25 Years of Tree
James Moran and Jennifer Mulligan, editors
ISBN 1-894543-31-9
Poetry Anthology 2005
$15.00 CAD/USD
25 Years of Tree showcases the work of participants in Ottawa's Tree Reading Series. Celebrating its 25th year in 2005, the Tree Reading Series is a diamond in Ottawa's literary rough. With assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts and the League of Canadian Poets, Tree has featured hundreds of poets including George Bowering, George Elliot Clarke, Lynn Coady, David McFadden, Camilla Gibbs, Doug Barbour, Mark Cochrane, Catherine Jenkins, and Gil McElroy to name a few. 25 Years of Tree includes selected poetry by some of the participants, essays by the series' founders and the most comprehensive list available of the meeting dates and participants from Tree's first quarter century.
a scrupulous meanness
by Shyamal Bagchee
ISBN 1-894543-25-4
Poetry 2004
$15.00 CAD/USD
"I don't think I've ever seen such cosmopolitan poetry that wears its cosmopolitanism so lightly, its idiom moving gracefully from East to West, Old World to New, seemingly at home anywhere: Russell Square, New Delhi, Saskatoon, South America, wherever. In any setting, however, the voice and idiom remain consistent, not much agitated and also not much bored by the world. With skies and birds and even bowls of cereal rendered with such devotion, one begins to feel that the sensations are not local and individual but universal and permanent. I would call this very convincing poetry." William Harmon
Across the Sun's Warp
by Henry Beissel
ISBN 1-894543-16-5
Poetry 2003
$15.00 CAD/USD
"Genghis Khan, the creation of Kyoto by the Samurai, 'The eight-armed Buddha with a lotus flower,' Truman's glee at calling for the bombs to fall, the process of nuclear fission in the sun, are all given voice, woven into the story of light which is the story of this poem. Beissel has succeeded in combining them all in an engaging narrative. The hand that draws this weft across the sun¹s warp is the passion within Beissel's voice. Beissel does not lay blame lightly, but when he lays it, it shakes the poem to the core. "Tell the samurai of the world," he writes, "death/is heavier than a mountain when fools/think duty is a feather in their cap." By this reliance on voice, Beissel has created one of the masterpieces of twentieth century humanism, in the post-humanist days of the early twenty-first century. Always readable, engaging, cleanly-paced, always balancing its lyricism and its metaphysics, it is a haunting cry against the horror of Hiroshima, a tribute to the humanity of those destroyed there, and the work of one of our poetic master craftsmen to rehumanize us all. As moving a tribute to Hiroshima as this poem is, it remains more, hinting at a metaphysics of transcendence, centred solidly in the body in the world." Harold Rhenisch (Poetry Spoken Here)
Aide-mémoire
by Ruth Roach Pierson
ISBNs: 978-1-894543-43-9 1-894543-43-2
Poetry 2007
$15.00 CAD/USD
Finalist 2008 Governor General's Award for Poetry
"This deeply satisfying book is about time and history, inheritance and loss, both private and shared. It is a book of memory with a hard, bright edge. Why, asks Ruth Pierson, is memory so capricious? Where is the sense in what it loses, what it keeps, so much of the residue being painful to recall? Aide-mémoire richly layers past and present selves (strangers to one another, both imperfect), acute observation and challenging ideas, disillusionment and rapture. A restless, honest, anti-nostalgic book, it sings 'the holy mess of life' into vivid being." Stan Dragland
And Once More Saw the Stars:
Four Poems for Two Voices
by P.K. Page and Philip Stratford
ISBN 1-894543-04-1
Poetry and Letters 2001
$15.00 CAD/USD
"And Once More Saw the Stars (May 2001) is a gem of a book by P.K. Page and the late Philip Stratford.... Page and Stratford wrote four poems over the course of two years, with intervals during which Stratford coped with cancer of the throat and the loss of his voice as a result. He died during the course of their correspondence, so the fourth poem remains unfinished. The result is a fascinating, bittersweet glimpse into the process of writing poems, since the book contains the correspondence between the poets, the poems in progress, and the finished works. More than this, it is like being a fly on the wall of poetic process: the exchange of letters between Page and Stratford touches on some of the challenges as well as the pleasures of making poetry....Anne Simpson (Antigonish Review)
"And Once More Saw the Stars: Four Poems for Two Voices is a major work, not because of its novel mode of creation, but because of its sheer quality and strength of vision: it deserves to be read, and reread." Times Colonist (Victoria)
“The poems in Aperture reduced me to tears. Nothing I have read elsewhere captures the haunting beauty of Afghanistan as does this small volume of poetry. Blaine Marchand has lived among and traveled with the people of Afghanistan, and has come to appreciate their tenacity in overcoming obstacles. From the subdued stillness of villages amid high mountain ranges to the vehicle-choked clamour of its cities, he empathizes with Afghanistan’s throbbing life. The poems literally infuse you with the tumult and serenity he so brilliantly describes.” The Honourable Flora MacDonald, PC, CC
“In a land where words alone remain to mark a tortuous passage through time, Blaine Marchand has paused long enough, ears open, eyes alert, to inscribe the luminous terrain of Afghanistan and the tender, renegade heart of its people. To see the burqa as a refuge, the kite as a flag of freedom and bicycle riding as a symbol of the delicate balance required for life in Afghanistan requires a very special kind of insight, a poet’s kind.” Gary Geddes
Apostrophes: woman at a piano
by E.D. Blodgett
ISBN 0-9699904-0-5
Poetry 1996
$14.95 CAD/USD
Winner 1996 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry
Winner 1997 Canadian Authors' Association Award for Poetry
Finalist 1997 Stephan Stephansson Award for Poetry
An integrated collection of 66 exquisitely shaped and controlled poems, each of these exhibits and conveys all signs of a fully developed poetic sensibility providing a window on the world the poem's speaker inhabits, one which necessarily dovetails with the world most human beings negotiate. This is not a juvenile talent publicly learning the poetic ropes at the readers' expense. Instead, the sophistication of arrangement, thought, and metaphor bespeaks a uniquley gifted point of view.... The Globe and Mail [Toronto]
Apostrophes III: alone upon the
earth
by E.D. Blodgett
ISBN 0-9699904-7-2
Poetry 1999
$14.95 CAD/USD
Finalist 2000 Stephan Stephansson Award for Poetry
"Antonio Machado said, 'Every poet should create for himself a metaphysics which he need not expound, but which will lie implicit in his work.' What lies implicit in Apostrophes III: alone upon the earth, is a deep belief in the sacredness of the moment, the voices of that moment. E.D. Blodgett's poetry gives us revelations, the depth of human experience when we 'pass into ourselves,' the silence of ourselves, stillness and rapture, 'the sleeping that we are.' Here is the grace of seeing and listening, the ecstasy of understanding. Here is being and time, both roses rising through flesh." Don Domanski
Apostrophes V: never born except
within the other
by E.D. Blodgett
ISBN 1-894543-13-0
Poetry 2003
$15.00 CAD/USD
Long-listed 2004 Relit Award for Poetry
"...Take your time to savour this book. Imbibe it slowly. For inspiration, I prescribe a poem a day, taken just before bed. Your own work will be the richer for it. But beware: this book will whisk you away to wider realms than you might have imagined hitherto. (It took me forever to write this review, since a single verse might fill my imagination for a day, a week.) In Apostrophes V, long lines become song lines, sweeping you past the right hand justify, onto the next round. The thought is broken or continued by the line. E.D. Blodgett writes like the wind, where he listeth. His line delivers the light to the next line. White space of snow surrounds the print on the page. There is a finely tuned sense of space, of specific place. The fire of these poems is in the light, slanted, northern, a long light leading out past the horizon to planets, moons and suns. In specifics we find a direct route to the cosmic.
Blodgett’s sharpened sense of observation allows you to experience the depth of his vision. Metaphysical perceptions are grounded in the telling detail that brings them to life, that tells the midden he is mining. E.D. Blodgett is our Prairie Henry Vaughn...."Penn Kemp (Poetry Spoken Here)
As for the Canadians: The Remarkable
Story of the RCAF's "Guinea Pigs" of World War II
by Rita Donovan
ISBN 1-894543-03-3
Non-Fiction 2000
$26.95 CAD/USD
They were the "fried" airmen, the "mashed" airmen of the war. Canadians took to the skies young, fit and whole. Some of them burned and were mangled. In another war they would have been hushed up, shut away in institutions. But they were about to encounter the best piece of luck they has seen in a while—the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex. They were about to become members of the Guinea Pig Club.
This is the story of the Canadian Wing of the most unusual club in the world.
At the Bottom of the Garden
by Jacques Brault translated by E.D. Blodgett
ISBN 1-894543-05-X
Prose Poetry 2001
$14.95 CAD/USD
"Jacques Brault, Quebec poet, novelist, translator, and essayist, has been honoured with many literary prizes, most notably three Governor General's Awards. At the Bottom of the Garden is a collection of essays, each about a page and a half long, most of which were originally written for radio. These are not 'essays' of the sort insisted upon by teachers of English composition; rather they are 'intimist' essais following Montaigne.... In his preface, translator E.D. Blodgett explains his need to coin the term 'intimist.' It is a recurring concept in these weavings of allusion and quotation, these explorations of writerly thinking that circle their their subjects/objects while never precisely identifying them. Where Blodgett talks of 'sketches that may be read as poems,' it might be more apt to these 'enigmas'.... These essais can provide hours of pleasure for readers who enjoy literary scavenger hunts." Maxianne Berger (Arc)
"As the cycles in the book – the 'Remnants' poems, the 'Story' poems, and especially the 'Mairie' poems – swirl across and around each other, the cumulative effect is startling. Graham approaches the everyday experiences of her voices, her speakers, and illuminates them. She allows us access to the wonderful subtleties that define and differentiate individual lives. The pieces in Blood Memory lament, interrogate, and, finally, celebrate the various lives and voices of the women with whom they deal. They do so in a subtle, yet distinct, poetic style." matt robinson (Poetry Spoken Here)
Blue Tile
by Nicola Vulpe
ISBN 1-894543-22-X
Poetry 2004
$15.00 CAD/USD
Finalist 2005 Ottawa Book Award
"Ottawa poet Nicola Vulpe's second full collection of poetry, Blue Tile, strikes a balance between the political and personal poetic, illustrates an assortment of Spanish notation, and transports the reader on an historical trip through the observations of a poet living in Spain." Wanda O'Connor (Ottawa X Press)
Daisy Circus
by Rita Donovan
ISBN 0-920953-60-3
Fiction 1991
$14.95 CAD/USD
Winner 1993 Ottawa-Carleton Book Award
"Her [Donovan's] work exhibits a fierce creative energy that rewards the tenacious with serendipity.... Donovan reveals a strong and original talent that seems destined to illuminate the 'more than dark darkness' of the Canadian landscape."
The Toronto Star
"Every once in a while—not often—a book comes along that stuns you by the absolute rightness of its voice.... Rita Donovan's Daisy Circus is such a book.... Rita Donovan points, and risks her own discovery and her own 'mistakes.' In the process, she shows us how to see." Canadian Forum
For the Living and the Dead
by Tomas Tranströmer translated by Don Coles
ISBN 0-9699904-1-3
Poetry (bilingual edition English/Swedish) 1996
$12.95 CAD/USD
Winner 1996 John Glassco Translation Prize
"Don Coles' translation of Tomas Tranströmer's For the Living and the Dead is beautiful poetry.... Many believe Tomas Tranströmer to be the best poet writing today. We are fortunate to have Coles translating his work for us." The Fiddlehead
"The publication of a complete and recent collection of Tomas Tranströmer's poems, in English translation, is a just cause for celebration.... We are fortunate that [Don] Coles, one of Canada's finest poets, lived in Sweden for a number of years and is fluent in the language. Unlike other translators of Tranströmer, he has not had to resort to literal versions provided by an expert in Swedish.... He has given us living approximations of the originals that are fluid, resonant, and most importantly, that recreate the subtly shifting frequencies of Tranströmer's tone." Books in Canada
Glass Voices lasinäänet
by Dorothea Grünzweig (Derk Wynand trans.)
ISBN 978-1-894543-49-1
Poety 2009
$17.50 CAD/USD
Poet and translator Derk Wynand has already brought German writer Dorothea Grünzweig’s poetry to Canadian readers in Midsummer Cut, a translation of Mitsommerschnitt.
In Glass Voices lasinäänet Wynand takes Grünzweig’s Glasstimmen lasinäänet and offers us a vision of nature and geography influenced by Grünzweig’s life in Finland, as well as in Germany, the land of memory.
Go to the Pine features mainly poetry in Japanese styles (tanka, haiku, renga) and a CD of haiga, which are combinations of poetry and the visual arts. The book closes with two essays which provide a theoretical framework that complements the poetry. The text shows a unique Buddhist perspective that represents the special interests of the authors: Rinzai Zen Buddhism for Izak Bouwer, the Tibetan Dzogchen for Angela Sumegi. These two disciplines are very close to each other in that they are both founded on the desire to see directly into the nature of the mind.
In Kahlo: The World Split Open Linda Frank relates the fictional poetic biography of painter Frida Kahlo. Kahlo’s story has been the subject of many renderings, some of them bordering on the mythological. The attraction of this larger-than-life figure is understandable, from her contributions to the art world to her dramatic life with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. That Kahlo broke new ground for women in both the art world and in the arena of social mores intrigues Frank.
Landed
by Rita Donovan
ISBN 0-9699904-2-1
Fiction 1997
$17.95 CAD/USD
Winner 1998 Canadian Authors' Association/Chapters Award for Fiction
Finalist 1999 Ottawa-Carleton Book Award
"There are no literary pyrotechnics here. What Donovan presents are beautiful, resonant prose, fully realized compelling characters, and a passionate, bittersweet love story." The Edmonton Journal
In The Invisible Poem, a unique bilingual undertaking, E. D. Blodgett conceives of the poem first in French, and then he translates it into English, his mother tongue. In doing so, he reverses the established, ingrained modality of language, causing these poems to embody a marvelous sense of discovery. The poems rest side by side; the reader moves between the languages and into the ‘immediacy’ of the poems.
In 2000 in Galicia, in a maelstrom of rupture from her previous poetics, well-known poet Chus Pato gave readers a startling new book that instantly demarcated the literary landscape. This book was a reverberative crescendo, a roar and clamour of genres and fictions for the multiplied "I" in a time of unspeakable catastrophes.
Midsummer Cut
by Dorothea Grünzweig translated by Derk Wynand
ISBN 1-894543-10-6
Poetry (bilingual edition English/German) 2002
One of the Chosen
by Danuta Gleed
ISBN 0-9699904-3-X
Short fiction 1997
$14.95 CAD/USD
"One of the Chosen takes us into a world very few know about except in a vague way—the world of the Displace Persons of the Second World War. Several of the strongest stories are set in Kenya, where a Polish family tries to make sense of the loss and outrageous displacement. How does one carry on a "normal" existence in such circumstances? (The answer is, one doesn't.) The beauty of the writing saves these stories from being almost too unbearable to read. But the saddest thing of all is that this, Danuta Gleed's first collection, is also her last. Let it stand as a memorial to her talent, her perception and her people." Audrey Thomas
Past, Present: Tense...
by Douglas Isaac
ISBN 1-894543-19-X
Poetry 2004
$15.00 CAD/USD
A challenging long poem, epic in scope, but postmodern in its handling of language and in its view of authority, literary or otherwise. It's also an important "document" in terms of Mennonite history in Canada. Gary Geddes
Well researched and provocatively presented. At times sad, funny and a little "on the edge." Should cause debate or prompt some to search out their own heritage. Richard D. Thiessen, Director, Mennonite Historical Society of B.C. and Chief Librarian, Columbia Bible College [Abbotsford, B.C.]
The Bridge
by Christopher Levenson
ISBN 1-894543-02-5
Poetry 2000
$15.00 CAD/USD
Finalist 2001 Ottawa Book Award
Finalist 2001 Archibald Lampman Award for Poetry
Mature and confident, the poems in The Bridge show a talented and experienced writer at his most persuasive. Christopher Levenson has always been an open and accesible poet, but never before has he allowed us to see so much of the people and places, the emotional geography of his life, as he takes stock and searches for lasting value. "What will survive," he asks, and that is the urgent question of the collection. I would suggest that the best of these warm, human poems certainly will survive, and for that we should be grateful. The Bridge is Levenson's strongest book so far.
Christopher Wiseman
The Company We Keep
by Nancy Baele, Mary Borsky, Gabriella Goliger, Alison Gresik,
Debra Martens, Nadine McInnis, Sandra Nicholls, Kim Reynolds,
Barbara Sibbald, Vivian Tors and Susan Zettell
ISBN 1-894543-20-3
Sort Fiction and Photos 2004
$15.00 CAD/USD
The Craving of Knives
by Blaine Marchand
ISBN 978-1-894543-58-3
$17.50 CAD/USD
Blaine Marchand’s The Craving of Knives is the work of a mature and worldly writer. It is the poetry of a man who asks difficult questions, meets his fears and moves beyond a obscurant life to one of transformation. In doing so he confronts the spectre of loss:
The birds, like sparks, spiral
beyond the cremation of darkness;
they drop the fruit,
hearts, impaled by blades of grass.
(“Grosbeaks”)
The Dragon & the Pearl
by Henry Beissel
ISBN 1-894543-12-2
Poetry 2002
$15.00 CAD/USD
The Horse Knows the Way
by Dave Margoshes
ISBN 978-1-894543-57-6
Poetry 2009
$17.50 CAD/$15.00 USD
In The Horse Knows the Way, award-winning author Dave Margoshes transforms memory as he (re)imagines childhood and plunders the everyday for moments of transcendence:
So cold your face stings, your gloved hands
numb in the heartless sun and you wonder
how the chicadees can open their mouths
to sing without freezing their throats….
(“The hunger”)
The Hundred Cuts: Sitting Bull and the Major
by Colin Morton
ISBN 978-1-894543-55-2
Poetry 2009
$17.50 CAD/USD
Long-listed 2010 Lampman-Scott Award
1877. An international diplomatic crisis faces the new Dominion of Canada. The celebrated and reviled warrior chief Sitting Bull has crossed the 49th parallel ahead of pursuing U.S. Army troops. Camped near Wood Mountain just north of the border, he asks for asylum in Canada for himself and thousands of his Sioux and Cheyenne followers.
In a series of scenes and monologues representing the many sides in this life-and-death confrontation, Colin Morton casts new light on a past whose consequences still demand attention. History, tragedy, poetry, story-telling—The Hundred Cuts: Sitting Bull and the Major reminds readers that we are all implicated in history, that the past is not gone. It is part of us.
The Thing With Feathers
by Elizabeth Zetlin
ISBN 1-894543-23-8
Poetry 2004
Threats of Intimacy, the debut poetry collection by Ela Przbylo, attempts to map that most ephemeral of journeys, the journey of the human soul. The persona is aware of the many ways in which time and space encompass us, and she acknowledges the needs of the body. She reaches through these, past these, toward something possibly eternal.
West of Darkness/À l’ouest
de l’ombre
by John Barton translated by Arlette Francière
ISBN-10: 1-894543-35-1 / ISBN-13: 978-1-894543-35-4
Poetry (bilingual edition English/French) 2006
