Apollinaire's Bookblogge

NEW WAVE AT KING AND BAY

2011-07-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

In those maverick days of the middle sixties
we used everything at hand
in our helter-skelter literary projects.
For example, the main banking floor at King and Bay
to make our New Wave Canada cover, which featured in grey and white
a clutter of manuscript pages
taken at random from the book,
then spread out in a small rectangle
on that solid granite floor. Victor Coleman and I
set it up one night after seven,
when only a cleaning-lady was around to watch us
go about our mysterious mission.

First we dragged out the largest step-ladder
in the place, a good twelve feet tall;
then, when we'd laid out our pages
for maximum effect, Victor climbed up that ladder
as high as he could go and took twelve shots,
then one for luck, with his Rolex. That was it,
the fastest cover ever made for a book,
and right away we went out for a beer
like the happy conspirators we were,
not thinking for a moment we were a part
of any obscure piece of history.

And two days later we were even happier
when his pictures, just developed,
showed Vic had got the angle exactly right
from his eagle-high perch on the step-ladder,
and today, if you look hard enough,
you can even read a line or two
of a poem by Daphne Buckle,
whom we know today as Daphne Marlatt.

From Souster's Collected Poems, vol 9.
(http://bit.ly/oDERvm)

Posted in anticipation of Victor Coleman's upcoming course at Toronto New School of Writing on New Wave Canada Redux (45 Years On) (http://bit.ly/pa6Axd)

Visitation

2007-03-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

Through the storm comes the mail, and in it this lovely new book by Nelson Ball, containing a typewriter-concrete poem so wonderfully precise and full of homage for bpNichol I can't stop looking at it.

Recent Arrivals

2006-09-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick list of some recent arrivals in the shoppe, including some new books just released, like a new Alice Notley title, Fitterman and Rowntee's War, the musical, and some new material just out from Ugly Ducking Presse; some older things such as the John Cage anthology and a scarce self-published Kathy Acker item; some Toronto Small Press material from the 80s and 90s by Ross, Necakov, Smith, Laba, and Lefler; and, well, a smattering of other items thrown in for good measure. If this simply leads you to seach out what you're really looking for on the site, so be it. I've just been so busy with BookThug lately that I felt like thinking about something else.

ACKER, Kathy: The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec
ARTAUD, Antonin: The Monk
BAK, Louise: m.80 (emeighty)
BARLOW, John: I'm Sitting With Solipsists Thinking How + Capitalism
BARWIN, Gary: I Parked My Car Behind Loblaws and Knew I Would Never Die
BELLAMY, Dody: Cunt-ups
BERRIGAN, Anselm: Some Notes on My Programming
[BISSETT, bill]: radiant danse uv being: a poetic portrait of bill bissett
CAGE, John: Notations
CHRISTIE, Jason: Canada Post
[COACH HOUSE]: SNORE COMIX Number Two
COLE, Norma: Scout (a multimedia CD)
DALACHINSKY, Steven: The Final Nite & Other Poems
DEBORD, Guy: Considerations on the Assassination of Gerard Lebovici
DIMKOVSKA, Lidija: Do Not Awaken Them With Hammers
DORIS, Stacy: Cheerleader's Guide to the World: Council Book
FINLAY, Ian Hamilton and PATERSON, Dave: The Boy's Alphabet Book
FITTERMAN and ROWNTREE: War, the musical
GLADMAN, Renee: Juice
GOLDMAN, Judith: DeatStar/Rico-chet
JARNOT, Lisa: Iliad XXII
LABA, Mark: voice
LEFLER, Peggy [Ed]: Anthology
NECAKOV, Lillian: Murder Becomes Us
NOTLEY, Alice: Alma or The Dead Women
POMERAND: Gabriel: Saint Ghetto of the Loans / Grimoire
QUEYRAS, Sina: Life, Still and Otherwise
SING A BATTLE SONG: Poems by women in the weather underground organization
SMITH, Jim: The Schwarzenegger Poems
TRUHLAR, Richard: Trace-Form Imagery in Venetian Ornamental Cookery
VIAN, Boris: Autumn in Peking
WANG, Shanxing: Mad Science in Imperial City
WE KNOW YOU ARE WATCHING: Surveillance Camera Players 1996 - 2006

From the Library of Victor Coleman

2006-05-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you looking for books by Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, or Louis Zukofsky, now’s your chance. Canadian poet Victor Coleman, who’s personal relationship to these and other literary figures is well known, has selected some items from his rather formidable personal library and they are now available to the public through Apollinaire’s Bookshoppe.This catalogue contains a number of items by the four aforementioned poets, as well as several other interesting items. Some are quite scarce, and some have been personally inscribed to VC by the author. All bear the ownership signature or initials of Victor Coleman. You can own a piece of literary history. You know you want to.

Lisa Robertson Chicago Review

2006-04-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of Chicago Review edited by Joshhua Kotin (Double Issue 51:4 abd 52:1) is a must for anyone interested in the work of Lisa Robertson. The first half of the book (to pp.97) consists of a special section on Robertson and her work that includes two long poems [Palinodes and Utopia/] along with commentary by the author on these works; an interview with Robertson by Kai Fierle-Hedrick; a bibliographic checklist; and critical essays by Benjamin Freidlander, Christine Stewart, Jennifer Scappettone, and Joshua Clover.

Adult Video

2006-04-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

In lieu of the fantastic afternoon that Margaret Christakos put on last Sunday as The Crepes of Consciousness, I will let everyone know about her new chapbook just out from Nomados.

Adult Video uses 'male-driven Oulipian procedural vision' to watch and then rewind through 'prono'. What more could you want in a book?

Another fine Nomadosian production.

Circulation Flowers

2006-03-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

I got in a terrific book the other day -- Circulation Flowers by Chuck Stebelton, winner of the 2004 Jack Spicer award. Now aside from the weirdness of there actually being a "Jack Spicer" award out there, this book is really interesting, I think. The poems kind of hover there. There's an introduction by the judge, a guy named Chris Stroffolino, and he gets to say things like:

Sometimes I think the lyric poem is a waste of time, of breath, of paper, of space. Is this because I've internalized what others have said about me? "Yeah, sure, you can seduce me with your 'brain is wider than the sky' bumperstickers or whirlpools, but how am I going to survive?" The poet doesn't say.

and

Amid all the poems and books that know how to act, or act as if they know, there are still a few that ... can only exceed aesthetic self-containment precisely because they are ambitious enough to acknowledge their failure.

and even

In a way every book is about trees (except for e-books, which are about oil)

What interesting things to think about in the face of poetic progress. Circulation Flowers certainly fills the pondering gaps opened up by such things, and much more too. Highly recommended, for sure.