Oded Carmeli

*

Great grand daddy, you sneaky bastard, you

Who are just just you who are just just who are you

Great grand daddy, who did the world war

In the World War?

Great grand daddy, in the World War

The world warred

The Second World War

Great grand daddy, in the World War

Warred the world the second world

And won

Great grand daddy, you sneaky bastard, you

Who are now justified by now you are justified by who

Great grand daddy, the scales are even

Great grand daddy, even the scales are even?

Great grand daddy, even the scales even

Other scales

Which do not even even

A Great grand daddy



Translated by Maayan Eitan.



Oded Carmeli is an Israeli poet, editor and journalist. He is the author of a novel and two collections of poetry, the most recent of which is The Universe Has No Opposition (2010, Achuzat Bayit Books), and the founder and editor of Hava LeHaba poetry magazine. Oded lives in Tel Aviv.



Maayan Eitan was born in 1986 in Jerusalem, Israel. She is a PhD student in the department of comparative literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Pearl Pirie

WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS

I opened the trunk and saw
that against my wishes you are
again keeping river trout
in the basement of our car.

the basin of the underbody tank
thinly swayed with dorsal fins.
towards the light and shallows
of the carpet one trout was stiff.

I thought it was dead. its eyes
were closed. when I lifted it back
to the water, it slowly reanimated,
blinked, then shifted its peduncle.

with a caterpillar's grace it came,
pectoral fins as elbows sauntering
towards me. then we saw on the
thick liquorice lip of the trunk

the bat examining us. no, it was
a Curl-Crested Manucode Bird
of Paradise, his long trachea fluting.
he began to puff his mating hop.

the trout's eyes widened, pulling
back bewildered, commando-crawling
backwards towards seats, windshield,
the sanctity of the all-trout-world.



Pearl Pirie has coordinated the Tree Seed Workshop Series in Ottawa since 2009. been shed bore (Chaudiere, 2010) and Thirsts (Snare, 2011) for completists are complemented by chapbooks published by Corrupt Press, AngelHouse Press, above/ground, and obvious epiphanies press. She runs phafours micropress, which is currently looking for squirrelly poems, in one sense or another. Visit www.pearlpirie.com.

Jason Heroux

HARD WORK CHEERING UP SAD MACHINES

It’s easy to breathe if you’re breathing
breathe all you want the air is too old
               and weak to run away
your life is a gift with your name on it
your life is a word there’s no word for
breathe all you want it’s easy to breathe
               if you’re breathing
the air is an all-you-can-breathe buffet
it’s hard work cheering up sad machines
it’s hard work cleaning a number’s cage
all your heartbeats are amazing staples
               holding you together
birds sing like kettles boiling song-water
your life is a gift with your name on it
and your life is a word there’s no word for
breathe all you want breathe all you want



Jason Heroux is the author of three poetry collections, Memoirs of an Alias, Emergency Hallelujah, and Natural Capital (all from Mansfield Press), and the novella Good Evening, Central Laundromat (Quattro Books). He lives in a house in Kingston. He takes out garbage every Tuesday. His most recent publication is the poetry chapbook In Defence of the Attacked Center Pawn (Puddles of Sky Press).

Jim Smith

EN EL NOMBRE DE DIOS, CESE LA REPRESIÓN SONNET

By Gandalf’s shoes cese la represión!
On alternate Tuesdays cese la represión!
Using French declensions cese la represión!
You who knew me cese la represión!
In black ink only cese la represión!
Loblaws has a sale on cese la represión!
Whoever walks down Atlantic Avenue cese la represión!
Earwigs, raccoons, dumpers of the garbage cans cese la represión!

Ocean liners shaped like dead men cese la represión!
Turning the ignition cese la represión!
My dog loves black dogs cese la represión!
And I love all dogs cese la represión!

Cese la represión is back for another season!
Óscar Romero’s cese la represión!



Jim Smith’s Back Off, Assassin! New and Selected Poems (Mansfield Press) was longlisted for the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Poetry, and hit #7 on the Chapters/Indigo 14 Best Poetry Books for National Poetry Month 2010. During Jim’s visit with antipoet Nicanor Parra in Las Cruces, Chile, in February 2012, Nicanor advised him that translation is “treason.” In 61 years, Smith has published some 15 books and chapbooks of poetry, ran a small literary magazine and press, went to law school late and litigates for a living in Toronto. His most recent book is Happy Birthday, Nicanor Parra (Mansfield Press, 2012).

Sandra Ridley

UP NORTH

It’s absurd what Craig was saying about consortium sycophants who do no wrong
treading crude slicked water—girlie—it’s a wicked situation when the blue sharks
get set back in the Carib once we’ve cut their fins—that wounded way they try to
swim—it’s only a matter of time and it was inevitable our albatross crash-landed
in that landfill some ten thousand kilometres off kilter—having flown up the old
majestic river—it must be some kind of joke—believe me Craig said—that bird
was near death—alone and habitually stressed—he wasn’t optimistic for survival
—we do what we can—refill these feeding tubes—it’s coffee time and the more
I stay away from you the better—of course even I have VERY limited experience
with visitors up north in cottage country but for wolf howls and the occasional
iconic bear suffering from weight loss and water deprivation—all bone and gall
bladder after days with his head stuck in your bait bin—coax him up your pitch
pine and then dispose of him like your disposable plastic SORRY—this is hardly
encouraging—please orchestrate a quick release or place me in a daycare with
the remaining thin-skinned seniors—oh I know we all need some respite so rest
me deep in peace—beloved in loving memory—always in the heart.



Sandra Ridley is the author of two books of poetry. Her first, Fallout, won the 2010 Saskatchewan Book Award for Publishing and was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. Her second, Post-Apothecary, was short-listed for the 2012 ReLit and Archibald Lampman awards. Also in 2012, Ridley won the International Festival Of Authors’ Battle of the Bards and was one of ten poet-participants in the University of Toronto’s Influency Salon. Her third book, The Counting House, is forthcoming from BookThug in 2013.

Jay MillAr

AN OLD JOKE

Stop in Toronto
Knowing you’re alone
Even if you’re sitting there next to the phone.
Why – the phone is obsolete you moron! Get with it!
But feel alone as long as you can, it’s important
With that community attached to your hip
And the ideas you imagine really mattered
Left like breadcrumbs
Scattered for the birds.
Then go out and attack the trees.
They will forgive you, but only because
They never held it against you in the first place.
Not like everyone else.
This is the birthday poem I meant to write for years,
The one in which I look back
After reading barely and widely the works of
Whatever happened to come within reach:
“If you are a poet at forty it is because you are a poet”
And here we are, um, yeah.



Jay MillAr is a Toronto poet, editor, publisher, and virtual bookseller. He is the author of, among others, the small blue (2007), False Maps for Other Creatures (2005), Mycological Studies (2002) and The Ghosts of Jay MillAr (2000), and more recently esp : accumulation sonnets (2009), Other Poems (2010) and Timely Irreverence (2013). MillAr is the shadowy figure behind BookThug and Apollinaire's Bookshoppe. He teaches creative writing and poetics at George Brown College and Toronto New School of Writing.

Peter Norman

TO STAPLES


Staples, I can see you from my home.
Distinct against the dusk, your logo blazes.
Let me list the stuff I see from here:
you (Staples); the steeple of a church;
the naval docks; a grove of highrise banks
(TD and RBC and Scotiabank);
a few hotels and other sundry sights
you might expect in a city of this size.

Staples, you have plied me with supplies
I may not need, or may, which help me work
and sometimes help me in my hobbies too.
You’ve given pens and printer cartridges
and paper by the sheaf. That sort of thing.
Your staff have been so helpful and so svelte.



Peter Norman was born in Vancouver, and has since lived in Victoria, Ottawa, Calgary, Halifax, Dartmouth and now Toronto, where he works as a freelance editor. His first poetry collection, At the Gates of the Theme Park (Mansfield Press, 2010), was a finalist for the Trillium Poetry Book Award.