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Stuart Ross

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me


I am a Toronto writer, editor, and writing instructor.
I have written a bunch of books of poetry, fiction, and essays. These books include I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press, 2007), Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (Anvil Press, 2005), Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New & Selected (ECW Press, 2003), Razovsky at Peace (ECW Press, 2001), Farmer Gloomy's New Hybrid (ECW Press, 1999), The Inspiration Cha-Cha (ECW Press, 1996), Henry Kafka and Other Stories (The Mercury Press, 1997), The Mud Game (w/ Gary Barwin, the Mercury Press, 1995).
In winter 2008, Peak Recordings and Proper Tales Press released the CD An Orphan's Song: Ben Walker Sings Stuart Ross, featuring 15 of my poems turned into songs and performed by the British musician Ben Walker. In spring 2008, DC Books will publish my sixth full-length poetry collection, Dead Cars in Managua.
I am the editor of the Very Important anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence (The Mercury Press, 2004), as well as My Lump in the Bed: Love Poems for George W. Bush (Proper Tales Press, 2003). I also recently edited Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden (Insomniac Press, 2006), which is a must for anyone interested in Canadian poetry. In my role as Poetry Editor at Mansfield Press, I acquired and edited the 2007 titles Floors of Enduring Beauty, by Steve Venright, and The Bone Broker, by Lillian Necakov.
I've done an awful lot more books and chapbooks, and you can find a more complete bibliography on my website, hunkamooga.com.
I lead frequent workshops in poetry and memoir in Toronto, and I am also willing to do sessions for writers' groups and schools. I also do personal poetry coaching, in person, by Skype, and by email.
I maintain a blog erratically at bloggamooga.blogspot.com.

My Interests

Poetry, fiction, fonts, politics, existentialist psychotherapy, visual art, humans, insects, human insects, small press, Ern Malley, music of many kinds, old kids' records that go "ding!" when you're supposed to turn the page in the accompanying book, writing, Kim Novak, crappy red wine

I'd like to meet:

Other writers and other readers and people who make excellent music and perhaps play Scrabble.
The video below - that's me with the Angry Shoppers in 1993.

Music:

Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, The Clash, Randy Newman, Beth Orton, Ben Walker, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Brenda Kahn, Nathan, The Pernice Brothers, Evalyn Parry, The Swan Silvertones, John Cale, The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, Tiffany Lowe, Rachels, Chris Warren, John Otway, Preacher Jack, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, Bob Dylan, Mozart sometimes, Tausig, Faure, Martha Wainwright, Aimee Mann, Liz Phair, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Ass Ponys, Glenn Gould, The Jayhawks, The Sex Pistols, The Fabulous Poodles, Bram Tchaikovsky, the other Tchaikovsky, The Arrogant Worms, Roy Zimmerman, Bar Mitzvah Brothers, The Foremen, Tom Waits, Nina Simone, Helen Humes, Dinah Washington, Be Good Tanyas, Carlene Carter, Johnny Cash, the Sensational Nightingales, Neko Case

Movies:

The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Hard Eight, L'Age D'Or, The Gospel According to Matthew, Vertigo, Judy Berlin, American Friend, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, anything with Parker Posey, anything with Frederic Forrest, Even Dwarfs Started Small, Strictly Ballroom, Lady Eve, Bad Boy Bubby, Corrupt, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, The Ruling Class, The Strange Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, The Double Life of Veronique, Waiting for Guffman, Film (Beckett), Slums of Beverly Hills, Days of Heaven, Blood Simple

Television:

Mr. Terrific, Captain Nice, Get Smart, Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, Mister Ed, anything with Topo Gigio

Books:

Among the many authors I admire: Samuel Beckett, Patricia Highsmith, Vladimir Nabokov, George Saunders, Ron Padgett, David McFadden, A.M. Homes, Kenneth Gangemi, Mervyn Peake, Mark Strand, Joe Brainard, Javier Cercas, Frederick Seidel, A.L. Kennedy, Gil Adamson, Bill Zavatsky, Matthew Zapruder, Lisa Jarnot, George Orwell, Elyse Friedman, Stuart O'Nan, Evie Christie, Albert Camus, Gunnar Kopperud, Steve Venright, Michel Faber, Lillian Necakov, Lisa Shea, Leonard Gardner, Cornell Woolrich, Bill Knott, Harryette Mullen, Bill Berkson, Frank O'Hara, James Schuyler, Tom Walmsley, Mark Laba, Opal Louis Nations, Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Eugene Ionesco, Roberto Bolaño, Nicanor Parra, Graham Greene, Lisa Shea, Harold Pinter, Jason Heroux, Bill Berkson, Lynn Crosbie

Heroes:

Speedy Gonzales, Syd Ross, Noam Chomsky

My Blog

AN ORPHAN’S SONG: BEN WALKER SINGS STUART ROSS

I’m pleased to announce the release of An Orphan’s Song: Ben Walker Sings Stuart Ross. This brand-new CD features 15 amazing adaptations of my poems into song by British singer/songwriter ...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:56:00 PST

Hardcore surrealism review of I Cut My Finger

The poet Alessandro Porco reviewed my most recent book of poetry, I Cut My Finger. It’s some pretty hardcore surrealist stuff he scrawled.It’s right here.Stuart...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Thu, 13 Mar 2008 07:18:00 PST

An interview with me, by poet Sina Queyras

Sina Queyras, the excellent author of Teethmarks, Slip, and Lemon Hound, and the editor of the broad-ranged anthology Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets, interviewed me recently by email. It w...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:00:00 PST

SONNET FOR TUESDAY (JANUARY 1, 2008)

SONNET FOR TUESDAY (JANUARY 1, 2008)Hi there, inventory of my life. I have drivencrunchy, loopy highways into the wildernessto take you by flashlight, in a time before computers,while my bored crew mu...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:04:00 PST

A reading, a Q&A

On March 16 of this year, I read at Mark Truscott's excellent Test Reading Series, at the Mercer Union in Toronto. The other reader that night was American poet Rod Smith.I just came across this recor...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Thu, 22 Nov 2007 08:36:00 PST

Interview with me from 2001: Poetry with a Twist

Thought I'd link to this interview that Kerri Huffman did with me in 2001, because it connects to so many of the questions I'm throwing at myself these days.It appeared in Taddle Creek magazine.Here i...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:32:00 PST

Buying Cigarettes for the Dog

I have a short story in the new issue of Toronto lit mag Taddle Creek.It's right over here.
Posted by Stuart Ross on Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:41:00 PST

Interview with me from Eye Weekly

Books: Interview with Stuart RossEye Weekly, April 19, 2007Brian Joseph DavisAs Stuart Ross  whose latest poetry collection, I Cut My Finger, is reviewed in this week's issue  is graced with both a ...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:11:00 PST

2005 review of Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer (Quill & Quire)

From QUILL & QUIRE, July 2005By Stephen KnightConfessions of a Small Press RacketeerStuart Ross; $16.00 paper 1-895636-65-5, 132 pp., 6 x 8, Anvil Press, MayFor a quick and dirty breath of fresh air, ...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:41:00 PST

Nick Thran on I Cut My Finger

Review by Nick Thran (from poetryreviews.ca, 1 June 2007)The 2003 publication of Stuart Ross' Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems New and Selected was met with the sort of mixed reception one would expect f...
Posted by Stuart Ross on Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:44:00 PST