How to Namedrop Montreal Poets (You’ve Never Heard Of)

December 14, 2007 by Sarah  Send to a Friend

Are all poetry scenes exactly alike everywhere? An elitist group of individuals, some with genuine talent and some totally bereft, who meet in dark basement bars for weekly readings, drink too much, spend the bulk of their time looking around at who they might like to fuck and the rest of it wondering who’s better than them, all the while slapping each other on the back or face, depending on the answer?

I had a poetry professor who used to compare poets to traveling vacuum cleaner salesmen. I don’t remember what he was getting at (sucking debris into a vortex?) but the mental image of a bunch of guys in ill-fitting brown suits, a little bored, tired, drunk, nibbling on munchies at conventions - that’s just how I like to think of poetry scenes. And I don’t think that’s unkind. I happen to love (good) poetry, and I support those scenes. As flawed as they may be, poets need them, just as the traveling vacuum cleaner salesmen needs an annual convention: a place to connect and commiserate with others who participate in your trade in what is otherwise a lonely and penurious world.

So. The scene in Montreal. Going strong. There’s several magazines in Montreal that publish poetry, plus a ton of kids taking creative writing classes, not to mention a handful of small presses. If I weren’t too lazy to pull up a weekly paper I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there were three or four poetry readings happening this week. And as I alluded to last week, there is a kind of safety net for artists who want to go on welfare in Quebec, which allows them to apply for artists grants that are designed specifically for welfare recipients but I think it ought to be stated that I did not choose any of those poets for this weeks’ column since A) it would be weird of me to out the welfare bums and B) I happen not to know any.

JON PAUL FIORENTINO
The Theory of the Loser Class

This is the name to namedrop in Montreal. Quick look at the resume: He’s the editor-in-chief of Matrix Magazine, he’s written 4 books of poetry, 1 book of short stories, and edited at least a dozen others. He’s under 35, a part-time prof and has his own literary press, which publishes at least two titles a year. He’s at every single poetry reading that takes place in the city, he can drink more than you, and he’s still got his hair. He actually makes a living as a poet and poetry editor. And as if that weren’t enough, he’s got like 8,000 facebook friends. So when he calls himself a “professional loser” it’s false humility, because what he really plans to do is claw his way to the top of the Canadian literary mountain and swing one heavy, steel-toed boot at Maggie Atwood.

Here’s one of his that I like. It’s ’specially good aloud.

What’s The Worst That Could Happen, Courtney?

She slides out of a launderette
No, wait. She struts out of a café

Check that. She stumbles out of a bus
Or not. She steps out of a bank

Too dull. She stirs out of a dream
That sucks. She slips out of a clinic

The washer is old; the smoke is thick
The transit is slow; the credit is wrecked
The fear is real; the doctor is sick

Her clothes are stained; her coffee is cold
Her transfer is gone; her money is low
Her mind is made up; her pills do not work

ROBERT ALLEN
The Encantadas

Until his death last year, Rob Allen was one of those licentious but harmless professors who would take his students out for drinks and actually talk to them. And people loved him. I knew him when I was a student at the university. Rob and I and some others would go out for beers after class, and Rob would say witty things, and I would feel young and dumb. He was a real, true poet after all; I was in a creative writing class. Years later, at a party in his loft, he introduced me around to the other writers in such a way that recalled a proud father. When he died, a tribute to him was published: over 30 writers eulogized him in story and verse. Everybody had something to say, except for me - the stories were usually about road trips or whiskey or his winter cabin or his inclination to travel - but I couldn’t come up with anything. I still don’t know what to say exactly, so here are some more facts: Rob was an American who chose Montreal. His mentor was the famous A.R. Ammons. He once prefaced the same poem that began with the effortless, but c’mon, beautiful line: “”she was nice as two cherries, talk was balm/from her lips,” with a quote from the evangelist Fred Phelps: “Canada is Satan’s sperm bank.” The Encantadas was Rob’s fourteenth book and was 25 years in the making. When Robert Allen’s name is dropped in Montreal it’s with reverence.

DAVID MCGIMPSEY
Sitcom

David McGimpsey is, as I would tell it, one of the greatest writers in America and that includes Canada, too. The only reason he’s not a rockstar poet (like Billy Collins who I have it on authority demands that all the white stuff be scraped off his Oreos in his rider) is because he’s A) living and B) living in Quebec. Dude, don’t you think “Hamburger Valley, California” is an awesome title for a book of poetry? Don’t you think that someone who can actually write viable, funny, and intelligent poetry about CHRISTINA AGUILERA should be inducted into the pop culture hall of fame? Someone who could write sonnets about Britney Spears and have them mean something? Villanelles about Gilligan’s Island? Sestinas about Friends!? ‘Nuff said.

Here’s a two-stanza excerpt from the first poem in his latest book, Sitcom:

FOREWORD

Reba only slightly depresses me
Steve Urkel has seen me well past blue
Evan Drake stings like a nest of scorpions
Mr. Furley stirs up poison mushroom stew

Maude’s voice haunted me into my teens
Chandler’s a stuck tick of embarrassment
Deb destroys each molecule of resolve
Flo slaps me with a wet, bony hand

NEXT WEEK: BOOKS YOU DON’T WANT TO NAMEDROP ON A SIX-HOUR FLIGHT

 Send to a Friend