Ongoing notes: some Canadian journals

The New Quarterly #109: Despite my hesitations on much of the poetry they regularly publish (which I think more stylistic than anything else), I’ve been very taken with what The New Quarterly has been doing over the past couple of years, reveling in their new format, and watching their development through increased non-fiction features (that I’ve increasingly enjoyed, with each issue), from the short pieces on early magazine reading that changed a particular writer’s life, to the ongoing “falling in love with poetry” feature [see my own version here] that started with the original piece, written by Montreal writer Robyn Sarah. Thanks to a friend’s loaned copy some months ago, for example, I was able to read the Montreal issue, including perhaps the finest poem I’ve ever seen from Montreal writer Stephanie Bolster, one that also appeared on their website (I still don’t own a copy of that issue). With the six cities issue that The Capilano Review did a couple of years back and Montreal featured in TNQ, when does some print journal start featuring some of the writers in Ottawa?







Night Zoo

Dogs ravaged the yard where yesterday
rabbits and toads. The dead
fed to the cages and the dark.
The mouth of the mouth.
Plants dangled from pegs
beside padlocks. Reaching,
though they weren’t.
A dark stain on concrete.
A little water.
Let’s go, I said,
meaning stay

And, as I found out recently, The New Quarterly will be in Ottawa as part of the ottawa small press book fair on June 20; be sure to save your money for back issues or a subscription.

Descant #143: What’s really made Toronto journal Descant for me over the past few years have to be the “Contributing Editor’s Column,” with Alberto Manguel and Mark Kingwell taking turns, and alone worth the price of the journal. This most recent issue is themed on “cats,” which I admit, I prefer over dogs, but much of the content leaves me cold, but for the rare piece here and there (I think this is, again, stylistic). I would have liked to have, say, seen more pieces working around stories and mythologies of cats, instead of furthering the domestic bliss of wayward wild beasts roaming kitchen and living room floors. But there were interesting exceptions, whether parts of Betsy Struthers' poem “Frost Moon: November,” the photographs of barn cats (being from a dairy farm, I know these well), or this short piece by Ottawa writer F.G. Foley (who is this person?):





Cat

midnight soprano
with a memory of jungles
green in your eyes

with Egyptian mysteries
in the arch of your back

I watch in wonder
your exquisite attention
to a blade of grass

your fastidious mouth
of petals on a moth

your immaculate cruelty
does honour to old gods

Really, I found the editor and guest-editor columns most entertaining this time around; this is one of the few journals I’ve seen that let those who help make the issue, whether editorial or production or all of the above, write regularly in each issue, and the only place that I think I’ve seen it work, with each piece adding instead of taking away. How can you not love a piece written by Michael Mitchell, guest editor for the issue, on when he once owned a tiger? As he writes in his piece:

Sometimes we put our hearts before our heads and do dumb things. I began to negotiate for that little animal. Three mescals and twenty dollars later I was the owner of a baby wildcat.

And a lot of trouble.

But I’ll let you read the rest for yourself. I can only tell you that it’s worth it. And I’ll leave the last words to Manguel, from his column, “The Mind as Siberia,” where he writes:

What we call history is that ongoing story which we pretend to decipher as we make it up. This Dostoyevsky fully understood when he said that, if our belief in immortality were destroyed, “everything would be permissible.” Like history, immortality need not be true for us to believe it.

Riddle Fence: A Journal of Arts & Culture #2: When I first saw the call for submissions, I was intrigued by this new journal out of St. John’s, Newfoundland. There is so much happening in that east that simply never seems to get out, whether this, or the Running the Goat [see my note on such here], unfortunately a press I never saw works from after my initial package (the problems with a country so regional). A glossy, bound journal of “high quality fiction, non-fiction, poetry, artwork, anything else that fits on paper and punches above its own artistic weight,” Riddle Fence is fixed in that eastern place that we in the (so-called) centre can only dream about, but interested in the larger world, working on a poetry, at least, that holds to straighter narratives, publishing the works of John Steffler, David B. Hickey, David O’Meara (from his recent third poetry collection [see my review of such here]), Elise Partridge and Leslie Vryenhock. Not only the second issue, but the first issue that you weren’t expecting (apparently), as editor Mark Callanan begins his introduction (“On the Fence”):

Here’s the thing: We haven’t been entirely honest with you. While we (not the majestic plural but the collective behind the publication of Riddle Fence) may have let on that the first issue of Riddle Fence was a one-off celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador, we had other things in our devious little minds. It was always our intent, if possible, to keep Riddle Fence going on something approximating a regular publishing schedule. Arts funding being what it is these days (something of a mythical creature composed of various borrowed parts: the public grin of a politician, the red-rimmed eyes of an arts administrator, and the sunken cheeks of a poet), we weren’t certain we could pull it off. New literary journals are notoriously short-lived; high on ambition and low on money, they often march onto the scene with a fanfare of trumpets, only to duck into a narrow side street partway through the celebratory parade—disappearing into some dingy bar, maybe, where they spend the rest of their days begging beer to anaesthetize the failure of having had great ideas that no one would invest in.

In this second issue (I do hope there are more), I’m intrigued by these long lines of Tonja Gunvaldsen Klaasen, and always like to see poems by Steve McOrmond. There’s a worthy feature on the works of Tom Dawe and Gerald Squires introduced by the underappreciated, understated and brilliant Stan Dragland which makes me wonder why more writers aren’t doing more to help engage with their communities with such knowledge and generosity. It’s important for journals such as this to exist, to celebrate and promote their regions and to link them up with the further world, for the sake of the locals and outsiders alike (much like, say, the recent British Columbia journal LAKE: a journal of arts and environment I talked about a while back), and can only hope that such a journal keeps going.

A man’s footsteps in the stairwell, slow and heavy.
The desperate ones always show up late and alone.
I brace myself for the weight of withholding.
Nobody wants a bad fortune. Shy, awkward,
his gaze keeps darting into corners.
He is young, tall and very, very thin.
It doesn’t take any special powers to know
what his red bandanna is meant to conceal.
Not everyone grows old. I’m sorry, dear,
I was just about to close. Tonight, the cards
are unhappy, the tea leaves aren’t talking,
at least not to me. He stands, shakily,
like a man balancing on stilts and without a word
descends the noisy steps to the street.
Sometimes, despite myself, I do see. (Steve McOrmond, “The Fortune Teller,” pt. 3)

For more information, you can find them online, or c/o po box 7092, St. John’s, NL, A1E 3Y3.

Ongoing notes: some (Canadian) journals

Calgary AB: The new issue of dANDelion arrived in the mail the other day (why does filling Station, despite the fact that I think I'm in them, keep refusing to send issues? I haven't seen an issue all year...); what happened to the website? At least the issues are still appearing. One of the standards of publishing new and compelling writing by Canadian and international authors, one of the highlights of this issue is the fact that we finally see new work from damian lopes, who had a poetry collection out a few years back, and then quietly disappeared. Where has he been all this time? Another highlight has to be the interview with (conducted by Jonathan Ball), and new work, by Calgary poet ryan fitzpatrick, as well as same with (conducted by derek beaulieu), and by, UK poet caroline bergvall. I’ve been finding that Canadian literary journals are fewer and further between for meaty and compelling interviews compared to what existed, say, twenty years ago. Where have all the interviews gone?

JB: You’ve expressed (in private) an interest in “the trace” and in “ghosts” as well as the abject. Could you flesh out what this interest means to you, in the larger context of a general poetics, and also on the level of craft?

RF: At a recent reading I gave that I think might have spurred your question, I said that the poems from Fortified Castles that I read weren’t “about ghosts” but “had ghosts in them,” which, I think, speaks to my interest in the absent (or, to steal a bit from Baudrillard, the more absent from absent). I’m very intrigued by the idea that we’re affected and driven by something that we can’t see but can sense. There is a trace of something. Something spectral. Something constantly behind me, urging me to move in certain directions. My interest has spurred a lot of reading into psychoanalysis, but the books that spurred my interest are Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx and Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror and their shared notion that what we think is dead is actually not and is pursuing us relentlessly. As a writer, what this interest has done for me is that I have had to realize that I can’t get to the root of things (as a good radical writer should) by tackling things head on – I need to approach things sidelong, hoping to catch glimpses of the capitalist hegemony with its pants down.

Toronto ON: I’ve been getting copies of Descant magazine in the mail for as long as I can remember, and when the issues are memorable, they’re very so. The newest one, #142, is another theme issue, on “Hotels.” I’ve always liked theme issues, but get somewhat wary of journals that seem only to be able to work such; where are the general issues? Sometimes I just want a journal to publish what they think is the most interesting work, instead of working a theme every single bloody time. But still, the “Hotels” issue is a good one, with perhaps one of the most attractive covers I’ve seen in some time (unfortunately the back cover is nearly unreadable because of the design), with photos on the cover and inside by Arnaud Maggs, from the series “Hotels of Paris.”

Room Twelve

After this, when other lovers lend tongues
and lips, they’ll taste slightly off, like rust
to the drinking water, red wine about to turn.

This is our night to forget everything
except skin. Our lives are as thin
as these hotel walls and we are not in love,
but you feel like open green
inside of me, a crocus pushing snow.
I can hear my voice cracking, letting your voice come
through and my wind chimes at home, hung outside
the kitchen window, how they’ll sound
after losing the layers of ice, how I should have
brought them in for the winter. We know
what we are doing is wrong, but we tell ourselves
that these are only bodies, barely
shedding layers and how can real damage
be done. Already, a crack of sun

through the curtains, calling to us
like the Bible in the nightstand drawer.
Our curved shoulders cast shadows
so strange we can’t tell for sure they’re ours.
you get ready to leave, rest your palm
on the same phone book that strangers
have leafed through to find call girls
and fast food, forgetting the number
for a cab. Morning light,

you won’t look at me. What’s left
is how you loved the dark. Maybe
it’s the brightness in the room or the cold metal
keys in your hands, but we know we’ve touched everything
within reach, are not strong enough
to stretch ourselves out
further for more. (Amy Dennis)

Why are so many of the pieces in this collection about trysts? I understand the idea of hotels, but is that all there is? Otherwise, this is a strong and interesting issue, and even includes a photo series of the artist rooms in Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel, restored as part of the refurbishing of the building in 2004; wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone could do that in Ottawa, in the decrepit building at Bank and Somerset that once housed the old Duke of Somerset Pub? Another highlight of the issue is contributing editor Mark Kingwell’s non-fiction piece, “Are You Arabic? Drinking in Hotel Bars and the Female Cruise,” which is an absolute must read, working through numerous old films and hotel bars, including To Catch a Thief (1955), Funny Face (1957), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Love Me Tender (1962), and The Graduate (1967), writing:

The particular hotel bar scene is seared on the memories of more than one generation of young men, who can only sympathize silently with Ben’s ineffectual attempts to hail a waiter, appear suave and in command, or even retain his lunch as leopard skin-clad Mrs. Robinson, a self-assured alcoholic, snaps her fingers for a drink and the cheque together, and twits him for not more smoothly arranging a room. But that discomfort is nothing compared to his bumbling dialogue as she undresses in the room later, where he offers her a choice of wire or wood hanger, because, “they have both.” She finally manoeuvres him past his own misgivings by wondering if this is his first time, and then referring repeatedly to his “inadequacy” – a gambit, let it be said, that will work with most men under twenty-five. (Hoffman, playing twenty-one, was actually twenty-nine; Bancroft, supposedly in her forties, was thirty-five and stunning.)

These early scenes can almost make you forgive Ben for the brutally conformist message that is delivered under cover of prima facie satire and that seductive Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack. As Roger Ebert has noted, we happily watch Ben and Elaine ride off in the bus, he avoiding her mom and she avoiding the doofus frat-boy fiancé, but their stunned final glances at each other are ambiguous. Really, how long will it be before Ben is in fact moving up in the world of plastics? Elaine was the match his parents wanted, after all. Another victory for bourgeois righteousness and bio-fascist norms. And so much for sexually frustrated middle-aged women.

Other than that, Aaron Tucker’s poem “concierge” is worth reading, poems by Priscila Uppal (including an “Ode to Mini-bars”) and the piece “Temporary Keys” by Nathaniel G. Moore. Do you ever get the feeling more journals and book publishers don’t publish his magnificent work because they just don’t know what the hell to do with him? One of my favourite parts is knowing that the two quotes at the beginning of his piece are by him, from his own two published books. Here’s the first section of the second half of the piece, titled “That’s Him Officer: The Rise & Fall of Nathaniel G. Moore,” that writes:

The door closed behind us. She tossed the bag of ice on the bed, as if she were about to perform some drastic surgery. Fetched some plastic cups. I opened the rum. She poured the juice, added the ice. We drew the curtains and started –

“You ready to party with me?” She was wearing grey underwear?

“It’s my bikini. I’m European, okay?”

“It looks like Serbian army fatigues.”

“Shut up.”

“Is that from the Sylvia Plath collection?”

“No.”

The hotel mattress sighed uneasily as our bodies piled on top of one another. “Bring out your dead,” she said, filling up our plastic cups of dwindling ice. The rest is a blur of pink, red and teeth: lover’s spit and treacherous sweat.

Descant #132: The World of Barbara Gowdy

It's always interesting to see an issue dedicated to the work of a particular writer, whether as feshrift to acknowledge passing, late career or mid, and now Descant magazine has published "Entering the Other: The World of Barbara Gowdy" as their most recent issue, to celebrate the work of the Toronto writer Barbara Gowdy. According to the bio at the end of the issue (it would have been nice to have more information like this on Gowdy, such as a bibliography or something, but there you go), she is the author of five novels (Through the Green Valley, Falling Angels, Mister Sandman, The White Bone and The Romantic) and a collection of short stories (We So Seldom Look on Love) that the movie Kissed came from (which started my ongoing crush on actress Molly Parker. Oh, Molly Parker…)(Falling Angels was also made into a feature-length film). She has twice been shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Rogers' Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and three times for the Trillium Award.

I'm not always a fan of the work of Descant magazine, but for the occasional issue here and there, but when I do like, I really like, such as the Sub/Urbia issue (#125) that came out as its summer 2004 issue, and includes some of my favourite work by Calgary writer Christian Bök (as well as other personal favourites, such as Sina Queyras, my most favourite piece ever by Emily Pohl-Weary, Mark Kingwell, Sylvia Legris and Marita Dachsel…). Ending with a wounding, terrific line, here's the short untitled piece by Bök:

ENNUI IS THE EXHAUSTION of the mind caught in the riot cell of its own thoughts. While poets always strive in vain to escape this oubliette, their tedium forces them to find in the workings of the padlocks, evidence of a more beautiful
reasoning—a kind of eunoia. Never forget that which makes us weary also makes us
dream. (Descant #125, p 13)

The "theme issue" isn't always interesting, but issues dedicated to individual writers are often very interesting, and there have been a number of them over the years, including issues of The Capilano Review (George Bowering, Roy K. Kiyooka, bill bissett), dANDelion (Roy K. Kiyooka), West Coast Line (Phyllis Webb, Larissa Lai), The Fiddlehead (John Metcalf), recent issues of The Chicago Review (Edward Dorn and Louis Zukofsky), and Descant (Dennis Lee, R. Murray Schafer, Michael Ondaatje and Timothy Findley) (if anyone ever finds that Cap Review Bowering issue, get it for me, will you?). Given that Gowdy is a product of the suburbs, and has written on the 1950s family, I perhaps get the impression that Descant is even (perhaps) best when dealing with the suburbs (but this is only a theory). Broken into a number of sections, the contributors to the issue include Descant editor Karen Mulhallen and issue editor Mary Newberry ("Prefaces"), Steven Heighton and Margaret Atwood ("Talking Gowdy"), Adrian DiCastri, John Bentley Mays and Robert Teteruck ("Situating Gowdy"), Debra Martens, Cheryl Cowdy Crawford, Neta Gordon, Sally Hayward, Deena Rhyms and T.F. Rigelhof ("Critiquing Gowdy"), Mary Newberry ("Filming Gowdy"), Catherine Bush, Catherine Gildiner, Marni Jackson, Natalie Onuska, Catherine Graham, Shyam Selvadurai and Susan Swan ("Postcards from Gowdyland"), Pamela Stewart, Kathleen Kelly and Jim Johnstone ("The Weight of Gowdy"), and finally, Barbara Gowdy herself ("Gowdy Speaks"), with an excerpt of a novel-in-progress, Helpless. As editor Mulhallen writes in her preface:

In a short time span, for her writing career developed quite late, after musical
training, in fact, Gowdy has already made a profound impact. Writers of several generations here attest to the importance of her work, the unique qualities of her imagination, the clarity of her style. Critics debate hotly her epistemology, of The White Bone in particular. Translations into film, and into television of Gowdy's
fictions also signify ways in which the work speaks to a contemporary
sensibility. Grand themes on the family, on love, on diversity capture an
audience emotionally and intellectually. Sacred mysteries. Knowledge and
perception. Innocence. Hers is a fiction which compels us to imagine someone
else's experience, just as she herself has said that the writing of it has done
this for her. In this issue of Descant we are taking a sounding of an artist at
mid-career, in full flight, and we are honoured to present as well an excerpt
from her new novel, her work in progress. (pp 10-11)

Perhaps some of the most interesting work in the issue has to be the piece "Points of Faith: An Interview with Barbara Gowdy" conducted by Kingston writer Steven Heighton:

BG: Writing fiction involves smoke and mirrors to a degree, doesn't it? Sometimes you feel as if you're pulling a fast one. None of these characters actually exist but you're desperately trying to make the reader believe that they do. You resort to certain tricks, you have to.

SH: You do, and that's fine and helpful, but it also bothers me in a way. In a way I wish I didn't know the tricks I know. Or didn't know I knew them.

BG: Why?

SH: No good reason, really ― art has always been about artifice, and I accept that, but there's a younger part of me ― a romantic part ― that wishes I was still innocent of that.

BG: But what's the difference between art and craft, for instance, or art and artifice? Do you know what I think the difference is? I think art is what it does, not how you make it. The difference lies there. Craft can be beautiful and take a whole lot of
talent and a whole lot of knowledge, but as Chris [Dewdney] pointed out to me
once, craft doesn't have the potential to change the way you see the world. Art
does. No matter how you make that happen, if you make it happen, then you've
made art … I'm no chef, and I've had arguments with this one chef who tries to
convince me that cooking is an art. "No," I say, "a spectacular meal is a
pleasure. It can move your soul, it can make you happy, temporarily, you can
feel that it's wondrously presented and that it has ravished your palate, but it
hasn't changed the way you see the world." (pp 32-3)

Also, the issue is worth it alone for the cartoon by Toronto writer Margaret Atwood (which I won't tell you about at all; you now have to go find this issue), which I have always considered completely underrated, and often her best work (they often appear in Brick magazine as well). Will there ever be a trade collection of Atwood's that include her collected cartoons? I certainly hope so.

Or, as novelist Susan Swan writes in her piece "Redemptive Empathy":

BARBARA GOWDY IS ONE of Canada's most important contemporary writers. She is a meticulous stylist and fearless satirist whose sardonic view is informed by a
redemptive empathy that portrays misunderstood individuals (or badly treated
animal species) as legitimate people who are sometimes even loveable. She is
also a hyper-realist whose highly sculpted prose is to literary realism what
pop art was to traditional landscape painting. (p 166)

I don't think its possible to get much higher praise than that.