Hey, Crumbling Balcony!: Selected and New Poems

by Stuart Ross

This book spans nearly 25 years in the career of one of Canada's most original poetic voices. Poems are drawn from Stuart Ross’s three ECW books, as well as previously uncollected work from chapbooks, postcards, and leaflets, and a selection of new poems appearing in print for the first time.

Genres: Poetry

220 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2004

About the author

Stuart Ross published his first literary pamphlet on the photocopier in his dad’s office one night in 1979. Through the 1980s, he stood on Toronto’s Yonge Street wearing signs like “Writer Going To Hell: Buy My Books,” selling over 7,000 poetry and fiction chapbooks.

A tireless literary press activist, he is the co-founder of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair and now a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective. He had his own imprint, a stuart ross book, at Mansfield Press for a decade, and was Fiction & Poetry Editor at This Magazine for eight years. In fall 2017, he launched a new poetry imprint, A Feed Dog Book, through Anvil Press.

Stuart has edited several small literary magazines, including Mondo Hunkamooga: A Journal of Small Press Stuff, Syd & Shirley, Who Torched Rancho Diablo?, Peter O’Toole: A Magazine of One-Line Poems, and, most recently HARDSCRABBLE.

He is the author of two collaborative novels, two solo novels, two collections of stories, and twelve full-length poetry books. He has also published two collections of essays, Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer and Further Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (both from Anvil Press), and edited the anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (The Mercury Press) and co-edited Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament (Mansfield Press).

Stuart has taught writing workshops across Canada and works one-on-one with authors on their manuscripts. He lives in Cobourg, Ontario. In spring 2009, Freehand Books released his first short-story collection in more than a decade, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog, to almost unanimous critical acclaim.

Stuart was the fall 2010 writer-in-residence at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and the winter 2021 writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa.

In 2017, Stuart won the eighth annual Battle of the Bards, presented by the International Festival of Authors and NOW Magazine. In spring 2023, Stuart received the biggest book award in Ontario, the Trillium Book Prize, for his memoir The Book of Grief and Hamburgers. In fall 2019, Stuart was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian literature and literary community. His other awards include the Canadian Jewish Literary Prize for Poetry and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction. His work has been translated into Russian, French, Spanish, Estonian, Slovene, and Nynorsk.

Stuart is currently working on ten book projects.

Reviews

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the best place to begin reading Stuart Ross. I burned through this book of expansive surrealist narrative poems and quickly went into his more recent collections. Ross is a treasure, both for Canadian literature as a whole and for surrealist poets worldwide.

https://twitter.com/neonpajamas/statu...

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey, Crumbling Balcony! represents 25 years in the career of Stuart Ross, one of Canada's most original and entertaining poetic voices. "Poems New" offers up a generous selection of Ross's new work, while Poems Selected" gathers, chronologically, the best of his three ECW books (The Inspiration Cha-Cha, Farmer Gloomy's New Hybrid, and Razovsky at Peace), along with previously uncollected pieces from small-press chapbooks, postcards, and leaflets.

from "Poems New"...

"the cricket apparatus
is no longer functioning. Please
insert your noise
into the bleeding
night"

- Poem, pg. 5

* * *

The sun wears the blue sky like a hospital gown.
The deer are shadows among the trees.
The man doesn't know whether to torture or nurture.

The insects skid across the pond's surface.
The earth expands and contracts.
The boat is sleepy, but it is also hungry.

Earthworms caress the corn's narrow roots.
The great mouth of night stretches wide.
A swan confronts a killer.

The planets open their moist white eyes.
The wanderer's legs are on hundred and heavy.
A flash of light tears a hole in the night.

- The Sun, after Georg Trakl, pg. 19

* * *

1. Once roaches had rained down from the kitchen ceiling.

2. A flea-bitten dog sniffed at my sandals, and a boy threw a rock at it.

3. Empty, I drank coffee all night. They played a stupid movie on the plane.

4. A boy on a bicycle bumped into the curb and fell over.

5. In the 1950s, Hurricane Hazel had driven my parents into a basement.

6. Remember when the bumper cars used to come to Bathurst Manor Plaza? Aye, the bumper cars.

7. I could hear her sea monkeys laughing behind me.

- The Catch: Footnotes, pg. 41

from "Poems Selected" (previously uncollected)...

This subway!
It actually moves -
and with me
in it.
When it stops I go up
moving stairs.
That's right!
An escalator!
When I reach the top
I go outside
and there are so many people
that I become one of them.
But I don't get to choose
which one I become.
Oh, life!
You're such a gamble!

- Modern Times, pg. 54

* * *

A man in a dark suit
enters a telephone booth.
He pulls an oyster
from his pocket,
deposits it,
and listens for the dial tone.
Jacques Cousteau answers,
says, "Life is many things -
an acrobat may hang by his teeth
but not tell his dentist."
The man in the suit hands up,
goes to his office,
and sells his brother-in-law.

- The Telephone Call, pg. 61

* * *

You who have scotch-tapes your feet to the floor
and secured all movable objects in your household
You who have put velcro upon your dog and
fastened her to the wall with her water dish near
You who have stashed canned foods and liquids
and taken care of all loose ends
you who have disconnected all electrical equipment
and forwarded your mail to no fixed address
All of you
Listen:

On the shelf in your kitchen
there is a coffee cup
or maybe a tea cup
It sits motionless like a skull in a desert
Keep your eyes glued to that cup
think about that cup
that one thing

Wait for the rattle

- Wait for the Rattle, pg. 83

from "Poems Selected" ( The Inspiration Cha-Cha )...

David McFadden lay curled on his side
in an intersection.
David McFadden.
As I stood and watched cars and buses
navigate his inert figure,
someone appeared beside me and
said, "Who is that lying inert
in the intersection?"
"David McFadden," I told her. "That's
David McFadden lying there on his side
in the intersection. Not often
a Canadian poet stops traffic."
"Well," she replied, "they're not
actually stopping, they're
circumventing."
"Well," I argued, "it's an art
still in its infancy."

- Some Kind of Slowdown in the Intersection, pg. 141

* * *

I don't know.
What happened?
If you don't know,
the cameras were there.
Some people came in my way,
it might have been ...
I had to go,
so if you are in my way,
I am walking.
So I don't know what happened.
Something happened
to somebody
who should not have been there.

- Minor Altercation, a poem by Jean Chrétien, pg. 144

* * *

I gathered you together and provided you with
comfortable seats so that I may ask you this question:
Did I be happy correctly? Do my smile go on my face
right? In the slots on the backs of the seats in front of
you you should find plenty of paper and some pencils
and I ask you to take your time in answering. Did my
dog like the way I walked him? Am people in general
liking me? Is my niceness genuine in my voice? Am I
enjoying life as you had instructed? Please write your
answers neatly and hand them to my assistant on your
way out the door. And would the last person please tell
the next group I am ready for them.

- Happy, pg. 150

from "Poems Selected" ( Farmer Gloomy's New Hybrid )...

I don't speak English.

It is a bad language.

Give me an onion.

- Coffee Break, pg. 145

* * *

This supermarket
is my favourite supermarket

Children plant bombs on the pony ride.
Peacekeepers are blown into the frozen food section.
They begin to think they're niblets.

When the muzak stops,
the shoppers exchange lists.

The shelves are full of disgruntled products.
A box of crackers coughs in my face.
A bottle of soda mocks my beliefs.

I want to buy a bowling ball.
A woman tells me to take a number and wait my turn.

Farmer Gloomy introduces new hybrids.
They make the aisles wiggly.

The rice is so instant is is already eaten.

I replace my tongue with that of a cow.
I am voted fourth most popular shopper.

A rabbi faints in the checkout line.

I leave empty-handed.

- But, Mister, They No Have Bowling Balls Before Christ, pg. 158

* * *

The bright green apple sails over the white fence.
The small running shoe lies in an overgrown field.
The man rappels down the side of a skyscraper.
The happy mice burrow through the rotting garbage.
The Latvian hairdresser leaps with joy.
Malarial flies float dead in the gutter.
A paperboy takes a bow.

- Landscape, after Larry Fagin, pg. 161

from "Poems Selected" ( Razovsky at Peace )...

A man causes chaos in his house.
His family flees, finds shelter.
Here there is much light.
Here the clocks function.
Here the children learn to hunt.
Meals are served on plates.
The earth does not shift.
A woman wears a hate of fruit;
she sings into a microphone.
Each morning a calf is born.
Children may select their facial features.
It is safe here.

A man lies on a suspension bridge,
curled in a ball.
He closes his eyes
and doesn't breathe.

- The Big Chair, pg. 178

* * *

A translucent gizmo
bobs against
the ceiling.

My round head
bobs against
the pillow.

A happy fish
bobs against
the rocks.

Bring on
another of those
century things
for which
you're so famous
for.

- The Shape of Things to Come, pg. 187

* * *

On the street, a guy says to Razovsky,
"Over there, behind those buildings:
nature," Razovsky goes.
In nature, it is much quieter.
There is no TV, but there's animals,
which are like TV bu furrier.
In nature, Razovsky is damp.
His arms and legs itch. He is
covered in insects.
Razovsky talks, shouts:
in nature, he can't understand
his own words. They disappear
into trees, behind rocks, become
dew. Razovsky's shoes slide
along the slick leaves that carpet
this enormous living room.
A squirrel comes round a tree trunk,
its head stretched out, its nostrils
twitching. Razovsky twitches back.
They stare, time passes,
they stare. The squirrel's watery eyes
blink. Razovsky obeys.
He lies down in the moist leaves,
lets his limbs go limp.
Beyond the highest branches of the trees,
through the space the leaves leave,
he sees the sky, the clouds. He is
engulfed by screeches and scratchings
and thuds and buzzings. The song
of birds he cannot name. He was never
good at this stuff.

He closes his eyes, lets the sky
suck itself back into the sky.
Everything is orderly. For example:
a potato-chip bag bounces near in a breeze.
It becomes wedged between two rocks,
flutters, rustles.
Time passes. Razofsky becomes
part of the ground. The chip bag
becomes a butterfly, as ordained
by nature; it struggles from its
cocoon, bats its wings,
tugs frantically,
but still it is lodged
between the rocks. Razovsky
is not surprised
He looks up from the ground
at the same moment
he looks down from the trees.
His eyes meet his eyes.
There is a flicker
of recognition.

- Razovsky at Peace, pg. 195-196

[Jill S · Rating 1 out of 5]

This poetry collection was very much not for me.

I didn't connect to any of the poems. It all felt far too disjointed and directionless for me, and I found many of the poems were completely meaningless. I couldn't tell when the poet was trying to be funny or serious or somewhere in between. I felt sort of abandoned in this world of absurdity with no grounding or anything to relate to.

I am sure there are many people who would enjoy the whimsical nature of this collection, but I am not one of them.

[James Hawes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great introduction to Stuart Ross’s poetry. He is unique & every book is an adventure. This book changes every time I read it, this book can change the way you look at poetry & language. Read this! Now!

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Stuart Ross's Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New and Selected was so much fun I deliberately limited my intake to just a little bit every day to make it last. With a sampling of his output from 1978-2003 this is a real compendium of the wide variety of methods and subject matter Ross had chosen over the course of his career to that point and I, for one, find those choices, mixing absurdity with depth of feeling and accessible language, to be exactly and satisfyingly right. These poems stimulate with their highly creative wordplay, whimsical flights of fancy and wit while at the same time not shying away from grappling with personal issues of sorrow and regret.

A terrific book then by a writer whose forthcoming publications (a novel has been announced for 2011!) I'll always eagerly seek out

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction into a delightfully surreal poet. At times heartbreaking and at times hysterical (sometimes simultaneously), this tender collection is my first time reading Ross, but not my last.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so great. He is so clever. He is now on my list of people that I sort of want to be.