Poetryworld, Louis Cabri
2010,
CUE, North Vancouver BC
$15,
978-0-9810122-9-2, 120 pages
reviewed by rob mclennan
Originally
from Ottawa, poet Louis Cabri attended Carleton
University alongside Rob Manery and Christian Bök.
With the encouragement of TISH poet and Carleton professor Robert Hogg, Cabri and Manery organized
readings and events such as the Transparency Machine at N400 Reading Series
throughout the late 1980s and early 90s, and published both hole magazine
and hole books before heading off to Philadelphia, where he curated
the poets’ talk series, Phillytalks, before
ending up in Windsor, where he currently teaches at the University of Windsor. Poetryworld (North Vancouver BC: CUE, 2010)
is Cabri’s second trade poetry collection, after The
Mood Embosser (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2001), and his poetry has
long been influenced by the language and social commentary elements of
Vancouver’s Kootenay School of Writing, and writers such as Roger Farr and Jeff
Derksen. Cabri’s writing is
concerned with the minutae of language in ways that
no one else comes close, writing smaller than shorthand, citing references sly
and sharp, and as slippery as solid. Nearly a pointillist approach, Cabri’s texts become so small that they encompass quite a
large canvas, from the expansive gesture to the small twist, writing “champ
ions on / in onions” (“Vennezia”). As Meredith
Quartermain once suggested of some of the language
poets, how they often forget that words can’t help but mean, Cabri instead utilizes that meaning,
using those meanings as springboards, turning and twisting those meanings, and
producing something larger than the words themselves. This is language poetry
in its smallest measure, writing not only how the world reacts to language but
how it is represented by and has shaped that same language.
An Alphabet of Canada’s
Changing Role in Global
AlbecCo
Briber Dorbaanda
Labraland
Mabrunlumisle
New Edri
Newfoundta
Northka Swicklumbiries
Nukontchew
Onnatero
Prince Nito Ritor
Quéta
Sastishvutwan
Yuwest
Born
in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives
in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and
non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2011, and his most recent
titles are the poetry collections Songs for little sleep, (Obvious
Epiphanies, 2012), grief notes: (BlazeVOX
[books], 2012), A (short) history of l. (BuschekBooks,
2011), Glengarry (Talonbooks, 2011) and kate street (Moira, 2011), and a second
novel, missing persons (2009). An editor and publisher, he runs
above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview),
seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com).
He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the
University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and
other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com