Tag Archives: Camille Martin

SPD recommends Sonnets

Posted on June 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

Sonnets is on the “SPD Recommends” list at Small Press Distribution. Here’s their webpage for the book.

Do support this terrific distributor – I have purchased many, many books from them over the years, and am glad to see them going strong.

And if you live in Toronto, you can pick up a copy of Sonnets at the inimitable, the one and only, This Ain’t the Rosedale Library. Accept no substitutes.

Camille Martin
Sonnets

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in-flight collage

Posted on May 23, 2010 | 3 comments

I’m back in Toronto after my rather hectic reading tour in Europe for Sonnets and some much-needed relaxation in Paris with Jiri. Below’s a collage that I made to pass the time during my flight home, using images torn from the Air France magazine . . . More when I recover from the jetlag . . .



Camille Martin
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/martin.html

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Sonnets – European reading tour

Posted on May 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

Vulcan is cooperating for now, so my reading tour in the UK, Ireland, and Paris to celebrate the publication of my new book Sonnets by the fabulous Shearsman Books is on. A recent review and ordering information follows the itinerary below. If you are going to be in any of these places, please come!

London, England
7:30 pm, Tuesday, May 4
Shearsman Reading Series
Swedenborg Hall, Swedenborg House / 20/21 Bloomsbury Way
Readers: Camille Martin (publisher’s launch of Sonnets) and Alasdair Paterson

Bangor, Wales
7:30 pm, Thursday, May 6
Blue Sky Cafe / High Street
A triple launch – Camille Martin’s Sonnets, Ian Davidson’s Into Thick Hair, and the new issue of Poetry Wales

St. Helier, Isle of Jersey
8:00 pm, Saturday, May 8
PoAttic Reading Series
The Attic in the Jersey Opera House

Cork, Ireland
Monday, May 10
6:30 – 8:00 pm: workshop
9:00 pm: reading
Ó Bhéal Reading Series / The Long Valley

Salford, England
6:00 – 8:00 pm, Tuesday, May 11
University of Salford
Two-hour session with students in the MA in Creative Writing program

Paris, France
7:30 pm, Tuesday, May 18
Ivy Writers Reading Series
Le Next / 17 rue Tiqutonne, Paris

A recent review of Sonnets by rob mclennan:

There are so few that seem to know how to bring something new to an often-used form that when it happens, it’s worth noting, and such is the case with Toronto poet Camille Martin in her second trade poetry collection, Sonnets (Exeter, England: Shearsman Books, 2010). Martin, an American relocated north after Hurricane Katrina, writes with the most wonderful sense of clarity, thought and play in these poems . . .

Read the entire review here

See the Shearsman webpage for ordering information, or go straight to SPD.

Cheers!
Camille Martin

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reinventing stairs . . .

Posted on April 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

For National Poetry Month, Angel House Press recently published one of my poems from a work in progress, nomadic slant. Click below to read the poem:

reinventing stairs takes a plot . . .

Camille Martin
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2010/martin.html

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Songs from Sonnets (glitch fixed)

Posted on April 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

I’ve been composing song settings for some of the poems in Sonnets and wanted to share some of the results here. Below are the audiofiles with scores that I uploaded to YouTube.

The program that I used for the score and audio is MuseScore. The sound quality isn’t terribly subtle, but it gives a general idea. The songs are scored for soprano with piano accompaniment.

Have a listen!

“KATRINA, TUNDRA”


“SNOW”


“TWIGS”


“SO MANY MELODIES”



“WHAT AM I”



Camille Martin
Sonnets (Shearsman Books, 2010)

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rob mclennan reviews Sonnets

Posted on April 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

There are so few that seem to know how to bring something new to an often-used form that when it happens, it’s worth noting, and such is the case with Toronto poet Camille Martin in her second trade poetry collection, Sonnets (Exeter, England: Shearsman Books, 2010). Martin, an American relocated north after Hurricane Katrina, writes with the most wonderful sense of clarity, thought and play in these poems, and with a flavour . . . (read more)

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Roundup: Poetry Close Readings and Appreciations

Posted on February 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

Hello, friends! My blog is now almost eight months old—I hope that you’re enjoying the posts.

I’m entering a busy time, with teaching responsibilities and readings to launch Sonnets, and I’m also in a reflective mood. So for this post I’m providing internal links to my close readings and appreciations of various poets over the last few months, with the most recent ones first.

As always, feel free to leave comments and to subscribe to my blog. Also, a link from your blog to mine would be greatly appreciated, and I’ll be happy to reciprocate with a link from mine to yours (unless you’re into shower cams or vengeful ex-wife pics—my most recent spammers).

Cheers!
Camille Martin

Trevor Joyce: Let them eat fire
Barbara Guest: “Bleat”
Ann Lauterbach’s Pilgrim of Desire
Connie Deanovich’s Essence of Saint
“G” is for Genre: Maxine Chernoff’s Todorov
“how many years / without death”: Larry Eigner’s memento mori
Miklos Radnoti (1909 – 1944)
Run Through Rock: Besmilr Brigham (the poem)
The Place of Place: Besmilr Brigham’s Run Through Rock (the essay)
We are all Walloon poets
“I know I am traveling all the time”: The Twilight Dreams of Artur Lundquist
Interview on rob mclennan’s blog
The Majlis Collaborative Experience
Anamorphosis (Creeley/Clemente): Death and the Stuff of Dreams
Alberta Turner: What do you mean, mean?
Empty Lawns and Battered Days: Rupert Loydell’s “Slow-Motion”
Anselm Hollo’s Heavy Jars: “Hard to say whether the jars’ve gotten any lighter.”
Rae Armantrout’s Waves of Punchlines

* * * * *

Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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Toronto Launch of Sonnets

Posted on February 20, 2010 | Leave a comment


 
If you’re in Toronto, please come to the launch of Sonnets at This Ain’t the Rosedale Library on Tuesday evening. I’ll be reading with Fred Wah, who is premiering his latest collection of poetry, The False Laws of Narrative, and Jim Smith, whose Back Off, Assassin! New and Selected Poems was recently published by Mansfield Press.
 
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
8:00 pm – 11:00 pm
This Ain’t The Rosedale Library
86 Nassau Street near Bellevue in Kensington Market
Toronto, ON
 

 
Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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Sonnets is now available! Read its first review . . .

Posted on January 31, 2010 | 4 comments

You can find ordering information for Sonnets here.

I was pleased to read an enthusiastic review of Sonnets recently in Stride Magazine. Here’s an excerpt:
 
        “Sonnets is a delightful body of work. Even though we wander
        into the oblique there is never alienation because the words
        are too beautiful …. Incredible poetic craft.”
             —James Mc Laughlin, Stride Magazine

Read the review here.
 

Cheers!
 
 
Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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dry leaf on velvet

Posted on January 23, 2010 | 4 comments

Photo: Camille Martin

Photo: Camille Martin

Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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Stoning the Devil on my sonnets in moria magazine

Posted on January 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Adam Fieled’s review and thoughtful analysis of some of my sonnets published in moria magazine:

“I was excited to find a group of wonderful sonnets from Camille Martin. What I at first dimly suspected has now been affirmed; there is as much vitality, craft, and genuine art being transmitted via the Web as there is being released via print journals. Martin’s sonnets deserve a closer look. I have chosen two of the six to look at . . .”
             —Adam Fieled, Stoning the Devil
 
Click here to read more.
 
Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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“something gets lost in the translation, and it’s not me, friend.” — more from “nomadic slant”

Posted on January 14, 2010 | Leave a comment


Recently published: three double sonnets from “nomadic slant,” a work in progress, in Reconfigurations: A Journal of Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture.
 
Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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Connie Deanovich’s Essence of Saint

Posted on January 11, 2010 | 1 comment


the poem, then a brief essay

Requirements for a Saint

think of a saint
and you think
of the incredibly dull clothing of a saint
 
perhaps extreme temperatures
or the difficult terrain they travel
(everything about a saint draws attention to itself)
 
think of a saint
and your thought is not
of a train thrusting through lightning
 
but of wind that smells of wood
or a wet disease
(saint world is the world of the empty hand)
 
breath is sometimes banged out of copper
and so is a saint
often with bell attachments
 
I’ll make you a saint
from an unblemished code book
that must be read
 
in a German restaurant
where beer is served in glasses
wrapped in brown leather
 
when the cuckoo strikes twelve
this will be the moment
of ascension

Connie Deanovich, from Watusi Titanic (New York: Timken, 1996)

        When I think of Connie Deanovich’s “Requirements for a Saint,” I think of chairs—or rather, the chair, the mental image of the one that can reasonably represent the entire category of chairs. I see in my mind’s eye Van Gogh’s straw chair or my idea of a generic dining room chair. Actually, there’s no such thing as a completely generic chair (a visualization has to look like some kind of chair), but rather chairs of our quotidian experience. What I don’t automatically see is a lounge chair, an antique commode chair, or Lily Tomlin’s giant rocking chair. Continue reading →

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a collage for the new year

Posted on January 8, 2010 | 4 comments


 

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ditch,

Posted on January 1, 2010 | 1 comment

Six from my work-in-progress entitled “nomadic slant” are featured in the January 2010 issue of ditch,.

ditch, has also produced an online anthology of Canadian innovative poets, which includes my six double sonnets along with the work of thirty-two others: Continue reading →

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“G” is for Genre: Maxine Chernoff’s Todorov

Posted on December 27, 2009 | 3 comments

Cover image: Susan Bee


the poem, then a brief essay

Todorov at Ellis Island
 
The secret of narrative
in the sight of the lovely
original fixtures,
the false accusations,
the “K” for insanity.
An indigent writer,
specifying the predicate,
fear of fire in ramshackle
buildings, the ghost
of the fantastic looking
across frozen water.
He felt swallowed up
by the 200 stairs,
by a procedure based on
external criteria,
plot and genre likely
to become a public charge.
While from the mountains
of Northern Italy, refused
admittance, a girl acting
mad, alluding to hermits
and saints. For to destroy
does not mean to ignore,
does not meant to build
the story-machine nor to feel
the grass under foot, but
to turn, as if spoken to,
into what we represent.

Maxine Chernoff, from World
 
      Maxine Chernoff’s “Todorov at Ellis Island” implicitly critiques Tzvetan Todorov’s structuralist theories of genre and narrative. In essence, Todorov posits a literary taxonomy according to a universal grammar of types: he is the Noam Chomsky of narratology and genre studies. The guiding principle in Todorov’s schemas is differentiation: defining boundaries and deciding what to include within those boundaries and what to exclude. And it is the idea of exclusion that Chernoff satirizes in her poem.
      Chernoff anachronistically situates Todorov on Ellis Island during its heyday as a screening station for new immigrants. Continue reading →

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Paris Métro

Posted on December 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

Photo: Camille Martin

Photo: Camille Martin


In anticipation of my trip to Paris in May, I dug up this photo from a stay during the summer of ’98.
 
Cheers for the holidays!
 
Camille

Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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scattering dust is good practice

Posted on December 15, 2009 | Leave a comment

Four of my double sonnets have just been published in Stride Magazine, edited by British poet Rupert Loydell. The link:

http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/
 
 
Camille Martin
http://www.camillemartin.ca

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baked penguin

Posted on December 11, 2009 | Leave a comment

 

(Photo: Camille Martin)

(Photo: Camille Martin)

 

          Camille Martin
          http://www.camillemartin.ca

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Sonnets redux

Posted on December 9, 2009 | 4 comments


I just finished proofing my upcoming book, Sonnets, which will appear in mid-March from Shearsman Books. I feel very close to this book—there was much pleasure in its writing.

And I’m excited about my tour of the U.K. following the London launch in early May. I just added a reading in Bangor, Wales, thanks to Zoë Skoulding. Iechyd da!

Here are a couple of my recently-published sonnets:
 
 
*
twigs with tiny
variations bob
against the blue.
no gunshot, no
sprint. earth murmurs
on its axis, volume turned
off. no hearts beating
to drums. seeds hook
animal fur. no countdown,
but a desert blossoming
between one and zero.
droplets fed by tiny
catastrophes dangle
from twigs.
  Continue reading →

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