Chris Banks reviews The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky

 Gratitude to ace poet Chris Banks for his thoughtful, generous, lengthy review of The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky — on his amazing review blog, The Woodlot.

Chris writes:

The Sky Is A Sky In The Sky by Stuart Ross is a thorough exploration of the various forces that animate Ross’s poetry–things like wordplay, artistic allusions, a kind of surrealist dexterity that cannot be imitated, but which can only be honed over forty plus years of writing. No one writes a Stuart Ross poem except for Stuart Ross.

You can find the full review right here.

And here's the astonishing book trailer I created!

Over and out.

The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky has dropped out of the sky

So, a few days ago I fulfilled a dream of five decades. My first book with Coach House Books was officially released. The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky is my 12th full-length poetry collection. It is full of crazy poems, personal poems, long poems, short poems, experiments, embarrassments, poems of homage, memorial poems, collaborations, and poems of collegiality. This is another one of my books that celebrates the glory of miscellany, but I think — at least, I hope — this is the one that does it best.

I first visited Coach House Press when I was about 15 years old. I was attending an alternative high school in North York (in the north of Toronto), and our creative writing class welcomed a variety of amazing writers who instructed us as various times: Joe Rosenblatt, Victor Coleman, Robert Fones, David Young. One of them — I think it was Joe — brought us downtown to visit Coach House and workshop our stuff up on the old wooden table on the second floor. We were surrounded by books the press had published, as well as photos from the 1960s and early 1970s (this was about 1976). It was a literary hippie dream. And I had this dream of someday being published by Coach House. I had a lot of dreams in those days. One had already been fulfilled: that same year, a dozen of my poems were published, alongside poems by Mark Laba and Steve Feldman, in a small book called The Thing in Exile, published by Books by Kids (which later became Annick Press).

Years went by, and I published a ton of chapbooks, and then "real" books began appearing from fantastic publishers. Over the years, I've been fortunate enough to have books from The Mercury Press, ECW Press, Anvil Press, Wolsak & Wynn, Freehand Books, DC Books, Mansfield Press, Contra Mundo Books, Socios Fundadores, and a whole writhing bunch of chapbook presses. And most of the those publishers even let me bring aboard my own artists or designers along for the covers, which I think is pretty rare. The cover of The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky is by Montreal painter Nadine Faraj, with beautiful type treatment by Coach House's Crystal Sikma. (I've been collaborating with Nadine for a year and a half on paintings w/ text: the first ones to see the light of day will appear soon in a Mexican arts journal: stay tuned for more info!)

Oh yeah, back to the main thread. Around 2008, I send a fiction manuscript, for my novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew, to Coach House. My first-ever submission to the press. Coach House editorial director Alana Wilcox, a hero in the realm of Canadian literature and an amazing human, is a dear friend of mine, and so it was a bit excruciating for her, I think, to reject the book. I swore I'd never put her in that position again.

But a few years ago, I was visiting with one of my students from my days of being writer-in-residence at U of Ottawa. She asked me what aspiration I might still have as a writer. I told her I'd always dreamed of a book from Coach House, but I just couldn't send another MS their way. She told me I was a goof—what the hell was my problem? And I thought about it. And I realized that Coach House has a poetry team now, so it wouldn't all be on Alana. I send the MS for Neither Foot Forward (the book's original title, which my editor talked me out of: too self-deprecating!) to the press. A couple of the poetry editors were interested in it, and Alana wrote to tell me the book was a go.

Damn, it was exciting! And it was exciting to come to Toronto see my book on the press.

I even got to trim a few copies the following week. Holy mackerel!

So…I'm so grateful to Alana, and to my editor, Nasser Hussain, who worked hard and imaginatively with me, and Crystal, and publicist James Lindsay, and John De Jesus and the gang in printing/binding, and the rest of the amazing Coach House team. I mean, I was grateful to them before, for all the great books they have published over the past six or so decades. But now I'm grateful that my book is a cousin to all those other books I've loved.

The book has three dedications. 1) Charlie Huisken — onetime proprietor and co-owner of the legendary Toronto indie bookstore This Ain't the Rosedale Library; he's an unsung hero in the Toronto and the larger literary and cultural world, and a great friend. 2) Steven Feldman and Mark Laba, two childhood friends with whom I embarked on this poetry life: together, we had a book out from Books by Kids back in 1975, when we were 16 years old; it was called The Thing in Exile (I've got a few copies for $75 if you're interested…). And 3) Laurie Siblock, my partner; her support (and tolerance!) go above and beyond.

So far I've had wonderful launches in Montreal, Kingston, and Peterborough! On October 3, I launch in the town from whence I came, Toronto. It's going to be a launch unlike any I've had before!

And how will my book be received? One never knows. And I never get my hopes up. I'm the guy who originally called this book Neither Foot Forward, after all.

Over and out.

an interview and two reviews, courtesy of monsieur mclennan

Ottawa poet and production machine rob mclennan has been very supportive of me lately—or maybe just particularly interested in what I'm up to. Anyways, either way, I'm glad for any attention my writing attracts.

On his substack, he wrote about my 2022 short-story collection, I Am Claude François and You Are a Bathtub. I'm extremely proud of that book, and I think it is unlike any other short-story collection released in Canada in the past many years. But it got almost zero attention — just a couple of reviews. But I guess that's the way the CloClo crumbles.

Shortly after he posted that piece, rob posted the first review of my new poetry collection, The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky, officially out on September 10 from Coach House Books. I have no idea how the collection will be received. Maybe it will vanish into thin air. But I am determined to sell lots of copies!

And just today, rob posted an interview with me conducted by my friend Stan Rogal, a very fine poet and fictioneer, and a very fine guy. It musta been like pulling teeth getting those answers from me. It took me months to send Stan back my responses. But I think Stan and I covered a lot of ground, and it turned out well.

And that's where it all stands today.

Over and out.

POEM AT 65

It is just after midnight.

I close my book

(Skeletons in the Closet,

Jean-Patrick Manchette,

p. 64) and put it on my

night table. In the washroom,

I spit in the sink,

then blast the cold water,

send the remnants of 64

down the drain. I have

never mentioned spit

in a poem before. So

this is it. This is

what 65 is all about.

A silverfish swims by

on the floor, grazes

my toe. It is neither

silver, nor a fish.

 

18 July 2024

AISP, the poem (by request)

 Back in May of 2010, I attended a reunion of students from my Toronto high school, AISP — the Alternative Independent Study Program. I don't know how I would have survived the school system without that place.

Someone on social media this week asked to see the poem again, so here it is. 

AISP

 

Did I ever tell you about this school

a school made up entirely of initials:

 

Apples In Silver Purses

Astronauts Integrating Small Pandas

Ask In Sequence Please

Agatha Ivanov Speaks Portguese

 

It was a free school

and we were free

to create our own learning

to call our teachers by their first names

to hang a parachute from the ceiling of the Common Room

(until a fire marshal told us otherwise)

 

We were free to rebel

to make super 8 films

to scream sound poems in the hallways

to make Xerox art in Dorothy’s office

to make comic books instead of essays

comics books about global domination by Venus fly traps

 

We were free to invent our own courses

skip classes walk out of classes sit in on classes

that we weren’t even taking

free to take the side of Mao Tse-Tung

 

Did I ever tell you about the initials?

 

Actively Irrigate Subtle Plantations

Anything Irritates Shirley’s Piano

Abe’s Integers Smoke Pot

Angels Illuminate Soryl’s Pecadillos

 

We were free to get beat up less than

at Jeffreys, MacKenzie, Fleming

to read any goddamn book we wanted to

I mean truly weird shit

to take three courses a year, or fifteen

and write revolutionary communiqués

to hang a parachute from the Common Room ceiling

I’m serious

because it meant we were alternative

and we were independent

sometimes we studied

and we were never programmed

 

we ate French fries at Dairy Freeze

fried liver and onions in the cafeteria

Carl ate cookies in his office

and then he brushed his teeth

thus providing a lesson

 

Have I mentioned the initials?

Always Investigate Snoopy Parents

Armadillos Invest Snappy Premiums

Africa Israel Switzerland Poland

Asia Istanbul Spain Peru

 

On torn sofas

in the Common Room

we argued sports and politics

under an actual parachute

that hung from the ceiling

a ceiling

a parachute

a fire marshal

 

We were free from beating each other up

free from conveyor belts

sausage education

particle board learning

We were free from Catcher in the Rye

if we wanted to be

free to take a class with a teacher

who’d fold our poems into paper airplanes

and fly them across the room

 

plus we had a parachute

a Common Room

a ceiling

initials

have I told you about the parachute?

 

 

 

 

27 May 2010

Stuart Ross

Over and out.

Did I mention that last year I won the Trillium Book Award?

I haven't been keeping up with things on this blog. Blogs being an almost-thing-of-the-past. But it's worth documenting that in June 2023, I won the Trillium Book Award for my memoir, The Book of Grief and Hamburgers, published in 2022 by ECW Press.

Back in 2000, I was shortlisted for the award for my second poetry collection, Farmer Gloomy's New Hybrid. I didn't expect to win then, and I didn't, and I didn't expect to win this time. I figured they just put me on the shortlist when they needed a book with a stupid title.

But The Book of Grief and Hamburgers is a very important book to me. It was painful but cathartic to write. I wrote it for myself, and for my dear friend Michael Dennis, the Ottawa poet, who didn't have long to live in fall 2020. I didn't intend to show it to Michael, but I did show him the dedication, which is to him. With an epigraph by him: "We are the lucky men." He said that to me in the last month of his life.

Here I am giving my acceptance speech. My editor at ECW and friend Michael Holmes is holding my award. Man, he and ECW have stuck with me through seven books and I am so grateful.

And here I'm signing the placard for my book on the big night.

Oh yeah. This is the moment when my name was announced as the winner. As you can see, I really didn't see it coming. Paul Vermeersch caught my expression in this photo.

Here's a letter the mayor of Cobourg addressed to me to mark an evening in my honour at the Art Gallery of Northumberland. It was a pretty lovely occasion, organized jointly by the gallery and our local indie, Let's Talk Books. The brilliant Katie Cruel was my musician of choice for the night. And I was introduced, really beautifully, by Cobourger, writer, and former MPP David Tsubouchi, who has always been a great champion of the written word.

And here is my winning book. This gorgeous cover was created by my friend the London, Ontario, artist Angie Quick.

No book of mine has brought me as much response (or money!) as The Book of Grief and Hamburgers. As I said, I wrote it in part for Michael Dennis, but it was a tribute to all the important people in my life who have died. And one important dog.

Miss you, Lily.

Over and out.

My 2024 New Year's Poem

SEVEN SLEEPS FOR A NEW YEAR

i.

When I wake

It will be the first day

Of something new 

That tiptoes along a telephone wire

Catching fragments

Of conversation

And writing them down

ii.

I was snoring

My leg was in a weird position

It remembered a joke

About a calf who mooed

But it was a leg calf

iii.

My teeth were grinding

My enemies

Into something

I could live with

iv.

The brownshirts chase me

Up the stairs

Soon I have

No more floors to escape to

I shove open my eyes

Reach over to the night table

Sip some water

The brownshirts screech to a halt

They mutter

Scratch their heads

(One head per brownshirt)

v.

I yawn while sleeping

My stomach growls while I eat 

 I write a poem while someone reads one of my poems

vi.

The digital clock

Beside the glass of water

On my night table

Throws a red 3:26

Across my still face

The spider dangling

Above my head

Double-checks its watches

vii.

I was sleeping

I was not a hummingbird

I was not a can opener 

I was not a wisp of campfire smoke

My head lay on a pillow

And a dream snuck out of my skull

Curled itself into a ball

Went bouncing off the walls

And out the window

Into the dark sky 

Into the cold night

Into the broken world

Where it fixed everything

Stuart Ross

1 January 2024

Over and out.

New York, here I come

This has been one of the busiest years of my writing life. And I haven't blogged since January 1. Maybe I'll catch up a bit. Maybe not. But I am going to New York, at the invitation of Charles North, one of my favourite poets, and I figured that was worth posting about. I'll be reading at Pace University with the poet RK Fauth, whose work seems pretty brilliant. So exciting to go back to New York…

Over and also out.