rob mclennan : SO TOUGH, by Jared Stanley

SO TOUGH, Jared Stanley
Saturnalia Books, 2024

 

 

 

 

The fourth full-length poetry title by Reno, Nevada poet Jared Stanley, following Book Made of Forest (Salt, 2009), The Weeds (Salt, 2012), and EARS (Nightboat Books, 2017), as well as the first I’ve gone through, is SO TOUGH (2024), winner of the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Organized as a book-length suite, each page offers a further untitled poem in a sequence of eight line accumulations (but for a singular, one-line poem, mid-collection) that provide a rhythm of meditative slowness. “The green catch of light your eyeglasses get,” the opening poem offers, “basic enthusiasms where the flowering frasses nod in the wind // another cruel ongoingness // fell asleep with a cock-shaped bookmark on my eyes // the sea is off somewhere by itself // previously unimagined inhabitants of spume // blood in your mouth did you taste it [.]” The pacing of this meditation is impressive, holding a steady line through simultaneous layering and pause, a clear breath exhaled in a thoughtful sequence of phrases. “Some half-remembered folk melody cries out,” Stanley writes in the second poem, “for gallon jugs of green river wine : // tastes like grass, fucks you up, cold on the tongue [.]” Through seventy-eight poems and seventy-eight pages, Stanley works across the small details of the natural landscape, articulating the arbitrariness of man-made boundaries between human activity and nature, managing to slow down time enough to hold a sequence of moments, turning each one over before the next one lands. Through SO TOUGH, Stanley offers moments across thinking, geography and landscape, providing them shape and tenor, both attention and as warning against what might irrevocably be lost.

So alone, so tough

so weird at home, so weird in public

on the street a whiff of body spray

blows in off a stranger’s shoulder

the look is human, nameless to nameless

the texture of a luxuriant shoe

if I keep my droplets to myself maybe

Wednesday will be a consolation

 

 

 

 

 

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. His most recent titles include the poetry collection World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). His collection of short stories, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press) will appear in fall 2024. He is currently pushing a fundraising campaign as part of the rebuilding year for Ottawa’s VERSeFest poetry festival.

Cary Fagan : On Fifty-Two Lines About Henry

 

 

 

 

 

In early 2021 I was missing the pleasure of writing in cafés.  And so I went down to the basement, found some plywood and a 2x4 and some dark stain, and built myself a little table.  I put it in the corner of my small study, on a little rug, beside a photograph of two dogs wrestling, one looking into the camera, in a forlorn rural landscape. (Many decades ago, as editorial assistant on the Canadian Forum, I was given the task of returning unsolicited artwork from an overflowing file.  The photograph had no name or address attached and so I kept it.). Here was my own little spot, which I named the Lonesome Dog Café.

The table wasn’t large enough for a computer but only for a manuscript and pen or a notebook.  Wanting to inaugurate it with some new bit of writing, I opened a fresh notebook and sat there wondering what to write.  I don’t remember how I came up with the idea of writing individual sentences to capture a character but after that first session I decided that I would try and write five sentences about “Henry” every day.  I had no design or plan, no sense at the start of who Henry might be, nor even the tone that I was hoping for. Very quickly he became this rather hapless, naïve man with grandiose and unrealistic plans and a flawed understanding of other humans. Many of the lines seemed rather comic to me, although I wasn’t trying for humour. Perhaps comic in an uneasy way.  I didn’t overthink it; I just let the lines come.

If I could put my hands on the notebook, I could tell you how many lines I wrote in the end.  Just under ninety, I think.  Later I typed them on my laptop, revising along the way.  And over time I played with the lines, adding a very few, cutting out more, changing the order, until I finally arrived at Fifty-Two Lines About Henry. Not poetry, or a short story, at least to me.  Just its own modest thing, a small portrait of a dreamy, mildly deluded man who, if life is kind, won’t do too much harm to himself or anyone else.

 

 

 

 

Cary Fagan’s first chapbook was published in an edition of six copies, all typed by him.  Some forty years later he is a co-editor of the chapbook house, espresso.  He also publishes books for adults and kids, most recently The Animals (Book*Hug).  He lives in Toronto.

Mitchell Cheng-Mader : Downingfield Press: A Literary Journey from the Canadian Maritimes to Melbourne, Australia

 

 

 

 

Based in Melbourne, Australia, Downingfield Press is a small publishing house with a strong commitment to sustainability. Our paperless workflow using e-ink screens to proof reduces our ecological footprint. Our tree-planting program began in 2020, wherein we plant a tree for every new title and an additional tree for every 100 copies sold, reflects our dedication to environmental responsibility. We hope to expand this program as our company grows.

Established in 2013 in a Sydney, Nova Scotia garage, Downingfield Press has undergone a transformative journey, spanning continents and literary terrains. Relocating to Melbourne in 2015, our modest garage startup has evolved into a small commercial publishing house.

The turning point came in 2020 when we opened our doors to public submissions, solidifying our commitment to delivering compelling narratives globally. With eight published books and eight more in the pipeline, cultural communication remains our core focus.

A highlight of 2023 was Oisín Breen’s Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín and Other Poems being named one of Scotland’s top poetry books for 2023 by The Scotsman newspaper.

Five upcoming titles hail from the esteemed but now defunct Beir Bua Press in County Tipperary, Ireland. Authors such as Oisín Breen, Nathanael O'Reilly, and Jeremy Allan Hawkins have enriched our catalogue. Excitement surrounds forthcoming releases by John Sexton, Laura Besley, and Mark Russel, just to name a few.

Diversity and inclusivity are integral to Downingfield Press. Our next venture explores the history of a small community in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, reflecting our dual roots in Canada and Australia.

A recent milestone is the signing of a poetry collection by Pushcart-nominated Alton Melvar M. Dapanas, our first original poetry publication. Looking ahead, we aim to expand our catalogue with more original works in non-fiction and poetry.

Our books are available at all fine bookshops – both online and bricks and mortar and we are distributed by Ingram. We welcome submissions year-round and have two primary areas of focus: poetry and non-fiction. Have a book in you? We would love the chance to read it and see if it’s a good fit for us.

 

 

 

 

Mitchell Cheng-Mader is a Canadian-Australian writer, publisher, and town planner. He writes under the name ‘M. G. Mader’ and has authored three books (Power to the People 2015, The Local Electric Light Utility 2017, and The End of an Era 2022), with his latest book An Seann Taigh: A History of the Old Glebe House at Pipers Cove set to be released in February 2024. He is the founder and managing director of Downingfield Press. He divides his time between writing, publishing, and town planning. He studied at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Cape Breton University. Born and raised in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, he now lives with his husband in Melbourne, Australia. www.mgmader.com.au

Hugh Thomas : A poem for Sarah Burgoyne and Vi Khi Nao

 

 

2        A number
4        is called normal if
9        any sequence of digits, zero, one, up to nine,
4        in any order, appears
3        just as often
7        in that number's decimal expansion, as in
2        a random
3        sequence of digits.
8        Such a number cannot continue repeating ad infinitum
3        and so must
0        be irrational.
6        Among the irrational numbers (of which
8        there are so many more than there are
5        of rationals --- though there are
4        infinitely many of each)
1        few
5        are known to be normal.
3        This simple-to-describe property
2        proves elusive.
7        A slight preference for sevens over nines,
4        enough to wreck it.
8        It is not known whether pi is normal.
5        And yet we don't think
4        a superstar like pi,
7        in demand for every kind of formula,
8        from elementary school geometry, to the abstract heights
0        of number theory,
2        disdaining neither
6        to appear in engineers' practical calculations
8        nor in statisticians' attempts to quantify the random---
8        we don't think such a number would niggle
9        about its decimal expansion, preferring some sequences over others.
2        Such considerations
6        are, we feel, beneath its notice.
1        Surely,
6        although its decimal expansion famously begins
5        three point one four one,
8        somewhere else in that infinite sequence of digits
7        we could find three one four two
2        as well.
4        And both those sequences
4        not just once, but
2        infinitely often,
9        neither more nor less often, in the long run,
7        than a seemingly "unlikely" sequence such as
0        one two three four
5        or five five five five.
4        In "Mechanophilia," the poets
8        match the number of words in each line
2        to the
1        successive
3        digits of pi
0        (where zero indicates a "free" line, whose length is at the poet's whim).
8        If we accept the conjectural normalcy of pi,
5        the sequence of line lengths
4        of my poem, though
7        I confess it, counted afterwards, not predetermined,
2        nonetheless appears
4        somewhere in pi's expansion.
1        Why
8        am I writing this poem? It is admittedly
4        not much like "Mechanophilia,"
5        a poem distinguished by the
3        scintillation of its
0        vocabulary
8        and the way the two poets delicately tug
7        the poem's fabric in slightly divergent directions.
9        But "Mechanophilia" already acknowledges the unfinishedness of its endeavour.
6        Extended to infinity wouldn't that poem
4        contain all possible words
3        including even these?

 

 

 

 

Hugh Thomas lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal/Montreal, where he teaches mathematics at UQAM. His most recent chapbook, Jangle Straw, was published last year by Turret House Press.