"Sex at Forty-Five," at Jacket2

My fourteenth 'commentary,' "Sex at Forty-Five," is now online at Jacket2.

COUGH 3

Vain Cures. Subsect. 2.

Balance passions and answers. For a body is like a clock,

if one wheel is amiss, all the rest are disordered. The whole

fabric suffers.

Express doubt that politicians speak pure forms. Now only

signifies those born to misaffected parents. Points to effects

of imagination, and other maladies.

Awareness of a system acting upon the body, weighing

it down. On the other hand, an image to become acquainted with

as firm ground.

Bodily materials are either simple or mixed, vary according

to place. I’m devoted to a small room, and a closed curtain.

adjust an eyewitness.

He is happy that can perform properly. Vain cures, no purpose.

Cause for punishment. Extricate from a labyrinth of doubts

and errors.

Victory was uncertain, acknowledging all of our offenses. We

may never be relieved of our diseases. The conceit alone troubles

the craft of solitary living. (Andrew McEwan)

Guest-edited by Brad Shubat, the third issue of the collaborative COUGH includes work by Jack Clarke, Oliver Cusimano, Michael Boughn, Andrew McEwan, Brad Shubat, Kate Van Dusen, Kelly Semkiw, Victor Coleman, Andre Spears, Jess Taylor, Zach Buck, Jay MillAr, Jonathan Pappo, Tyler Crick, Dominique Russel, Mat Laporte, Nick Edwards, David Peter Clark and Ed Dorn. COUGH exists in the same vein of the late lamented TADS produced out of Vancouver, or our own writers journal, The Peter F Yacht Club, with a rotating editorship from an informal group of writers based out of a particular locale. Toronto’s COUGH appears to have been spearheaded by Victor Coleman and Michael Boughn [see my review of the first two issues here], with the encouragement and support of a growing base of younger writers, some of whom might have emerged out of either of their workshops run through the Toronto New School of Writing. What appeals about this journal, much as the other two examples I referenced, is the opportunity for interested readers to see just what a number of the individuals within the informal group have been up to lately, in their writing. Given some of the writers on the list, specifically Victor Coleman and Kate Van Dusen (who had an amazing piece in the one more once anthology), there really aren’t that many venues in which to see new work by a number of the contributors.

He returns again to the red bowl. Meditatively drinks. Dreams

Of meaty mouse-jewels and with phosphorescent eyes gazes past

Darkness into a lunar question: Where to go next? Returns to the

Red bowl. Moon reflected on white sprats. White chin free of collar.

Breathes laboriously: Almost there. Reflects on a silver couch in an

Irish cave. On duties of oracle and hunter of companion and archetype.

Sighs and returns to the task of: Ending. Goes slowly past glass patio

Doors, drinks from red bowl, walks in a circle around red and pauses.

How best to instruct the souls of these so greedily needing to stroke

Magnificent furry orange? A lifetime will stop with its fantasy of Love

Courts. Two red-haired women in an oak tree calling and calling him

Puss. Recollection of opening the complicated latch to aid the drunken

Poe’s return home. Return home to the red bowl. Drink. The greater

Their love for him the bigger more perfectly proportionate their world. (Kate Van Dusen, “The Red Bowl”)

The range of the material in the issue, hefty at some sixty-four 8 ½ x 11 pages, is impressive, and occasionally runs a bit roughshod in terms of consistency of quality, but is rich in vibrant energy. The strength of the journal, in many ways, comes from the feeling that the reader is invited into the process of the writing workshop, able to witness a group of writers attempting, listening and learning. Writing is a conversation, after all. There is more worth reading here than in many Canadian literary trade journals, and far more examples of writers who are trying out new shapes and forms, pushing the art to see just what might emerge.

vocal apparatus contracted and distended

I

letting go

dog bolts

home?

ambiguity of

destination

what makes

cocktails

wag

II

magnified fury

short changed

fried circuit

head

hiccough

two shakes

of a dead dog’s

tail

III

echoes from

monosyllabic sting beasts

copulas erupt

booking it

fumigated hive

where a voice

incensed at its absence

roars jurasically (Nick Edwards)

Inserted into this issue is a little flyer, also, that reads:

If you’d like to support this and subsequent issues of COUGH, please send your contribution to COUGH, c/o M. Boughn, 11 Conrad Ave. Toronto ON M6G 3G4

COUGH #4 will be an issue of collaborative works edited by Jonathan Pappo -- #5 will be devoted to the Poetics of Music edited by Zach Buck -- #6 will be edited by Laine Bourassa & Tyler Crick concerning writing from the Left Coast.

one more once: for Pierre Coupey’s 70th

A painting

rain on the river, that horizontal meander

overwhelmed by the myriad fine

vertical streams, the forest verticals seamed by, streamed by,

fine fluid striations, moving, the eye, like the flying canoe

shooting the hush, the rapids, brushing the colours of water

with those of the bush, warp and woof,

composing a dynamic, a seemingly silent, composition

of paint

a piece of contemplation? intimate in the integration of the

still and the moving, the growing and the decaying, vividly

static, quiet, not likely to jump off the wall, shout Eureka!

memorable—even if I can’t remember just where I put the

prints Pierre once sent me (D.G. Jones)

Anyone who has read my posts long enough knows that I’m a big fan of festschrifts, so of course I had to get my hands on one more once: for Pierre Coupey’s 70th (North Vancouver BC: CUE, 2012), edited/compiled by Patti Kernaghan. Writer, editor, teacher and visual artist Pierre Coupey is known predominantly for being an essential part of the Vancouver literary and visual arts scene for decades, including his long involvement with The Capilano Review, a journal he originally co-founded (he also helped found The Georgia Straight). To go onto Coupey’s website gives just a hint of the wide range of his activities over the past five decades, giving some indication of why a book such as this would come to be, to help celebrate his seventieth birthday. With a wealth of contributors, sixty in all, they include a host of writers, teachers and visual artists including Hope Anderson, George Bowering, Lary Timewell Bremner, Judith Copithorne, Brian Fawcett, Brian Fisher, Peter Culley, Maria Hindmarch, Daphne Marlatt, Barry McKinnon, Erin Moure, the late bpNichol, John Pass, Jenny Penberthy, Stan Persky, Meredith Quartermain, Jamie Reid, Renee Rodin, Sharon Thesen, Fred Wah and Lissa Wolsak. One could say that the best way to judge anyone is to see who shows up to their funeral (a rather dark statement, I’ll admit), but a more positive spin on the same idea would be to see who responds and how in a person’s festscrift.

Driving to Mac’s Billiards

Li Po’s immediate love of the moon

Pierre says driving. We enjoy a long

collaboration (The rain hushed streets of

North Vancouver) of friendship, sharing

the idea of the conversation (to Mac’s Billiards)

its pleasures, complexities, perils.

(dark November night) Also the promotion of

the good nature of everyone (the rain & gleam

of the present) which is the heart

(indelible past) of discourse, politics

& art when (& future gathered, released)

you hear the real words. The person

beside says “Exactly.” Pierre has the poet’s

ear, the painters eye. (our conversation

across the years). He is true to his materials

honouring them (celebrates the fact)

in the things he makes. (We are companions

to the experience—

Li Po’s immediate

love of the moon

is wisdom

Exactly, Pierre (David Phillips)

Some of the highlights of such a volume include works by rarely-seen poets such as David Phillips and Kate Van Dusen. Phillips had books with Talonbooks so long ago they were stapled, and his last push at publishing was in 1978, when his selected poems appeared with Coach House Books. Van Dusen, on the other hand, was part of Ottawa poetry in the early 1980s (and yes, related to all the other Van Dusens across the city, most of whom appear to work as journalists), with her own title from Coach House Books, before disappearing into the wilds of Toronto, Vancouver and Toronto again. The piece by Van Dusen, I must say, is perhaps the strongest piece I’ve seen by her. What have they been up to, all this time?