Featured Books
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Attenuations of Force
by Lori Cayer
ISBN: 978-1-897181-31-7
Price: $15.95Attenuations of Force is a collection that commands our attention. Unnerving and charming in turns and at all points, linguistically supple, Cayer’s fierce, unflinching poems of selves made and unmade, of postmodern lusts and blind faith, will torque your brain around. Whether Cayer is mapping a weather that “drums your body apart” or riffing off a neo-gothic Jeff Goldblum morphing into a fly, her poetic altered states and stated alterations will dazzle you. No question, Cayer means business.”
—Jeanette Lynes -
Children of Ararat
by Keith Garebian
ISBN: 978-1-897181-32-4
Price: $15.95This is a momentous collection rendered by a poet in his prime. Children of Ararat takes the reader on a harrowing journey beginning with the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and continuing on to the denial that lingers to this day. While the horror is made clear, there is something oddly joyful in the mourning, in the poet’s ability to give voice to the long-dead. Without hyperbole, the poet evokes the gruesome events and articulates how, as the inheritor of his father’s experiences, he finds himself ‘trapped in an abyss’ created nearly a century ago. As with his previous collection, Blue: The Derek Jarman Poems, Garebian once again creates a living elegy that at times reaches almost beyond words.
—Jeff Round, www.jeffreyround.com -
Confessions of an Empty Purse
by S. McDonald
ISBN: 978-1-897181-33-1
Price: $15.95A book of poetry that reads compulsively like a novel – the anguished and ultimately courageous story of an individual caught between genders. The narrator is caught in the funhouse mirror of movies and pop culture, between dreams and self-loathing. These poems must be read in tandem with 1960s/70s sexual liberation classics: Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls (1966), a novel never-old; and Rosemary Daniell’s Sexual Tour of the Deep South (1974), a set of “happening” poems.
—Jury, Dektet 2010 -
ex nihilo
by Adebe D. A.
ISBN: 1-897181-34-8
Price: $15.95Ex Nihilo is a bold, beautiful, and timely collection of poetry. Deeply imbued with a rhythm as deep as Langston’s rivers, Adebe D.A. choreographs her words to dance on and off the page — her canvas. A remarkable remix of language and history, Ex Nihilo moves us to places we have not yet considered. A call to both thought and action, Adebe confronts and celebrates her polychromatism. She is a major voice of a new generation.
—M.K. Asante, Jr. -
Fallacies of Motion
by William Nichols
ISBN: 978-1-897181-35-5
Price: $15.95Here is contemporary wisdom in verse. Imagine ancient Solomon revived and even more cynical, witty, precise, and scathing. These lyrics are delightfully arch and delicately stern. They range from wry takes on technology and white-collar conundrums to introspective riffs on grief, loss and the compensations of travel.
—Jury, Dektet 2010 -
Falling Blues
by Jannie Edwards
ISBN: 978-1-897181-36-2
Price: $15.95Familiar comforts – marital beds, teacups – are balanced on the knife edge of language, scissored into poetic forms from villanelle to blues. The result is attentive and disconcerting. The beautiful success of this superb collection is due to the use of verbs, always freshly precise and colourfully sound.
—Jury, Dektet 2010 -
Learning to Count
by Douglas Burnet Smith
ISBN: 978-1-897181-37-9
Price: $15.95Travel writing used to be a nostalgic adventure-story or anthropological ghetto of non-fiction. This book shows that the experience of crossing borders and negotiating cultures is integral to anyone alive to – and in – the world. The poems are a layered patina, evoking not only the sensual present of France, Rome, Corsica and Halifax, but also their complex pasts, interpreted over and over through art.
—Jury, Dektet 2010 -
[sic]
by Nikki Reimer
ISBN: 978-1-897181-38-6
Price: $15.95Gorilla condoms? Goldilocks’ bent-over cootchie? Gonzo cocaine? Everything’s 4-sale when language is loosed as it is ici (icy) (sic). These poems are a pile-up of pop culture at “the intersection of Art and Commerce”, and the city is caught at the stoplight.
—Jury, Dektet 2010 -
Standoff Terrain
by Jocko Benoit
ISBN: 978-1-897181-39-3
Price: $15.95A guy looks for love in all the wrong places, but comes up with all the right lines. What happens when Sun Tzu’s The Art of War meets the Indian erotic-religious text The Kama Sutra? Well, you get philosophical verse that’s fun, frank, and funky.
—Jury, Dektet 2010 -
White Shirt
by Laurie MacFayden
ISBN: 978-1-897181-40-9
Price: $15.95This is the “classic” hard-drinking, hard-living, gravelly poet’s voice – only it comes from a woman. It’s a bust-out-of-the-closet voice where occasional touchstone rhymes and furious lists score the page. The poems are stripped down, poignant, exact, and as heartily playful as any serious blues. Here is Sappho crossed with the Supremes.
—Jury, Dektet 2010
Frontenac House News
Jun 2, 2010
All Roads Lead to Manyberries
"In Ron Wood’s Manyberries, Canada’s sacred cows suffer the fate of the buffalo." – Stephen Harper
"Carrying on the great tradition of Haliburton & Leacock, Ron Wood has portrayed a western small town that seems as real as it is funny."
This is what the Leacock jury said about Ron Wood’s And God Created Manyberries when it was short listed for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Award for Humour. And the same can be said of Wood’s sequel All Roads Lead to Manyberries. With sharp wit, bold characterization and a keen eye for observing what is important – and funny – to Canadians, Ron Wood once again caricatures the political leadership and the small town foibles of this country. Sounds rather Leacock-ian doesn’t it? As a former political backroom communications advisor, Wood has all the necessary scalpels. It’s easy for the reader to imagine the characters in this book with their concerns, their plots and their humorous approaches to life in a small Alberta town.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
6:00 pm
The Ranchman's Cookhouse
9615 Macleod Trail SW
Tix $30.00 per single
includes 1 book, 1 beer, 1 beef on a bun
Tix $40.00 per couple
includes 1 book, 2 beer, 2 beef on a bun
$20.00 per additional book
Net proceeds to Project Warmth
Carrying on the great tradition of Haliburton & Leacock, Ron
Wood has portrayed a western small town that seems as real as it is funny." — the Leacock Jury on And God Created Manyberries.
DON’T MISS IT!: RSVP to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Apr 20, 2010
Get your poem published by Frontenac House in Extravaganza
Do you have a poem pacing about in the confines of your computer or your mind? Is it wild? Gentle? Hilarious? Tragic? Insane? Serious? Abstract? Concrete? All of the above? Or is it something completely different? Submit it to Wattpad and you may get published! Be sure to include the tag poetrycontest.
The winners will be determined by Frontenac House.
Submissions must be original, in English, and may not have been previously published anywhere else. Contest deadline July 31, 2010. Winners will be announced on September 15, 2010.
The year 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of Frontenac House and the Quartet poetry series. To celebrate, Frontenac extended its usual quartet to ten books - Dektet 2010 - released this April.
But that's not all. Frontenac has joined forces with Wattpad to create Extravaganza! a unique poetry competition that invites young poets from all over the planet to upload and share their best poem.
The winning poems will be published in Extravaganza! a Frontenac House poetry book to be released towards the end of 2010. The book will be published in digital formats as well as a limited edition print version.
ABOUT WATTPAD
Founded in 2006, Wattpad's vision is to revolutionize the way we publish and read written works. Wattpad is now the world's most popular ebook community where readers and writers discover, share and connect, delivering billions of pages from our library, one of the world's largest collection of originally-created ebooks. Wattpad provides a powerful creative outlet and social media for undiscovered and published writers to share what they have written - a romance story, fan fiction, poetry or novel - and attract millions of readers. All the written works are easily discovered on Wattpad's website (www.wattpad.com), mobile site (m.wattpad.com) or through Wattpad's application available on all mobile devices including Apple iPhone/iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung and more.Poetry Prize, and the Griffin Poetry Prize.
Mar 1, 2010
A Celebration of Canadian Poetry
The year 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of Frontenac House and the Quartet poetry series. To celebrate, Frontenac will simultaneously publish 10 poetry books in April– Dektet 2010. Titles were chosen by a jury of leading Canadian poets: bill bissett, George Elliott Clarke, and Alice Major using a blind selection process. Jury members did not know the identity of persons submitting manuscripts.
Dektet 2010
Attenuations of Force, Lori Cayer Winnipeg, MB
Children of Ararat, Keith Garebian, Mississauga, ON
Confessions of an Empty Purse, S. McDonald Toronto, ON
Ex Nihilo, Adebe D. A., Toronto, ON
Fallacies of Motion, William Nichols, Edmonton, AB
Falling Blues, Jannie Edwards, Edmonton, AB
Learning to Count, Douglas Burnet Smith, Antigonish, NS
[sic], Nikki Reimer, Vancouver, BC
Standoff Terrain, Jocko Benoit, Calgary, AB
White Shirt, Laurie MacFayden, Edmonton, AB
Edmonton Launch
April 27, 7 pm
Stanley A. Milner Library Theatre
#7 Sir Winston Churchill Square
An extension of the Edmonton Poetry
Festival
All 10 Dektet poets will be at the event.
Calgary Launch
April 29, 7 pm
John Dutton Theatre
Macleod Trail
The closing event of the Calgary
International Spoken Word Festival
All 10 Dektet poets will be at the event.
Toronto Launch
September, date tba
All 10 Dektet poets will be at the event.
In May, the Dektet poets will be at
events in their home communities across
Canada
A big thank you to Sheri-D Wilson and the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival for including Dektet 2010 in their wonderful array of events. Thanks also to Alice Major and the Edmonton Poetry festival for allowing Dektet 2010 to be an honorary extension of the festival presentations. Frontenac House is grateful to the Alberta Creative Development Initiative for their support in publicising and marketing Dektet 2010. We gratefully acknowledge the support of Canada Council for the Arts and of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for our publishing program.
Feb 22, 2010
Amazing Flights and Flyers
Shirlee Smith Matheson’s new book is now available. It is Frontenac’s 50th book to be published.
Amazing Flights and Flyers will be launching at the Aero Space Museum on February 28, 2010, 2 – 4 pm. 4629 McCall Way NE, Calgary, AB
Admission to the launch and to the museum will be free.
Razzama Jazz will perform and light refreshments will be provided.
For an invite, contact Lyn Cadence at 403.465.2345 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). You must bring an invitation to receive free admission into the museum.
Dec 1, 2009
Download Untitled Child
Untitled Child by Nancy Jo Cullen, published by Frontenac House in April, 2009 as part of Quartet 2009 is available as a free pdf December 1 – 3, 2009 only courtesy of author and publisher under a creative commons license.
Next Page
"The Three Sisters," a concert piece for wind band and narrator, is featured in the Calgary Stampede Showband's new CD, Breaking Boundaries. Composed by Kelly-Marie Murphy, it was inspired by Van Stelten's eponymous poem which forms an integral part of the work, and premiered at the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts in 2009. The poem also appears in her Frontenac House book Pattern of Genes.
