Last year, in
anticipation of our 50th anniversary, we invited over a hundred of
the magazine’s contributors to submit a term of their choosing to our special
anniversary issues, the first of which you now hold in your hands. These terms
would be collecting, we said, alongside notable selections from our archive into
an experimental glossary—a form we hoped would index the creative practices that
make up our literary and arts community while elucidating, as our invitation
explained, “some of the questions, shifts, antagonisms, and continuities that
have marked five decades of publishing.” Returning to our prompt now, I can’t
help but also consider the term “experimental,” itself a point of ongoing
discussion at the magazine and one that has generated lively debate: What are
our criteria for “experimental” writing? What does it look like on the page,
and how does it sound? Who does it include? What kinds of risks does it take,
and how does it take them? (Matea Kulić, “Editor’s Note,” 3.46, Spring 2022)
Anniversaries,
much like birthdays, are a good time to assess, reassess, examine and
celebrate, and
Vancouver’s The Capilano Review did just that last year,
offering all three 2022 issues as a single, ongoing 50th anniversary
celebratory project. Across a period that also included the shift from
Matea Kulić to
Deanna Fong as the journal’s main editor [
see then-editor Jenny Penberthy's 2010 "12 or 20 (small press) questions" interview on the journal here], the three issues were
released as “A – H” (Spring 2022; 3.46), “I – R” (Summer 2022; 3.47) and “S – Z”
(Fall 2022; 3.48), producing a self-described triptych “featuring newly
commissioned work alongside notable selections from our archive by over a
hundred of the magazine’s past contributors.” The range and the ambition of this
year-long project is stunning, providing an overview of contributions in a
loosely-thematic alphabetical order that offers a vibrancy across each page. If
you haven’t yet, or haven’t much, interacted with the journal, this might be
the place to begin: the three volumes offer a combined four hundred and fifty-some
pages’ worth of essays, poems, stories, visual art, statements, interviews and
other works in a wild incredible wealth of material (and contributors too many to
list across this particular space) that ripple from the journal’s core of Vancouver
out across Canada and well into the international.
Introducing
a special double issue (Nos. 8 & 9, Fall 1975/Spring 1976) to memorialize
the loss of Bob Johnson, “the man responsible for the original graphic design
of The Capilano Review,” then-editor and founder Pierre Coupey wrote: “When
we first proposed a magazine at Capilano, I wanted one that would not only print
good work, but also one whose design would treat that work with respect.” I would
say that such a consideration has remained, thanks to the solid foundations
that Coupey and Johnson (among others) originally set up, way back in 1973 over
at Vancouver’s Capilano College (the journal and since-university have since parted
ways).
The problem with defining
yourself by the centre is that you are working backwards. That which is earlier
is supposed to be better. Because it was before the erasure, its reinscription
is sacrosanct. This is a handy cudgel for authoritarians. Look to the Duvaliers
in Haiti for Afrocentrism as policy, where it served to quiet social criticism,
where it was at first used to smash the Left, and later to smash democracy
altogether. Let them eat Egyptology.
Fanon excorcised all this in “On National Culture,” espousing
an anti-colonialism that is a pragmatic synthesis of old and new in the form of
a “fighting phase” of the culture. Returning to previous tradiations is no
panacea. The modernity of Fanon’s position leaves room for social change and
challenges to old thinking—in other words, Fanon’s position makes space for
innovations that Fanon could not himself yet imagine. Ideas are not good just
because they’re African. They are good if they lead to liberation.
And liberation always needs the future. (Wayde Compton, “Afrocentripetalism
& Afroperipheralism,” 3.46)
Even
beyond considering the amount of other presses and journals that appear to be
falling by the wayside lately (
Catapult,
Bear Creek Gazette,
Ambit),
it is important to acknowledge those journals (and presses) that are not only
still around, but managing to consistently publish an array of stunning work,
let alone for fifty years and counting [
see my review of their 40th anniversary issue here]. And
The Capilano Review isn’t the
only one to celebrate, as
Arc Poetry Magazine (b. 1978) will soon be releasing
their special 100
th issue,
Derek Beaulieu recently produced an anthology celebrating twenty-five years of publishing through his combined housepress/№ Press, and even
my own above/ground press (b. 1993) is working on
some exciting project for this year’s thirtieth anniversary, including a third ‘best
of’ anthology out this fall with Invisible Publishing (
and don’t forget the pieces posted five years ago for above/ground press’ twenty-fifth,
or even the array of pieces published not long after, to celebrate forty years of Stuart Ross’ Proper Tales Press). I wonder what
Brick Books, as well, might attempt in
two years’ time for their fiftieth?
I
haven’t seen a copy of the debut issue of
The Capilano Review (despite
my best efforts over the years), but as part of the “20
th Anniversary
Issue” (Series 2:10, March 1993), then-editor Robert Sherrin offered both a sense
of quiet humility and forward thinking in his preface that seems the lifeblood
of the journal’s ongoing aesthetic: “It is traditional at such a time to
present a retrospective issue, but on this occasion the editors of
TCR
decided that while it is appropriate the acknowledge those who have contributed
significantly to our culture, it is equally important to present those who will
extend, transform, and renew our culture. The present issue is our attempt to
acknowledge the past and to welcome the future.” Too often, it seems, journals
begin with such good and even radical intentions, and become tame as the years continue,
some to the point of self-parody, something
The Capilano Review has
managed to avoid, remaining as vibrant, or perhaps even moreso, than it has ever
been. Consistently working beyond the bounds of the straightforward literary
journal,
The Capilano Review has always seemed a space for a particular
assemblage of shared aesthetic approach and rough geography, occasionally branching
out into features on and by works by predominantly west coast writers and
artists. Whether produced as combined or full-issues, some of these over the
years have included features on George Bowering, Daphne Marlatt, Michael
Ondaatje, Brian Fawcett, David Phillips, Barry McKinnon, Gathie Falk, Robin
Blaser, Roy K. Kiyooka, Gerry Shikatani and Bill Schermbrucker, among numerous
others, as well as a sound poetry issue, “With Record Included,” guest-edited
by Steven [Ross] Smith and Richard Truhlar.
The Capilano Review has always been unique in
Canadian literature through offering, from the offset, an ethics of
exploration, resistance and experiment; offering an aesthetic influenced by
west coast social politics, critiques of colonialism, issues of race and
environmental concerns, all of which have been shared with others in their
immediate vicinity, including The Kootenay School of Writing, Writing, Raddle
Moon and Line (and later, West Coast Line), and more recent journals
such as Rob Manery’s SOME. And yet, unlike most of those examples, The
Capilano Review is still publishing, still evolving, exploring and pushing,
and seeking the possible out of what otherwise might have seemed impossible. Welcoming
the future, indeed.
They will ask you what
you ate. They will ask you where you walked, what you saw. The trees, for instance,
so copious we assume they are free.
Take account, they will
say. They will not ask who you are. Who you were. Were you queer. Did you matter.
Dear question mark you
mark me.
It is a mix and match of
images leading to a vanishing act. Expect the best is it evasion. It is a way
of reversing fortunes.
I want to tell you the story
of Lori because it is the opposite of nation-building. It is the opposite of
canon.
She was in her room; it
was just before midday in her life when the word opened.
How did she look. It was
a hooked glance. it would not rhyme. It was another time.
Under the sun a hook of green
eyes. No one wanted to be recognized. We all wanted to be seen.
Every day I do a now, and
then it passes.
What is asking. An animation
of statement. A transformation of intent.
I reach for my phone and
vanish. (Sina Queyras, “DEAR QUESTION MARK,” 3.48)
