Al Rempel has a new website



Cover design © 2010 Jayson Hencheroff

Al Rempel is the author of The Picket Fence Diaries (2010), "understories" (Caitlin Press), and another forthcoming "This Isn't the Apocalypse We Hoped For". You can find out more about Al at: http://al-rempel.webnode.com/.

Congratulations Al on your continued success.

Happy Birthday Heidi Greco

Heidi is the author of A: the Amelia Poems which was the first book published by Lipstick Press in 2009.

Since that time Heidi has published a novella titled Shrinking Violets (Quattro 2011), has a poem in A Verse Map of Vancouver (Anvil, 2009), and has contributed to the recent anthology
Igniting the Green Fuse which came out of the Eco Poetry Workshop in Seattle.

Lipstick wishes Heidi the best most creative year ever.

Disease and Desire by Kim Clark coming soon

Watch this space for further information on publication date and how to get hold of a copy.

For further inquiry email lipstickpress@shaw.ca

Happy Birthday rob mclennan

rob in New Orleans, photo by Stephen Brockwell

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections Songs for little sleep, (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012), grief notes: (BlazeVOX [books], 2012), A (short) history of l. (BuschekBooks, 2011), Glengarry (Talonbooks, 2011) and kate street (Moira, 2011), and a second novel, missing persons (2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). 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. rob is also the author of how it is I am not married / I want to sleep in the runcible spoon (2010).

To help us celebrate his birthday I asked Rob to do Seven of the Proust Questionnaire.

Here it is:

1.What is your idea of happiness?

Happiness is the freedom to do those things I think I would like to and/or need to do. Basically, how I’m living now, I suppose (although less financial stress sure would be nice). Spending time with friends, and my daughter, occasionally. Writing full-time with my lovely. We make books, and make books happen.

2.What is your favourite virtue?

Honesty and/or loyalty.

3.What is your biggest weakness?

I sometimes feel battered around by the day-to-dayness of self-employed literary work more than I would like to. I require a thicker skin, perhaps.


4.Who are your favourite poets?

Hard to say, that. There are dozens of writers I attempt to follow regularly. Early on, writers such as Richard Brautigan, George Bowering, John Newlove, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and bpNichol were very important to me.

Lists are difficult, because there is always ten times the volume of such I know I’m leaving out. Perhaps I could focus what is scattered across my desk currently? These days, I’m excited by recent work by Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Barry McKinnon, Pattie McCarthy, David McGimpsey, Rae Armantrout, Barbara Langhorst, Deborah Poe, Monty Reid, Sarah Mangold and Heather Christle.

Just today, I received Jenna Butler’s second poetry collection. I’d been looking forward to that for a while. And Marcus McCann has something new this spring, which is exciting.

Sure would be nice to see a new book out by Sylvia Legris. Or, a first trade collection by, say, Amanda Earl or Trisia Eddy.

5.Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

Hah. Again, difficult to say. I do not like James II of England. I blame him for much, including the massacre at Glencoe and a battle in Ireland. Damn fool, him.

I’m fascinated by historical British Royals, for some reason. Queen Victoria intrigues. I’ve read many a book on Royals over the years. This is most likely something I picked up from my mother.

Simon Fraser was pretty interesting. David Thompson. The history of the exploration and mapping of the Canadian West is fascinating. Oh, and Sir Isaac Brock. He quickly took two American forts before their leaders knew the War of 1812 had even begun. Take that, invaders.

6. What do you most dislike?

Anyone too caught up in themselves.

Government hypocrisy, including the current federal leadership, who originally ran (very holier-than-thou) on a promise of honesty and transparency. Self-destructiveness re: environmental policies and reproductive issues. Every human being deserves a base level of respect, no matter who they are or what they believe.

At the same time, I would think this should be something book reviewers should also be aware of. Every book and their author deserves the same, a base level of respect. No matter what the reviewer might think of such.

I also dislike when the mailman changes his schedule. Throws off my whole day.

7. What is your motto?

Not sure I have one. But I do try to push myself pretty regularly to see what I didn’t know I could do. Life without a certain amount of risk, both as writer/creator and simply a person, doesn’t seem to have much point.

For a few years, I’ve been borrowing jwcurry’s “motto” (for lack of better terminology) about what his biggest goal as a writer/person/etc. is, and that is, to “remain interested.”

Happy Birthday Franci Louann, author of Beach Cardiology

To help us celebrate her birthday, Franci answered Seven of the Proust. Here they are, italicized, in her own words:


What is your idea of happiness?

You mean—other than a good, dark chocolate fondue? Peace of mind. I love long mornings of puttering, writing, and virtual connections. Also, poetry—its arrival, the rewriting, and sharing with friends.


What is your favourite virtue?

Honesty, I like to think. We sully ourselves if we are deceitful. (Creative thinking can keep us honest.)


What is your biggest weakness?

The ‘see-food’ diet. I regret that, often, positive thoughts that I feel in my heart don’t spring to my tongue. I may find it hard to forgive meanness. I might be passive-aggressive. (Is that so wrong?) 


Who are your favourite poets?

Dickinson and Frost. I must ‘make room for Rumi’, consider Hopkins, and many more from the past and present. Generally, I prefer contemporary minimalists—or poets who write simply, for example, Wislawa Szymborska. I just came to know of her, since she passed away.

Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

Dr. Joseph Workman, the Father of Canadian Psychiatry. Albert Schweitzer. Emily Dickinson. Emily was light years ahead of her time. In her writing she used symbols—for example long dashes, upward and downward—for which we still have no equivalent. (Would slashes, forward and backward, do the same work?)

What do you most dislike?

Dishonesty. No, a lack of charity. (Oops, message to myself.)

What is your motto?

I’m an unrelenting optimist, an ‘optometrist—I look on the bright side’. I’m either an optimist or a fool. Oh dear, I feel like a Pisces—swimming in opposite directions.

The Wild Weathers - a gathering of love poems by Leaf Press

You are invited to a love-in!

Come help us celebrate the publication of

The Wild Weathers: a gathering of love poems

Saturday March 10th, 4pm

at The Roxy on Gabriola Island

560 North Road (accross from the Village)

with local poets

Leah Hokanson, Kit Pepper, Janet Vickers

and others

Poetry Gabriola Festival Feb 16-19

8^th Annual Poetry Gabriola Festival!

 At the Dragon’s Lodge,

at the end of Dragon’s Lane, off North Road

Visit Poetry Gabriola's web page for events and further details.

http://www.poetrygabriola.com/

Franci Louann reads at Kogawa House today

her poem from The Wild Weathers a gathering of love poems(Leaf Press) which appears in her chapbook Beach Cardiology (2010).

Franci will also be reading from this new anthology on March 11 at Renaissance Books.

Announcement

www.lipstickpress.com website will be down for a few weeks for administrative changes. For information on Lipstick Press this blog will remain online and posts uploaded wherever there are announcements or changes.

Happy Birthday to "Winter Gifts" author, Keith Wilkinson

Lipstick Press asked Keith to fill in the Seven of the Proust Questionnaire for his birthday. Here are his answers.

 
1.What is your idea of happiness?

A dynamic balance amongst all the forces important in my life – desires, needs, deepest values, expression of the various facets of my inborn nature and my acquired preferences. This balance continuously shifts as I move across the complex vector of my life.

2.What is your favourite virtue?

Respectfulness toward the mystery that is in all things. Respect for the reality of each person, but, more broadly, respect for the unexplainable mystery of universe in which we find ourselves – a presence filled with life, physical phenomena, darkness and sub-worlds of thought, feeling and imagination.

 

3.What is your biggest weakness?

I have many weaknesses and any of them can cause grief for me or others. I include in my list impatience, self-centredness, lack of generosity, and lack of awareness of my effect upon others, but also openness and expressiveness, which in some contexts are not appreciated.

 

4.Who are your favourite poets?

I like individual poems by a range of poets more than I like all the poems of any poet. My list is quite eclectic, including Basho, bill bissett, William Blake, Charles Bukowski, Hayden Carruth, Leonard Cohen, Lorna Crozier, Mary Oliver, Kay Ryan, Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas. I also like the work of writers whose prose flows and tumbles like poetry and has a deep undertow, writers like John McPhee, Kiran Desai, Joan Didion, Michael Ondaatje, Annie Proulx, Peter Carey and Hiroshi Murakami. And there are contemporaries who publish sensitive and insightful haiku, tanka and other micropoetry on Twitter and on blogs. I’m thinking of writers who publish online under real, pen and site names like Claire Everett, @CoyoteSings @tankaqueen and Alexis Rotella Designs.

 

 

5.Who are your favourite heroes and heroines in history?

All those people who work without regard for personal gain to make the world a better place for everyone, including the artists who keep perceiving the world anew to keep human wonder awake. I’m also grateful to scientists and scholars who use art and science together for understanding and improving the human condition, and to Lao Tzu for his balance, and to Karen Armstrong for pointing us in modern times toward a path of greater compassion, and to the Inuit people who have historically listened to the large world so carefully and respectfully from their precarious vantage point. 

6. What do you most dislike?

Cruelty—the wilful harming of others for pleasure—a distortion of what is helpful for us as a species. I also dislike human carelessness and disregard for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

7. What is your motto?

My motto changes as needs shift. A good one for me to fall back upon is an old Samurai adage: “I make my mind my friend”.

League of Canadian Poets: P.K. Page Trust Fund and Benefits Readings

The League of Canadian Poets announces the PK Page Trust Fund in support of poets and poetry in Canada. A series of benefit readings will honour her and initiate the fund.

“PK was one of our own and we want to remember her,” says League President Susan McMaster. “She was a great poet and a great mentor. We hope this new fund will grow into a large endowment that allows the League to support the art and craft of poetry in a number of ways that would have pleased her.”

Born in 1916, PK Page’s artistic and poetic career spanned more than five decades, ending only with her death in 2010. She was made a Life Member of the League in 1987.  Past president, DC Reid revealed  “PK meant a great deal to me personally, for her connection across poetic generations and with English poetry, for her patrician ways and her bright, agile mind. Her book of glosas, Hologram, and her encouragement resulted in an outpouring of this Spanish form from Canadian poets, firmly establishing a new stream in Canadian formalist poetry.”

In 2000, PK, as she was known to her friends, was granted a special honour when the United Nations chose her glosa “Planet Earth” for its Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry reading series. The poem — which was the one for which she wanted to be remembered — was read at locations around the globe considered ‘international ground,’ including the United Nations, Mount Everest and Antarctica.

Reading on Gabriola

A benefit reading for the PK Page Trust Fund will be held at Mad Rona’s coffee, (500 North Road, Gabriola) November 6^th, 2 pm until 4pm. Featuring League member poets Sandy Shreve and Heidi Greco, the event will open with a reading of “Planet Earth” read by Gabriola’s Naomi Beth Wakan.  Other local poets will have a chance to read a favourite PK Page poem by contacting Janet Vickers (BC/Yukon Rep for The League of Canadian Poets) at janetvickers@shaw.ca.

 Suggested donation at the door is $5.  All money collected will go to the PK Page Trust Fund.

Sandy Shreve’s most recent poetry collections are Suddenly, So Much (Exile Editions, 2005) and Cedar Cottage Suite (inaugural Gesture series chapbook, Leaf Press, 2010). A new chapbook, Level Crossing, is forthcoming from the Alfred Gustav Press in 2012. Her other books include the anthology In Fine Form – The Canadian Book of Form Poetry (Polestar, 2005), co-edited with Kate Braid. For more information, visit her website at: www.shreve.shawwebspace.ca

Heidi Greco’s poems, reviews and short fiction have been published in books, anthologies, newspapers and magazines in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Her novella, Shrinking Violets (Quattro Books 2011) won the Ken Klonsky Award. Collections of her poems include Siren Tattoo and Rattlesnake Plantain (Anvil Press), and A: The Amelia Poems (Lipstick Press 2009)  a chapbook about Amelia Earhart. Heidi leads classes, retreats and workshops for adults, students, inmates from Matsqui Penitentiary, and  blogs at outonthebiglimb.blogspot.com.