George Bowering | Baseball: A Poem in the Magic Number Nine

George Bowering

Baseball

Toronto, Canada: The Coach House Press, 1967

[24] pp., softcover

Edition of 500

Subtitled A Poem in the Magic Number Nine, this "book-length poem" is bound in green felt-like wrappers to mimic a sports team pennant. 

The title was reissued by Coach House Books thirty six years after this original publication in 1967 (see below image). 

Bowering's other baseball titles include Poem & Other Baseballs (Windsor, Black Moss, 1976), Taking the field (Red Deer, RDC Press, 1990), Baseball Love (Vancouver, Talonbooks, 2006) and The Diamond Alphabet (Toronto, BookThug, 2011). He is also the author of a memoir about Greg Curnoe. 

"From its remarkable design to its effervescent language, George Bowering1s ode to the beautiful game is as original as it is funny, as bittersweet as it is playful. A long-out-of-print Coach House classic, originally published in 1967, Baseball weaves together mythology, autobiography, literary history and pop culture into an inimitable book-length poem that explores all the nuances of the sport. Here are all the greats: Mantle, DiMaggio, Maris, Williams and Manuel Louie, shortstop for the Wenatchee Chiefs, their exploits captured in passages of off-kilter, occasionally melancholy, lyricism. Gar Smith1s enchanting and ingenious design has also been preserved; the book, complete with green velvet-flocked covers, is shaped like a pennant that, when unfolded, forms a diamond.

A long-time utility player, Bowering (our Homer?) has written books in many different genres and was recently named Canada1s first Poet Laureate. Baseball is a tantalizing glimpse of the writer at the beginning of his illustrious career; a real curveball of a book that will dazzle literature and sports fans alike." 

- Publisher's blurb

Jake Kennedy | The Rublev Horse

Jake Kennedy

The Rublev Horse

Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada: Gaspereau Press, 2021

[32] pp., 20 x 14.5 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 400

Speaking about his 1966 historical drama Andrei Rublev, Andrei Tarkovsky said: 

“I’d like to point out the film ends with an image of horses in the rain. It is a symbolic image as the horse for me is a synonym for life. When I’m looking at a horse, I have a feeling I’m in direct contact with the essence of life itself. Perhaps it’s because the horse is a very beautiful animal, friendly to man, and is moreover so characteristic of the Russian landscape. There are many scenes with horses in Rublev. Take the scene in which a man dies after an unsuccessful attempt to fly. A sad-looking horse is a silent witness to the scene. The presence of horses in the last, final scene means that life itself was the source of all of Rublev’s art.”

In this chapbook, Jake Kennedy aims his turn-of-phrase at untangling the many horses in the Russian epic, in a poem by Mahmoud Darwish ("the horse is not symbolic because it's skin is more polished than your dining room table") and on holiday with his family ("my mother sings with the horses"). 

Available from the publisher for only $4.95 CDN, here. 

Jake Kennedy's poetry has appeared in The Malahat Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Best American Experimental Writing. He is also the author of three collections of poetry: The Lateral (Snare Books), Apollinaire's Speech to the War Medic (Book*hug), and Merz Structure No. 2 Burnt by Children at Play (Book*hug). Kennedy is the recipient of the Robin Blaser Award, the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Writing, and the bpnichol Chapbook Award. 

Jacob Wren | Authenticity is a Feeling: My Life in PME-ART

Jacob Wren
Authenticity is a Feeling: My Life in PME-ART
Toronto, Canada: Book*hug, 2018
304 pp., 8×5.25 inches., trade paper
Edition size unknown

On Wednesday, April 25th, from 7 to 9pm, TYPE Books will host the book launch for Jacob Wren's new title Authenticity is a Feeling: My Life in PME-ART. The event will feature readings from the book by Wren, Shannon Cochrane, Alexandra Rockingham Gill and Simone Moir.

"Written, among other things, to celebrate PME-ART’s twentieth anniversary, the book begins when Jacob Wren meets Sylvie Lachance and Richard Ducharme, moves from Toronto to Montreal to make just one project, but instead ends up spending the next twenty years creating an eccentric, often bilingual, art. It is a book about being unable to learn French yet nonetheless remaining co-artistic director of a French-speaking performance group, about the Spinal Tap-like adventures of being continuously on tour, about the rewards and difficulties of intensive collaborations, about making performances that break the mold and confronting the repercussions of doing so. A book that aims to change the rules for how interdisciplinary performance can be written about today.

Jacob Wren makes literature, performances and exhibitions. His books include: Unrehearsed Beauty, Families Are Formed Through Copulation, Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed, and Polyamorous Love Song (a finalist for the 2013 Fence Modern Prize in Prose and the 2016 ReLit Award for Fiction, and one of The Globe and Mail’s 100 Best Books of 2014). His most recent novel Rich and Poor, was a finalist for the 2016 Quebec Writers’ Federation Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. As co-artistic director of Montreal-based interdisciplinary group PME-ART he has co-created the performances: En français comme en anglais, it’s easy to criticize, Individualism Was a Mistake, The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information and Every Song I’ve Ever Written. He travels internationally with alarming frequency and frequently writes about contemporary art. Connect with him on his blog (www.radicalcut.blogspot.com) or on Twitter @everySongIveEve."

- publisher's blurb

TYPE Books is located at 883 Queen St. West, in Toronto.