The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh

By Rob Mclennan

1999

First Published

3.50

Average Rating

Number of Pages

2H55M

Audio Length

The Richard Brautigan Ahhhhhhhhhhh covers the range of love, loss and learning that have made rob mclennan one of the most exciting young poets in Canada. The language of the poems, though thoroughly grounded in the media culture of television and film, casts a deceptively familiar veil over the breadth and depth of reading which inform this work―from the seventeenth century platonist mystics to what his companions on the poetry trail were writing at last night’s soirée, a crowd of voices, asides, references, allusions and whispers is constantly pushing and expanding his line forward. marvellously self-taught in the school of poets, mclennan’s work is refreshingly free of pretence and category. The impressive and exhaustive range of poets and writers with whom he has learned is simply there, in his work-present, in the current text, not absent in some far, or even near, distant past. This is the work of a young man who has paid his dues and done his homework. There is also a kind of subtle humour here, born of the care with which mclennan keeps his lines clear of the dead-ends of self-consciousness, allowing the language to free itself from the page, and to be heard as well as read.

Avg Rating

3.50

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

25%

4 STARS

42%

3 STARS

2 STARS

1 STARS

17%

goodreads

Author

Rob Mclennan

Author · 6 books

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of nearly thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. In Canadian Literature, Gordon Bölling praised his novel Missing Persons as “a welcome addition to the body of Canadian prairie fiction.” His collection of short fiction, The Uncertainty Principle has been described as: “Little flash fictions, some quirky, some funny, some touching. A fun read.” (Pearl Pirie). In a review on the ottawa poetry newsletter, Ryan Pratt wrote that “Thanks to mclennan’s discipline, our experience reading The Uncertainty Principle requires none. Organized to accommodate brief interactions (which, like the psychology behind bite-sized chocolate bars, results here in complete overindulgence), the book proves incessantly fresh, taken as a whole or in cursory, page-flipping handfuls.” An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books, The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com), as well as organizes the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair, which he co-founded in 1994. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com