A Play by L. Huntly Poetry by C. Turnbull

This is the official launch event for drift/line press & reading series, with a dual focus on launching our first publication, a chapbook of ecologically focused poems called parts path by Chris Turnbull (with a reading by Chris, and guest poets Y. S. Lee and Jennifer Baker), and featuring a special performance by poet Liz Huntly/Jensch (and a few actors) of a play/poem A Mother is a Portal, described as a mash-up of ancient Greece (tragedy-comedy) and modern motherhood. 

After the performances, the press will be selling parts path by Chris Turnbull & a broadside (printed poem) by Liz Huntly/Jensch as a featured bundle ($40). There will be a chance to mingle and grab a drink together at the bar in Kingston Grand Theatre. 

About drift/line press & reading series: 

drift/line press publishes poetry, small fictions, and small essays in the form of 

chapbooks and other literary art objects. Our goal is to create beautiful and perceptive works that act as: antidote to the vagaries of the world and daily life; spark to revive dormant selves, forgotten horizons, dreams; and lighthouse for future directions. 

At drift/line, we lean into experimentation, encourage collaboration with other poets, 

writers, and artists, and seek to inspire local and broader communities through our 

literary art objects and corresponding events. 

 

parts path 

poems by Chris Turnbull 

chapbook launch 

Artist statement for parts path: 

I don't go anywhere without a notebook and a functioning pen -- to mark observations, thought, and movement. A note is a moment -- unedited, on the fly, and brief. My notebook is not chronological by page; I might write into it, anywhere. In returning to the notes (as if some unruly collection), in some later, they are kinetic: they propel recollection and focus that expands toward narrative outside of the moment of recording the observation. I like the verb form of "note" -- to note -- rather than the noun that comes into play as an object -- "a note" --something shaped that is inert, that is past, that refers to an active moment in some "before".  

With recall, observations and events shift. A calendric journal, a notebook -- verbal or written -- offers a moment for reference; they are somewhat like waymarkers. It seems as though these forms of record should have some sort of chronology, duration, but I'm curious as to how they function to shape, in language, stretches of unrelated/related events. 

parts path notes the relevance of perception and adaptations of perceptions. Recorded actions/events are both immediate and past on the page. Some of the pieces are disjointed -- in an outdoor setting, in particular, one can note what is happening while it has already happened. The observer misses mostly everything in trying to put the pieces together. 

Bio: 

Chris Turnbull is the author of cipher (Beautiful Outlaw Press), [ untitled ] in own (CUE Books) and Continua (Chaudiere Books/Invisible Press). Her most recent chapbook is x° (Gap Riot Press, 2024). Additional writing, collaborations and installations are in print, online, and within landscapes. She curates a footpress, rout/e, whereby poetry can be found on trails (www.etuor.wordpress.com). She lives near Ottawa, within the not ceded and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. 

 

Readings by guest poets:  

Y.S. Lee 

Y. S. Lee’s poems have won Contemporary Verse 2’s 2022 Foster Prize and been finalists for various awards in Canada, the US, and Australia. Her first full-length poetry collection, Rebuke the Ghosts, will be published by Brick Books in 2027. She is a member of The Villanelles writing group. 

 

Jennifer Baker  

Jennifer Baker is a poet, editor, and Professor of literature and creative writing living and working in Ottawa, Canada. She is the author of three chapbooks, including Abject Lessons (above/ground press, 2014), Groundling (Trainwreck Press, 2021, reissued by above/ground press, 2023), and Memento Mishka (Apt. 9 Press, 2023). Her experimental ecopoetry can be found in Canadian and international publications including Canthius, Arc Poetry Magazine, Dusie and the Delisted Project.  

 

A Mother is a Portal 

A Greek Tragedy/Comedy In One Act 

A play/poem by Liz Huntly/Jensch 

A mash-up of Ancient Greece and modern motherhood, this play-like long poem mimics and twists the oration of Plutarch and Heraclitus for a portrayal of motherhood that is both hilarious and heart-wrenchingly honest. 

Bio: 

Liz Huntly/Jensch lives in rural Ontario on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee, where she farms, writes, and runs the artisan bakery Grains & Goods with her husband and three feral boys. Her poems are published in Room, Grain, Riddle Fence, Arc and elsewhere. She is the 2025 Steven Heighton Fellow at the Al Purdy A-Frame and Queen’s University.