National Poetry Month 2016: Andy Weaver,

Amity

[For/From Art Redding]

And I understand the opposition

between love and hate to be a false one;

the problem of love is not hatred

but lovelessness, and a more vexing

problem it is. Love and hate are kindled

passions, but lovelessness is a stubborn

refusal of the world, be it through firewall

or moat. The aim of all our labour, beyond

justice or safety, use or truth, beyond even

beauty—this is what art works to teach us

—is joy. Not a retreat into thought but an

entrenching in life, our common pursuit,

our generous work raised to the intensity

of a red hot body, our worldly community

steaming from the dance, the only proper

dance, still unknowable from the work of the dancer.

Andy Weaver has published three collections of poetry, most recently This (Chaudiere, 2015). By day, he is Associate Professor of English at York University, where he specializes in contemporary experimental poetry. By night, he is packing up his home office in order to make way for a new arrival, due in June. His wife is not helping him move books, as she insists that growing a new human being in her body is work enough.

Canadian Authors for Indies Day, April 30: Monty Reid, Pearl Pirie etc

Authors for Indies Day (Saturday, April 30, 2016) is a day when authors show their appreciation for Canadian independent bookstores (indies). We do this by volunteering as guest booksellers for the day. When you visit an indie bookstore on AFI Day, you'll have the opportunity to meet local authors, chat with us booklover to booklover, and get book recommendations from us. Perhaps share your recommendations with us. You may buy a book or two, or just get to know your local bookstore better.

Authors are doing this to raise awareness of indie bookstores and how important they are to our communities, our reading lives, and our cultural well-being. It's a day to give some love to your local neighbourhood bookstore. 

Chaudiere authors participate in this year's Authors for Indies Day over at Perfect Books (258A Elgin Street, Ottawa)! Pearl Pirie and Monty Reid join a whole slew of Ottawa writers at Perfect Books this Saturday. Check out the list of authors and schedule below:

Rhonda Douglas (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Frances Boyle (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Pearl Pirie (12:00 pm to 1:00 pm)
Mark Frutkin (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Katherine Leyton (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Colin Morton (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
David O'Meara (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Monty Reid (12:00 pm to 2:00 pm)
Mark Bourrie (2:00 pm to 4:00 pm)
Valerie Knowles (2:00 pm to 4:00 pm)
Charlotte Gray (2:00 pm to 4:00 pm)

Love an independent bookstore! Visit yours on Saturday, April 30, 2016!

For more information on Authors for Indies Day (including other participating bookstores and authors across Canada), check here.

Profile on Amanda Earl's NationalPoetryMonth.ca, Open Book: Ontario

rob mclennan's profile on Amanda Earl's NationalPoetryMonth.ca (featuring, among other pieces, Heikki Saure's untitled piece, pictured) is now online at Open Book: Ontario.

National Poetry Month 2016: rob mclennan,

Two ghazals, for newborn

1.

Map: for she articulates

our new, invented landscapes.

A declaration of staccato kicks

and wails.

A salted, sunny membrane

of gestures, squeaks and snorts.

Exhaustion, multiplied. A cavernous

desire: feral skin, and breath.

Newly birthed, big sister devotes

such rapt attention.

Monopolized: we have not

learned their language.

2.

Toddler’s outstretched arms,

convinced herself bigger

than she still is, asks: Let me

hold her. Two ducks,

three. The western shoal,

swift curl of seagull, her

newborn deep

and impenetrable.

The contours

of a shapeless day.

Their mother, relieved

she finally out.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan [photo credit: Breathe In Photography] currently lives in Ottawa. The author of nearly thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. In March 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include notes and dispatches: essays (Insomniac press, 2014), The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry collection If suppose we are a fragment (BuschekBooks, 2014). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Christine McNair), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). In fall 2015, he was named “Interviews Editor” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

National Poetry Month 2016: Jennifer Londry,

Case Study, Montreal, Quebec 2003

*name withheld due to confidentiality and pending notification of next of kin

The darkness of his sanatorium had to end

the goal, to crown June before dying.

Last mommy kiss, galocher

potent as the symbols on talking boards that erupt into ghosts

when discharged from their straightjackets.

Mother-tongue sliced open.

Boy unsexed leapt into the pane of glass at the end of the corridor.

Id-eo-motor Effect,

planchette’s keen eye

lost to the cupboard of time.

Jennifer Londry’s latest collection of poetry is Tatterdemalion, published by Chaudiere Books, 2015. As part of poetry month she participated in a celebration of William Shakespeare’s work by reading sonnets with other bard aficionados. Currently she is collaborating on a project with Kim Renders and the Queen’s Drama Department to produce a play about violence against women. Jennifer will be one of the feature readers at Poets @ Artfest this year in Kingston, Ontario.