Notes on Drowning

by Rob Mclennan

McLennan, Rob

87 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

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

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

at six thousand degrees
the human body
is erased

- hiroshima (three), pg. 31

* * *

accepting the free movement of space
& growth
making clear definitions
between opinions & options
moving where the currents run

my eyes have opened larger
/pools of mercury
we're all created w/ the same capacity
to listen
lines drawn & resolution all around
but too few willing

as my lungs begin
to fill up w/ water

you are air

- poem for sunny, pg. 45

* * *

________, you no longer deserve
to be in one of my poems

there are too many people drinking in here
make that one more

I never wrote love poems either

- this could have been a poem, pg. 58

* * *

we train the body to move a certain way,
the mind to routinely think. memorizing phone numbers,
not neitzsche, some things are more important.
your back on the unmade bed, the open

window & the balcony smells downstairs.
this is how we train our mind to think, member
& remembering the facets

of our lives like nothing else, your long
red hair, the scent of sex & the

sound of your voice, sweetly, as the
numbers repeat & make themselves known,
calling from the station & Im gone again.

or you are. memory keeps.
a measure of infinite beauty.

- train, pg. 66

* * *

the dark night & another poem
have set me free. the sky is open.
already we have been.

earlier you took me down
to the beach for popcorn
& the most spectacular view of lake ontario.

there, the clock says
3am. I have renewed vigor.
& I finish this quickly, as you
are almost out of the bathroom.

- another poem, pg. 70