Guernica Editions Summer Launch Party (Tuesday, July 5th @ The Supermarket) reviewed by Jessie Travis

Against the backdrop of a muggy July evening on Kensington Market’s main drag, tucked away in the cool depths of the Supermarket’s back room, Guernica Editions summer launch offered a much needed and refreshing breeze – of the literary variety. Over the course of the two hour launch, Guernica introduced a diverse set of 6 new titles, transcending genre lines with poetry, collections of interviews and academic essays, as well as short stories.

With a host of poetry and prose collections already under his belt, Len Gasparini demonstrated years of authorial prowess – prowess that garnered him a F.G. Bressani Literary Prize in 1990 – with a reading from his latest literary foray and sixth collection of short stories, The Snows of Yesteryear. Starting the evening off with a nod to the heart of Louisiana, New Orleans (or should I say “n’awlins”?), Gasparini enchanted audiences with his startlingly honest and entirely visceral depiction of a hot and murky day on the bottling line in “My day at Dixie Brewing Company.” Gasparini’s stark and uncluttered prose houses discourses of deep-seeded racial and economic tensions that continue to riddle the American south.

Following on the heels of Gasparini’s stylistic nod to modernist minimalists before him, it seemed more than fitting for the evening to transition to Laurence Hutchman's In The Writer's Words: Conversations with Eight Canadian Poets. Hutchman’s latest work features a series of 8 interviews with some of Canada’s most prominent modernist poets: Ralph Gustafson, George Johnston, P.K. Page, Fred Cogswell, Louis Dudek, Al Purdy, Anne Szumigalski and James Reaney. With footholds in both the poetic and academic community, Hutchman has written 6 books of poetry and teaches at the Université de Moncton, Edmundston Campus, it comes as no surprise that this work emerges from a desire to explore the evolution of the lives and, subsequently, works of Canadian poets. A project that began in the early 1990s, Hutchman examines the subtle development of each writer’s style, the origins of their poetic inclinations (“how does a poet begin to write a poem?” he asks), and the transformations they and their work have undergone thanks to their own literary influences – a section that seems to construct a Canadian version of Britain’s Bloomsbury group.

Rounding off the first half of the evening, Dane Swan took to the stage with effortless ease and an understated confidence before delivering the evening’s most dynamic and vibrant reading. Part of Guernica’s First Poet Series, a series that fosters new poetic voices aged 35 and younger, Swan’s reading, nay performance, of 6 pieces from his first full collection, Bending the Continuum, commanded a hushed silence from the audience, despite admitting that he had not intended to read. His reading reached a potent climax with “Blackface,” calling the audience to “join me” – a call that I most happily answered thanks, in large part, to the powerful force of his roots in slam poetry.

Switching gears in the second half of the evening, Howard A. Doughty and Marino Tuzi were on hand to introduce Culture and Difference: Essays on Canadian Society. This collection of six essays is divided into two very distinct halves: literary and political/social analysis. Spanning literary, cultural, political, and anthropological criticism, Culture and Difference explores the notion of cultural diversity in Canada, mobilizing textual and cultural comparisons to explore how historical, political, and economic forces shape cultural ideologies and belief systems.

The evening culminated with a turn to Guernica’s bilingual roots with two of Quebec’s most acclaimed poets, Madeline Gagnon and José Acquelin. Though Gagnon was not on hand to introduce Stone Dream, the most recent release in a career that boasts over 40 books of poetry and prose, Guernica’s Michael Mirolla stressed Gagnon’s desire to take readers on a journey through collective unconscious, a journey that culminates in the construction of living poetry, not merely words on a page.

Bringing the evening to a conclusion, José Acquelin romanced audiences with his sultry poetry, familial anecdotes, and deep, heavily accented and resonant voice. Having authored 15 poetry collections over the course of a 25-year-career, Acquelin’s work reads as timeless. Attendees were lucky enough to have Acquelin on hand to read his work in its original French, while Mirolla followed with recitations of the English translations. While Acquelin’s brother teases that his work is better in its translated form, it is clear that The Man Who Delivers Clouds will make waves in both the French and English poetic communities.

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