Ongoing notes, mid-November 2024: Margo LaPierre, Geoffrey Young + Clint Burnham,

You are coming out to the 30^TH ANNIVERSARY of the ottawa small press book fair today, yes? And you heard that Christine and I are reading in Kingston tomorrow night, and Calgary next week? Check the link here for various reading details and updates.

Toronto/Ottawa ON: Oh, it is good to see a new chapbook by Ottawa poet Margo LaPierre, In Violet (Toronto ON: Anstruther Press, 2024), following a small handful of publications, including chapbooks, both solo and collaborative, and a full-length poetry collection (the author biography on her website does mention both a collection of short stories and a novel in-progress). An assemblage of ten poems, In Violet gives the impression of a catch-all, as the author explores elements of structure and visual form, attempting to stretch out the possibilities of what poems might do, seek or look like. Working through trauma and its aftermath, writing memory, recollection, placement, rage and symphony, her lyric narratives extend out as a series of points that accumulate, moment to moment, that allow for a visual field of space across the page. “Hysteresis is the name / for a system of stress,” she writes, to open the poem “Hysteresis,” “in an organism          or an object / when effects of / the stressor / lag [.]”

Surf Lessons

It was a sprouted need, this plant with teeth,
true Venus. Fuck the rage that eats us.

This is a healing spell: bream green,
and foam dries in lipped petals

delicate as the conversations
with the ones we’ve hurt.

Great Barrington MA: Another chapbook by legendary poet, artist, curator and former publisher (The Figures) Geoffrey Young [see my interview with him here] is always a delight, so I’m pleased to see a copy of his LOOK WHO’S TALKING (Great Barrington MA: ALL SALES FINAL, 2024), a title that features art by Mel Bochner. Young has long favoured variations on the sonnet as his preferred lyric structure, offering a straightforwardness comparable to Canadian poet Ken Norris [see my latest review of his work here], if I may, for that straight line capable of bending or twisting when required. The straightforward manner provides, as well, a deceptiveness, almost a sheen, hiding deeper elements underneath in twists and twangs, a New England parlance of lyric with Berkeley underlay. “Is a pleasure to be indulged in,” he writes, to close the poem “LONG’S DRUGSTORE,” “When the nothingness of normality grabs you.” He writes of memory, offering reference layered upon reference, playing expectation against itself and you, the reader. “The pope when he blesses the poor. / I’d rather be a sea-bird anyway,” he writes, to close “WHAT GOES INTO THE SHREDDER IS YOUR BUSINESS,” “Squawking meaningless gibberish / Because we both know // That everything depends upon landing / On the beach for a nice long walk.”

DO THE THING

These days
the momentous minutiae
of life and events
distract me from all

the stuff I must get done.
so if I don’t do the thing
I think needs doing
at the exact moment

I think of it
or very shortly thereafter,
within ten seconds, say,
I might as well

forget it
because I already have.

Vancouver BC/Cobourg ON: I’m amused and intrigued by this reprint that Stuart Ross produced earlier this year through his Proper Tales Press, Vancouver poet Clint Burnham’s TED BERRIGAN AND STUART ROSS (2024), a title originally “printed in a manuscript edition of 10 / August 9, 1993.” I would be curious to have seen a new write-up by the author as to what the story was surrounding this small manuscript that opens with glowing letters from Ontario Arts Council/Conseil des arts de l’Ontario and Thomas Fisher Rare Books Collection, Robarts Library, University of Toronto, offering glowing critiques on the project, on the merits of “the works of the eminent Canadian writer Stuart Ross.”

As the letter purportedly from the Ontario Arts Council writes: “In accordance with your wishes, we have also evaluated the important role that Mr. Ross has played as a small press publisher and self-publisher. It is now our conclusion that the major arts funding groups of the world have been wrong to focus almost exclusively on mainstream and for-profit publishers: henceforth, the Ontario Arts Council will focus exclusively on small press publishing and self-publishing; the five trillion dollar grant annually allocated to Mc[C]lelland and Stewart will also forthwith be turned over to Mr. Ross.” If only that had been so.

HOW TED BERRIGAN WOULD’VE
WRITTEN THIS POEM

First all, you’d have to include whether
he wrote it
in Chicago
or NYC

Maybe he just got some grand and
went to a cheque-cashing agency
so he’d have the money
to carry around

Sartre liked to do that, too

carry money around, I mean

and then there’d be the
obligatory reference

to a friend
he likes, in the

poem, a writer, perhaps

and, Hey! it’s that simple

This is a delightfully odd little collection (I say little because the collection includes five short poems and these two letters), as the best collections are, I must say. What was the original prompt for these pieces? Were these pieces in homage, attempting to echo the work of Ted Berrigan (1934-1983) and Stuart Ross by a then thirty-one year old Toronto-based Burnham? Writing a reference to the “Canadian / Forces / Base / Cold / Lake” in his poem “THE RED WAGGON,” as Burnham writes: “and at least / one famous / Canadian writer / used to teach / junior high / there at / Athabasca / j.h., / where I went / and outside it / I heard some / one / say goldbricking / bake in [.]”

Ongoing notes: early February, 2021: Natalie Rice + Geoffrey Young

I can’t remember what I was going to say here. What was I going to say here?

Kelowna BC/ Kentville NS: I’ve been enjoying Kelowna BC poet Natalie Rice’s (seeming) chapbook debut (I say seeming, because I can’t seem to find much information on her at all online), 26 Visions of Light (Gaspereau Press, 2020), a work subtitled “After Hildegard von Bingen’s illustrated work ‘Scivias’.” A meditative sequence of twenty-six short lyrics, I enjoy the flow of Rice’s lines, the way her sentences stretch and flow like water.

2.

Sometimes, when I open the kitchen window
heaven falls into my lap, there is no orchestra here,
only the rubbing of sinews, gristle on bone,
everything is holy, the meat, the maggot, white budding
of bread, the stew is made,
my mother waters a river, I’m brimming
with desire

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179), “also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess.” According to Wikipedia, “Scivias is an illustrated work by Hildegard von Bingen, completed in 1151 or 1152, describing 26 religious visions she experienced. It is the first of three works that she wrote describing her visions, the others being Liber vitae meritorum and De operatione Dei (also known as Liber divinorum operum). The title comes from the Latin phrase ‘Sci vias Domini’ (‘Know the Ways of the Lord’). The book is illustrated by 35 miniature illustrations, more than that are included in her two later books of visions.” I would be curious to know if Rice’s poems exist as responses, or condensed adaptations of the original work (or some combination of the two, perhaps); or even if further sequences by Rice, responding to the other two works in the trilogy, are in the works or have already been composed. I’m curious to see more of Rice’s work; to see what else she might be capable of, across the lyric.

21.

There is something holy
in the compost heap, a glimmer
of heat rising—I see cloven tongues
like fire, deep and warm
and from it, the one long life-line of
zucchini tendril

Great Barrington MA: Geoffrey Young [see an interview I did with him a while back here] was good enough to send along a copy of his DATES (Great Barrington MA: YOUR GARDEN VARIETY, 2021), a collection of short prose reminiscences. In nineteen short sketches, Young writes out interactions he’s had with well known literary and otherwise figures over the years, including Gabrielle Buffet Picabia, Richard Pryor, Samuel Beckett, Kathy Acker, Jimmy Read, John Cage, Picasso, Charles Bukowski, James Baldwin, James Schuyler and others. His pieces are informal, pointed, curious. “But the better question was,” he writes, as part of his piece on Richard Pryor, “what was Richard Pryor doing in a country store on the tip of Maui wearing a baseball hat with wings? Vacationing? No doubt. Cleaning up his act? Quite possibly. Later I heard he owned a house out there.” The memoir-esque short sketches are reminiscent of Guy Birchard’s above/gound press chapbook VALEDICTIONS: Three essays by Guy Birchard (2019), in which he wrote on William Hawkins, Ray (“Condo”) Tremblay and Artie Gold, or even George Bowering’s suite of short memoir pieces on his late friend, London, Ontario painter Greg Curnoe, The Moustache (Toronto ON: Coach House Press, 1993). Young’s pieces are charming, densely-written, suggesting just enough to leave open. I am curious to know if there are more of these, if there might be a book’s worth of such possible, at some point.

SAMUEL BECKETT: THE UNNAMABLE

            After supper at home on the Rue Bréa we walk a few blocks to the Closerie des Lilas on the Blvd Montparnasse for dessert. Laura’s a couple months pregnant with Clovis, and she orders a profiterole. In a separate room, not twenty-five feet in front of us, we see Samuel Beckett with an elderly couple, nursing a drink. Seated at a small round table, Beckett’s angular profile is a dead giveaway. He’s with white-haired friends, Irish most likely, late 1973. In his right hand he is squeezing a small rubber ball, over and over.
            Getting up to leave, Beckett passes our table by the exit, and I stand up, my right hand extended to shake his, and say, “Call that going.” He looks twice at me, thinks I’ve said, “How’s it going?” says “Fine,” and I say, “Your work has given us long and dangerous pleasure,” as we shake hands.
            Kindly, he thanks us then, his grey hair upright, his blue-grey eyes reserved, his shyness genuine, a scarf around his neck, his concern to leave paramount, with only a momentary, delicate embarrassment on his face.

 

our american adventure; or: what we did on our (winter/spring) vacation

I think it's safe to say we've done a ridiculous amount of travel over the past couple of years, especially with one or two small children. Do you remember when we were in Washington DC? Boca Raton? Berlin? The Netherlands? Toronto? Glengarry? Sainte-Adele? And so on, and so on. Rose has even (also) been to Calgary and Winnipeg, if you can imagine. It's hard not to feel completely spoiled. Or quite mad, really.

Recently, we spent nearly a week driving around with the girls for the sake of a final bit of adventure prior to the end of Christine's maternity leave (which isn't even the final, given we're soon off to Toronto for the sake of Christine's April 13th BookThug launch). We did the same mad trip with baby on the East Coast near the end of her prior maternity leave, as well; a trip twice as long as this one, but a bit easier to manage, given we'd only one child's schedule to consider. Really, this trip was prompted by a New Year's Eve sale at the hotel in Burlington, Vermont we'd stayed in at the end of our prior maternity leave trip, when we told ourselves: "End of March. We'll have money by then, right?" Everything else was planned around a date we'd scheduled some three months prior.

This was a purely social trip, attempting to see a couple of friends on the American side: Lea Graham, Geoffrey Young and Marthe Reed (I'll get to them in a bit). There were thoughts about working some of Christine's genealogical on this trip, but we'd neither the time for her to properly research prior to leaving, nor the opportunity to get to where we really would have had to get to (further east/south: coastal, etcetera). We shall have to figure that out for another trip, later.

We were admittedly nervous about crossing the border, with incredibly mixed feelings about even wishing to be allowed through. Is theirs a country we currently wish to support? And yet, we can't abandon those people we know and like down there. We crossed, but the uncertainties continue, to be sure.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017: Given we were heading east, past Montreal, to cross for the sake of Burlington, Vermont, we thought it might be good to begin with a quick morning trip to see my father on the homestead, en route. We'd aimed to leave the house early enough, but, of course, managed to not even get to his house until nearly noon. Despite packing the day before, we still aren't functioning well enough to go from thought to function less than a few hours with the two girls, but we'll get there.

And why did I not take any pictures at the farm? God sakes. Well, my father seemed well enough. I think he appreciated our visit. We even saw the old hired man he had for years, when I was growing up (Jack McCourt, whose daughter went to school out there with Nicholas Lea).

From the farm, we headed back on the 417 and into, through and past Montreal without stopping. We hit the hotel at Burlington, Vermont by dusk, and unpacked ourselves into a sprawl into our room. For the sake of easing Rose into sleep-mode in our single room, I took wee Aoife out for a stroll near our hotel, and saw some rather lovely lights along the cobblestone street. We picked up postcards, saw plenty of bumper stickers for Bernie, and Aoife waved at all the passersby from her ring-sling.

Christine had borrowed a tent-like sleeping unit for the baby, which Rose quickly made her own. She was very happy there.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017: Ours was a hipster hotel, where the staff were all young, wore (local) flannel, and the men wore beards. Basically, every male working there looked like Ottawa poet Chris Johnson. Once breakfast in the restaurant, we walked the two blocks to the Echo Lake Aquarium and Science Center. Once my brilliantly clever wife noticed how much admission was, she clued in to the fact that Canadian family memberships can often be transferred, so she purchased a $90 Family Membership to various Ottawa museums and science centres, which allowed us to walk into Echo for free (we would have literally paid more than half to get in, as compared to a membership that now allows us into Ottawa's Museum of Nature, Science and Technology etc for free for a full damned year).

At the butterfly room, no one mentioned that they are HUGE and they will LAND ON YOU. I cared little for this. Once they came near, I was out of there. Rose and Christine were less wary.

The space was actually pretty cool. Rose was quite happy to stick close to the children's area for most of our visit, and ran around various corners alongside dozens of other parents (most of the women there were pregnant, I noticed) with boatloads of small children.

There was a weekly children's corner reading, which Rose listened to, but bailed before they could work on their craft. She went back to a pirate ship she designated a fairy ship. By that point, Aoife was awake, and she and I spent time in the small contained area for pre-walking children. Aoife absolutely loved it, and laughed and waved at everyone and pointed and played with soft toys for quite some time [she's inches close to walking fully on her own; note the small scratch on her nose from when she was scurrying along the bed in the hotel, and slipped by the nightstand, the night prior]. I was tempted to nap, but there were too many people around to really get away with such.

Post-museum, we made back up the hill for some lunch, and so Christine could visit that Vermont Flannel shop she loves. And then we returned to the hotel (Aoife and I made a wee side-trip for the sake of the Post Office), where we crashed. Hard. Or, at least, Christine and I did. The children were (still) a bit more energetic.

On the walk back from the post office, I saw a sign that made me realize that Ethan Allen's homestead was only a six-minute drive from our hotel, but closed for the season, which was a bit disappointing. I was curious, given the connection I'd recently discovered between him and my birth mother's family (our ancestor was defeated by Allen, which prompted the move north of the border during the American Revolution). I was curious: I'd read a bit on my ancestor, which suggested that Allen was a rather unpleasant individual, but I was amused to see that the website to his own homestead museum basically says the same thing. Geez, just how bad was this guy? Didn't help, I'm sure, that one of his main associates for a time was Benedict Arnold. Jerk.

After a wee rest (and cartoons), Christine had a far better suggestion: did you know that Ben & Jerry's original factory was nearby? AND DID YOU KNOW IT HAS TOURS?!?

We drove the twenty minutes, and I was enthralled. We took the tour! We took many photos! We had ice cream! We visited the gift shop!

I mailed at least three postcards from there, that said, only: "We are at Ben & Jerry's original factory in Vermont. Jealous?"

Thursday, March 30, 2017: After breakfast, we left the hotel and aimed ourselves the four-and-a-half hours straight south from there towards Kingston, New York, where our pal Lea Graham lives. I've known Lea for more than a decade now, having been introduced to her via Dennis Cooley, and I've been able to publish a number of her pieces, including a chapbook and even a collaborative chapbook we did some ten years or so ago, but I've barely seen her in years.

Heading south along the highway, the gps directed us straight west across Lake Champlain, where we ended up at a ferry terminal before landing, half an hour later, across the shimmering water. Given the gloomy grey of our first two days, it was nice that the sun was out for such a drive through unfamiliar territory, and the girls seemed amused at the sparkly lake water.

We drove and we drove and we drove, wandering numerous windy back-roads throughout New York State once we crossed, uncertain of where the hell the gps was taking us. We drove, with full awareness that we were dealing with two children with opposing schedules: one, for nursing, and the other, for occasional (and seemingly random) bathroom stops (usually without much notice).

At one of those stops, we discovered the highway pit stops that included areas to simply drive over and use one's cellphone ("text stops"), as well as small buildings with washrooms, dozens of tourist flyers, and a handful of coin machines for food and drink. While these were all well and good, it did make me wistful for the array of On Route stops along Highway 401 in Ontario. I mean, really.

I took photos of Rose at one, during one of those bathroom stops. It was nearly half a dozen photos before she wasn't fully sticking out her tongue (and then she would laugh). She's three, after all.




Once at Lea's (see my recent Touch the Donkey interview with her here), we were barely there five minutes before poet Claire Hero [below left, listening to Lea explain something or other] arrived for a pre-arranged "poet dinner" (poet and publisher Ryan Murphy, a poet I'd published and interviewed for Touch the Donkey, had also been invited, but his schedule wouldn't allow for such, unfortunately). It was grand! Conversation and babies and only a wee bit of chaos. Also, pre-arranged, I brought a box filled with chapbooks, books and other ephemera for Claire (and one for Ryan as well), and she was kind enough to trade for a copy of her first book.

The children were a bit wound up after the long drive, but slept better than I might have thought.

We stayed up late with drinks and conversation and drinks. And conversation. [And, once home, Lea announced that she's a poetry title forthcoming with Salmon Poetry, who is also releasing a second of mine come next spring; hooray!]

Friday, March 31, 2017: The following morning was a bit hazy, which included coffee, and the children playing quietly (or not quietly, depending). There was coffee. And Lea took Rose outside, briefly (in the rain pouring buckets) to assist with the refilling of the bird-feeder (which she enjoyed).

From there, we aimed for the ninety-minute drive east, to Great Barrington, MA, for the sake of visiting poet and former The Figures publisher Geoffrey Young (see my recent interview with him here; see the recent chapbook I produced of his here). I hadn't met Young yet, but we'd been in mail and email conversation (exchanging books/chapbooks, etc) for some fifteen years at least (thanks to Ken Norris, given our shared Artie Gold interest), so I'd been looking forward to that. Still, given the prior day's drive had been a bit hard on the young ladies, we thought we should only do Gt. Barrington as a day-trip, to help reduce the potential drive for the following morning to Syracuse, New York.

The gps took us up and around and everywhere. In the pouring rain, we passed the (closed for the season) boyhood home of W.E.B. du Bois. And, a sign that could drive fear into the heart of any wayward traveller: "pavement ends" (fortunately, this did not last long). Where the hell were we going?

We made it for lunch, and found Geoffrey to have a fantastic energy, especially for someone over seventy years old. We talked non-stop (including Rose) and went through his huge house absolutely filled with the most stellar array of artworks from dozens of visual artists. There was so much to take in! And, for the sake of our ongoing exchange of above/ground press titles for The Figures backlist, he filled a box of some FIFTY TITLES for me. Absolutely incredible. I now have more Clark Coolidge titles, for example, than I ever imagined possible.

After a couple of hours there, we were back in the car towards Kingston, and Lea's house, where the evening was far quieter than our night prior.

Saturday, April 1, 2017: We slowly figured ourselves out with coffee, breakfast-for-the-kids and more coffee, and the flurry of packing without leaving anything before heading west again for Syracuse, New York, and the poet/publisher Marthe Reed. More than a couple of times we had to stop again for the sake of the children, including one of those "text stops" so Rose could use up some energy, and Aoife could nurse.

I'd originally met Marthe through the reading Stephen Brockwell and I had attempted in Louisiana, when she was kind enough to host us in Lafayette at the University. Since then, they'd moved here, where she and her partner both teach, which has allowed them to even come to Ottawa twice for the sake of a visit (including the launch of her above/ground press chapbook, After Swann, and her appearance at the ottawa small press book fair).

After the flurry of travel and adventuring, we appreciated the quieter evening, although Rose was rather wound up, and took some time to calm down. Both girls appreciated very much that Marthe pulled out some bins of toys leftover from their two children (both grown), set for some time into dusty storage. Once opened, the toys were well-utilized.

And: Aoife even teased with some small stretches of solo-walking (only her second day of such, over the week prior).

Sunday, April 2, 2017: Before heading north towards the border, we took a stroll into the graveyard across the street from their house, in part for the sake of their two dogs, and for the sake of our Rose, who happily ran around through and into the puddles. We kept having to explain that she couldn't take any of the flowers, of course.

They were such kind hosts! Such kind hosts. But oh, how we longed to be in our wee house.

The girls and I hit a Barnes and Noble before leaving town, as Christine managed a store a few doors over for a couple of items she can't get on this side of the border. I was happy to collect a recent issue of Jubilat, and Fanny Howe's The Needle's Eye (Graywolf, 2016), Claudia Rankine's The End of the Alphabet (Grove Press, 1998) and Bernadette Mayer's Works & Days (New Directions, 2016). I've long been a fan of Howe and Rankine, but really haven't read nearly enough Mayer. I'm hoping to get into these books soon.

In the bookstore, I was amused that George Saunders has his own table under the "local authors" banner (I hadn't realized he lived nearby, but everyone has to live somewhere, right?). I wanted to say something smarmy about that, given he's been on multiple major media outlets for his new book, but everything I'm hearing speaks to the attention being well-deserved. And it is good for bookstores, especially big chain ones, to be acknowledging local. And I hear that he's, on top of everything else, super-nice.

Ah, well.

A couple of hours later, we made it across the border, and I had to keep reminding myself which set of numbers on the speedometer to pay attention to. In Kingston, Christine hit an outlet mall on their FINAL DAY, and the girls and I set down for lunch at some burger place. What was it called? Harper's Burger Bar. Right. Rose coloured, and Aoife made noises at people sitting nearby. Christine met us, and then she and Rose wandered back to the outlet mall. Aoife and I found a used bookstore, and a copy of Ken Belford's The Post Electric Cave Man (Talonbooks, 1970). Shouldn't that guy have a big selected poems at some point?

Of course, we thought we'd been a bit longer in Kingston than we'd intended. Turning the gps back on in the car, it couldn't see us in the parking lot, and wasn't able to understand where we were until I pulled the car onto the street, which, of course, was in the direction opposite than where we were heading. The gps found us, and turned us right onto The Tragically Hip Way, a block-long stretch named after the infamous band.

Ah, I said, that's okay, then.

What do you mean? asked Christine.

Well, it means we're ahead by a century.

new from above/ground press: Beaulieu, Flemmer, miletic, Young, Christie, Hunter + Swan,

a a novel

Derek Beaulieu

$5

See link here for more information

ASTRAL PROJECTION

Kyle Flemmer

$5

See link here for more information

marginal prints

philip miletic

$5

See link here for more information

THIRTY-THREE

Geoffrey Young

$5

See link here for more information

random_lines = random.choice

Jason Christie

$4

See link here for more information

above/ground press' 800th publication!

Series out of Sequence

Carrie Hunter

$4

See link here for more information

Domestica

Sarah Swan

$4

See link here for more information

keep an eye on the above/ground press blog forauthor interviews, new writing, reviews, upcoming readings and tons of othermaterial;

published in Ottawa by above/ground press

January-February 2017

a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy of each

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; outside Canada, add $2) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9 or paypal (above). Scrolldown here to see various backlist titles (many, many things are still inprint).

Review copies of any title (while supplies last) also available, upon request.

Forthcoming chapbooks by Jessica Smith, Sarah Fox, Stephen Collis, Sandra Moussempès (trans. Eléna Rivera), Brenda Iijima, Jake Syersak, Jordan Abel, Helen Hajnoczky, Marilyn Irwin and Ian Whistle, as well as the 25^th issue of The Peter F. Yacht Club (just in time for VERSeFest 2017)! And there’s totally still time to subscribe for2017, by the way (backdating to January 1^st, obviously).

above/ground press: twenty-four years old in 2017!

Queen Mob's Teahouse : my interview with Geoffrey Young

As my tenure as interviews editor at Queen Mob's Teahouse continues, the twentieth interview is now online: my interview with American poet Geoffrey Young, author of anew chapbook of sonnets produced by above/ground press. Other interviews from my tenure include: an interview with poet, curator and art critic Gil McElroy, conducted by Ottawa poet Roland Prevost, an interview with Toronto poet Jacqueline Valencia, conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Drew Shannon and Nathan Page, also conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Ann Tweedy conducted by Mary Kasimor, an interview with Katherine Osborne, conducted by Niina Pollari, an interview with Catch Business, conducted by Jon-Michael Frank, a conversation between Vanesa Pacheco and T.A. Noonan, "On Translation and Erasure," existing as an extension of Jessica Smith's The Women in Visual Poetry: The Bechdel Test, produced via Essay Press, Five questions for Sara Uribe and John Pluecker about Antígona González by David Buuck (translated by John Pluecker),"overflow: poetry, performance, technology, ancestry": kaie kellough in correspondence with Eric Schmaltz, and Mary Kasimor's interview with George Farrah, Brad Casey interviewed byEmilie Lafleur, David Buuck interviews John Chávez about Angels of the Americlypse: An Anthology of New Latin@ Writing and an interview with Abraham Adams by Ben Fama, Tender and Tough: Letters as Questions as Letters: Cheena Marie Lo, Tessa Micaela and Brittany Billmeyer-Finn and Kristjana Gunnars’ interview with Hagios Press author Anne Campbell.

Further interviews I've conducted myself over at Queen Mob's Teahouse include: Claire Freeman-Fawcett on Spread Letter, Stephanie Bolster on Three Bloody Words, Claire Farley on Canthius, Dale Smith on Slow Poetry in America, Allison Green, Meredith Quartermain, Andy Weaver, N.W Lea and Rachel Loden.

If you are interested in sending a pitch for an interview my way, check out my "about submissions" write-up at Queen Mob's; you can contact me via rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com