Free Poets

Just over a year ago, I Googled one of my favourite poets and was annoyed to find that of his eclectic and decades-long body of work, only a mediocre handful of poems were available online.

I conceived Odourless as a place to keep some of my favourite poems so that I could 1) always have them on-hand and 2) establish an web presence for older poets whose work is inadequately represented online.

I don’t think it’s bold of me to say that I’m part of a generation of “up-and-coming” poets who don’t go from poet to poet reading every book (or even entire books, for that matter). I tried to fit in a sentence here about how the internet has the capacity to simultaneously enlighten and obscure and why that necessitates a stabilizing force, but that’s trite and vague, so I’ll simply say this: the internet is difficult.

At it’s best, Odourless broke copyright laws and provided, if you’ll forgive the term, a people’s alternative to the University of Toronto’s half-assed “Canadian Poetry Online,” which, while helpful, is the online equivalent of a windowless room with beige carpeting.

Once Odourless tried to go legit, I found myself pulling down some of the best poems while simultaneously engaged in weeks-long email relays aimed at acquiring the rights to a poem from the sixties (which, ultimately, even the author herself no longer had the right to republish).

The “poemaday/week” project died when, after fruitless correspondence with three different literary agencies about the rights to a six-line poem by a British poet, I posted an eight-word quotation from the poem on this website. A few hours later, one of the agents informed me that since I had neither secured the rights nor proven that this website serves “an educational purpose,” I had to remove the quotation. I asked again if she knew where I could find the person in charge of the rights. She said no, but insisted I take the quotation down.

By posting one of their poems online, I wasn’t trying to rip any poets off. As far as I can tell, poets don’t make much money in this country, at least not from selling poems. “Up-and-coming” poets don’t make any money, but have plenty of avenues for providing free editing/reading services to institutions who are themselves non-profit, all in order to pad their CVs for a better chance at an unpaid position on a higher wrung. We’re free poets in every sense of the term. That is, free to pursue any poetry-related work we like, for free. Unless, of course, we follow the crumb-trail up to the opium den of academic tenure.

But this post isn’t all whining. I’m still making chapbooks. I’ve been stitching them lately and using nicer paper, and to be honest I’ve had a much better time as a book-maker in the material realm than as a copyright crusader in the online realm. All this, coupled with an upcoming move to Toronto, means that Poemaday/week as well as Odourless Radio are done.

I’m going to make chapbooks and sell them at readings. Simple as that. If you want a book, go to a reading. Odourless probably won’t be at the same one as you, but I guarantee there will be poets with similar products just looking for a couple of bucks and someone who gives a shit.

- B

Odourless Hiatus

Hello hello, how have you been?

We’ve certainly been busy, but we’re gearing up to go back into production mode. Soon we’ll put up the February edition of Odourless Radio and hope to have poemaweek up and running regularly again by mid-March (so get those submissions in!).

In the meantime, check out Nathaniel G. Moore’s in-depth article on Odourless favourite Daniel Jones over at Poetry Is Dead.

Poemaweek 6: “Sea Legend” by Mark Callanan

From: Sea Legend by Mark Callanan (Frog Hollow Press, 2010)

Republished by permission of the author. If you don’t believe us, contact the Odourless attorney.

_
Sea Legend

They drew her up among the tons of codfish,
a pair of glistening gold studs in each ear.
Two clam shell halves concealed her nipples,
reminding them of dancing girls rigged out
in tassels—an obscene mockery or a tease.
From the waist up she was every woman:
your mother form a photo on a Caribbean beach;
a housewife transformed by the siren light
of evening; the fifth grade teacher who leaned
across your desk to demonstrate
a silk brassiere, her cleavage with arithmetic.

Below the waist she was scales and tail fin,
no fit place to put a reassuring palm.
They kept reaching out as if to pat
a leg that wasn’t there. They were
divided over what to do with her.
Someone said she should be laid to rest
in a proper grave; others, she belonged at sea.
So they settled on the latter: tipped the body
into the water and watched it fade from view.

Quotaday 2: from “Biology” by Michael Hofmann

This quotation has been removed by request, but you can find some of Michael’s work on The Poetry Foundation.

Poemaweek 5: from “She May Be Weary” by Cameron Anstee

From: She May Be Weary by Cameron Anstee (St. Andrew Books, 2011)

Republished by permission of the author. If you don’t believe us, contact the Odourless attorney.

_
from She May Be Weary

so drunk in the August sun and you’re the kind of girl I like
Jenn, where are your summer dresses in January?

the application is in the mail, at last;
a drink! enough already

another poet borrowed your book
and it returned covered in wax

have you anything to declare?
I found these words

the body will never deny you
until one day the body denies you

an open flame at night in the winter;
oblivion

_

~

_

this is a city of absurd extremes
eighty degrees across

the coffee stains on this library book
are older than I am

ah coolness, says the Fall
the grass dries out in solidarity

the red red blood breathes on the page

am I looking for stillness?
the ink is drying so incredibly loud

the thing that you’ll never never possess
Otis, what else?

the heart catches; these things, and others
the disarray unsettles me, you know that

Poemaweek 4: “Mangiacake” by David B. Huebert

Submitted by the author! Click here to submit.

Mangiacake (Trans. Cake Eater)
          Pour Les Bastiens

When she first mentioned mangiacake
I thought it sounded delicious.
After all, I loved cake.

It wasn’t until I met her parents
that I learned the mangiacake
was a sly succubus, haunting fridges,
cupboards, and spice racks
throughout North America.
It was a champion of all things bland.

Its common forms were ketchup,
margarine, processed cheese,
and “plastic” (yellow) mustard,
though it could be detected
in many insipid snacks and dishes:
cooked-through egg yolks,
well-done steak, boiled vegetables,
white bread, milk chocolate, etc.

Her parents were in a perpetual
war against the mangiacake,
and they were kind enough
to throw me on the front lines.

I entered a world of fiery spices,
semi-raw eggs, uncooked meat,
fresh pasta, stinky cheeses,
home-made aioli, penne a la vodka,
turkey dinners drenched in orange liqueur,
and imported Belgian chocolate –
not Godiva, but the real deal.

I began to fancy myself, like them,
an aficionado of the palate,
a conquistador of cuisine,
boldly marching towards
the very frontiers of taste.

It was much later, after I was already
well familiar with Ethiopian tibs,
steak tartare, Roquefort, Speculos,
and pommes de terre surprise,
that I realized the shocking truth:

the mangiacake was also hot dogs,
frozen burgers, Kraft Dinner,
ramen noodles, and countless other staples
of my childhood diet.

As it turned out, my foray
into exotic culinary climes
was little more than a sham.
Though they would never admit it,
I had to –
the mangiacake was me.

Odourless Radio, November 17, 2011

Dirty, Drunk and Punk

Listen/Download

Broadcast: November 17, 2011 | 6:30 PM | CKCU 93.1FM
Featured Voices: Jeff Blackman, Bardia Sinaee
Featured Music: Bunchofuckingoofs – “Fascist Statement” and “Destroy All Automobiles” | John Coltrane – “By the Numbers”
Links: The Brave Never Write Poetry by Daniel Jones | Dirty, Drunk and Punk by Jennifer Morton | Dinosaur Porn (Ferno House, 2011) | 2011 Governor General’s Award Ceremony
Description:
According to Daniel Jones, Canada’s established poetry scene by the 1980s had become “a mutual admiration society where poetry was nothing more than the currency that brought greater currency… Canadian poetry had become a huge and corrupt bureaucracy. It was ugly, cynical and full of pettiness and hatred. I loved it.”

This week we take a look Toronto’s punk scene in the 1990s. Set against the austere musical stylings of Bunchofuckingoofs, Jeff Blackman discusses the “poet laureate of puking” Daniel Jones, whose book was recently reprinted by Coach House 26 years after David McFadden picked it out of their slush pile.

With moments left to spare, our hosts also read a couple of poems by Leigh Nash and James Nadel from the recently released poetry anthology Dinosaur Porn.

We forgot to record this week’s show on Adobe Audition so the audio quality isn’t exactly up to Odourless snuff, but please bear with us–we’ll be back on air on December 15 with audio so crisp you could spread butter on it.