By Ben Ladouceur
Anybody who’s ever sat down with a good book of poetry knows that it’s often over too fast. Even if every word merits endless consideration, all that white space and all those line breaks make it pretty quick work. A novel can keep you busy for weeks, but a poetry collection might be over as quick as a cup of coffee. This is especially true for chapbooks – slim, spineless volumes that are rarely longer than 40 pages.
That quality of brevity makes chapbooks special. Book lovers who amass them – from book fairs, private dealers, live events, or online shops – might return to a favourite work often. A good chapbook comes into your life and stays there. If it’s not just a beautiful work of literature, but also a beautiful physical object, this is even likelier.
That might be why Ottawa’s Apt. 9 Press has lasted 15 years, and developed a following in Ottawa and beyond. Two of its 50+ publications have received the bpNichol Chapbook Award, the largest prize of its kind in Canada. The list of authors ranges from local icons (Bardia Sinaee, Stephen Brockwell, Rhonda Douglas) to small press legends (Nelson Ball, Michael Dennis, William Hawkins).
It’s run by Cameron Anstee, who found a copy of student-run magazine In/Words as a Carleton University student many years ago. He was instantly enthralled. “I ignored the second half of whatever lecture I was supposed to be in, and just read this magazine.” Soon he joined the editorial team.
Cameron loved the physical elements of magazine-making: “the printing and folding, stapling and stitching.” After grad school, he perfected sewing books by hand. In 2009, after trying different approaches on many prototypes, he launched the first three Apt. 9 Press chapbooks.
The press’s first three poets represented a cross-section of Ottawa voices: Monty Reid, a well-established author who has held leadership roles in Ottawa institutions like Arc Poetry Magazine and VerseFest; Sandra Ridley, who has since burst onto the scene and received nominations for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Ottawa Arts Council Mid-Career Artist Award; and Justin Million, now based in Peterborough, who had a special impact on Anstee’s understanding of life and literature.
“Justin was the first person I met who had introduced himself as a poet. I’d never heard someone do that.”
The latest Apt. 9 Press chapbook is an experimental work by Moez Surani, who documented the first 1,000 questions that his daughter asked him, as she developed language and a curiosity about the world. The result is an aptly named chapbook, The First Thousand Questions. “You see her consciousness form,” says Anstee. “She asks questions that are more and more complex.”
In addition to editing, Cameron writes poetry too. His two full-length books, Book of Annotations (2018) and Sheets: Typewriter Works (2022), were both shortlisted for the Archibald Lampman Award. He also collects rare books, small press publications, and random ephemera of Canadian literature. He showcases his finds on Instagram (@smallpress_bookshelf).
But which of these roles – author, editor, reader, collector – is his favourite? “I have a hard time separating them,” he says. “I like how a person might take on more than one role. There will be years when you’re a writer, then years when you’re a reader, or organizing events. Everyone is collectively keeping it moving, keeping the ball in the air.”
Visit http://apt9press.wordpress.com for more about Apt. 9 Press.
