Post-prairie

I'm very proud of this. I have been working on the proofs of Post-Prairie -- an anthology of new poetry edited by Robert Kroetsch and l'il ole' me. I love the work in this anthology. Here's some copy from the Talonbooks catalogue:

"Prairie poetry," as it came to be known in the 20th century, has found no more eloquent and accomplished a practitioner than Robert Kroetsch. Yet the North American prairie his work has made so recognizably visible in all of its characteristic particularities is changing profoundly in the 21st century. This change is marked by the transition of a cultural identity primarily rooted in place, to one that is rooted in a rapidly fragmenting, urbanizing, technology-based globalization. In an opening dialogue between the archetypal practitioner of this poetics of place, Robert Kroetsch, and a new practitioner, Jon Paul Fiorentino, the reader bears witness to a rare literary event-a master passing on his legacy to the students who have become his peers.

Post-Prairie will be out in Fall 2005 and includes new work from

derek beaulieu
Rob Budde
Louis Cabri
Jason Christie
Rosanna Deerchild
Adam Dickinson
Jon Paul Fiorentino
ryan fitzpatrick
Marvin Francis
Jill Hartman
Clive Holden
Catherine Hunter
Larissa Lai
Sylvia Legris
Nicole Markotic
Chandra Mayor
Suzette Mayr
Mariianne Mays
Duncan Mercredi
John K. Samson
Ian Samuels
Natalie Simpson
Karen Solie
Andy Weaver
Darren Wershler-Henry

Post-Prairie is dedicated to Marvin Francis -- a wonderful Winnipeg poet and Post-Prairie contributor who passed away last year.

School of quietude north?

Is there a School of Quietude North? (The School of Quietude is Ron Silliman's tag for lyric, conservative, traditionalist poetry.) Is Canada currently suffering from a dominance of SoQ style poetics? Which Canadian poets fit this mold?

I'm up now, mark

I got my special edition of the Asthma book. I am thrilled.

I have to write a book review of a very controversial new book for the Gazette. The deadline is looming. And I don't know how to write this thing. Situational writer's block.

This is from my grade two report card: "Jonny likes to tell jokes and stories. He takes pride in spelling words correctly. His printing could be more legible."

New cover

If you wanna see the new Asthmatica cover, click here.

Awesome things make me feel awesome

Some recent good news:

The special edition of Asthmatica will be out July 11th.

My poetry is featured in the new issue of New American Writing. The Canadian Poetry supplement was edited by Todd Swift. It includes new work by Jason Camlot, David McGimpsey, Christian Bok, Nathalie Stephens, Lisa Robertson, Darren Wershler-Henry/Bill Kennedy and so many more!!! I'm honoured to share space with such amazing poets.

This fall, I will have new poetry in Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry, an anthology edited by derek beaulieu, a. rawlings, and Jason Christie. These three are among the best of Canada's young poets and being a part of this project is a huge thrill.

There is an essay by Deborah Wills in the new ARC that discusses my book Hello Serotonin. It's called "The Flesh Continuing": Pain, Poetry and the Therapeutic Landscape. In it, Wills writes of the body and the failure of the body. Her close readings of poems from HS are shrewd and imaginative. And I am grateful.

On the home front, Lilly says "Dada," "Kitty," "Mama" and "Pataphysics." I'm very proud.

Losing in front of my hometown

Asthmatica received its first truly negative review today. It was in the Winnipeg Free Press by a journalist named Morley Walker. It's impossible not to take this stuff too seriously. What made the review so frustrating is that the reviewer failed to see the difference between fiction and autobiography and mostly complained about my punctuation and adverb choices.

And, of course, I was chastised for not being serious. There was a cool pull quote though: "Imagine Portnoy's Complaint set in the landscape of TV's South Park." I think he thought that was a slag, but that sounds like a good book to me!

The book has been an amazing critical success and I feel very lucky for that. The special edition is on its way. But I can't help but cringe at the thought of my hometown family and friends reading such a negative and mean spirited review.

At this point, after my fourth book, I should have thicker skin than this. But I don't. I'm hurt. I wonder how many writers are truly liberated from feeling this way when a bad review happens.

Never mind the pollocks

I've been spending a lot of time at home with my daughter Lilly this spring. I've haven't been writing too much, just the occasional poem, or comedy bit. Lilly is supercool. She can stand on her own; she says "Dada"; and she has very little interest in Canadian poetry. The perfect kid.

I did have the pleasure of reading and hanging out with Sean Carswell, Mickey Hess and Joe Meno. These indie American fiction writers recently came through Montreal and although the crowd was small, the readings were fantastic. Great writers, great drinkers. You just gotta check them out.

My Winnipeg launch was a blast! Lots of friends and family came out and I got to read with David McGimpsey, Alissa York and Chandra Mayor. What could be better than that?

And finally, Asthmatica is sold out. No more first editions in the world. (Well, almost.) So it is being reprinted in a special second edition, with a sexy black, blue and silver cover, and now with 50% less typos! More on this, including a sneak peak at the new cover on my website soon!

Winnipeg calling

I will be back home in Winnipeg to launch Asthmatica:


I N S O M N I A C P R E S S P R E S E N T S

8PM
MONDAY MAY 30 2005
DREGS CAFE
167 OSBORNE STREET

the launch of
Jon Paul Fiorentino’s

ASTHMATICA - a collection of comedic fiction

"Introducing a Montreal talent you'll read again and again. Asthmatica is one you'll want to own."

OTTAWA CITIZEN

"An idiosyncratic and savagely funny memoir. (Four stars.)"

EYE


with very special guests,
Chandra Mayor
Clive Holden
Rosanna Deerchild
and
David McGimpsey launching CERTIFIABLE.

"This guy is as funny as David Sedaris and even more inventive!"

OTTAWA CITIZEN

This will be a night to remember! McNally Robinson
will be on-site selling books.

What a night

My QWF poetry workshop did an amazing job performing their work at Blizzarts on Sunday night.

Thanks to Aly, Shawnda, Tara, Maureen, Anna, Frank, Crystal, Elise, Jan, and Julia! What a great class!

Stuart Ross launched his book. He charmed the pants off of all of us. Thanks, Stu!!!

Here are some pictures from the night:

http://danialyasa.blogspot.com/

May will be awesome

Yeah! Stuart Ross is joining my poetry workshop for a very special night!

The Quebec Writers Federation Presents...
May 1st, 2005. 8pm
Live @ Blizzarts (3956A St-Laurent)

CONTENT UNDER PRESSURE
an evening with emerging poets

T.K. Murphy
Jan Jorgensen
Elise Moser
Anna Carathanasis
Julia DeSouza
Frank Crcek
Crystal Beliveau
Shawnda Wilson
Maureen Rappaport
Ali Dimyati

with very special guest, the legendary Stuart Ross, launching his brand new book:
CONFESSIONS OF A SMALL PRESS RACKETEER! (Anvil Press)
and your host, local gadabout, Jon Paul Fiorentino!

New York drawls

I will joining a group of very cool authors in New York for two special nights:

Hazards of Globalisation: Entertainment by Foreigners. The ex-pat artists in this city are mostly busy being New Yorkers like everyone else. At this cabaret, though, they revert to their étranger status and express their ideas about where they've come from vs. the country they've come to. Think of it as a mini-Olympics of music, theatre, dance, spoken-word, and video art. Tuesday, April 12th, 10 pm. Galapagos Art Space, 70 North 6th Street, Williamsburg. (L to Bedford Ave.) 718 782-5188. Free.

Don't Blame Canada: Some of Canada's most entertaining poets and writers talk and perform work about cross-border mutual misunderestimations. David McGimpsey, Adeena Karasick, Catherine Kidd, Corey Frost, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Ian Ferrier, and Amanda Marchand. Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery. 212-614-0505. Wed., April 13th. 10 pm. $5 (US or Can. dollars.)

These will sort of be my NYC Asthmatica launches. Hope to see you there.

I know you're strong

The Weakerthans -- the best band since The Smiths. There. I've said it. John K. Samson has this uncanny ability to use all of his influences-- lyric poetry, literary and Marxist theory, country, punk, etc.-- to craft intricate and beautiful pop songs. The band nails it every time. You can't go to a Weakerthans show and not be uplifted. They can be sappy, hyper-emotive, highly political and still rock like bastards. There's a generosity and fierce intelligence in their music that restores my faith. I strongly suggest you visit them here.

And while you're at it, visit John K. Samson's brilliant publishing house here.

The movie run backward

The Movie Run Backward

The words will one day come
back to you, birds returning,
the movie run backward.

Nothing so strange in its talk,
just words. The people
who wrote them are the dead ones

This here paper talks like anything
but is only one thing,
"birds returning."

You can "run the movie
backward" but "the movie run
backward." The movie run backward.

Robert Creeley 1926-2005

Because we must

I have been asked by quite a few people to make this review available online. It's my first "negative" review of anything. I feel the need to speak out against the current strain of conservatism in CanLit. This review is currently running in the Word (Toronto) and set to be reprinted in filling Station (Calgary). 

The Self-Lover’s Quarry

A Lover’s Quarrel by Carmine Starnino
Erin: The Porcupine’s Quill, 2004
Reviewed by Jon Paul Fiorentino

One of the back jacket blurbs for A Lover’s Quarrel, Carmine Starnino’s first book of literary criticism, comes from Books in Canada—where Starnino holds the position of associate editor: “Whatever one thinks of his judgments, there can be little doubt that he judges the work in front of him and not the reputation of the poet or the debased laurels wreathing the book’s uncracked spine.” It’s a little like seeing a Bill O’Reilly book with a glowing blurb from Fox News. Still, I fought through the laurels and chanced it.

Starnino is the youngest and most zealous of a group of traditionalist poets from Montreal. Others include David Solway, Michael Harris and Eric Ormsby. This self-proclaimed “Jubilate Circle” of formal-minded versifiers (see David Solway’s Director’s Cut) has made inroads in the Quebec literary scene in the past few years through their antagonistic criticism of Canada’s most celebrated and best loved poets. The idea that Starnino is railing against an inferior poetics is at the heart of his “quarrel.” Starnino posits that it is his duty to speak out against the current “blandness of our literary scene.” Invoking Kingsley Amis, he argues that “a truly fresh approach demands fresh language.”

At every turn, Starnino sets his sights on a CanLit icon. From the most celebrated to the most innovative, bpNichol, Margaret Atwood, Dennis Lee, Robert Kroetsch, Christopher Dewdney, Christian Bök, Erin Moure, Susan Musgrave, Al Purdy, Anne Carson, David McGimpsey, no one is safe.

Starnino is continually guilty of the fallacy of holding up one poet’s work to another poet’s standards. For example, he criticizes David McGimpsey’s humorous collection, Lardcake, for not living up to Frank O’Hara’s example. Never mind if the work in question seeks to exemplify or emulate O’Hara. It’s similar to excoriating Lenny Bruce for not being Johnny Carson—or Carson for being no Bruce. Here, Starnino makes little effort to try to understand the book’s wisecracking, he actually writes: “I don’t get it. And I don’t think there is much to get.” Granted, there are many people in the world who have trouble understanding comedy, but they generally don't decide to write about it.

Starnino is at his worst when he attacks experimental poetry. He berates Christopher Dewdney’s classic The Natural History for employing difficult scientific diction because, after all, “life [is] short and books are many.” A noble sentiment for a scholar. Christian Bök’s bestselling Eunoia is slammed for not living up to Samuel Coleridge’s poetic criteria. Despite rallying for a more “formal appraisal” of Canadian poetry in his title essay, Starnino fails to see the formal accomplishment of Eunoia, and, not surprisingly, a sonnet by his colleague David Solway which manages to rhyme “kingcap” with “scrap” and “off” with “trough” is offered up as a healthier alternative to what Starnino calls Bök’s “Vowel Movements.” Clever, eh? 

Despite the fact that Eunoia energized poetry readers throughout Canada, exposed Canadians to vibrant literary traditions that exist outside this country and ultimately received the most prestigious award in Canadian literature, it did not do enough for Starnino or his friends. This is the unfortunate source of all of these ad hominem attacks—the sour grapes of Starnino and his writing circle. And the beat goes on for Montreal’s most celebrated and successful poetic innovators—Erin Moure and Anne Carson—who are both dismissed in A Lover’s Quarrel in favour of, well, you know.

Robert Kroetsch, one of Canada’s most influential poets and theorists, is unceremoniously brushed-off for his desire to engage in a “demythologizing” of the English language. Here, Starnino argues that Kroetsch’s desire for vernacular acuity turns “Canadian poetry’s relationship with the English tradition into a morality tale, heroes and villains neatly tagged.” This is a most depressing reduction and makes one keenly aware that Starnino’s aims are about as subtle as a hire made by Macbeth. While Starnino’s anti-theory tenor makes his subsequent stabs at literary theory somewhat amusing, the whole point of A Lover’s Quarrel is to make, as Starnino puts it, “a book of partisan criticism.” In other words, his critical framework relies, first and foremost, on “heroes and villains neatly tagged.”

As previously mentioned, the most obvious limitation of A Lover’s Quarrel is that he eschews the truly innovative and musical works of our most cherished poets, and continually props up the preciously rendered works of his cohorts: Solway, Harris, Ormsby, et al. as the alternative to all this “blandness.” And what do these unacknowledged, underappreciated scribes have to offer? Starnino offers us full poem samples of Ormsby’s “Garter Snake,” Solway’s “Stones in Water” and Harris’ “The Dolphin”—each poem, an equal exercise in the shop-worn emblem and the faux epiphany. In other words, skillful but bland.

Further, he bemoans the fact that his writers circle is not properly acknowledged in Canada and throughout the world. It’s a good thing that there is no index at the back of A Lover’s Quarrel, for it would reveal, in a most comedic way, that the names most invoked throughout the book are Solway, Harris, and Ormsby. Not Yeats, Shakespeare or Auden (as a thesis like his might suggest) but a close-knit group of local writers. While one can completely understand the need to stand up for one’s own, for this to occur in a polemic so skeptical of the incestuous circles of CanLit is a little rich. 

A Lover’s Quarrel can be summed up as a slightly less accomplished version of David Solway’s Director’s Cut. It’s Solway-Lite but when most people want their Solway, they want it full strength. It might qualify as full strength if it weren’t for some interesting diversions, including a somewhat self-effacing, but inevitably self-serving Introduction, where Starnino asks important questions of himself such as “Are my critical instincts hemmed in by my taste?” Unfortunately, the answer is always inward affirmation. 

It should be said, perhaps in Starnino’s defense, that this book is not actually scholarship. It’s a collection of book reviews. Lovers of Canadian literature have eclectic tastes and have enough room on their bookshelves for both Al Purdy and Christian Bök, both Margaret Atwood and Erin Moure, both Irving Layton and Anne Carson, and so on. As Malcolm Ross has noted, “we are many voices.” But eclecticism is Starnino’s neatly tagged enemy. The Canadian reader, whose bookshelf is capable of holding the unique diversity of our national literature, is really the one with whom Starnino has a quarrel, for the reader has made her/his informed decision already and Starnino is not happy. 

Very recent books you should read

David McGimpsey's Certifiable (Insomniac)
Mark Truscott's Said Like Reeds Or Things (Coach House)
Julia Williams' The Sink House (Coach House)
Corey Frost's The Worthwhile Flux (conundrum)
Rachel Zolf's Masque (Mercury)
Jonathan Ames' Wake Up, Sir (Scribner)
John Lavery's You, Kwaznievski, You Piss Me Off (ECW)
Kaie Kellough's Lettricity (Cumulus)

Toronto, Montreal and the little book that could.

The Montreal Hour gave my new book, Asthmatica, a positive review!

Toronto launch was amazing-- at the Rivoli with David McGimpsey, Angela Rawlings, and the hilarious C.O.P.

Montreal launch was amazing too-- at the Jupiter Room with David McGimpsey, Jason Camlot, Robert Allen, Ibi Kaslik, and Maya Merrick. My folks even showed up. In the end, I was too weepy and wheezy to read for very long. That happens to me alot.

What I do

I am a writer. My poems are published by Coach House Books. My comedic fiction is published by Insomniac Press. My website is here. I want Lurch to be my daddy.