rob - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Born in Ottawa in 1970 at the Grace Hospital on Wellington Street near Parkdale Avenue, rob mclennan was raised on a sixth generation dairy farm near Maxville, Ontario in historic Glengarry County. He currently lives directly between Ottawa's Chinatown and Little Italy neighbourhoods, and was called "Centretown's poet laureate" by David Gladstone in The Centretown Buzz in the mid-1990s. The author of twelve previous trade poetry collections in Canada and England, he has published poetry, fiction, interviews, reviews and columns in over two hundred publications in fourteen countries and in four languages, and done reading tours in five countries on two continents. The editor/publisher of above/ground press and the long poem magazine STANZAS (both founded in 1993), the online critical journal Poetics.ca (with Ottawa poet Stephen Brockwell) and the Ottawa poetry annual ottawater (ottawater.com), he edits the ongoing Cauldron Books series through Broken Jaw Press, edited the anthologies evergreen: six new poets (Black Moss Press), side/lines: a new canadian poetics (Insomniac Press), GROUNDSWELL: the best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Broken Jaw Press) and Decalogue: ten Ottawa poets (Chaudiere Books), and runs the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair, which he co-founded in 1994, currently under the umbrella of the small press action network - ottawa (span-o), which he also runs. Fall 2007 sees the appearance of a new poetry collection with Ireland's Salmon Publishing, a collection of literary essays appears with Toronto's ECW Press, a novella with The Mercury Press, and a title for Vancouver publisher Arsenal Pulp Press, Ottawa: The Unknown City. His online home is at www.track0.com/rob_mclennan, and he often posts reviews, essays, rants and other nonsense at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com. He was recently named writer-in-residence for the University of Alberta for the 2007-8 academic year.writer, editor, publisher, etcetera; author of thirteen poetry collections, most recently The Ottawa City Project (www.chaudierebooks.com)my main blog: www.robmclennan.blogspot.com

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

A (single) woman with a dental plan.

Music:

currently listening to jim bryson, julie doiron, andy stochansky, iron & wine, muse, lucinda williams, keane, emm gryner, etc

Movies:

favourite film: until the end of the world by wim wenders

Television:

yes, please

Heroes:

david bowie; great song, yep. the tv show is pretty good too.

My Blog

Edmonton blogs, blocks

All the things I've been doing and not doing, since I came to Alberta. A million hours a day every day in my office, working, yet so behind on correspondence, writing projects, editing. What is it I d...
Posted by rob on Sat, 29 Sep 2007 03:01:00 PST

a little bit country, a little bit rock n roll

Alberta bound, or is it unbound; sitting two weeks of this stint of me as writer-in-residence at that University of Alberta; already had a few people come in & ask my opinions, advice. already had...
Posted by rob on Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:20:00 PST

this is your brain. this is your brain in edmonton.

so i guess everyone's been waiting for me to start posting about my alberta experience, now that i've been just a bit more than a week in this west; am i but ready yet? working on a few things, but no...
Posted by rob on Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:13:00 PST

another fire on somerset

It seems to be the sign of the end of summer; another suspicious fire in Ottawa's Chinatown yesterday morning. Am I allowed to admit that I'm freaked out about fire at the best of times? The idling fi...
Posted by rob on Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:15:00 PST

the event that was, wasnt

the saturday reading went so well it went well; a good crowd, a new little handout publication i made just for, & not that many fires to put out after (at least, that i know about...). in the...
Posted by rob on Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:51:00 PST

post-tree & tree notes

The day-after I blame on Rob Stacey; I have no conflict with that. What happened on the patio of The Royal Oak stays on the patio of The Royal Oak... This morning Gregory Betts wandered ...
Posted by rob on Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:48:00 PST

deadline, maximums

i think i'm getting bored with deadlines; is that all right? edmonton in six weeks, if you can imagine it. listening to these guys the past few days, ever since i saw them kick ass on david lette...
Posted by rob on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:31:00 PST

"diplomatic immunity"

the two most important words, I've decided, for my time at the University of Alberta; oh, just what trouble will that rob mclennan get into next?.. Kingston was grand; my hosts were lovely &a...
Posted by rob on Thu, 05 Jul 2007 09:49:00 PST

another bicycle note

long weekend tomorrow, kid parties canada day etcetera; back tire on bicycle exploded yesterday, the rest of my life on foot; the rest of my whole entire life?
Posted by rob on Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:42:00 PST

the happy accident of clifton joseph

i dont know why, but about twice a year or so i run into (accidentally) either clifton joseph or george elliott clarke, either in toronto or ottawa, just out on the street. 2 days ago joseph on b...
Posted by rob on Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:13:00 PST