Thursday, February 9, 2012
Review of Jim Johnstone's Patternicity
Find my long-ish review of Toronto poet Jim Johnstone's Patternicity (Nightwood Editions, 2010) live and well at The Maple Tree Literary Supplement. Read it here. Cup of coffee in the big time, yeah.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
New Puritan & A Tiny Review of Feel Good!
A couple of things ...
The new edition of The Puritan was launched last week. Issue 15: Fall 2011 features fiction and poetry by a nice spectrum of writers, this time mostly American. While the majority of our submissions come from Canadian writers, and while we continue to publish mostly Canucks, often our American submissions are of such superior quality that we'd be stupid to ignore them.
Check out new fiction by Rich Ives and Robert Earle, new poetry by Ricky Garni, Jenna Jarvis, Meredith Davies Hadaway, Joe Wilkins, Paul Watsky, Bardia Sinaee, and Salvatore Difalco.
We've published Ives, Sinaee, and Difalco before. I guess we like 'em lots. E Martin Nolan also reviews Gabe Foreman's A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People and Jones' The Brave Never Write Poetry. Both books were released by Coach House Books this year.
rob mclennan has posted a tiny review/blurb about my poetry chapbook Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast! (Ferno House 2011). Here it is; read an excerpt and rob's whole post here.
“Toronto ON: After years of his work at co-founding/editing The Puritan, a fiction journal that moved from Ottawa to Toronto a few years back, as well as the Toronto small press Ferno House, Spencer Gordon has released his first poetry chapbook, FEEL GOOD! LOOK GREAT! HAVE A BLAST! (Toronto ON: Ferno House, 2011). Impressive for a first offering, one might have thought Gordon wrote poems like a fiction writer would (there are so many bad examples of such), but these pieces certainly can’t be mistaken for prose, and Gordon has a good sense of the line, such as in the poem “THE YOUNG BAROQUE PAINTERS,” or “A BILLIE HOLIDAY KINDA SUNDAY.” The poems here might be slightly uneven, but there is a clarity here that comes through, and a humour that allows entry where one might not have been able, otherwise.”
Writer Nathaniel G. Moore also mentioned the book as part of his 2011 Year in Review. Head to the link: http://criticalcrushes.blogspot.com/2011/12/2011-in-review-we-were-born-to-diet.html
The new edition of The Puritan was launched last week. Issue 15: Fall 2011 features fiction and poetry by a nice spectrum of writers, this time mostly American. While the majority of our submissions come from Canadian writers, and while we continue to publish mostly Canucks, often our American submissions are of such superior quality that we'd be stupid to ignore them.
Check out new fiction by Rich Ives and Robert Earle, new poetry by Ricky Garni, Jenna Jarvis, Meredith Davies Hadaway, Joe Wilkins, Paul Watsky, Bardia Sinaee, and Salvatore Difalco.
We've published Ives, Sinaee, and Difalco before. I guess we like 'em lots. E Martin Nolan also reviews Gabe Foreman's A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People and Jones' The Brave Never Write Poetry. Both books were released by Coach House Books this year.
rob mclennan has posted a tiny review/blurb about my poetry chapbook Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast! (Ferno House 2011). Here it is; read an excerpt and rob's whole post here.
“Toronto ON: After years of his work at co-founding/editing The Puritan, a fiction journal that moved from Ottawa to Toronto a few years back, as well as the Toronto small press Ferno House, Spencer Gordon has released his first poetry chapbook, FEEL GOOD! LOOK GREAT! HAVE A BLAST! (Toronto ON: Ferno House, 2011). Impressive for a first offering, one might have thought Gordon wrote poems like a fiction writer would (there are so many bad examples of such), but these pieces certainly can’t be mistaken for prose, and Gordon has a good sense of the line, such as in the poem “THE YOUNG BAROQUE PAINTERS,” or “A BILLIE HOLIDAY KINDA SUNDAY.” The poems here might be slightly uneven, but there is a clarity here that comes through, and a humour that allows entry where one might not have been able, otherwise.”
Writer Nathaniel G. Moore also mentioned the book as part of his 2011 Year in Review. Head to the link: http://criticalcrushes.blogspot.com/2011/12/2011-in-review-we-were-born-to-diet.html
Friday, December 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Breaking Hearts, Harts, and Bones at Savage
 |
| Shaking hands with Smith Hart, one of the legendary Hart brothers of Calgary, Alberta. |
Savage came and went. Here's what the A.V. Club Toronto had to say about my poetic finishing moves:
 |
| Dropping elbows and reading poetry at SAVAGE. |
''One grounding but apt change of pace was Spencer Gordon’s reading, a
graceful but straight list of passed-on lives of professional wrestlers
and the tragic ways they ended, from the many sudden car accidents, to
the more gruesome case of Chris Benoit. 'It’s actually really difficult
to write about wrestling,' said Gordon, 'about those things that you
love in that way. I figured that typical approaches to Randy Savage and
even wrestling in general among my generation are very ironic, just
cheeky, taking the piss—often they don’t understand a lot about it; they
only see the extravagant, ridiculous, and even negative elements.
It meant something to me, and I wanted to do something that would reflect that meaning instead of just [laughing] more about Slim Jims and bandanas.'''
Best in the world.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
TORONTO DANCERS GET SAVAGE FOR UPCOMING TRIBUTE!
And the beat goes on ... yeah ... the beat goes on ...
And the beat goes on ... yeah ... the beat goes on ...
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Savage: Cult of Personality, Pure Media and the Art of Macho Madness: RSVP NOW on FACEBOOK!
I am reading with DAVE BIDINI! MICHAEL HOLMES! GREG OLIVER! ALEXANDRA LEGGAT! NATHANIEL G MOORE! MAT LAPORTE! & DAVID BROCK!
Open Book Toronto is talking about it.
Canada Arts Connect is talking about it.
The White House is sure talking about it.
Read "Love in the Time of Macho Madness" by Nathaniel G. Moore.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!
After a successful fall launch, the new chapbooks from Ferno House have now been posted to our etsy site.
Head on over to pick up my chapbook, Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast!
David Brock's Black Metal Melody and Liz Howard's Skullambient are also for sale.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
"A Publishing Inferno"
OPEN BOOK TORONTO has published an interview with me as promo for our FERNO HOUSE fall launch! My book Feel Good! Look Great! Have a Blast! will be published alongside David Brock's Black Metal Melody and Liz Howard's Skullambient.
You gotta be there!
12 or 20 FERNO HOUSE Questions
rob mclennan interviews me about Ferno House in anticipation of Thursday's launch. It's part of his ongoing 12 or 20 (small press) questions series.
Read our rather long chat here.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Review of Nick Thran's Earworm
My longer-than-usual review of Nick Thran's second collection of poetry, Earworm (Nightwood Editions, 2011), is now online at the Maple Tree Literary Supplement. It's three pages, so keep clicking to keep reading. Next issue will feature my review of Jim Johnstone's Patternicity (Nightwood Editions 2010).
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