Poetry Is Dead Queer issue: call for submissions

The Vancouver-based Poetry Is Dead magazine is now accepting submissions for their upcoming Queer issue, which I’m guest editing.

We’re looking for submissions of poetry and experimental prose. I’d like to open up a space in this issue for language-focused prose, microfiction and other hybrids. Visual/text hybrid work is also welcome. All forms of poetry are welcome.

You can read the formal submissions guidelines on Poetry Is Dead‘s site here. Please take these guidelines as a general statement. If you have something you’re excited about and you’re not sure if it “fits,” send it anyway.

All writers who self-identify as Queer are welcome.

Deadline is June 1st. Go to PID‘s submissions page here to submit your work.

From bill bissett’s recently published novel (Talonbooks, 2011):

millyuns were goin/thru ths  maybe billyuns   ths splitring pain cutting thru/ sew manee intensyuns n sawd off memoreez ths wasint/finding mark he observed 2 himself   he had sat in sevn/clubs sew far    a range uv veree seedee 2 hygenik n wundrful/looking in dark cornrs back rooms   sew wher was he my/fingrs n hands opn 4 th words   the prson   th alwayze un/folding mystereez n hungr n th tropes shaping uv what he/ was wanting xpress    his hands around marks neck n hed/ lovr sew gone    pain back   how it goez sumtimes   no soshul/ setting   xcellent   now he cud get on with his writing   maybe/a novel ths time   as compensaysyun intrest  replacement/joy uv the partikuls uv texts   in themselvs   all ovr his bodee/all his cells filld with lettrs    messages had he lost his place in th remedee   yes   without mark    thats what it is

Inter/re view

Vancouver poet Nikki Reimer interviewed me for the group blog Vancouver Is Awesome — you can read the interview here.

My review of Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme (ed. Zena Sharman, Ivan E. Coyote) is in the current issue of subTERRAIN magazine. My review of Suzette Mayr’s Monoceros will be in the next issue.

Play Chthonics reading with bill bissett

On Wednesday January 18th I’ll be reading with bill bissett at UBC’s Play Chthonics series. Play Chthonics focuses on new Canadian writing and experimental or cross-genre writing. The reading is from 5-6:30, is free, and all are welcome.

Details are on the Talonbooks website here.

From the Talonbooks site: bill bissett is an internationally acclaimed pioneer of sound, visual, and performance poetry who has published over seventy books of poetry. Recent collections include sublingual (Talonbooks, 2008), northern wild roses (Talonbooks 2005), and narrative enigma (Talonbooks 2004). Bissett has received many awards including The George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award (2007); BC Book Prize’s Dorothy Livesay Prize (2003) for peter among th towring boxes / text bites; BC Book Prize’s Dorothy Livesay Prize (1993) for inkorrect thots, and the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award (1991) for Hard 2 beleev. His new book is novel.

It is coming

“Leslie’s dark tones are reminiscent of Rebecca Brown, but she is a creative force all her own. Her star is rising. Watch for her.” -Hiromi Goto

(In April.)

Reading Tuesday Nov 8th

This coming Tuesday, I’ll be reading at W2 with Jackie Bateman (Nondescript Rambunctious, Anvil Press) and David Scott Hamilton, who will be reading from his translation of the late Nelly Arcan’s Exit (Anvil Press). There’s a party celebrating the Giller Award announcement at 6; the readings begin at 8, followed by DJ’s. Hal Wake of the Vancouver International Writers Festival and local poet Dina Del Bucchia will be hosting.

W2 is located in the old Woodwards building at Hastings and Abbott. Enter through the atrium. I’ll be selling copies of my chapbook 20 Objects For The New World, just released by Nomados.

Two new things

An interview — On Sunday October 30th I’ll be talking about my work on The Storytelling Show on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio (102.7 FM). The show focuses on local female artists. Thanks to Alicia Costa for inviting me to read and discuss my work. The interview will be from 9-10 PM.

A review –  My review of All Ways Butch and Femme (Arsenal Pulp; eds. Ivan E. Coyote & Zena Sharman) is in the new issue of subTerrain. My review of Suzette Mayr’s Monoceros will be in the next issue.

Project Space

My chapbook of microfictions 20 Objects For The New World, just released by Vancouver’s Nomados Literary Publishers, is now available at Project Space, a gallery and book shop in Chinatown located at 222 East Georgia. Copies can also be ordered through Nomados here.

A text of “leakage,” a “softwall luminesence” that produces and diminishes its own light.  Deep in the “bloodclick,” Alex Leslie’s gorgeous chapbook bonds design materials, transit routes and sky/ocean notes to create both an “impression of…thoughts” and a progressive, “wavering” grid of feeling.  Narrative hurts then stops.  Gate theory.  Then expresses: “when you let it go.”  Loved this.  Loved what was brought to bear upon: a Westward edge.

– Bhanu Kapil, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa University, author of Humanimal, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers and Incubation: A Space For Monsters.

Two upcoming September readings

On Saturday September 24 I’ll be reading with Joanne Arnott, Elaine Woo, Garry Thomas Morse and Stephen Collis at the Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings as part of The Word On The Street Festival. We’ll be reading pieces related to the Enpipe Line project. Event details are here. Thanks to poets & ecoactivists Christine Leclerc and Rita Wong for organizing this event.

On Thursday September 22 I’ll be reading with San Francisco queer writer Camille Roy and Vancouver writers Larissa Lai, Sonnet L’Abbe and Gillian Jerome at Cafe Montmartre. Door open at 7 and readings are at 7:30. The venue serves drinks and is cash only. Thanks to poet Jen Currin for organizing this event, CITY OF WOMEN. If you do the Facebook thing, you can RSVP to the event here.

Interview on Canada Arts Connect

I was interviewed this week for the resource & news site Canada Arts Connect by local poet Dina Del Bucchia about my current projects, forthcoming book and the Queer issue of Poetry Is Dead, which I’m guest editing. The interview can be read here.

Work in Dandelion magazine’s Mapping issue

Dandelion has just released their Mapping issue — a huge undertaking accompanied by a DVD of ‘sound maps’ and ‘sight maps.’ The issue’s Guest Editor is Oana Avasilichioaei. I have two prose + photo pieces in the issue. These pieces are part of my series Twenty Objects For The New World just released as a chapbook by Nomados Press run by Meredith and Peter Quartermain. Copies can be ordered by from Nomados Press here.