The Capilano Review 3.19: Narrative

NB [Nicole Brossard]: In How Writing is Written, Stein says that each generation has to take care of daily life and anyone being creative is not in advance of his or her time. We are always contemporaneous for we cannot live in the past because it is gone and cannot live in the future because we have no idea of it; therefore, in the act of living each one has to live as a contemporary. I agree. By taking care of the present, we formally take care of layers of narrative and we existentially absorb its poetic incentive. Stein invested a lot in repetition to craft the sentence, a means that allowed her to destabilize the meaning while constructing its logic at the same time.

The new issue of The Capilano Review, titled “Narrative,” opens wisely with a magnificent interview conducted by Susan Holbrook, “‘Delirious Coherence’: an Interview with Nicole Brossard.” For such an issue, I’m glad to see contributions from writers doing incredible things with prose narrative from a variety of angles, little of which has really garnered enough attention—Aaron Peck, Meredith Quartermain, Reg Johanson, Jen Currin, Michael Turner, derek beaulieu and Nicole Markotić—as well as writers who have been working the genre for years, such as Gail Scott, Vanessa Place and Nicole Brossard. Still, there are some other prose writers I wouldn’t have minded hearing from as well, including Margaret Christakos, Ken Sparling and Arjun Basu, each who have been shifting the terms of what prose might allow. Even the short pieces that I saw recently by Douglas Glover in Fence magazine [see my note on such here] might have been worth discussing. Still, there is much to be gleaned from the interview with Brossard, one of the smartest interviews I’ve seen in a while, as Brossard continues along her narrative thread:

Recently I have been more curious about fragments of prose and of narrative, how they infiltrate the poem to change its rhythm and renew its seduction, for example, by expanding time with predictable expressions or contracting it with surprising ones or weird punctuation. Here I think of how prose has invited itself in White Piano (2013), especially in the poem “Paragraphs of Eternity,” which concludes with a prose page referring to O.R., the main character of my first novel, A Book (1976), and with this sentence: “The grammar of the everyday won’t let go. From now on, the poem absorbs the dust of prose….” This text is also followed by the poem “Without Story” in which I finally admit that yes we do need stories to go on with meaning.

I’m fascinated by the way Brossard discusses how her prose work intermingles with her poetry, one genre impossible to keep separate from the other. The issue also has a selection of poems by Brossard, translated from French by Robert Majzels and Erin Moure into English, the same two who translated the poetry collection she references above, White Piano, newly out from Coach House Books.

Vancouver for Beginners #5—Fadeout

In dep fall we turn into ghosts or extend olive branches. Seasons clot us cluster us, husky with hair. Last summer’s nightfigher bounces emails off our cloud armour, our shrug tectonic, streets shapeshifting under rain’s snakework. Buildings rub their clayslipped chests together until winter. Until it lifts, vanish us. We surrender our genie coefficients to calendar art. Someone is painting murals on waterfalls again, someone is building a parking lot on a graveyard, someone is lacing branches in chainlink and planting a tree on a building to mean skyline. Our shoulders have rise to waterlevel in storms we assembled from junkyard pedigree. Nightly a horn sounds at the club corridor’s left earlobe, freighter pendant belly-up, spiked sleeper hit mouthing oiled words. The police are raiding shopping carts again, eight jackets reach open armed across the intersection, crows stride the fingerbridges swing claws in eye-yellow rings around the loophole we crouch in. around the peak of the house rain frames another peak. Half-shut our eyes guide us through the ocean cloud palindrome the slick watchstrap binding mountain to knee, weather is our tourniquet. (Alex Leslie)

Given their past few years of publishing, I’d be interested to hear interviews with Nicole Markotić and/or Aaron Peck on their prose works [see my reviews of such here and here], both of whom I’d highly recommend. The issue talks on narrative, and takes a number of approaches, from a photographic series titled “The Library” by Kyla Mallett, selections from Gail Scott’s novel The Obituary (Coach House Books, 2010), a combination of text and visuals by Jordan Abel, and a short selection of works-in-progress by Michael Turner, “9x11,” a poetic follow-up to his impressive novel 8x10 (Doubleday) [see my review of such here]. Part of what I wonder for a number of these writers, what does the idea of narrative mean for each of them? What are they attempting to achieve through their individual works? Many questions, and the issue opens up as many as it answers.

Shelled

A crow flaps four times over the Illingworth Kerr. Then a dog’s yelp. Frequently, 15 times 14 equals ESL lessons in her basement. Dionysus trumps Capricorn. True datum. Farmers forever fantasizing over crop circles forensics. Conchology, but with a lemon. Lastly, lastly, can’t a peon march in tune with the pity parade? Vestiges of caramel juice, mint on your forehead. Fingerprint under your chin, no under. But I wanted to want, and that’s why this train ride has multiple shell games. Driven by ferroequinology, forsooth! Please be careful when it comes time to unpack the vocabulary. Egg shell; sea shells; hell’s bells. You know, box o’wit isn’t always the only answer. Lit radio may correct, but I can hurl two stones farther than a straight line. Way. Or absolve the semi-colon; boxed in with the shock of locomotive. Farther than back there. (Nicole Markotić)

Another intriguing element of the issue is George Rammell’s “Crime Scene on Ice,” a site-specific exhibition/installation created in 2010 for SilvrettAtelier, “a biennial summer art symposium in the Austrian Alps.” In the work, he creates and records a contemporary version of “the 5300 year old Otzi Ice Man,” and the objects that would have been carried by him had he disappeared today, to “reconstruct the crime scene with modern equivalents of Otzi’s possessions […].” As Rammell writes:

Otzi’s possessions included a bronze axe, sophisticated fur and leather clothing, and a tethered pouch of wood conk mushrooms (Fomes Fomentarius) whose antibiotic properties relieve the systems of arthritis, which was evident in Otzi’s joints. He had 57 tattoos on acupuncture points throughout his body, possibly made to relieve his pain. His hair and lungs contained arsenic from inhaling copper fumes, suggesting he was a coppersmith 500 years before it was believed the Bronze Age began. An analysis of the mineral content in his tooth enamel indicated he was raised in valley to the south, 60 kilometres from where he was killed. His stomach contained einkorn bread, made from wheat that originated in Asia, deer and ibex meat, and, most notably, traces of pollen that revealed he was attempting to cross the Tisenjoch Pass in early spring, when unpredictable snowstorms are not uncommon.

I now know my birth mother’s name

[photo of me; on back, "new great grandchild, ten and a half months," which suggest my grandmother Page sent this snapshot to her parents] Thanks to the combination of shifting provincial rules on access to adoption information, and an increase in my own errant attentions, I recently started applying for various slices of information regarding my adoption. On Friday, March 1, the mailman made my head explode by delivering my “Statement of Birth,” which gave me my birth mother’s full name, which allows me to fill in the missing end of my birth name, both of which I’m keeping to myself.

With two weeks to go before my forty-third birthday; she is always on my mind this time of year. A still-open question.

Attempting to discern fact from fragments is akin to archaeology, each small speck from a variety of sources and reliabilities. I’ve long known my birth name, “Duncan Warren Andrew A.,” last name an initial only. My parents informed me that I’d gone through foster care until my single mother could no longer juggle work, school and me. Newly renamed, I arrived to the farm at ten months, to the only parents I have known.

Twenty years ago, non-identifying information provided more than what my parents had been told: that my mother was twenty when I was born, that my father wasn’t listed on my birth certificate, and that my mother came from the “Cornwall area,” all of which have been confirmed by this document. My father, twenty-four when I arrived, might not even know I exist.

Given his absence, I long presumed that I shared a last name with her. This abstract is now concrete, and it overtook whatever other plans I had for the day, instead scouring the internet for direction, hints or outright discovery, which has so far come up empty. I scoured the history of her corner of Ontario, extremely close to where I grew up. I searched marriage and birth records, newspaper records and Ancestry.ca. I looked up what might have been her high school.

I become detective, seeking out what is not yet known.

I now know her mailing address at the time of my birth. I know too, that I was 8 pounds, 10 ounces, after forty weeks of pregnancy.

When I announced this on Facebook, I found the results a bit strange; the occasional person reminded me to know the difference between family and biology, another reminded me that mothers love their children, and some hoped that this might be “healing” for me, all of which I found rather forward and a bit presumptive.

I know who I am; I’ve long been certain of my own identity. This new information makes me no less or more who I have always been.

I do not require this process for the sake of healing; how, exactly, do some think I’m broken?

How does being adopted suggest a lack of mother’s love?

I do not feel abandoned, nor have I ever. Given her attempts as a single woman in 1970 to work, school and parent, I applaud her attempts to keep me, and suspect the difficulty she must have had in giving me up. I was nearly a year old when she let me go..

I have never felt broken, and the unknown less a hole than a sizable gap.

I think to not be adopted is to not really understand: in seeking out, I do not abandon one set of parents for another. The curiosity I have about my origins isn’t a rejection of nor a commentary upon those who raised me, those I will always know as parents. Concurrently, I do not assign any kind of blame upon my birth parents. I have no anger. To suggest either is a confusion of issues, and a misunderstanding of the emotions involved.

I know so very little of her circumstances, I can only speculate upon what I do know, which give the impression of a strong attempt, with circumstances beyond her control. Might Mother’s Allowance in 1970 have made all the difference? There are essential strands missing from this story.

There is a small scene I wrote into my first novel, white (The Mercury Press, 2007), that tried to articulate a similar absence:

            P has a hard time remembering what her father looked like. He died when she was six, and she can remember things he said, and events that involved the two of them, but his face remains a mystery.

            When P was seventeen, she compared a photograph of her mother to her own face in the bathroom mirror, searching out the differences. Those, she decided, would be the parts that belonged to her father. She struggled to form an image.

[a second photo from the same set] There are parts of me that are missing. Important parts. Parts I need to understand.

The tangibility of this new knowledge startles me. The implications of a name, this other person I had been for nearly the first year of my life. This other history, and all it implies.

Might I have turned out differently had my birth name remained? Had I been able to stay with her? It’s hard to not imagine this as an entirely separate identity: he who was he and not yet me.

I exist with the presumption that she still lives, existing just beyond my reach, yet so much closer, now. She would now be sixty-three years old. Part of the reason I keep her name to myself is the knowledge that it isn’t mine to broadcast. I have no desire to disrupt.

She might easily have married, birthed a family, few or none of whom might even know I exist. It might even be a sensitive subject in her household, spoken in whispers, if at all.

I keep this to myself because it is mine. I am still considering what to do next. For now, I seek, and search out. I have already had two birthdays without a mother. I do not wish for more.

When I find her, will I call her by her first name? Will I be able to call her mother?

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Ashok Mathur

Ashok Mathur is a writer and educator who works collaboratively with artists and academics and activists. He directs the Centre for innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Cultural and Artistic Inquiry.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I suppose it made the writing tangible in a way that it wasn't before. It made for a potential trajectory (I could think of a 'next book' instead of a 'next piece of writing' or 'next submission to a little magazine'. Re comparisons, hard to do really. The first book was dense, rhythmic poetic prose -- most recent and more recent ones have been storied lines with complex characters. Recent projects feel more of a larger gambit than earlier ones.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
That was the climate of the day, my peers, the way we were reading and telling stories. It felt right and contemporary, plus it lent itself to public sharing in a different way. That's still the case but like with many other artists, it's important and necessary to experiment with different forms.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
Usually the writing is swift, or at least comes in bursts. I remember one large novel-like project came out in a ten-day writing spree, and it looked pretty much the same upon publication. But others have gestated for years, started, put on a shelf, returned to. Those projects morph into things that look quite different from the original

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Poems often come from rules. I like to 'make up' rules, such as writing a poem per day with a certain line length, or writing using a particular device (one project was written while in residency at a university in the UK and composed using only the characters and technology of an old palm pilot). Usually the projects are distinct though and i don't patch in older into newer ones or anything quite like that.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Yes and no to both parts. I like the idea of communal sharing. And i often enjoy readings. I think they can be problemed spaces too, when authors read without a clarity of purpose "(I'll just share my work now," with no sense of audience). What i like is the participation of an audience, their engagement in the words that they hear come off the page. But often enough, the poetry or prose doesn't lift so easily into an aural atmosphere.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
First and fore, social engagement, a way of entering into a sphere of discussion with a creative lens.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Wow, this is hard. I'd say the writers  I'm most interested in, the writers who I think matter to me, are the ones who take on the world in their writing. They don't do it to entertain or educate (though they do both) but they do it to engage fully and completely. It's a way of seeing the world anew, or if not new per se, then with a different clarity.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Depends on the project. For many larger and more complex ones, essential, but sometimes it's fun to go it alone, or with a companion, so the work comes out and exists in the world without major mediations.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Jean-Luc Picard, sitting on the bridge of the Enterprise, tugging down his polyester federation jersey, gesturing with a combination of precision and abandon at the front screen which looks out onto the stars of the universe and instructing his crew: engage.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Not too difficulty. It comes to what process is called for. I like both poetry and prose and all the spaces in between. I figure you have to move with the genre, not try to force yourself into one or the other just to make a play for readership.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Chaotic and rambunctious. Definitely not ordered or routined. Binge writing more than practiced discipline.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Usually community and art in various forms. What are others doing to get themselves focussed, what grabs their attention, where do i want to go?

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Napthalene

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Community. Or to misparaphrase Sartre, 'writing is other people'. No specific allusion to forms like nature or art, but from those who are thinking, acting, and producing...

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
A lot of writers who theorize the body and all its manifestations, work around technology and pedagogy, and those who otherwise explore the human condition.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Fly. Or be invisible. Or time travel, that's a good one.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Nefarious options -- i never really think of myself as a 'writer' but as someone who engages in the form of writing/communication as one of many creative disciplines. But that said, if i couldn't do what i do now, i suppose I'd like to work with animals. You know, communicate. Learn what the dolphins really think of us, how the chimps make fun of humans, that sort of thing.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Pure circumstance. What was avail at the time. My communities building up around me.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I think I've been caught up in the day to day, so my reading is what is being produced by artists and activist in the fields of indigenous art practice and such; same with video and film, the work i see springing up around.

20 - What are you currently working on?
Writing creatively about creative acts -- artists investigating residential schools, and I'm taking a lens to their work that is less analytical than poetic. so that's the next project.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Fewer & Further Press: Monk, Duggan and Szymaszek

I recently received a package of chapbooks from a press I hadn’t previously heard of, Fewer & Further Press of Wendell MA, with titles including Andrew Mister’s Hotels (2007), Clark Coolidge’s Counting On Planet Zero (2007), Shannon Tharp’s Determined by Aperture (2008), Arlo Quint’s Drawn In (2009), Geraldine Monk’s SKYSCRAPERS (2010), John Godfrey’s Singles and Fives (2011), Laurie Duggan’s Allotments (2011) and Stacy Szymaszek’s austerity measures (2012).  Going through these chapbooks, Fewer & Further Press appears to favour the sequence, and has a reach far further than the continental United States, publishing poets from the United States, Europe and Australia.

Today

sky vacant          prosaic

after drenching and departures

almost carved in a tree

‘we’re out of control’

cold tea and a quick meal disastrously

decorates book cover

(smears of crime move with wild-fire spread)

puzzles testing resilience to facts

keeping out fear

                            rudimentary horns may

sprout from rocks

(theatrics breaking out of bounds)

almost wrote on the wall

‘we’re straining the day out’ (“CS,” Geraldine Monk)

A reissue of a chapbook originally produced by U.K. publisher Galloping Dog Press in 1986, Geraldine Monk’s SKYSCRAPERS is a sequence of short poems built on clouds, each with a two-letter title, from “CI” to “CS” to “AS” to “NS.” Through ten poems, Monk stretches the fluidity of cloud-poems, using the space and the stretch of the open page in lines that float apart, dissolve and cloud together, in the most tenuous of connections. Each poem opens its first stanza by naming a type of cloud, and later, opens a stanza at mid-point with “Today.” Writing a sequence of binaries, each first half writes a descriptive of cloud, and the second, grounds the poem temporally on the ground.

Allotment #3

halfway round the world

friends assemble an exhibition

of our former lives:

Coalcliff circa 1980;

photos of us, younger,

me washing dishes before the louvres,

out of my depth in a ‘career move’

that didn’t come off: scriptwriter

with skills for neither plot nor dialogue;

a house on sinking land,

(warped corner of the living room) (Laurie Duggan, Allotments)

Twenty-nine in number, Australian poet Duggan’s Allotments appear as fragments of something larger, less than stand-alone poems. What is Duggan working up to, his slow way towards? They read like small observational pieces, but with a slight skid towards abstract, leaving a door open where others might close. His poems read deceptively straightforward, even the ones that might be no more than they appear.

Sears Tower

harbinger for

trip over

useless crutches

at Holy Hill

we left nothing

flew East

with one

carry on (austerity measures, Stacy Szymaszek)

The most striking of the small selection of chapbooks, Szymaszek’s austerity measures works as a poem, as well as a sequence, building up an accumulation of sharp, short pieces into something absolutely devastating. At one point, the poem reads “slow down,” and it nearly feels redundant, as though the entire piece requires the reader to slow, absorb with attention, to really comprehend what the poem is doing. Creeleyesqe in the adherence to short lines and small moments, she even quotes him, slyly, within the bounds of her extended piece. Some sections appear self-contained, and others, points along a further, lyrical line.

when memory attacks

bring breath back

one thousand times (austerity measures, Stacy Szymaszek)

Profile of serif of nottingham editions, with a few questions

My profile of Gary Barwin's small press, serif of nottingham editions, is now online at Open Book: Ontario.