Pantone 185C

Lemon Hound was nice enough to run my poem about living in Montreal right now. Here it is.

Salut Sérotonine 2

Here is another translation by Xandère Sélène. This one is of my poem "Neurotransmission" from Hello Serotonin. A series of her translations of my poems appeared in Revue Le Quartanier in 2005.

NEUROTRANSMISSION

Une autre tactique de rêve statique – ne me rappelle pas à la maison sur

ce ton; je deviens pensif quand tu n’appelles pas.

Le remords est une lettre à la langue de miel. Je traîne, a-t-elle

écrit; le comptoir ne luisait guère derrière son éclat.

Quand le téléphone sonne, ma mémoire se déclenche, trébuche;

une neurotransmission se fait trébucher plus vrai, filmique.

Elle chuchote quelque chose et il semble que quelqu’un

grivoise toute la nuit: une berceuse caféinée, rêve sous valium.

La culpabilité parapleut vers le ciel en trépanation courante –

coup de pied à l’humour encore.

Voici une neurotransmission avortée –

froide comme une baisse d’octave, continue comme la tonalité.

*

NEUROTRANSMISSION

Another static dream tactic – don’t call me home with

that tone; I get wistful when you don’t call.

Remorse is a honey-tongued letter. I’m traipsing along, she

wrote; the bar glistened weakly behind her sheen.

When the phone rings my memory triggers, trips along;

a neurotransmission trips itself more real, filmic.

She whispers something and it sounds like someone

thrushed all night and a ca°Ëeine lullaby, valium dream.

Guilt umbrellas skyward from the trepanation stream –

kicked in the wit again.

Here is an abortive neurotransmission –

cold like an octave drop, relentless like the dial tone.

Salut Sérotonine 1

Here is a translation by Xandère Sélène of my poem "Astrocytes" from Hello Serotonin. A series of her translations of my poems appeared in Revue Le Quartanier in 2005.

ASTROCYTES

Les astrocytes nourrissent les neurones
racontent des conneries métatrophiques à l’axone et à la dendrite
de même, dépolarisent la dose de glucose.

Les astrocytes revendent au noir les cellules gliales
distribuent l’amour neuronal partout, tout
autour, accordent des strophes au compte-gouttes.

Les astrocytes exigent l’extase
veulent planer via la reconnaissance et la transmission
mais, s’envoyer en l’air se prend avec le temps.

Les astrocytes chantent des berceuses
signalent la latence la plus triste
Donc, cette fois c’est terminal.

*

ASTROCYTES

Astrocytes feed neurons
talk metatrophic trash to axon and dendrite
alike, depolarize the glucose fix.

Astrocytes deal from glial cells
spread neuronal love all over, all
around, dole out strophes.

Astrocytes need bliss
want the highs of recognition and transmission
but, starfucking is an acquired agency.

Astrocytes sing lullabies
signal the saddest dormancy
so, this time it’s terminal.

23 Books! (Oops! 24 books!)

I have edited 23 books in 10 years! Below is a list of the amazing titles I have had the great privilege of working on:

Editor of The Barista and I by Andrew Szymanski. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2012. (forthcoming) Editor of Entry Level by Julie McsIaac. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2012.
Editor of Easy Peasy by Kevin McPherson-Eckhoff. Montreal, Snare Books 2011.
Editor of Metraville by Jamie Popowich. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2011.
Editor of Distillery Songs by Mike Spry. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2010.
Editor of Bird Eat Bird by Katrina Best. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2010. (Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book)
Editor of The Lateral by Jake Kennedy. Montreal: Snare Books, 2010.
Editor of Update by Darren Wershler and Bill Kennedy. Montreal: Snare Books, 2010.
Editor of Selected Blackouts by John Goldbach. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2009.
Editor of Thresh by Kim Minkus. Montreal: Snare Books, 2009. (Robert Kroetsch Award Winner) Editor of Blues and Bliss: Selected Poetry of George Elliott Clarke. Kitchener: Wilfred Laurier, 2008.
Editor of We could be like that couple… by Sarah Steinberg. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2008.
Editor of Variations on Holderlin by Geoffery Hlibchuk. Montreal: Snare Books, 2008.
Editor of Thumbscrews by Natalie Zina Walschots. Montreal: Snare Books, 2008. (Robert Kroetsch Award Winner)
Editor of Delible by Anne Stone. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 2007.
Editor of The Emily Valentine Poems by Zoe Whittall. Montreal: Snare Books, 2006.
Editor of Canada Post by Jason Christie. Montreal: Snare Books, 2006. (with ryan fitzpatrick)
Editor of The Coward Files by Ryan Arnold. Montreal: Conundrum Press, 2006.
Editor of Post-Prairie. A Poetry Anthology. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005.

 (With Robert Kroetsch)
Editor of Cherry by Chandra Mayor. Montreal: Conundrum Press, 2004.

 (Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award Winner)
Editor of Career Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour. Montreal: DC Books, 2003.


Editor of August Witch by Chandra Mayor. Winnipeg: Cyclops Press, 2002. 

(Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book Winner)
Editor of The Cyclops Review. An Anthology. Winnipeg: Cyclops Press, 2002.


Editor of Trains of Winnipeg by Clive Holden. Montreal: DC Books, 2002.

 (with Robert Allen)

My Tribute to Robert Kroetsch

This piece first appeared in the September 2011 issue of the Quill and Quire. The text below is slightly longer and less edited:








ROBERT KROETSCH: ONLY HIS BOOKS
Jon Paul Fiorentino

Summer Literary Seminars. Montreal, Quebec. June 22, 2011.

Tonight I read with emerging writer, Tom Burke, American novelist, Kevin Canty, Montreal poet, Katia Grubisic. The DeSeve cinema amphitheater was over half-full. I always count the audience (it calms my nerves). Tonight there were 58 people in the room: participants and instructors from all over North America, here In Montreal to study and write in a new context. There were people I loved, people I wanted to impress. I read from new work -- a comedic text--and I struggled. I flubbed lines, failed to convey the rhythm of the prose, apologized to the audience, and did pretty much everything else you aren't supposed to do when you present your work. When I was done with the new stuff, I felt relief and regained my composure. Then I read some selections from a text I had been reading all day: “Towards an Essay: The Upstate New York Journals” from Robert Kroetsch's The Lovely Treachery of Words. I wasn't ready to read Seed Catalogue (my favourite). But I needed to share with this audience a sense of the man. The journal is not that long. It documents a time in the 1970s when he was teaching. Some the entries are matter-of-fact. Most contain gems: his brief encounter with Basil Bunting and the secrets Bunting revealed about his own poetry and about the title of a certain TS Eliot text, the image of Gwendolyn MacEwen at the 1969 Governor General’s Literary Awards ceremony, sitting alongside her young Greek lover alongside, George Bowering with his green velvet suit and extravagant silk shirt, so many small ruminations, striking in their intellectual acuity. I read a passage where Kroetsch had just found out that he was to receive the GG for his novel The Studhorse Man and he proceeded to recall 20 years earlier when he received first ever acceptance letter for a story (to be published in The Montrealer.) Then I read my poem "Civic Poem" which is inspired by and dedicated to him. When the reading was over. I swiftly exited the theatre without looking anyone in the eye. I ran to my office and cried.

I found out via text message that morning that Robert had died in a car accident. Once I could confirm it, I broke down instantly. Never has anyone been so encouraging, kind, and inspiring to me as Robert Kroetsch. It was enough that his books taught me so much, but the fact that he took a particular interest in me and my writing was astonishing. I am aware of the fact that he had similar relationships with countless other writers. If you were a reader or a writer, he had time for you. We met around 11 years ago. In Winnipeg. I remember sitting across from him at the restaurant in McNally Robinson. I was in awe. I had some poems I wanted him to look at and to my surprise he had brought me some poems of his to look at too. I remember thinking, "Why on earth would he want my opinion on new poems?" I had just started volunteering for Matrix magazine in Montreal, and he asked if I might like to publish them. The poems were exquisite of course. And being the young, hyper-ambitious guy that I was, I insisted that he let me interview him as well. Obviously, he said yes. He always said yes. In 2007 he said yes to lending his name to my fledgling literary press, Snare Books. The Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry was established. My favourite annual email was the one he would write after he reading the latest winner. His enthusiasm for new poetry, for new ways of poetry was awe-inspiring. As our friendship grew and our conversations became more sophisticated, he kept telling me: "It's your turn to talk." (And I tried. And I'm trying.) But it always provided more pleasure, more bliss, to listen to him.

In the upstate journals, Kroetsch writes about Charles Olson's passing, observing that he “is only his books." The elegance of Kroestch. The staggering peculiarities of his language. The way he changed our language. The imperceptible ease with which he articulated so much wisdom. He was always fascinated with the poem he "could never complete." But the truth is, he was the complete poet. The complete writer. He approached language and life with a sense of rigorous play. Now he is only his books. I will visit him there for the rest of my life. You will too.


Jon Paul Fiorentino is the author of Stripmalling, Indexical Elegies, and the editor of Matrix Magazine and Snare Books. He lives in Montreal.

Golden Beaver!

So, Indexical Elegies has been nominated for the CBC Book Club Award for best book of poetry. A Bookie! The trophy is a golden beaver! For real! Obviously I would love to have a golden beaver in my home.

If you read IE and liked IE, please vote for me here:
http://www.cbc.ca/books/bookclub/2011/02/more-bookies-nominees-revealed-get-your-votes-in.html

sincerely,
Jon Paul Fiorentino
Poet Dude

Indexical Elegies Readings!

Hello blog. It's been too long. Throughout this fall, I will be reading from my new book, Indexical Elegies:

Toronto Coach House Book Launch.

Vancouver International Writers Festival.

Winnipeg My City's Still Breathing Conference.

And a few more to be confirmed (Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg again, Toronto again)...

I'm looking forward to getting out west, seeing old friends and making new ones!!!

Some Spring Readings!

I will be at AWP in Denver next week:

Friday, April 9, 2010
4:30pm - 6:00pm
The Dikeou Collection, Colorado Building
1615 California Street, Suite 515

Please join the Denver Quarterly and Coach House Books for an off-site AWP reading on Friday, April 9, from 3 - 6 pm at The Dikeou Collection, located in downtown Denver, just a two-block-walk from the Colorado Convention Center. There will be free wine and snacks, and no charge for the event.

Coach House will be presenting The Cross-Border Avant-Garde Extravaganza, featuring Canadians Christian Bök (Eunoia), Jen Currin (The Inquisition Yours), Jon Paul Fiorentino (The Theory of the Loser Class) and kevin mcpherson eckhoff (Rhapsodomancy) and Americans Rachel Levitsky (Neighbor) and K. Silem Mohammad (The Front). Hosted by Coach House senior editor Alana Wilcox, it promises to be a phenomenal afternoon of out-there poetry, with Flarf, surrealism, visual poetry and more! A Peace Bridge of Poetics! http://is.gd/bcElZ

Later this month, I will be at Blue Metropolis as a host for this:

SATURDAY APRIL 24 @ 9:00 PM
THE AFTER-HOURS LITERARY LUAU
DELTA CENTRE-VILLE
777 University Street
Salon ST-LAURENT

This Blue Metropolis after-hours party presents short readings from some of the small press world’s finest poets and fiction writers in a casual atmosphere. Come out after the discussions and lectures and have some fun! Cash bar.

Presented by Coach House Books, Insomniac Press, Invisible Publishing, Matrix magazine, and Snare Books.

With Katrina Best, Jen Currin, John Goldbach, Kevin Mcpherson Eckhoff, Ian Orti, Alan Reed, Mike Spry, Thom Vernon, and Rachel Zolf.

And your host, Jon Paul Fiorentino. http://is.gd/bcErC

And next month in Vancouver for this:

May 13, 2010, 7pm at the UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square: David Derry, Jon Paul Fiorentino, and Matthew Hooton. http://is.gd/bcEjD

The QWF Gala

November 17th, 2009. Lion D'or.

It was a lovely evening. Snare Books was honoured with a A.M. Klein prize nomination for Mike Spry's Jack.

I was honoured with a Hugh MacLennan Prize nomination for Stripmalling.

Friends Gillian Sze, Patrick McDonagh and David Homel were also nominated for book awards.

Most important, Adrian and Lucille King-Edwards from The Word Bookstore were honoured with the QWF Community Award. Long overdue!

It was particularly exciting for me to have the opportunity to bring my folks out to a classy event. They didn't know I had it in me!

Here are some photos.



Me and my girlfriend, Marisa



Adrian!



Mike Spry, David McGimpsey




Mike Spry, Gillian Sze



Me and my pops!

Stripmalling Climbs the Winnipeg Charts!

Stripmalling has momentum! So close to a number one hit! I feel just like Engelbert Humperdinck when "There Goes My Everything" made it to number two. Do you know what I mean?

Stripmalling makes Winnipeg Bestseller List!

Thanks to an amazing launch with Guy Maddin and the very hard working staff of McNally Robinson, I made it to number 3 on the Winnipeg Bestseller List! Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg is #1 in the Non-Fiction category!

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Wake
Robert J. Sawyer. Science Fiction.

2. Assegai
Wilbur Smith. Fiction.

3. Stripmalling.
Jon Paul Fiorentino. Fiction.

4. The Gargoyle.
Andrew Davidson. Fiction.

5. Wicked Prey.
John Sandford. Fiction.

Hold on, 'peggers!

Here I come Winnipeg!

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Ok, so I have received quite a few reviews for Stripmalling now. The reviews have been an interesting mix. I am lucky to have received very positive assessments from (in my opinion) the most important venues -- The Quill and Quire, and the Globe and Mail. Other rags and mags have been less positive. And one review is so ridiculously negative that it fails to cite the book at all and actually makes claims about my life instead! (Mmmm! Now that's good literary journalism!)

Anyways, as per usual, my two hometowns are home to the harshest criticism. And, overall, I am very pleased with the response to the book.


Here's the good, the bad and the ugly:
________________________________________________________________________________
THE GOOD

Stripmalling is the first novel by Jon Paul Fiorentino, and a very funny one it is.... Amid the hilarious scenes that make up Stripmalling — gas-station hot-boxing, desperate ploys for sex, moderate success in the writing world — Fiorentino produces peaks of warmth and true sadness.
— Globe and Mail

It's a Canadian triumph. It's not pretty, but it's a great romp. A funny, funny romp.
— Lemon Hound

Stripmalling is an entertaining, occasionally disorienting trip through the wires of Jonny, a presumably semi-fictional character working in and around a strip mall in suburban Winnipeg.... Outrageous, intriguing and quietly powerful, Stripmalling offers readers the curious and ultimately rewarding experience of stepping outside their own stories.
— Scene Magazine

Stripmalling is an author’s memoir freed from the tyranny of facts. Jonny shares his personal issues with an off-the-wall candour.... From the top of Stripmalling, you see a keen mind at work under the quirky surface.
— Xtra

There’s a welcome what-the-hell bent to the fictionalized part-memoir, part-graphic novel collage that is Jon Paul Fiorentino’s Stripmalling.
— Toronto Star (Arrivals)

...poignant, politically savvy and laugh-out-loud-funny...
— Montreal Mirror

Stripmalling is worth reading for its wry, sardonic humour and delightfully self- deprecating tone . . . Thoroughly enjoyable.
— Montreal Review of Books

[Stripmalling has] a poignant tension between narrative and fragmentation, hopefulness and cynicism. . . . [Fiorentino has] become one of Montreal's — and Canada's — most prolific and accomplished young writers.
— Hour

A collage-like experience, Stripmalling is a hybrid book forged out of multiple angles and perspectives. It is also a funny and clever experiment in tale-telling.
— Quill and Quire

Stripmalling is an amusing, breezy read ... well-paced fun
— Complete Review

THE BAD

He certainly does bits well: the comic strips "Helen Keller’s Voice Mail" and "Dubious Toasts" are tastelessly hilarious, aided considerably by Munday’s understated cartooning. Nor is Fiorentino without insight. What he needs to do next time is supply a final act.
— Winnipeg Free Press

Sometimes the line between hipster irony and boringly bad is too narrow to discern.... If everybody's alienated and nobody cares, what's the point of reading any further? There's a reason why The Simpsons isn't a novel.*
— Toronto Star (Column)

THE UGLY

It should never be enough to simply regurgitate one's lack of a significant life... Sadly, instead of building on his strengths, Fiorentino wallows in his weaknesses – lack of plot, banal observations, cheap characterization, hipster posing.
— Montreal Gazette
________________________________________________________________________________

An aside: It's interesting to note that in the most scathing indictments of Stripmalling, the word "hipster" is invoked. I think these days, "hipster" is scribe code for "young and/or threatening." See Carl Wilson's excellent response to Russell Smith for a more nuanced and complex discussion of this.

Another aside: *(Hey, Toronto Star dude: Actually, writers of The Simpsons care very much about cultural literacy and intellectual/literary practice. Stop being reductive and try reading John Swartzwelder's wonderful novels. He wrote 59 episodes of The Simpsons and his books are brilliant.)

So there you have it. The responses to my book so far. It obviously hits a nerve with readers. I am thankful for the good and bad reviews. The ugly one is just ugly. Is Stripmalling hipster posing and boringly bad? Or is it funny, clever and poignant? Go buy it and let me know what you think.

Now let's all sit back, relax, and listen to the clearly not hipster band The Smoking Popes!

Official Montreal Launch - Blue Metropolis

THURSDAY, APRIL 23 2009 @ 7:00 PM

STRIPMALLING

The launch of Stripmalling, a tale of love, art, and low, low retail prices.
Jon Paul Fiorentino's first novel, followed by a reading and reception.
Hosted by Maya Merrick.

DELTA CENTRE-VILLE - LES COURANTS
ADMISSION: FREE

www.bluemetropolis.org

Toronto Launch Filmed and Online at Now Toronto

Here it is. God, I was nervous. Evan was charming. Zoe was lovely and clever. One of my favourite nights ever.

Honoured

I am honoured, Toronto. You came out, bought books and made me a very happy camper. Click here.

I am honoured, Sina Queyras. You are one of my favourite writers! Click here.

I am honoured, shrinking Globe Books Section. Click here.

I hope to see you Montreal peeps tonight. God, I am a nervous one.

Hour

There is a cover story on Stripmalling here.

Pages Window!

A Stripmalling display went up at Pages last night in order to promote the March 2nd Toronto launch. Visit Pages!

Blues and Bliss review!

The reviews are pouring in this week! In the Globe and Mail, Sonnet L'Abbe has reviewed Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke, edited and introduced by yours truly. Very proud of this book!

"In this helpful volume, Jon Paul Fiorentino calls Clarke's voice "polyphonic": that is, a unique blend of identities that includes blues singer, preacher, cultural critic, exile, Africadian, high modernist, spoken-word artist and Canadian poet.... The selection of poems, which includes pieces from seven books, including the now-Canadian-canonized Whylah Falls, is testament to the range of cadence and rhythm that makes up Clarke's multi-vocal range."

Review here.

Book here.

Quill Review

The first review of Stripmalling is now online: here