We Traced The Shape Of Our Loss To See Your Face

Hannah Rodabaugh’s We Traced The Shape Of Our Loss To See Your Face catalogues loss, loneliness, desire and melancholy in the dark palette of cave crickets and night beetles, burst stars, fuchsia as tarnished blue, scaly fish, clotted fibre. The chapbook considers mortality and permanence, the role of language, symbols, movement, materiality, pain and silence. 

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-18-6
Price: $10.00 CAD

Andante

hiromi suzuki’s Andante invites you to imagine every tear of paper, every texture, the delicate pressure of words, the play of light. Andante is a still life version of a 35 mm black and white film with light and shadow briefly flickering on tree, bridge, piano, wall, crowd, phrase, letter, shape, then gone. 

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-19-3
Price: $10.00 CAD

The Mother Suite

Through letters, diary entries, snippets of remembered conversations and post cards, Ruth Zuchter collages together a portrait of a complicated mother-daughter relationship in The Mother Suite.

The chapbook will be available at the Meet the Presses Indie Market in Toronto on November 17 and the ottawa small press book fair on November 24, 2018. Ruth will launch the Mother Suite on Friday, November 23, 2018 at 7pm at the pre fair reading at the Carelton Tavern in Ottawa

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-17-9
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The Tale of the Clam Ear

The Tale of the Clam Ear is the story of a mermaid and her struggle to accept her deformity. In 20 poems, Christine Stoddard offers a child’s magical rationale for not fitting in. These poems are for anyone who has been told that their body is wrong. They offer ways of coping and articulate feelings of shame, of loneliness and of celebration and love. If you listen closely you will hear the mermaid’s cries.

A review by Jan Conn appears in Arc Poetry Magazine 89's print edition. Christine Stoddard's response to the review is in the Essays section of our site.

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-15-5
Price: $10.00 CAD

YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO KEEP THIS UP FOREVER

In YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO KEEP THIS UP FOREVER, Ian Martin writes of societal malaise and failure, robots, insecure sex swings, a cuckolded employee, monotony, sanity, escape, masc top aspirations, lack of communication and the sacrifices of the moon. These humorous and humble poems are insightful. They’re the most gorgeous crushed soda cans in the pile. 

"This is an unfailingly clever collection, and maybe all (or partly) in jest or an experiment. If so, Martin plays the role of malcontent well. Read this to feel better about your own life." Scott Bryson, Broken Pencil Magazine, Winter 2019

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-16-2
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Story of Lilith

Story of Lilith is an excerpt from an experimental novel called Eros, which retells Romeo and Juliet through a variety of avant-garde constraints. Part Two of Eros tells the story from the “Juliet” character’s perspective—who is named “Lena” here—and is presented as a lipogram that negates the vowels “A” and “E.”

 

The work is a playful account of the day-to-day life of a young woman. Don’t be surprised to find Virgil and Milton showing up alongside bikinis and Oxycodon, while Sisyphus sings with Björk. In Story of Lilith, you will find amusement for mouth and mind.

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-14-8
Price: $7.00 CAD

Afterlife

AngelHousePress presents our first bilingual chapbook, “Afterlife” by Jennifer K. Dick. Jennifer is an American writer, translator, editor and literary events organizer living in France. “Afterlife” is hymn and imagination, the white smudge after the pages burn. You will be mesmerized by the incantatory language, and fascinated with the shadowlight of Dibutade. 

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-13-1
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Robots vs Kung Fu

Howie Good’s “Robots vs. Kung Fu” is a collection of dark and delightful prose poems that subvert the real. Good is a close observer of the infinitesimal and the infinite. Within these pages you will encounter the surreal bumping up against the ordinary:  honey-haired frauleins in Nazi bling vs the clock; trees on fire vs anti-crazy pills;   globes crushed by tractors; beasts with seven heads vs sad little funerals in the rain, nagging black flies vs shopping, an angel with brilliant black wings vs school cafeterias. There’s no denying there’s some dark matter here: “What’s been called my heart serves also as a wine glass, a highway, a urinal, a grave.” It would be ham-handed to offer up a general statement about the humour, sadness and absurdity in everyday life, at this point. Better you should read “Robots vs Kung Fu.”

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-12-4
Price: $6.00 CAD

17 Reasons

In 17 Reasons, skeleton mariachis and ghosts wander through the life of a young punk who attempts to navigate the urban circus in all its leopard print and electrified red neon.

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-10-0
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House of Many Words

House of Many Words is a thoughtful, absurd, playful and imaginative work in the spirit of Ionesco and Beckett.House of Many Words is a thoughtful, absurd, playful and imaginative work in the spirit of Ionesco and Beckett.

"this is an odd work, and one that intrigues; after years of poems playing off surrealism, brevity, landscape and the narrative “I,” his foray into script is entirely curious. " rob mclennan, "Ongoing notes: the ottawa small press book fair." Friday, July 29, 2016.

  

"a dream, a game, a refusal, an attempt, a stand-off. " Cary Fagan, "Curtain Time" December 17, 2016

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-11-7
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jettison/collapse

jettison/collapse by Francesco Levato is a mash-up of poetry, linguistics and critical/cultural theory. Imagine Ferdinand de Saussure colliding with Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson in a fender bender with Benedetto Croce. The result is as delightful as peanut butter and chocolate, and ice cream in July. Levato’s mash-up results in heady imagery and quirky combinations. In this work, Levato offers readers an investigation into the noise of language, language as song and prayer, the body as minimal unit of meaning, the unreliable, traitorous I. The fallen angels adore Levato’s sense of play and innovative engagements with the living and the dead. 

"Given this is the first of Levato’s work I’ve seen, the introduction is interesting, and the collection is constructed as a sequence of short poems that blend the lyric and collaged fragment. The effect is lively, precise and even slightly disorienting, as the mind sets the pieces together of his deliberately-worded jumble of words, phrases and ideas, set just as much as a “translation” of a variety of sources into a single text." rob mclennan on Francesco Levato's chapbook "jettison/collapse"http://www.robmclennan.blogspot.ca/…/ongoing-notes-ottawa-s… . 

"Contrasting affect with intellect, Levato activates “the orbic flex of his mouth, pouring and filling” in order “to defend against the tide of conceptualism.” It is this enacted debate that gives this collection its vigour. When language explores its lingual potential

“to give, as in fellatio,” it activates the openness of personhood in opposition to pure enunciation.

"The poetic language that results is more immersed and dynamic than Levato’s theoretical musings might suggest. “I take part, I see and hear the whole,” he writes, “the cries, the curses, the fall of grenades, the whizz of limbs, heads, stone and iron.” Alongside his

ideas—which consider topics like etymology, Walt Whitman and Julia Kristeva—there is a sonic and tactile pleasure in saying that becomes the book’s underdog hero, if only because Levato identifies this spirit as a species of subterranean hunger, its “velvet mason

a sweet assault.” Nikki Sheppy, Arc Poetry Magazine 83. For more of the review, please purchase the issue here. 

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 9781926786087
Price: $6.00 CAD

phases of the harpsichord moon

AngelHousePress is pleased to present “phases of the harpsichord moon” by Gary Barwin, a rerelease of his first chapbook, and his first individual publication, published by Gary’s micropress, serif of nottingham in 1985 when he was 21. We fallen angels are pleased to be part of this heavenly harpsichordacious delight where Laura Secord fugues with Bach and Jimi Hendrix’s lix are transcribed into imaginative world play. In his introduction, Gregory Betts talks about how Gary’s writing offers readers an alternative to the dreariness of the world. I would also add that “phases of the harpsichord moon” celebrates the beauty of the earth’s minor chords. 

"This is an easygoing, unselfconscious and complex sequence of threads that engage a wordplay in and around each other." rob mclennan. 

"A pretty neat object, beautifully made and the story of preface and postscript interesting as well. " Pearl Pirie 

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 9781926786070
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Worm's Saving Day

In Worm’s Saving Day, a worm is infatuated with a Spanish señorita. Language continues long after we have turned to ash. Evocative of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, this long poem continues the debate over essence vs existence. Steadman has a penchant for the picaresque. Our hero is a lowly worm, his rival is the Ash Man. Worm is a tunneller and a dreamer.

Chapbook launch: Friday, June 12, 2015, 7pm, The Factory Reading Series, Carleton Tavern, 223 Armstrong Street, UPSTAIRS 

the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair Pre Fair Reading featuring Marilyn Irwin (Ottawa), Dean Steadman (Ottawa), Alicia Cumming (Kemptville) and

 Stuart Ross (Coburg)

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 78-1-926786-06-3
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Where No One Can See You

In  “Where No One Can See You,” Anita Dolman describes carnage in the half-light, fallen ballerinas, bleak urban & prairie environments, muffled echoes, confined spaces, battered fedoras, wall-flat moments & the possibility of an open door. 

[cover photo: Elizabeth Dolman]

Anita will launch the chapbook at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair Pre-Fair Reading on November 7, 2014, 7:30pm, the Carleton Tavern, 223 Armstrong, Upstairs. The chapbook will be for sale at the Fair on Saturday, November 8, 2014.

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 97-1-926786-05-6
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Kiki in Wonderland

a visual poetry interpretation of Alice, the first section of Kiki. 

Limited Edition.
ISBN:
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Bone Sapling

a visual poetry collection of hybrid letter creatures who swim, climb trees & wait in their nests to be born. visual poems woven together with a textual poem.

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-04-9
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Four Hundred Rabbits

Steven Artelle's long poem "Four Hundred Rabbits" is simultaneously imaginative & philosophical. There are red rabbits, shy rabbits, rabbits into soft core porn, rabbits with foot fetishes, filthy creatures who become deities of dust, robot rabbits, masked rabbits. Above all "Four Hundred Rabbits" has a poignant lyricism with descriptions which bring to mind Albrecht Dűrer's Apocalypse & William Blake's illuminated books. This work is full of energy, heat, humour & creativity. If John Updike, Dante Alighieri & Lewis Carroll were to have a love child, his name would be Steven Artelle.

"one rabbit cried/our divinity was nothing without the cities/the cities with their night fires and their cavernous days/and praise and praise and praise was the pulse of our dancing"

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 97819267860302
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Steve Kulash & other autopsies

In "Steve Kulash & other autopsies" Catherine Owen offers poems which portray leaps, misfits & the wild. Yet these poems are rooted in ordinary moments or finding beauty & ecstasy in the ordinary. Owen populates her poems with both desolate and  lush landscapes, graffiti, fire & grief. She uses language that appeals to all the senses. She is sensitive to sound as demonstrated by the exquisite musicality and rhythm of the lines. She is a close observer. It is as if Owen holds a magnifying glass to life and is reporting on its intricate details, translating them into poignant imagery and metaphor. These poems are in part empathetic  explorations of the nature of grief and an attempt at solace, an attempt at joy, at persevering. Side by side with images of emptiness & incompletion are joyous contortions of language, Whack-A-Mole, buttons popped open, Beaujolais and  Betty Boop. When I first heard these poems, I was struck by how imaginative and intense they were, and how I responded to them with understanding, with a feeling of relief at not being alone.

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-02-5
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notes from a cartywheel

 a scrappy commonplace book containing incantatory delights with a dark edge, piceous pit shadows, turquoise ballerinas, unlaced violins, bad dreams & lost maps. printed on distressed & glossy paper.

Apt. 9 Press publisher & poet Cameron Anstee has written a thoughtful and engaging review of Christine McNair's chapbook, "Notes from A Cartywheel" being launched on Thursday, December 1 at the Factory Reading Series, which takes place at the Carleton Tavern, 7pm UPSTAIRS. Christine will be sharing the stage with local publishers & writers Bardia Sinaee & Matthew Firth.

The review is here:
http://ottawapoetry.blogspot.com/2011/11/christine-mcnair-notes-from-cartywheel.html

Event info is here:  http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2011/11/span-o-presents-factory-reading-series.html

Christine McNair will speak with Mitchell Caplan on Wednesday, November 30 about her chapbook & Thursday's reading at 5pm on Click Here CHUO.FM 89.1

Christine McNair & Pearl Pirie: AngelHousePress seraphim reading in Toronto on December 11

"Notes from a Cartywheel" will be for sale at the reading, or for those who are not in Ottawa or unable to attend, on the site via Paypal.

Publisher: AngelHousePress
Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-01-8
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house: a (tiny) memoir

tells us about his childhood in Glengarry County by way of old family photos, his own memories and recollections from family. "Home is a series of recollections, of distances, as easily remembered as mis-remembered, and a blending of events that can sometimes never be confirmed. And why write as a "memoir" instead of calling them "prose poems"? I want these stories not to be misunderstood; I want them to be seen as what I remember, what I believe to be true, from my vantage point of some three decades later, and thousands of miles. It felt like reclaiming something that had been far away for a very long time, but no longer. It felt like bringing out the good out from underneath all the bad that came later, overshadowing so much of what had happened before." rob mclennan

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-7-3
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over my dead corpus

offers up a feast of sounds, playful and thoughtful poems culled from the corpus of the world. "The main source corpus is over 500 pages of scrap notes that served as fodder for recombinance. Words or phrases were scraped for letter sequences within syllable or that broke across syllable or word. The other corpus is incidental word combinations from scrabble strung in the mind's insistence for meaning or sound." Pearl Pirie

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-1-926786-00-1
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Alert

is a collection of poetry that will take you to Nunavut and set your dreams howling. In lines as long and fragile as icicles in early spring, you will find salt and tulips and deranged weeds, Danes and a gentleman of snow. A recent graduate of Carleton University and a stalwart of Ottawa's literary scene, Ben is leaving Ottawa for the wilds of the UK. His rugged and sensual poetry, served to you on fine linen sheets, will warm you in the cold winter nights to come.

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-9-7
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Pent Up

Five Ottawa writers play dominoes with sound and language. This is the second chapbook of the as yet unnamed poetry group, following Whack of Clouds published in 2008.

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-8-0
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Ursula

is a long poem about Ursula who wanders city streets and back alleys while having visions of Saint Ursula, the patron saint of lost girls, said to have been massacred along with 11,000 virgins en route to her wedding ceremony to a young Pagan prince.

Limited Edition of 26 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-6-6
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Compositions

is a fevered tumble of sensuality, art, and passion. The art reflects the moods and tones of the poetry in the form of a defiant woman in shades of red and black. The chapbook's rough cotton pages serve to represent the dream-like intensity of the contents.

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-5-9
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Secret Vespers: I Only Pretend to Hide

gives the reader 28 vignettes that reflect his witty and wistful views of day-to-day life.

Limited Edition of 50 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-4-2
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Signs of the Apocalypse
is a sporadic magazine published in the form of nuclear bomb-resistant broadsheets. AHP dips its wings into history and current apocalyptic anxiety to offer an alphabetical reflection of the end of the world.

Limited Edition of 26 copies.
ISBN:
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Whack of Clouds

is a limited edition deck of poems featuring slights of word, shredded cards, and magic tricks.

Limited Edition of 54 copies.
ISBN: 978-0-9783780-3-5
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