August Notes
The latest news and notes from those inky fellows at Gaspereau Press, with sundry accounts of their authors’ exploits and their books’ reception out in the wide world.
Author News
Poetry Pause published “Communion, 1985” by Keagan Hawthorne.
A poem from Lindsay Bird’s collection Boom Time (Gaspereau Press, 2019) was recently displayed at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin.
New Releases
Before Combustion by Nicholas Bradley. Arriving at a point in mid-life where stability throws up more questions than answers, the agreeable routines of work, chores and parenthood can both define and disquiet us. As the steady stream of anxieties and distractions—of screens, traffic, information overload, existential dread—sets the day-to-day human world adrift, what meaningful relationship remains possible with the natural world? In these poems, Nicholas Bradley writes of the challenges of living with attentiveness and curiosity in a time of atmospheric rivers and forest fires, of heat domes and landslides, and of the struggle to reconnect our domestic worlds to greater cycles of place and time.
Ultramarine by Harry Thurston. The poems in Ultramarine explore our relationship with the passage of time, both as individuals and as a species. Whether he’s examining the lost world of childhood through the long lens of memory, piecing together random fragments in the broken mosaics of his “tesserae” poems, or wrestling to put the exile, isolation and vulnerability of the global pandemic into a more-than-human-world perspective, Thurston tracks “Light and occult, / the two realms we navigate,” trusting that the persistence of these “frail human signs” might still signal hope and possibility.
Blue River by Wesley Bates and Aldo Leopold. Leopold’s short description of a cow perishing on a sandbar in the Blue River wilderness—a kind of postcard story or prose poem—gives the reader an intimate, matter-of-fact glimpse into the way in which life and death intertwine in the natural world. The directness and economy of Leopold’s prose belie the expansiveness of insight and empathy it evokes. Best known for his book A Sand County Almanac, Leopold (1887–1948) was a forester, teacher and author who helped to establish the modern land conservation movement.
Tiger Poems by Clare Thiessen. The Devil’s Whim Occasional Chapbook Series: No. 52.
Upcoming Events
Sue Goyette will read poems at Lunenburg Bound Books on August 25 at 7 p.m.
Harry Thurston and Cory Lavender will read poems at Lunenburg Bound Books on September 15 at 7 p.m.
Harry Thurston and Allison Smith will read poems at The Whirligig in Shelburne on September 16 at 3 p.m.
Recent Press
The Miramichi Reader reviewed Hard Bargain Road by Susan Haldane.
Rob McLennan reviewed Scorch by Natalie Rice.
The Nuts and Bolts of Writing podcast interviewed Andrew Steeves.
Page Fright interviewed Tom Cull.
Artisanal Writer interviewed Natalie Rice.
The Miramichi Reader interviewed Adam Beardsworth.
Atlantic Books reviewed No Place Like by Adam Beardsworth.