National Poetry Month : rob mclennan,

I live somewhere imaginary

The road of what might lead to. Excess, wisdom. Echo. Clear, as a bell. Fortified, a fingertip. Says: after, not long. I repeat myself. Gutter, margin. Push back the curtain. A small speck. Dust, through the door-frame. Widows, orphans. Where the river bends. Behind etymology. Real estate, hides. The sound a house makes. I repeat myself. An older allegory suggests. The poem begins: when you are born. In the distance, I can hear water.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His post recent titles include the poetry collection A perimeter (New Star Books, 2016), and the forthcoming How the alphabet was made (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018) and Household items (Salmon Poetry, 2018). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Christine McNair), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). He is “Interviews Editor” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse, a former contributor to the Ploughshares blog, editor of my (small press) writing day, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

National Poetry Month : Chris Johnson

Someone else drive

there’s uncertainty among any gathering
warnings to heed, history to repeat

& here with a subway behind construction

goes without saying, we’ll be late

in hindrances               in conveniences

people are just about everywhere

sure, just about, certainly on purpose

darkness is

always a tough face to wake up to

the cat who knocks a glass off

a table, strange headlights

searching bedroom ceilings

otherwise probably no reason to

worry, just like home with doors

& windows locked, probably, right

securely

                        surely

                                                skintight

matchwood & accidental

imagination is a planned descent

coordinating the world better than

friends on their first road trip

everything here on out is noone’s fault

Chris Johnson [photo credit: Jesse Pajuäär] works as the Managing Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. In March 2018 he performed in “Messagio Galores takes XV” with Quatuor Gualuor. His poetry has appeared in Bad Nudes, Hart House Review, and in his chapbook Listen, Partisan! published by Frog Hollow Press.

National Poetry Month : Alyssa Bridgman,

Raindrops Dim

Imagine the cool rain tracing down the dark glass

the wind wending through twigs that sway in breathy air 

Imagine the orange glow of the lamplight 

raindrops dim like stars nestled behind clouds

This silent storm sings you to sleep

treetop symphony swaying to the tune 

Let the cold glass soothe your cheek

and breathe in the dampened beat

Sleep lies not in silent skies

Alyssa Bridgman is an English student at Simon Fraser University. Her main area of focus is nineteenth-century American literature, specifically the manuscript poems of Emily Dickinson. Her debut chapbook, HEDGE, was recently published by above/ground press (2017). 

National Poetry Month : Jenna Jarvis,

Kukulkan take the wheel

there's duplicity in the government

warning against chicken buses

someplace with decommissioned rails only

understated threat of violence

in human roadblocks               mechanical strikes

crowded turnoffs                     equilibrium of nights

collisions likewise

furtive so

                        light

godbombs to wake him

the dogs who bark

roosters holler until

they realize a firecracker

means persistent darkness

otherwise no antimalarial lucidity

just home and luxury a nourishing galaxy

of flakes on an aquarium surface

dusty skinlike

mineral

                        worm meal

                                                bloodmeal & ash

concrete & deliberate

as the descent of the serpent itself

quicksilver eating the world before

reascent or reagent cold

comfort knowing the metal scent is

sebaceous hence our own

                                                fault

           

This poem incorporates text from the WikiTravel Page for Xela, located at http://wikitravel.org/en/Quetzaltenango.

Jenna Jarvis was born in Ottawa and lives in Kaohsiung. Her writing has appeared in Word and Colour, The Salvage, Sea Foam, and other digital and print publications. Her poem "syndical not synecdochal" secured an honourable mention for The Puritan's 2014 Thomas Morton Prize, and she was the winner of the 2012 John Newlove Poetry Award, as well as Carleton University's 2011 George Johnston Poetry Award . Her third chapbook, year of pulses, is forthcoming from above/ground press.

National Poetry Month : Michael Dennis,

I didn’t fire anyone but I don’t want her to come back

I took the cowards way out when I let her go

we had a woman who would come and clean our house

when she phoned today I told her not to come here anymore

I told her that we were going to clean our own house

but what I didn’t say

was that I was angry

when she drank my wife’s

after work cache of cider

both cans

and she, the cleaning woman, left early, as usual

without washing the stove top

without cleaning the kitchen floor

I’d been thinking our liquor supply was dwindling

but I’d put it down to drunken mice

and bad memory

but not a drop has gone missing

since last she was here

Michael Dennis [photo credit: John W. MacDonald] is a poet from Ottawa, Ontario. He has published seven books of poetry and nearly twenty chapbooks, and has been widely published in Canadian literary magazines and journals. His latest title is a selected poems, Bad Engine (Anvil), edited by Stuart Ross. For the last three years Dennis has been the labour behind “Today’s book of poetry” a regular blog where Dennis talks about books of poetry he likes. Dennis has posted over 450 blogs/reviews of Canadian and American small press poetry. These days he can be found in Vanier, keeping his laneway clean.