Argo Bookshop

Sunday, January 22nd @ 7PM!

Norm Sibum

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Richard Greene

Richard Greene, winner of the 2010 Governor General’s award for English language poetry for his collection Boxing the Compass, will be visiting from Cobourg, Ontario to give a reading at the Argo. Alongside Greene, we’ll have the prolific Norm Sibum, author of more than 15 (that number again, 15+!) poetry collections published in Canada and England.

People, the opportunity to hear from writers as esteemed as Greene & Sibum is too good to pass up:

Aside from his work as a poet, Richard Greene is a biographer, having been commissioned by Time Warner to write a biography of the British poet Edith Sitwell; he’s a critic and professor of English Literature at the University of Toronto; he is the editor of Graham Greene: A Life in Letters (2007), and is a contributing editor to Books in Canada with reviews of contemporary poetry published in numerous journals in Canada and abroad! Check out his Wiki page here (if the blackout is over by now…), and a new poem by Greene here, at the Encore Literary Magazine.

Here’s an excerpt from Greene’s Boxing the Compass (the spacing of which is inaccurate, but the words!…):

“Great-grandfather,
whaler out of Nantucket,
the harder sort
who threw the harpoon,
drew warm blood,
made huge death on the open sea.

Came home one year
to find his land fenced
for ecclesiastical uses,
tore it all down,
told the priest to go to hell,
and would do his own praying
after that.”

Now, Norm Sibum: Born in Oberammergau, Germany in 1947, Norm has grown and lived in Germany, Alaska, Missouri, Utah and Washinton. Since 1994, he’s called Montreal home. Founder of the Vancouver Review in 1989 alongside Bruce Serafin, winner of the QWF’s A.M. Klein Award for Poetry for his collection Girls and Handsome Dogs (Porcupine’s Quill, 2002) and author of The Pangborn Defence (Biblioasis 2008) which was short-listed for the same award, Norm has many, many books acting as testament to the devotion of his craft: Check out his CV on his website. For a glance at his work as of late, Norm writes a daily blog entitled Ephemeris, with topics spanning across the literary, the everyday, the historical and political. Here’s one piece from Norm’s Gardens of Interregnum, Canto 20.

I particularly like this line of Norm’s from Girls and Handsome Dogs…

“I do not know what governs / Our business in this life. / I suspect a tin god speaks / For the old sovereignty of chance.”

Doors @ 7, the show starts shortly after that time.

Free for all, refreshments to be served, and inspiring times to be had.

Hope to see you there!

Monday, January 16th!:

Poets Zachariah Wells, Kasper Hartman, John Eric Bennett and Jesse Eckerlin will be the featured writers for the Argo’s second Featured Reading Series.

Zach has been so gracious as to take time from freelancing, editing and acting as a passenger train attendant in Halifax to drop in and… read from his latest book of poems, Track & Trace. It’s a great collection of poems based around our notions of legacy and nature, and including personal work of a sincere and visceral quality. He is also the author of the poetry collection Unsettled, and editor of both Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets and The Essential Kenneth Leslie. Originally from PEI, he has lived in many parts of the country, including Montreal. Check out Argo co-owner Jesse Eckerlin’s interview with Zach on the subject of his latest book here… Oh, and here’s Zach’s blog.

Preceding Zach, there’s Kasper Hartman, recent first place winner of the QWF’s Quebec Writing Competition for his short story Someone Has to Save Us From This, which is available to read on Maisonneuve magazine’s website.  Aside from his prose and poetry, he is a Montreal-based translator, and editor of the Encore Literary Magazine. Apparently, he is an extraordinary poker player.

As for our emerging introductory poets, firstly we’ll have John Eric Bennett, a good friend of the Argo. An undergraduate student at Concordia University, Eric has been living and writing in Montreal for the last five years, calling London, Ontario home before that. For now, we’re wishing him the best of luck to see his work in print soon, but we think it fantastic enough to kick off the night.

We’ll also have Jesse Eckerlin, co-owner of the Argo, read some of his work as well. Aside from his current work in poetry (with pieces published in Existere Magazine, killauthor, Willowswept Review), reviews and editing for our very own Argo Press (more on that later), he writes for his blog Rusty Allegations and has forthcoming work/work appearing in The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, and the Wascana Review.

Now, as per usual:

The reading is free and open to all.
Doors @ 8PM, and the reading will begin shortly afterwards.
Space is limited, so we stress you come on time if you’d like a place to sit.

Coffee, tea, and those little cookies with red gelatin sugar-coated centres will be served.

For more information, please call: 514-931-3442

ps. If you can’t make it, invite your friends!

Hello y’all,

Your friendly neighbourhood bookstore would like to remind you and everyone you know to forget whatever academic, familial and/or professional obligations you may have on January 11th @ 8PM, because the Argo Open Mic is back up and running for its second reading! We hope to see old faces alongside new ones; November’s turn-out was so spectacular, we here at the Argo hope to not just match the last attendance rate, but double it! We want people hanging off the shelves! Climbing on top of each other! Pressing against the display window, all to get an ear-and-eyeful of great local emerging and professional authors!

So, let’s get some orderly anarchy in motion. Single-file, please: Bring your poetry, your prose, your scripts and screenplays, your essays and lectures, your musical talent. Bring your best, bring your worst. I (JP) am personally aiming for fun times with Fetish 23′s Cut-Up Machine, which “[works] along similar principles to those used by Burroughs in his own work”.

As per usual, there’ll be the option to check out some of Concordia and Montreal’s jazz musicians jam at Grumpy’s on Bishop Street afterward.

Remember, that’s January 11th. Doors at 8, readings begin not long afterwards. Make sure you sign the reading list if you want to perform!

Born in Montreal’s NDG borough, Kathryn Dawn O’Brien, now a certified hypnotherapist of San Fernando Valley and a multifaceted writer for stage, film, television and radio (among other forms) will be returning to her hometown to read at the Argo this Thursday, December 22nd @ 8PM from her novel, Murder Has a Memory, the debut installation in her Roberta Law Mystery series. Here’s the synopsis from O’Brien’s website:

“Hypnotherapist Roberta Law gets a fast pass to the twilight zone when a ten-year-old client, suffering from acute insomnia, appears to spontaneously regress into a past life and witness her own murder. In order to help her client, Roberta must turn detective and try to solve a crime that may prove to be nothing more than a child’s overactive imagination at work.

When the investigation leads her into the recluse world of folk-rock icon, Lori Taylor, whose recent reunion with her long-lost daughter seems to be the source of something much more sinister – Roberta is soon to discover that murder has a memory. . .”

Come on by the shop before the time of the reading if you’d like, make yourself comfortable and peruse our selection.

We’ll be selling a limited amount of copies of Kathryn’s book ($19.95 CAN), and she’ll be available to sign copies afterwards. Come get one while you can!

Hope to see you there!

If you need directions to the shop, or have any questions about the reading, don’t hesitate to call the shop at 514-931-3442

Jim Bartley of the Globe and Mail aptly wrote of Marko Sijan’s debut novel: “Out of the mud of teenage hope and desperation, [Marko Sijan] generates black diamonds.”

These ‘black diamonds’, gems of dark and elegiac humor, are the book’s five interconnected chapters, capturing five aggressive youths in the prime of their dreams and delusions. While the catalysts of their lives range from drugs and sex to power and ambitions, with anxiety hovering above it all, the book itself maintains authenticity through plausibility of voice and detail. Yes, there is intensity and urgency to Mongrel, but the text doesn’t peddle shock value, especially when one considers its framework: A parallactic and simultaneous catharsis in five separate lives set over the course of 12 hours in Windsor, Ontario.

As today’s turn-of-the-century youth aspire to culturally slip further and further from definition, it’s a novel like Marko’s that captures the spirit of this demographic: Its veneration of elders, its grapples with shunting old traditions and creating new ones, issues of vocation and social roles… As was said in the New York Times’ article ‘What is it about 20-somethings?’, it’s about feeling both elevated and trapped in a world of pure possibilities.

All this, topped with a pervasive ambivalence toward self and North American multiculturalist society as a whole. Sijan’s book is an odd contrast to what is the presumably contented view that Canadians culturally live in relative harmony with one another. While some may take that as a safe assumption, Mongrel‘s outsiders and immigrants (Jamaican, Quebecois, German-American and Serbian) demonstrate a different reality. Given the setting with Windsor’s proximity to Detroit, Michigan, one may infer some feeling that this is a conflicted environment composed of fringes, but really, in terms of just Canada, a peach can’t be without a bruise now and then.

I’d highly recommend Marko’s article ‘The Gutter Years” in Issue 81 of Canadian Notes and Queries, where he describes a nigh decade-long process of trying to get his book published in the first place.

…

“Marko Sijan co-wrote a script for a short film entitled Eva Meets Felix, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of 1999. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Maisonneuve, Canadian Notes & Queries, Branch and Encore magazines, and on the Parliamentary Poet Laureate website. Marko lives in Montreal.”

- JP

Hello everyone,

It is our regret to inform you all that the Argo Open Mic is cancelled for this month. While we’ve all appreciated the support individuals have shown for the events, and their eagerness to see another take place and to contribute to them, the holidays have made for a bad time to host such an endeavour. Students will be out of town, friends will be with family, and we three owners have engagements along the same lines. We hope you’ll understand. The next is concretely set for January 11th, 2012 @ 8PM. Speaking of which, poet Zach Wells will be coming into the store not long after!

On the upside, we’ll be beginning a newsletter for all those who wish to be kept in a closer loop than Facebook or regular visits to this here website can offer; news of the Featured Reader Series, the Argo Open Mic, readings from visiting authors, that sort of thing.
If you’ll be so kind as to use the Argo’s email, argobookshop [at] gmail [dot] com, and simply let us know you’d like to receive the newsletter on upcoming events, we’ll sign you up.

Thanks again to everyone for your support and attention!

Love,

The folks at the Argo

Turkish-born and Toronto-based author Loren Edizel will be coming to read from her second novel Adrift at the Argo on Saturday, December 3rd as a follow-up to her book’s launch the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. Adrift was published by TSAR Books. It’s a novel that will challenge the reader to confront their capacity to engage with a stranger through that stranger’s actions and thoughts, social circles and intimacies. Here’s the low-down on Adrift from TSAR Books:

“John arrives in a Montreal airport with a suitcase in hand. We do not know where he is from, or who he is. The novel sets out to explore his identity by following his daily movements and intimate thoughts, as well as his connections to those coming into contact with him. He writes his own reflections and impressions in a notebook which he carries with him at all times.

The story unfolds through non-linear narrative connections that flow across city blocks, continents and oceans, and meander in and out of characters’ minds, dealing with questions of displacement, identity and meaning.”

And here’s Loren’s bio from TSAR & her website:

“One of her novels, Izmir Hayaletleri (The Ghosts of Smyrna), was published in Turkey in 2008 by Senocak Yayinlari (trans. Roza Hakmen) and a short story “The Conch” appeared (Nov 2009) in Turkish translation as part of an anthology entitled Kadin Öykülerinde Izmir (Izmir in Women’s Stories). “The Imam’s Daughter” was published in Montreal Serai. She has recently completed a collection of short stories under the working title ‘The Confession.’”

The doors will open at 5PM.

Loren will be available to sign copies of her book after the reading.

edit:

Hey everyone,

We’ll change this in the future, sorry you’ve all had to deal with the confusion.
As Loren stated, call the shop (514-931-3442) if you’re confused.

This Wednesday, November 30th!

&

Hello everyone,

As previously announced, we are on schedule for our nigh-monthly Featured Reading Series. This month, throw aside your plans and obligations and come listen to Encore Literary Magazine editor Marko Sijan (She-yan), who will be reading from his critically-acclaimed debut novel ‘Mongrel’, published by Mansfield Press. We currently have a limited amount of copies available at the store, so come and grab a copy before they’ll all disappear at the reading! Here’s a sample of Marko reading on Mansfield’s website.

Alongside Marko, we have poet and editor of Branch Magazine Gillian Sze, author of two books of poetry: ‘Fish Bones’ and ‘The Anatomy of Clay’, the latter published in April 2011 by ECW Press. Here’s (1) a sample of her reading and (2) a preview of her work.

We’ll also get to hear from Jaime Bastien, whose short stories have been shortlisted for the Irving Layton, Eric Hoffer and Great Blue Heron awards.

Free, and open to all.
Doors @ 8PM, and the reading will begin shortly afterwards.
Space is limited, so we stress you come on time if you’d like a place to sit.

For more information, please call: 514-931-3442

ps. If you can’t make it, invite your friends!

The Argo’s first Open Mic night was a great success. A big thank you to everyone who came out to share their work! We had a great turn-out of 25 people, half of which were readers, varied in voice and consistent with quality. We’ll be holding the next open mic a month from the last. Here’s the inaugural speech that kicked off the readings:

“A stiff breeze is blowing, the sun is shining: A sinner’s paradise.”

- Commentator, Kenora Centennial Regatta Newsreel, 1966

“Hello to you all.

I’m pleased as pink to hit restart on the Argo Open Mic, and to see you all here, patrons and patience alike. It seems to me that open forums like this are either difficult to go to, for lack of time or will, or just falling out of favor. My hope is that you all disagree with that preposterous supposition.

Whether many will read tonight, or a select few, here’s to the act of. Let’s keep our most biased valuations to ourselves, and let the dialogue of level-headed criticism play out. That is, after all, what poets do in a sense: Have a conversation with you.

Everyone here has been tremendously supportive, and knowing there are at least this many people willing to come out reassures me (albeit only slightly) that running a bookshop with two good friends wasn’t the most foolhardy decision I could have possibly made…

…That was my poem, by the way. Welcome!”

Dance With Snakes – Horacio Castellanos Moya

Moya's "Dance With Snakes"

Where the dull wind of lesser books merely makes them consent to turn their pages, Moya’s Dance With Snakes pulls the reader in like a scarf in a propeller. Reading like a kind of Rabelaisian Grand Theft Auto, Dance With Snakes is a sustained and violent surrealistic binge told in an oddly contrasting minimalist, documentary style. It is a disconcertingly humorous tale rife with identity theft, legerdemain, gratuitous murder, stumped gumshoes, opportunistic journalists, that refracts the socio-political unease of El Salvador after more than a decade of civil war. On the surface at least, it might be the most unliterary book you read all year, but don’t be fooled: Moya is a first-rate satirist who conveys and explodes the milieu and trials of the lost and damned with a propulsive and controlled urgency. He belongs on the shelf next to such contemporary greats as Vollmann, Bolano, and Brautigan.

Blow-Up and Other Stories – Julio Cortázar

Cortazar's " Blow-Up and Other Stories"

“Anyone who doesn’t read Cortázar is doomed. Not to read him is a grave invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who had never tasted peaches. He would be quietly getting sadder, noticeably paler, and probably little by little, he would lose his hair. I don’t want those things to happen to me, and so I greedily devour all the fabrications, myths, contradictions, and mortal games of the great Julio Cortázar.” – Pablo Neruda

War Music – Christopher Logue

Logue's "War Music"

For a work of forty years in the making, Logue’s rearrangements and adaptations of Books 1 through 16 of Homer’s Iliad do not renunciate the tale; they carry the essence of it with a modern voice that charges the original text with new meaning:

“Picture the east Aegean sea by night,
And on a beach aslant its shimmering
Upwards of 50,000 men
Asleep like spoons beside their lethal Fleet…”

A work for lovers of the classic, War Music’s textual theatrics and lyrics read as though it were pieced together joyfully and painstakingly, to the point of standing boldly apart from Homer, without pretensions.

Given – Wendell Berry

Berry's "Given"

An ethics of care in verse. Written with artful simplicity, these intimate and poignant poems reflect Berry’s deep and abiding reverence for nature, God, and the Kentucky community in which he resides. Berry is a conservative in the old and true sense with a steadfast moral obligation to the land, to the commons, to human dignity who expresses a distaste for facetious progress and academic obscurantism. In an age of indiscriminate yay-saying and Corporate hubris, Berry is a voice of moderation, clarity, and reason. He is an Emerson or Thoreau for our times.

Frost – Thomas Bernhard

Bernhard's "Frost"

Bernhard’s prose is a force of nature, as devastating and as inevitable as an earthquake or a rock-slide. He is a neurotic genius, whose hypnotic and unforgiving novels, often written in one unbroken paragraph and taking the form of an uninterrupted dramatic monologue, are monumental testaments to intellectual and artistic obsessions in their various guises. Frost, Bernhard’s first novel, and the work that brought him renewed International acclaim in recent years, is the story of a friendship between a young man beginning his medical career and a painter in his final days. As always, the relatively plain domestic situation is a transfigured occasion for Bernhard’s trademark unapologetic wit and probing psychological analysis. To read Bernhard is to be enthralled by a singular literary sensibility: caustic, mercilessly honest, hilarious, moving, unforgettable.