You remember
that the above/ground press twentieth anniversary is happening in August,
right? Keep an eye on the above/ground press blog for details on the annual anniversary
reading/launch. Recently, I announced forthcoming chapbooks by Gary Barwin, Rae
Armantrout (for an Ottawa reading this fall through the AB Series) and Rosmarie Waldrop. What else
might the twentieth anniversary bring?
We’ve been
looking at houses lately. Since I hadn’t my camera on hand, our realtor was
good enough to snap this picture for us, from a house we saw (but quickly
realized we didn’t want) out in the Fisher/Experimental Farm area. Do you think
the previous residents were actually reading poems? (I suspect,
disappointingly, not.)
Toronto ON: New literary journals are often
difficult things, and far too often are uncertain of their identity, but the
second issue of Little Brother magazine, edited by Emily M. Keeler, is a bit of a revelation. The poetry, fiction and
non-fiction in this issue are damned smart, unselfconsciously edgy and sharp as
all hell. There are more than a couple of must-read pieces here, including “Plastic
Surgery,” a photo-essay by Natasa Kajganic of old dolls, each photograph accompanied
by a short text by Toronto writer Natalie Zina Walshots. Walschots’ short
prose-pieces are unsettling and pinpoint sharp, and rates with some of the
finest writing she’s done to date.
Saline
Glass eye has
become a misnomer; most ocularists now use medical-grade plastic acrylic for
ocular prosthesis, though a very few are still made of cryolite glass. Despite centuries
spent perfecting the realism of ocular prosthetics, craftsmen and eye surgeons
have consistently been foiled by the immobility of the pupil.
Part of the
strength of such a journal is the combination of quality and variety, moving
from a non-fiction piece on being young with cancer by Alicia Louise Merchant (a
difficult piece to read, and impressive for its striking clarity of thought,
language and emotion) to short fiction by Mariko Tamaki to a “joke book”
section of punch lines written by various contributors (Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer,
Stephen Thomas, Frida Kaufman, Ellie Anglin, Chris Randle, Cian Cruise and
Josh Gilchrist), titled “The Little Brother Joke Book.”
Another highlight
of the issue has to be an essay on comedian Norm Macdonald and the Comedy
Central Roast, “Ladies & Gentlemen, This Man is for the Birds,” by Peter
Merriman. Admittedly, my own sense of humour is often dark, and severely
inappropriate, but if I had to choose, I’d favour smart over inappropriate or
gross any day, something the Comedy Central Roasts doesn’t have nearly enough
of (but when they do, the time spent waiting is more than worth it). Merriman’s
essay is intriguing in arguing that Macdonald’s ironic use of deliberately
clean material as entirely radical, in a mix of insult comedians attempting to
out-shock each other.
There are so
many simple things that make this premise great that it’s surprising nobody
tried it before. Macdonald has said he wasn’t sure what to do (he isn’t crazy
about roasts, but Bob Saget kept asking) until the producer, Joel Gallen, told
him to just be shocking, and it occurred to him to simply do the opposite of
what everybody else was doing: old, clean jokes. And he, Norm Macdonald, has a
meekness that lends itself to the bit; he’s not out there trying to be the
alpha dog.
And as a fan
of the roasts, I agree with him completely; you have to get through a lot of
bad to discover the truly inspired in such a format, and I saw immediately the
genius that is Norm Macdonald, even if, as Merriman relates, very few others at
the roast itself did (and here’s the one spot where I disagree with Merriman: I
thought the Henry Fonda joke was actually Macdonald’s high point in a series of
high points. Absolute genius).
New Jersey: From publishing collective
Bloof Books comes Hailey Higdon’s [PACKING],
a small chapbook produced in a numbered edition of one hundred copies.
Any Day Bill
any day now
remind me
any day now
Bill
I’m gonna get
me a house
a good
mortgage
when the
money comes in
you and me
Bill
Even before I
saw her previous chapbook, How to Grow Almost Everything (Agnes Fox, 2011) [see my review of such here], I’ve been
intrigued by the writing of American poet Hailey Higdon, who is, as she claims,
“affiliated with many states and many homes.” Higdon’s poems almost have the
quality of what Andrew Suknaski called “loping, coyote lines,” composing long,
conversational lines that extend out against and over the horizon. Through her
poems, Higdon composes sweeping poems that set entire scenes and scenarios,
conversationally writing observations and monologues in an intriguing
exploration of voice. Unlike, say, Ottawa poet Stephen Brockwell’s explorations
into voice through his “Impossible Books” project, Higdon’s are closer to
considerations of theatre, writing out not a singular voice of a moment, but
the voice of an entire story, far broader and deeper than her poems
specifically say, but certainly suggest. Consider two lines of the four-page
poem, “When,” that read:
Do you know
that since you visited I haven’t flushed my toilet?
It’s the
little things that add up.
There are
entire worlds hidden and buried deep within the poems of Hailey Higdon.
Why Not Minot
if given a
place to stay
some chips
some discipline
the
discipline of a situation
it and how it
is unfurling in a regulated way
what you’re
supposed to do and when
does not not
follow
like a fallen
hat, dead soldier, one of the socks
older doesn’t
provide any new chances to kick a habit easier
bad habits
follow in the idea that we enjoy pain, enjoy suffering, I seek it
try to
explain why
how this
enjoyment makes me a more motivated person or why
it takes
three women
to warm the
car and one ice-block to freeze the bed,
one oven to
cook it
let’s split
it, the difference I mean,
that’s the
way it crumbles
five nickels,
a dime, thirty-five cents
and the
common denominator thick as a brick, expected
believing
that people are good
cookie-wise, I
mean
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