…in case you’ve not heard, Interruptions in Glass has been shortlisted for two Saskatchewan Book Awards, the Award for Poetryand the Regina Book Award. And, as if being shortlisted with two GG nominated fiction writers such as Sandra Birdsell and Dianne Warren isn’t enough, I’m in amongst some seasoned veterans of poetry such as Dave Margoshes and Don Kerr. For me the greatest satisfaction is just being shortlisted.

And the SBA will be featuring poems by the shortlisted poetry books, so keep your eyes on the SBA facebook page. Update: In order to read the poems, you must join the SBA FB group!!

And here’s a link to a smallish review; it is American (you must scroll to the end of the poetry reviews to see it), and short, but positive, which is never a bad thing!!

And one question for you the general masses that may or may not be reading me any more. Has any contemporary Canadian female  poet ever been labelled as an “upstart?”

…again with Ariel Gordon! First we storm the capital–Ottawa October 5, then we take Toronto Oct. 7! We will be reading with local poets: Christine McNair, Pearl Pirie, Damian Rogers, and Melanie Janisse.

Ottawa, 7:30 -9pm

Location: Collected Works Bookstore

1224 Wellington St. w.

Do come! It’ll be great fun!
…
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Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. She has two chapbooks to her credit, The navel gaze (Palimpsest Press) and Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999 (Rubicon Press), and this spring, Palimpsest published her first full-length poetry collection, Hump. She recently won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer at the Manitoba Book Awards. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.

Christine McNair’s work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, ditchpoetry.com, CV2, the Bywords Quarterly Journal, Descant and a few other places. Her poems were featured in Dalhousie Blues, a collaborative project with Sean Moreland, Jamie Bradley and Caleb JW Brasset (ex-hubris press, 2009). Her work was also included in the Dinosaur Porn (Ferno House, 2010) and Rogue Stimulus (Mansfield Press, 2010) anthologies. She is one of the hosts of CKCU’s Literary Landscapes program and works as a book doctor in Ottawa.

Ottawa poet Pearl Pirie’s been shed bore (Chaudiere Books, 2010), her first trade poetry collection, follows years of a small voice gaining in strength, and in volume, through so much subtle activity and quiet disconnect that by the time she was noticed, she was already everywhere, and already a confident voice. Her chapbooks include over my dead corpus (AngelHouse, 2010) and boathouse (above/ground, 2008). She blogs at pesbo, Humanyms, and a few other places. Poems have appeared thru dandelion, ditch, PRECIPICe, Dusie, 17 Seconds, 1cent, and Ottawater.

Toronto, 7:30-11pm

Location: Holy Oak Cafe

1241 Bloor St. W.

Damian Rogers was born and raised in suburban Detroit. She has published poems in various North American magazines, including Brick, The Walrus, Matrix, Maisonneuve, and MoonLit. Her first collection, Paper Radio, came out with ECW Press in October 2009 and was nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Rogers lives in Toronto.

Melanie Janisse is a native of Windsor, Ontario. She holds degrees Communications from Concordia University and Visual Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Now a resident of Toronto, Melanie keeps active as a visual artist, poet, designer and shop owner. Orioles at the Oranges is her first collection of poetry.

Many thanks to the League of Canadian Poets, Palimpsest Press, and Coteau Books, who have enabled our swanning about the country, books in hand.