Train : a poetry journal: Sacha Archer

Showing posts with label Sacha Archer. Show all posts

20200116

Train : a journal of concrete

Issue #7 : Sacha Archer Derek Beaulieu nina jane drystek Amanda Earl Kyle Flemmer katie o’brien hiromi suzuki

A limited amount of copies will be available for free at the following locations:
Open Books: A Poem Emporium (Seattle WA) and Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop (Brooklyn NY).

Sacha Archer lives in Burlington, Ontario with his wife and two daughters. He is the editor of Simulacrum Press (simulacrumpress.ca). His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as ARC, filling Station, Matrix, Nöd, Politics/Letters Live, Utsanga, Otoliths, FIVE:2:ONE, Futures Trading, Timglaset and Touch the Donkey. Archer has two full-length collections of poetry, Detour (gradient books, 2017) and Zoning Cycle (Simulacrum Press, 2017). His most recent chapbooks are TSK oomph (Inspiritus Press, 2018), Contemporary Meat (The Blasted Tree, 2018) and Autopsy Report (above/ground press, 2018) with two forthcoming: Houses (no press) and Framing Poems (Timglaset). His visual poetry has been exhibited in the USA, Italy, and Canada. His website is sachaarcher.wordpress.com.

Derek Beaulieu is the author / editor of 20 collections of poetry, prose and criticism including two volumes of his selected work Please No More Poetry: the poetry of derek beaulieu (2013) and Konzeptuelle Arbeiten (2017). His most recent volume of fiction, a, A Novel was published by Paris’s Jean Boîte Editions. Beaulieu has spoken, performed and exhibited his visual work across Canada, the United States and Europe and has won multiple local and national awards for his teaching and dedication to students. Derek Beaulieu was the 2014–2016 Poet Laureate of Calgary, Canada and is Director of Literary Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

nina jane drystek is a poet, writer and performer based in Ottawa. her poetry has appeared in Canthius, talking about strawberries, the DUSIE: Tuesday poem, Bywords, in/words, ottawater, small talk and Window Cat Press, as well as in self-published chapbooks, and chapbooks and broadsides by & co. collective. she is a member of the sound poetry ensemble quatuour gualuour, and creates performances of her own. if you've ever lived in the same city as her you have likely seen her riding a red bicycle around town. find her @textcurious

Amanda Earl is a Canadian poet living in Ottawa. Amanda's current visual poetry project is "The Vispo Bible", which is a life's work to translate every book, every chapter, every verse of the Bible (Old and New Testaments) into visual poetry. It has been published as chapbooks and broadsides by numerous presses in Canada, Sweden and UK, as well as online. Amanda thanks the Ontario Arts Council 2018 Recommender Grant for Writers program for funding part of the creation of the Vispo Bible. For more vispo and information about additional publications and exhibits, please visit EleanorIncognito.blogspot.ca.

Kyle Flemmer is an author, editor, publisher, and radish enthusiast. He founded The Blasted Tree Publishing Co. (theblastedtree.com), a platform for emerging Canadian authors and artists, in 2014, and is currently the Managing Editor of filling Station magazine (fillingstation.ca). Kyle works as an event coordinator for Shelf Life Books in Calgary, Alberta.

katie o’brien is a poet, community worker, queer activist, and Netflix enthusiast originally from St. John’s, Ktaqamkuk, on unceded Beothuk land. a peal of thunder, a moment of (The Blasted Tree, 2019) is their third chapbook. katie dislikes lying, sings a lot, and doesn’t kill bugs.

hiromi suzuki is a poet, fiction writer and artist living in Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of Ms. cried - 77 poems by hiromi suzuki (Kisaragi Publishing, 2013), logbook (Hesterglock Press, 2018), INVISIBLE SCENERY (Low Frequency Press, 2018), Andante (AngelHousePress, 2019). Her works have been published internationally in poetry journals, literary journals and anthologies.
Web site: https://hiromisuzukimicrojournal.tumblr.com

Twitter : @HRMsuzuki

20200102

An interview with Sacha Archer

Sacha Archer lives in Burlington, Ontario with his wife and two daughters. He is the editor of Simulacrum Press (simulacrumpress.ca). His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as ARC, filling Station, Matrix, Nöd, Politics/Letters Live, Utsanga, Otoliths, FIVE:2:ONE, Futures Trading, Timglaset and Touch the Donkey. Archer has two full-length collections of poetry, Detour (gradient books, 2017) and Zoning Cycle (Simulacrum Press, 2017). His most recent chapbooks are TSK oomph (Inspiritus Press, 2018), Contemporary Meat (The Blasted Tree, 2018) and Autopsy Report (above/ground press, 2018) with two forthcoming: Houses (no press) and Framing Poems (Timglaset). His visual poetry has been exhibited in the USA, Italy, and Canada. His website is sachaarcher.wordpress.com.

How did you begin writing, and what keeps you going?

I remember my bedroom and the woods. I began writing in these two places. I would walk through the woods just looking at what was going on around me and write about it. Also I would make sculptures and generally engage in a creative way with the environment. How old I was at that time I don’t exactly remember, but pretty young, a boy. How does one begin writing? With an instrument. And words. Maybe. There was some need to engage with the world as it occurred, both with words and visually.

What could possibly keep me going at it? Well, it’s an addiction of identity, right? I mean, no one cares if you make or not. There’s no money in it. Time is eaten by work and children. Sleep deprivation ushers in slight hallucinations. It’s easier to disappear in front of the TV with a few beers. Maybe I am just trying to keep myself from disappearing myself. There is a great satisfaction in the process of creating. That process is my home.

Have you noticed a difference in the ways in which you approach the individual poem, now that you’ve published a handful of books and chapbooks?

Nope. If anything, my pieces are becoming more and more difficult to imagine in a book precisely because I don’t start out by considering the question of whether or not something might be fit for publishing.

How has the process of putting together a manuscript evolved? How do you decide on the shape and size of a manuscript?

I am so bad at putting one together. I can’t do it. Or I can put one together as I see how I want my work presented, but that’s not what larger publishers want. I usually work on a project, a series, rather than an individual piece—and ideally would always like to see a series presented as a whole in its own book, but, especially with visual poetry, that can be difficult to sell a publisher on. So, I’m at a point where either I learn how to play the game or I don’t. The alternative being that I continue playing my own game. As far as I can see both paths lead to the same result.

Given you work in text and visual mediums, how do the two sides of your writing interact? How did you begin with visual poems at all?

I think the marriage of pictures and words starts with picture books. Or the world we live in where they are not separate. I think I have always leaned toward the visual, but have always wanted to write more. But maybe it was Apollinaire and bpNichol that got me really going. Certainly ubuweb was a huge eye opener.

Essentially, all my work aims to land in the same place, which is more or less the general failure of communication and what is born of that. I don’t know how visual versus textual interact. Language is always the starting point—always the possibility of saying something. Always the questions where is language? what is written? Language is supposed to create communication, and I find so little actual communication from day to day. Or, I find an enormous amount of communication, but it fails most often via words. I remember when I was getting my TESOL diploma the most interesting insight I heard was that the most important thing in communication was not how one says what they’re saying, but that one can make themselves understood. Of course it seems obvious, but it isn’t, is it? How people snicker at ‘bad’ English, but the fact is, nobody knows what their saying. It’s a pretty messy dance. Always an attempt.

What poets have influenced the ways in which you write?

The easy answer is all of them who I’ve read. Either encouraging a style and approach or dissuading. Each book read a stepping stone. But, poets who I enjoy that I can see embedded somewhere in my own works (even if it’s not obvious)? Rimbaud, David Antin, Andre Breton, Susan Howe, Anne Carson, Bob Cobbing, bp Nichol, Erica Baum (not a poet, perhaps, but) Derek Beaulieu, Sam Roxas-Chua, Clark Coolidge, John Cage, and on…

You are editor/publisher of simulacrum press. Why do you feel this work is important, and what have you learned through the process?

A micro press like Simulacrum isn’t bound by the same rules as larger publishers. It is a place of possibility because it does not run on funding and is an act of generosity. I don’t really have some pool of expendable income, but I make it work. I started Simulacrum because I wanted to create a place where I felt certain of my own works would feel at home and so inevitably certain works of other like-minded creators. There is amazing, provoking work being made which deserves physical publication, and it is a joy to collaborate with authors and bring their work to the world—to try to frame that work so it can fully sing. I think every creator that I’ve published has been happy with how I’ve handled there work (except maybe one). It’s a different way to engage with work, a new angle to understand it—how to draw from it a response which does not intrude on the work, but holds it up.

What have I learned? A lot of people don’t know how to submit, or read. Tip for submitters: don’t just send a link to some huge file and think I’m going to open it. You may want to say something as well. Also, and this is big, a great many visual poets don’t know how to use their tools, and by this I mean within the digital realm. Please learn how to save a high res image. If you’re work is the tiniest bit pixilated, it better be intentional.

How important has mentorship been to your work? Is there anyone who specifically assisted your development as a writer?

No, not that I can think of—with writing in particular. There have been people along the way who have encouraged me and exposed me to certain aesthetics. Maralynn Cherry was a great teacher. That was purely visual work. Jake Kennedy was also a great teacher, but that was more a lesson in attitude. Mostly it’s just been reading and not lying to myself.

What are you currently working on?

Not much. There’s a new baby in the house and a new job that tires me out completely. I’m usually engaging with my practice every day, creating every day, so I’m struggling with being so fatigued and trying to find some routine and balance. I’m jotting down ideas for event poems and hope to soon execute/perform a few of them. In the summer I invited a bunch of people to preform two event poems and it was a blast. So, I’m looking forward to having a like gathering soon where those ideas will come to life. Also, I try to find objects at work that might facilitate a poem. I recently brought home a role of stickers that was tossed in the garbage. Usually they are fed through a machine that prints bar codes on them. This was a great find. I considered the object for a few days then went to Staples and designed a stamp:

Object appropriated

for Tactile Poem

Line # ________

So, each sticker will have this stamped on them, and potentially, a series of objects will have the stickers placed on them. Objects as lines. I don’t know how many stickers there are—I’m yet to count them. But this object, the roll of stickers, led me to a new approach to the poem. I am always thinking about my practice. Always. Everything in life relates back to it. And I think that’s what it takes to make good work—if I make good work. Total, unrelenting devotion.

Can you name a poet you think should be receiving more attention?

Besides all of them? Franco Cortese. He’s doing amazing work, very powerful. Read Franco Cortese.

20191209

Ink Pad Poems

Sacha Archer

20190527

Horse’s Mouth: Letters without Bodies 28

Sacha Archer

I am not sure how to get to the point where I am with you—and the line has ceased to exist. For the confusion about it. And I don't know if you were looking for the love—and hugs you, tightly packed in my mind. Is that the less than usual? And customary for it being made to order, never arrived at all, though I have a great little place in my hands. I want to be honest, I'm not sure if I can do it, for… …the trees in my hands. I was going to make a decision about whether or not this one is the best way, but I, despite having dinner at the moment, I'm not really sure how to make a decision about whether the mail from Michael and his wife was a bit more like an alternate embodiment of the face.

Sacha Archer is a writer that works in numerous mediums as well as being the editor of Simulacrum Press (simulacrumpress.ca). His work has been published internationally. Archer has two full-length collections of poetry, Detour (gradient books, 2017) and Zoning Cycle (Simulacrum Press, 2017), as well as a number of chapbooks, the most recent being TSK oomph (Inspiritus Press, 2018), Contemporary Meat (The Blasted Tree, 2018) and Autopsy Report (above/ground press). His visual poetry has been exhibited in the USA, Italy, and Canada. Archer lives in Ontario, Canada.

20190411

Train : a journal of astonishment

Issue #4 : Terrence Abrahams David Alexander Sacha Archer Manahil Bandukwala rob mclennan Chimedum Ohaegbu Terese Mason Pierre Ben Robinson Ian Seed Lydia Unsworth

A limited amount of copies will be available for free at the following locations:

Open Books: A Poem Emporium (Seattle WA), Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop (Brooklyn NY), the Windsor Small Press Fair (Windsor ON) and the New Orleans Poetry Festival (New Orleans LA).

Four issue subscriptions also available:

Includes shipping

Terrence Abrahams lives and writes quietly in Toronto. His second and third poetry chapbooks are forthcoming this year with ZED Press and baseline press. Find him on Twitter at @trabrahams.

David Alexander is the author of After the Hatching Oven from Nightwood Editions (2018). His poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, The Rusty Toque, The Humber Literary Review, the Literary Review of Canada, Big Smoke Poetry and other journals and magazines. David volunteers as a reader for The Puritan and works in Toronto’s nonprofit sector.

Manahil Bandukwala is the author of two chapbooks, Paper Doll (Anstruther Press, 2019) and Pipe Rose (battleaxe press, 2018). She was the 2019 winner of Room magazine's Emerging Writer Award, and won the Lilian I. Found Award for poetry in 2019. See her work at manahils.com.

rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles include the poetry collections How the alphabet was made (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018) and the forthcoming Household items (Salmon Poetry, 2019) and A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019). 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

Chimedum Ohaegbu attends the University of British Columbia in pursuit of hummingbirds and a dual degree in English literature and creative writing. She is Uncanny Magazine’s assistant editor and her work is published or forthcoming in Strange Horizons, This Magazine, Honey & Lime Lit, and The Capilano Review.

Terese Mason Pierre is a Canadian writer, editor and organizer. Her work has appeared in the Hart House Review, Collapsar, The Brasilia Review and others. She is the poetry editor for Augur Magazine and the co-host of Shab-e She'r, a poetry reading series in Toronto.

Ben Robinson's recent poems include the tale of a man who finds himself lodged in his condominium’s garbage chute, as well as an account of the Christian God’s foray into Spanish lessons. In 2019, The Blasted Tree will publish his chapbook, The Sims in Real Life. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, ON.

Ian Seed’s latest collections are New York Hotel (Shearsman, 2018), which was selected by Mark Ford as a TLS Book of the Year, and Distances (Red Ceilings, 2018).

Lydia Unsworth is the author of two collections of poetry: Certain Manoeuvres (Knives Forks & Spoons, 2018) and Nostalgia for Bodies (Erbacce, 2018), for which she won the 2018 Erbacce Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in Ambit, Pank, Litro, Tears in the Fence, Banshee, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Sentence: Journal of Prose Poetics, among other places. Based in Manchester/Amsterdam. Twitter@lydiowanie