Showing posts with label Queen Street Quarterly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queen Street Quarterly. Show all posts

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Queen Street Quarterly (1997-2005): interview with Suzanne Zelazo, and bibliography

this interview was conducted over email from December 2020 to February 2021 as part of a project to document literary publishing. see my list of interviews and bibliographies of literary publications past and present here

Suzanne Zelazo is a writer, editor, and educator. She holds a PhD in English with a specialty in female modernism and avant-garde poetry and performance. Her projects seek to integrate creative expression and the body. She is the author two collections of poetry, Lances All Alike and Parlance from Coach House Press, and is editor or co-editor of several books on female artists.

Q: How did Queen Street Quarterly get started?

SZ: I had been volunteering as the photography editor (which was the only position open) at my college literary mag (The Trinity Review). The journal was as formally traditional as the campus. Although I found that limiting, I got to see a little of what went into such an enterprise. Most importantly, I got to see how and where it was printed, which was around the corner at Coach House Press. The singularity of that press with its commitment to the book as an art object was absolutely crucial to how I conceived of the QSQ. What they do as printers made it very clear to me that I wanted to produce a periodical that would showcase the materiality of the text, specifically by including sound and visual poetry. But, as a lover of much lyric work as well, I wanted a venue that would integrate the traditional and the avant garde. I believed and still do in the power of reciprocal exchange between different genres. One way I saw of enabling that was by according the ephemerality that characterizes much experimental work the weighted presence of a proper bound text and to have it appear on zephyr laid paper that would do much to fix the fleeting in place for the benefit of extended engagement. Additionally, I believed the less experimental material in this configuration would take on a different charge featured alongside seemingly incongruous work.

Looking back, part of the impetus to start the QSQ was no doubt youthful arrogance—I did not see any magazines at that time to which I wanted to submit work, or more precisely, which reflected the kind of work I was writing and interested in, so I figured I’d make one.

Q: What were your models when starting out? Were you basing the journal on anything specific, or working more intuitively?

SZ: I wasn’t basing it on anything specific but discovering older copies of Between C and D: Neo-Expressionist Lower East Side Fiction Magazine, edited by Joel Rose and Catherine Texier (1983-1990) made a huge impact on me. I read every one I could get my hands on. Printed and “bound” as it was, or rather, computer-printed accordion-style and packaged in zipped plastic bags, cultivated my understanding of the periodical as art object. The entire print run is stunning and the magazine’s commitment to the avant garde scene was so inspiring to me. Tish was the same for me in terms of prioritizing generic experimentation.

Q: At the time you began the journal, had you been writing for long? Were you attending readings? How were you engaging with your immediate community?

SZ: I wrote poetry at that time for sure, but I was so young! I was very involved in the literary scene in Toronto at that time and I took learning the ins and outs of it very seriously. I went to as many readings and book launches as I could, often hitting more than a few on a single night. The Toronto poetry community in the 1990s was so vibrant and exciting! We had a lot of fun. You were very much a part of that too rob!

Q: It is true. I remember doing a reading with you at the University of Toronto’s Hart House, where I think we might have first met, and I have a recollection of you hanging out with Darren Wershler and Christian Bök. After the reading, Jack Illingsworth solicited you to review for Books in Canada, prompting me to jump in with a “me too!”

I’m wondering: what was the process of putting together those first few issues? Did you have an open call for submissions, or were you soliciting work?

A: I remember that! It was a great night and that crew always made those events celebratory. Jack Illingsworth is wonderful. He has done so much for writing and writers in Canada both behind scenes and in front.

For the inaugural issue of QSQ I solicited work with the generous help of Mike O’Connor of Insomniac Press. I’m not even sure he’d remember this, but he put me in touch with a list of writers I then approached. That gesture—helping a young writer he didn’t know but was introduced to over the phone through a mutual friend—speaks to his kindness and dedication to all things literary, but it also underscores just how important community is to such undertakings. Many people in the community helped make the QSQ what it was. I will never forget that gesture of Mike’s though, and I try to reciprocate in my own engagement with younger writers and the community at large.

Q: That is very cool. I wasn’t aware of any connection between Insomniac and QSQ. How were you first in contact with Mike? Apart from geographic location, I wouldn’t imagine much overlap between the aesthetics of those first years of Insomniac Press and QSQ.

A: It’s true, there is not much of an aesthetic overlap. But, as a Toronto publisher and very lovely guy, Mike is in touch with many writers in the community even beyond the Insomniac authors. A very close friend of mine at the time was also friends with Mike so he put us in touch and then Mike helped me reach out to a list of authors. It was a fortuitous connection for which I am forever grateful.

Q: One element of the journal I immediately admired was that I was able to see work by certain writers that I don’t think I’d actually seen in journals up to that point. What were you working to achieve with your editorial, and how well do you feel you achieved those initial goals?

SZ: Yes, I do think we achieved our goal of publishing new and emerging experimental writers alongside more established writers and more traditional work. Associate editors Stephen Cain and Natalee Caple, and for a time Neil Hennessy, Jay Millar and Karen McCormack, were all instrumental in soliciting cutting-edge work. We often invited contributions from authors without a long publishing history but whose work we admired and knew of from readings or from their own self-publishing ventures.

Q: What was the process of originally involving Stephen Cain and Natalee Caple? The masthead originally has you as editor, but after a couple of issues, a number of people were brought on to assist, including Cain, Caple and Michael Trussler. How did they get involved, and what were their roles?

A: I have always believed in collaboration and it was very important to me that the magazine reflected the very best of what was happening at that moment. To do that I wanted and needed multiple perspectives. Having an editorial board helped ensure that. Natalee, Stephen, and my brother Phil were the longest standing members and their contributions were enormous. Not only did they read and vet submissions, but they also helped identify new work and solicit contributions, as did the shorter-term members. All of them were absolutely crucial to what the magazine became. The process of getting them involved was fairly straightforward. They are all writers and readers I admire and who were doing something different than me and each other. I invited them to join us and they all graciously volunteered their time and beautiful minds.

When Stephen Cain became my then, long-time partner, he also did a lot of behind the scenes practical, administrative work with me. His commitment to the small press, his encyclopedic understanding of its history, his ear for sumptuous sounds, and his belief in the QSQ was critical on so many levels.

Q: What was the response to Queen Street Quarterly? And how do you feel the journal developed as you went along? What do you feel you achieved?

A: The QSQ was very much a writer’s magazine and the response to it reflected that—it was a well-known unknown. Being a “little magazine,” its lack of commercial status made it both accessible and somewhat inaccessible and that was perfect. We wanted to reflect the literary landscape not just the literary market sweethearts (which we did feature as well). An enthusiastic community grew around the QSQ over the years. It became a place of exchange and in so being, a place of creative generativity. In particular it was a community of LANGUAGE poets, concrete poets, intermedia artists—writers working innovatively between genres, including writers of fiction who were testing out new forms. It was an eclectic, inspired, and inspiring community dedicated to the word. Cultivating that community was definitely an aim I feel we achieved.

Q: How did you manage to pay for the journal? Had you funding? Sales? Were you holding launches?

A: As with most small press endeavours, the finances were always lean. The funding structures are such that you can’t apply for provincial or federal arts grants without proof of viability as an enterprise—you need to have put out a certain number of issues to qualify. As a result, (and I would never recommend this to a young publisher!)  I paid for the first few issues with my student loans at the time. After putting out the requisite number of issues to be eligible to apply, we received OAC and Canada Arts Council support which was invaluable. We were distributed by what used to be called the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association (now Magazine’s Canada), so sales plus semi-regular launches brought in some revenue. We also had a loyal list of subscribers. We always just made it. We didn’t have much overhead because it was produced in my various apartments and after hours in the work spaces of our wonderful layout manager Judith Parker, and as mentioned, the editors volunteered their time.

Q: Were there any submissions that surprised you? Any writers you wouldn’t have thought might have submitted anything to you but did? Who were the “discoveries” you feel you were able to make?

A: I was regularly surprised! I wouldn’t want to claim to have discovered any writer, but I loved being able to provide a forum for writers at early stages of their career like Emily Schultz and Seyward Goodhand. I loved publishing the sonic visual work of W. Mark Sutherland and poems by Karen Mac Cormack alongside the stories we got from Andrew Pyper and Russell Smith. I think those kinds of juxtapositions enacted their own kinds of discoveries.

Q: The journal had a remarkable run. In your editor’s note as part of the final issue (Volume 7, No. 4), you wrote: “I began Queen Street Quarterly because I believe in creative action. I wanted to create a place that would unite the many different voices that were and are Canadian literature. At the time most magazines were singular–exclusively traditional and lyric, or exclusively avant-garde and characteristically ephemeral. Having always believed in the capacity for reciprocity between the most seemingly disparate things, I thought it was important to put the street in the museum and the museum in the street–wherein sound scores, concrete poems, and surrealist games in all of their ephemeral brilliance could be preserved, proper bound and anchored in heavy, zephyr laid paper, and where the narrative and the lyric could be un-mired–refreshed by a proximity to newer forms. At the time, nothing existed which fostered such relationships so I, perhaps naively and perhaps arrogantly, took it upon myself to create such a space.” How do you feel about that statement now? What, in the end, was behind the decision to fold the journal?

A: It is always strange to revisit heartfelt statements from one’s past but despite that, I would say the overall message is still apt. It was a very difficult decision to fold the QSQ—I didn’t make it lightly. Behind it was a number of overlapping reasons, the most practical of which was that I was trying to finish my doctoral dissertation. At that time, however, there was a shift in the industry more generally with independent bookstores folding under the weight of big box bookstores. This had many repercussions on writers and publishers who were not mainstream including a sense of malaise and the need for new strategies for engagement and production.

Although I thought about handing over the editorial responsibilities to someone else, I elected to preserve the history of what it was—to bookend the literary energy of a particular time period and make room for new ideas and directions. Indeed, there were a number of cool publishing venues about to emerge like ditch, and The Puritan.

Queen Street Quarterly bibliography:

Volume 1, No. 1. Spring 1997. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil D. Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Contributing Editors: Richard Preiss, Zöe Renard. Layout: Neil McDonald. Contributions by: bill bissett, Richard Preiss, John M. Currid, George G. Murray, Christian Bök, Natalee Caple, David Urban, Lee Gotham, Jill Battson, Diana Tregenkamp, Matt R. Yeldon, Clare Bermingham and Michael Kirkham. Cover photo: shwa.

Volume 1, No. 2. Summer 1997. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Contributing Editors: Natalee Caple, Michael Trussler. Layout: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Matthew Remski, Herb Jackson, Darren Wershler-Henry, Shannon Bramer, Lara Aase, Stan Rogal, Herb Jackson, Hal Niedzviecki, Gordon Marshall, Chris Doda, Stephen Cain, Michelle Berry, George Murray and Priscila Uppal. Cover photo: Laurel Bidwell.

Volume 1, No. 3, Autumn 1997. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Contributing Editors: Natalee Caple, Michael Trussler. Layout: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Lise Downe, John Barlow, Matthew Firth, Jay MillAr, Christian Bök, Alana Wilcox, Nancy Dembowski, Marc Bechara, Gérald Audet, Matt Santateresa, Brian Panhuyzen, Michael Bryson, Christina Francisco, Natalee Caple and Beatriz Milhazes. Cover: Beatriz Milhazes.

Volume 1, No. 4, Winter 1997/Volume 2, No. 1, Spring 1998. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editor: Natalee Caple. Copy Editor: Stephen Cain. Layout: Judith Parker. Public Relations Manager: Wendy Morgan. Contributions by: A.F. Moritz, Mark Sutherland, Paul Dutton, Patrick Friesen, Tatiana Freire-Lizama, Paul Vermeersch, Lindsay Tabah, rob mclennan, Simon Archer, Brooke Clark, Fred Gaysek, Louise Bak, Julie Moos, R.M. Vaughan, Steve Venright, Darren Wershler-Henry, Catherine Jenkins, Tom Raworth, Peter Jaeger, Joāo Agapito, Nihad Hasanovic, Jill Larill and Vern Smith. Cover: Catherine Jenkins.

Volume 2, No. 2, Summer 1998. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editor: Natalee Caple. Copy Editor: Stephen Cain. Layout: Judith Parker. Public Relations Manager: Wendy Morgan. Editorial Intern: James Arthur. Contributions by: Jeff Derksen, Michael Trussler, Peter McPhee, j.a. LoveGrove, Nancy Bullis, Scott Pound, Jesse Huisken, Alexandra Leggat, Janine Guay, Michelle Berry, John Barlow, Sarah Dearing, Jonathan Bennett and Victor Coleman. Cover: Christian McLeod.

Volume 2, No. 3, 1998. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editor: Natalee Caple. Copy Editor: Stephen Cain. Layout: Judith Parker. Public Relations: Wendy Morgan. Contributions by: Peter Jaeger, Tom Orange, Rabindranath Maharaj, Gordon Michael Allen, Michael Kelleher, Helen Tsiriotakis, Beth Learn, Peter Darbyshire, Stephen Cain, Monika Burkhardt, William Howe, Simmone Howell, Ann Shin, Patrick Roscoe and Suzanne Zelazo. Cover: Jennifer Walton.

Volume 2, No. 4/Volume 3, No. 1, Winter/Spring 1999. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Wendy Morgan. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Ken Babstock, John Barlow, Derek Beaulieu, bill bissett, Randy Boyagoda, George Bowering, Graham Foust, Steve Hayward, Jim Larwill, Alexandra Leggat, damian lopes, rob mclennan, Ingo Meller, David O’Meara, Brian Panhuyzen, Matt Santateresa, Royston Tester, Paul Vermeersch, Anne F. Walker and Marnie Woodrow. Cover art: Ingo Meller.

Volume 3, No. 2. Summer 1999. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Wendy Morgan. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Charles Bernstein, Christian Bök, Jordan Broadworth, Holly Borgerson Calder, Frank Davey, Christopher Dewdney, Sky Gilbert, Neil Hennessy, j.a. LoveGrove, Andrew King, Esther Mazakian, Esta Spalding, Kate Sutherland, Sherwin Tija and tmuir. Cover art: Jordan Broadworth.

Volume 3, No. 3. Fall 1999. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Wendy Morgan. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Gary Barwin, Darryl Berger, Tony Burgess, Cora Cluett, Lauren Davis, Beth Follett, Graham Foust, Michael Holmes, Andrew Pyper, Trish Salah, Emily Schultz, W. Mark Sutherland and Carleton Wilson. Cover art: Cora Cluett.

Volume 3, No. 4. Winter 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Paul Anderson, Jesse Craig Bellringer, Victor Coleman, Bill Griffiths, Hal Niedzviecki, Karen Mac Cormack, Esther Mazakian, Steve McCaffery, David McGimpsey, Jay MillAr, Mary Nyguist, Robert Priest, Matt Robinson, W. Mark Sutherland, Scott Wallis and Andy Weaver. Cover art: Scott Wallis.

Volume 4, No. 1. Spring 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Ken Babstock, Derek Beaulieu, Mike Barnes, Daniel f. Bradley, Kate Brown, Kyle Buckley, Clint Burnham, André Carpentier, Maggie Helwig, M.G. Hesse, bill kennedy, Jonathan Lasker, Erín Moure, Jed Rasula, Stan Rogal, Jeremy Sigler, Marnie Woodrow and Jacob Wren. Cover art: Jonathan Lasker.

Volume 4, No. 2. Summer 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: James Arthur, Kemeny Babineau, Michelle Berry, George Bowering, Jason Christie, Jeramy Dodds, Maria Gould, Janine Guay, Noah Leznoff, Billy Mavreas, Esther Mazakian, rob mclennan, lucas mulder, Ken Norris, a. rawlings, Karen Rosenberg, Erin Soros, Lori Waxman, Zoe Whittall, Julia Williams and Aaron Williamson. Cover art: Lori Waxman.

Volume 4, No. 3, 2000. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Mike Barnes, Jesse Craig Bellringer, Matthew Firth, Stephen Henighan, Paul Kelley, Robert Lake, Howard Lonn, Esther Mazakian, Nichole McGill, Amanda Mekhael, John Riddell, matt robinson, Timothy Rogers, Emily Schultz, Spencer Selby, Lytle Shaw, natalie stephens, Paul Vermeersch and Anne F. Walker. Cover art: Howard Lonn.

Volume 4, No. 4, 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Bruce Andrews, derek beaulieu, Caroline Bergvall, Gillian Best, Taylor Brady, John Degen, Chris Doda, Michael Holmes, Adrian Liu, Michael Mahy, Billy Mavreas, jeremy mcleod, Ken Norris, Clemente Padin, Jay Ruzesky, Rick/Simon and Jessica Smith. Cover art: Rick/Simon.

Volume 5, No. 1, Spring 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Louis Cabri, Margaret Christakos, Jason Christie, Tim Conley, jwcurry, Michael deBeyer, Bill Howell, Jake Kennedy, Robert Lake, Wendy Lu, Rob Read, Michael Redhill, David Rodgers, Stuart Ross and William Woodruff. Cover art: jwcurry.

Volume 5, No. 2, Summer 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr. Contributions by: Josh Auerbach, Mike Barnes, Terrence Chiusano, Margaret Christakos, Kelly Dignan, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Loss Pequeño Glazier, Maria Gould, Ihor Holubizky, Coral Hull, Eva Jacek, G.P. Lainsbury, Donato Mancini, Sharon McCartney, rob mclennan, Blaise Moritz, Ken Norris, Kent Nussey, Jennifer M. Paquette, Alex Pugsley, Jean-Paul Riopelle, matt robinson and Karen Woodman. Cover art: Jean-Paul Riopelle.

Volume 5, No. 3, 2001. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Copy Editor: Ava Kwinter. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Darryl Berger, Tony Burgess, Bob Cobbing, Stephen Brockwell, Victor Coleman, Tim Conley, Jason Christie, Richard Deming, Jason LeHeup, Shawna Lemay, Gustave Morin, Jessica Smith, W. Mark Sutherland, Royston Tester and J. Ryan Wade. Cover art: Tony Burgess.

Volume 5, No. 4/Vol. 6, No 1, Spring 2002. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Copy Editor: Ava Kwinter. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Christian Bök, George Bowering, derek beaulieu, daniel f. bradley, kyle buckley, Stephen Cain, Jason Christie, Janieta Eyre, Beth Follett, Susan Glickman, Jesse Huisken, Sarah Hurd, Bill Kennedy jeremy mcleod, David McGimpsey, rob mclennan, Jay MillAr, Gustave Morin, Blaise Moritz, Carol Parikh, Andrew Pyper, Meredith Quartermain, Rob Read, matt robinson, Lytle Shaw, J. Mark Smith, W. Mark Sutherland, Alice Teichert, Betsy Trumpner and Darren Wershler-Henry. Cover art: Jenieta Eyre.

Volume 6, No. 2, Summer 2002. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Greg Betts, Geoff Hlibchuk, Michael Holmes, Peter Jaeger, W.B. Keckler, Karen Mac Cormack, Steve McCaffery, Garry Morse, a. rawlings, Steve Savage, Emily Schultz, Natalie Simpson, Chris Turnbull, Martin Turenne and Susana Molinolo. Cover art: Rick/Simon.

Volume 6, No. 3, Fall 2002. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Contributions by: Guy R. Beining, Jonathan Bennett, Jason Camlot, Tim Conley, Andréas Embiricos, Grev Evanson, Allen Fisher, Alan halsey, Jesse Huisken, Jesse Lee Jennison, Evan Jones, Sophie Levy, Jay MillAr, Jeff Musgrave and Alex Porco. Cover art: William Wegman.

Volume 6, No. 4, 2003. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Stephen Brockwell, Kyle Buckley, Abigail Child, Adrian Clarke, Tim Conley, John Delacourt, Jill Hartman, Steven Heighton, Paul Hegedus, Kevin Irie, Brian Jungen, Cory Lavender, Donato Mancini, Barry McKinnon, Jeremy McLeod, Geraldine Monk, Gustave Morin, Alex Porco, Nikki Reimer, Trevor Speller, Lesley Trites, Michael Trussler, Reese Warner, Elena Wolff and Karen Yacobucci. Cover art: Brian Jungen.

Volume 7, No. 1, 2003. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Gavin Babstock, Elizabeth Ben-Ishai, Caroline Bergvall, Bill Boletis, Stephen Brockwell, Natalee Caple, Tim Conley, Pat Cull, Bill Howell, Jake Kennedy, Larissa Kostoff, Mark Laliberte, Drue Langlois and Michael Dumontier, Pasha Malla, Shelby Matthews, Ken Norris, Tamás Prágai, Alexandra Preto, Stan Rogal, Jessica Smith, Linda Spalding, Tamiae Squibb and Moez Surani. Cover art: Drue Langlois and Michael Dumontier.

Volume 7, No. 2, 2004. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Charles Alexander, Michael deBeyer, Gabe Foreman, Seyward Goodhand, Paul Hegedus, Steven Heighton, Peter Jaeger, Kevin Killian, Derek McCormack, Blaise Moritz, Anne Nettles and Russell Smith. Cover art: Edward Burtynsky.

Volume 7, No. 3, 2004. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Louise Bak, Michael Basinski, derek beaulieu, Charles William Boyes, Jason Christie, Tim Conley, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Kenneth Goldsmith, Sharon Harris, rob mclennan, Jay MillAr, Gustave Morin, Jeff Musgrave, Hugh Thomas, Martin Turenne and Reese Warner. Cover art: Derek Beaulieu.

Volume 7, No. 4, 2005. Editor: Suzanne Zelazo. Associate Editor: Phil Zelazo. Visual Arts Editor: David Moos. Literary Editors: Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennessy, Karen Mac Cormack. Production: Judith Parker. Additional Design: Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon. Contributions by: Douglas Barbour, derek beaulieu, Gregory Betts, Frank Davey, Ray Ellenwood, Paul Hegedus, Ailsa Kay, Blaise Moritz, Sheila E. Murphy, Alessandro Porco, a. rawlings, Emily Schultz, Paul Vermeersch, Anne E. Walker and Bruce Whiteman. Cover art: Rick/Simon.


Friday, September 14, 2012

Grain magazine 39.4: unstrung,




I CAN ALMOST SEE THE CLOUDS OF DUST

A herd of cattle walks on a tar road
I imagine them stirring up clouds of dust

If they run, startled
I’ll imagine bigger clouds of dust

They’re clean, they walk on a city street
like a group of men in the city

They walk they run they’re startled
like men sweating under the scorching sun

A herd of cattle walks on a city road
They come one by one
They pass by me (Yu Xiang; translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain)

Every so often I become more aware of the fact that so many literary journals in this country are deeply in love with metaphor-driven lyric narrative poems. Why is that? There are so many other varieties of writing currently being composed and explored in various corners of Canada, why do so many journals simply focus their attentions upon one particular strain? Perhaps I’ve become wistful lately, recalling just how much I enjoyed the days of Toronto’s late, lamented Queen Street Quarterly, for example. In this issue of Saskatoon’s Grain magazine, the summer 2012 issue subtitled “unstrung,” there isn’t much that really strikes out at me, with a few exceptions. The meditative poems of Yu Xiang, as translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, are quite lovely, and her first major collection in English translation, I Can Almost See the Clouds of Dust (Zephyr Press) is forthcoming. Still, some other things intrigue, such as some of the lines by Christopher Lee Miles, but some of the finest and most intriguing have to come from Kirya Marchand, in her striking five-part poem “FIVE WAYS I HAVE FOUND OF TOUCHING MY OWN BODY,” that includes:

III. CLICKING MY TONGUE-RING ACROSS MY TEETH

I talk like a clock
would.

I talk and my talking counts time
caught

in the ossuary,
I walk through like a monk
would.

I
strike
time.

Otherwise, I love that the “Haiku Horoscopes” by Winnipeg’s “Jonathan Ball, Registered Fraud” is a regular occurrence, striking and odd enough to be one of the highlights of every issue.

TAURUS (April 20—May 20)
The Secret’s out—the
Reason Stonehenge was built was
Just to annoy you

It’s always good to see new fiction by Toronto writer Stan Rogal, as well as by Victoria writer Oscar Martens who, some two decades ago, was living in Ottawa and hanging around The TREE Reading Series. The opening of his story “No Call Too Small” reads:

We sit in our cruiser at the far end of the lot in Belcarra Park, where all is calm except for the two squirrels I’ve been tracking. Observed but unreported, one has scored a cheese doodle from under the picnic bench, and the other seems determined to take it by force, spiralling up the truck on a nearby pine. Subject is a few inches tall, half a pound, light brown fur, bushy tail, nervous darting eyes, and twitchy body language. Victim is a few inches tall, half a pound, light brown fur, bushy tail, nervous darting eyes, and twitchy body language. The sharp crack that startles me is not gunfire, but a seagull dropping a clam onto the pavement to smash open its skull. This seagull of interest is known to police and has been seen in the area with his associates, harassing the eagle that now sits atop an eighty-foot cedar. Current conditions do not warrant invention.


Friday, July 29, 2011

The Poker: an appreciation,

KD: I had a really great high school teacher, a fiction writer, Jack Hodgins. He's a well-known Canadian novelist. In Canada, you got educated in “the tradition” to a certain extent, but also there were all these local Vancouver Island writers. They exist. And that was pretty interesting, but then, in The Capilano Review, 1975 issue, which was somehow in Jack's classroom, they have some poems by Spicer. These were later included in One Night Stand and Other Poems, the early work Spicer rejected. And then there's Williams. Williams just barely makes it into the canon at that point, but I started reading him then. I remember also, this last year of high school, seeing things by a poet named Christopher Dewdney.

MG: Yes, I wanted to ask you about him. I just stumbled on some of his work. Is he still alive? (“Marcella Durand Interviews Kevin Davies,” The Poker #3, Fall 2003)
It may have taken me a while, but recently I managed to get my hands on three issues of the late American poetry journal The Poker (“Half with loathing, half with a strange love”): issues one, three and eight. Edited and published by Daniel Bouchard out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with contributing editors Beth Anderson, Kevin Davies, Marcella Durand, Steve Evans, Cris Mattison, Jennifer Moxley and Douglas Rothchild, the journal published twice a year publishing engaging poetry, interviews, essays and even the occasional review. What happened?
4.

The story not so good had the reindeer
showed up and withered. Mule.

In some afters we must steal our glittering
coup de foudre's, burning little lexicons.
A traveler like Carmen, but less
of an archaeologist, Don Jose could clamor

thunderclaps. I'll storm no more of that!
Won't no longer so wander no coughing

so trembling at the sentiment braying I in I:
even John Locke claimed the Prince of Naasua's

parrot could talk sense, say “Homo Marinas”.
And Parascelsus was such a fine scientist

putting his jism in the mare, cooing
this nature, all homunculi. (Anne Boyer, from”Ode Amo,” #8)
The contributors list of The Poker reminds very much of the late, lamented Toronto journal, Queen Street Quarterly, publishing a range of writers not often seen in literary journals, therefore providing an important alternate to journal culture. There aren't that many venues where one might find interviews with such writers, from Kevin Davies (#3), Ange Mlinko (#4), Robin Blaser (#5), Anselm Berrigan (#7) or Jennifer Moxley (#8), and essays by Moxley (#2), William Carlos Williams, Fanny Howe and Aaron Kunin (#3), Juliana Spahr and Steve Evans (#4), Laura Riding (#5) and Dan Beachy-Quick (#8). If you go through the website, its easy to see the appeal of the journal (listing all issues but the eighth, for some reason). Certainly, there are publications and projects that have their natural lifespan, and for whatever reason, don't live beyond particular borders, such as Queen Street Quarterly, or, like Vancouver's The Capilano Review or Saskatoon's Grain, become rejouvenated through the natural movement of new editors coming in to replace those who had long held the helm. And, not be as aware of literary culture in the United States as I am here, I'm left to wonder what has come up to fill this space? One could cite the recent appearance of Jacket2, but surely there must have been something in between.
I have been meaning to write an essay on the nature of doubt and poetry. Before reading Descartes I had dismissed him, and now reading the Discourse and the Meditations, I find him in my mind as a splinter is in a thumb. Not a pain to extract, but rather, a pain that reminds me the thumb exists, that the thumb is mine, and here I am, thinking about it. A sliver of pine becomes the world—at least, the potential for a world. I can encounter it, consider it. The poem is this crucible in which the world heats up—grasses sere, then the pond disappears, then the ocean becomes cloud, then the cloud grows absent, then the air. Then the flame is turned down, then the crucible cools, and we look in to see what remains. (Dan Beachy-Quick, “'To Know by the Natural Light of the Mind'—On the Poetics of Thinking & Doubt,” The Poker #8)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

filling Station #44

1-800-GOT-JUNK?

Two men with exhausted belts
saunter toward the intersection
with blue wigs and placards.

Deputy ministers and soccer moms
eddy out of traffic with their ringletted cargo
on the eight o’clock school run.

The pewter clouds,
the window down.
Last night I slept on the cool couch
and rose to eat breakfast with the dog.

I’ve got junk, yeah.
The way the sky holds rain
like water behind two parsed lips. (Monica Kidd)

It’s funny, I was only talking about them but recently, and here they are again with a new issue, finally on the other end of their recent funk, Calgary’s filling Station magazine, and issue #44 thicker than the previous two (at over one hundred pages), with a beautiful design by guest designer James Dangerous. There was concern floating around for months, and rumours as well (a good reassessment point for the journal, I’m sure; near-death is like that); we certainly didn’t want the journal to end, to end up in a list of regret by readers and contributors alike, Canadian literary journals that writing feels less without, including Queen Street Quarterly and Raddle Moon (which I’ve been rereading lately). Hell, do you remember when Contemporary Verse 2 was run by Dorothy Livesay? With her editorial, “filling Station goes to the hospital,” managing editor Laurie Fuhr answers a lot of the questions (and even rumours) that have been plaguing the journal over the past, say, two years, and puts them to rest (without ever really getting too specific); they have come out the other side, writing,

When an arts initiative gets sick, as when an organizer quits or funding is cut or some other disease of the art world takes hold, some people behind the initiative get the fear. […] When core members begin to get interested in other things or move away—as will happen eventually no matter how good a thing you’re up to (Colin, Sandy, Chris, Jason, Jordan, we miss you!)—there was hardly anyone left with whom to entrust the spark of Filling Station’s life force. We had been hemorrhaging people for a while, slowly, but this emergency situation sped up the overflow.

Fortunately, those who really cared about saving the life of the magazine gathered faithfully around the operating table in their sexy green doctor’s pajamas.
This is potentially a new chapter in the life of a journal that goes back some fifteen years of Calgary history, a journal that has always existed as a community effort, with poetry, fiction, artwork, reviews and other pieces in their current issue by new and familiar faces, such as Jonathan Ball (is he in every issue?), Evie Christie, Jesse Ferguson, ryan fitzpatrick, Monica Kidd, Judy Lin, Ryan Turner, Scott Rogers and a pile of others. There’s a translation feature featuring Neils Hav, who has been featured as well recently in more than a couple of publications by BookThug, with translations of his work by himself and a couple of others. And it’s just good to see new work by Alberta ex-pat Monica Kidd, and Edmonton poet Judy Lin, who has been starting to publish with increasing frequency over the past year. Evie Christie, who has been doing an increasing number of interesting interviews lately, continues with a conversation with Jonathan Bennett on his most recent novel, and what comes next.

A Laughter

The gas station grinds and toils
in the wind. There is nothing else.
Listen, the sound of all the signs like harps
in the air, a laughter in particular
addressed to no one, like the plastic bottle
skidding across the gravel knocking
a standard, it capsizes and spins
and continues past gates and doors
behind the house and across the field
almost flying through the grass
enjoying itself. (Neils Hav, trans. P.K. Brask & Patrick Friesen)

Okay, filling Station, you’ve got me; I’ve told the people to read you and subscribe. I think you might just be okay. I’m going to worry about someone else now, for a while.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Ongoing notes: early February 2009

How long is it since I’ve done one of these? Perhaps too long; part of it, is the fact that I’m just not getting anyone mailing me chapbooks or books as often lately, getting far more from Americans than from Canadians; why do my own country-people keep not sending me what they make? At least I still have a few that remember I’m here.

Otherwise, check out these events happening over the next little bit; also, I’m hoping to start making a slew of above/ground press items soon, so be sure to check out 2009 subscription rates if you haven’t already. Did you see the new blog that New York poet Rachel Zucker started with her pal Arielle Greenberg? Did you see here, CanCult just found out about my Ottawa: The Unknown City? By now, you’ve already seen the new issue of ottawater, the first issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics and the ALBERTA SERIES, yes? Or the interview I did with Sachiko Murakami? (and did you know she had a blog?) Or Peter Simpson, who apparently liked my novel?

Hamilton ON: Don’t let anyone convince you that nothing ever happens in Hamilton, Ontario. Remember, David W. McFadden, Adam Getty and Marcus McCann are from there, and its still the home to writer and musician Gary Barwin [he reads in Ottawa through Max Middle’s A B Series on February 20 with Gregory Betts, another Hamilton ex-pat]. Barwin was good enough to send me a little envelope of goodies, including his new chapbook inverting the deer (serif of nottingham, 2008). I’ve always said, if David W. McFadden and Stuart Ross could have a baby together, it would have been Gary Barwin, somewhere in the middle of their mix of straight talk, deflection and surrealism.

The Life of Complicated Apes

I clean the city
streets
with my broom

there

we can take our hearts and go
we can go bowling
down the dark tongues
of the city’s streets

they are clean

Barwin has been publishing books and chapbooks for years, including publications through Proper Tales Press, Coach House Books and The Mercury Press, as well as through his own serif of nottingham. Does anyone remember when he used to publish new material every six months, just in time for the Toronto Small Press Fair?

St. Catharine’s ON: At the edge of the province is PRECIPICe, a journal of poetry, fiction and artwork out of Brock University, formerly known as Harpweaver, but morphed through new directions led by editors Gregory Betts, Adam Dickinson and Mathew Martin. Now into Volume 16, No. 1, the new issue features work by such as Karen Mac Cormack, Steve McCaffery, Maureen Hynes, Stan Dragland, Megan A. Volpert, Domenico Capilongo, David Fujino and Barry Dempster. Does anyone else get the feeling these boys are working to pick up some of the vacancy left by the late great Queen Street Quarterly? I really like what the magazine has been accomplishing since the name/regime change a couple of years back, including the fragment from Dragland’s new novel, The Drowned Lands (Pedlar, 2008) and some pretty interesting visual works by Kelly Mark, but geez, fellas, doesn’t this issue seem a bit boy-heavy?

shockers and struts

surrounded by that which is not pertaining
no seamless sigh to infracted
page count or asthma’s resident
outline of years ending in an even number
images wander as we do
amid a temporal movement’s Algodones Dunes
this infinity of forming releases
the tenses beyond grammar, furcation, connection
lift as ascent’s in visible verb
layers inform themselves of resonance
but “if speech then sound” resumes the problematical
distribution so unequal (not as in another “rainy day”)
this date that letter (multiples and date)
the Ides of March is where to
kiss again the hungry present
so meet my invention’s
“escape limited” as a-walking not just yet
line a Dark Lady might perceive for
cadence not visible’s music doesn’t remain
so still (Karen Mac Cormack)

Montreal QC: In Montreal, there’s a brand-new publisher making exquisite handmade hardcover poetry chapbooks, WithWordsPress, with its first three titles THE FRUIT MAN and other poems by Jason Camlot (2008) with artwork by J.R. Carpenter [Camlot reads this Thursday at the Ottawa Art Gallery as part of the Factory Reading Series], Pants with Pockets: Poems by Chris Masson (2007) and A Tender Invention: Poems by Gillian Sze (2008), with illustrations by Roberutsu.

Lost Days

The Victorian period is alive today.
The sandwich men are lurking in the streets.
They invented new machines for thrashing wheat,
hammers for pummeling men back into clay,
systems to guarantee that workers pay
with lacerated hands and blistered feet.
Victorian children learned to cheat
properly, to apologize always
when battling other children to the death.
A was for Asylum, B for Bricks, C
for Crimean War. Victorian breath
was just like ours, but lacey. Believe me
when I say they prayed with words like “Saith.”
Their deeds shall live on for eternity. (Jason Camlot)

With the disappearance of other chapbook presses such as Delirium Press and the oft-loved Ga Press, Montreal needs new chapbook publishing every so often, and these are lovely little books. But with only three in two years, how often are these books coming out? Of the three, the most intriguing was the chapbook by Gillian Sze, partly because the illustrations by Winnipeg artist Roberutsu made the publication. I’m also intrigued by some of what Sze is doing, working a form that perhaps could be better suited to prose than to poetry, exampled best in her haibun:

Ungodly
(a haibun)

It was a morning when his mother discovered the scratches on his back. He had just taken three steps from the bathroom, his towel draped low on his hips, when from beyond him he heard the sizzle of potatoes and his mother screech out, Demons! Now it is afternoon and he drops his backpack to the floor. His mother has left for church, an impromptu visit with God. His room has been rearranged, the space smelling of myrrh and hot wax. Walls flicker in discord. Jesus and Mary have found home on his shelves. An open pair of scissors placed carefully beneath his pillow.

last night’s impression:
her smile lit up by streetlight –
a slice of apple.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Queen Street Quarterly: final

With the brand-new issue, Volume 7, Number 4, now on the stands, Toronto’s Queen Street Quarterly journal celebrates the end of seven years of publishing. Easily the best little magazine in Canada, where else were you going to find the work of Stephen Cain, John Barlow, Christian Bök, Lise Downe, Steve McCaffery, a. rawlings, jwcurry, Matthew Remski, Nancy Dembowski, Victor Coleman, John Riddell, Gregory Betts and so many others that don’t often publish in the little magazines, with their work alongside that of more magazine-familiar names such as Stephen Brockwell, Jon Paul Fiorentino, derek beaulieu, Michelle Berry, Margaret Christakos, Michael Holmes and Ken Babstock. As the avants at the Kootenay School of Writing and Talonbooks on the west coast have access to The Capilano Review, Queen Street Quarterly filled a void in Toronto for the non-traditional poetic, publishing not just the standard lyric, but visual/concrete work, surrealist writing and writing within the Oulipo. As well, Queen Street Quarterly, although named after a well known Toronto strip, published not just the work of locals, but reached out nationally and internationally, bringing in writers and writing from various other communities (work by Aaron Williamson, Bill Griffiths, Charles Bernstein, Bruce Andrews, Coral Hull and Spencer Selby also appeared in the magazine) to produce a diverse and impressive journal of poetry and fiction that didn’t hold specifically to any one aesthetic. Since the magazine began, others have started moving in that direction, publishing more non-traditional works, such as Calgary magazines filling station and the new dANDelion, and Concordia University’s Matrix magazine.

As editor Suzanne Zelazo writes in her editor’s note:

"I began Queen Street Quarterly because I believe in creative action. I wanted to create a place that would unite the many different voices that were and are Canadian literature. At the time most magazines were singular–exclusively traditional and lyric, or exclusively avant-garde and characteristically ephemeral. Having always believed in the capacity for reciprocity between the most seemingly disparate things, I thought it was important to put the street in the museum and the museum in the street–wherein sound scores, concrete poems, and surrealist games in all of their ephemeral brilliance could be preserved, proper bound and anchored in heavy, zephyr laid paper, and where the narrative and the lyric could be un-mired–refreshed by a proximity to newer forms. At the time, nothing existed which fostered such relationships so I, perhaps naively and perhaps arrogantly, took it upon myself to create such a space."

The editors, Suzanne and Phil Zelazo, David Moos, Stephen Cain, Natalee Caple, Neil Hennesy, Karen Mac Cormack, with production by Judith Parker, Jay MillAr and Rick/Simon, have produced a fine run.

Zelazo ends her note with:

"Saying goodbye to the QSQ, however, is not easy. I have thought hard about leaving behind some explicitly stated and concise description of what the QSQ means, yet, for the past seven years I have never been one to overly specify our mandate–wishing instead that the magazine spoke for itself. I hope here, in hinting at my personal aesthetics, and through the contributions in this final issue, to do the same." Very few magazines, I think, have spoken so well.

The final issue includes work by Paul Hegedus, Ray Ellenwood, a. rawlings, Anne F. Walker, Paul Vermeersch, Alisa Kay, derek beaulieu, Frank Davey, Blaise Moritz, Douglas Barbour and Sheila E. Murphy, Gregory Betts, Alessandro Porco, Emily Schultz and Bruce Whiteman, as well as cover artwork by Coach House’s own Rick/Simon.

Back issues: $5.00 (including postage), 2 for $7.00 (including postage). Send cheques payable to Queen Street Quarterly, box 311, Stn. P, 704 Spadina Avenue, Toronto ON Canada, M5S 2S8. For all other enquiries please email theqsq@hotmail.com