12 or 20 (second series) questions with Tom Bentley-Fisher

Tom Bentley-Fisher [photo credit: Miranda Bentley] is an award winning theatre director, teacher and published fiction writer and playwright. He has directed over one hundred productions, taught at numerous universities and theatre schools, and served as the artistic director of five professional theatres, working throughout North America and Europe.
            His fiction has been published in Canadian magazines, including Grain, The Dalhousie Review, and NeWest Review. His collection of short stories, Blind Man’s Drum, was a finalist for Saskatchewan Book Awards, and his short story, "Wars and Rumours of Wars," a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Humour. He has been produced by Canadian Broadcasting Company, written the foreword to sixteen publications of new plays, and penned lyrics for plays produced in Barcelona and Canada. His play Friends was published by Red Deer Press.
            During his twelve year tenure as an artistic director of Twenty-fifth Street Theatre in Saskatoon, Tom gained a strong reputation for developing and producing original Canada plays, and was the founder of the Saskatoon International Fringe.
            In 2008, Tom became the artistic director of Tant per Tant Theatre, developing, directing, and exchanging plays between Canada and Catalonia. His accomplishments include directing a critically acclaimed all-female version of The Iliad for Festival de Teatro Clásico de Mérida and a multi-lingual production of Marie Clements Burning Vision for Barcelona’s International Grec Festival.
            He is now the Artistic Director of The Yat/Bentley Centre for Performance, an international theatre company based out of San Francisco. He divides his time between his work outside Canada and his home in Saskatoon.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book, Blind Man’s Drum, published by Thistledown Press, was a series of Short Stories. At that time, almost twenty years ago, I used the name Tom Bentley. Writing initially was a way of running away from the pressures of being an artistic director of a theatre. When I began to write, spurred on by the great Canadian poet, Anne Szumigalski, I realized I could live in my aloneness. It was an interior world where I didn’t need to be an artistic leader, but was being led. I felt entirely at home.

It was then that I realized I could fully engage with the main thing that always fascinated and drove me - the connection of the inner and outer life.

The Boy Who Was Saved By Jazz is my first novel - It has challenged me in new ways. I only wrote for a few years twenty years ago and then found myself back in the theatre. During those few years my focus was trying to discover what was beneath language. Strange way to get back into language but there we are.

This book feels different in that I am not involved with results. It feels honest and vulnerable. I am not hiding behind humour. I have been in the ‘zone’ and am willing to expose by eccentricities.

2 - How did you come to short stories first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

I love the work of Alan Bennett. I loved how he suggested so much in the turn of a phrase. I am a bit of a sensationalist I think, and I enjoyed exposing the quick and dirty bizarre part of my mind that was challenged in short story writing.

Also - my life’s work has been inspired by the theatre training of my mentor Yat Malmgren, who is known for how he developed one of the most significant approaches to acting. That work has guided me. It has taken me to a roadmap I’ve been developing and now teach internationally called Character Transformation. Yat’s original title for it is ‘The Psychology of Movement’. The premise of the work is that it takes us to the unknown in ourselves, allowing us to view the world through others’ eyes,  which I  believe is essential in these troubled times.

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?

A first draft is usually a quick process. I let it flow. I don’t care if it’s accurate. I try to find the essence. I feel it emotionally and write emotionally. I love secrets. Then comes the hard part - the rewrites. Trying to say what needs to be said - and trying hard not to fall into the state of being clever, or anticipating what people might think.

4 - Where does a work of prose 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?

I meet the human being before the circumstance in prose. I ask the questions - Who are you? Who are you trying to be? And how are you perceived? And I know that these three questions provide very different answers. Then comes the detective work. And them I fold in given circumstances and relationships that challenge the characters the most. I

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Yes, I love reading and performing. My short stories are longing to be read out loud. I have been an actor - Including being part of BBC’s Radio Four Monday Night dramas when I was an actor in England. I’m a story teller. When I ran a theatre in Canada, the administrative staff wouldn’t start work until I told them a story.

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?

How can get out of the pockets of ourselves?

How can we discover the unknown in ourselves?

How can we communicate beneath borders and language?

How can yield down the resistances and conflicts of our time rather than taking a sledgehammer?

How can we contribute as artists and let go of the ever present ego?

How can we live within our contradictions.

Can we experience the world upside down?

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think I may have responded to this above,  but would add:  

The current conditions of the world demand that the role of the artist is to be the one of the healthiest persons in society - Emotionally psychologically, spiritually, physically. And that our greatest tool is one of empathy. As a writer I do not believe we should judge. We should live within the contradictions.

We can produce a change. We must.

And always, the writer must come from love. That gives us the freedom and license to explore hate.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

It helps enormously. As a director of theatre I tried hard to match the playwright with the best dramaturge for the project.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Listen deeply.

In order to see you must be willing to be seen.

Never look once - Look again and again.

There are no straight lines in creativity.

Be guided by mystery and wonder. What you don’t know is magnificent. 

Live below your personality.

Love the chaos.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to the novel to directing to playwriting)? What do you see as the appeal?

I’m a cheap sensationalist. I bounce well. If you are stuck within a single medium, you can get lost in form. Different ways into the artistic questions are important. In fact, the question is often more important for the writer than the answer.

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?

I am obsessed for several weeks. I wake up thinking - is too early to get up and start writing? Then I leave it entirely. It is when my dreams start guiding me that I’m back. I try to write for  few hours in the morning before anything else.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I have a hard time not blaming myself for a stall. I try to allow myself to live in the insecurity fully.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Gas fumes. My true home - Many years ago.

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?

This book comes from the inner experience of music. Between the notes, within the transitions of chords, there is a world that is entirely awake. It is where I feel comfortable. Obviously my career in the theatre has also influenced my work. What is active? What is really going on?

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Poetry is very important. Problem is that I’ve always felt unworthy to be a poet myself. I feel like a coward.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I want to perform my own work. I want to bring my acting, writing, directing, music, and teaching under one umbrella. I want to turn the corner and meet someone amazing who challenges me - revolutionizes me - And takes me on an artistic voyage I never thought possible. I want to live in my beloved Catalonia. I want to direct Medea. 

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?

Coming to writing is late for me. I do know that if I wasn’t an artist,  and I’ve been employed as an artist from the age of sixteen, I’d be utterly lost. I’ve been a single parent most of my life. That has been my other joy. Maybe a teacher, although all the vocation tests I took at school said I’d be best suited as a forest ranger. Once it came back as a light house keeper

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? 

It was a time when I didn’t have to take care of anybody - I could enter my own mysteries, and that includes the pain.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? 

I re-read Crime and Punishment last week. I tend to re-read books - Dostoyevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Shakespeare. I saw The Taste of Things.

20 - What are you currently working on?

The Naked Reveal -  something I’ve been carrying on my shoulders for years. I started it in New York last summer and can’t stop. It is about the creative process, but reads in part like a novel,  memoir, and a new way of looking at acting in the 21st century.

Almost a Therapist - a series I am writing with my daughter about a therapist who needs therapy badly.

Metamorphosis By Chaos - a series of short stories about the eccentricities of loneliness. 

Almost a Hamlet - a collaboration about ‘something’s rotten .…’ 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kristyn Dunnion

Kristyn Dunnion‘s Tarry This Night made CBC’s top twenty list of fall fiction, and Bitch Media's November Must Reads. The Dirt Chronicles (also Arsenal Pulp Press) was a 2012 Lambda Literary Award finalist and ALA Over the Rainbow selection. Recent fiction appears in The New Guard V, Cosmonauts Avenue, and The Tahoma Literary Review. Dunnion lives and works in Toronto with several large cats.

 Upcoming events and appearances include: reading as part of Performance Club 2: Valley of the Dolls with Keith Cole on February 13 (7pm; Super 8 Downtown Toronto; see link here for further information) and as part of Toronto's Chi Series on February 21 (8pm; Round Venue, 152a Augusta Ave; see link here for further information). Also: graduation ceremony and screening of Valley of the Dolls with Keynote Speaker Kristyn Dunnion, receiving an honourary degree from FADO Performance Art Centre, February 27 (7pm; 401 Richmond, Toronto; see link here for further information).

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

When Red Deer Press published my first book, a Juvenile novel called Missing Matthew (2003), I felt like I had been invited into this strange, revered room that was full of unknowns: industry protocol, knowledge, networks, etiquette etcetera. It was a steep learning curve! I still learn with each new book, and of course the industry is undergoing constant challenges and change. My most recent novel, Tarry This Night, is firmly directed to adult readers. It is grim, dystopic, and balanced with strong imagery and powerful prose.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

Non-fiction is terrifying and poetry confounds me. There was almost no other option! I’m beginning to dabble in screenplays, however.

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?

A new project can start in a heartbeat. I’m always scribbling in notebooks: ideas, images. I doodle, I paint, I pull Tarot cards. I write many, many drafts. And I come at the writing from a place of open curiosity. I often have no idea what I’m writing about until I’ve done a few drafts. It’s not the most efficient method, but it’s this creative process that hooks me.

4 - Where does a work of prose 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?

I’ve focussed on writing short fiction for the past decade, but Tarry This Night (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017) came out of this era. I insisted it was a short, and then a long, story for two years. At last I conceded it was a novella. Finally, a novel. This book began with imagery that formed the skeletal structure: opening and closing images that stayed true throughout each draft. There were specific phrases that precipitated the idea of a story, and a yearning of some kind. That sounds really flaky, but it’s true.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Oh, yes. I like to put my theatre background to work! I love the opportunity to read new work to a juicy audience. It’s risky, but you can really feel what works, what doesn’t. There is no substitute for the actuality of preparing to read to a live audience. I can be really ruthless in an editorial way in these moments!

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?

My concerns are endless. Foremost: how can we dismantle the patriarchy? Can we save this planet? Do we deserve to? Can white people ever truly acknowledge the extent of our privilege and move towards being reliable allies to people from racialized communities? Can we share global resources equitably and fairly and end capitalism? Can we engage with non-human animals in a compassionate and ethical manner? Can we ever be human and humane?

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?

I believe the artist’s role is to disrupt. To examine cultural - social- political circumstance and to record, reflect, critique, and offer creative solutions, if possible. We do this through movement, sound, imagery, taste. We do this through language. We use the senses, the intellect, technology, our emotions and our spiritual connections, to make meaning for ourselves and for others. It’s a vocation, to my way of thinking, revered by some, reviled by others.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

It is essential. It can be difficult, particularly if the writer is not able to distance him/herself from the material. It comes more easily with practice. Having a writing group can help in this respect, by setting guidelines for giving and receiving feedback. Sometimes people want others to read their work, only to hear how great it is. Every piece can take improvement.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

“If you can find another job, please do so.”

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to novels to performance)? What do you see as the appeal?

I love genre-bending! Each story must be told its own way. That might be through movement and music and costume; it might happen without uttering a single word. I love experimentation and discovery, so for me it’s essential.

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?

I’ve spent most of my adult life working full time in a demanding unrelated field (housing support for adults with severe mental health struggles), so I take my writing time when I can get it. I use all of my vacation days for writing, for retreats and residencies. I take time away from paid work whenever I can afford to, and literary arts grants have assisted me in this regard, for which I am extremely grateful. I am hungry for time to create and write and to absorb the work of other artists. When I am working on a project (and not in a paid day-job), I never take a day off. I work long hours alone; I rarely speak to other people. I am in an altered state, non-ordinary reality, and I am rarely ever happier.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I always have multiple projects on the go. If one hits a wall (and they do when they need time to ‘marinate’ while I grow or shift in order to return with a fresh perspective), I turn to another piece and dig in. Life is short, folks, and I’m no spring chicken!

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I probably associate food smells with most of my homes. My maternal grandma’s (deceased) would be curry and mothballs and dust. My paternal grandma’s (deceased) would be roast and gingerbread cookies; after she died the house smelled mainly of booze and cigarettes.  My current home in Toronto is vanilla and cinnamon (vegan baking!) or sage from smudging, and sometimes of cat litter – scooping for three cats is a part time job!

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?

All of the above!  Tarry This Night was heavily influenced by the Old Testament, by Doom metal, and by research: quilt making, the American survivalist movement, drought maps, climate change predictions, former and active cult data, etcetera. I worked with Tarot cards for character development, and my spiritual practice influenced some of the writing heavily. I immersed myself in collage and painting during the final year of edits and spent a lot of time looking at, making, and thinking about visual art, movement, music.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I’m all over the map! A snapshot from my bedside stack: Tove Jansson, Julie Hensley, Josh Weil, Don Domanski, Ottessa Moshfegh, Casey Plett (editor), Anne Carson, Helen Humphreys. Margaret Atwood, Iain Banks and China Mieville have been major influences over the years.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I’d like to write and direct a short film. I want to go to Iceland and the Republic of Ireland. Learn to play the cello. I would like to sing in public (despite my fear)!

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?

Hypnotist.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Writing is cheap. You can do it alone, anywhere. There are few barriers and fewer limits.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I’ve been enjoying some television series a great deal: Trapped (Icelandic), The Bridge (Danish/Swedish), American Gods (based on the novel by Neil Gaiman), Rectify, Alias Grace and The Handmaid’s Tale.

20 - What are you currently working on?

“Last Call at the Dogwater Inn” is a story collection set in my Toronto neighbourhood that deals with gentrification and community. “The Fishwyfe’s Fury” is a narrative triptych set in my hometown on the shores of Lake Erie, and it wants a visual component. I started a sequel to “Tarry This Night” called “Glean Among The Sheaves.” My screenplay “Fits Ritual,” based on a story published in Grain Magazine (2012) demands to be made into a short independent film - I’m looking for collaborators to help make this happen!

12 or20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 questions (second series) with Nicole Markotić

Nicole Markotić lives in Windsor and is author of the novella Yellow Pages, the novel Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot, and three poetry books, Connect the Dots, Minotaurs & Other Alphabets, and her latest book out this May from BookThug, Bent at the Spine. She has edited a collection of poetry by Dennis Cooley, By Word of Mouth, has worked as a freelance editor, and has edited special issues for the literary journals Open Letter and Tessera. She publishes a chapbook poetry series, Wrinkle Press, which includes work by Dennis Cooley, Robert Kroetsch, and Nikki Reimer. She was poetry editor for Red Deer Press for six years and has recently joined the NeWest literary board as one of its fiction editors.

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’m not sure publishing my first book changed my life, so much as starting to publish chapbooks, organize readings, really participate in the poetry community changed my life. By the time my first official book came out, it was almost an anti-climax, in that I had participated so much in the small-press publishing world. On the other hand, maybe the title of this book is a delayed reaction to, finally, getting a book out with a true “spine”!

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?Like most people, I wrote incredibly awful poetry in high school. No idea why I kept at it, but writing fiction at the time seemed too mundane, too realistic. Funny thing is, my fiction improved a lot sooner than my poetry. Luckily, I soon attended a week-long writing programme at Red Deer College, with bpNichol, Aritha van Herk, and Fred Wah. It was an amazing immersion.

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? 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?
Um, none of the above? When I steal the time, I can write under virtually any circumstances (at a computer, scraps of paper in the bus, in the same room as someone listening to the radio), but don’t necessarily start with brilliant ideas. I often play around with words I snatch from a completely different context than I’m trying to write about, to get me out of my old habits before I even start. I do a trillion edits and rewrites, so rarely do my poems resemble anything like what they started out. Most times, the poem goes nowhere, but at least gets me going. Sometimes, a poem begs for another, and then I’m in the middle of a series. I have a few sets of poems going, that don’t yet belong together, or in any book I’ve completed. They may remain as they are, or three decades from now I’ll figure out the larger picture!

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I enjoy going to readings, listen to words swirling around in the atmosphere, and I really believe that being part of readings (as poet or as audience) is part of the larger conversation. I’m the sort of writer who gets wildly excited about doing readings until about 2 days before the reading, when I suddenly realize that I hate giving readings and what was I thinking? By then, of course, it’s too late to back out, though I approach the mic with dread. As soon as I step back into the audience, I decide I love readings again, and can’t wait for the next one!

5 - 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?
Short answer: yes, I think all writers have theoretical concerns that inform and characterize their writing, whether consciously or not. On the other hand, I’m not interested in poetry that sounds like a critical essay, broken into lines. For me, the language on the page matters. Literally. I’m not sure I’m trying to answer questions as to make sure certain questions get asked, to make sure the language available to readers is complicated and exhilarating and confounding and caustic and opaque and a delight.

6 - 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?
I think the role of the artist is to recognize, critique, celebrate, and insist on how utterly knotty and muddled and difficult the world is. Trying to write into that commotion is sometimes devastating (and thus often ignored), but that doesn’t change the necessity.

7 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Working with an editor is invigorating and stimulating and absolutely motivating. I never get it when writers eschew a good editor; to what end?

8 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
The best I’ve heard? Write every day, no matter what. The best I’ve actually followed… who knows? Kroetsch used to go around paraphrasing Gertrude Stein: “If you can do a thing, why bother?” I do try to always write well beyond my own capabilities, which makes the page exceedingly interesting…

9 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Actually, it’s very difficult. Especially when I hear about a poet who’s decided to write the Canadian novel. Or novelists who throw ditty poetry into their fiction to supposedly strengthen a character. So, to go ahead and move back and forth is a bit of hubris on my part – just writing one genre is too hard! I constantly give up one form or the other. But the reason I keep trying to write both is because it keeps me a bit off kilter; I’m hoping that by switching – just as I begin to feel comfortable in one mode – I won’t rely on any past achievements or perceived success.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one?
See above.

11 - How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Truthfully? Rushing off to a meeting, or to class, or to some other administrative chore. I wish I could claim that writing is the pivotal undertaking of my day, but the job unequivocally comes first. Like most people, I fit writing into the rest of the day/week/month.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Any writing that digs at me. I’ll return to books that have turned my crank in the past, or I’ll open a new book I’ve bought but haven’t opened yet. The sheer joy of reading so much poetry that is brilliant and is nothing like what I’d do – it’s splendid.

13 - 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?
Yeah, Fred Wah always says that the best response to a poem is another poem (rather than, I think, an essay about that poem). But language comes at us from every direction, from every art form. I’m not necessarily “inspired” by music or paintings, but – again – the brilliance of artists who shake up my thinking in ways I didn’t know before I experienced their art is breath-taking. So: I take a breath. I take two. Then I see if I can write like charcoal. Or Schrödinger’s Cat. Or bubble-gum wrappers.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside your work?
This is too long a list to even attempt – even if I just narrowed the question to poets, we would be embroiled in a 44-page list! So, I’ll mention a few movements and poetic influences: the Modernist poets, Boundary 2, the LANG poets, Québec feminists, TISH, Canadian prairie poets, Tessera, Kootenay School of Writing, Jacket, the Influency Salon, and – of course – absolutely everything that BookThug’s up to!

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Write.

16 - 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?
One of those people who checks on continuity in a film. Someone who pays attention to tiny, and (to most people) unimportant details!

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I am a couch potato at heart – for reading, anyway. Writing is a way to weigh in. And, truthfully, although I write as opposed to participating in another art form, I’m not sure I’d say I write as opposed to doing other things. I am a teacher; I’ve been a child-care worker, a publisher, an editor, an activist, etc. etc. I don’t think anyone can actually “just” be a writer. Though I may compose poems hidden away by myself, writing is ultimately a social act in that writers need to be immersed in the world.

18 - What are you currently working on?
At least 16 projects – I have an inadequate attention span!

[Nicole Markotić reads in Toronto on May 22 at Supermarket as part of the BookThug Spring 2012 launch]

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

some brief poetry (book) reviews

I know I’ve been way behind on my reviewing; what is it about Alberta that’s kicking my ass? Here are some brief reviews to make up for my (relative) silence on the matter lately.

1. Christopher Janke's Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain

In the beginning was the rat and the rat was with god and the rat was god and the rat layed itself down to be picked at by onions. For the end or there is no end, or for the man with no description for he is not a bear and is not lipstick and is not the regularity of nature nor the fundamental pillar of all creation swinging from the stars or shaped like a curlicue.

Deeply prejudiced but gentle rat. Legislative rat. Rat beginning and ending with a bang. The lord rat running from our eating of him as he hurls all things towards their inestimable nothings, towards miracle somethings, into miracle peristalsis, miracle throat, towards Sam Dordoni in the belly of a rat. Glory be to the graviton, to the rubber-slinged and soulful. Glory to the beard. We've come here to contemplate one life, with the Lord our rat sitting in his own stomach chasing his tail, in a hall of mirrors in tactile 3D where you can fall into the mouth of a reflection and find deep inside another one to fall into. At the bottom of the mouth is another mouth.

For the word that changes one life. (pp 35-6)

One of the oddest poetry collections I've seen in a while is Turners Falls, Massachusetts' poet and editor Christopher Janke's Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain (New York NY: Fence Books, 2007), winner of the Fence Modern Poets Series. Very striking in his use of language, the collusions in the ten prose-poem structured pieces that make up this collection provide an extremely compelling mix of texture, and read as though something that is meant to be heard (or read aloud) much more than simply seen on the page. How do you contemplate a poem written from the point of view of a rat brain that has not yet fully formed?

2. Jonathon Wilcke’s pornograph

Returning to Canada after three years in Japan, Calgarian (now a resident of Vancouver) Jonathon Wilcke released his first trade collection of poetry, pornograph (2004), published by Red Deer Press. It makes me wonder about Red Deer, with rumours after Wilcke’s collection was published, that the press isn’t publishing poetry anymore. Considering only this and Ian Samuels’ premiere collection (to my knowledge), Cabra (2000) have appeared from the press over the past seven years, I become unsure as to what the difference is.

An impressive first collection, pornograph is made up of breaks and fragments, chunks and clusters of prose and overlapping texts as a single unit, woven together nearly seamlessly through seven sections: heads of senate; boeuf (for Fred Wah); fits all’ parfum; jaw; debut; and jackbooty.

Insert tab A into slot B. English teeth. Removable ass-fangled seat for
sitting. Forgot my ass at home. Front stoop escalators. A pregnant pause.
What’s the weather like. New York nostril for sitting. Jean jacket from
the suburbs. Tennis shoes don’t date Oxfords. Martha your wrist is
showing. Virtual beefsteak, sperm bank and perm.

[. . .]

Pauses pregnancy. My other car is a chassis. Bill Cosby appears in my
living room making him okay, just like me. Easy chair, easy peasy. Steel
toes. First it’s a pet and then it’s guts. A pet gut. A gut rot. Morning
make-up, two-faced at the office. The breast is a miracle of modern scientists.
Populace as diverse as soup. (pp 17, 19, boeuf (for Fred Wah)

viagra offers depression a flag pole.a flag pole
a pole vault an obsolete computer called “WANG.”
(sorry). i can’t say anything beyond mentioning two wheels
and racing back. an ergy desk. a yuppie rake. myself i have a
bouche a terminal a carpal tunnel a syndrome. you should wear
that signifying chain more often. (p 66, jackbooty)

And did you know he’s been shopping around a second manuscript as well?

(-apologies to Wilcke for letting this sit in my draft pile for so long…)

3. Nicole Brossard’s Notebook of Roses and Civilization, trans. by Robert Majzels and Erin Moure

Recently, Montreal author Nicole Brossard [see my previous note on her here] was in Calgary to launch her most recent book of poetry translated into English, Notebook of Roses and Civilization (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2007). Originally published in 2003 as Cahier de roses et de civilization, Brossard remains one of Canada’s most important innovators through the movement of language and gender through language, and the lyric abstract (and in both “official” languages, no less). What is it about her language that overcomes, like a slow wave, sweeping in and drowning you? What is it about her language that makes you welcome the process of being overcome?

once again the exact time the street
the cigarette we don’t light
again the time the sex of lips
existence silence that deafens
another metamorphosis
arms open




sudden taste of the sea around the arms
with one toss of the lasso
a scent of life and sweetened peanuts (p 21)

4. Sheila E. Murphy’s The Case of the Lost Objective (Case)

When she read in Edmonton recently [see the write-up here], Phoenix, Arizona poet Sheila E. Murphy read from her most recent poetry collection, The Case of the Lost Objective (Case), published by Australian-based Otoliths. There is something about the quickness, quick turns and seemingly random deftness of her poems that I quite like, moving from short poems to prose pieces and even full-colour visuals (which almost never happen in trade poetry books). Although, being an American poet, they’re probably full-color visuals.

all of his indifference turned to her

and she, a shell, filled with what void
he could afford, that she could
barely hold or re(f)use,
midway through the coup if
it was that, e(r)go the summary
included not a shred of judgment,
and his candor flopped
during the delivery, which
exercise emitted revelation
after revelation pointed else-
where she could disassociate
in fewer words than he

5. Noah Eli Gordon’s Novel Pictorial Noise

Noah Eli Gordon’s newest poetry collection, Novel Pictorial Noise (HarperCollins, 2007), was chosen by John Ashbery as a winner of the 2006 National Poetry Series Open Competition, and combines prose poetry with small epigraphs that exist almost as a binary reminiscent of the Greek chorus, and almost in the way Lisa Robertson slipped her own version of binary texts in The Weather (New Star Books, 2001). There is something about the way Gordon works a “perfect stillness,” while at the same time writing through a flurry of activity that can never be contained. How can one compose stillness and unsettled movement into the same series of lines?

Somewhere, a garage door goes down. Thus, a fiction begins. Clouds gather, disperse. Let this suffice as a working formula for working a formula; what I’m coming to terms with—repetition’s liberating constraint. What occurs in the courtly world has little currency to those taking up arms against it. What I’m coming to terms with builds what which contains the components to construct an evolving sense of entropy. The grand narrative the end of narratives had had had had no grandiose ending. It is as though in removing its mask the landscape shows on its face an expression one recognizes but is unable to immediately place.