With no relation to the day whatsoever, we give you our third installment of the Argo Featured Reading Series. Montreal-born poet Asa Boxer will be headlining the event, preceding by Jacob Spector and Michael Saunders, poets and students of Concordia’s Creative Writing and English Literature program.

Asa Boxer’s first book was first published by Montreal’s Vehicule Press (est. 1973) in 2007, entitled Mechanical Bird which won the Canadian Authors Association Prize. As Mechanical Bird had hit a controlled, yet coiled note on the relationship between authenticity and artifice, his latest book Skullduggery upped the ante when published in 2011. It is deeper in its breadth of forms and achieves even greater highs and lows of falsity and truthfulness, with comic twists to boot. Essentially, as Vehicule itself deems, it gives “a simple message: Trust nothing.” For some preambulatory reading, check out Asa’s online chapbook on the subject of his father, Avi Boxer, an East-end poet who ran alongside the likes of A.M. Klein, F.R. Scott, Louis Dudek, Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen here. Either that, or check out the issues of Poetry London , Arc, Books in Canada, Maisonneuve, and Canadian Notes & Queries (CNQ) he’s been in.

Beginning the night, Asa Boxer will be introduced by two students of Concordia: First, Michael Saunders, a great poet whose work portrays deeply humbling work, with poems that engage with visceral images, feelings and humbled announcements. He is currently aiming for Masters studies in English Literature at U of T and Western, with academic work focusing on the realms of Speculative Medievalism, Speculative Realism, and Object-Oriented Ontology.  He recently gave a talk at Concordia’s first Undergraduate Colloquium with the paper Storm Still: Aristotelian Hamartia as Radical Unknowing in King Lear.

After Michael, we’ll have Jacob Spector, a student Creative Writing at Concordia. His poems, in my personal opinion, evoke dispassionate passions, the kind of troubled knowledge of things as they are and what they will be. This pale description doesn’t do much for his work, as it can best speak for itself with this recording from the Synapse Readings (created by Sina Queyras, and curated by Steph Colbourn and Lizy Mostowski). Jacob has contributed poetry to The Incongruous Quarterly, Void Magazine, and Black and White Journal.

The doors are open at 8, and we begin roughly 15 to 30 minutes after. Hope to see you there, and if not, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Some photographic evidence as to how much we enjoyed the last Argo Featured Reading (#2 and counting!) with Zach Wells, Kasper Hartman, Jesse Eckerlin and Eric Bennett. The night began slowly enough, and while co-owners Meg and Jesse were taking Zach Wells out for his honorarium dinner, I was running around the shop preparing the set up.

As people started to file in, reaching numbers of around our somewhat-maximum capacity of 30-35 people. As per usual, I was haphazardly realizing I hadn’t set aside room for coats, coffee wasn’t made and so forth. As Zach, Meg and Jesse had returned to the shop at this point, Zach was backstage in the office, fuming, wide-eyed and revved to go.

…And as people settled down in anticipation, eating discount peak freans and sipping coffee, the show began with myself introducing the night’s readers, leading into Eric Bennett, who had delivered a wonderful series of war/love letter poems full of honest terror and romance, followed by an engaging piece that declared Billy Gibbons to be the T.S. Eliot of post-delta blues… something to that effect. We had some good laughs about that one.

Following Eric and myself, we had Jesse read some of his work, one piece in particular standing out with its rough carousing interchange of images and sensations, ‘Tall Tales.” Good times. It was when Kasper Hartman stepped up to read his QWF award-winning short story that the room quieted down:

…His voice and pacing, combined with the story’s scenario of two lovers and their confusedly true emotions, gave a sense of something ineffable, yet known and even understandable.

Then, Zach Wells. An engaging fellow whom we all hope to see back at the shop in the future. For those of you who have not taken the opportunity to see him read his work, Zach endearingly gives the presence of one seeking a connection with those he is reading to. His command of lyric and traditional forms, combined with innovative and amusing subject matter (math equations & Buddhism, slugs in particular) gave a wide array of great pieces, altogether topping the night off with an excellent performance.

…And the trip to Grumpy’s was excellent, with writers taking over half of the place. No pictures!

Now, the recordings of past readings are soon to come, it’s only a matter of finding out how to archive everything on the website. As previously announced, the next Argo Open Mic is set for February 22nd @ 8PM with news on Asa Boxer coming for Valentine’s Day!…

A good and eager energy to have in the shop.

And it’s always nice seeing folks have a good time over pints and jazz afterwards. So, without further ado, keep us in mind when February 22nd rolls around, and come enjoy the Argo’s Open Mic #3. Doors are at 8PM, and the event will begin shortly after.

Hope to see you there!

Norm Sibum

&

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!

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!

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

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.