ROB MCLENNAN

Born in Ottawa, Canada's glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa.
The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most
recent titles are the poetry collections Glengarry (2011), kate street (2011), wild horses
(2010), and a second novel, missing persons (2009), An editor and publisher, he runs
above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review,
seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual
ottawater. 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.

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Old farmers, field

Side entrance to lilacs, trees fenced in,
walk us at noon, last seen
, pavement; courtesy of expansion,

outstanding, in the field; or winded,

broken window cafe plights
a growth spurt; bookstore of leaves
, could go with houses, petrified,
She tries her tongue a crude,

wholesome, enduring salvage; the records
show, that; heritage of undefined,
in special projects
, folder focus evidence a folding, in

or cut up, carve, disjunct, divorce, a parting
, severance,

collectible, proliferate; she recommends
, you punch out stars
, some good advice;








Suburban aria,

A mist of, fills the lungs; bruised clouds
kept in motion; commercial jets that lift,
against the windy grain; an opera house
of yellow company,

queen of quick-fast; sell me
your love,

what beauty left left me in rags; fathom
of a pressure, when

, intestines rupture, break
, re-colonize; left in song,

scrubbed off your machine; a dusty
breeze,
, a painting of John Lennon
& Santa Claus is just,
, confusing








Calcium deposit,

Cipher; heritage, a grey & bitter,
looking down; beloved litany, a twitter
, that which I have not,

a shelf-life in Vancouver; crossed over
Sapper's Bridge
, unpleasant over; insisting, out of sleeves,

remained, insistent; everything remains,

a corpse of lodge pines, conifers, what left
, of leaving, realized, left
my understanding; complex,

the last of which Longinus said,

portrait of a soft space, writing
, stairway lying on his back, forever








poem written at eden mills

A fact is brutal it stands over a hole.
- Karen Houle, during

a curious balance of cars
& camouflage ushers

how full the hand curves

rain striates sudden damp paths
of what once was a house

& what might be again

a landscape of giants
& the violence

of those small ontario towns

sadder than rock,
settled loyalist stone

parceling bookshelves, tables
& a surface of wet

amid these distractions, how easily
they change size & shape, how fully

they embody a break
in the language of river, sound

nestled there in the bulrushes

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