David O'Meara's Noble Gas, Penny Black

There's a review of David O'Meara's Noble Gas, Penny Black available up at the revamped (and lookin' snazzy) Canadian Notes & Queries website. The review is also in the forthcoming print edition.

Latta / Cain / Holmes

It's especially nice to see Jacket Magazine (issue 37) include a nice selection of stuff from American poet John Latta's blog, which includes regular postings from his poem-in-progress A Year as well as reading notes. If pressed, I'd name Latta's poetry my favorite thing going on in American poetry -- I've said it before, I'll say it again, Latta's The Everyday (of which A Year is, somewhat, an extension) is amazingly ear-opening. (Next favorite is Jennifer L. Knox, who is my new hero). Hopefully later this summer and early fall I can get to talking about Latta’s earlier books, putting his work in context. His lexical and rhythmic nerve is, at times, totally fucking hallucinatory!

Here is his blog: http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/

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Stephen Cain is this month's feature at ditch, which makes me happy. Check out the poems here. Stephen is one of my favourite poets and an extremely generous poet (came out to support me at the launch of Augustine in Carthage). I like "Sportstalk" in particular.

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from Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes

"But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things." Yvor Winters in the role of Sherlock Holmes? I jest, tongue-in-primitivismanddecadence. Though for all his dismissal of love in The Sign of Four (love comes up because Watson falls in love with his future wife, Miss Morstan), he still eagles after his platonic ("she is always the woman") non-chemical tonic, Irene Adler (see below), a compliment to his "balanced mind".

"She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men." (Since finding out Irene Adler is to be played by Rachel McAdams, I can not get either she or she, original and original, out of my cobble-stoned mind; she keeps strolling by, saying "good-evening" a la "A Scandal in Bohemia").

On the everyday and individual style: "... it is difficult for a man to have any object in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it."

On habitus: "... while the individual man is an insoluble pussle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty... Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant." (175)

Sol, Buzzeo, et al...

Dear Canadian Poetry readers/editors - I have a brief review (right at 500 words) of Adam Sol's *Jeremiah, Ohio* that I originally wrote for a Canadian literary magazine; but, unfortunately, that magazine could not accept it because the Editor didn't know that his Reviews Editor had already written a review of it (mine got the boot). Meaning, I have a review of the book for whoever might like it, free of charge. Thought I'd put the offer out there before just posting it to my blog (the other magazines I generally write for have already published reviews of Sol's book, so I'm left in this predicament...). It's short and sweet and to the point; if you'd like it, just get in contact wit' me.

I spent some of the very early morning enjoying the first half or so of Melissa Buzzeo's latest book, Face, published by BookThug. Sentences of (near) incantatory lyricism. Quite taken with it and taken aback by it all. I'm looking forward to what's left. Also, Elizabeth Bachinsky's Curio re-release, of which I'll have more to say later in a review I'm writing for Northern Poetry review. I must say, I'm also really looking forward to Clint Burnham's The Benjamin Sonnets, which is coming out anyday now I guess. Kudos to BookThug for the cool stuff...

Summer reading (as a reprieve from dissertation writing) is Sherlock Holmes, Complete, Vol. 1 and 2. I just read *A Study in Scarlet*, which I enjoyed thoroughly. The narrative point-of-view is interesting, beginning with Watson's diary (the first section concludes with the capture of the murderer), then shifting to third-person omniscient (back story about Mormons, the evils of Bringham Young), then back to Watson. It's a little awkward. Interesting tidbits, though, emerge about Holmes's interest in what he dubs "practical knowledge" and "analytics."

New "In Extremis" Column

Dear readers,

after long delay and with a newly revamped -- and pretty damn snazzy lookin' (I must say) -- Maisonneuve website, my latest "In Extremis" column is now up and available for your reading pleasure. Check it out over here... tell your friends, spread the word, etc.

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Also, I'm not much of a William Logan fan, but this is a fascinating statement (on the subject of the recently published Thom Gunn Selected): "Selected Poems reveals how long Gunn labored to overcome the limitations of his virtues." I love Gunn but no need to buy the selected, at least for me -- I have most of his collections as individual volumes as well as the big Collected Poems from a few years back. A big influence on me...

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Onto another William -- William Bronk, American poet I've just now (very late) come to read. I've been reading his epigrammatic poems from the mid-70s. Here's an example:

THE FALSE PREMISE

I can't have a life with you; shit no.
You can't either. We can't have a life.
The point is there isn't a life to have
but we think so. We base ourselves on that.

Also half-way through a thorough interview with Bronk conducted by Robert Bertholf. It's always thrilling to come into contact with a poet -- unknown to me -- and feel enlivened by their writing...

The, Er, New Thing?

John Latta's posted an excellent response / rebuttal to Stephen Burt's "The New Thing." (Scroll down to May 27th's entry). The Burt original is here.

Third Factory

Hey-0,

I am thrilled to post that over at Third Factory, John Latta has included a lovely little note on Augustine in Carthage, and Other Poems as part of his "best of" list, describing my work as a mix of Lewis Carroll, Earl of Rochester, and James Joyce. Very flattering! (It's especially flattering coming from Latta; his The Everyday is brilliant! You can find excerpts of it, as well as his A Year, on his blog). (Third Factory is a site which includes an annual look back by critics and poets, who name their favourite reads of the past year or so.)

Latta is very kind to include my collection. From what I gather, Latta -- a Michigan-based poet -- first read my poems in a 2007 issue of Richard Owens's excellent journal Damn the Caesars (and Richard's gonna be a daddy soon: yay!). He liked my playfulness, even going so far as to say my use of rhyme was "hallucinatory and right." Funnily enough, Latta also thought "Alessandro Porco" was a pseudonym for excellent American poet Ben Friedlander. I got in touch and assured him I was real -- though nothing wrong with being thought of alongside Friedlander, as far as I'm concerned.

BTW, in Latta's comments on that Damn the Caesars issue, he quotes my sonnet "Matter." I didn't include that in my book, though now I can't remember why.

Also, I like this response to the CBC's Top Ten List over at the Vehicule blog -- seems about right. (To be honest, with the exception of David McGimpsey, I couldn't give a shit about the other poets Carey mentions. Well, that's no true: McGimpsey and Babstock).

Canada's Best

Hey-o,

so there's this article up at CBC.ca, penned by Barbara Carey. All I have to say is:

I'm extremely happy to see David McGimpsey on this list; for those who don't know, I am in the process of editing an anthology of essays on McGimpsey's work -- likely to be out in 2010 sometime.* The quality of essays is amazing. And Dave's being on such a list is well-deserved.

*Note: why Carey positions laughter and profundity as antithetical, I'm not quite sure. (For a review of Sitcom, see here).

Congrats Dave!