Sunday, July 21, 2019

Proper Tales Press 40th anniversary essay: Jason Heroux


A Lesson from the Orphanage, Stuart Ross, and Proper Tales Press

The first Proper Tales Press publication I purchased was A Lesson from the Orphanage and Other Poems (2003) by Bill Knott. It taught me something. Bill Knott was one of my favourite poets at the time. My well-used copy of Surrealist Poetry in English (Penguin, 1978) still has a bend in the spine, automatically springing the anthology open where Bill Knott’s section starts (page 259), and I remember searching high and low for Knott’s work: bookstores, libraries, websites, thrift shops, yard sales. Holding that particular Proper Tales Press publication in my hand made me realize that when you’re desperate to find something you need, you don’t have to keep running around in circles searching through the same old hiding places, coming up empty every time. Instead, you can actually create the thing you’re looking for. That’s the lesson I learned. If something is missing from your life, find a way to produce it yourself. The way Stuart Ross did with Bill Knott’s poetry. By connecting. Collaborating. Reaching out. Being involved. Stuart Ross did it way back then, and continues doing it to this day. Publishing books that he, myself, and many of you, want to read. Books that wouldn’t exist otherwise. It’s been 40 years, and I’m grateful to see in this current culture obsessed with trends, fads, and the latest, newest things, Proper Tales Press hasn’t changed at all.



Jason Heroux is currently the Poet Laureate for the city of Kingston, Ontario. His most recent book is Amusement Park of Constant Sorrow (Mansfield Press, 2018).

He is the author of the Proper Tales Press title Black Trampoline (2015).


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