight, surprise and inform as he entertains.  There are more nods of agreement inside your own head when reading the mysterio Stuart Ross than you generally have any right to expect.  Especially considering that Ross is most likely going to take you out of your range of reason and then back in before you can blink.

Today's book of poetry doesn't really know any other poets like Stuart Ross.  But if you were to take Kurt Vonnegut's imagination, a Garrison Keillor sense of the storyteller and candy twisted it all together with a generous dose of wit and wisdom from Randy Newman and his melodious lamentations, you would be nearing the mark.

。。。

                   The girl next door had never heard of the Beatles. I

                   laughed. She laughed, too. Her name was Karen. She

                   showed me her Cowsills comic book, and her mother

                   gave us peanut-butter sandwiches and milk in glasses

                   that had once held yahrzeit candles. I looked out their

                   kitchen window and saw my own house. My grand-

                   father was standing on the roof beside his treadle-

                   operated sewing machine. He was born in Poland,

                   and he clenched a piece of thread between his teeth.

。。。

                   Spools of black, brown, and grey thread emerged

                   from the clouds, unravelling as they sailed down

                   toward earth. Earth, meanwhile, braced itself.

。。。

Today's book of poetry is not alone in our admiration of Mr. Stuart Ross.  As a regular guest of Today's book of poetry all of our staff are quite familiar with Stuart and his work.  They also see his name in book after book after book of Canadian poetry -- as editor, mentor or simply being thanked for his friendship. Ross ushers more books of poetry into print, for a wide variety of presses, than Gutenberg ever dreamed.

Even though Pockets is a novel you can carry in your pocket, Today's book of poetry treated it like a series of cleverly connected and paced prose poems.  Our morning read was a non-stop start-to-finish roller coaster as the staff connected the dots and the chapters.  It was an excellent reading.

But in truth there is nothing like the real thing.  Stuart Ross remains one of the best live poetry acts in the country.  Today's book of poetry has been to more poetry readings than you think possible and still thinks Ross is the best.  Of course Ross has great ammunition.  He has a canon of fine books but the reality is that he is getting better with age.  Ross has been adding an emotional elements to his work that has made it more directly accessible to every reader.  

。。。

                  My mother told me the large tree in our backyard

                  was called a "weeping willow." It drooped toward

                  the lawn like it was sad. It was sad because the presi-

                  dent got shot in the head.

。。。

                  I stood at my bedroom window, looking out into the

                  stars and at the moon, so small, drifting aross the

                  black sky. The house was silent. My room was dark.

                  My pyjamas were covered in squirrels. The thing I

                  thought was the moon was not the moon, after all. It

                  was a snow fort. I huddled inside it, chewing ice.

。。。

Pockets will garner more attention than Today's book of poetry can give it.  But we will be able to say to many of you that you saw it here first.  Stuart Ross writes with such authority that his whimsy always leads the reader in the right direction.  His startling revelations and discoveries become a baseline for an entirely new sensation of reason.

Today's book of poetry loves this work.

Stuart Ross

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stuart Ross is a Canadian fiction writer, poet, editor, and creative-writing instructor.

Ross was born in Toronto's north end in 1959 and grew up in the Borough of North York. He began writing at a very young age and was first published at age 16 by Books by Kids (now Annick Press). This book, The Thing in Exile, also contained work by teen writers Steven Feldman and Mark Laba. Ross attended Alternative Independent Study Program for high school. He went on to self-publish dozens of books and chapbooks through his Proper Tales Press imprint. As his books began to emerge from larger literary publishing houses, he has continued his Proper Tales Press project.

Ross has been active in the Toronto literary scene since the mid-1970s. He is co-founder, with Nicholas Power, of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, which has been operating since 1987 under various directorships. This fair, the first of its kind in Canada, inspired similar events in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Hamilton. Ross is a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective, which formed in 2006 to promote small-press publishing in the Toronto area.

He was the 2002 "Writer in Residence" for the Writers' Circle of Durham Region, the 2003 "Poet in Residence" for the Ottawa International Writers Festival, and the 2005 Electronic Writer in Residence for the Toronto Public Library's RAMP website for teens. He was Queen's University's writer in residence in 2010.[1] Stuart was the Fiction and Poetry Editor for This Magazine from 2004 until 2012 and from 2007 to 2016, he was Editor for Mansfield Press, where he had his own imprint: "a stuart ross book."[2] In 2017, Ross launched a new imprint for surrealist poetry – A Feed Dog Book – through Anvil Press.

His own magazines have included Mondo Hunkamooga: A Journal of Small Press Reviews (later subtitled A Journal of Small Press Stuff), Peter O'Toole (a magazine of one-line poems), Dwarf Puppets on Parade (a magazine of writing with restrictions), Who Torched Rancho Diablo? (poetry and fiction), Syd & Shirley, a magazine of Canadian and American poetry, and HARDSCRABBLE, a poetry magazine.

Although primarily known as a poet, Ross has also published fiction and personal essays. His column "Hunkamooga" appeared in Word: Toronto's Literary Calendar from 2001 to 2005, and moved to the Vancouver-based literary magazine sub-Terrain in 2006, where it ran until 2012.

As an editor, Ross was responsible for the 2004 anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence. In 2003, he issued the chapbook anthology My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush. In 2007, Ross was the editor for the Insomniac Press book Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden, and in 2010 for the Insomniac Press book Why Are You So Long and Sweet? Collected Long Poems of David McFadden. With Stephen Brockwell, he is the editor of the Mansfield Press poetry anthology Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament.

His 2009 short-story collection, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog, was shortlisted for the Alberta Readers' Choice Award and the Alberta Book Awards, and won the 2010 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. In 2012, he co-won the Elaine Mona Adilman Award for English Fiction & Poetry on a Jewish Theme, awarded by the J.I. Segal Committee of the Jewish Public Library in Montreal, for his novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew. In spring 2013, Ross's poetry collection You Exist. Details Follow. won the Exist Through The Gift Shop Award, the only prize given to an anglophone writer that year by the Montreal-based group l'Académie de la vie littéraire au tournant du 21e siècle. In fall 2017, Stuart's poetry collection A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent received the Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the poetry category.

PLEASE NOT THAT THIS BIOGRAPHY WAS TAKEN IN ITS ENTIRETY FROM WIKIPEDIA

BLURBS

“Each brief page of this brief, surrealistic novel brims with the unexpected, the astonishing, the odd . . . Pockets is a beautiful little book.” 

     – The Murdock

Stuart Ross

Reads 3 Razovsky poems

Video: farmergloomy

ecwpress.com

647

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.