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Paper Hotel
Book by McLennan, Rob
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published August 1, 2002
3 people want to read
About the author
Rob Mclennan
129 books86 followersBorn in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of nearly thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012.
In Canadian Literature, Gordon Bölling praised his novel Missing Persons as “a welcome addition to the body of Canadian prairie fiction.” His collection of short fiction, The Uncertainty Principle has been described as: “Little flash fictions, some quirky, some funny, some touching. A fun read.” (Pearl Pirie). In a review on the ottawa poetry newsletter, Ryan Pratt wrote that “Thanks to mclennan’s discipline, our experience reading The Uncertainty Principle requires none. Organized to accommodate brief interactions (which, like the psychology behind bite-sized chocolate bars, results here in complete overindulgence), the book proves incessantly fresh, taken as a whole or in cursory, page-flipping handfuls.”
An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books, The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com), as well as organizes the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair, which he co-founded in 1994. 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
In Canadian Literature, Gordon Bölling praised his novel Missing Persons as “a welcome addition to the body of Canadian prairie fiction.” His collection of short fiction, The Uncertainty Principle has been described as: “Little flash fictions, some quirky, some funny, some touching. A fun read.” (Pearl Pirie). In a review on the ottawa poetry newsletter, Ryan Pratt wrote that “Thanks to mclennan’s discipline, our experience reading The Uncertainty Principle requires none. Organized to accommodate brief interactions (which, like the psychology behind bite-sized chocolate bars, results here in complete overindulgence), the book proves incessantly fresh, taken as a whole or in cursory, page-flipping handfuls.”
An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books, The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com), as well as organizes the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair, which he co-founded in 1994. 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
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 20, 2022
monday is a slow moving corpse.
like saying that miss ruby red is a deep,
deep well that you fall into. oh, that.
ah, yes. she smiles. he.
* * *
no one has breakfast
at tiffanys anymore. no one
has affairs to remember.
* * *
is like love at seventeen, it plies
deep in the solid bone
at the banff springs hotel, five days
in alberta we can never return to
the days are long & yr letters few,
& geography plots against me
a degas painting isnt enough,
even on a greeting card
it gives no greeting, it only reminds
of the separations to come
* * *
was the one who taught achilles, that
i didnt know
you cant cry over spilt milk, or moan
on broken eggs
or other produce
his poems give us permission
to eavesdrop, she says,
listening in
in time, she could be
sharing someone elses pillow
stepping heel-toe, heel-toe
* * *
epitaph, slowly & deliberately
,bark at bumper stickers
on maisonneuve, under a scalpel
a lifetime back, or three
montreal is the perfect place
to look at the moon
or anything else, comfort sundaes
before we knew
& turnd out sour, like the best
love songs
/occasionally get run over
* * *
a taxicab stalls in heavy traffic
/open the brake, & push
there are no new fact here to give
all you need youve already heard
& takes my breath, like salt
from old wounds, repeated blows
or break loose, from its gilded cage
/paper cuts covering legs & arms
* * *
something i had to, so i did,
but you werent there
one generation to below, its hard
to speak when nothing
the young care only abt the living / the old,
only on the dead
where is the common, two circles
floating, never cross
silence comes, & find out years
what they caught on
like saying that miss ruby red is a deep,
deep well that you fall into. oh, that.
ah, yes. she smiles. he.
- only shooting stars make love slow, pg. 13
* * *
no one has breakfast
at tiffanys anymore. no one
has affairs to remember.
- the end of film, pg. 22
* * *
is like love at seventeen, it plies
deep in the solid bone
at the banff springs hotel, five days
in alberta we can never return to
the days are long & yr letters few,
& geography plots against me
a degas painting isnt enough,
even on a greeting card
it gives no greeting, it only reminds
of the separations to come
- sex in the prairies, pg. 30
* * *
was the one who taught achilles, that
i didnt know
you cant cry over spilt milk, or moan
on broken eggs
or other produce
his poems give us permission
to eavesdrop, she says,
listening in
in time, she could be
sharing someone elses pillow
stepping heel-toe, heel-toe
- phoenix, pg. 65
* * *
epitaph, slowly & deliberately
,bark at bumper stickers
on maisonneuve, under a scalpel
a lifetime back, or three
montreal is the perfect place
to look at the moon
or anything else, comfort sundaes
before we knew
& turnd out sour, like the best
love songs
/occasionally get run over
- dogs bark at cars, but dogs dont drive, pg. 87
* * *
a taxicab stalls in heavy traffic
/open the brake, & push
there are no new fact here to give
all you need youve already heard
& takes my breath, like salt
from old wounds, repeated blows
or break loose, from its gilded cage
/paper cuts covering legs & arms
- the only an open heart can heal, for miz mulligan, pg. 96
* * *
something i had to, so i did,
but you werent there
one generation to below, its hard
to speak when nothing
the young care only abt the living / the old,
only on the dead
where is the common, two circles
floating, never cross
silence comes, & find out years
what they caught on
- old standards: i wanted to say something, pg. 110
Displaying 1 of 1 review