The Ottawa City Project: poems by rob mclennan

by Rob Mclennan

Working in the tradition of such previous poetry collections as Daphne Marlatt's Vancouver Poems (1972), George Bowering's Kerrisdale Elegies (1986), Joe Blades' River Suite (1998) and, closer to home, William Hawkins' own Ottawa Poems (1966), rob mclennan's thirteenth trade poetry collection The Ottawa City Project reads like a love song to a city caught between competing identities of local and national. The poems in this collection work to not only reflect the more conservative, even bureaucratic aspects of the city, but the myths of the city, and work through references and concerns that go completely against those myths, into their own stories, and into the realities of the city itself.

Genres: Poetry

148 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2007

About the author

Born 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