"Up Since 5:30, down since 1959"

OK, by popular demand (that's you, Anne), here's the entirety of my Hunkamooga column that caught the eye of the dude from the New York Times Book Review. It appeared in the spring 2008 issue of the Vancouver-based magazine sub-Terrain (which everyone should subscribe to).

HUNKAMOOGA

by Stuart Ross

Up since 5:30, down since 1959

Are all writers as negative and self-loathing as me? Is there even a single writer with a sunny disposition who greets the morning, pressing her face into the flood of sunlight that gushes through her bedroom window, and chirps, “Oh, glorious life! I can’t wait to write!”

Me, I wake up slowly, groggily, reluctantly, eyes burning, always far too early, no matter what insomnia-driven time I get to sleep, and within seconds there’s the foggy realization of who I am and the sorry circumstances of my life, and I feel despondency set in. And while it’s true I don’t live in a lean-to made of rusting, battered automobile hoods in a garbage dump on the outskirts of Managua, I still somehow feel justified in whining. I lie on my back on my book- and paper-strewn bed and stare at the cobwebs on my ceiling and quietly murmur, “I can’t wait to see how I avoid writing today. I’m more than halfway through my life and I haven’t accomplished a goddamn thing.”

Now, it can be scientifically determined that I have had five full-length poetry collections published, a book each of short stories and personal essays, a couple of collaborative novellas, and a heap of chapbooks. My last poetry book, I Cut My Finger, received rave reviews across the board, including in The Globe & Mail and The Toronto Star. Also, the excellent Montreal poet Jason Camlot, on taking the helm of a new imprint of DC Books called Punchy Poetry, contacted me and said he wanted the first title he put out to be by me. I’d just had a book out, its corpse not even cold yet, but I rustled together an insane new manuscript called Dead Cars in Managua, and Jason fell for it.

But this isn’t enough to make me love myself.

A cursory investigation would also show that over the past year and a bit, I have had the opportunity to edit books by four of my poetry heroes — guys who shook my world when I was real young, and whose works have been vital to me ever since. Through my own Proper Tales Press, I published If I Were You, a collection of poems Ron Padgett wrote collaboratively with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Ted Berrigan, and James Schuyler. Also through Tales, I put out the chapbook Concrete Sky, 15 haiku all beginning with the same line, by Tom Walmsley, with an assist by Michael Healey’s liver. Through Insomniac Press, I edited and introduced a 300-plus-page collection called Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden, which may be the best book in the history of Canadian poetry. In fact, it is one of three books short-listed for the Canadian 2008 Griffin Poetry Award, and if it wins, Dave might pay for my next order of French fries at Legends. Most recently, as poetry editor for Mansfield Press, I edited a book called Dog, written by poets Joe Rosenblatt and Catherine Owen, based on photos by Karen Moe. Even though Joe flipped through about 50 of my poems, back when I was in high school, and muttered “Nothing worth salvaging here,” he is a hero of mine, and now I’ve edited one of his books.
But this isn’t enough, either.

Here are two other things that just aren’t enough. When the current coordinators of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair (an institution I co-founded a couple of decades ago) hired a lawyer to threaten me with a defamation suit because they didn’t like my harsh but constructive criticism of the [CENSORED] job they did coordinating the fair, I received scores of letters of support, and they, reportedly, received upward of a hundred letters of condemnation; I mean, what the hell are a couple of writers doing threatening another writer with a defamation suit? Good fucking gawd. Anyway, I’ve had so many people try to comfort me by saying stuff along the lines of, “Look, neither of them will ever write a poem as good as your worst poem.” And while that may be true, it isn’t really the point.

Oh yeah — the other thing. My friend Ben Walker, who is a brilliant British singer/songwriter and also the step-grandson of Bertrand Russell, recorded a whole CD worth of songs he built around my poems. He and I jointly released it as An Orphan’s Song: Ben Walker Sings Stuart Ross (send me a 20 and I’ll send you one). It was perhaps the greatest compliment my poetry has ever been paid.

But it’s still not enough to make me greet the morning with burbling enthusiasm.

If this sounds like the kind of inventory one compiles before one kills oneself, you’re in no such luck. You wish I’d abandon this last page of sub-Terrain so that Karen Connelly could take over and write about far more Important Things, but you’ll have to pry this page from my cold dead hands. Not that I’m going to kill myself, mind you. I don’t have the heart to sentence anyone to the task of dealing with the archaeological morass that is my apartment. Plus, I’ll do everything in my power — including not killing myself — to stop Karen Connelly from taking over this page.

When I moan about my sorry personal life, about the hurt I’ve caused, about the endless regrets I have, the lack of family, the chaos of my apartment (my entire apartment looks like the walk-in closet of some lunatic who has kept clippings of every newspaper article that contained the word “the” for 40 years) — when I moan about this stuff, my spectacular friends — and my friends are spectacular, I’m blessed that way — tell me I’m a good guy, and a good writer, and I inspire lots of other writers, and also I don’t live in a garbage dump in Central America.

But this isn’t enough. I’d give up the whole writing thing in exchange for a life of serenity and self-acceptance.


Stuart Ross is a Toronto writer whose GP will prescribe only half the usual dose of Wellbutrin. His (Stuart’s, not his GP’s) most recent book is Dead Cars in Managua (DC Books). You can write him at hunkamooga@sympatico.ca and visit his website, hunkamooga.com.

Over and out.

En Why Tea

My car got stolen on Sunday night, which put everything out of whack on what was supposed to be a very organizedly busy week. I had meant to go to the pre-reading walk around High Park at Monday's Scream, but showed up late, saying, "I missed the walk because my car got stolen."

I also meant to say on Monday: Happy birthday, Dana! But, like I say, my car got stolen and I got distracted.

Anvil wrote me today to let me know my Hunkamooga column in sub-Terrain got the nod from the New York Times. This astounds me. It's right here.

My car was found on Tuesday morning. Instead of taking the bus up to Sheppard, these fuckers smashed the passenger window, stole my CD changer, jammed a screwdriver in the ignition and took my car. I really gotta get rid of that car. The police have been might nice, and so has the insurance company. Really.

This summer I've been editing a few books for Mansfield's fall list: Emergency Hallelujah, by Jason Heroux, and Flutter, by Alice Burdick. I am so goddamn excited about these books. Jason and Alice have been amazing to work with. Now I'm digging into David McFadden's Be Calm, Honey, a big collection of recent sonnets. David closed the Scream Mainstage on Monday night, after a mostly really good lineup of poets, fictioneers, glossarists, and non-fickers. He did a very brave thing: he read just one poem. A 15-parter. That takes guts, because if you embark on such a project and it's tanking, you just gotta keep going. But he didn't tank: he got a great response. I've really been enjoying watching young people get dazzled by Dave's readings over the past few months, because poets of his generation get overlooked far too often. And David is the real thing. The last set, which is just about all I caught, also featured excellent readings from Sina Queyras and Dani Couture.

In my freelance life, I also recently edited a poetry book by a young writer named Asher Ghaffar. It's called Wasps in a Golden Dream Hum a Strange Music, and Michael Holmes at ECW is putting it out this fall. As personal policy, I rarely discuss freelance jobs here on Bloggamooga, but this is another extremely exciting book: really inventive, provocative, and often beautiful. Asher was also a blast to work with.

More soon. I'm gonna go smoke a NYT cigar.

Over and out.

"I'm Stuart Ross and I approve this poet"

So much. So much.

The good news: I got shortlisted in the poetry category for the ReLit Prize, which goes to Canadian books published by independent presses. Here's the list:

The Shovel, Colin Browne (Talonbooks)
All Things Said & Done, Marita Dachsel (Caitlin)
AEthel, Donato Mancini (New Star)
Sitcom, David McGimpsey (Coach House)
Two Hemispheres, Nadine McInnis (Brick)
I Cut My Finger, Stuart Ross (Anvil)
Soft Geography, Gillian Wigmore (Caitlin)


I have my cut fingers crossed. The prize is a nifty ring that you can spell words with.

The other week I read at the Alumni Night of the Scream Festival, at Supermarket in Kensington Market. It was an odd little conceit: a bunch of us, um, elder writers were to read from the work of a younger writer, sorta passing the torch on to the next generation. I chose to read the poetry of Evie Christie, who I really admire and whose work bears absolutely no resemblance to my own. Of course, waited till the last minute to make my choices: a few poems from her book, Gutted, and a couple of newer poems, which she supplied me with.

Now, this "next generation" thing was a little odd, because, for example, Priscila Uppal, who is 33 or 34 years old, read from the work of a 30-year-old poet. The other odd thing: well, I'd've just liked to hear the chosen poets read their own works! You know, Evie Christie could've gone up there and read her poems, and then I could say, "I'm Stuart Ross and I approve this poet."

But, really, I think of most poets whose work I like as my peers, age and publication history aside. Anyway, I sort of wondered how I might read her poems: I practised them aloud at home a couple times, just to make sure I could pronounce everything. I figured I'd read them really straight, just intone them. But when I got up to the stage, I decided to read them as if they were my own poems, which is to say, I read them in the voice of someone who's a few grades behind in school. It felt really neat to do that, to let my poems' persona find himself somewhere in Evie's poems.

The night turned out pretty neat, but I do regret not pointing her out from the stage and asking her to stand up, so people could see who wrote the damn things. In fact, if the Scream does this again, I'd suggest that the host point out all the young writers and maybe corral them onto the stage. And the whole idea of "young" is curious: I'd redefine that to mean "young" in terms of the number of years one's been writing. So that 60-year-old young poets could be represented too.

A few days earlier, I helped celebrate the reopening of This Ain't the Rosedale Library on Nassau Street, also in the Market. It was a really beautiful event. Took place on a Pedestrian Sunday, so the Market was packed, and Charlie and Jesse and Dan set up a bunch of chairs out front of the store, and a microphone, and the lineup of writers and musicans stretched from mid-afternoon to about 8 pm. I read some poems, plus the story "Open Windows," from Henry Kafka, which is nice to read on a sweltering day. And it was sweltering. Steve Venright also read, and Pam Stewart, and Claudia Dey, good readings all. The celebration was kicked off with a great set by Bob Snider, who I'd never seen before. He's hilarious. And later on Six Heads did their weird and atmospheric thing, which is always fascinating.

One great bonus was that Tara Azzopardi showed up. Haven't seen her in ages. She's writing, and making art, and she's in a band that plays Appalachian music. A lot of other great pals were there, too. And James and Rick (but not Rick James) from This Ain't's former Church Street location came too. Yay!

More later.

Over and out.

POSSIBLE TREES: A CENTO

POSSIBLE TREES: A CENTO

In the trembling afternoon
my ovaries
wriggling in blue spooky light.
I speak as one whose filth
sucks up every breath
that moves through the market
up near the ceiling.
But when I tried to imagine
possible trees, trees dark to themselves,
the video years made us brittle.
Maybe I should watch the blossoms
for half a century
with hazelnut eyes —
the tree moved again!
But what concerns me most is not so much the smoke,
in dungarees, a ski jacket and a hard hat,
as the tulip,
swinging in the hammock of the Internet.


25 May 2008
Toronto

Opinion! Further words on the Small Press Book Fair, on fair comment, and on failure of imagination

Funny, I was sitting down to write about the Small Press Book Fair stuff today, given that it's the three-week anniversary of the last installment of the event, and Paul Vermeersch sent me a link to an article in today's Globe.

As someone who was threatened with a spurious (in my opinion) defamation lawsuit some months ago, by Myna Wallin and Halli Villegas, current coordinators of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, this was of particular interest to me. H&M didn't like my criticism of how they ran the fall fair, and of their reaction to criticism from the community, and they didn't like my suggestion, addressed to them and their board and a few past fair coordinators, that they ought to step down. They hired a lawyer to threaten me with various financial penalties if I didn't erase his clients' names from my blog, retract various (unspecified) statements I'd made, and stop defaming his clients.

I erased nothing from my blog, retracted nothing, and had no problem stopping defaming his clients, because I don't believe I had ever defamed them in the first place. As someone wrote on some other blog or listserv, simply saying that someone has defamed you doesn't make it so.

But I — and scores of other members of the small-press community — were deeply angered that people receiving public money to run a fair devoted to literature and free expression would threaten another writer with such a suit.

So, as much I still wouldn't be able to afford a swing through the courts, I was encouraged to see Kirk Makin's article in the June 28 Globe & Mail, "9-0 ruling modernizes defence of fair comment: Controversial radio host Mair didn't defame Christian-values advocate on book-banning, court says, setting terms for 'honest belief'." Here are some pertinent extracts:

The media should not live in constant fear of facing a libel suit every time a provocative commentary is published or broadcast, the Supreme Court of Canada said yesterday in a major ruling won by controversial Vancouver radio broadcaster Rafe Mair.

In a 9-0 decision that modernizes the defence of fair comment, the court found that Mr. Mair did not defame Christian-values advocate Kari Simpson when he denounced her stand on a book-banning controversy.

"An individual's reputation is not to be treated as regrettable but unavoidable roadkill on the highway of public controversy, but nor should an overly solicitous regard for personal reputation be permitted to 'chill' freewheeling debate on matters of public interest," Mr. Justice Ian Binnie said.

Judge Binnie said that the key to a defence of honest belief - particularly in an era when extravagant overstatement is common - should lie in whether an honest person could have held the same opinion.

Brian MacLeod Rogers, a lawyer who represented a coalition of media organizations in the appeal, said that the ruling "clarifies and strengthens a defence that had fallen into murky depths and had become too unreliable to be counted on when most needed."

Judge Binnie expressed a concern that issues of public interest could go unreported "because publishers fear the ballooning cost and disruption of defending a defamation action. ... Public controversy can be a rough trade, and the law needs to accommodate its requirements."

The legal tests the court set out to determine "honest belief" include:

The comment must be on a matter of public interest.

It must be based on fact.

Although it can include inferences of fact, the comment must be recognizable as comment.

It must be capable of satisfying the question: Could any person honestly express that opinion on the proved facts?

What I was originally going to write here today was in response to an article that appeared in the National Post the day of the fair. Here's what really made me sigh in despair: "Says Villegas: 'I don't know if we actually could do anything differently than we did.'"

Jean-Paul Sartre would be shaking his head. We are different from armadillos and chimps in that we do have the power — in fact, the responsibility — to make our own choices. Here are some things they could have done differently:

• not attacked me personally when I criticized their running of the fair and suggested ways to improve it

• not taken my criticism as a personal attack

• formed a board that didn't consist simply of themselves and three close associates, but one inclusive enough to draw in at least one or two people who had a deep history of the fair, such as Beth Follett or Maggie Helwig

• chosen not to hire a lawyer to threaten me with a defamation suit

• held an open meeting with the small-press community when they realized it wasn't just me who was unhappy

• invited me and other members of their constituency to speak before the board

• withdrawn their accusations of defamation, as I requested, when there was talk of bringing in a mediator or conciliator (I refused to go into any discussions with a legal threat hanging over my head)

• thanked me publicly for all the valuable suggestions I made on my blog, given that they obviously used those suggestions as a template when organizing the next fair

And, perhaps most simply, after they'd read my initial blog entry, they could have said: "Thanks for the input, Stuart. We'll take it into consideration for the next fair." And that would have been that.

We're all human, and we all sometimes respond rashly to things said, or don't stop to think before we speak, or take things personally that weren't meant personally. But along the way, there are opportunities to try to right our wrongs, admit our shortcomings, reach out and communicate in a sincere fashion. I speak as someone who has fucked up deeply at times, and when I felt I was wrong, I've done my best to admit it and to make amends.

I don't know how the spring fair went. I wasn't there, and many other long-time participants chose not to go. One who did turn up said he regretted it. Many of those who have shopped at the fair for years chose not to go. It's a profound loss for me as a writer and publisher, not to mention as a founder of the event, but staying away from this fair was a choice I made on principle. It's a tough enough life being a Canadian writer; we're already under implicit attack from so many other facets of the society we live in.

I don't think I have anything further to say on the topic.

So, on to other things.

Over and out.

Frank O'Hara's birthday today, This Ain't reopens on Sunday and the Scream

Today would be Frank O'Hara's 82nd birthday. He was born Francis Russell O'Hara on June 27, 1926. Hey, that's the same year my dad was born! But Frank died on July 25, 1966, on Fire Island. He wrote an awful lot of truly fantastic poems.

Last year, on John Ashbery's 80th birthday, Carl Wilson, Paul Vermeersch, Erik Rutherford and I met at Clinton's to share our favourite Ashbery poems, turning Clinton's into a temporary Cedar Tavern, the New York hangout of poets and artists in the 50s and 60s. Today, I'm planting myself at Clinton's again, from 2 to 5 pm, with a little stack of O'Hara books. Others may turn up, Frank poems in hand. Or maybe it'll just be me. The suspense is palpable.

On Sunday, my favourite indie bookstore, This Ain't the Rosedale Library, is celebrating its reopening in Kensington Market, at 86 Nassau Street. The new location is small but the abbreviated This Ain't crew are making great use of the space. There will be readings and live music outside the shop, and I'm really pleased to be part of it, since I've been a customer of since the store opened nearly three decades ago on Queen Street East. Here's the tentative schedule:

3:30 - singer/songwriter, busker, and now author (with two books on songwriting and performing from Gaspereau Press) Bob Snider.
4:00 - Stuart Ross, the author, most recently, of two excellent poetry collections I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press) and Dead Cars in Managua (DC Books).
4:30 - Steve Venright, author of post-surrealist
masterworks Spiral Agitator (Coach House) and Floors of Enduring Beauty (Mansfield Press).
5:00 - Saxophonist Richard Underhill will provide a musical interlude
5:30 - Pamela Stewart, self-described 'literary proctologist', former private detective, and author of the story collection Elysium (Anvil Press)
6:00 - playwright and now author of her first novel, Stunt (Coach House), Claudia Dey
The evening will wrap up with live music from Nifty and Rosazia

I'll be reading from my most recent book, Dead Cars in Managua, plus a bunch of new poems, including some from a batch I unearthed yesterday (always great to stumble on poems you forgot you wrote!). This Ain't, by the way, is the only retail outlet in Toronto that sells the CD An Orphan's Song: Ben Walker Sings Stuart Ross.

Next Thursday, I help kick off this year's Scream Festival. I'm taking part in something called Best Practices: The Scream Alumni Night, starting at 8 pm at Supermarket, 68 Augusta. Here's how it'll work: Priscilla Uppal, Kevin Connolly, Emily Schultz, Ken Babstock and I each read from the work of a younger Toronto poet whose stuff we really like. I'll be reading from the published and new poems of Evie Christie. That'll be an interesting challenge, because Evie's poems are pretty specifically written in a woman's voice. Details about that event and the rest of the festival are right here.

Lots more to talk about. I'll save it for later.

Over and out.

Owen

OWEN JAY ROSS, 1954-2000

I remember when Owen raced out the front door to get a kid who had bullied me back when we lived on Pannahill Road.

I remember how excited Owen got when he talked about coaching little-league baseball. That was his greatest pleasure.

I remember, at his funeral, all these kids showing up wearing baseball uniforms. The rabbi had never seen anything like that before.

I remember Owen disappearing for as much as a year at a time, but we were always back to being family when he showed up again.

I remember Owen always saying "Out" in response to "Where are you going?"

I remember Owen lurching towards me, dragging his feet along the carpet in the den, his finger held out as he threatened to give me a shock on the nose.

I remember watching wrestling with Owen and Grandpa: the Fabulous Kangaroos, the Love Brothers, Crybaby Cannon, Haystack Calhoun, Lord Athol Layton, Dewey Robertson (my favourite), and the Sheik and Abdulla Farouk. When the Sheik appeared on the screen, Grandpa would spit.

I remember Owen and I betting pennies on the horse races — the trots and the flats — and checking the results in the Star every day. Later, Owen owned a horse, but it didn't do real well at the track.

I remember Owen making himself a salami sandwich at midnight and how much care he took in the slicing.

I remember that Owen did not smoke and did not drink and did not ever try drugs.

I remember getting lost at the synagogue and wandering home on the day of Owen's bar mitzvah.

I remember, when our mom died, Owen hugging me, a rare occurrence when we were adults.

I remember Owen giving me a mug with a picture of his race horse on it, perhaps the only gift from him I still have. Today I will drink my morning tea from it.

Miss you, Owen.

xo

Air & Page

The air poets are getting restless. They expel their poems into the air, and the poems dissipate instantly. The air poets get no respect.

The page poets are dinosaurs, pulling their tired carcasses across the uncaring landscape.

Putting a poem on a page doesn't make it a good poem. Shouting a poem at an audience doesn't make it a good poem. Writing or shouting a poem from the heart doesn't make it a good poem. Pontificating makes for bad poetry. Facile rhymes make for bad poetry. Most of what is put on the page is bad poetry.

Anyway, a reporter from something called The Town Crier wanted to interview me a few weeks back for an article she was doing on air poetry (she calls it "spoken word" — as if one might speak something other than a word). I told her I would only be interviewed in writing. She sent me a list of questions. I sent her my answers. The article was published. Only my "outrageous" comments were used. But here's the entire exchange:

What do you think of spoken word/slam poetry?

I think most poetry is awful, and I think a much higher proportion of spoken word/slam poetry isn't good poetry. Mostly I find the work simplistic, badly rhymed, cliché-ridden, didactic and devoid of imagery. I find the performances gushing with ego and self-righteousness. I find the performances often aggressive and competitive.

You know, I guess some people like it, so I'm glad they have something they like. But with maybe one or two exceptions, I can't stand the stuff. And I'm sure most of its practitioners have no interest in my work, either.

Do you feel/believe it is a legitimate art form — on par with traditional forms of poetry?

Sure, it's an art form. Or it's something. But it's not poetry. Just as song lyrics are not poetry. Is it a form "on par" with poetry? I prefer the potential of poetry as a form.

Are you involved in Toronto's spoken word scene? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Nope. I guess I'm not involved because I'm not a spoken worder. Why would I be involved? I also don't want to be involved in basketball, poker, and wine-tasting.

Where do you see the scene in the future?

I don't think much about its future.

I spoke with David Silverberg, founder of Toronto Poetry Slam and editor of Mic Check, a new anthology of spoken word in Canada. He believes spoken word is the truest form of poetry, as the performance aspect of it immediately reaches a listener as opposed to poetry that's solely published on paper. Do you agree/disagree?

What's Dave talking about? When you read something on the page, it also reaches you immediately. In fact, with books, the poet doesn't have to be physically present to deliver the goods. With spoken word, the performer's reach is limited to those in his/her physical presence. Books can travel all over the world much more cheaply than a human. The work can exist outside the physical presence of its creator.

Dave's a good guy, and I applaud his commitment to the form that is his passion, but calling spoken word the "truest" form — what the hell does that even mean? Is it "truer" than Shakespeare, Ashbery, Dickinson, Whitman, Blake, Lynn Crosbie, Al Purdy, bpNichol?

Why are so many spoken worders concerned with being taken seriously outside their own circles?

Why do you think spoken word/slam poetry gets a bad rap? Why isn't it respected?

Well, performance aside, most of it is terrible writing. Most of it seems only to be influenced by other spoken word/slam. I rarely see evidence that any of its performers have read any contemporary poetry. I know that David Silverberg has, because he used to run a reading series where spoken word was only one element, and yet he doesn't list a single poet in the Favourite Books section of his Facebook page.

But isn't it respected? It's respected by those who exist in its scene. Like anything else.

Please let me know if I've missed any questions.

I think it's important to frame my statements with the fact that I am an extremely popular public reader of my poetry and I love doing readings, but I believe poetry lives or dies on the page. I have six perfect-bound books of poetry out there, plus dozens of chapbooks. It's not essential that I ever do another reading, but it's essential for me that I publish again.

I'm not getting into some big goddamn thing in the comments section below, so don't even try. This is my living room. I don't even particularly care about this issue. There are more important things at hand.

Over and out.