Amanda Earl features at The Dusty Owl Reading Series, Ottawa: Sunday, September 22, 2013

Ottawa writer, small press publisher and above/ground press author Amanda Earl does her final reading of 2013 this Sunday afternoon at The Dusty Owl Reading Series, co-featuring alongside Ottawa fiction writer Craig Calhoun [see her post about such here]. With featured reader(s) and an open set, The Dusty Owl Reading Series is held at Mugshots Bar, 75 Nicholas Street, Ottawa and begins at 3pm.

above/ground press has been fortunate enough to produce three of Amanda Earl's poetry chapbooks -- E l e a n o r (2007), The Sad Phoenician's Other Woman (2008) and Sex First & Then A Sandwich (2012) -- all of which are still available.

As she writes:

Please join me & my illustrious compatriot, the darkly poetic/poetically dark fiction writer Craig Calhoun for our featured readings this Sunday:

Dusty Owl Reading Series
Mugshots Bar, 75 Nicholas Street
Sunday, September 22, 3pm

Craig says he's going to read us stories of murder & fire. Also he reports that there is a skeleton in the Mugshots Courtyard.

I'll be reading mostly new un-related soundy poems featuring the Furious Girl, the World-Owes-Him-A-Living Guy, Daphne-the Dame of the Dolphin, skullduggery, jiggery pockery, hermit crabs, King Arthur, the yellow brick road, Imogen, Sir Ender of the Liquor Ardour, hounderifics, clam ditties, Bro Diddley, Madam Bovary, stodgy otters, diphthongs &  more disreputable characters…

I hope to see you there.

For those of you who like doing such things, here is the FaceBook event to sign up to.

some author activity: Armantrout, Martin, curry + Ross, mclennan + Barwin

Catharine Wagner interviewed poet Rae Armantrout recently for POETRYEATER; Camille Martin has some new poems up at On Barcelona; jwcurry and Stuart Ross did some sound poetry improv in the open set of The Dusty Owl Reading Series, June 23, 2013 in Ottawa; rob mclennan has a new prose poem, "Life, Sentence," up at Otoliths; and have you seen the ongoing pieces that Gary Barwin has been writing for Jacket2?

Some author activity: Pirie, beaulieu, mclennan, McCann, McNair

Pearl Pirie was good enough to write a healthy post on this spring's ottawa small press book fair, as well as a flickr stream; derek beaulieu, rob mclennan and Pirie have all answered interview questions over at Canadian Poets Petting Cats; Lori Emerson has posted pdfs of her 1999/2000 journal Laughing Gland, including works by Stephen Scobie and Douglas Barbour, bpNichol, beaulieu and mclennan; Marcus McCann wins the EJ Pratt Medal for Poetry; and mclennan and Christine McNair launch a collaborative above/ground press chapbook as part of their July 15 reading at The Dusty Owl Reading Series. Might we see you there?

Stephen Brockwell reads at The Dusty Owl Reading Series, April 15, 2012

above/ground press author and Ottawa poet and editor Stephen Brockwell [photo of Stephen Brockwell in the Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C. by rob mclennan] reads at The Dusty Owl Reading Series on Sunday, April 15, 2012, 3:00 PM, at their regular, monthly home at The Elmdale House, 1084 Wellington St. W, Ottawa.

The Dusty Owl Reading Series includes an open set and featured reader(s). Free admission.

Stephen Brockwell is the author of 4 books of poems. Fruitfly Geographic won the 2004 Archibald Lampman Award for the best book of poetry by an Ottawa writer. His Excerpts from Impossible Books is an interminable work in progress. Brockwell runs the small business www.brockwellit.com from his basement, borrowed office space and coffee shops. Brockwell is also the author of a number of poetry chapbooks, including three from above/ground press: Marin County Poems (2001), Impossible Books (the Carleton Installment) (2010) and the most recent Excerpts from Impossible Books, The Crawdad Cantos (2012).

Dusty Owl Reading Series Coordinator:
Steven Zytveld (613) 230-7710

Media Coordinator:
Catherine MacDonald-Zytveld (613)-230-7710
or media@dustyowl.com

“poem” broadside #302: Morrisburg Ontario, by Michael Blouin

a lot of what gets said isn’t true

some things become more true over time

this place grew me

been lying on this bathroom floor long enough

to speculate that the intricacies of the tile work are beyond standard motel applications

the word byzantine might come into play

was it usual for this particular motel? did the tile layer have a momentary vision and set aside the wrinkled paper plan? run back and forth to the pickup or the store? get fired for it at the end but happy with an emptied head finally and dreams of a future beyond mere tilery and motel splendour? this is what I end up hoping.

that the man spent the rest of his life fabricating elaborate mosaics living on chocolate and water and feeling things more deeply than was strictly good for him

after dusk I wander into the tree line behind the soft vinyl sided building slowly driven by something I do not know fingers lightly brushing the rough tree edges

my neck becomes sore from looking up

no stars.

Morrisburg Ontario

by Michael Blouin

Produced for a reading at the Dusty Owl Reading Series

June 12, 2011

above/ground press broadside #302

Michael Blouin’s Chase and Haven (Coach House) won the Re Lit Award for Best Novel in 2009. His current Wore Down Trust (Pedlar Press) is garnering national attention. This new work is from a manuscript in progress. http://www.minor-poet.blogspot.com