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.

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

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

_
Kraken

Past the diorama of the diving birds,
the swimming birds, the birds
perched on a cliff face, the faces
of the cliff besmirched
with splattered egg whites
of faux bird shit;
past the skeleton of the extinct
auk in a glass case, propped up
by a metal rod that pins
his long-dead bones in place;
a tank with riveted metal frame
contains the giant squid.

You’d hardly think its phallic shape,
its length (some porn star’s
money shot at fame) would dredge
more than giggles from the belly’s
depths, but this decaying
length of dick and tentacles
once roiled the waters,
crushed ships in its embrace
and gripped the minds of sailors.
Half afraid, half amazed.

You can’t help but tap the glass
as if the squid might scatter
like a flock of birds,
as if it weren’t a kind of relic
from the time when bones
of saints could cure
the sick and make the lame
ditch crutches, dance a jig,
as if it were a living thing,
and that its eyes,
the size of doorknobs,
might then turn
on you and see you
looking in on death,
watching your reflection in the glass.

The Sparrow Talks

The upbringing of the sparrows
manifests a red mouth,
the squashed worms, sudden sky.
Summer stretches out to its lonesome tail.
The cat multiplies in my garden
and the flowers look forward to the season’s end
when they become the possibilities at rest.

The possibilities nod away the path
to the new sets, incoming,
birdtalking in their half-learned dictions,
finding the abrupt blue free and dizzy.
Silly, they choose my window for repose.

Ballad

In arsenic: natural, of powdered rock,
And trisulphide; in saltpetre and quicklime;
In boiling lead, the better to break them up;
In soot and pitch well thinned out with a lye
Made from a Jewess’s feces and urine;
In water used to wash the legs of lepers,
In scrapings taken from feet and from old boots,
In asps’ blood and in drugs most poisonous,
And in the gall of wolves, foxes, and badgers
- In all this may those spiteful tongues be fried!

In a cat’s brains, one that hates to fish,
Black, and so old there’s no tooth in its gums;
In the froth and the drool of some old hound,
Quite rabid, and its value just as high;
In the foam of a broken-winded mule
Cut up in little pieces with good shears;
In water where rats plunge muzzles and snouts
As well as frogs and toads and dangerous beasts,
Serpents and lizards and such noble fowl
- In all this may those spiteful tongues be fried!

In sublimate, which is dangerous to touch,
And in the ‘navel’ of a living snake;
In the blood that we see drying in bowls
At barbers’ shops, when the full moon arrives,
Of which one’s black, the other greener than chives;
In ulcers and sores, and in those filthy tubs
In which the nursemaids rinse their diapers out;
In little baths of girls who live by love
(Don’t understand? You haven’t haunted brothels)
- In all this may those spiteful tongues be fried!

Prince, just strain out all these delicious things,
If you have got no filter, sacks, or bolters,
Right through the seat of a pair of dirty pants;
But before that, in the feces of pigs
- In all this may those spiteful tongues be fried!

Ottawa poet, publisher and former Blackmax Quartet drummer Cameron Anstee has graciously reviewed the Odourless  fall 2011 catalogue for the Ottawa Poetry Newsletter.

Thanks Cameron! We certainly agree that “there is a whole lot to like here, and no excuse not to buy them all.”

Anyone interested in review copies should feel free to email us.