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Stuart Ross's Interests
General
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
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
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.
Who 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.
Dude! I have a fistful of dollars! A vestibule full of confirmed currency! It's not pulling its weight and is burning a hole in my loins, and I wish to exchange it for a copy of your latest tome! Please, grant me this request!
LOL is it really that bad - you're saying til Anarchy there's been not a single bit of overlap? Haha! :) We need to talk about music! Have a lovely day sweetie. xoxox
You made me SMILE hugely with that Stuart, thank you. Hugs! The Roxy my sweet friend is a kickass club in L.A where Navarro and Camp Freddy were playing the last gig of their month long residency last night. Had Tyra been ok I would have been there as I'm also due at a Conference next week over the pond. Nevermind. Have a beautiful weekend. xoxox
Hope you're having a great holiday weekend, Stuart. Just stopping to thank you for cluing me to "Time's Arrow. " So funny and horrific and just weird in turns! I think "We do what we do best, not what's best to do" will probably stick with me a long time. Feel free to drop me any other recommendations any time. I like the way your mind works. ~M
How cool to have a buddy turn a poem into a lyric and do such a good job of matching tone for tone. The "leaping into it....leaping into it...leaping into it" is especially effective, I think. : ) Hope you're well and enjoying Spring. ~M
We are. In spite of ourselves. We got a wicked invitation to perform at a festival in France in May and a fat wad of cash to fly the hooligans (s and field) over. What are you up to?
...romantic coughing's okay. better than no longer not being Al Jolson.. …from “She Must Be Killed” (a short-short story by me, Sarah Sarai) (pub. online in The Houston Literary Review):
No getting round it. It’s the hair clips, shiny metal girl-clips, springy, worn by a woman my age. She must be killed. How to do it. Here, at the bowling alley? Am hauling kid around this day and have dragged him to the Up The Alley, his request. … Soon I’ll fill you in on Miss Thing with girl-clips in her hair, the one I long to mutilate maim and be prime mover of her last breath, but let me say this:
Stuart, would you consider doing a tag blog? I've nominated you on mine. It was awful to write and I definitely believe you would make a far better job! Have a lovely weekend. Hope you're well! xxxx
No, no...that won't do any good now...putting me back in your Top Friends list just to appease me. I've already drained my personal savings account and spent the lot on professional help. I'm trying to become a better person so that I won't fall off of anyone's Top Friends list again. MySpace status is truly a measure of one's self-worth.
thanks Stuart, very curious to hear what you think. Hope all is well up there, I'm in SF right now but back in NY in a couple of days. Rock. And Roll. m
Just a short note to thank you SO MUCH for that incredible reading you gave at my little soiree (where's that accent key combo..???)the other evening. If you say 'soiree', albeit without the accent, is it redundant to then mention 'evening'?? In any case, your selection of poems was perfect for the assembled throng - a throng that was big on appreciation. One of my guests was from the UK and was flying home the next day (in an aeroplane) and she considers your reading the highlight of her trip. Thanks again, Stuart, and I would like to schedule another reading soon! Do you also perform light housecleaning chores if I wanted to hire you for that also??
Have you ever sat in front of the computer doing work work and poetry work and emails until you start to smell all three of your eyes burning and your legs no longer work? Is this the point at which the computer fully begins to liquify and absorb your brain through radition (eww)? Time to go home!
Stuart! You were brilliant today on CKLN! So masterful, so in-command of the mic! Such a people-pleaser, such an artist-in-residence. You really know where it's at, my friend! Your interview was a shining beacon of inspiration in the midst of the dismally-dull, devious, slovenly sludgery that is my daily life.
Hi Stu! Thanks for being my MySpace friend, and thanks for the nice compliments on Brett's and my first ever YouTube video. You are my favorite poet, and the only one ever to write a poem about my cat!
Hey Stu, I'd love to see if I get within spitting distance... unfortunately, due to some anticholinergic meds I take, I have a very dry mouth and have to use artificial saliva drop
