Apt613 on William Hawkins,

Sanita Fejzić was good enough to do a small write-up on Ottawa poet William Hawkins over at Apt613, composed as a review of the cd Dancing Alone: Songs of William Hawkins (2008), as well as a mention of The Collected Poems of William Hawkins (Chaudiere Books, 2015), which, of course, can still be ordered here.

The Uncertainty Principle: a review and an interview,

Eleni Zisimatos was good enough to review rob mclennan’s The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (2014) over at the blog for Vallum magazine. Thanks, Eleni! This is actually the eighth review of mclennan’s short story collection, after a small write-up by Pearl Pirie (here), and more formal reviews by Ryan Porter (here), Brian Mihok (here), Sheldon Lee Compton (here), Ryan Pratt (here), C.A. LaRue (here) and Paul Rocca (here). You can see her full review here.

mclennan was also recently interviewed on the collection by Brock University student Vanessa Cimon-Lambert. An earlier interview by another Brock University student, Hayley Malouin, on the same collection, lives here.

Copies of the book, of course, can still be ordered here.

Drunken Boat blog spotlight : Amanda Earl,

Amanda Earl has the first post in rob mclennan's new monthly "spotlight" series over at the Drunken Boat blog. The post includes a short author statement by Earl, as well as two new poems.

Douglas Barbour reviews Chris Turnbull's continua (2015)

Edmonton poet and critic Douglas Barbour was good enough to review Chris Turnbull's continua (2015) over at his electric ruckus blog. Thanks so much! You can see the full review here. And of course, copies of Chris Turnbull's continua can be ordered directly, here.

Broken Pencil reviews Andy Weaver's this (2015)

Joel W. Vaughan was good enough to review Andy Weaver's this (2015) in Broken Pencil #71. Thanks so much! This is the third review of this, after Douglas Barbour's review over at his electric ruckus blog [we prefer Barbour's review, honestly], and Marilyn Irwin's review over at her blog. And of course, copies of Andy Weaver's this can be ordered directly, here.

Ten pages of quotations foreground this collection and act as a preview for the subdued unorthodoxy that is to come. This isn’t revolutionary by any means — it is, at its best, wrestling with the irreducible paradox that to un-tie the knots in language, one must somehow do so from within language. At its worst, this is simply too self-conscious or too incomprehensible. As Weaver himself acknowledges in a quote from Gertrude Stein (“This book is interesting as there is as much failure as success in it”), any attempt made to step outside language by means of poetry is an inevitable failure, and this is therefore much more interesting in its premise than it is in its development.

Instead of individual titles, this is largely divided up into four types: “regular poems” are arranged vertically in a serif typeface; “wall of words” poems confront the reader with a brick of bold, unbroken text; “alphabetical lists” are arranged at dis-jointed angles in Courier; and finally, Weaver’s “concrete” poems appear in any shape, at any size, in any maddened arrangement. this bounces from one type to another, striking a pose that any casual reader might rightly call madness.

The collection’s strongest moments stand out in short breaks of lucidity, however, such as its likening of language to time (“what does not change / is time, the only element of change”) or, further, its connection of language-as-identity to political history (“I asked him to translate the epitaph. He could not: it was in an ideographic language that France had destroyed”). It is these memorable breaks which keep this from reading like total entropy, and they are legitimately thought-provoking. Ironically, however, their lucidity may be precisely what keeps Weaver from stepping out of language entirely, and thus the crux of this’ defeat.

rob mclennan interviewed at OmniVerse

rob mclennan was interviewed over at OmniVerse, the online journal of Omnidawn Publishing, conducted by American poet Susanne Dyckman.