Wednesday, 8 August 2012

Review in Arc Poetry Magazine

Looking for ways to start again: Jack Hannan’s Some Frames

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Jack Hannan. Some Frames. Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2011.
~reviewed by John Herbert Cunningham

Not often does a reviewer review a poet’s first book, particularly when that poet is not an acquaintance or part of the reviewer’s writing community. But when that poet has been publishing their work in Canadian literary magazines since the 1970s and has published a number of small-circulation chapbooks, the reviewer has to wonder whether they have an Emily Dickinson on their hands. So it is with Jack Hannan and his first book Some Frames (there is some dispute about whether this is a first book, as an earlier, sizable ‘chapbook’ with an ISBN had raised controversy). In a note at the start of the work, Hannan informs us of the reasons why he is so late in getting this book out: the first is that he is “not such a prolific writer,” that he “always liked chapbooks” and that he “stopped writing for twenty years in 1984.” Intriguing! Beguiling!
While a guest on Speaking of Poets (CKUW 95.9 FM Winnipeg), he explained that he had stopped hearing his poetic muse, and so began writing fiction. Some Frames opens with “All Those Moons” where, due to lack of periods or capital letters, one poem becomes many, depending on where your reading stops and how often you reread the poem—something you are tempted to do even before you’ve reached the end. Hannan asks “Who put all those moons up there / and then made your foot twitch like that / when you’re bored, sometimes / days are as populous as cities,” to which a group of children respond “that’s not the real moon.” This tendency toward collage is Hannan’s dominant style. In the title poem, one of the longest in the collection, Hannan telegraphs the punch of the impending collage: “There are five frames, negatives, with a bird / in the fourth frame, from the left, the way the eye reads.” The following passage is from the fourth stanza:

Curling slivers of coloured plastic, turning the way worms

turn the earth inside our wordy hearts, friends

will begin again, out into the negative light of morning, slivers,

the skin of an orange in twisty

arcane pieces, looking for ways to start again.

This is Hannan at his best. There are times, however, when you ask yourself whether he’s attempting to mix levels of language or whether he’s just slipped into a prose rhythm inadvertently. The last few lines of “Untitled art advertisement #39,” for example, move from the specific to the meditative and back: “there’s a sculpture by Barnett Newman, called The Broken Obelisk, / anyway, this is another nice place to be alone / if ever you feel you’d like to be alone in Houston, Texas.” This could be viewed as a satire of the pomposity of the world of art connoisseurs or of the art gallery brochure. Oh, about that twenty-year lapse, Hannan has completed his novel and is looking for a publisher. And he’s not an Emily Dickinson, but a Jack Hannan, and that’s good enough.

John Herbert Cunningham, a Winnipeg writer, is host of Speaking of Poets, has recently had a poem published in Branch and has also had a couple of poems set to the classical guitar of Rizard Tyborowski. He is in the process of writing two plays and a novel.

Saturday, 28 April 2012

Read Locally / Think Globally

Poetry must be seen as poetry, but that does not mean it is without social, political, or other relevant meaning. In fact, it is the mark of a great culture to be aware intensely of art as art, and at the same time as the vehicle for civilized values and for the manifold energies of life. –Louis Dudek

MONTREAL— Poetry Quebec and Chapters are teaming up to celebrate National Poetry Month. From Monday, April 23 to Sunday, April 29, Chapters (1171 Sainte-Catherine Street W.) will prominently display the books of some of Montreal’s finest English-language poets.

The event will culminate in a special “Meet & Greet” from noon to 5 PM on April 28 and 29, where featured poets— Susan Briscoe, Mary di Michele, Endre Farkas, Jack Hannan, Steve Luxton, Robyn Sarah, Carolyn Marie Souaid and Gillian Sze – will be on hand, in one-hour shifts, to sign books and share their love of poetry with the public.

According to Endre Farkas, one of the organizers: “Montreal English language poets have played an important part in the development of Canadian literature. Think of A.M. Klein, F.R. Scott, Louis Dudek, Irving Layton, and Leonard Cohen— to name a few. And the contribution continues with this new generation of writers.”

“Poems have a way of getting to the heart of the matter. And though many would have us believe that it has no relevance, you just have to surf the net to see the thousands of sites and blogs dedicated to poetry. And it is poetry most people turn to when they want to underline the special occasions in their lives,” says co-organizer Carolyn Marie Souaid.

The organizers and co-editors of Poetry Quebec encourage and invite everyone to come out and meet the poets at Chapters, and support them not only because they are local but because they are good.

Saturday

12-1 Endre Farkas

1-2 Steve Luxton

2-3 Richard Sommer (represented by Vicki Tansey)

3-4 Mary di Michele

4-5 Robyn Sarah

Sunday

12-1 Carolyn Marie Souaid

1-2 Gillian Sze

2-3 Susan Briscoe

3-4 Jack Hannan

Information: (514) 488-3185

Founded in 2009, Poetry Quebec is an online magazine dedicated to Quebec’s English-language poets and poetry – past and present. Since its inception in 2009, PQ has had over one million hits.

Saturday, 26 November 2011

Poetry awards: Established masters and new voices all merit prizes

By Harold Heft, Special to The Gazette November 25, 2011

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Poetry+awards+Established+masters+voices+merit+prizes/5767192/story.html#ixzz1eoHyOh8A

This was a review of 4 books by poets, Susan Musgrave, Phil Hall, Garry Thomas Morse, and me. Excerpted out the paragraphs about Some frames.

Montrealer Jack Hannan has been publishing poetry in chapbooks with limited circulation since the 1970s, but his volume Some Frames (Cormorant, 108 pages, $18), which was a finalist for the QWF’s A.M. Klein Prize, is his first full book publication. It compiles many of his poems published previously in chapbooks and journals, as well as unpublished work.
Hannan’s aesthetic revolves around fragments and impressions. At his best, he provides a sequence of details, allowing the reader to discover a narrative, or to accept that the details don’t require narrative. “A poem in the kitchen,” one of Hannan’s more recent poems, provides a fascinating pastiche of fragments and impressions. It begins with the mundane – “Today I bring home chocolate bees \ penne, a baguette, garlic and milk” – and sees the poet compile random scenes on the métro – “people reading \ over your shoulder, the noise \ of a boy bouncing a basketball on the subway platform.” Midway through the poem, Hannan introduces a hint of menace: “today I heard our own daughter say ‘actually \ it’s all dangerous.’ ” The poem meanders through a sequence of more random impressions before a startling ending: “what’s that person over there doing? \ Oh no!” To Hannan, I would give an award for showing us that poetry can exist in the vérité of fractured existence, and for forcing the reader to do the work of discovery.

Poet Jack Hannan’s award nomination was rescinded, but he isn’t complaining

By Jeff Heinrich, THE GAZETTE November 19, 2011

Poet Jack Hannan’s nomination for a Quebec Writers' Federation first-book award was rescinded, but he isn’t complaining

Photograph by: John Kenney, The Gazette

"Something could be verbed out in a number of ways ..."
A Poem for the Coming Surface, Jack Hannan
MONTREAL - Early prodigy, late bloomer – in his unassuming way, Montreal writer Jack Hannan has been both. His recognition, however, has been blemished by a bit of controversy he didn’t seek.
This is how the story’s arc has gone so far.
In primary school Hannan wrote his first poem, in his early 30s he got published, for 20 years he stopped writing, and now in his early 60s he has come back with a new collection of poetry – and a novel, as yet unpublished.
The poetry collection, Some Frames, got Hannan nominated for two prizes at the upcoming Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards. Unfortunately, it was then un-nominated for one, the Concordia University First Book Prize.
The reason? Some Frames, it turned out, wasn’t Hannan’s first book. He had already published a small collection of poetry in 1978. And therein lies the problem.
Granted, his first book, Peeling Oranges in the Shade, was a modest affair: only about 50 pages long, only 300 copies printed. Hannan considers it a chapbook, a short and limited-edition work.
But it did have an ISBN number – the official seal of a bona fide book.
It was trade-book size, hardcover and published by a reputable independent publisher, Paget Press. And it did sell a few copies outside Canada.
All of the earlier book is included in the new book Hannan submitted for the awards, amounting to 12 of the new collection’s 34 poems, 22 pages of the collection’s 110.
All those factors considered, the QWF decided to withdraw Some Frames from nomination for the first-book prize. (It’s still nominated for the second award from the anglophone group, the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry).
Hannan’s dumping from the shortlist of three first books – all works of poetry – was announced Oct. 11 in a QWF news release. A novel, Spat the Dummy, by Ed Macdonald, was bumped up to take its place.
No one is alleging Hannan or his current publisher, Cormorant Books, did anything wrong.
According to the QWF, they submitted Some Frames as a first book “in good faith on the belief that (Peeling Oranges in the Shade) did not qualify as a ‘book,’ but rather as a chapbook.”
“However, upon learning of the existence of the earlier work ... the QWF determined that its status as a ‘book’ was too ambiguous to allow (Some Frames) to compete for, and potentially win, the first book prize.”
In a separate release two days later (after The Gazette mistakenly reported that Some Frames itself had already been published before), the federation went farther. It emphasized that “there is no suggestion whatever of bad faith or wrongdoing on the part of either the publisher or the author.”
To prevent such “errors” from happening, however, eligibility criteria for next year’s awards “will be made more specific.”
Hannan – who is 62, a devoted husband, father of two grown-up children and has long been a fixture of Montreal’s book world – is rather philosophical about all the kerfuffle over Some Frames.
In fact, he’s already put the incident behind him.
“It was a downer, but we get over these things, you know?” he said in an interview at McGill-Queen’s University Press, where he has been employed for two years as sales manager.
He’d rather talk about his poetry.
“I’m not a person who has a point to make, and I very rarely write with an idea that there’s something I want to say,” he said, explaining his approach.
“Some people call what I do ‘stream of consciousness,’ and in a way I think that’s true. The poems are like journal entries or a log. There’s a kind of rhythm, a flow, a kind of breathing that just kind of grows.”
The second of three children, Hannan was born in Montreal and grew up mostly in St. Laurent and N.D.G. At a very young age, he lived in Buffalo, N.Y., where his mother had gone to receive treatment for breast cancer; she died, and the family moved back to Montreal when Hannan was 6. He wrote his first poem a couple of years later, in Grade 3. “I don’t remember what it was about, but I remember talking about it with my teacher,” he recalled. “She read it, and she was very nice to me.”
His education – formal, at least – ended with high school.
“I didn’t go to university, but I’ve worked in bookstores all my life – that’s my education,” he said. “I’m community educated. You know how people say they’re self-taught? I’m community-taught.” He got his first job at 20, clerking at Browsers Bookshop at Parc Ave. and Milton St. A succession of jobs followed into this century: at Mansfield Book Mart, Classics, Prospero, Coles (now Chapters), McGill University Bookstore, Librarie Raffin.
When he wasn’t working, Hannan was writing – some of the time, anyway. After publishing four chapbooks of poetry between 1978 and 1984, Hannan went into a creative slump. He stopped writing poetry entirely for 20 years, “because I couldn’t hear it anymore,” he explained. “Everything just kind of went ‘thud!’ ” He then embarked on an ambitious series of novels that “grew into this monster” and that he could never bring himself to complete.
Then came the renaissance – spurred, strangely enough, by one of the characters from one of his uncompleted novels. Dwayne was a man like him – a poet. But this fictional character was a bit bolder: he read his poems out loud to people on the subway. Those poems were Hannan’s salvation. “That’s how I got back into writing poetry,” he said. “I couldn’t do it, but Dwayne could.”
The poems became the basis for Some Frames. Under the title Dwayne’s Poems, seven of them appear in the book alongside work from Hannan’s old chapbooks and others that appeared in magazines, as well as some new ones.
Out of Hannan’s aborted series of novels grew a new work of fiction as well. Completed a year and a half ago, it’s a short novel called Raise Your Hands.
Appropriately enough, it’s about the book world. Hannan submitted it recently to a publisher and is awaiting word.
But first, there’s the QWF nomination for poetry. The awards ceremony is Tuesday in Montreal. The other nominees are Asa Boxer for Skullduggery, published by Véhicule Press, and Gabe Foreman’s A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People, published by Coach House; as a debut collection, the latter is also up for the Concordia first-book award. There are also prizes in four other categories: fiction, non-fiction, French-to-English translation, and children’s and young adult literature. Winners take home a $2,000 cheque.
The winners of the Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards will be named Tuesday at 8 p.m. at a gala at the Lion d’Or, 1676 Ontario St. E. Tickets: $15, $10 for full-time students with ID; call 514-933-0878. More details about the shortlisted authors and their books is at the QWF Literary Database, quebecbooks.qwf.org.
jheinrich@montrealgazette.com

Saturday, 15 October 2011

Review in Montreal Review of Books

Some Frames

Reviewed by Bert Almon

Jack Hannan published poems in chapbooks in the 1970s and 1980s, but Some Frames is his first full collection. His work is subtle and elusive. He has been compared to John Ashbery and there is a resemblance if not an influence: the poems mimic the processes of thought or narrative but rarely deliver an idea or a story. One of the poems which does have extractable content imagines Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman on the sidewalks of New York. When Hannan praises Rothko�s �silent, enormous, and beautiful flat panels,� we are being invited to think of Hannan�s poems as a kind of Abstract Expressionism in word. Of Hannan, one can say he does it very well, whatever �it� might be.

Bert Almon teaches a poetry master class with Derek Walcott at the University of Alberta.

Montreal Review of Books. Fall 2011

Thursday, 13 October 2011

Quebec Writers' Federation rescinds poet's nomination

The Gazette October 12, 2011

Correction appended
MONTREAL - The Quebec Writers' Federation has withdrawn a nomination for the book Some Frames, a poetry collection by Jack Hannan, which had made the shortlist for the Concordia University First Book Prize.
Cormorant Books, the work's publisher, had submitted Some Frames for nomination, believing that an earlier collection of poetry by Hannan published in 1978 was a chapbook and did not disqualify Some Frames from contention for the prize. However, it was discovered that Hannan's earlier poetry collection was published in a hardcover version and sold in several countries abroad, rendering it ineligible for the Concordia prize, according to the QWF. (Some Frames will remain in contention for the QWF's A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry.)
Spat the Dummy, a novel by Ed Macdonald, has been awarded the spot on the Concordia prize shortlist that had been previously given to Some Frames.
The Quebec Writers' Federation prizes will be handed out Nov. 22. For more information, visit qwf.org
Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Jack Hannan's poetry collection Some Frames had earlier been published as a chapbook in 1978. In fact, it was another collection by Hannan that was published as a chapbook in 1978. The Gazette regrets the error.

Sunday, 9 October 2011

Somes frames was chosen as a finalist for the Quebec Writers' Federation awards.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/move-guide/Quebec+Writers+Federation+announces+2011+finalists/5516074/story.html

Monday, 26 September 2011

Book review in Poetry Quebec

Poetry Quebec published a review of Some frames, written by Lori Cayer.

Jack Hannan: Some Frames
Lori Cayer

Armed with the knowledge that this volume is a collection of older work from 1978 to1984 and new work beginning again from around 2005, I brought to my reading a specific curiosity about the intervening 20 years when Hannan did not write poetry. I read the book in the order presented then I read it again chronologically, looking for clues.

The earlier work is at once peripheral—using elaborate phrasing and occasionally obscure syntax—and deeply specific, grounded in the real world. Together the poems offer the unfolding of the spiritual, the intensely intimate relating of world and self. The poet is alive in a teeming stew of imagery and he translates it in careful detail, offering life’s temporality.

from 1978

To have one thing matter
is to give everything meaning,
and so clutching at straws is no
foolish endeavor, but just
one way of living
page 78

The lines flow at length from one to another using commas, line breaks and periods interchangeably, giving the impression of run-on sentences veering off from the original point, but indeed each poem has an oblique direction of its own which Hannan follows to the end, sweeping panoramically around the point and taking everything else in with it. Drawing an understanding of the poem at large is the sum of its poem-like stanzas, the total of its collective perceptions. The poems are packed so full there is little room to let air move through them, but if that is a criticism it is a weak one because it is the indulgent passion of these poems that drives their wisdom.

from 1980

...Inside the package
is another package, and another:
they turn to sticks, and with such loose beauty
we make a box.
page 56

The newer and newest poems in the book fall into two camps; in one, the poet’s elaborate, thoughtful style is in evidence and remains in fine form. In “Any letter standing still and floating” I think I find my answers to how Hannan might view what writing is after the 20 year interruption: perhaps he ponders now the necessity of being such a precise mediator of his world and is more given to reflection.

from 2000’s

“...It has been a long time since I’ve felt such assurance as to
be able to stand back, far off, and not be taken along by the flow of
whatever given may cross my path.”
page 19

then

“...I’m afraid I’ve
fallen into a kind of mysticism, and what I’m thinking about is really
as much a shadow at the back of my own mind.?
page 22

In the other camp are poems with a new tension, a mature sardonicism and a remove in some poems where the poet himself is not the central character. At times these poems require a commitment of imagination. Strangely crafted of fragments, they give an impression of being roughly-hewn and indeed many are built of artifacts of modern language and advertising sloganism.

The Dwayne poems are a modern fable and a true departure from the poet’s earlier style. Dwayne is given to making lists that leave the reader both enlightened and exposed. These poems are energized by a foreboding, a shadowiness at the heart of Dwayne, who is getting by on sarcasm instead of sadness.

from 2000’s

“You’d better decide who you are. And now?
Now who are you? Now?...”
page 36

The Dwayne poems are plain speaking and utterly in the present; they are not a translation of the world around him but a poetic transcription of it.

At its heart, the book is about love and how it redeems what could be construed as sadness, never pandering to self pity or regret. This collection is a masterful effort that asks us to see the beauty at the edges of things.

from 2000’s

“So much kindness in the curiosity

and one must as often stand to wait when the water

will pour in over everything.”

page 43

Some Frames

Jack Hannan

Toronto, ON: Cormorant Books, 2011.

pp108. $18:00

Sunday, 14 August 2011

Lit Live. Hamilton. Sept 4, 2011

See You . . . In September

The Lit Live organizing committee would like to thank our visiting writers and our faithful audiences for making our recent season such a success. While the reading series will close down for the summer, we will return on the first Sunday in September when we present Shane Rhodes, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Lolette Kuby, Jenn Farrell, Michael Lithgow, and Jack Hannan. Please mark the 4th of September in your calendar as the night we'll all get together again at our favourite hangout, Hamilton's Skydragon Centre. As usual, the start time is 7:30 p.m. We'd hate to have to start without you!

Yellow Door reading, Aug 25

The Yellow Door

POETRY AND PROSE READING

www.yellowdoor.org

3625 Aylmer, Montreal (between Pine & Prince Arthur) Tel: 514-845-2600

Founder, producer/host Ilona Martonfi 514-939-4173

ilona.martonfi@sympatico.ca

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Doors 7:00 pm Reading 7:30 pm At the door $5

An Evening of Poetry, Prose & Music

Michelle Alfano Co-organizer of (Not So) Nice Italian Girls & Co-Editor with Descant. Bressani Prize winner for Made Up of Arias (Blaurock Press).

Ehab Lotayef Author of the poetry book, To Love a Palestinian Woman, TSAR 2010. He writes in English & Arabic. www.lotayef.com

Niki Paquin QWF Mentorship participant for non-fiction, 2008. She is working on a first book, So Close to the Sky: Journey with a Tibetan Family.

Jack Hannan's most recent book of poetry, Some Frames, was published in April 2011 by Cormorant Books.

Catherine Chandler Author of Lines of Flight & winner of the 2010 Howard Nemerov Award, employs form to investigate & communicate reality.

Ken Kalman Poet, playwright & novelist. Author of Jesus Loves Me, a novel (Xlibris 2003); Short stories & poetry published in Canada & U.S.

Tom Fox is a classical singer with a rich bass voice. His repertoire includes operatic duets and solos in English, Italian, French, and Russian.

CKUT Radio

Tuesday, Aug 16, an interview about Some frames, with Jeffrey Mackie on CKUT Radio, at 7:30am!

Monday, 4 July 2011

Poetry Quebec

Four poems were published on the Poetry Quebec website, on July 1.
http://www.poetry-quebec.com/pq/poems/article_424.shtml

Jack Hannan: 4 poems

Watermark

There was a form of opening outward in our thinking,
which seemed very real and became
a thing that one person
could actually give to another, this lasted
for a long time, until it lost some of its liveliness
and grew a little crazy, without change, into a sort of abuse, nearly gestural, though there can be no blame in it, the night
gathers into its hours the stars and your coming home
in and out of the light of each post, your speed
is a naming that draws
those white lines across the sky, pulling day
through its sieve down around you until morning, now
the anxiety shakes itself off
again, to be remembered only obscurely
as a star, a phrase,
in the odd wake-up calm, lemon-tasty, and coffee,
an old friend
reappears, and you allow yourself the thought that
this is the one who can really know me, somehow
the patience you must find
is right there, like the light in a pumpkin, it is given
over to you to understand the pictures
through their touch, the singing lessons ask more
questions than they answer
to you, shy horse,
day after day my door has been open, and I'd say now
nothing has changed, I have been nocturnal and that
altered nothing also, it only
made the superstitions worse, he
removed his boots to collect mementos
that could be brought back, into glass, and another
plain meaning, hyphen or adjunct

In cities without evening

Isn't it rather difficult for a man
to keep quiet? I have the tape of your voice
and I play it often. I am thankful for the hindrance
you've put my way. Hear the night? Finally
worry, in autumn
I took it down to match the wall
no longer so warmly graced
I would like to learn another way to approach you
who are so often with me, in my thoughts
along the roads here that we walk, I feel funny imagining
my furrowed brow and how
that must seem to you, have you forgotten how long
my arms really are? I still like
those bright colours as I seem to recall them (the red
hat and coat, for one) in the rice-paper morning, oh no
I hadn't meant to speak like that, the crisp
tinge or tingle in the air

5 For example

Your fingers are long and thin and the colour of my heartbeat
Your fingers trace lines across the sand,
Your fingers draw astonishing moments
Your fingers curl slightly, your nails
tapping the surface of existence
clear and hard
And you are not patient
Your fingers are my phenomenological refutation
Your fingers are more than my memory has brought to the surface
Your fingers are the directions
Your fingers are this night
Your fingers are the sounds of the wind through the trees in Rome
Your fingers stretch across a month of afternoons
And the doors swing open and are tied with string
Your fingers are the breeze soothing the spine of a stupid talking head
Your fingers are the technical healing of electrical patter, silence
Your fingers are the arrows of voyages
That are never said out loud
I am curious and I wonder about disappearing and
Your fingers with one oval silver ring trace a long suggestive line across the map
from here to, say, anywhere along the Atlantic coast
your fingers covered with the taste of sea salt

Assume a void

Assume a void exists without
the hands of your own need, and already
something moves toward filling it,
so even in that silence you can trust
plain song, what felt like nothing, becoming.
The character of that silence moves out into the clear
of the valley, the lights, the silence
is of listening before you go on, as it comes
into your head, a young girl's sleepy eyes closing
at midnight, dreaming
the attraction of things, the mountains, the lovely
textures of the distances she will travel. Someone sings
her, and she dreams my whole world, the song
mustn't end before the dreaming.

These poems are from Jack Hannon's book of poems Some Frames, Cormorant Books, 2011