Thursday Poetry Round-Up

Since the weather has started to cool down in the past couple days, and the leaves are beginning to turn colour and loosen from their branches, and there's an undercurrent of wood smoke in the breeze, I'd be lying if I said it didn't all put me in a contemplative mood. So, with the spirit of contemplation in mind, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to bring a few recent poetry notices to your attention. 

A couple weeks ago, Catherine Owen's The Marrow Review did a nice roundup of two of our poetry books chosen completely at random: Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway by Alexandra Oliver and Meniscus by Shane Neilson. Oliver's 2013 Pat Lowther Award-Winning Canadian debut gets a favourable nod for its "sing-songy, Philip Larkinesque, rhyming, mannered, smart, continental and often quite droll" lyrics while Shane Neilson's "sophisticate and slant" musicality  in Meniscus is praised for its "bleeps & grinds & mellifluous witnessings to loss." Owen is especially fond of Meniscus for its controlled yet intense exploration of "elegy, insanity, injury and adoration."

Susan Gillis has been doing some great work on her newish blog Concrete & River of late, and this past week saw the posting of a short but fascinating exchange between her and Amanda Jernigan. Jernigan describes the various ways in which localized speech, a magical house of books in Virginia, and the life-altering experience of motherhood have informed her work and vision over the years. You can read the full exchange here. Jernigan's Groundwork was a 2011 Best Poetry Book, and her 2013 Cormorant follow-up, All the Daylight Hours, was a National Post Canadian Poetry Book of the Year for 2013.



Catherine Chandler's sonnet "Coming to Terms" received a Laureate's Choice Award earlier this month in the Great River Shakespeare Festival, Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest (Winona, Minnesota). It was singled-out among over 400 submissions by poets from thirty-six U.S. states and seven countries. The poem, which also won the 2010 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, appears in Chandler's Glad and Sorry Seasons. See why Eric Ormsby says there is "no form of which Catherine Chandler is not a master, from quatrains and Sapphics to ballads and pantoums. She is an especially brilliant sonneteer." 

And finally, Kerry-Lee Powell's Inheritance, which is our lead fall poetry title and which is making its way through the printers at Coach House as we speak, is a 49th Shelf Most Anticipated Fall Poetry Book. Kerry-Lee's fiction has won her a two book deal with Harper Collins as well as accolades from the likes of Nathan Englander and Junot Diaz, and her poetic debut is a fierce and moving one. It should definitely be on the radar of all lovers of Canadian Poetry.

And now back to my coffee and weltschmerz.

Groundwork in PN Review

For those of you who've been charting the ins and outs of Amanda Jernigan's Groundwork, and for those of you who subscribe to the UK-based journal PN Review, keep your eyes peeled for Evan Jones's review in their latest issue. A few others Groundwork pieces that have turned up or are worth revisiting: one on The Winnipeg Review, and another, not online, from the summer 2012 issue of Fiddlehead. Three cheers to poesy—and good luck to Amanda as she launches All the Daylight Hours over the next month.

Amanda Jernigan: "intensity personified"

NOW has reported the results of their Poetry NOW Harbourfront contest, calling Amanda Jernigan "intensity personified."

While Peter Norman emerged from the fray with top honours, Jernigan's performance was enough to make her a strong contender. The energy of Poetry Month continues!

Read the full blurb here.

Amanda Jernigan & H.L. Hix

This just in! In addition to yesterday's post below, there's been a shoutout for Groundwork on Poetry Foundation. Thanks to Jason Guriel for the mention.

____

Meant to post this ages ago, but: take a look at this lovely interview with our own A.H. Jernigan on H.L. Hix's In Quire. Why are all poets Etruscan(ish)? With a cameo by Richard Wilbur. Take a look!

The NYC Scoop, Clear Skies, Some Money for Poetry (?!), and The Great & Mighty Gazette

For those of you who aren't quite sure, Book Expo America--where Dan and I have been for the past week--is the biggest North American trade show in the biz, and perhaps the only way you can get thousands of publishers, publicists, literary agents, distributors, media representatives, librarians, booksellers, "power readers," bloggers, and authors to trudge in a herd twice daily through the meat packing district of New York. We met Lemony Snicket. We snuck inside the annual New Directions party, held in their 8th Avenue offices, where we gawped at their filing cabinets ("Pound, E. Correspondence A-L"), ogled their decor (on the wall in the main hallway, a scrip in the hand of W.C. Williams, next to a Henry Miller painting), and were altogether very warmly welcomed by people and objets d'art alike. On the fair floor a growing collection of willy warmers hooked the eyes of more than a few passersby, and we talked up your Bibliotitles till our throats were sore. Altogether a resounding success! And a success made even sweeter by coming home to this little gem by David Hickey:

What are those little colour panels, you may ask? Little mini-Mondrians? Not exactly. Read more about  clear sky charts--"equal parts Atari and abstract art"--on David's blog. 

Ahem. In other (woefully overdue) poetry news, we have a lovely & thoughtful new GoodReport on mythic maps, plus the grounds and airy overgrounds, in Amanda Jernigan's Groundwork. And Marsha Pomerantz, whose Illustrated Edge is now just a little over a year old, was just recently selected as the recipient of a prestigious fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Congratulations to Marsha and happy birthday to the Edge!

Last but not least, since it wouldn't be a 2012 blog post without me saying something about Malarky, I'd like to point your virtual eyes towards what's running in this weekend's Montreal Gazette. You know you're in good hands when a review begins "It's a post-Celtic Tiger Ireland," and finishes with with a hellzapoppin paragraph like this: 

Toeing the delicate line between tragedy and comedy – the former inherent in the bare facts of Our Woman’s life, the latter in her irrepressible voice – Schofield starts at a pitch of inspiration most novels are lucky to reach at any point and remarkably sustains that level all the way through. The spirit of Joyce’s Molly Bloom hovers around the edges of Malarky, so if you’ve always found the last pages of Ulysses to be the highlight of that difficult masterpiece, you might just find Molly’s modern-day descendant in Our Woman. Others will be reminded of another Irish classic, lately fallen into unjust neglect: Edna O’Brien’s 1960 novel The Country Girls. But here’s one Irish country girl who has grown up and seen and done things O’Brien’s could never have envisioned.

Thanks to Ian McGillis for that. Happy weekend, everybody. This brings the trade show season to a close until the fall. 

The Reasonable Ogre Hits Windsor, Toronto

"ONCE there was an ogre who was like all other ogres except in one respect: he was reasonable. He could see more than one point of view, and he liked to argue and discuss. People seldom realized this, however, since he looked like any other ogre, huge and frightening, and he spent his time doing what every other ogre does: grabbing passersby and stuffing them in his mouth."


So begins the latest collection by Danuta Gleed-winning short story writer Mike Barnes. As you know, Biblioasis is launching The Reasonable Ogre tomorrow, April 24th, at Phog Lounge, and on Thursday--yes, Thursday, I said Thursday, I swear I meant Thursday all along--Mike and Segbingway have their Toronto launch at Type Books. We'd be delighted if you joined us.


(Once there was an Ogre-Publicist who lived at the crossroads just three brooks down and a valley west of the Bibliomanse. He wasn't very reasonable but he was full of ideas. He said when we have events we should just carry people in off the street: in fact, he offered to do it himself for a modest fee. But since Ogre Publicity has gone up in price--the industry standard's now fifty gold dubloons with unlimited snacking--we decided to go with Glinda instead, whose rates for enchanted emails are really quite affordable, and who has a strict policy against eating patrons on-site. She even throws in a free babysitting service for kids 12 and under.)


If you're in Windsor or Toronto this week, do come. Tuesday's billet includes Amanda Jernigan, Pat Lowther-shortlisted poet, and Claire Tacon, winner of the 2011 Metcalf-Rooke Award for fiction.  Thursday's event includes an exhibit of Segbingway's original brush paintings, which are, as you can imagine, absolutely fascinating up close. Fairy Tale Review founder Kate Bernheimer has called The Reasonable Ogre "a tribute to the power of story," and remarked that "the illustrations and language are so entwined as to be inseparable." Altogether? We're in for a couple of magical nights.


(Pudgy children especially welcome.)


Yours with a wiggle of the nose,
T. Murgatroyd,
Chief Witch & Master of Digital Wizarding,
The Bibliomanse.

Amanda Jernigan Shortlisted for Pat Lowther Award

Well it's been a big day here on Thirsty, so I won't keep you long, but I did want to share one last bit of good news before we call it a day. The League of Canadian Poets has announced the shortlists for the Pat Lowther and Gerald Lampert Awards this evening: Biblioasis is very proud to say that Amanda Jernigan is among them. The other nominees are: Stephanie Bolster (A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth, Brick), Lorna Crozier (Small Mechanics, M&S), Sue Goyette (outskirts, Brick), Rosemary Griebel (Yes., Frontenac), and Jan Zwicky (Forge, Gaspereau).

The winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award will be declared on June 16th.

Congratulations to Amanda, whose Groundwork was selected as a Top-5 Poetry Book of the Year on NPR.org.

The Birds of Paradise

from Groundwork (2011)

Adam and Eve and Pinchme
went down to the river to bathe.
Adam and Eve were drowned.
Who do you think was saved?

Between her pills, his poisons,
the water in which we bathe
is less than pure: I rather doubt
that even I’ll be saved.

My pet canary, William, died.
But, I am reassured,
there is a factory upstream
to replicate the bird

in polyvinyl chloride: moving
parts, a voice-box cheep —
with proven nightingalish means
of putting one to sleep.

Do I wake or sleep? Indeed,
the answer is the same.
Ask Finnegan. In fact, ask me,
if you can guess my name.

Amanda Jernigan lauches Groundwork tonight!

This is not so much an event notice -- unless you're reading this in Cobourg -- as an announcement: Amanda Jernigan's Groundwork is so hot off the presses that the skid they arrived on still sits in my driveway; it so fresh I haven't yet done a proper cover scan, so this photo of Amanda will have to fill in for now. But it has been around just long enough that we were able to get her copies of her book, which she'll have with her tonight at the P.O.W. reading series, run by the indefatigable James Pickersgill.

Northumberland Today published a short article about the reading, and Amanda's participation in it:

Joining Ward at tonight's reading will be Maritime poet Amanda Jernigan who is launching her own book, Groundwork, with the 3rdThursday Reading the start of a tour that will take her to Ottawa, Montreal and around the Maritimes, ending in St. John's Newfoundland. "The Cobourg reading will be my first for Groundwork. I'm excited to have this chance to share the poems with an audience after keeping them in my private world for so long." says Jernigan. "The book is made up of three poetic sequences, the first is set on and around an archaeological dig in modern day Tunisia; the second in and out of a kind of heterodox Garden of Eden. The third is in the world of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey -although they are deeply informed by myth, they are also deeply personal, in their ways." Having recently taught at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Jernigan is currently working toward a doctoral degree in Hamilton.


Expect to see a lot more of Amanda's work around these parts -- and a lot more of Amanda at events across the country -- over the next several months.

Speaking of Fall Poetry....

Eight poems from Amanda Jernigan's forthcoming rookie collection GROUNDWORK are up at the UK's Bow-Wow Shop.

Here's Wayfarer:

Wayfarer

At Ithaca

my waves begin,

who juggle sand,

who gather in

the wrack of land

and cast it up

upon the sea.

This is no common

tapestry.

I weave them gold

and green and grey

to the horizon

where they break.

I ravel in

the shuttle's wake.

And each day's labour's

lost, they say.

They do not see

how, slowly, the

horizon line

is worn away.

Some even tide

the night will fail

(it is but weft)

and day reveal

my landfall: as

you know, your sail.

You can find the other seven here.

Word has reached us in our suburban onion field that Amanda has had yet another poem, from another collection that is in process, accepted by Poetry Magazine. Congrats!

Groundwork

It's frightening, especially since we're not technically even through our Fall 10 list yet, but we've been working on Fall 11 presales the past couple of weeks. My initial teleconference is Tuesday, so I've been trying to get my head around our Fall list, while working on finishing up our Spring. The Fall list will be pretty spectacular: a second collection by Rebecca Rosenblum titled The Big Dream (which I finished last eve for the first time. Trust me: it's every bit as good as Once, if not better.), Ray Robertson's latest collection of nonfiction Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live, a memoir of the golden age of Hollywood, American theatre and publishing by Bruce Jay Friedman (Lucky Bruce), Claire Tacon's Metcalf-Rooke winning novel In the Field, Laura Boudreau's darkly playful first collection of short fiction Suitable Precautions, David Hickey's first children's book (illustrated by Alexander Griggs-Burr), and a first collection of poetry by the poet pictured above, Amanda Jernigan. I'm tired (though excited) just thinking about it.

Is it too early to begin praising our Fall list? Even when I've yet to shine light on our Spring? (Fear not: that will follow.) No, especially when Douglas Glover's highlighting one of our Fall authors on his Numero Cinq. Below, Aubade, from Amanda's Groundwork. Early September, 2011. For four additional poems, and a short write-up about the book and poet, please go here.

Aubade

The time, if time it was, would ripen
in its own sweet time. One thought of dawn.
One felt that things were shaping up,
somehow, that it was getting on.

Day broke. Upon the waters broke
in waves on waves unbreaking and
night fell, unveiling in its wake
one perfect whitened rib of land.

I slept, and while I slept I dreamed,
a breaking wave, a flowering tree,
and all of one accord I seemed.
I woke, and you divided me.