Book Launch for Picket Fence Diaries September 2nd

Join us for a chapbook launch

of neighbourly poetry

Where: Nancy O’s, 1261 3rd Avenue

Prince George, BC

When: Thursday, September 2nd

7:30pm

Receive 10% off food portion of bill with purchase of book

The Picket Fence Diaries by Al Rempel now available at Lipstick

This long poem is a collection of dado joints that are defined separately yet fit together to create a whole community.

it is late. the sky is still lit                the northwest
a corner

          Mrs. Blue House sings in the shower
the full repertoire. Fred’s dog tries to sleep

luckily the birds haven’t forgotten their throats
dreams of cherries

                                 the trees regain composure
they shake squirrels and fir-cones and last year’s leaves
pleats and ruffles

                           Greg heads back to his woodshop
cuts dresser-drawers out of his day
lunches on plans. trims minutes with his Exacto knife

While none of the characters portrayed in this book are based on or represent any real persons living or dead, they are archetypes we can find in any sub-division. People living one moment at a time. Their small goals and their large dreams could be an anthropological nod at modern community. Their brief thoughts and half sentences the pieces of a dig, a puzzle to be collected and fit together to create a theory.

But Al Rempel’s poem is too playful to pose as a thesis. His poem celebrates the fragments of knowledge we are all capable of collecting as we observe and imagine one another in our multi-coloured houses. Moments of boredom and despair are woven with conceits fenced within the privacy of our thoughts and our living rooms. And the beauty of these pieces are that they are free of judgment.

Al Rempel’s first book of poetry is called understories, published by Caitlin Press (April 2010). His poems have also appeared -- or are forthcoming -- in The Malahat Review, GRAIN, CV2, and Event. Al’s poetry has been published in various on-line publications and anthologies, including 4 Poets, Rocksalt, Half in the Sun, and The Forestry Diversification Project. Al is currently an alternate teacher in Prince George.

Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road, RR #1
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1

lipstickpress@shaw.ca
http://www.lipstickpress.com/

ISBN: 978-0-9781204-7-4

Cover design © 2010 Jayson Hencheroff
28 pages
$8 plus shipping
To order send an email to lipstickpress@shaw.ca

Happy Birthday to Elsie Neufeld

Elsie K. Neufeld - poet, teacher of life stories, friend, editor, cheerleader for emerging writers, and author of Grief Blading Up, has a birthday today.

Elsie grew up with stories that brought home the ghosts of her ancestors who never made it out of Russia. As a young girl she would write to family she had never met, and couldn't expect to meet, as they were in Siberia and Germany.

Since then she has dedicated her life to the written word.

Happy Birthday to Heidi Greco

Author of A: The Amelia Poems, editor, friend, activist, poet, reviewer, teacher, supporter of the arts, and blog keeper - was born on this day (a few years ago).

Here's wishing her a day of celebration.

12 or 20 Questions with rob mclennan

Lipstick Press was interviewed by rob mclennan, who works tirelessly to support writers and small presses. Here is the result.  Please visit.

As I read through the interview I realize all the things that I could have said but didn't. But how can a publisher wax eloquent about the work she has published and their authors without being gushy?  The books stand on their own merit.

happy birthday rob mclennan

who is 40 today!

His chapbook "how it is I am not married / I want to live in the runcible spoon" is still available for $8 plus shipping.

For his poem and essay go to his latest blog entry.

Lipstick Press has Moved

Lipstick Press is now at:

767 Chelwood Road, RR #1

Gabriola, BC V0R 1X1

Email: lipstickpress@shaw.ca

how it is I am not married / I want to sleep in the runcible spoon

rob mclennan's latest poetry chapbook is a reflection on the gap between nonsense and need.

The love in these poems is felt by its absence: "the earliest map of the heart has never been found". The attempts to reason and explain a life are pin pricks of feeling, "trails of kisses through the intricate dark".

mclennan doesn't seek comfort in pain, or sentimentality - he "wants to scar in the runcible spoon ... trading glucose for mercury". Feelings of grief can be counted "as fixtures" in a world where "there are no fixtures".

In the personal narrative, sense is much bigger than reason. Even though we have been told many times, in many ways, that reason triumphs over emotion, that our senses can't be reliably recorded, we look to the artist to pull off the scabs, reveal the scars, of the unexamined beliefs and myths that make the individual homeless and alien within his or her society.

rob mclennan is the author of some twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction; his most recent titles are the poetry collections: gifts (Talonbooks), a compact of words (Salmon Poetry, Ireland), wild horses (University of Alberta Press) and a second novel, missing persons (The Mercury Press). He regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com.

Published by Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road, RR 1
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1

lipstickpress@shaw.ca
http://www.lipstickpress.com/


ISBN: 978-0-9781204-6-7

16 pages

$8.00

Lipstick Press has a website

Please visit http://www.lipstickpress.com/

It is still under construction but does contain the essential information about this micro-press.

Abbotsford Times: Loss and Vision

Thanks to Christina Toth for her poetic article on Elsie K. Neufeld's Grief Blading Up chapbook launch.

Christina acknowledges that "loss is never welcome, but it comes to us nonetheless".  This is part of the universal value of Elsie's poetry, as Christine observed, is embedded in "the fabric of the natural world".

The critical point of this book, Toth points out "Those who know loss will also recognize the undertone of something mystic, something ghostly in the wind."

Another poet, Robert Martens, said of the chapbook - that in spite of the subject, the poems are not grim at all but uplifting.

The way to keep the world sane is that we (who hold so much influence over nature, the future) must acknowledge our losses, our grief, our rage against what we can't control - so that we don't project our anger onto the innocent other.

BC Bookworld

BC BookWorld's latest issue has reviewed Heidi Greco's "A: The Amelia Poems" on the second page of its printed magazine, under the abecedarian "Who's Who".

You can pick up this amazing 42 page periodical at many retail sites for no cost. It contains the latest books published by BC writers and includes some reviews as well.

Due to the sudden removal of all provincial funding from Pacific BookWorld News Society, they are in financial trouble. You can support this excellent paper by sending $25 to Pacific BC BookWorld News Society at 3516 West 13th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6R 2S3. Or visit www.bcbookworld.com and use PayPal.

Footnote: I don't know if this is a true perception or not but I sense that the community and arts programs that are working well in terms of their contribution to civil society are having their funding cut. If that's so why would that be?