The pragmatism of a girl
entering a room, drying her hands
the eroticism of a girl
drying her hair, head bent
Contrary to common
belief, hair cannot get wet.
I wash with my head bent
forward beneath the faucet
sweeping forward into the
stream, abstracting the nape to a line.
The lines of my hair all
singular.
Collectively immersed in
water, there is a wetness,
but still each hair,
taken separate, is solid.
Solids dissolve, do not
let water pass through them.
It is the division
between strands then, which is wet,
and creates the illusion
of drench.
Same with a shirt. It is the
spaces between the threads I clean. (Klara du Plessis)
I
am deeply pleased to see the two hundred and seventy-two pages of the anthology
The Anstruther Reader (Windsor ON: Palimpsest Press, 2024), edited by
Toronto poet and editor Jim Johnstone, who co-founded
the chapbook publisher Anstruther Press back in 2014 with his wife, designer Erica Smith. Subtitled “Ten years of
Poems, Broadsides, and Manifestoes,”
The Anstruther Reader dips in and
through a selection of work across the first decade of chapbook-making across a
press that has produced work by a wealth of poets across Canada, from Klara du
Plessis to
Jenna Lyn Albert to
Manahil Bandukwala to
Shazia Hafiz Ramji to
Fawn Parker to
Tolu Oloruntoba to
Cassidy McFadzean to
Shane Neilson to
Michael Prior. One could see Johnstone’s thick and thorough introduction to this volume
as an extension of the work he did through his critical volume
Write Print Fold and Staple: On Poetry and Micropress in Canada (Kentville NS:
Gaspereau Press, 2023) [
see my review of such here], as he speaks of working to
expand the boundaries of the press, deliberately attempting to mentor young poets
and produce numerous debuts, and assembling an editorial board of young writers
from various corners of the country to assist with editorial selection, to allow
for a broader range of writing to appear through the press. As he writes:
When I published The
Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry in 2018,
I characterized the group of Canadian poets selected to appear in the book as
the selfie generation. This cohort had published three books or less at the
time, and were adept at bridging the digital divide by synthesizing multiple
poetic styles simultaneously. Self-referential and self-assured, their poems
moved quickly, as if they employed hyperlinks, “harnessing the echo chamber of
the internet into a malleable, impressionistic music.” These characteristics
still stand in The Anstruther Reader, though the poets are different. Read
on and you’ll find representative samples from sixty Anstruther authors, selected
to present the story of the press through the voices that have come to define
it.
Sixty
authors representing the press is an enormous heft of activity, and Johnstone
even includes a complete checklist/bibliography of publications at the back of
the collection, which is marvellous. Publications are listed by year and, one
would presume, in order of publication, although the checklist leaves out print
runs or any more specific dating (I’m aware that certain titles were produced
in initial runs of thirty or forty, while other publications went through
multiple print-runs). In my review of The Next Wave, I wrote of how I
compared Johnstone’s editorial work—from his chapbooks through Anstruther Press
to trade titles through Palimpsest Press—to that of fiction editor John
Metcalf: you might not be interested in everything they might be offering, and
the work will have a distinct flavour to it, but much of it will be of a high
enough quality to impress. As editors, I trust their judgement, even if I might
not care for the work of every writer or title in their roster. I still hold to
this rather general overview, although I have to acknowledge that the core of
Johnstone’s interest, the highly crafted first-person metaphor-drive narrative
lyric poem, does occasionally expand to include more experimental approaches (work
by Derek Beaulieu, Dani Spinosa and Gary Barwin appear in this collection, for
example). Either way, the quality of the work in each of the Anstruther titles I’ve
seen are rigorously high, and publication through Anstruther has provided
numerous authors the push into subsequent full-length publication. The work and
careers of numerous of the authors listed here have flourished since the publications
of their Anstruther titles, in no small part thanks to Johnstone and Smith’s
ongoing work.
Near the Garden (of Eden)
The sky looks mean. I get
inside
to perk coffee to drink
on-deck,
waiting for the storm’s
admonishment,
its precaution. The toads
and crickets puncture the
grassy
lot with their calls—I’m
not jaded,
but I think of Him, how
He
could’ve intervened more
by now.
The air seems swollen. Everything
is suspended. Last time
the weather
failed, a gale pushed
through,
leaning our braced
saplings over
as the rain curtain
crossed
the intersection. Here,
lightning strikes
the sky with a quick,
forked tongue. (Shawn Adrian)
There’s
something wonderfully archival about a collection such as this, assembling a
portrait of a range of activity, specifically small press chapbook production,
that might otherwise appear quite ephemeral, even geographically localized (as most
chapbook presses usually are, although Anstruther does seem to have a rather
broad geographic reach). A collection such as this, produced through Palimpsest
Press, offers the benefit of bookstore distribution, something nearly and
completely impossible across chapbook production. One can point to other
collections over the years attempting to assemble a larger, single portrait of
publishing activity, from bill bissett’s infamous the last blewointment
anthology, vols. 1 and 2 (Toronto ON: Nightwood Editions, 1985/86) to Stan
Dragland’s New Life in Dark Seas: Brick Books at 25 (London ON: Brick
Books, 2000) or the two-volumes produced to celebrate the first decade of Gaspereau
Press: Gaspereau Gloriatur: Book of the Blessed Tenth Year, Vol.1: Poetry
(Kentville NS: Gaspereau Press, 2007) and Gaspereau Gloriatur: Book of the
Blessed Tenth Year, Vol. 2: Prose (Gaspereau Press, 2007), both of which
were edited Michael deBeyer and Kate Kennedy. None, one might note, were
produced to collect or document chapbook presses (although one might argue
blewointment leaned that way with much of their publishing history, and
Gaspereau has had a lengthy history of chapbook production alongside trade
volumes), and all I can recall across Canada for such activity, beyond the
three anthologies I edited to celebrate decade-markers through above/ground
press—GROUNDSWELL, best of above/ground press, 1993-2003 (Fredericton
NB: Broken Jaw Press/cauldron books, 2003), Ground Rules: the best of the second decade of above/ground press 2003-2013 (Ottawa ON: Chaudiere Books,
2013) and groundwork: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Toronto ON: Invisible Publishing, 2023)—would be Hammer and
Tongs: A Smoking Lung Anthology (Vancouver BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1999),
edited by Brad Cran, acknowledging the chapbook publishing he did in Victoria,
and later, Vancouver, across the 1990s with Smoking Lung Press. Why aren’t there
further collections around chapbook presses? I would love to see something of
the four-plus decades of Stuart Ross’ Proper Tales Press, or even had a press
such as Very Stone House collaborated on a volume of their 1960s and 70s work. Why
not housepress, or pink dog or Rahila’s Ghost Press? Too much of this activity
gets lost, overlooked. It happened, is happening; this is important, even if
you aren’t paying attention. You should be paying attention.
