ADRIENNE GRUBER This Is a Book You Shouldn’t Open In moments like these it’s important to rememberthe angry cry of geese, their shrieking voices,the way they circle the bridge at night.Not to dwell on a more recent lossthe ominous kind, a warning. Instead,think of the mouse that died in the compost pitits body half in half out of the wooden binflies buzzing over the tiny carcass.Days later it was still there, a skeleton,crushed under foot.
KATHRYN MOCKLER Murder It’s not a good idea to bein the same room as someone who is just about to murder you. I wonder what it feels like to be murdered.I’m sure it hurts your feelings, and then I’m sure you feelreally mad but aren’t able to express your anger in a productive way. Some murderers are nicer than other murderers.Some murderers let you eatyour favourite food before you get murdered — like popcorn or
ANDY REMENTER Techno Tuesday Techno Tuesdayappeared in CAROUSEL 23 (2008) — buy it here
Though he has crafted what feels like a slick trailer, Mark Laliberte‘s animated experimental review of Dani Spinosa‘s OO: Typewriter Poems (Invisible Publishing, 2020) ultimately performs not only its prescribed analytic function, but also a meta-discursive one, bringing to the fore questions about what it even means to review a book. Laliberte’s review is thus a fitting response to Spinosa’s text, which challenges its readers to reconsider the limits of its own chosen genre of
Khashayar Mohammadi gives us a review in the form of a poem — adding a new harmony to the polyvocal chorus of Canisia Lubrin‘s exploratory, book-length poem The Dyzgraphxst (McClelland & Stewart, 2020). In doing so, Mohammadi focalizes crucial concepts in the text and reveals the expanse of its spheres of inquiry. ISBN 978-0-771048-69-2 | 176pp | $21.00 #CAROUSELreviews I the Dyzgraphxst is oceanicthe Dyzgraphxst is directionally blended into the Ithe Dyzgraphxst is the cursor
K.B. Thors revels in the historic breadth and folkloric depth of Factory Girls (Action Books, Nov 2019), which is the third book of poetry by the award-winning Japanese author, editor and professor Takako Arai. ISBN 978-0-900575-84-6 | 99pp |$18 USD #CAROUSELreviews It is the night shift in an abandoned spinning factory There is only a single light bulb here The spools of thread turn by themselves … This is what happens “When the Moon Rises”
TALIA ZAJAC Bebelplatz 1933 and 2005 i Smouldering and cracking open, the pages furling into black ash, tossed by the thousands, the books perish as words crinkle, blacken, turn to dust, putting Wells and Marx and Mann in the same circle of the inferno as young men hold torches and offer hemlock to Socrates: nobody wants to hear about death in Venice. ii The ash blows away the words, as I stand in Bebelplatz, where
HANNA PETERSSON Stump and Bubble Stump and Bubbleappeared in CAROUSEL 22 (2008) — buy it here
IAN WILLIAMS The Commute Nobody ever survives. — Margaret Atwood Ikemefuna certainly didn’tmake it through the forest, pot of palm wine on his head, with an entourage of slammer mouthed men who led him to believe he was going home. A lie, but they meant well. Machete to the neck. Then the unnecessary announcementMy father they have killed me, past perfect, as if he were already dead. And good weather, maps, company, trusty ship,
RUTH GWILY 4 Images 4 Imagesappeared in CAROUSEL 22 (2008) — buy it here
Lens Irritant — DANIEL ERBAN Portfolio Montréal based artist Daniel Erban (1951-2017) creates printed images and large drawings that, in his own words, “scratch at the viewer’s retina and bleed into their conscience”. He has spent the better part of three decades hell-bent on exploring society’s dark impulses through the production of thousands of loosely figurative, near-profane images. Unapologetically provocative, Erban sees the role of the artist in contemporary culture as a “disturber of social
MONO BROWN Creak Make my bed and lie in it, bone-pile,you get to be the blanket lumps. Half a year or so ago your weightwould make this mattress creak, creak. Stay a bit and let me hear your teethtap dance, bone-pile. Knead an everlastingmeal from these pale sheets of flesh. My bathroom light stays on when you comeback to me in dreams that hold your jointstogether for the first time since they brokeand I see
BILLY MAVREAS Untitled 1 + 2 Untitled 1 + 2appeared in CAROUSEL 21 (2007) — buy it here
ANTRANIK TCHALEKIAN Dream of Flying lush and raw, the night descends on you so quiet, hands raisedto catch any stray signals thrown down from spacetrying to chart systems,maps, divine movements I remember the momentwhen all the words left my headpoured out and were buried in mudas I ran over the soaked earth,was taken, joined the air and soaredthe moment time cleaved us in half a blackbird now,I spend days flying and nights trying to reach
BALINT ZSAKO Untitled Untitledappeared in CAROUSEL 21 (2007) — buy it here
JESSE HARRIS No Futura No Futuraappeared in CAROUSEL 21 (2007) — buy it here
MOEZ SURANI Guy de Maupassant “What, then, did Flaubert understand by beauty, in the art he perused with so much fervour, with so much self-command? Let us hear a sympathetic commentator.” — Walter Pater I become Boswell around him. I see him Sundayswhen bark closes his face. He is an unhappy planet disregard thegarrulity of his letters he is somethingfrom Ovid becoming woman or lionon whim becoming delusionor child as the bark slams over his stomachand
DEARRAINDROP Cream & Suicide Cream & Suicideappeared in CAROUSEL 20 (2006) — buy it here
PHIL CARON The You from Here Last night I watched a house burn down. And when it was done only a silhouette remained, lit from inside by a heart of crusted embers. I thought about you. Afterwards, in my hotel room, I noticed the scent of smoke on my jacket. You used to call that lumberjack perfume. More thoughts of you. I ordered food: Thai noodles and a ginger ale. I found a hair clinging
DYLAN MARTORELL 3 Works 3 Worksappeared in CAROUSEL 20 (2006) — buy it here