Catherine Owen’s 13 Lovers

With the slow bleed of so many Edmonton poets/artists to the West Coast, it is rare and most welcome when a Vancouverite of Catherine Owen’s talent and infectious level of community engagement (and fondness for the vino) blows into town to put down roots. I am not sure that was her plan when she and bandmates of the blackmetal group INHUMAN arrived in wintry Edmonton, but it’s a few winters later and she’s showing no signs of flying the coop.

When not writing lyrics and exercising (exorcising?) her Warwick Vampyre bass as The Abbess of Abjection for INHUMAN, Catherine hosts the refreshingly eclectic 44th Avenue Troubador salon series in her and partner/INHUMAN frontman & guitarist Chris Matzigkeit’s livingroom at Bermview Manor (down the road a spell from Thrushcross Grange). Visual artists, musicians, and poets—oh my—join forces to bring a convivial evening of performance, presentation and talk. The series has just wrapped for the summer, but I know many aficionados of the local culture scene are already eager for what’s in store next season.

Catherine has been writing for a very very long time despite her being even younger than me. Lately she’s been plumbing the depths of troubador/trobairitz poetry, coming up with some pretty innovative takes on a little known mode of versifying by Occitan women from around the 13th century. The cansos in 13 Lovers will tease you with some of the astounding possibilities of this medieval form, presented here and now by a most capable trobairitz.

Thank-you so much, Catherine!

Jason Christie, Like Wolves

Shortly after Jason Christie headlined at the September 2006 Olive, i-ROBOT (Edge/Tesseract) went viral. That a poetry manuscript had been picked up by one of Canada’s pre-eminent sci-fi publishers signalled i-ROBOT was something distinct in Canadian literature.

Two years later, i-ROBOT continues to challenge us as readers and writers to think about what is possible in literature and to push ourselves into these remote spaces. i-ROBOT has received a great deal of critical acclaim and has since been interpreted/animated by Lisa Mann with Curtis Wehrfritz (with Frantic Films) and Janice Blaine (with Justyn Perry).

We are very proud to have had Jason read for our little series and thankful he has agreed to let us publish Like Wolves online—the complimentary chapbook we made for his reading two years ago.

All the best, Jason!

Three Olive alumni win at the WGA 2008 Alberta Literary Awards

June 7—A gala at the Royal Alberta Museum after the Writer’s Guild of Alberta’s day-long AGM and mini-conference celebrated some outstanding achievements by Alberta writers working across many genres, three of whom have been Olive Series feature poets.

• Myrna Kostash received the Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement; she read for The Olive in September, 2003.
• Tim Bowling won the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-fiction after his recent hiatus from poetry to write The Lost Coast: Salmon, Memory and the Death of Wild Culture (Nightwood); he read for The Olive in February, 2001, and again in September, 2001.
• Bert Almon, who recently took the City of Edmonton Book Prize, won the Stephan G. Stephannson Award for Poetry for A Ghost in Waterloo Station (Brindle & Glass); he read for The Olive in September, 2002, and again in September, 2007.

We would like to extend a hearty congratulations to Myrna, Tim, Bert, and to all the WGA’s 2008 Alberta Literary Award winners! More information can be found on the Writer’s Guild of Alberta website and on their official media release about this year’s Alberta Literary Awards.

Kudos!

Olga Costopoulos x2

Olga Costopoulos has read for The Olive two times now—once in February of 2006 and once back in March of 2002. When she is not teaching English literature or Creative Writing at the University of Alberta (or looking after her garden; or introducing students and friends to authentic Greek cuisine; or terrorizing the high seas with her swashbuckling partner in crime as a pirate…) Olga writes poetry.

We are thrilled to present once again these two chapbooks: Radius and Stones. They show enough of Olga’s wide-ranging style and indelible observations to leave us wanting more. Her work has appeared in journals far and wide, and you can find her first two books of poetry at Ekstasis Editions.

Thank-you Olga!

I delicate myself to the Forest of Disappearances

Forest of Disappearances
Shawna Lemay

Shawna Lemay’s Forest of Disappearances was only the second chapbook I’d put together for the Olive Reading Series. I remember fumbling around with substandard page-layout programs and going back and forth to our printer to come up with a finished format that looked good and could be printed with minimal hassle. (The very first chapbook I’d done taught me a lot of what not to do to avoid massive last-minute headaches…. I’m still trying to re-render that one into a tidy web-ready format for uploading. Stay tuned.)

Swanning about just days before Shawna’s reading, trying to get Forest of Disappearances ready for the printer, someone on the editorial board, our proofreader, or I (I can’t remember who) stumbled on what seemed like a typo or the tyranny of an overzealous spell-checking program. The first stanza of Shawna’s “Dragonsblood Red” introduces and returns to the unfaltering refrain, “I dedicate myself,” applied to a burgeoning (after it’s lyric fashion) catalogue of aspects of the dragon—quiet yet powerful stuff. The second, longer, and final stanza appears to carry that refrain forward except in the final proof rather than “I dedicate myself” each instance read, “I delicate myself.” I was nonplussed. I immediately thought somebody’s spell checker had goofed, that it probably was supposed to read, “I dedicate myself” or at least, “I delegate myself,” but certainly not delicate. Delicate is no verb, let alone transitive or reflexive! I assured myself. With precious little time to spare I “corrected” Shawna’s poem without consulting her. For shame…

A hundred chapbooks were printed; the covers, an intricate design drawn by Olive favourite Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst, were done on (dragon’s) blood-red card stock; I was rather pleased with the finished product. It was time to get together for October’s Olive reading at our old venue, Martini’s Bar & Grill.

I remember the “regulars” in the barroom were even more raucous and unsympathetic than usual during our little reading in the adjacent, cosy dining room (a phenomenon we no longer have to abide at our new digs). Shawna—even with mic & PA—was frequently drowned out by the sousy din. I could almost sense her frustration, but my mortification was only complete once it had come to my attention that I’d de-corrected “delicate” on her…for indeed that is what it was supposed to read. Delicate can be a verb too, folks! Perhaps Shawna will explain the significance of this rare turn of phrase.

Shawna has been wonderfully understanding and gracious about my gaff, but I do want to apologise for tampering, and assure Olive poets, past and future, that a very important lesson was learned.

The eChapbook of Shawna’s Forest of Disappearances has been lovingly restored to what the author intended and uploaded for your enjoyment.

Be sure to check out Shawna Lemay’s blog, Capacious Hold-All, for a rich gathering of art, poetry, photos, and observations by a first-rate wordsmith with a keen and peculiar eye for beauty.

Many thanks, Shawna!

E.D. Blodgett’s The Language that Is Theirs

Governor General’s Literary Award winner and Edmonton’s Poet Laureate, E.D. Blodgett, treated us to an evening of unforgetable poetry on April 8, 2008. He read selections old and new. And while copies of some of his Apostrophes, An Ark of Koans, and Elegy were available for sale, he has generously consented to having his Olive chapbook, The Language that Is Theirs, published online for your continued enjoyment.

Many thanks for this!

Hesitation before Bert

I hesitated. For weeks.
Then I was ready, it seemed,
in the middle of a hurricane,
and my mother made her trip to St. Mary’s
in a motor launch.

—Bert Almon, from “Hesitation before Birth”
A Ghost in Waterloo Station
(Brindle & Glass, 2007)

Bert takes his time. He plays the waiting game with his poems, just as he did with his mother boating across the flood to the hospital to be born. Hesitation before birth, or the hot metal of the shot tower frozen on descending into an astonishing analogue for the poem itself. Read Bert Almon’s poems; the climate of waiting pervades. Waiting, or permitting us to wait, for the right image to take hold—”not a classical image, but indelible” he writes of a Yosemite Sam-headed octopus marinating itelf in freshly squeezed lemon juice.

It has been a pretty good year for Bert Almon. After an inordinate wait—even for the landlocked poet “waiting for the gulf stream”—Bert’s much anticipated book came out in the fall of 2007 by Brindle & Glass: A Ghost in Waterloo Station. The wait was worth it.

Then, this April, Bert won the City of Edmonton Book Prize at the 21st Annual Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts. Then we are told he is on the shortlist for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry—the poetry category of the Writer’s Guild of Alberta’s 2008 Alberta Literary Awards—for the same book. (The WGA’s An Evening with the Authors this Thursday at Greenwood’s Books will showcase an impressive roster of authors shortlisted for the Alberta Literary Awards including Bert Almon.)

Now, while Bert’s latest streak of good fortune coincides perfectly with the publication of A Ghost in Waterloo Station last fall, let’s don’t be too hasty in dismissing the not insignificant boost to Bert’s rising star afforded by his performance at The Olive Reading Series…also last fall. Do take the time to check out Waiting for the Gulf Stream and you will begin to see why all the popular and critical attention for A Ghost in Waterloo Station. Cause for hesitation, and further reading.

*flourish* mclennan approaches

thanks rob!

2007–2008 university of alberta writer in residence, rob mclennan is no stranger to the olive. in addition to being a contributor to season one’s valentine’s anthology (online publication pending), rob has flown from in from ottawa to read for the olive on two other occasions.

on november 12, 2002, rob brought us blindness: seven poems for kate; and again in november, 2006, he brought us october…

many thanks to rob for these eChapbooks and for the energy and devotion he’s brought to edmonton’s poetry scene as writer in residence. his factory (west) reading series and alberta, writing blog will continue to flourish after he’s returned to ottawa at the end of this month thanks to their recent adoption by red nettle press publisher, Trisia Eddy.

Jenna Butler’s Winter Ballast now online

Permissions seem to be coming in faster and faster—this might not take the whole summer after all.

Rubicon Press publisher, poet, and Olive editorial member Jenna Butler said I could post the eBook version of Winter Ballast on the blog. This is Olive designer Glenn Robson’s very first chapbook (he had just taken over design duties from yours truly); so once I got the file from Glenn, it was a painless bit of prep work to ready the PDF for uploading. Glenn, this is a terrific-looking chapbook! Cover photo generously provided by Ray Rasmussen. It does what good book design ought to do—NOT DRAW ATTENTION TO ITSELF. It simply dishes up Jenna’s delectable words and images transparently and tastefully. I can’t wait to see what you do this fall, Glenn.

Thanks, Jenna!

The Olive on facebook

Who’s your friend?

If you happen to be one head in facebook’s flock—for better or worse—look us up! There’s bound to be some overlap of content between face & blog; but if you want timely notices of upcoming readings, etc. befriending The Olive on facebook is sure to keep you in the loop. There are also more ways to participate via wall posts, discussion boards, photo & video uploads—and we would love to have your input on our little reading series. Friends?