THE TORONTO QUARTERLY

The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011 (Tightrope Books) - A Review

2012-01-27T11:21:00.001-05:00

For poetry enthusiasts across Canada and the globe, The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011 (Tightrope Book, 2011) is one anthology that mustn’t go unread. Under the tutelage and guidance of esteemed poet and series editor, Molly Peacock, this year’s crop of the top 50 poems is impressive. As with each edition in the series, Peacock appoints a guest editor to "literally" read through the stacks of fifty different literary journals and magazines, which for the most part, publish multiple issues each year. To most, whittling down thousands of poems to a top list of fifty might seem like a monumental task.

This year’s guest editor, Priscila Uppal, admits her decision to take on the editorship for this project was a no-brainer from the very start, even though the project involved countless hours of reading, comprising a best fifty shortlist, then another fifty poems for the longlist, and then finally writing an introduction and trying to make sense of the entire experience.

Uppal was a bit perplexed as to what criteria she should use in choosing the “best” poetry of the year, but admits to not being able to get a certain song out of her head, "TV II," by 90’s industrial grunge band, Ministry (a band she readily admired throughout her teen years), which ultimately helped to clarify her dilemma of...how do I possible do this?. The songs lyrics screamed the kind of mantra that seemingly relates well to what constitutes a well-written poem.

Tell me something I don’t know

Show me something I can’t use

Push the button

Connect the goddamn dots

Although, Uppal acknowledges that our poetry publishing scene is exciting, healthy, and fascinating, but at the same time, she points out it is still a little too conservative for her tastes. She concludes that it might be due to an over-reliance on government funding and other financial support for journals, or that many journals are too attached to university Creative Writing programs, or that editorial boards frequently means editorial consensus. She quips that far too many poems are utterly forgettable, over-workshopped or imitations of poems already published in the thousands, poems demonstrating some poetic skill but rarely poetic life, they’re either indulging in uninteresting narcissism or resting on safe topics in a complacent manner, and fall into the category she calls “competent irrelevance.”

With that being said, Uppal doesn’t want to come across as being over-critical of Canadian poetry, and admits to reading these kinds of poems in journals from all over the world as well. She would simply like to challenge more journals to take more risk, be unafraid of engaging a more diverse audience, being more relevant, and pushing poetry to new levels.

Uppal’s choices for top 50 poems of 2011 are somewhat diverse, refreshing, and do flavour on the side of experimental and avant-garde in many ways. She has included visual poems from Derek Beaulieu “Untitled” and Christian Bok “Odalisques,” a form that Beaulieu best describes in this way, “With visual poems I concentrate on the smallest particles of language and how they can interact. Each poem allows the particles to dance with each other along the lines of design and shape instead of meaning and definitions. Visual poetry allows the reader to make their own meanings.”

I have included two of my personal favourites from Uppal’s top 50, the first coming from Ken Babstock, a poet described as a rising star, a supernova in the Candian poetry community. Babstock had this to say about his poem, “As Marginalia in John Claire’s ‘To the Rural Muse,” “My own poem contains its Redux or Coles Notes or EEG in the lines’ end-words, it now seems, after the fact, unhappily. So a wise reader could remain on the surface of the right margin and devote the time she’s saved to something worthwhile. The illness is a bout of blood poisoning from boyhood. So there! And “…with scars where its talons used to be.”

As Marginalia in John Claire’s ‘To the Rural Muse’

I wasn’t finished. From as far back
as I can recall having heard a voice in my skull

I’ve wanted to die, or change, or die
changing. Hexagonal window, the moon

penned in it, and a segmented swarm sucking
up peonies. Heat off tar shingles

in June as the blood in one arm
blackened, thickened, went blearily toxic,

I exited earth up an IV tube.
The wall-mounted paper dispenser

narrating nightmares of scare, sores fell
from fingers – get well petals – and grew

back puce. Slug of little light, the bedrail
gleamed. Warmed yoghurt, a summons

button and visual aphasia. Now I’ve no spit,
no hospice and admit nothing, or

for long stretches, only that what happened
was all that ever could have happened.

Reeds curtain where land becomes lake,
if such a limit exists, and ducks aren’t

taken by pike mid-thought.

Michelle Barker’s poem “Black Sheep” is also quite impressive and is a theme poem written in answer to a call for submissions put out by Vallum. Barker describes her poem in this way, “I wanted to look behind the façade at the rebel in a quiet moment, the truth of what it feels like to be left out.”

Black Sheep

In the end I can tell you
being the black sheep
of the family
is not what it promises

you imagine
motorcycle bad boys
an enticing tattoo
whiskey straight up
an electric guitar

and of course
sideways looks from the family
that secretly you think
you would savour

but it isn’t like that

it is a door
closing on family gatherings

babies born
without you –
you get the details second hand

it is seeing the wedding photos
on e-mail
(they couldn’t invite you –
it would have caused a scene)

it is a bell ringing far away
summoning others
and more specifically
not you

it is your name
whispered
or forgotten

and so yet again you stiffen
your upper lip
take your stand

(for a worthy cause)
tell yourself that renegade
has a certain ring to it

and quietly draw the curtains
on the small window
facing home.

There are many familiar names in this year’s top 50, from, Dionne Brand, Lorna Crozier, Barry Dempster, John Barton, Steven Heighton, Karen Solie, A.F. Moritz, and David Seymour, to poets who are not so well known, but quickly on the rise in the Canadian poetry scene like Jon Paul Fiorentino, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Sandy Pool, Onjana Yawnghwe to name just a few. In summation, this year’s edition of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011 is an eclectic and diverse collection of Canadian poetry, and would make a wonderful addition to anyone’s bookshelf.

Bio – Priscila Uppal is a poet, novelist, and York University professor. Her publications include Ontological Necessities (shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize), Traumatology, Successful Tragedies (Bloodaxe Books, UK), Winter Sport: Poems (written while acting as Canadian Athletes Now poet-in-residence for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games), the novels The Divine Economy of Salvation and To Whom It May Concern, and the study We Are What We Mourn: The Contemporary English-Canadian Elegy. Time Out London recently dubbed her “Canada’s coolest poet.” Visit priscilauppal.ca

Bio – Molly Peacock is the author of six volumes of poetry, including The Second Blush, a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece, and a one-woman show in poems, “The Shimmering Verge.” She is a contributing editor of the Literary Review of Canada and a faculty mentor at the Spalding MFA Program. Her latest work of nonfiction is The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72.

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Breakout From Juno - Interview with Canadian writer and historian Mark Zuehlke

2012-01-19T14:33:00.000-05:00

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944 – D-Day, and with the sun barely visible, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy across a perimeter of 80 kilometres of mostly flat, sandy beach. The greatest seaborne invasion in history was underway, with the primary mission of beginning the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany. The Americans had Utah and Omaha beaches to the west, the British forces had Gold in the middle, the Canadians had Juno Beach, and the British to the east advanced to Sword Beach. Within two hours of storming Juno, the German defences had been shattered and Canadian troops had established a stronghold of the beachhead.

There has been a lot written of D-Day, many movies have been made, but that initial 24-hour period would prove to only be the beginning of a blood-filled campaign of battles that encompassed the summer months of 1944, whereby the Canadian troops showed unrelenting courage and superior fighting skills, which carried the day and ultimately brought victory.

On July 4, 1944, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division took hold of the village of Carpiquet, France, after an extended bloody fight. Breakout From Juno (Douglas & McIntyre, 2010) is the third book of the Juno series written by one of the premier Canadian historical writers, Mark Zuehlke, and documents the untold story between July 4 – August 21, 1944. Zuehlke eloquently narrates the intensity of each battle from a Canadian perspective, highlighting the 3rd Division battles against Hitler’s finest forces, and the 2nd Infantry and 4th Armoured Divisions banding together to fight relentlessly, surprising the heavily entrenched German troops.

We had the great pleasure of interviewing Mark Zuehlke about the latest book in his Canadian Battle Series, Breakout From Juno.

TTQ – Breakout From Juno is the ninth and newest book in your Canadian Battle Series and encapsulates the two months (July 4 - August 21, 1944) following the D-Day Invasion. Where did your fascination for writing about Canada's role in World War II come from and why did you feel it important to document and highlight the period two months after D-Day?

Mark Zuehlke – I grew up with a fascination for military history, particularly that of the two world wars. My great uncle, Fred Zuehlke, had quite an influence on me. He was a World War I veteran who lost an arm at Vimy Ridge. During World War II he worked at the veteran’s hospital in Vancouver helping returning amputee veterans adapt to their handicaps. An uncle of mine was also a tanker with the Lord Strathcona Horse Regiment in Italy during World War II. When I became a journalist, my fascination remained, but there was little opportunity to explore it professionally. Eventually, I was in a Legion in Kelowna one Remembrance Day and several veterans were talking about their experiences in the Battle of Ortona. I realized with some embarrassment that I had no real knowledge of this battle. When I went looking for a book on it, I discovered one had yet to be written. So, I set about changing that. Although I didn’t know it at the time that was the birth of what is now The Canadian Battle Series.

Regarding the two months after D-Day, I had noticed that, because of the intensity of the fighting on June 6, there was a marked tendency in histories of the Normandy Campaign to cast the last two months into a shadow of brevity. Yet the fighting during this period was incredibly violent and costly for Canada’s troops. I also saw that, as is true for much of World War II history, that the Canadian role in this campaign had been largely ignored or reduced to a virtual footnote by American and British historians. At the same time, most Canadian histories dealing with this period were overly brief and reduced it largely to a summary. So, I wanted to give the period, which included the full debut of First Canadian Army on the battlefield, its proper due.

TTQ – How difficult was the process of researching the book, as it's said that little documentation exists for the two month period following D-Day? What resources did you primarily rely on to write Breakout From Juno?

Mark Zuehlke – One of the things that’s fascinating about writing this kind of history is the research. I had heard this myth of their being little documentation as well and was worried about that. Until I actually got into the archives at Directorate of History and Heritage, Department of National Defence and the Library and Archives Canada – both in Ottawa – that is and discovered the opposite. Not that you could just look up Normandy in the catalogues and there it all was. Instead it required some deep sleuthing, searching records of one regiment after another to find the material. What I ended up with was a vast collection – thousands of pages – of interviews conducted by army historians with participants in the various battles of the period, written reports by participants, and a lot of analyses of the battles that were written in the weeks immediately after they ended. This was valuable stuff because it was generated when memories were fresh. I also found a lot of veteran interviews that delved into their Normandy campaign experiences. Unfortunately, there are ever fewer veterans to interview these days who are not only alive, but have a good memory of events. But thankfully I did quite extensive interviews with many veterans years ago, as did many other people whose material I am able to access. So, that richness of the personal story is there in spades. Then the trick is to analyze all the stories, there are often contradictions, and rationalize everything to create a readable and accurate narrative of events. That’s the wordsmith part of the task and where I have an advantage over most historians. Although I have a history degree, my livelihood was always earned from being a journalist and professional writer. So, I know how to take factual material and shape it as a story, particularly so because I have also written novels and this means understanding how dialogue, character, scene setting and all such stuff builds a rich narrative that will engage readers.

TTQ – Did you manage to visit Normandy and Juno Beach while doing your research, and if so, what was that experience like for you and to what extent did it help you in writing the book?

Mark Zuehlke – I had made a point of visiting the battlefields that I am writing about. I visited Normandy on three separate occasions. The last time was 2010 and specifically for this book. My partner and I spent two weeks driving and walking in the footsteps that the Canadians took in those two months of war. In doing so, one comes to appreciate the terrain and other physical challenges, and realities that the troops had to cope with and also understand. Take Verrières Ridge, for example, to the Canadian sensibility this is not a ridge at all. No steep incline and no great height. Yet five battalions, most famously the Black Watch of Montreal, were butchered advancing up it. Many accounts, such as the CBC documentary on the battle that was part of the infamous Valour and the Horror series, have the Black Watch scaling the face of the ridge under heavy fire from German SS troops and hence the slaughter. Never mind that there were no SS troops there that day, but the ridge rises only 121 feet over a distance of 3,280 feet. Not something easily scaled! Instead, it was a slow, hard slog up that gradual rise without a stitch of cover available. You stand on the summit of the ridge today and it’s no mystery why the Black Watch were cut to pieces on July 15, 1944. The ground is still virtually as it was then. And that’s why it’s so important to walk the battlefields you are going to write about.

TTQ – You describe in the book that the period between July 4 - August 21, 1944 as "the greatest cataclysm of combat on the western European front during all of World War II." How brutal and bloody was the battle field between those two months as compared to D-Day itself?

Mark Zuehlke – The battlefield during those two months was a nightmare of violence. Thousands of troops, tanks, and artillery were crammed into a quite narrow landscape. And the Germans always had the advantage of being on slightly higher ground than the Canadians coming towards them. There was an absence of cover because it was mostly wide open wheat fields in this sector of Normandy. Little of the bocage hedgerows that were both a curse and a blessing for the British and American troops fighting more to the west, so our troops advanced generally straight in to the open. Most of the time they were fighting the SS divisions and other armoured divisions constituting the elite German troops in Normandy, so the fighting was especially fierce. Virtually every regiment that came ashore on June 6 in the leading assault wave had a single day during the July-August campaign where they suffered their heaviest casualty rate of the entire war – including D-Day. And when that day was over they had to keep going no matter how battered their regiment was. There was always another fight ahead. It is this continuity of battle that makes these two months unique in the Canadian army experience of World War II.

TTQ – Would you agree that the Canadians coming off Juno Beach faced some of the most fearsome of Germany's troops? What were those German troops like and how highly trained were they?

Mark Zuehlke – The initial forces defending Juno Beach weren’t fearsome. They were a coastal defence division, which means they were not especially well trained or highly motivated to die for their Fuhrer. But they enjoyed great advantage in defensive positions. Covering the beach was a well-constructed system of concrete pillboxes and other works. They fought very well from these and inflicted heavy casualties. As the Canadians advanced inland on June 6 they were still fighting this division until close to the day’s end. But these Germans had developed a layered defensive system and so were always fighting from strong defensive positions. That’s what made D-Day costly for Canada, which faced the second most heavily defended beach and the second hardest fight on June 6 of the Allies landed that day. The Americans at Omaha had a harder fight, but the Canadians were second in line. The story of June 6 is, of course, told in my Juno Beach. It was the next day that the fierce and highly trained German troops arrived in the form of three Panzer divisions. These were directed against the Canadians with the express purpose of driving them back into the sea in order to shatter the Normandy beachhead. On either side of Juno Beach were the two British beaches. The strategy was to eliminate the Canadians and then hook out either side to vanquish the British. After that, they could advance at a more leisurely pace to pinch out the American beaches and voila win the campaign. The Canadians were most heavily struck by the entirety of the 12th SS Hitler Youth Division in the centre, with elements of the two Panzer divisions in the flanks. For six days the fate of the invasion, told in Holding Juno, was in balance. But the Canadians prevailed. That in turn led to the two months of Breakout From Juno, where they again often faced the 12th SS. The Hitler Youth had been raised entirely under the Nazi system and inculcated in the belief of the Aryan people, and Germans in particular being supermen – a twisting of Nietzschean philosophy – were undefeatable. So, it was a rude awakening to see their comrades being killed by Canadians and to discover that they could be beaten. This contributed to the murders of Canadian prisoners over the six day period of June 7 to 12. The Hitler Youth and other Panzer division troops were a very tough bunch. They were well trained and highly motivated.

TTQ – How many Canadians fought during D-Day and the two months thereafter and how significant was the casualty rate?

Mark Zuehlke – There were approximately 125,000 Canadians in First Canadian Army at any given time with more waiting at reinforcement depots to fill spots left by casualties. But this figure is somewhat misleading because a disproportionate number of troops were engaged in support roles to the actual fighting troops. Each division fielded about 16,000 fighting troops and had 25,000 supporting these men. The actual number of Canadians on the sharp end of the three divisions and single armoured brigade numbered about 52,500 during the Normandy campaign. From June 6 to the closing of the Falaise Gap on August 21, total casualties were 18,444 of which 5,021 were fatal. That’s about a 28% casualty rate, which is disproportionately high and attests to the ferocity of the fighting that Canadian troops faced.

TTQ - How significantly do you think the German forces underestimated the capabilities of Canada's forces and do you think that the major turning point to the war?

Mark Zuehlke – By the time of D-Day, the Germans were not likely to underestimate the Canadians. Canada had already developed a reputation in the Sicily and Italian campaigns for being a very tough and skilled adversary. It was the Germans, who during Operation Husky in Sicily, gave 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s its nickname The Red Patch devils, because their divisional shoulder flash was a red patch. They were soon monitoring the movement of the Canadians in Italy because they knew that where the Canadians showed up in the line the next offensive was likely to fall. The problem the Germans faced initially in Normandy was differentiating the Canadians from the British troops around them. When they launched their offensive against Juno Beach on June 7 their intelligence was unclear on whether it was defended by Canadian or British troops. The victory’s achieved by the British and Canadian troops in front of Caen during July and August, I think, constituted the beginning of the end for Germany. What the Germans had hoped to achieve was a containment of the Allies on the Normandy beaches and that strategy began unraveling the moment the Canadian and British troops started breaking out on July 4. When Caen fell the writing was on the wall. And when Canadians launched Operation Totalize on August 7 and punched through German defensive lines in a night assault all hopes of maintaining the ring of steel around the Allies were shattered.

TTQ – Talk a bit more about the significance of Canada’s role in Operation Totalize and why the Canadian forces were able to have more success than the British troops, and what do you think might have happened had the Germans been able to have defeated the Canadians and maintained control of the beach?

Mark Zuehlke – Ah, here we are at Totalize (see above). Totalize succeeded because Lt. Gen. Guy Simonds noted the reasons for the British failure just the week before. At the time he said, “When it’s our turn, we’ll go in at night.” So, the night attack idea was set. Then he came up with the idea – now commonplace – of advancing the infantry forward in concert with the tanks inside armoured personnel carriers. The Allies didn’t have APC’s then, so these had to be invented and produced right there on the battlefield. Canadian engineers and mechanics did that by reconfiguring Priest self-propelled artillery guns into what they dubbed Kangaroos. Always before, the Allied infantry had to advance on foot behind the tanks and they would either be outrun and left behind or the tanks would be slowed down to a crawl to keep pace with the infantry. You can’t have rapid outbreaks that way. So, Totalize was an innovative tactical feat. I’m not a huge Guy Simonds fan, but Totalize was his moment in the sun and deservedly so.

Had Totalize failed I think the German grip on the beachhead would have possibly tightened again. It could have been months before the breakout developed and the war would have been prolonged as a consequence. The Germans hoped the Allies would lose heart and sue for a conditional German surrender which would not include the Soviet Union. They would then be free to fight the Russians to a standstill and salvage their fortunes on that front. This was a fallow hope, but one that guided their strategic decisions through to virtually the end.

TTQ – What kind of feedback have you received from veteran Canadian soldiers concerning Breakout From Juno and your other books in the Canadian Battle Series?

Mark Zuehlke – One veteran I’ve enjoyed following in Juno Beach, Holding Juno and Breakout From Juno is Major Lochart “Lochie” Fulton of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. He was in the assault wave on June 6 and earned a DSO for courage there. On July 4 the Winnipeg’s attacked Carpiquet Airfield in a disastrous attack to seize the hangars on its western edge. The 12th SS had turned the hangars into fortresses and actually had tanks firing from inside them. Fulton and his men advanced through waist-high wheat across dead flat ground. Despite losing most of his company, he was able to gain control of one of the hangars. But his men could not be reinforced. He personally went back across that open and fire swept ground to try and organize the reinforcement, but it was hopeless. So, he went back again to his men and then led them back under fire. July 4 was when the regiment lost more men than on any other day and many more than on June 6. “What had we accomplished?” he asked later. “Possibly the Germans recognized our intention to take Carpiquet and that we would be back. But at what cost!” Lochie was a very brave soldier who went through to the end of the war. But he was not unique. There were thousands like him.

The feedback from veterans is one of the most gratifying parts of writing this series. I get a lot of positive response. Often veterans say that reading my books help them to understand and put in context their personal experiences. Many say that I get to the truth of what it was like to go through those battles.

TTQ – How many more books do you have left to write in your Canadian Battle Series and have you decided what battles you will write about?

Mark Zuehlke – There will be at least two more books in the series. I am currently working on one about the Dieppe Raid of 1942 and am committed to doing one on the Rhineland Campaign. There might be at least two more after that. Those are still in the discussion stages, so I shouldn’t expand on them at this point.

Bio – Mark Zuehlke is the author of the critically acclaimed Canadian Battle Series published by Douglas & McIntyre On to Victory: The Canadian Liberation of the Netherlands (March 23 – May, 5, 1945), Operation Husky: The Canadian Invasion of Sicily (July 10 – August 7, 1943), Terrible Victory: First Canadian Army and the Scheldt Estuary Campaign (September 13 – November 6, 1944), Holding Juno: Canada’s Heroic Defence of the D-Day Beaches (June 7 – 12, 1944), Juno Beach: Canada’s D-DAY Victory: June 6, 1944, The Gothic Line: Canada’s Month of Hell in World War II Italy, The Liri Valley: Canada’s World War II Breakthrough to Rome, Ortona: Canada’s Epic World War II Battle and many other books. Having worked as a journalist, been educated as a historian, and written award-winning fiction, he draws on these varied experiences and skills to bring history to life for a general audience. He resides in Victoria, British Columbia and can be found at http://www.zuehlke.ca/.

*Note - All Photos used with the permission of Douglas & McIntyre Publishers Inc and Library and Archives Canada.

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TTQ9 - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS (DEADLINE IS APRIL 30, 2012)

2012-01-12T23:46:00.000-05:00

Send us your BEST poetry (4-6 poems), short stories (1-2 stories max, 500-3000 words per story), artwork, and photographs. We prefer that you copy and paste your poetry into the body of your email or send as ONE attachment in word.doc format. Send ALL short story submissions as a word doc. attachment. Any poetry or short story submissions sent as multiple attachments or not in word.doc will NOT be read. DO NOT submit your work as a docx file. It will NOT be read.

If you have a novel/poetry book, a poetry/music cd or dvd that you're interested in having us review, please email us your query to thetorontoquarterly@hotmail.com with REVIEW REQUEST typed into the subject box. BOOK and MUSIC REVIEWS submitted will be considered for publication.

Send us your ARTWORK and PHOTOGRAPHY. Send in high resolution (jpeg file). We will consider all artwork submitted for the COVER of TTQ9.

ALL SUBMISSIONS should include a short biography (5-6 lines MAX) written in third person and stating town/city you reside in, previous publishing accomplishments, educational background if so desired. Please DO NOT send us a novel about yourself. Make it interesting and promote your books and/or webpages if desired.

PLEASE: ONE submission per issue. Multiple submissions will NOT be read. Be sure to send us your BEST work the first time or wait until the following issue to submit again.

We DO NOT publish previously published works.

PLEASE NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

ALL RIGHTS and COPYRIGHT upon publication in TTQ9 remains with the author.

PAYMENT: Each contributor to TTQ9 will receive a FREE e-book of TTQ9 as payment. It will be emailed to the contributor as a pdf file.

ALL SUBMISSIONS should be emailed to: thetorontoquarterly@hotmail.com

SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS: APRIL 30, 2012.

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Toronto Poets 5 Questions Series - Elana Wolff

2012-01-06T13:42:00.007-05:00

Elana Wolff is a highly accomplished poet who divides her time between writing, editing, and therapeutic art. She has published five collections of poetry with Guernica Editions: Birdheart (2001), Mask (2003), You Speak to Me in Trees (2006), Slow Dancing: Creativity and Illness: Duologue and Rengas (2008), and Startled Night (2011). Her third collection You Speak to Me in Trees, was awarded the 2008 F.G. Bressani Prize for Poetry. She has taught English as a Second Language at York University in Toronto and at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Wolff’s latest collection Startled Night has been lauded as an integration of art, image, and word, combined with the mysterious energy of the dark shadow that lingers in all of us, unexplained, and often times misunderstood. Wolff writes of a need to reconcile the most acceptable aspects of our personality with the parts that we consciously or subconsciously try to hide. Her poetry reeks of irony, twisted surprises, and unexpected truths, giving credence to the fact that Startled Night is worthy of some attention. Many of the poems in Startled Night have appeared in numerous literary journals including The Antigonish Review, Canadian Literature, Carousel, Contemporary Verse 2, Existere, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, The Nashwaak Review, Other Voices, The Paterson Literary Review, Lichen Arts & Letters Preview, Taddle Creek Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly, Vallum, The Windsor Review, Dream Catcher, and FreeFall Magazine.

FISHING WITH DEAN BARLOW

We went down to the zipperlip
with our one, two, three little wishes –
hooks, lines, sacrifices

and summer-solstice time.
Sat there at the water’s edge
and waited for the fish. I didn’t know

how little a boy could have to say,
but his fingers were pretty nimble
and he hooked the bait for us both.

I felt his breath; it stunk of mud.
At least it seemed to be his breath –
could have been the water-hole,

earthworms, or the bucket.
From the side of my eye, I saw
the sketchy freckles on his nose –

blurred to watery blots.
Not like mine – all separate
and peppery. His arms

and legs were skinny-long,
soft blonde hair on his shins.
I saw this, too, from the side of my eye;

looked askance at my own shin hair
and wanted madly to hide it;
tucked my legs beneath me, making it

hard to hold the pole. Dragonflies
skimmed the water, shimmering pink
and evening-blue – so beautifully I forgot

my legs, our freckles, and the stench.
And in the tug of a simultaneous catch,
the bone of our strangeness broke.

*Note – Fishing With Dean Barlow was published in Contemporary Verse 2.

AUBADE

A woman went for a walk at dawn and came
to an iron bridge – high, yet in the river
below the sky appeared
so close. As if she could have

stooped and touched its hue. By the river
stood a wood of densely-fretted firs.
For years she’d longed
to fall, be caught.

How beckoning, she thought,
and off she leapt.
The branches broke
her fall. Winded,

she returned to earth.
Not a soul had seen the leap,
nor the ragged landing.
She met a man with a camera

on the path back into the city.
You’re wearing fir, he laughed
and asked if he could take her picture.
Sun arose, prodigiously,

and rinsed the heavens red -
he fell to his knees instead:
How would we stop from bowing
down, if the sky were always this vermillion.

*Note – Aubade was also published in The Paterson Literary Review.

TTQ – Your latest collection of poetry, Startled Night (Guernica Editions, 2011), has been described as integrating the shadow, of coming into personhood and love—through the process of encounter and crisis; also through the chiaroscuro of art, image, and word. How difficult was it for you personally to fully identify your own shadow and then integrate it into your new collection of poems? Was writing this book a kind of self-indulgent journey into trying to discover more about your own darker self and to what degree did that journey change you as a writer?

Elana Wolff - Well, you’ve quoted part of the blurb on the back cover of my book and followed up with three questions. So I’ll address the partial quote first. I’d like to add, to be more precise, that the poems in Startled Night “plumb the work of integrating the shadow.” As such, they represent part of a process—they are markers on a way, if you will. They are not meant to indicate the way, nor are they representations of a completion. Most of the pieces in the collection were written during a long period of upheaval. I was forced to take a sabbatical from teaching at York University, for medical reasons, and then led by unexpected beckoning to embark upon a course of training in therapeutic art and biography that lasted for six years. I never did return to York, but instead turned to writing, editing, mentoring, and working as a therapeutic community-art designer and facilitator. Writing poetry accompanied me along the way, but not till the latter part of 2010 did I start to think of the accumulating pieces as comprising a book. So to answer your first and second questions: No, I did not set out on a journey led by an idea of “trying to discover my darker self” and “then integrate it into a new collection of poems.” There was no advance idea; the description of the expedition arose inductively out of the work. And more than “indulging” the shadow, I’ve tended to resist it—in various calculating ways. So at no point in my poems do I “identify [my] shadow.” Artist Paul Klee wrote that “all art is memory of our dark origins.” This statement resonates with me deeply. There is no way to create what does not involve self; there is no creation that is fully impersonal, and no creation that is totally light-filled. We are all creatures born to-and-of creativity, out of the dark and into the dark-and-light. This is a universal condition. And our lives are continuously dealing us materials—desolating and otherwise. I take both, the dark and the light, and blend, dramatize, and juxtapose. So there are ‘sendup pieces’ in Startled Night, like “Two in Raluca’s Waiting Room,” (first published in The Toronto Quarterly)—a glosa that pokes fun at the double, and “What Becomes of Us”—a piece written in the manner of a Robert Pinsky poem that comically recounts a double-suicide; plus several other ‘imaginary disaster pieces’, alongside lyrical and incantatory poems, ‘documentary’ art poems, skewed narratives, and dream sequences. So to answer your third question, To what degree has this journey changed me as a writer, I would say that it has opened my stylistic scope and deepened my concern for the integrity of personhood, as well as for the role of art in the relationship between Self and Other in community. American poet Louise Glück, whose work has long been a beacon and standard for me, has spoken of “art in the service of spirit.” This is a beautiful idea, and through continuing shadow-work in visual art and writing I’m seeing how this idea lives in the world.

TTQ – George Elliot Clarke has written this about you: "Wolff's work recalls that of U.S. poet Marianne Moore. There are the plotted indents and line-lengths, the same detonating denotations." How plotted and painstaking is your deciding on the structure, rhythm, and context in which you write each poem and is there a particular poet that has inspired you and your style of writing?

Elana Wolff – I do labour over my poems. I have a sense of making them—of attending to sound, syllable, metre, line breaks and white space, as much as to semantics. I’m an inveterate reviser too—as you have an inkling of: I requested a word-substitution—“littoral”—to the poem “Red, White, Black and Blue” (included in Startled Night) after you’d accepted it for publication in The Toronto Quarterly. Thankfully, you honoured my request. (“It was shallow at the littoral, as physical / as skin.”)

Having said this, however, elements of ‘magic’ and ‘randomness’ have lately been feeding more and more into my writing process. Sometimes an image or line or part of a poem will ‘come’ to me, as if out of reverie. Or sometimes I’ll misread a line of another person’s poem and I’ll have an unexpected ‘gift-line’ of my own. Recently I read two exquisite collections—one, titled Carapace (Palimpsest Press, 2011), by an old York U. colleague and early poetry mentor, Laura Lush, whom I happened to be reading with at P.K. Page tribute event. I’ve always loved Laura’s work and this new collection, her first in many years, inspired me to write a sequence of intuitive ‘response poems’. I’ve never written this way before—spontaneously, quickly, completely associatively. None of the old labour pains. The other exquisite collection, of a completely different aesthetic, is Groundwork (Biblioasis, 2011), by Amanda Jernigan. I met Amanda at a LiT LiVe reading in Hamilton. She’d come to hear me read my suite of poems, “Meridian,” which won the 2011 GritLit Award for Poetry. She, Gary Barwin and Chris Pannell had been the judges. As a token of gratitude and appreciation, I gifted her a copy of Startled Night. She, in turn, sent me a copy of her new volume. Groundwork is Amanda’s first collection, but with this book she’s arrived fully-formed, shimmering, and mythical.

TTQ – When do you know that you have written a poem that is worthy of publication?

Elana Wolff - I’m fortunate to be part of a longstanding writing group, the Long Dash group. We meet weekly, as schedules permit, to read each other our poems, offer comradeship, conversation, and fair and honest criticism. We’re all very individual in our styles and approaches, yet there’s a great synergy, and trust among us, and we take each other’s feedback seriously. I think it’s important to get peer feedback. If my peers appreciate a poem, I have no qualms about submitting it for consideration for publication. However, just because a poem gets published in a journal does not, for me, mean that it’s ‘worthy’ of inclusion in a collection of my own. I’ve had many poems published in anthologies, papers, and magazines that I’ve not included in my collections. The reviser and editor in me is fairly relentless, and what worked for me at one time and for one context doesn’t necessarily work at another time in a different context.

TTQ – How much has your experience as an editor for other writer's poetry collections helped or hindered you in becoming a better poet yourself, and how difficult was it for you in accepting criticism and feedback from your editor for Startled Night, Michael Mirolla?

Elana Wolff – Editing other people’s work has been hugely important for me. Apart from keeping me deeply connected and committed to the writing community, it forces me to constantly sharpen my reading and interpersonal skills, and has provided fuel for writing and life. Most of my editing experiences have been gratifying, even when they’ve been challenging. I’ve had a few clearly unpleasant experiences, but I can’t say that these have hindered me personally or professionally. They’re part of the learning curve. As far as the editing of Startled Night is concerned, I had two editors—fitting for a book that deals with the double. Antonio D’Alfonso (Guernica’s founder) was my first reader. In addition to making insightful overall comments, he gave helpful recommendations regarding the ordering of the pieces and suggested the title, drawn from the poem “Art Sometimes Makes Me Vague” (in which an alter ego makes an appearance). Michael Mirolla, who gets the editing credit, read my manuscript with great care and precision, challenged me on a number of passages, word choices, and asked that I remove a poem, which I did. He took issue, for example, with my use of the word “dragonfly” in two separate poems. He felt that the word could be ‘safely’ used in one poem only and that if I retained it in two poems, readers would think that I simply couldn’t come up with an alternate word. My first instinct was to resist, but I didn’t. And thanks to my colleague, John Oughton, with whom I shared this anecdote, I have “dragonfly” in one poem (“Fishing With Dean Barlow”) and its relative, the “damselfly,” in another (“Parker’s Point”). Michael also requested that I ‘lose’ the word “earnest” from a line in the poem “Re: Collage, Searching for a Name Thereof.” He felt that word was simply too “earnest” in this context. Here, too, I relented, and substituted “frank” for “earnest”—even though the “earnest” version of the poem had been published in The Fiddlehead. So what was acceptable to one editor was not acceptable to another. These are little things, really, but they are the stuff that editing is made of. And I have to say that I’m deeply grateful for readers like Antonio and Michael, who’ve made me stand up for what I’ve written, and have pushed me to know my work, and polish it.

TTQ – What is your opinion of the current poetry scene in Toronto and what would you suggest be done to get more people reading and/or writing poetry?

Elana Wolff – Toronto has a very vibrant poetry scene. There are cliques, to be sure. But this is inevitable. I laud the organizers of reading series like The Art Bar, Livewords, Hot-Sauced Words, Open Stage, Plasticine, Draft, and others, who devote their time and energy to openly promoting established and emerging poets of all ‘inflections’. The best way to get the word ‘out there’ is to read it and have it heard. The best way to be a better writer is to be a better reader.

*Note - Book cover artwork by Michael Abraham.

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Toronto Poets 5 Questions Series - Rob Rolfe

2011-12-22T13:27:00.003-05:00

Rob Rolfe was born in London, Ontario. He was a trade union leader and librarian for many years. He now divides his time between Toronto and Wiarton. Saugeen (Quattro Books, 2011) is his most recent book of poetry. He has also published The Hawk (Quattro Books, 2008), and two poetry chapbooks with LyricalMyrical press. His poems have appeared in The Fiddlehead, Grain, Windsor Review, Our Times and many other Canadian publications.

Rolfe’s poetry explores themes of nature, work, aboriginal history and struggles for social justice throughout the Americas. Saugeen reads like a road trip, beginning in the former Saugeen Tarritory in Ontario, and then extending to other parts of Canada and the Americas. These are deeply personal poems linking present conditions to the historical past, and moving backward and forward in time. The book best reflects the author’s belief in the dignity of work, the sanctity of nature and the fight for social justice.

The Pacific Hotel

This is the Sauking, though most still call it the Bruce,
ignorant of the peninsula’s long history. We are sitting at
a small table in Wiarton at the Pacific Hotel. I am eating
a sandwich and drinking beer. At the bar are several of the
town regulars, but not one person from the reserve. The
bar is fancier now, but it’s still thick with smoke, as if
nothing has changed.

The last time I saw her was at this same hotel. I’d just run
down the hill with my sisters and friends, to grab a quick
beer, minutes before the wedding at the top of the hill. The
room was packed, and loud with laughter, a real Saturday
crowd. At a nearby table, looking very old, sat Charlotte
Solomon. I gazed at her, but she didn’t recognize me.

Woodstock

at six
every morning
it begins

you give in
and go in
to the smoke

the gray ash
the heat
of the foundry

you give up
your life
for eight hours

too tired
to talk when
it’s over

TTQ - Your past vocations have been quite diverse and unrelated to one another, from being a trade union leader and then a librarian. What are the similarities between the two and to what degree have these experiences influenced you as a poet, and were you writing poetry throughout your working years and at what point did you decide to take it more seriously?

Rob Rolfe - I was a librarian in the North York and Toronto Public Library systems and a trade union leader for almost 30 years. These are people-centred careers, and my writing is primarily about people and places. I did a lot of writing in my union work. Writing for blue collar workers especially, who demand you get to the point right away, was very good training for the type of poetry I write. I began writing poetry, and occasionally publishing in journals, in the 1970s. I continued to write throughout my working life. I credit my friends at Quattro Books for publishing The Hawk and Saugeen, and for giving me the opportunity to have my work more widely read.

TTQ - Your latest collection of poetry Saugeen (Quattro Books, 2011) has been described as reading like a road trip. What was the genesis of the book and how personal are these poems to you? Would you best describe the writing of Saugeen as a cathartic experience for you in many ways?

Rob Rolfe - The genesis of Saugeen is in my belief that the recorded history of this region of Ontario is incomplete. It omits many uncomfortable secrets, and it portrays a one-sided history of events. I wanted to use the idea of a road-trip to explore, with fresh eyes, familiar places, the beauty of the natural landscape, people I’ve known and my own life. In this sense, yes, the poems are quite personal, though I try to write in an accessible style that will invite readers to bring their own experiences to the poems.

TTQ - What particular message or ideal were you most hoping to convey to readers through the poems contained in Saugeen and how helpful is any feedback you receive from reading your new poems first in front of a live audience?

Rob Rolfe - I wanted to write about the difficult and often overlooked lives of working people, whose lives and social institutions, such as trade unions, are undervalued in our society. Another difficult theme I wanted to explore in Saugeen is what an artist friend of mine from Israel describes as the “guilt” that comes with possessing land that once belonged to others. The Saugeen Territory, as it was once known, was the traditional homeland of the Saugeen Ojibwa before the arrival in Upper Canada of tens of thousands of European settlers. The first six short poems at the start of Saugeen were written in a newer style for me. I began reading them to live audiences shortly after they were written. The audience response, along with useful feedback from friends, helped me to find a voice and a shape for this book as a whole.

TTQ - Do you write poetry daily and what does your writing process consist of, and when do you know that you've written a good poem?

Rob Rolfe - I carry my writing with me constantly, scribbling ideas into notebooks, searching for poems inside my head. I write mainly very short poems, so I don’t need to sit at a desk to compose. Eventually, though, I do use a computer for the difficult stage of building or constructing a poem from an initial image, thought or observation. A good poem for me is one that reads well and has a flow, a rhythm, and usually a visual image. It must be truthful to my own life experience. For me, such poems don’t come easily, and require hard work and persistence to avoid that sometimes fatal desire to finish a poem prematurely.

TTQ - What are your opinions on the recent Occupy Toronto and Occupy Wall Street protests that were happening in many prominent cities worldwide? Do you think the message of Occupy protesters was muddled in many ways or was their message for you loud and clear in your opinion, and to what degree do you think poetry could have enhanced or influenced the Occupy manifesto?

Rob Rolfe - The Occupy protests are a work-in-progress, but I think they have struck a chord with many, mainly because they tap into a widely-held belief that our economic system is in crisis, and that the concentration of vast wealth and power in the hands of big business, banks, the IMF (the so-called “1%”) is at the root of this problem. These protests are part of a worldwide movement in search of democratic and progressive social change. There has always been a place for artists and poets in this struggle. African-American and Latin American poets like Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Cesar Vallejo and Pablo Neruda are perfect examples. Similarly, many poets, artists and singers of modern Quebec (Gaston Miron, Jacques Ferron, Gilles Vigneault, Pauline Julien) played an important role in the shaping of a more dynamic and progressive modern society from a colonial past.

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Toronto Poets 5 Questions Series - Lisa Young

2011-12-15T14:50:00.000-05:00

Lisa Young is a poet and experimental writer residing in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Jones Av., Misunderstandings Magazine, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, and Rampike Magazine. She is the former fiction editor and senior poetry editor for Existere: Journal of Arts and Literature. She recently joined the Quattro Presents WordStage Reading Series Team and will be co-hosting events every other month. She also belongs to the Plasticine Poetry Collective and Moosemeat as well as a few other long-standing writing groups in Toronto.

Lisa’s debut collection of poetry When the Earth was published by Quattro Books in the fall of 2011. Her poems are laced with an overlapping nature theme that interweaves comparisons to the wonderment and innocence of childhood. She challenges the reader to give serious thought to the immensity of natures dynamic and its lingering effect on their own mortality, the nature of self. She encourages us to drop our guard and look at the outside world as no longer being the enemy.

For more information, visit Lisa at her blog.

In My Brother’s Room

In my brother’s room,
blue-green walls, a glade,

or an underworld
where seaweed never tangled.

Crumbling caverns
of books,

a turtle with a felt shell,
a stone in the shape of a man.

Behind the door,
a chemistry set.

In the days before we grew out
of our rooms and stopped,

we drew figure eights overlapping each other
and coloured the new shapes in.

TTQ - How would you best describe the poems contained in your debut collection of poetry When the Earth (Quattro Books, 2011)? Is there a particular theme or message you were trying to convey to readers?

Lisa Young - Many of the poems in the collection might be what you call nature poems. Nature poems perhaps have a bad reputation, but if you look at the kinds of poems someone like Jane Hirshfield writes, you see that nature is a great teacher in terms of showing us the forces we’re up against.

Nature is both frightening and comforting and I try to portray it as such. In some cases, the poems are meant to point toward a more inspirational way of living – in an attempt to honour those times when I do have more clarity than I might regularly have access to.

Some of my poems could be described as meditative – using the everyday to express inner experiences. I write for many reasons, but the one reason that is always forefront in my mind, is that my whole life is going by and I want to reclaim and value those fleeting moments in poems.

Some of my poems, oddly, take place in the kitchen. Chores somehow inspire poetry. Who knew?

In the poem, “The Way of Yellow” there’s a reference to castle walls. Just thinking about it now, perhaps the collection is about bringing down these walls – where one no longer has to consider the world “out there” as the enemy. I’m in question about life – and I suppose that’s also the message I want to impart – to stay in question about ourselves and the world around us. Childhood wonder and the reclaiming of it, is definitely a theme of the collection.

TTQ - How difficult was the editing process for you and deciding which poems would be included in When the Earth? Who helped you with editing the book and what was that experience like?

Lisa Young - In terms of which poems to include, it really was a very organic process. Some poems, over time, politely admitted defeat and left gracefully. Allan Briesmaster was my editor. While he would give certain suggestions, it was entirely up to me how to improve a poem. When we were both happy with what was on the page, the poem was “ready.”

Mind you, there was a whole section that was immediately put up on the chopping block as soon as my manuscript was accepted. It was a section entitled, “Fairies and Fantasy.” It was a fairly weak section, so when Allan suggested we leave it out, I immediately saw that he was right, although, I did save at least one poem from that section.

It was a relief to have such a seasoned editor help me with the book. I trusted his instincts completely. I did have some resistance to going back and editing certain poems, just because of the sheer work involved. In some cases, I could make simple changes to improve a poem, but some needed major renovations. Allan provided a fresh perspective with his editing suggestions – so that gave me the extra boost of energy I needed to go back in and have another look. I definitely stretched my capabilities to the limit.

TTQ - How would you best describe your writing process? Do you find yourself writing poetry on a daily basis or only when inspired? What works best for you?

Lisa Young - I do have a system that works for me. The main function of this “system” is to ensure that month after month, I’m writing on a consistent basis. I have batches of rough drafts of poems to work on. I generate my material at writing retreats which I attend about four times a year.

My monthly poetry feedback group requires that we bring two of our poems to be critiqued. So I always have two poems I’m working on for the next critique session.

I also attend one day workshops at least three times a year. And I have a monthly poetry writing group where we write for 45 minutes straight. In that group, we write early in the morning. To start, I might just describe what I see – or pursue certain ideas or images that have bubbled up that morning. Sometimes I wait for something to come to me, but you can’t wait too long because you only have 45 minutes to write. Reading poetry aloud before we begin writing also generates a certain rich, creative energy.

I try to put myself under conditions where inspiration may come. It rarely comes on its own without some preparation or prodding.

TTQ - What turns you on creatively, spiritually and emotionally?

Lisa Young - I love clouds. It’s a good day if I can sit with a pad and pen in hand and write about the clouds I see rolling by. I’m interested in ideas – particularly around creativity. What do you dive into and what do you leave behind?

Reading aloud definitely creates a certain cozy, but exciting atmosphere. I like coming across foods I’ve never heard of or tasted before. Silence inspires me. A quiet Saturday morning – the wind brushing up against the windows. Exploring what it means to be human – asking questions and trying to find ways around my own resistance.

I like the excitement of a monthly reading series. The creative mish-mash of people and readings, and the way you have to talk loudly just to hear yourself.

Music can wake my whole body up. Piano, bassoon, flute. Music is one of those mysterious elements or forces in life. I like those rare, blessed moments when I experience a clear mind and a light heart.

TTQ - What is your opinion of the poetry community in Toronto? Do you feel poets should play a bigger role and lend their voices to socio-political events like, for example Occupy Toronto?

Lisa Young - There must be thousands of niches known and unknown in the poetry community. Some of my favourite poets haven’t even been published or shared their work with the wider community. What makes a community? Camaraderie. Open mics introduce and welcome people into the poetry community. Blogs also help keep us in the loop and let us get to know each other a bit more.

There’s a lot of creative cooperation going on. A big crossover and blending of all types of poetry is especially alive and well at reading series.

I personally would love to see more poets sharing their poetry at socio-political events, on the street – anywhere and everywhere.

Are poets seen as dreamers? Or do we have something practical to contribute? Whether political arenas take poetry seriously or not – a bit of poetry can have a huge impact and in the bargain a few more voices are heard. Whether a poem is a call to action, a cry for justice, or a rant to clear the air – poetry always has a place, just as all the arts do – in helping us celebrate and understand ourselves and our lives. That’s a good thing!

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Ariana Gillis - Review of her new CD - Forget Me Not

2011-12-09T16:02:00.000-05:00

With the music industry desperately in need of a substantial shot in the arm, allow me to introduce you to, Ariana Gillis. She is a 21-year-old singer songwriter from Vineland, Ontario, who recently launched her second CD Forget Me Not.

Gillis possesses a unique voice that can best be described as fearless – an “original” musical talent in an ocean of bland and blander. She is a self-professed voracious reader with the innate ability to write songs that matter, her subjects ranging from personal despair, to creatures with healing powers, to celebrating freedom and mourning the state of the world we live in.

There have been the comparisons of her to the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, her sound is indeed rife with a traditional folk and rock beat that seems to suit her perfectly.

After listening to Forget Me Not, Bernie Taupin (Elton John’s lyricist) had this to say: “I’m staggered by how good she is. There is not much that impresses me these days, but after hearing her available tracks I can honestly say she’s the single most exciting thing I’ve heard in a very long time.”

Equipped with about 60 songs, Gillis spent four months of solid days recording and mixing the record with her father, David, who is also the producer, album designer, and guitarist. Their relationship is built on a deep mutual respect for one another that both agree has only enhanced their ability to make music together.

Gillis describes the recording sessions as painstaking and incredibly difficult, commenting that the songs ‘Dream Street’ and ‘Oh the World’ turned out to be the most difficult to produce. “I couldn’t tell you how many times we stripped down these songs and put them back together again. It was frustrating…but the end result feels so good that I’m glad we never gave up on them.”

The opening track on Forget Me Not is called ‘Money Money’ and is a song filled with sarcasm and is a playful shot at her father’s love of pretentious action movies, which Gillis plainly despises. The title track ‘Forget Me Not’ is next and suggests we reexamine societies past mistakes and is wrought with finger pointing and guilt.

Next is ’Dream Street’ a song of hope, and Gillis’ personal favourite on the record, “I am really happy with the way all the songs turned out. But, if I have to pick one favourite, I think it would be ‘Dream Street.’ I just never tire of listening to it or playing it.”

Listen to 'Dream Street' from Forget Me Not:

Gillis is very much an advocate for the protection of wild animal life and fully supports SaveJapanDolphins, and the next song ‘The Cove’ was written after she watched a documentary, of the same name, about the dolphin slaughter that happens annually in Taiji, Japan. She wrote the song for Ric O’Barry (SaveJapanDolphins) who she is a big supporter of and his mission to end the slaughter.

’John and the Monster’ is an extraordinary song about a young boy named, John, who has cancer and is cured by the monster, but at a cost. Gillis herself is puzzled by the song, “I actually have no idea where that song came from. It was purely inspiration running through me when I wrote it. Inspiration is a powerful thing. It never comes to me in the same way, but when it does, it just flows through me and on to the page. Usually, I’ll wake up the next morning and take a look at my lyrics. And about 9 out of 10 times I wonder how the heck I actually wrote them.”

The next track ‘Samuel Starr’ exposes listeners to Gillis’ humourous side and is based on a fictitious conversation between two dead guys, Samuel Starr and Joe Jasper. ‘Cannonball Sam’ is another wonderful narrative tale about a daring escape whereby the cabin boy slips Sam the key. ‘Snap Crack’ has a hypnotic beat and is laced with some superb guitar sounds. ‘Back on the Hill’ is a twisted love song and the final track ‘Oh the World’ leaves listeners with a sense of hope, optimism, and longing.

Listen to 'Oh the World' from Forget Me Not:

Gillis agrees that with her latest album they were determined to scale down the sound, “In the first CD To Make It Make Sense I didn’t know what direction I wanted so I was testing everything out. It’s just us now; we’re not trying to be anything. We wanted to make sure there is a lot of space on the album, say the most with the least amount of instruments possible. We wanted to sound like we do live.”

With that being said, Gillis had this to say about the possibilities of recording a live album, “I definitely think a live record will happen at some point. Even if it isn’t a live show recording, but just a live off the floor album with no overdubs or fixes. I really enjoy listening to those types of records because they feel real and sincere.”

Forget Me Not is a remarkable record by a remarkable singer songwriter. Ariana Gillis is definitely on the verge of becoming a huge star, it’s only a matter of when.

For more information about Ariana Gillis, tour dates, and details about how to purchase copies of Forget Me Not visit her website.

Ariana Gillis plays 'Samuel Starr' from Forget Me Not:

*Note - Photo #1 and #2 by Steven Elphick and Photo #3 by Kevin Molyneaux.

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Toronto Poets 5 Questions Series - Liz Worth

2011-12-01T12:05:00.004-05:00

Liz Worth’s debut collection of poetry Amphetamine Heart (Guernica Editions, 2011) offers readers a glimpse into a harsh and dysfunctional lifestyle that is orchestrated by a rather seedy party culture filled with drugs, booze, and lost days. The poems were written over a three year period, and depict a lifestyle of excess and decay. Worth’s poems provide few excuses for living such a haphazard existence, but they do illustrate, with an unabashed intensity, the stark realities of addiction. Her poetry has been best described as being a little bit punk, a little bit heavy metal and a lot personal.

Many of the poems from Amphetamine Heart first appeared in the following publications: Carousel, Chiron Review, ChiZine, ditch: poetry that matters, and The Toronto Quarterly.

Worth is also the author of the critically acclaimed non-fiction book Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto (ECW Press, 2010) which went into its second printing within a week of its release. Her first chapbook Eleven: Eleven (Trainwreck Press, 2008) was reviewed in Cherry Bleeds Literary Magazine, Venus Zine, Broken Pencil, and Lipstik Indie.

For more information, visit Liz Worth at her website and blog.

The Sequence of Equation

                                           i

Leeching, it slid under the membranes
of my scalp, left a slow cold sludge:
the coating of nausea.
I’ve been licking knives.
My skin should be in spirals.
Instead it’s only heavy,
hungover.
Hand to hair, give it a tug,
pull out the lethargy and escape the
soft confines of the sheets.
Scrape back the morning with
muted screams tattooed to lids of fire.
Gag and spit
before the emergence of contractions
across the pupils.

                                            ii

The gases of a dead dream are composed of
this embryonic equation:

(MAJOR Arcana) x 3 : (minor Arcana) = 9fits9fits9fits

They enter the skull through
cerebral hemorrhages, grow translucent legs
by the thousands, with dull amber eyes of diviners
that memorize labyrinthine dispersions.

Whether this is a state of being
is a debate that goes like this:
It’s tepid stress and leaves
a taste only for gall.
Neural din is
a solar perception,
the sundering of all points of corrosion.

                                               iii

Dream Sequence, Exhibit A.

Your mouth: an intestinal cavity.

                                                iv

Crippled, this innate filth
covers the permeable caffeine film, scars like stains
that make up the skeletal arsenal
of this cerebellum, which I
poke holes through those liquids
that glint like a dragon’s eye and tranquillize,
cauterize with organized inversions.
These arterial branches are
test patterns, the schema of adorning myself
with residual dissension,
charting this operation interlaced with symmetry.
The subconscious fights to abate.

                                                 v

Dream Sequence, Exhibit B.

This is the pressure of what’s inside.

*Note – The Sequence of Equation is from Amphetamine Heart.

TTQ - When did you decide that you wanted to write poetry, and who were some of your early influences and/or mentors along the way?

Liz Worth - I first decided I wanted to write poetry when I was 13. Even though it took years of practice before I understood the difference between good poetry and bad poetry, I was fairly serious about writing even back then. I’d been taking guitar lessons for a while, but my interest in writing was starting to compete with my interest in music. Eventually, I realized I had to make a decision and just give myself over to one of them, so I chose writing.
     Edgar Allan Poe was an early influence, and so was Gwendolyn MacEwan, particularly for her book Magic Animals. I was also very influenced by music, and would study lyrics. I loved the strange images in Nirvana’s songs, and the daring statements that goth icon Rozz Williams declared in both his music and his spoken word recordings.
     Even now, when I look back at the poetry I wrote throughout my teens, I find it pretty immature. I was lucky that others around me recognized some kind of potential. Even though I was often the youngest person in the room, I was welcomed at open mic nights and they encouraged me to get up and read. I also had an English teacher, Mr. Smart, who I think was the first person whose encouragement to write I took seriously. He wrote a comment on an assignment one day that said I should consider pursuing writing. I still have that piece of paper.
     Later in high school, I did an internship at an experimental music magazine and became friends with the editor, Marisa Iacobucci. I had a poetry zine at the time and brought it in to show her at my interview. I lacked a lot of confidence in myself when I was a teenager and when I met her, I slowly started to get the sense that I could actually do more than I thought I could. Marisa had a huge role in that.

TTQ - Your debut collection of poetry Amphetamine Heart illustrates an uncomfortable and quite dysfunctional existence that is filled with boozecans, punk and heavy metal music scenarios, mixed in with what seem like hallucinations or dream sequences. How autobiographical are these poems, and to what extent was writing the book a cathartic experience for you?

Liz Worth - These poems are quite personal. In my early 20’s I did spend a lot of time drinking, and sometimes it was fun, and sometimes it wasn’t so fun. When it wasn’t fun it was usually because things had gone too far. I wouldn’t always know when I should go home. I wouldn’t always want to. I’d want one more drink and so I’d go find it, and sometimes other things found me. Or sometimes the night would get so late and out of hand and the next day my body would really feel it. Waking up at three in the afternoon shaking and not being able to remember much of the night before is not fun.
     I came to a point where I was frustrated by how I was making myself feel and I had to figure out why I was pursuing certain things with such commitment when they always seemed to bring me to a dark place. I eventually realized a part of me wanted to die. I was drinking with the hopes of dying.
     But even after I figured that out, and after I levelled out and stopped binge drinking to such an extent I still slid back into it, in a different way. In my mid-20’s I started to have a lot of trouble sleeping and so I started drinking at night to wind down, and then I would take sleeping pills, too.
     If the poems in Amphetamine Heart feel uncomfortable, it’s because I wanted them to be. I wanted them to mirror how I was feeling physically through some of these times. My body was rundown, and my body disgusted me. It was tired. I was tired.
    There are hallucinations and dream sequences throughout the book because those things also played a large role on how I felt. I’ve always had dreams. They make me tired sometimes, too. Insomnia was such a major factor in my life during the three years I was writing the poems in Amphetamine Heart that it was inevitable dreams and other sleep themes would make their way in there. I used to also get very paranoid at night, and imagine that things were in my apartment. Some of them made their way into these poems, too.
     I wasn’t necessarily looking for catharsis as I was writing these pieces, but since finishing the book I have felt differently towards a lot of the experiences and subjects in Amphetamine Heart. I don’t feel the need to talk about them or explore them as much now, so maybe I do have a sense that I’ve moved on, although I don’t know if any experience is ever completely behind me. It’s still shaped me, but it doesn’t drive me.

TTQ - What primary message do you hope readers will take away with them after reading Amphetamine Heart, and do you think by writing the book it's changed you into the kind of person you would ultimately like to be?

Liz Worth - I would hope that readers connect with the book in whatever way feels right to them. While I can explain how my own experiences are reflected in the poems, someone else may see something completely different in them. I wouldn’t want my own story to be the only one that can be found here.
Did writing this book change me? I think it’s too soon to say. Before I wrote Amphetamine Heart I’d been doing a lot of music writing, which involved a lot of researching and interviewing. When I finished that book I really felt the need to go in a more creative direction, and so I went back to poetry. Making that commitment on its own changed me, and I think it did bring me somewhere closer to the person I would like to be. It helped me get back into spoken word nights and pushed me to get out to more literary events, and to think in a more creative way.

TTQ - Your first non-fiction book Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond was quite well received and went into its second printing with in a week of its release. Give us an overview of that book and talk about how the book came about and what the experience was like in writing it?

Liz Worth - Yes, Treat Me Like Dirt has a life of its own, which is great. It’s actually been reissued by ECW in a fourth printing. That book takes a look at Toronto punk’s first wave and includes bands like the Viletones, Diodes, Teenage Head, Curse, the Ugly and more. It’s an oral history format so all of the stories are told directly by people from that scene, including the bands, fans, girlfriends, club promoters, and friends.
      I’ve often said that working on Treat Me Like Dirt was both the easiest and hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was easy because I really wanted to do it and once I got started a lot of things just fell into place. One interview led into another into another and so on. But it was also hard because, while I met a lot of amazing people and had a lot of fun, I also met a lot of difficult people and often had to justify why I was doing what I was doing, or just put up with a lot of their over-inflated egos. That can be pretty draining.
      It was a lot of work. I not only did all the interviews but also all the transcribing myself, which takes hours. I didn’t know back then that you can hire someone to transcribe your tapes. It was all so overwhelming and there would be times when I would worry about whether I could even pull it off, but I was so far in that I knew quitting wasn’t an option.
      I’m glad I did it but if I’d known how emotional it would be I think I would have been more careful with my feelings.

TTQ - What are your opinions on the recent Occupy Toronto and Occupy Wall Street protests that were happening in many prominent cities worldwide? Do you think the message of Occupy protestors was muddled in many ways or was their message loud and clear in your opinion, and to what degree do you think poetry could have enhanced or influenced the Occupy manifesto?

Liz Worth - The Occupy protests were an interesting news story, but I’m not convinced they will influence as much change as the protesters would like to see. That’s not meant as a critique on the movement, as people obviously put a lot of their time into these protests, but I am just not sure what the outcome will be. I don’t consider myself to be an overly political person because I never feel like I know enough. Even if I read everything I could about Occupy or any other political issue I would always question whether I had all the facts, and so unless I am confident that I am fully informed it’s hard for me to make an opinion.
    Could poetry have influenced Occupy? That’s an interesting question. Protestors are kind of like spoken word artists on their own, aren’t they? They get out there, say their chants or their rhymes, and hope to be heard. If poetry were to enhance or influence Occupy, I think it would have to come with its own megaphone.

*Note – Photo of Liz Worth by Don Pyle.

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4Front: new works by Lorette C. Luzajic, Winnie Allingham, and Alexander Nieczyporowski (Art Exhibit - December 4th at 7pm at the Wayla Lounge)

2011-11-22T17:36:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,

Please join artist/writer/poet extraordinaire Lorette C. Luzajic on December 4th at the Wayla Lounge in downtown Toronto (Queen and Leslie). The festivities will begin at 7pm. She will be exhibiting an all-new series of abstract compositions that she has been working on this year. She is very excited to show her latest collection of paintings and looks forward to seeing her old friends and colleagues for a fabulous evening of art.

Lorette will be showing her artwork with two other artists, whose wildly disparate sensibilities should make for a unique and interesting exhibit. Winnie Allinghman works in a classical style, and will be showing exquisite wildlife scenes. Alexander Nieczyporowski is a one-of-a-kind character who collects unusual objects. These objects inspire his work, the details of which are being kept under wraps until the showing.

Please stop by for a martini and enjoy the hidden treasure at: 996 Queen Street East at Carlaw.

4Front: new works by Lorette C. Luzajic, Winnie Allingham, and Alexander Nieczyporowski
Wayla Lounge at 996 Queen Street East, near Carlaw
Sunday December 4 at 7 pm
All are welcome- please bring your friends and any art lovers you know!

Please visit Lorette at her website.

*Note - Photo of painting by Lorette C. Luzajic - The Sound of Silence.

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Hockey’s Original 6 by Mike Leonetti (Greystone Books, 2011) - Book Review

2011-11-14T20:04:00.002-05:00

Many hockey purists will argue that the glory days of hockey existed between 1942 and 1967, a period that was named the “Golden Era” of hockey, whereby, each season, six teams battled for on-ice supremacy and the right to hold the Stanley Cup aloft come the middle-of-May.

It can also be said that today’s NHL players are faster, stronger, and a lot richer than their predecessors of the original six NHL, but then again most genres of culture have suffered considerable change over time. Prolific hockey writer and historian Mike Leonetti best illustrates this point and the not-so-subtle changes to the NHL game in his latest hockey book, Hockey's Original 6 (Greystone Books, 2011). Leonetti writes, “In 1957, the NHL players tried to unionize – with great trepidation – but were not able to start their association until the league doubled in size ten years later. There was never any talk of lockouts or strikes, and hockey fans never even heard the term “free agent.” He continues, “the “Golden Era” of hockey was a much simpler, uncomplicated, purer age.”

Leonetti’s point is not to be misconstrued as being anti-union or unsympathetic to the mistreatment suffered by most NHL stars of the “Golden Era.” Their grievances with management would prove to be well founded, but at the same time hockey was being played in its purist and most illustrious form. It was all about what happened on the ice back in the original six. Hockey Night in Canada was an institution and an event not to be missed on any Saturday night.

Hockey’s Original 6 celebrates the greatest players that played in the original six NHL - Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Terry Sawchuk, Dave Keon, Tim Horton, and Jean Béliveau to name just a few. Béliveau also writes a personal and insightful forward to the book, sharing his thoughts and views on his career with the Montreal Canadiens and the state of the game today.

Along with two informative essays from Leonetti, there are more than 100 photographs throughout the book from the legendary Harold Barkley Archives. Barkley’s photographs prove without a shadow of doubt that he was one of the most innovative hockey photographers in history. Throughout his career, Barkley’s photographs have appeared in prestigious magazines like, Hockey Illustrated, Sports Illustrated, Star Weekly, and The Star.

Barkley’s visit with a Swedish engineer resulted in his pioneering the usage of a strobe lighting system, designed to offset the poor lighting of NHL arenas, and better highlight, for one split second, the areas of the ice that Barkley wanted to photograph. The results were remarkable. His images were captured with incredible sharpness, detail, and light. To best describe Barkley’s talent, Leonetti writes, “The word “photography” means, literally, writing with light. If that is the case, we can say that Barkley wrote poetry.”

With the holidays fast approaching Hockey’s Original 6 would make the perfect gift for hockey fans, history buffs, and art collectors.

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The Toronto Quarterly - Issue Eight!!!

2011-11-01T12:40:00.000-04:00

The Toronto Quarterly - Issue Eight has arrived! We have interviews with poet/novelist Jim Nason The Girl on the Escalator, novelist Beverly Akerman The Meaning of Children, and musician Ariana Gillis To Make It Make Sense. We also have poetry from the likes of Ian Burgham, Ruth Roach Pierson, Jeanpaul Ferro, Karen Shenfeld, Michael Tyrell, Kath MacLean, Max Layton and short stories from Ava Homa, Joe Rosenblatt, Daniel Scott Tysdal to name just a few. The artwork of New York City-artist Lisa G. Bauer graces the cover. We also have a plethora of book recommendations for you to consider.

TTQ8 is ONLY available for purchase (online) through lulu.com. To order a copy now, simply click on either the ebook or print version links below.

TTQ8 (ebook) $3

TTQ8 (print) $7 plus shipping.

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Carleton Stone @ The Dakota Tavern - Thursday, September 29th - reviewed by Caitlin Galway

2011-10-05T13:55:00.000-04:00

East Coaster Carleton Stone hit The Big Smoke this past Thursday, promoting the new release of his self-titled (and Hawksley Workman produced, might I add) album at one of Toronto's most wonderfully earthy 'dive bars', The Dakota Tavern. Separating himself from Cape Breton traditionalism, known more for fiddle-fueled folk than country-twang, the genre-pliant collection boasts a mixture of alt-rock-country, plainspoken balladry, and the playfully poppish. The result is eleven tracks of effortlessly blue-collar-and-jeans melodies, and sharp, kicking hooks.

Equipped with the apropos backdrop of the tavern's rusty cowboy-camp, Stone lived up to his reputation for highly charged, personalized performances. Chalk it up to confident stage presence, strong pipes, and solid musicianship (thumbs-up for the pedal steel). Without needing to overload the songs in instrumental cosmetics, the band delivered a reverberating, expansive sound throughout, while Stone exhausted his vocals in such a way that tousled up any minimalist polish.

Favourite picks include 'Strong Medicine', 'Last Thing', and 'Dominoes' - and I also recommend checking out some oldies-but-goodies by the then-named Carleton Stone and the Big Wheel ('Kickdrums' is simply terrific).

Carleton Stone - Last Thing (LIVE)

Photo credit to Mat Dunlap.

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TTQ8 - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS (THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2011)

2011-08-10T15:37:00.000-04:00

Send us your BEST poetry (4-6 poems), short stories (1-2 stories max, 500-3000 words), artwork, and photographs. We prefer that you copy and paste your poetry into the body of your email or send as ONE attachment in word.doc format. Send ALL short story submissions as a word doc. attachment. Any poetry or short story submissions sent as multiple attachments or not in word.doc will NOT be read. DO NOT submit your work as a docx file. It will NOT be read.

If you have a novel/poetry book, a poetry/music cd or dvd that you're interested in having us review, please email us your query to thetorontoquarterly@hotmail.com with REVIEW REQUEST typed into the subject box. BOOK and MUSIC REVIEWS submitted will be considered for publication.

Send us your ARTWORK and PHOTOGRAPHY. Send in high resolution (jpeg file). We will consider all artwork submitted for the COVER of TTQ8.

ALL SUBMISSIONS should include a short biography (5-6 lines MAX) stating town/city you reside in, previous publishing accomplishments, educational background if so desired. Please DO NOT send us a novel about yourself. Make it interesting and promote your books and/or webpages if desired.

PLEASE: ONE submission per issue. Multiple submissions will NOT be read. Be sure to send us your BEST work the first time or wait until the following issue to submit again.

We DO NOT publish previously published works.

PLEASE NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS

ALL RIGHTS and COPYRIGHT upon publication in TTQ8 remains with the author.

PAYMENT: Each contributor to TTQ8 will receive a FREE e-book of TTQ8 as payment. It will be emailed to the contributor as a pdf file.

ALL SUBMISSIONS should be emailed to: thetorontoquarterly@hotmail.com

SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS: MONDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 2011.

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You Think You Know Me, But You Have No Idea (July 19th @ Ben McNally Bookstore, Toronto, review by Jessie Travis)

2011-07-25T17:19:00.007-04:00

On a night thick with the humidity of late July, the air was made to feel denser by the stifling exhaust of downtown Toronto’s 6pm rush hour gridlock. Ben McNally Books (366 Bay Street, Toronto) was the venue for a refreshingly dry(-witted) evening of conversation and authorial banter, organised by Freehand Books, Canadian Bookshelf, and hosted by Book Madam herself, Julie Wilson. You Think You Know Me, But You Have No Idea was an evening devoted to the often sidelined art of non-fiction and memoir writing. On the evening’s docket was an illustrator, cartoonist, and writer, Sarah Leavitt, primatologist and freelance journalist, Andrew Westoll, and writer and magazine professional, Stacey May Fowles. Even though Fowles was unable to attend, the panel of speakers engaged the audience with frank and open dialogue about writing, craft, relationships, – both human and primate – and the role of the author in a nonfiction work.

Against the glow of the power point, Sarah Leavitt opened the evening with an intelligently warm and witty account of her latently released (September 2010) graphic novel, Tangles (Freehand Books, 2010). Derived from the notes and sketches taken during her mother’s Alzheimer’s, Leavitt’s series of distinctively hand-drawn, yet expertly crafted illustrations, weaves together the stories and memories of her mother’s mid-50’s diagnosis. As vivid frames flashed on the screen and Leavitt’s seemingly disembodied voice narrated the frames from the back of the room, what emerged was a complex and poignant story of mothers and daughters, sisters, friends, and lovers, and how these ties evolve through the challenges and celebrations of growing up.

From the tangled web of family relationships, the evening shifted focus to Andrew Westoll’s account of the chimpanzees of The Chimp House at the Fauna Foundation. Housing thirteen chimps in total, the Fauna Sanctuary provides refuge for abused animals from experimental medicine and entertainment industries. After spending two-and-a-half months in the sanctuary, Westoll cultivated not only a unique relationship with the population of the sanctuary but a newfound understanding of himself (self-discovery. It’s a beautiful thing). The result? Westoll’s sophomore novel, The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary (HarperCollins Canada, 2011). Even from the briefest of readings, one cannot deny the beauty, ease, and intensity of Westoll’s writing. Suspense-filled, plot-driven, and emotionally engaging, The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary has this loyal fiction reader venturing further into the rows of non-bookshelves across the city.

Though divergent in subjects, both Leavitt and Westoll found common ground on the topic of memoir writing in the conversation with Wilson following the readings. Westoll was the first to admit that while the non-fiction author does indeed enter into a project to tell the tale of another, there is an element of self-discovery and self-interest. Through the process of writing and editing the experience, the subject, the memories, an author discovers and unpacks what it was they were looking for when they began. Though the story of her mother’s Alzheimer’s, Tangles, for example, is just as much a story about Leavitt’s memory, her “hang-ups,” the mental and physical loss of a parent, and her sexual identification – as Leavitt states herself. Almost ringing in unison, with Wilson’s voice setting the tone, both authors agreed on the importance of making the non-fiction work read like a novel – or a “rollicking good read,” to borrow a phrase from Westoll.

Perhaps the only disappointing note in the evening was Wilson’s attempt to spark a conversation about Tangles queer subtext (Leavitt’s partner makes brief appearances in the graphic novel’s final cut). An aspect of the story that has been largely ignored by rest of the media, it continued to be sidelined in Tuesday’s event despite Wilson’s intelligently clever efforts to fuel the dialogue. Perhaps if Stacey May Fowles Fear of Fighting (Invisible Publishing, 2008) had herself been in attendance, the obviously rich and meaty topic would have received the proper air time that it very much deserved.

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WE FEW THEY MANY (The Toronto Fringe Festival Theatre - review by Heather Babcock)

2011-07-21T12:55:00.000-04:00

Fringe Festival play follows group of activists at G20 summit. From left to right (back to front) Tennille Read, Rebecca Perry, Anthony Gerbrandt, Andrew Young, Kat Edwards, Reut Shilton, Mitchell Court and Harmonie Tower are the cast and crew of We Few They Many, which is showing at the Fringe Festival until July 17. Photo/DORI LYNDE

WE FEW THEY MANY

Presented by Paper Plaid Theatre, written and directed by Kat Edwards, staged managed by Reut Shilton
The Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival, July 6 - 17, 2011

In her "note to the audience", included in the program for Paper Plaid Theatre's G20 focused ensemble piece WE FEW THEY MANY, writer/director Kat Edwards muses "More often than not an event is only acknowledged years after the fact. It's too little too late to allow a distancing of oneself from the event. Keep it current and you may then prevent it from happening again."

WE FEW THEY MANY tells the story of the 2010 G20 protests through the eyes of five energetic young political organizers and a conservative journalist who is slowly losing grasp of her own idealism. While the story is certainly "current", WE FEW THEY MANY's fresh, 3-dimensional characters and clever pacing ensure that the play will be just as accessible twenty years from now.

Like an old black & white movie, WE FEW THEY MANY creates a sense of urgency through music and lighting - the audience doesn't see the officers in riot gear or the violence, and yet we know that something very frightening is happening.

One of the characters in WE FEW THEY MANY wonders aloud why it has become cool to be apathetic. Luckily, the Paper Plaid Theatre folks aren't too cool to care. Here's hoping we see more from them - after all, living in Ford Nation, with the KPMG reports looming over our heads, we could all use a little more of their courage.

Heather Babcock is a secretary by day, writer by night. She has had short fiction published in GUT lit, The Annex Echo, GULCH- An Assemblage of Poetry & Prose and The Toronto Quarterly, among others. She resides in Toronto.

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Video Clips from the Guernica Editions Book Launch (July 5th @ the Supermarket)!!

2011-07-17T17:20:00.000-04:00

José Acquelin reads the original French poems from The Man Who Delivers Clouds by José Acquelin & translated by Antonio D'Alfonso at the Guernica Editions launch on July 5, 2011 at the Supermarket on Augusta Avenue. Michael Mirolla reads the translations.

Len Gasperini reads from "My day at the Dixie Brewing Company" included in his The Snows of Yesteryear at the Guernica Editions launch on July 5, 2011 at the Supermarket on Augusta Avenue.

Laurence Hutchman presents In The Writers' Words: Conversations with Eight Canadian Poets at the Guernica Edtions Launch on July 5, 2011 at the Supermarket on Augusta Avenue

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

2011-07-11T16:00:00.004-04:00

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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Toronto Poets - 5 Questions Series - Ruth Roach Pierson

2011-07-10T16:54:00.001-04:00

Ruth Roach Pierson’s highly anticipated third poetry collection Contrary (Tightrope Books, 2011) has finally hit bookstore shelves. Pierson is the author of two previous collections of poetry: Where No Window Was (Buschek Books, 2002) and Aide-Mémoire (Buschek Books, 2007) which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2008. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including Arc, CV2, Event, The Malahat Review, Vallum, The Fiddlehead, Literary Review of Canada, Pagitica, Pottersfield Portfolio, Prism International, Queens Feminist Review, Quills, and Room of One’s Own. She has also appeared in a number of anthologies including Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam Era, edited by Allan Briesmaster and Steven Michael Berzensky (Seraphim Editions, 2008), Regreen: New Canadian Ecological Poetry, edited by Madhur Anand and Adam Dickinson (Your Scrivener Press, 2009), and Celebrating Poets Over 70, edited by Marianne Vespry and Ellen Ryan (McMaster Centre For Gerontological Studies and Tower Poetry Society, 2010).

Best God-Damned Poet in the USA

One spring afternoon after class
we all adjourned to the Red Robin Tavern,
and Roethke slapped me on the rump
declaring it plenty firm without a girdle.

“It wasn’t in the mind of girls to write,”
Nuala O’Faolain remembers of Ireland
in the early 60’s. Nor was writing in the mind
of Seattle girls in those constricted years. Poets
were like Theodore Roethke: bigger-than-life,
male, slightly unstable. Living his idea

of the Dylan Thomas life,
the wannabe poet John Pym became
a brawling, raucous frequenter of taverns.
One night, in the Blue Moon, he swept
all the bottles and pitchers to the floor, then,
losing balance, slipped and fell, suffering

a deep gash to his thigh. He walked around
pantless for days, displaying his dressed wound
like a badge. One night, bare-legged
and drunk, shirt-tail flapping like sails
in a gale-force wind, he showed up
at my apartment door. I managed
to talk him out of coming inside,

but I never managed to write, not one single
line, not for years. Though I read,
thanks to Roethke – Lousie Bogan, Leonie Adams,
Denise Levertov, and, above all,
Roethke himself – the mystical, magnificent,
towering Ted Roethke.

TTQ - When did you decide that you were destined to become a poet and who were some of your early influences or mentors?

Pierson - I had the good fortune when I was an M.A. student at the University of Washington to take Theodore Roethke’s course in 20th century English language poetry. At the time, 1962-63, I was working on a Master’s degree in history, but that programme required all students to take one elective. Two friends of mine, both in the English literature programme, persuaded me to take a course from Roethke. I have always felt deeply indebted to them, for Roethke was a magnificent teacher as well as poet and a magnificent oral interpreter of his own and other poets’ work. The course was, I should make clear, not in writing but in reading poetry. My most recently published book, Contrary (Tightrope Books, 2011), contains a poem entitled “The Best God-damned Poet in the USA” which is a tribute and statement of indebtedness to Roethke but also something of an explanation as to why at the time (I was in my 20’s) I didn’t think I myself could become a poet. That had to wait for many years – until I was in my early 50s. Then, my reading of Dianne Middlebrook’s outstanding literary biography of Anne Sexton re-awakened my long dormant interest in poetry, Dianne, coincidentally being one of the two friends who had recommended Roethke’s course some thirty years earlier. And in 1992-1993 I began composing what I hoped were poems. Eventually I screwed up my courage and showed a sheaf of them to Helen Humphreys whom I had got to know through her association with Resources for Feminist Research which had its offices just down the hall from mine at OISE. She very kindly took the folder home and read my stabs at poem writing and then suggested we go out for coffee and, instead of telling me to throw everything I had shown her into the trash, suggested that if I were really serious, I should consider signing up for a poetry writing course. In September 1993 I enrolled in the course she was teaching at George Brown College. And I’ve never looked back. Since then, I’ve had many further poetry teachers and mentors – including Don MacKay, Daphne Marlatt, Gerry Shikatani, Rhea Tregabov, Ken Babstock, Stan Dragland, and Barry Dempster -- and learned from every one of them. Having started so late in life, I have always felt I had (and still feel I have) a great deal of catching up to do.

TTQ - Your latest book of poetry Contrary (Tightrope Books, 2011) deals with some difficult subject matter, namely the dying and death of your brother. Was your process in writing this book a lot different from your previous books? Was it cathartic in terms of saying goodbye to him? How close were you to your brother and what are some of your fondest memories of him?

Pierson - Indeed, a sequence of poems about the dying and death of my older brother, my only sibling, lies at the core of my latest poetry collection Contrary. And indeed the process of writing the poems that address my maelstrom of contradictory feelings unleashed by this loss was very different from that of my two earlier collections, in fact from that of many of the other poems in this current collection. The poems about my brother and our relationship were written over a period of more than a year and while writing them I often felt as if I were possessed – by some very strong emotions, for a start, such as anger, remorse, grief, regret, but also by piercing memories. In one, for instance, “a grieving walk (Chile),” I am seeing, hearing and feeling the landscape I’m walking in through the filter of grief. In another, I feel observed by my no-longer-living brother – “Four Months and Fourteen Days.” And in others I am carrying on a conversation with him, as in “A Little Knowledge.” Only in a minority of more lyrical poems contained in this sequence do I make much use of figurative language. As I was writing so many of these poems from a position of stunned disbelief at my brother’s swift decline and death and also carrying on arguments with him or myself or my memory of our shared past, I somehow felt simile and metaphor were too distancing and would ring false and so opted for bald, unadorned language. The collection also contains a number of ekphrastic poems and in at least two of these I am reading the work of art through my shock at my brother’s death or through my guilt at failing him as a sister (“After Betty Goodwin’s The Memory of the Body” and “Louise Berliawsky Nevelson’s Night Zag IV”). I’m sure writing these poems did serve a cathartic purpose, not so much in saying goodbye to my brother as in giving me a forum in which to grapple with the conflicting feelings I had and still have about my brother and our relationship. For that relationship was “fractious” and “often broken,” as John Barton writes in his back cover blurb. We both came from an arch Protestant family and, while my brother became a Jesuit priest, I became a radical, non-believing feminist historian. Even my fondest memories of him, which I touch on in a couple of poems (“A Hard Nut” and “Twine and Rouge,” for instance), are shadowed by the conflictedness.

TTQ - What was the time frame like for you in writing the book and do you have a particular method or surroundings that you prefer when writing? What message would you hope your readers take away after reading Contrary?

Pierson - Largely because of the swiftness with which I wrote many of what I came to call “The Brother Poems,” I completed Contrary faster than either of my two previous books. As for writing first drafts of poems, I can and I do do that almost anywhere – from sitting on the subway to lying in the bathtub. The revisions (and some of those number as high as forty or fifty something) I work on at night lying in bed before falling asleep and during the day at my computer on my desk in my very cluttered office.

I suppose I hope that my poems resonate with readers, i.e., that my ekphrastic poems might encourage readers to respond to a work of art in a new way, that my contrarian poems might comfort them that there’s someone out there in the world who often feels disgruntled and powerless, and that my poems about my loss of a brother with whom I had a conflicted relationship might console others who have experienced something similar.

TTQ - How important is reading your poetry in front of a live audience and is that a part of your writing process when composing a new book whereby you can try some of your new poems out on audiences?

Pierson - I write my poems in order to be able to read them aloud and jump at any opportunity to give a reading. As I wrote earlier, Theodore Roethke was a wonderful oral interpreter of his own and other poets’ work. Indeed, in his classes, he never started discussing or analyzing a poem without first reading it aloud in order to give us an opportunity to hear it. He felt strongly that the sonority of the poem is of prime importance. As I write my own poems, I read them aloud to myself over and over again. I revise them in light of their sound and rhythm as much as with respect to language and meaning, though all these elements are inextricable. I do not however tend to try out new poems before live audiences before I’m pretty sure I’ve got the poem in the best shape possible. Well, that’s not exactly true. What I mean to say is I don’t tend to try out new poems in public venues before large audiences of strangers. I do try them out before sympathetic friends and in my poetry groups.

TTQ - What is your opinion of the current state of poetry in Toronto? Do you feel poetry has a chance of becoming more popular with readers today or will it always be appreciated only by poets?

Pierson - These are both huge questions, and I don’t think I’ve adequate knowledge to answer either one of them. I recognize that poetry remains a minority taste, but in other respects poetry seems alive and well in Toronto. There are many reading venues and a great variety of genres, each, to some extent, with its own audience. But it’s not always the case that these audiences are made up exclusively of practitioners. At the recent Poetry Read-A-Thon I hosted in my back garden which featured seven poets, myself included, about fifty people attended and I would wager that at least a fourth of them were not poets but lovers of poetry or people interested in hearing poetry read.

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Introducing: Revelstoke (an interview by Charmaine Santos)

2011-07-07T16:23:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, July 6, 2011 marks the anticipated debut release of Revelstoke’s EP Espirit d'Escalier. Although considered a rookie within Toronto’s music scene, it is evident that Revelstoke’s eclectic sound is the product of his meticulous orchestration of stories and symphonies fostered by time. A traveling journalist and a literary buff, his music is inspired by his attraction to confusion and the pursuit of cohesion in our everyday life through the act of story-telling. As a one-man band, he has enrapt listeners with the dulcet sounds of his aerial guitar as he graces it with a violin bow, the chilling tunes of his 40-year old mandolin and a banjo that he named Freedom, and his ensemble of rhapsodic lyrics. Despite the recent release of his debut EP, Revelstoke has already gained attention for his captivating live performances as he opened for local big names like Brett Caswell, Appleseed Cast, and more. The Toronto Quarterly chatted with Andrew Seale, the man behind Revelstoke and the experimental folk jams that had already captured the ears of music enthusiasts who are anxious to hear something new.

To listen to Revelstoke’s music, visit his myspace page. Also check out http://revelstoke.bandcamp.com/album/esprit-descalier for a free download of Espirit d’Escalier.

TTQ - What made you decide that being a musician was something you wanted to do?

Revelstoke - Growing up in a small town. Watching my dad strum out old cigarette commercial jingles on the guitar. I got the mandolin when my great aunt passed away. It felt weird to own it without playing it.

TTQ - Not everyone has it in them to openly expose their thoughts through creative means such as writing and creating music. What inspires you to do what you do?

Revelstoke - I'm fascinated by people and culture. Why we act the way we do, why we do what we do. I've studied and worked as a journalist for seven years. It's taken me some places and introduced me to people I might have taken a lot longer to meet. I don't really have a right to tell people what to do or what's right but it gives me license to tell stories. Everyone should tell their stories. Sometimes the easiest ways to tell stories is through music, it's my way of making sense of things - people, geography, politics.

TTQ - How would you best describe your music and your live shows?

Revelstoke - It's folk music. Storytelling. Sometimes about Canada and places/people I love. Other times it's about the physical landscape. I like to add a bit of abstraction to the music, shake it up with loops and violin bows on the guitar. Maybe experimental folk music? I don't know. The live sound allows me to expand on it and tweak different elements so the songs don't sound the same twice. That's vital to my interest in the songs. It gets boring playing the same thing over and over. To be honest, I find the recorded songs restricting compared to the live compositions. I get more space to breathe up there.

TTQ - While kids are mostly picking up electric guitars, you grace the stage with a banjo, mandolin, and guitars with a violin bow. Tell us about your musical upbringing and the reasons why you opted to play unconventional instruments.

Revelstoke - I wouldn't say the instruments are unconventional. I mean the banjo is called "the people's instrument" for a reason, it's a staple of folk music. Even the mandolin is pretty traditional - my mandolin itself has been kicking around in my family for nearly fifty years, it just took a bit for someone to pick up and play it in a performance setting. If anything's unconventional, it's the way I patch the pieces together. As for an upbringing, my family always had weird instruments lying around - a sitar, accordion, broken pianos, guitars. It just took a bit of time to get around to getting them in one spot and figuring them out. My family and friends have always supported me.

TTQ - Why folk music? What do you think it has to offer to Toronto’s ever-flourishing music scene?

Revelstoke - I don't think I have the credibility to speak on behalf of people's interest. I mean I like how eclectic the Toronto music scene is as a whole. I think it stems from our generation's uninhibited access to all types of music through the internet. But folk music itself is one of the doorways to the human condition. Storytelling plays such a big role in understanding what's going on around us. If it all made sense we probably wouldn't have much use for music and art.

TTQ - What is the difference between your music now as Revelstoke than when you were Andrew Seale?

Revelstoke - It's less boring. I used to be obsessed with immediacy. You tap out a few chords and write about your ex-girlfriend. I put more thought into my music now, I'm a bit more grown up I guess.

TTQ - Why did you decide to name yourself Revelstoke?

Revelstoke - It's this sleepy 'lil mining town in the rockies. It's synonymous with freedom for me. I guess it's hard to explain. But it's just one of those places where the air is a little bit different.

TTQ - As a newcomer, where do you see yourself going in the future with your music?

Revelstoke - World's first concert at the bottom of the sea. A seahorse benefit show. In the meantime, drifting around and playing some tunes. Maybe make some new fans.

TTQ - What comes first for you: the music or the lyrics? Describe your writing process.

Revelstoke - It varies. Sometimes the music comes first. Other times it's the words. It's tough because by the time I play the songs for people I'm already too attached (and stubborn) to change them too much. I very rarely play songs for people that I don't enjoy playing myself. Sometimes I eat a slice of cheese before bed and then I have weird dreams and write about them. Other times I need to be on a beach. It really depends when inspiration pops its head in the door.

TTQ - Is there a particular musician or band that you would like to work with or share a stage with? What is it about the quality of their work that you most admire?

Revelstoke - Devendra Banhart, because I feel like he gets it.

TTQ - Do you have any final words for the Toronto Quarterly readers and prospective fans?

Revelstoke - Drink milk. Spinach is a super food. Try surfing before you're forty. Learn to play an instrument. Vote in the elections. Read both fiction and non-fiction. Create something every day. Keepsies wasn't a legitimate rule in pogs - you were scammed. Thank you for your love and support thus far. Check out a live show if you can and grab the album for free at revelstoke.bandcamp.com.

Roots that Curl like Lips by Revelstoke

Lyrics: Roots that Curl like Lips

"Tell the children the truth" — Bob Marley

Old folks homes and other places you thought you wouldn't miss.
Like grocery bags and laundry smells and roots so old and tired they curled like lips.

To wait in line in Brooklyn clubs and sing of new prescriptions torn to bits.
And Steels grew out his hair for Dave and Jordashes foosball championships.

And it went like this:
I spilled my beer
Ashed on the chair
And we talked for miles
Like you were there.

But you weren't.

credits
from esprit d'escalier, released 06 July 2011
Guitar, Harmonica and Vocals: Andrew Seale.

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A June Poetry Read-a-Thon (Location - The Boyd/Pierson back garden on Sunday, June 26th) reviewed by Caitlin Galway

2011-07-02T16:06:00.003-04:00

A June Poetry Read-a-Thon was held this past Sunday in the Boyd/Pierson back garden. It looked like a traditional summer gathering met with a toast to the avante garde. Listeners settled on the grass as poets read from works ruminating the imagined history of the pineapple, the human condition, and reunions between ghosts.

Hosting the event was Washington-born Ruth Roach Pierson, who carries with her an extensive list of accolades, from a Yale doctorate to being named to the shortlist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2008. Her third compilation, Contrary (Tightrope Books, 2011), showcases an archive of loss, and those strange and shifting moments of emotional renewal.

Poet and filmmaker Leanne Averbach read from her recent poetry release, Come Closer (Tightrope Books, 2010), a politically and socially charged fusion of both the global and the visceral. Averbach’s first book, Fever (Mansfield Press, 2005) was shortlisted for the 2006 Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize, and her second short film, the mixed media “video poem” Teacups & Mink met with similarly notable acclaim, garnering such awards as Best Short Film at the 2008 Palm Desert Film Festival and Best Directorial Debut at the 2008 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

Nick Thran’s Earworm (Nightwood Editions, 2011) spirals through philosophy, history, and pop culture, from Caravaggio to The Rolling Stones, resulting in a swift and confident exploration of form and multi-media discourse.

Jim Nason, a social worker and author of such works as The Housekeeping Journals (Turnstone Press, 2007) and The Girl on the Escalator (Tightrope Books, 2011), read from his latest collection, Narcissus Unfolding (Frontenac House, 2011), a lyrical and unrelenting exploration of the physical, spiritual and eventually absent properties of a loved one.

Born and raised in the Philippines, Patria Rivera is now a Toronto-based poet and editor. Recent recognitions include being shortlisted for the 2006 Trillium Book Award for Poetry and co-recipient of the 2007 Global Filipino Award. With her latest book, Be (Signature Editions, 2011), she evokes with acuity and elegance the ambivalence of a dehumanized world.

ReLit Award-winning poet Daniel Scott Tysdal’s first book landed him impressive critical favour, including the 2004 John V. Hicks Manuscript Award and the 2006 Anne Szumigalski Award for Best Book of Poetry. With The Mourner's Book of Albums (Tightrope Books, 2011), he both deconstructs and adheres to traditional elegiac approaches, spanning themes broad as war, and intimate as suicide.

Writer and physiologist Jim Johnstone’s Sunday, the locusts (Tightrope Books, 2011), a collaborative project with artist Julienne Lottering, underscores the symbolism attached to the locust and its post-apocalyptic connotations for a society devoured. Author of two previous books of poetry, Patterncity (Nightwood Editions, 2010) and The Velocity of Escape (Guernica Editions, 2008), he is also the founder and former editor of Misunderstandings Magazine, and the poetry editor at Cactus Press.

*Note - All photos provided by Megan Boler.

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The Toronto Quarterly adds a second Intern!!!!!

2011-06-23T17:19:00.002-04:00

The Toronto Quarterly is very pleased to welcome Jessie Travis to the position of intern. She will be contributing book reviews and attending many of the literary events going on in the city of Toronto.

Jessie is a 24-year-old perpetual student, currently planting roots in Toronto for the first time. While it is hard to say when and where Jessie’s literary love first began, it has always been clear that literature would play an important role in her life. This love led Jessie to pursue English Language and Literature at the post-secondary level. After completing her Bachelor of Arts Honours in English Literature at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Jessie hopped on a plane and went on to intern at and write for Edinburgh’s The Skinny Magazine, Scotland’s leading arts and culture magazine. Upon returning to Canada one year later, she completed her Masters of Arts at McMaster University in Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, and English. Come September, Jessie will be embarking on the doctoral journey, beginning her PhD in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University.

Apart from her work for The Toronto Quarterly (and when you won’t find her mongering your favourite Canadian, artisanal cheese at About Cheese on Church St.), Jessie has a few writing projects in the works. Not only is she rewriting her MA project, "(dis)orderly conduct: power, knowledge, and constructions of weight embodiment," into an online series, but is transforming her recent Canadian Women’s Studies Association conference paper, “Eating Out: Queering Disorderly Consumption,” into a print piece as well. Jessie is thrilled to be working with The Toronto Quarterly.

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TTQ8 - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS (Deadline is August 15th, 2011)

2011-06-06T14:39:00.001-04:00

Birthday Boys: Interviewed by Charmaine Santos

2011-05-21T14:55:00.000-04:00

It is with a feverish loyalty to the process of creating music and the desire to learn from and surmount past triumphs that extraordinary musicians have been able to captivate their audiences by releasing one timeless collection of songs after another. Since the release of their debut album Bad Blood in 2009, Birthday Boys have continued to unveil an unyielding musical force that won’t keep them as ‘Ontario’s best kept secret’ for long. This quartet is not bound by a specific genre as they demonstrate their versatility by seamlessly weaving their rock ‘n’ roll background with influences ranging from the blues, soul, garage, country, and gospel music. Their shows are rather edgy and raw, charged with unabashed performances of anthems like their hit single, ‘Daughter’s Man’. During their 2010 cross-country tour to promote their latest EP, Tin Head, Birthday Boys embarked upon the challenge of recording 30 songs in 30 days. The band’s success in producing 30 thought-provoking and emotionally steeped tracks in only 30 days encapsulates their hunger for creative inspiration and their willingness to grow as artists. Special guests, The Arkells and The Stanfields, were also featured in a couple of these tracks. Vocalist and songwriter, Jordan Mack, had a quick chat with The Toronto Quarterly about the band’s beginnings and the fuel that sparks their creative willpower as travelling artists.

For more information, visit the Birthday Boys at their website, myspace,twitter, and Youtube pages.

the video for ‘Daughter’s Man’ off of their EP, Tin Head:

TTQ: Tell us a bit about how Birthday Boys came to life and how the name came to be.

MACK: Birthday Boys came to life as a group of close friends from a couple of different bands who wanted to create together. Not certain of the form it would take, the band was mashed together with originally six people and it was then left to sort itself out. The name comes from a major influence of ours: Nick Cave. He represents a creative free will that we admire and want to embody. His first two bands were The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party, so we took from that.

TTQ: It takes years and a great amount of determination for many bands to conjure up 30 solid tracks, and you did this all in one month. What were some of the challenges you encountered in creating 30 songs in 30 days? How did this project test your artistic endurance?

MACK: We felt that songwriting was a strength in the band, especially having two lead singers/songwriters. It was a test of our skills as far as weighing time vs. quality. It forced us to focus by not wasting time on a part that we didn’t Love, but moving forward quickly and efficiently. It strengthened our abilities as far as lyric writing and producing music goes and to eventually have the two compliment each other.

TTQ: What inspired you throughout your tour, and how do you believe you have grown artistically from undergoing the 30 songs in 30 days project?

MACK: We were very inspired by landscape and our observation of people throughout the tour; reflecting on all of this with a basis on our lives and the world as we were taking it in. This was a massive growth for us as it allowed the band to take in and put out seamlessly without distraction. This type of focus can be a massive challenge for songwriters so strengthening it naturally strengthened our writing.

TTQ: You had also filmed a 10 part tour documentary for truthexplosion.com called, ‘Sweet Young Luck’. Why did you make these videos? What made you decide to not only expose your band’s processes of producing music in your 30 songs in 30 days video blog, but also bring your fans along with you on tour through these documentaries?

MACK: We made these videos (which can still be viewed at www.youtube.com/birthdayboys) to add an artistic side to the band. Every time we have the chance to leave our mundane jobs and hit the road we see it as a chance to create all the time and live a dream of ours. These videos are another form for us to show the creativity of Birthday Boys. That is why it was important for us to keep them artsy and interesting instead of your usual ‘Here's my band in another city doing the same thing as we were doing yesterday ‘ kind of videos.

TTQ: What comes first: the music or the lyrics? What is your writing process like?

MACK: We switch it up to keep the writing happening. Generally I start with the lyrics until writers block happens. Graeme also tends to focus on lyrical content first.

TTQ: Which artists have influenced your sound? Tell us a bit about your musical background.

MACK: We all come from a rock ‘n’ roll background, influenced by The Clash, Iggy and the Stooges, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Grunge ... The list goes on and on. Generally we are influenced performance wise by rock and creatively influenced by Gospel, soul, country, classical, rock …

TTQ: If you had the opportunity to collaborate with any musician, dead or alive, who would they be? What do you hope to extract from their genius?

MACK: Leonard Cohen, and I would just watch and listen.

TTQ: Do you have any last words for your fans, future followers, and all The Toronto Quarterly readers?

MACK: Create! Then, tell people about it. Listen to it when you’re told about it, and then tell someone else.

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Poetry Month: Cristina Perissinotto - Exhale, Exhale

2011-04-30T11:48:00.001-04:00

Cristina Perissinotto is Professor of Italian and Medieval Studies at the University of Ottawa, where she also directs the Italian Language Program. She studied philosophy at the University of Venice in Italy; she then received an MA in Medieval History and a PhD in Italian literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with a thesis on Renaissance Utopia. Her intellectual interests are on the relation between the literary word and philosophy. She has published a book on the Mediterranean entitled Mediterranoesis.

She has completed a monograph on Italian political theatre and has published widely on Renaissance and contemporary literature. She has also published about 50 poems in North American journals, including Poetry East and The Antigonish Review. In 2010 she published two poetry collections: Exhale, Exhale, (Guernica, Toronto, 2010) and e Taprobana Tea (Campanotto: Udine, 2010). She has a weekly column in the Corriere Canadese where she muses about poetry and philosophy.

Her writing has taken her to many different places. She has been writer in residence at the Writer’s Center in the island of Paros, Greece and at the Center for Writers and Translators in Rhodes, Greece. In 2011 she will be writer-in-residence for part of the month of July in the Viking Island of Gottland, off the coast of Sweden.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Cristina Perissinotto - I think poetry can console, inspire and in general nourish the soul of the reader; the number of people who reach for poetry is not enormous. Anyone who is exposed to very good poetry realizes how much they need it, and keep going back to it. I believe that a true appreciation of poetry is challenged by the noise, the constant music and the barrage of words by which we are surrounded every day. However, if people find the necessary silence, they are then happy to read and appreciate poetry. I believe that in the future people will not read less, but more poetry, because of its compact profundity. Most people write poetry, especially free verse, and because of the digital revolution there will be more exchanges and more circulation of poetry too.

Regarding the e-book, I think that in the future our physical home libraries might become somewhat smaller. Encyclopaedias and reference books are already stored in databases and cloud computing; I think that even CD roms will be a thing of the past. But we shall still have books in bookshelves, books by the bed and paperbacks in our purses. E-books are an amazing innovation that has increased immensely our ability to learn. However, paper books are beautiful objects, simple and comforting. The pleasure of cracking them open, smelling them, turning their pages, their portability and sheer beauty will help them stay with us for a long time to come.

                                                 MURANO

                                      Exhale, exhale. Do it slowly
                                   This is not a trombone, you see.
                                      What lies on the other side
                                     of this cane is not just sand,
                                    but a glistening globe of liquid
                              sun. Keep rotating the cane, or the sun
                                       will fall. To master this art,
                                       you need to keep turning it
                                             slowly and regularly.

                                    Powerful lungs are not necessary,
                                but a long cane and an eye for colors.
                            Come to think of it, you should also entertain
                                daring thoughts, a volcanic disposition.

                                   Blow, but delicately. Concentrate
                           as this white-hot globe becomes a purple horse.
                                   You pull his limber legs into place
                             (like so) with pliers, then dip him in water.
                                 The horse will be alive for a second,
                               and scream. You can touch him now,
                                            he’s quieted down.
                                           Would you like to see
                                       how a paperweight is done?

                                   Do not draw too near, the sacredness
                                   of this work is lost at close inspection.
                                      Or are you not yet convinced
                                  that the gods still dwell in these islands?

                               You can almost see them, when the lagoon
                                      shimmers at dusk, in the reflection
                                           of the sea light on the ceiling.
                                      We have a special name for it -
                                            no, I do not remember.
                                     I am not the linguist, young lady
                                             You think of the word
                                        while this paperweight sizzles.

*Note – Photo of Cristina Perissinotto credited to Hadhazyphoto.

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Poetry Month: Molly Peacock - The Second Blush

2011-04-29T11:50:00.000-04:00

Internationally published poet, essayist, and creative nonfiction writer Molly Peacock is the author of The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 and Paradise, Piece by Piece, a memoir, both published by McClelland and Stewart. Her essay on Mrs. Delany, “Passion Flowers in Winter,” appeared in The Best American Essays, 2007 and won a Leon Levy Biography Center Fellowship. Other essays and articles have been published in O, the Oprah Magazine, Elle, House & Garden, and New York Magazine. Molly Peacock has published six books of poetry, including The Second Blush (McClelland and Stewart) and Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems. Her poems appear in leading literary journals in North America and the UK and are widely anthologized in textbooks as well as in The Oxford Book of American Poetry and The Best of the Best American Poetry. She is also the author of How To Read A Poem and Start A Poetry Circle and the co-editor of Poetry in Motion: One Hundred Poems from the Subways and Buses.

She is Series Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books) and a Contributing Editor for the Literary Review of Canada.

Peacock is a Faculty Mentor at the Spalding University Brief Residency MFA Program.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Molly Peacock - I think that poetry is the screen-size art. Though always claimed to be dying, especially in the late 20th century, poetry revitalized the computer screen, even as the web revitalized poetry. Poems and poetry sites proliferate. Poems are quoted by the minute and tweeted by the second. I think poetry is perfect for e-books, which I avidly read. I also think it's perfect for Audiobooks. Does this mean that the poetry book as an object will be obsolete? Far from it! As printed books become all about their design as beautiful objects, and as fine presses flourish by creating this book art, there will be a premiere place for the gorgeously printed poetry volume.

The Cliffs of Mistake

To know you’re making a mistake as
you make it, yet not be able to stop,
is to step off a cliff, expecting to scramble
backwards and up through the air to stand
on the outcrop you stepped from,
even though it can’t unhappen as you
backpeddle wildly with the second step,
looking far, far below onto the moraine
of pain you anticipate later, which is now
only the shock of recognizing the result
there’s no leaping back from.
Oh God, and this is only a metaphor.
Might this be what metaphors are for?
To say what it’s like before you hit what it is.

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Poetry Month: Sonia Di Placido - Skins Over Pompeii

2011-04-28T11:12:00.001-04:00

Sonia Di Placido is a published poet, playwright, freelance writer and publicist. She published her first poetry chapbook, Vulva Magic, in 2004 with LyricalMyracle Press. Her second chapbook of poems titled Forest Primitive with Aeolus House Press, 2008. Sonia is currently working on her first volume of poetry with Guernica Editions to be launched in 2012. She is also currently working toward her MFA in Creative Writing through the University of British Columbia, optional-residency program.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Sonia Di Placido - Poetry, I feel, will continue to play an avid role, whether it is electronically transmitted or part of a book or found on the page for at least the next decade. It is true that people do not read enough poetry, but I don't think that has anything to do with the advent of mainstream technology or the internet since the early 90s. I believe prior to that time, it was always so. Poetry is often overlooked and not attributed enough value in popular culture. Moving forward in a more digital world, poetry is under threat of getting lost among all the other mediums and senses that compete to encompass the digital age. For example: visual, sound, touch stimulation tends to override that of reading poetry on a digital device such as the kobo or an Ipad. Yes, I do feel the e-book will become a popular phenomenon in future, but I do not feel it will completely override the book for at least another 40+ years. As the information age grows, access to knowledge will become more of a priority and more of it will be processed electronically. Therefore, I see the e-book being more about carrying large amounts of information within one small device. However, a book or magazine or poetry or art zine will continue to be regarded as an important piece of technology all on its own.

Skins Over Pompeii (after Pat Lowther)

These are the things that I don’t want to know
that I don’t want to believe
what rests between ‘us’

you write your skin over pompeii
narrowing the focus on stone remains that lift
out of burnt embers, lava and ash.

What else is there? I ask, to find this poem in a compatriot–
the restless search among a place or time, this capsule
that we both know, the ancient city we share

you were hammered, drowned, blood sodden
I am here, now alive, having escaped my killer, my destroyer
of song. It is thirty five. That many years later from

your murder, my first year born. We meet, our skins
hurting with beauty, this poem not published yet
but I am the new flesh of your land, 1975.

My birth certificate is proof of the semen that
has moved from blind and lucent [Pompeii] stone
to speech transferred here, on this granite shield

don’t drop these words over me Pat
or I will want to write that I know them
this tongue/skin/bone/my breath burned to pure gesture

Now, our absolute stations of a dance with words
mimic the intricate griefs found in the catacombs
I have skinned their surface with my hands

with my fingers, too many times
housed in my hollow self
whereupon I return home to find you here

skin over pompeii, my friend
I know this/that place, my blunt tattoo
—a sumptuous usefulness of flesh informs

strong decisive faces
My tattooed woman; she is inked,
what was juice is now skin over Pompeii

Here on your trajectory of death
is my awakening to these words
This is our Leviathan II

it joins populous as all sub-cellars
I went there often
heart and lungs I moved

always pursuing
the sensual words and forms
visiting the hurting ecstasy of rock

the gut’s sorrows
where light washed through doorways
I return often like a sudden horizon of sea,

I move with the wide and wishing
inside the mind’s oblique lusts
you know this, you are here too.

We are exquisitely skilled—our words
their eyes
that are like wishes

our songs become the stones
over ground and territory.
A Stone Diary.

These are the things that I don’t want to know
that I don’t want to believe
that rest between ‘us’.

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Poetry Month: Elana Wolff - Implicate Me

2011-04-27T10:09:00.000-04:00

Elana Wolff has taught English as a Second Language at York University and at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She currently divides her time between writing, editing, and facilitating therapeutic community art. Elana’s poems have appeared online and in print-journals and anthologies in Canada, the US, and the UK. Her third collection, You Speak to Me in Trees (Guernica Editions, 2008) was awarded the 2008 F. G. Bressani Prize for Poetry. Her most recent book, Implicate Me (Guernica Editions, 2010), is a collection of short essays on individual poems by Toronto-area poets; a new book of poetry, Startled Night, is forthcoming this fall.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Elana Wolff - After all, come hell, high water and horror, art endures and poetry as part of it. Man the old and man the new, and man at all intermediary stages is man the maker. The Greek noun poiesis— from which the word poet derives—means making. I’m going to quote Hölderlin, which can’t be hip, but his line that “man lives poetically on this earth” coincides with my bias. I won’t imagine a world without art, and don’t foresee a world without poetry. At its most powerful, poetry resonates with something indestructible in us—in the writer’s psyche and in the psyche of the reader or listener. Poetry has a unifying capacity and a loved poem can be inexhaustible. I don’t believe this capacity has been or will be cancelled by “moving forward in a digital world.” Analogous to the adage that whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger, I would say that as long as we’re not dehumanized by our technology, the role of poetry could be enhanced because of it.

It wasn’t so long ago that online publication of poetry carried less cachet than print publication. I would say this bias no longer holds, at least not as rigidly. E-zines of all genres have proliferated and are supported by established and emerging writers alike, the tech-savvy and the less-so. Astride the tide, print publications have converted to internet-also publication—to become more comprehensive resources and more accessible hosts for art and literature. Speed and accessibility are key features of e-appeal—it’s easier to access information, including poetry (though I differentiate between poetry and information), at a finger’s tap than it is to visit a library or bookstore; cheaper and greener too. We’re in a weird world where virtual publication has become less transient, more available than traditional print publication—of newspapers, journals, and books too.

As for e-books, you can’t help noticing that many more people have their heads buried in e-readers these days. The e-book is still a secondary market, by authors and publishers, but developments in publishing technologies and meteoric sales can’t be ignored. I read somewhere that e-book sales increased by more than 200 per cent in 2010. Everyone—publishers, agents, retailers, authors also—seem to be scrambling to be in best position for the moment digital books take over once and for all... As a reader and writer with a partiality for the printed page, I don’t envision this happening—particularly not with literary fiction, devotional and philosophical works, art books, children’s books, and poetry.

It’s hard for me to conceive that the e-reader—I still don’t have one but am looking into getting one—(and the Internet) will be able to replace the aesthetic, tactile, up-close-and-personal encounter, even relationship, that a person—reader and/or listener—can have with another person by way of a book. But I’m also well-aware that this connection has to be cultivated—by parents, educators, publishers, the media—across societies.

I suppose what I’m counting on—as a book- and poetry-lover—is that what is deep and old and human in poetry will prevail, and that what is burgeoning in the world will serve it. What I’m hoping is that poetry online will bring readers to books containing that same poetry and other poetry (which for me it has done), and that people will continue to seek and find themselves and the other in art. What I envision is not the end of the physical book, but its graduation into a more limited-edition art object—still held and smelled and loved and kept for good—as a thing in itself and as a conduit between people.

WHAT’S BECOME OF US

in the manner of “Antique”

by Robert Pinsky, Gulf Music

I burned in the crime of having you,

drowned in the light of leaving you, we

died together jumping from the Second

Narrows Bridge and were eaten by fish—

caught in a net, trawled to a deck.

Moon-glow bathed the slippery hill

of achromatic scales. Two bodies

will be lifted from a tidy bed of ice,

weighed by the monger before they’re

filleted. The woman who selects them,

skinned, has in mind an intimate dinner

served with Pinot Grigio, no bickering.

Scraps will go to the tabby.

And far down the hallway of horrors,

someone will uncover what’s become of us.

*Note - Originally published in the print journal, The Nashwaak Review, Volume 22/23, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2009.

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Poetry Month: Julia McCarthy - Return from Erebus

2011-04-26T07:27:00.000-04:00

Julia McCarthy is originally from Toronto. Her poetry has appeared in magazines in Canada, the United States and the UK. She has been short-listed for the CBC literary award for poems from her first book, Stormthrower (Wolsak and Wynn 2002). Her second collection, Return from Erebus came out in fall 2010 with Brick Books. For a decade she lived outside of Canada in various places, most notably Alaska, Georgia, and Norway; she also spent significant time in South Africa. For the last thirteen years she’s made her home in rural Nova Scotia where she works as a freelance editor and is at work on a new collection.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Julia McCarthy - I don’t see the role of poetry as changing; like all art, poetry continues to call us to be more fully human. Poetry has been in existence long before the digital world and will exist long after the digital world has come and gone. The latter is about communication whereas art and poetry are more concerned, I think, with communion.

For me, the e-book will not replace the experience of reading an actual book though it may be supplemental at some point. Whether or not this is true for others, I can’t say. But McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” comes to mind when I see this question.

Poem In White

Half-bred from absence fathered by silence

it's the colour of paradox it rejects

the weight of the world the burden of matter

it's the omission

of substance it is and isn't

at exactly the same moment it bears

its loss well having never known

anything else

white is the colour of laughter

held back of desire waiting

the cup's regret when drained

it's the first colour the primary wound

blindfolded it's the bowl of ashes

you pray over it flies

into fury oblivious its heat is absolute

its memory is porcelain it dreams albino

it's the colour of a promise

before it's broken the size and shape of

a child's coffin a child who never existed

a funeral never performed

white is formless and void

fragile without edges persistent

as chaos and full of light

if you touch it you'll know absence

so profound you won't feel a thing

white turns its blind eye to the leaves

eloping with grass for winter it’s deaf

to the canticle of crows flying over

and utterly mute

to the autism of the stone

mistaking snow for its own infinite mind.

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Poetry Month: Jim Nason - Narcissus Unfolding

2011-04-25T11:13:00.000-04:00

Jim Nason’s stories and poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies in Canada as well as the United States – including the Best Canadian Poetry 2008 and 2010 (Tightrope Books). Narcissus Unfolding (Frontenac House, 2011) is his third collection of poetry. He has also published a novel The Housekeeping Journals (Turnstone Press) and a short story collection The Girl on the Escalator (Tightrope Books, 2011). He has been a finalist for the CBC Literary Award in both the poetry and fiction categories.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in a more digital world?

Jim Nason - Methods of communication are constantly changing. In a digital world poems will be accessible in a way that fits our time. Digital is fast, easy and exciting! Poetry needs to be seen and heard and has always played a role in mirroring what is going on in the world – concerns about war, celebrating love and expressing loss – the role of poetry in a more digital world will be the same, only more accessible for techi folks.

TTQ - Do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Jim Nason - There is plenty of room for electronic information in the world. How we are entertained or how we gather information isn’t the question for me, but why people buy books is. For some, having an e-book will satisfy them. Not me. I need the page in hand, to write in the margins with pencil, to physically enter the material, feel the weight of the words … I want to be able to throw the book in my backpack or put it on a shelf with others of its kind and watch it age. When I look at Narcissus Unfolding, and the beauty of that book, I need to hold it in my hand and celebrate the hard work that went into creating it – the design and editing, Kelley Aitken’s gorgeous art … the physical package is important to the words. I need to know I can tuck a book review or an article about the author into its back flap. Like many things that I appreciate in life, I could easily look at a picture of it on line, but with books, I’m still partial to the smell and texture of pressed pulp. Narcissus Unfolding is a multi-layered love poem, an unfolding … it needs to be held …the reader should be able to feel the give in the spine, experience the sigh of turning pages.

HORSE

You sink into the rose-print
sofa you bought at the Salvation Army,
wake slowly into morning. Sunrise
is fire through a crack in the curtain,
circling your feet like an improbable halo
on the pine floor, the consoling warmth.
Hung above the Medici vase, a black
and white photograph of a thoroughbred –
foaming flank of neck, strong legs weak
with rain and mud, zero percent body fat
you would say if the horse were naked
like a man – maybe the man who spends
an extra ten minutes in the steaming shower
across from you at the gym, wanting eyes
on his lonely chest, loving the world of sit-ups
and iron, hating himself for what he craves –
you see this in the way he looks at your own
fit body, how he soaps his rough thighs, bends
slowly to massage his knees, by the way he
hangs his beautiful head – hot water dripping
down around the scalded circle of his neck
like a flaming lei of pink roses.

The horse’s wet mane
and ballsy stance, framed
in slick hardwood – complex weave
of petal and thorn, you want to touch it,
smell the sexy mix of lime powder
and hay, hear the steady grind of oats
like gravel between his massive teeth,
heavy tail swatting flies from his tensed-up
rump, stomping in the stall, the water bucket
spilling, sunlight over piss-soaked straw.

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Poetry Month: Elisabeth Belliveau - don't get lonely don't get lost

2011-04-24T10:12:00.000-04:00

Elisabeth Belliveau was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1979. She is a published author of three graphic novels and an interdisciplinary artist, working in stop-motion animation, drawing and fibre arts. Her latest collection of poetry, prose, artwork, and accompanying short film is don't get lonely don't get lost (Conundrum Press, 2010). She completed an MFA at Concordia University and a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design. She is the recipient of grants and awards including the William Blair Brucebo Scholarship and has attended residencies at KIAC, Struts, Banff Centre Women’s Studio Workshop NY and The National Film Board of Canada. Currently her studio is in-between Montréal, Québec and Ithaca, New York. Her work and animations can be viewed at: www.elisabethbelliveau.com.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Elisabeth Belliveau - For me, most poetry needs to be held in hand. The architecture of a book can complete poems by demanding time and space- almost in a sculptural way. As a writer who uses space - I enjoy work that considers the page, isolating and giving weight to certain moments allowing the work and the reader to breath. Books make me slow down - which is necessary for reading poetry. My tendency with an e-book is to hurry, I can't seem to forget that there is a battery, it is too much like a computer, it is still too plugged in. The physicality of a book connects me to the writing - even the timing of turning pages adds to the opportunity to reflect and feel in the moment. Perhaps it is a bit romantic or nostalgic, but I enjoy the work of finding the right light to read under, reading book spines on shelves, appreciating cover design and choice of paper stock. One of my favourite parts of any home is the physical presence of books.

E-books are convenient - but I can't imagine how they will replace writing forms that are woven with imagery and color like graphic novels, children’s books and artist books. There are so many kinds of reading - blogs, zines, novels - all demand different kinds of attention. It is exciting that writers have so many options. I just hope that they will continue to have access to the best forms to fit their work. As an artist who works in printmaking, zines and hand-made books - the e-book can't take the place of the printed page in my heart.

If there is a storm.

Everything before and everything to come is being decided in this moment
in this deep sound coming.
An audience of tall grass, the sky hints neon.

She picks at the dried bits of food glued to her cookbooks pages.
The recipes move into poems
she can’t read anymore, she watches the houseplants, they move just barely with the breeze.
Their waxy leaves are covered in dust,
she spends one hour gently cleaning them with a damp cloth.

Words have already been used to say this thing, I find myself tracing their steps

Her shoes are beige high heels,
they could get stuck in the grates of the fire escape.
It feels like Paris, but it is not.
He feels rich, like wool and butter, but he is poor.
Here the air tastes different, birds are still breaking the law.
We should take more trains in our own country.
Almost anywhere can look like Sweden.
My coffee is bitter.
I have been working so hard at getting married.

Words have already been used to say this thing, I find myself tracing their steps

Her shoes are beige high heels,
they could get stuck in the grates of the fire escape.
It feels like Paris, but it is not.
He feels rich, like wool and butter, but he is poor.
Here the air tastes different, birds are still breaking the law.
We should take more trains in our own country.
Almost anywhere can look like Sweden.
My coffee is bitter.
I have been working so hard at getting married.

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Poetry Month: David Seymour - Corpsing This Century

2011-04-23T09:50:00.001-04:00

David Seymour’s first book, Inter Alia (Brick Books, 2005) was short-listed for the Gerald Lampert Award for the best first book of poetry in Canada. His essays, poetry and reviews continue to be published widely in literary journals. Some of the poems in Inter Alia were also used as lyrics in songs by the alt/folk band The Warped 45s for their debut album 10 Day Poem for Saskatchewan. Most recently his poetry has been short-listed for the 2009 CBC Literary Award, and twice selected for the Anthology of Best Canadian Poetry. David is currently living in Toronto, where he is at work completing a third poetry manuscript for publication, titled For Display Purposes Only.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

David Seymour - The reason people write poetry and the reason people continue to read poetry is not a quantifiable sum, and remains unchanged, I think, regardless of the popularity of its reception or its method of conveyance. This has been the case unequivocally across the ages. In terms of whether the so-called digital age or information age spawns greater isolation between us and whether poetry can somehow eschew this outcome, one might argue that modern digital technologies are only extensions of the first telecommunication technology, writing, of which poetry is, of course, a part. Writing induced perhaps the greatest form of isolation thus far in its ability to transfer meaning while simultaneously disconnecting that meaning from its dialogical context; the transmitter from the receiver. Blanchot called writing the non-absent absence, a gap in the universe, and in his fairly cryptic way touched upon the aloneness the act of writing has always entailed. Etchings on stone placed in a gunnysack for transport down the mountain is equally isolating as writing an email to a friend on one’s Ipad or tablet. The degree of isolation isn't much changed, only the time it takes for the message to travel across that imposed distance, and the medium within which it travels. Poetry, as such, persists.

I believe the e-book (or by extension let’s say any of the various digital/virtual modes of communication) has been gradually taking the place of the printed page, oh, for a good couple of decades now. I’d wager there are children growing up in our lifetimes that will never crack the spine of a book and yet be no less well read for it. The debate we read and hear today on this topic is an after-effect brought about by a blend of residual fear of the change that’s already occurred and our ongoing nostalgia for the loss that change has incurred. The transition from paper to screen is well underway, but I’m interested in the fact that, like vinyl, paper persists despite its culturally agreed upon obsolescence, its primitive wastefulness. It’s no accident that the length of a poem often neatly conforms to a standard 8x11 sheet of paper, nor is it an accident the computer screen and the word processing software we use accommodate that specific design in their default formatting. A blank piece of paper has become a parcel of thought for us and it will be some time, I think, before we relinquish the size and shape, the comfort, of this limit. Long after the ink has run dry in our printers. For the record I still write and edit on paper and will read paper books as long as I have sight, used as I am to the old ways.

Corpsing This Century

I know what you are about to say and you know what
I’m about to say. This turns our conversation into a gas.

Despite the vocal exercises I still avoid your eyes, stare
at the space due left of your head, and pretend I’ve just

come to, try to forget what you’ve said and will say again;
but anticipation throws my better, composed self into a face-

eating grin. When you repeat words like that I can’t help it,
the fascination’s morbid with me; history, politics, eject

like Wernher von Braun plastics from their seamless moulds,
unpatented, synonymous with landfill. The miscues are

grave and the retakes no picnic. Because we’re never not
aware of our surroundings, if you and I were in a Herzog

these would be the lines we couldn’t get past, landing on the gag
reel as a gaff, though they’re the lines we’d continue to recite

until we nailed the scene. But we’re not. In a film, that is, so
the replays keep playing on their loop. Similarly, art resulting

from the exhaustion of easy living provokes a stifled laugh.
I should say absurdity sets in earlier and earlier. Whose was

that exhibit, the sculptural gack suspended in the dark only after
the opening ended, the patrons gone? There’s a memory, too,

that makes me crack; a friend falling in slow motion from another
friend’s horse. I’ve reduced it, for quick recall during crises,

to his look of surprise and the expression of air leaving him
on impact. The serious is so ripe, a cathedral for hysterics, really.

When I convinced myself the man slumped against me in emerg
last night was only sleeping, scanned the room for loved ones

to come nudge him awake, nothing seemed remotely funny. Even
allowing the silence and proximity. What happened next, as you’ve

guessed, was approximately the same as what didn’t. It depends
on timing, not equating deadpan with a winning performance.

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THE TORONTO QUARTERLY - ISSUE SEVEN has now ARRIVED in both PRINT and E-BOOK versions!!!!!

2011-04-22T12:58:00.001-04:00

The Toronto Quarterly - Issue Seven has now arrived in both print and e-book versions! We have interviews with Richard Greene (Governor General's Award Winner for Poetry 2010), Johanna Skibsrud (Giller Prize Winner 2010), and Alisha Piercy (bp Nichol Award Winner 2010). We have poetry from Catherine Owen, Bill Howell, John Oughton, Moez Surani, Ruth Foley, Carole Glasser Langille and many more. We have short stories from the likes of Kimberley Fehr, Wade Bell, and David Burke plus more, and read book reviews of new releases from Desi Di Nardo, Steven Heighton, Anne Purdue, and Jessica Anya Blau.

When you order print copies of TTQ7 through lulu.com use the coupon code APRILMAIL305 when you checkout, select Mail Shipping and receive the single book SHIPPING COST FREE. Maximum savings with this promotion is $4.99.You can only use the code once per account, and you can't use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This offer ends on April 30, 2011 at 11:59 PM.

Thank you everyone for your continued support of The Toronto Quarterly!

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Poetry Month: Catherine Graham - Winterkill

2011-04-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

Catherine Graham is the author of four acclaimed poetry collections: The Watch (Abbey Press, Northern Ireland, 1998) and through (Insomniac Press) the poetry trilogy Pupa (2003), The Red Element (2008) and Winterkill (2010).Vice President of Project Bookmark Canada, she holds an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University (UK) and teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. Her work is anthologized in The White Page / An Bhileog Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets and her poetry has appeared in journals in North America, Ireland and the United Kingdom and is showcased in Poetry Is Public Is Poetry and Nuit Blanche Words Travel Fast. Visit www.catherinegraham.com.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Catherine Graham - Poetry will thrive regardless of the medium. The digital world provides poetry with another platform. Despite the rapid growth of the e-book, the printed page will last. There’s room for both.

The Buried

In a shallow grave of sand,
done up to the nines
in a huge flowery chiffon dress
stretched out like a sail
on a beach in the Hebrides,
pecked to pieces by birds.
Tilda Swinton

The breeze soothes the summer’s
burning as it lifts off
the lake but the hot
sand holds the white heat
so we burrow our toes to find
the cooling. Bury me
in a shallow grave of sand.

I lie back and you shovel
beach over my pale
body. I let the itch of it
enter me. It’s as if a thousand
insects have taken free reign
and clothed me in their stings. I am
dressed up to the nines

now, a level
away from all that I once knew.
A head. But when I close
my eyes I become
the buried.
A cloud passes over
in a huge flowery chiffon dress

and the sand is the smell
of my new skin. The grainy
case of my lungs pump
through homes of crabs.
I am the sound
of the underneath
stretched out like a sail

in a photograph. I am pure
verb going nowhere.
Even the wind
can’t move
me. The sand bars my body
from the water’s rise
on a beach in the Hebrides

where time is carved back,
land-locked to the hours
of sand that has
no hours, only bones.
I’m not afraid
of you leaving; I’m only afraid of being
pecked to pieces by birds.

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Poetry Month: Antony Di Nardo - Soul on Standby

2011-04-21T11:40:00.000-04:00

Antony Di Nardo is the author of Alien, Correspondent (Brick Books) and Soul on Standby (Exile Editions). His poetry and non-fiction have appeared in anthologies and in journals across Canada, most recently in Prism, The Capilano Review and The New Quarterly. He divides his time between Oshawa, Ontario and Sutton, Quebec.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Antony Di Nardo - Poetry, like language and its supporting technologies will continue to evolve and adapt. For storytellers and orators of long ago, quill and ink and its “painted speech” posed a terrible threat to spoken language. Yet, despite those ancient naysayers, it’s obvious language has flourished. I don’t think the e-book or the digital page is any more of a threat to “printed speech,” the hardcopy or the G-book (G for Gutenberg). Some writers, I suppose, have always suffered from a form of “page fright,” a fear of flying, whether resisting the shift from quill to fountain pen or from the typewriter to word processing. The e-book will no doubt re-tool the art of language for other creative and different arenas of discourse. And much like the fountain pen and word processor, the G-book and the e-book will co-exist.

Poetry, in both form and content, has undergone some remarkable changes in the last hundred years. The technologies at our disposal for writing poetry are partially responsible for that. “Make it new,” said Ezra Pound. The e-book and digital page, once we get the broken line and ragged right margin right, will go a long way in moving poets further into their art. Can we expect a fusion of spoken word and visual poetry, animated concrete poetry, the sonnet in QuickTime, the I-Phone haiku? Why not? I’m looking forward to composing my next poem on an I-Pad.

Something in the Sixties

Hell, no, we won’t go!
Hell, no, we won’t go!
barely, hardly, scarcely sums it up,
with all we had to live up

to after the flower girls turned wily
off on a whirl from limb to limb
like the little lambs ate ivy
and the sugar plum fairies limped

or lisped, whispered sweet nothings
in our ears in a foolishness or fashion
long lost to childhood yearn-
ings of the Hooded Fang and sturm

und drang, the utter weariness
of ollie ollie um sum free
and we won’t go looking for you ‘less
there’s something in it for me

was the latest test of said unselflessness,
honestly it didn’t do it either for me
what it did for the drag of history
all aboard the track of happiness.

Two rights and eight of us cooped
up in a co-op didn’t make a wrong
to wring our hands over à la
Lady Macbeth, but we were gaga

for the world to end,
to come marching to a dead end,
tying up all the loose ends
to make a proper ending of an end

in sight. That was some past, the sparkle
of homegrown divinity, the edge of marvel,
all those lonely people from that song,
really, where do they all belong?

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Poetry Month: Kath MacLean - Kat Among the Tigers

2011-04-20T11:22:00.000-04:00

Kath MacLean is recognized as one of Edmonton’s most eclectic poet-performers, her unique muse and creative delivery attract attention wherever she reads. Known for rich images, “breath-taking lyricism” and musicality, her award-winning poetry, prose, and non-fiction is generating critical acclaim across Canada.

Praised by the likes of Al Purdy, Judith Fitzgerald, and George Elliot Clarke, MacLean’s first book For a Cappuccino on Bloor (Broken Jaw Press, 1998) was the recipient of the New Muse Award and was short-listed for the Kalamalka Press New Writers Competition.

The winner of many literary competitions, including both the Grain Poetry and Non-Fiction Awards in 2005, MacLean’s imaginative writings have appeared in leading Canadian, American and European journals. Her playwriting credits include circling the moon, a poetic murder-mystery-musical, which was produced and performed at the Catalyst Theatre in Edmonton. Her poetry has been nominated for The Winston Collins Poetry Award (2007), and her nonfiction received 1st honourable mention with Prairie Fire (2007). In 2009 her poetry received both honorable mention from Rubicon Press and was runner –up for Sub-Terrain’s LUSH poetry prize and Malahat Review’s Creative Nonfiction prize. Last year “talking, talking”, a series of ghazals, was listed as one of Canada’s top poems of the year by Lorna Crozier.

MacLean’s poetry has also been broadcast on CBC Radio, and she’s been a popular guest on arts and entertainment radio shows from coast to coast when touring her work. Locally, she has appeared on CJSR-FM and A Channel and performed at the Edmonton Poetry Festival, ROAR, the Edmonton Olive Reading Series, and in the Nonfiction Reading Series at the Carrot Café. In March, MacLean will compete as the only prairie poet at Harbourfront’s Battle of the Bard in Toronto.

A strong voice within Edmonton’s arts community, MacLean was Writer in Residence (2009-2010) for the Canadian Author’s Association (Edmonton Branch). She teaches writing at Grant MacEwan University and given numerous poetry workshops for students of all ages in Edmonton for many years encouraging them to read, to write, and to perform poetry. She has also been a Professor of English Literature at the University of Alberta, and is a certified teacher (4 – 12) in Ontario.

Recently MacLean launched Seed Bone & Hammer, a CD of performance poetry and a videopoem, There Was A Young Man (both in 2009) which has already received rave reviews at it debut film festivals in Edmonton Stony Plain Rd Storefront Cinema and Vancouver’s International Festival, Visble Verse. Her new manuscript of poetry, Kat Among the Tigers has recently been published by U of A Press. Her new video poem, Doo-Da-Doo-Da, a poem from her new book, will also be released this spring.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Kath MacLean - There is certainly a place for poetry in the digital world & as the powers that are push for more, we need to think about where we stand on this. I love to hold a hard copy in my hand – the tactile experience is so important when I’m reading a book. Making books available digitally certain may improve availability, but I fear copyright and writers not being properly paid for their work. We make so very little money from our art as is – & this unless the laws are firm & more sensitive to our needs and requirements as artists making a living from our work (& so far they aren`t), I fear it. Having said all of this, I`ve been working on a second poetry video which I will have available on my website along side, There Was a Young Man. Having this up on a site has attracted new readers for me – non-traditional poetry readers who like what poetry video does for a poem. So I see this electronic form as something very important to my career just now. I am also, really enjoying this new medium.

I`m going to hope that the traditional form of the book will continue to be around a good while yet, options are fine, but I don`t see the book in its physical form vanishing just like that. It isn`t magic, it`s going to end up being a market decision – but, I will keep hoping our books in their written form will continue to live and that there are enough of us buying them and craving them physically that the printers keep birthing them. I can’t imagine this love affair coming to an end!

Doo-Da-Doo-Da
Paris, March 1915

The trumpet sounds, the shutters moan
the sky shrinks a hole in the dark.

I’ve never seen stars rush through evening like that –
the Ultimate Fish: its flash of fins dive under the night‘s soft skin.

And the house stretching, rises to its toes, lifts up
its failing arms and scoops life as we’ve known it, always -

People lean into the black and the Milky Way splaying her legs,
her petticoats rising, her feathered hat, her muff and gloves gone --

Who says Romance is dead? When heads rush, bodies turn each to each
steam rises from the cup, the kettle cries –

the sky calls doo-da-doo-da --

In the aftermath, I think of you as a sneak of a pig.
Not writing one ceases to exist among the literati,

their blue swords poke about the fire, picking, flicking,
their lovely tongues full of lovely dreams.

If Romance is dead Jaggle I’m a hatless fool,
muffless, bare- bottomed, fluttering silently across the night’s soft skin;

the trumpet sounding, the shutter’s low moan -
You’re a sneak of a pig.

Ash- mouthed, rushing towards the literati
dreaming the lovely, shivering and shawless,

I scoop stars beneath my petticoat and imagine
a flash of fin diving beneath my soft skin.

The trumpet sounds, the dark moans
a few notes here and here a scarcity of words --

doo-da-doo
da - doo da...

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Poetry Month: Jacob Scheier - More to Keep us Warm

2011-04-19T09:31:00.000-04:00

A Toronto poet and journalist, Jacob Scheier’s debut poetry collection, More to Keep us Warm (ECW Press), won the 2008 Governor General’s Award. The book was also named amongst 2008’s “best in verse” by The Winnipeg Free Press and has received praise from Canadian Literature, Matrix and Prairie Fire. Jacob’s poems have appeared in several periodicals in North America, including Geist, Descant, Rattle (forthcoming) as well as being aired on CBC radio and adapted for a modern dance performance at the Enwave Theatre in Toronto. He has read his poems at venues across North America, including the International Festival of Authors in Toronto and the Word for Word Poetry Series at Bryant Park in New York City, and he is the Former co-editor-in-chief of existere, York University’s journal of art and literature.

Jacob's articles and editorials frequently appear in Toronto’s NOW Magazine, and in 2009 he co-won a New York Community Media Alliance award for best feature article in an independent publication. Currently, Jacob teaches “Writing Creatively About Grief” at Ryerson’s University’s Chang School of Continuing Education.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Jacob Scheier - I see poetry (among other things) as a subjective historical document – telling us what the interior experience is of the times we live in. So in psychological-existential-spiritual (in short, ‘poetic’) terms I expect poetry to show us what it is/means to live in a more digital world.

I don’t think the printed page will die. The book didn’t kill oral narratives – we still tell each other stories from memory, and so I don’t think the e-book will kill The Book – though it may change its role.

-a poem from More to Keep us Warm

I am afraid.
Afraid that art and love
are merely hobbies
and should only be consummated
on 15 minute coffee breaks,
or they are only the ornaments,
the holiday décor
of shopping malls.

I am afraid.
Afraid that Bukowski was wrong.
What matters most is not how well you walk through the fire,
but how well you walk around it
or find a way to sell it
to the wealthy and the bored.

I am afraid.
Afraid I don’t understand ‘the markets,’
any of them.
And this is the only fire left
people are willing
to walk through.

I am afraid.
Afraid books are more commodity
than prayer.

And I have the same fear
for prayers.

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Poetry Month: Tanis Rideout - Arguments with the Lake

2011-04-18T09:07:00.002-04:00

Tanis Rideout is a poet and writer living and working in Toronto. In the fall of 2005 she released her first full-length book of poetry Delineation, exploring the lives and loves of comic book super-heroines, which was praised as a “tantalizing, harrowing read.” It has been featured on CBC Radio’s Bandwidth with Alan Neal and Definitely Not the Opera with Sook-Yin Lee.

In the spring of 2005 Rideout joined Sarah Harmer to read a commissioned poem on Harmer’s I Love the Escarpment Tour to draw attention to damage being done to the Niagara Escarpment by ongoing quarrying. Subsequently a performance of the poem appeared on the DVD of the tour - Escarpment Blues. In 2006 she was named the Poet Laureate of Lake Ontario by the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and toured with the Tragically Hip's Gord Downie to draw attention to environmental justice issues on the lake.

Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous quarterlies and magazines and received grants from local and national arts councils.

An excerpt from her new poems Arguments with the Lake received second prize in the CBC Literary Awards and was called Macewanesque in scope, [it] invokes in the reader a sense of timelessness and breathless wonder.

Her first novel will be released in Spring 2012 with McClelland and Stewart.

You can find her online at http://tanisrideout.wordpress.com/

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Tanis Rideout - In some ways I think poetry is ideal for a digital world, a world where we read on cell phones, on tablets, on all sorts of screens we carry around with us, or look at in subway stations. I think are brains are primed right now for poetry – we’re learning, in general, how to fit ideas into smaller textual spaces, making leaps from word to word and functioning in bite/byte sizes. That’s often what poetry has to do.

That having been said I feel the anxiety of poetry on e-books the same way some other poets do. But that is more about how e-books often reformat work to fit the screen, or only use select fonts etc. The anxiety, at least for me, comes from formatting – how that changes on current digital readers and doesn’t stay consistent with the poetic intent. Poets are keenly aware of empty space, of line breaks and page breaks, of indentations and the like. They measure them, think about them, and know how they can change the meaning of a word, a line, a poem.

I don’t think that this is a insurmountable obstacle in any sense, but it is one to be given thought. Currently I still only read poetry on the page. Will e-books usurp that all together, I think not. I think books will remain for some people fetish objects and authentic (for lack of a better word) objects. But I would like to see the book alter somewhat, become more special as an object, in the way that indie musicians have had to do with CDs, hand printing them, making the CD part of the work, not just a carrier for it so that real fans still want the artifact as much as the content.

Ok, I decided not to go with plugging a book per se, but thought instead I’d plug The Toronto Poetry Vendors.

I love this approach – it’s fun, taking away some of the preciousness that sometimes exists around poetry, and they have a variety of poets in various stages of careers. Going back to the discussion of digital and people liking bite sized things, I think they’re fitting into that niche – grab a poem for the bus, for the coffee while you wait for a friend etc. It allows people to try poetry out. And hopefully they’ll find something they like.

On the Waterfront

Marilyn and me

we’re in the dark theatre watching

Marlon and Eva on the waterfront.

Popcorn salt stings my lips

dry, Marilyn drinks water,

always water, thinks water.

She mouths Eva’s lines

I feel like I’m just floating

Just floating, just

floating

while she dances up there with Brando.

I want to ask her

if she’s even thought of the future

in the University matinee,

July wet on Bloor Street.

We should be in the lake in an hour.

I tell her you should get some ambition

I always thought I’d live

a little longer without.

* "On the Waterfront" from Arguments with the Lake – this poem first appeared in En Route and was one from the selection that came second in the CBC Literary Awards last year.

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THE TORONTO QUARTERLY - ISSUE SEVEN has ARRIVED!!!!!

2011-04-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

The Toronto Quarterly - Issue Seven (print) has arrived! We have interviews with Richard Greene (Governor General's Award Winner for Poetry 2010), Johanna Skibsrud (Giller Prize Winner 2010), and Alisha Piercy (bp Nichol Award Winner 2010). We have poetry from Catherine Owen, Bill Howell, John Oughton, Moez Surani, Ruth Foley, Carole Glasser Langille and many more. We have short stories from the likes of Kimberley Fehr, Wade Bell, and David Burke plus more, and read book reviews of new releases from Desi Di Nardo, Steven Heighton, Anne Purdue, and Jessica Anya Blau.

Starting today, when you order print copies of TTQ7 through lulu.com use the coupon code APRILMAIL305 when you checkout, select Mail Shipping and receive the single book shipping cost free. Maximum savings with this promotion is $4.99.You can only use the code once per account, and you can't use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This offer ends on April 30, 2011 at 11:59 PM.

Thank you everyone for your continued support of The Toronto Quarterly!

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Poetry Month: Bruce Meyer - What Is the Purpose of Poetry?

2011-04-17T10:43:00.000-04:00

Bruce Meyer is author of 31 books including 11 collections of poetry, the most recent of which are Alphabet Table (Black Moss Press, 2010), Mesopotamia (Your Scrivener Press, 2009) and Dog Days: A Comedy of Terriers (Black Moss Press, 2009). His broadcasts on poetry, the novel and the Great Books are the CBC’s bestselling spoken word cd series. He is Poet Laureate of the City of Barrie and is professor of English at Georgian College where he teaches for Laurentian University. He was the winner of the E.J. Pratt Gold Medals for Poetry (1980, 1981), and was shortlisted for the Arlene Lampert Prize (1989).

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Bruce Meyer - I think poetry will always have a role to play. I'm not sure whether paper will wrap Kindles like the old game. What will survive and what I am conscious of as a poet is the orality of the form. The spoken word resides at the heart of the type of poetry I try to write -- whether formal or free verse. The poem has to speak to an audience. The ideas of meter, rhyme, rhythm and even form have their basis in the spoken roots of poetry, and as long as a poet attempts to reach the spine (nervous system of his audience) then poetry's roots will live on. I am currently working on an emblem book with an oral poet, H. Masud Taj, from India. I think that type of book points us in a direction where the printed word (paper or Kindle) relies on the spoken word, and vice versa.

What Is the Purpose of Poetry?

The student asks me and is earnest.
I have a shelf of poetics in my library.
It is bigger than the box in which
I will ride this planet to its end.
Instead, I think of Icelandic sagas,
bearded Vikings with horned helmets,
their language a wood-chipper of gutturals,
because the sea numbs even brave lips.
They arrive on a rock after a long trip.
It is rotty there. It is cold. It snows.
There is only fish to eat and dreams
of future tourism. They don’t complain.
Stories take their minds off bleak despair,
not because they love stories but because
they love each other, they love their Viking life.
They want to foot-ski down icy hills
and split their fears with broad-axes.
They want to wake up in Valhalla
and never suffer a lousy hang-over.
They want to retire and travel peacefully
and pose for pictures with the Eifel Tower,
and believe that courage is just doing
what you love and put it into runes
that others will use for loadstones.
Eventually, they ask each other, “What is
the purpose of being a Viking?” They don’t
know. Silence falls on their rotty house
until Snarlsson Bjornfast answers bravely
“It must be poetry!” They stare in wonder,
hug their swords like children. All shout “Yaw!”

*Note – Photo of Bruce Meyer credited to Doug Crawford.

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Poetry Month: Melissa Studdard - Six Weeks to Yehidah

2011-04-16T11:49:00.002-04:00

Melissa Studdard's middle-grade novel, Six Weeks to Yehidah, will be released by All Things That Matter Press in late 2011. Her poetry, short stories, reviews, essays and academic articles have appeared widely in journals such as Chelsea, Boulevard, Gradiva, The American Book Review, Literal Latte, Poets and Writers, Connecticut Review, Dash, The Smoking Poet, and elsewhere. She's a Book-Reviewer-At-Large for The National Poetry Review, a contributing editor for both The Criterion and Tiferet (for which she also hosts the blogtalk radio program Tiferet Talk), and a professor at Lone Star College-Tomball. "Vagabond" was originally published (in a slightly different format) in the 2011 edition of the Austin International Poetry Anthology.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Melissa Studdard - The digital world makes more poetry accessible, brings poets together, provides new formats for poems, and exposes new people to poetry. It's a wonderful thing! People post poems on Facebook and tweet quotes from poems. Poetry collections can be downloaded at the click of a finger. New and innovative online journals set poems to music and accompany them with images and sound clips and trailers of poems read aloud. I only see this as increasing interest in poetry and expanding the ways in which it can be enjoyed. Yet, I do not feel these new presentations will take the place of the printed page. There is a very social aspect to the internet, and just as we crave "quality" alone time with those people in our lives who we love, so true lovers of poetry and books will probably always crave intimacy with the printed page. I see more and more that people are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by their computers, I-phones, kindles and so forth - exhausted from staring always at a screen - and they are taking time off - a few days, a few weeks - to unplug and reconnect to their inner batteries. When people do this, there are certain things they will turn to - nature, time with loved ones, and the printed page - tangible experiences that refresh and recharge them. To say that the kindle could supplant the printed book is as ridiculous as saying that texting sexy messages could take the place of sex. Well, okay, not quite as ridiculous, but you get the point. No matter how much people enjoy the auxiliaries, they're always going to want the real thing.

Vagabond

Again at the precipice,
we stood, a torrent of wind,
a rainstorm of love, a dark
and brooding lick of thunder.
Just one slip of the foot
and our gypsy hearts would be
rolling again. While the others
made babies, we birthed the jagged
edges of cliffs, the imperceptible
blue of sky, the spokes of caravan,
swaddled it all in chainmail,
and left it there to fend for itself –
a modern love, birthed but not nurtured,
cherished but not maintained. You
dressed me in bells like a cat, and when
I danced, you dropped scarlet
and lilac scarves at my feet,
you doused me in the thick sweat
of wine, you stained me henna
with your rough and unread palms,
loving me the only way your Bedouin
heart could, like a plectrum kissing
a lyre, strumming magic out of the silence
only as often and for as long
as our voices could lift each other in song.

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Poetry Month: Daniel Scott Tysdal - Please Accept My Condo

2011-04-15T10:56:00.000-04:00

Daniel Scott Tysdal is the author of The Mourner's Book of Albums (Tightrope 2010). His first book of poetry, Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method (Coteau 2006), received the ReLit Award for Poetry (2007) and the Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award (2006). His work has appeared in a number of literary journals and anthologies, and has earned him honourable mention at the National Magazine Awards (2003) and the Matrix Lit Pop Award (2010). He currently teaches creative writing and English literature at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Daniel Scott Tysdal - In a more digital world, or, to think bigger, in a world even more technologically mediated than our own, the impetus for great poetry will remain the same. It’s the form that poetry takes that will change beyond recognition. Poetry will continue to be a home for the exiled. But the poet’s acts of expression and exploration, her renderings of the beautiful and the sublime, will be undertaken in practices of creation and will require processes of consumption that we, right now, would deny have anything to do with the creation and consumption of poetry.

With this change in mind, we can say that the e-book is already dead. Or, better, the e-book is the zombie or ghost manifestation of the dead book. Poetry in the future will take the form of pills, pulse-bearing wires, neuro-implants, grafts, virtual realities, and genetic manipulations. Every poet will be half-poet, half something else: half-plastic surgeon, half-programmer, half-pharmacist. In anticipation of this revolution, I recently sent my first book off to Pfizer for translation into bite-sized blue pills.

Please Accept My Condo

Her cell phone cut my deepest sympathies
short. The fault of a patchy connection, she guessed,
when she showed me days later and we laughed off
our faces at my truncated text. I didn’t know her
adequately to ask who she’d lost; we were barely
close enough to suffer a telecommunicational blip.
“Please accept my condo” was all that had not
been swallowed by the gaps the sky works
into an ether between towers, as though solace
were the embrace of a room so new you were
certain no one had died in its thoughtless hold.
Or maybe the defective note was meant for me;
I needed to make real the imperative of that
half-sentence and tell this woman in her grief
to care for my concrete cocoon, while I emerged for her
as a mourning cloak butterfly, of the family nymphalis,
so weightless in those winds I was the drunk
who bobbed without sense on the ocean-filled waterbed
of the earth, no path too straight for me to fail it.
Future phones should be programmed to make new
our tongues. “We must honour the memo”
will be our promise to the bereaved, and to dads
and moms freshly minted we’ll cry: “Congratulations
on the birth of yo.” So novelly mobile,
so strangely celled, we will be as original
as the back-flipping dog who learned to leave
his trick unfinished and dangle, flea-bitten, in the air.

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Poetry Month: Lina ramona Vitkauskas - The Range of Your Amazing Nothing

2011-04-14T11:13:00.001-04:00

Lina ramona Vitkauskas has published three poetry books/chapbooks including THE RANGE OF YOUR AMAZING NOTHING (Ravenna Press, 2010); Failed Star Spawns Planet/Star (dancing girl press, 2006); and Shooting Dead Films with Poets (Fractal Edge Press, 2004). In 2009, she was the recipient of The Poetry Center of Chicago’s 15th Annual Juried Reading award, judged by Brenda Hillman, and was nominated by Another Chicago Magazine for an Illinois Arts Council Award. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies including: TriQuarterly, The Prague Literary Review, The Chicago Review, Van Gogh's Ear (Paris), VLAK (Ed. Louis Armand, Edmund Berrigan), The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab Books, 2007), Aufgabe, White Fungus (New Zealand), MiPoesias, Paper Tiger (Australia), and many others. She has been a translator for UniVerse: A United Nations of Poetry and poetry and short fiction can be heard on Chicago Public Radio’s Chicago Amplified. She received her MA in Creative Writing from Wright State University in 2000 and lives in Chicago with poet Larry Sawyer.

For more information, visit her website.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Lina Ramona Vitkauskas - I honestly don't see e-books "taking the place" of the printed page. I see them becoming more popular than books with most in the younger generations, but books will still exist, just as record albums do. Some may prefer the immediacy of online reading/poetry, but in my opinion, nothing takes the place of reading a book in your hands. It is something tangible that you can pull from the shelf and touch. There is an intimacy to reading a book versus something online. I see the pros and cons of both mediums.

TEN NORWEGIAN MYTH HEADLINES

Ginnungagap1 Increasing in Size, Scientists blame Ymer2

Bergfolk3 and Haugfolk4 Settle Conflict: “Mountains Were Made of Molehills”

First Woman Embla5 Divulges Her Roots

Historical Researchers Discover Haugfolket6 Railroad

Bear, Wolf, Fox in Dispute for Food Again7

Time Stands Strangely Still8

Mime’s Head9 Consulted for Possible IKEA-Ekornes Merger

Freya10, New “Queen of Relationships” to Replace Oprah

Odin Finally to Receive LASIK

Loki’s11 Last Shapeshift: CIA Says bin Laden “Just Not Cool”

1The vast, infinite abyss, which is the origin of all life, existing between Niflheim, the land of frost and mist and Muspellsheim, a sea of raging flames.

2A huge troll; product of the original “Fire and Ice” war.

3Mountain people

4Hill people

5The most likely translation of “Embla” is “elm tree”; it has been said the name is derived from embla, emla (perhaps similar to the Persian) signifying “a busy woman”.

6Pixies that live underground

7Many of the myths feature these particular animals, but most known is one myth, which describes the three trying to outsmart each other for fish and butter.

8Before the creation of everything, even before night and day were created, this was the state of the world.

9Odin, father of the gods, often consulted Mime the Giant’s head for advice. Odin gave one of his eyes to Mime in exchange for a drink from the fountain of wisdom, which Mime guarded.

10Freya is most often referred to as a goddess of love in folklore—she would commonly be consulted regarding matters of the heart.

11Loki, a Norse god, was considered a joker and often shape-shifted.

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Poetry Month: Jennifer Still - Girlwood

2011-04-13T11:51:00.001-04:00

Jennifer Still grew up along the tracks in a powder blue townhouse on Winnipeg’s eccentric Girdwood Crescent. Poems from her second collection Girlwood (Brick Books, 2011) were finalists in the 2008 CBC Literary Awards. An earlier version of Girlwood won first prize in the 2008 John V. Hicks manuscript awards. Jennifer now lives in a yellow house in Winnipeg with her husband and two children.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Jennifer Still - I have this idea that poetry is going to be performed and attended more. I just feel that the decrease in our daily face to face connections, the lack of "in-time" conversation and human voice in our screened-in worlds, will call for a resurgence of literary gatherings and soirees in the performing arts--more recitation and orature. So that the experience of seeing and hearing a writer up close and present in their work--not recorded, not on a screen, but in person, responding, making eye contact even!-- will be novelty again. Saying this, I think poetry is very much supported by the digital culture of information sharing, at least in the sense of promotion, and also through the means of reviews and a sense of community and blogs such as yours. But that really can be true of any information now, so it's not particular to poetry and therefore I think the digital world can only go so far in what it might be able to do for literature. In the end there's the words and the reader--this is the experience of literature. Nothing more is needed.

As you might be able to tell I am much more aligned with the luddites than the techs, so it's not surprising that I can't see an e-reader ever being the "platform" I curl up with at the end of the day. I will do my best to keep the printed page in demand!

-an excerpt from Jennifer Still’s poem “Moth,” from Girlwood (Brick Books, Spring 2011)

Moth

down

star

down

stairs

in the long-term storage   pilot-light flicker under the shuffleboard
                                      mouthing the soft pound of silver weights
                                      on felt we were good girls made of white
                                      cakes Easy-Bakes incandescence in cherry
                                      chip, rainbow bit, cupcake, confetti, rising
                                      to the light under the poncho the gaucho
                                      the panty-silk pupa a doll pencil-top-pink
                                      rubbing the spot the spot inside fuschia
                                      bedcovers chenille caterpillars inching the
                                      folds inside the folds inside the mine mine
                                      mine under the bed with flashlights in our
                                      mouths flesh lit from the inside under
                                      tongue under silence under moths circling
                                      the heat the throb the filament spin of our
                                      pudic wing flickering
eight thousand shameful ecstasies

Listen!

Listen to Jennifer Still read an excerpt from her poem “Moth,” from Girlwood (Brick Books, Spring 2011)

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Poetry Month: George Swede - Joy in Me Still

2011-04-12T11:04:00.001-04:00

George Swede's two latest collections of poetry are by Inkling Press, 2010: Joy In Me Still (haiku) and White Thoughts, Blue Mind (tanka). He is the Editor of Frogpond: Journal of the Haiku Society of America. Starting in 1968, Swede's poems began to appear in many leading Canadian journals: Antigonish Review, Arc, Canadian Forum, Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly, Event, Grain, New Quarterly, Open Letter, Poetry Canada Review, Poetry Toronto, Quarry, Rampike, Scrivener, Tamarack Review, Toronto Life, University of Toronto Review, Waves, White Wall Review, as well as other fine publications, such as Cicada, Frogpond, Industrial Sabotage, Modern Haiku, RAW NerVZ, Salt, Stuffed Crocodile, and What.

Swede's work has also been featured on radio--BBC3, CBC, PBS, NHK (Japan), RTE (Ireland) as well as on television-- BCTV, CBC-TV, CTV, Rogers Cable, and TVO.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing moving forward in a more digital world?

George Swede - On January 12, 2011, the PNR radio show On Point invited me to be on an hour-long phone-in/tweet-in show about the haiku. The host, Tom Ashbrook, suggested that Twitter-users who like poetry might start to prefer haiku to longer poems.
The 140 character maximum for tweets can easily accommodate any haiku someone wants to share. In fact, someone has coined the term "twaiku" for haiku tweets. Whether such tweets will lead to changes in appreciation of other kinds of poetry is hard to say.

TTQ - Do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

George Swede - As a user of Kindle, I can easily see the advantages of an e-book—no multiple books to lug when traveling; fewer trees to cut down—but can also see that the actual book will always be here. It is the one constant in the ever-evolving world of
communication technology. This was made clear when I donated my papers to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. I was told to provide print instead of digital materials whenever possible. The reason is that manuscripts in digital form might become inaccessible as technology changes whereas those on paper will remain accessible.

3 Selected Poems:

#1

on my back
in the freshly-cut grass…
a blue horse

#2

in first full bloom
the apricot tree - joy
in me still

#3

flooded plain
fence tops show which water
belongs to whom

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Poetry Month: Robin Richardson - Grunt of the Minotaur

2011-04-11T11:09:00.006-04:00

Robin Richardson is a Toronto native pursuing her MFA in poetry at Sarah Lawrence in New York. Her work had appeared in Cv2, Misunderstandings Magazine, The Puritan, The Filling Station, The Toronto Quarterly, All Rights Reserved, Dandelion Magazine, The Berkeley Poetry Review, The Westchester Review and her first full-length collection, Grunt of the Minotaur will be coming out with Insomniac Press in Fall 2011.

TTQ - How would you best describe the differences between the poetry scenes in Toronto to that of New York City? In your opinion is poetry thriving in both locals?

Robin Richardson - Based on my fairly limited experience in both, the main difference between New York's literary scene and the Toronto's is size. Toronto is small enough that everyone knows everyone within a short span of time. I've never been to a reading in Toronto where I didn't recognize at least half of the poets/writers there. New York still has a bit of that community sense but is large enough that there is much more variety in both readers and audience members.

Blue

Blue mountain, blue eyes; the youth’s bluish
humming in monastic fields. Here he sees
the water, hears the humbling quiet of a drop.

Swans, rain-backed, pass like shifting latitudes
East inches over and the Earth commiserates
It’s lost its place.

The youth yawns, not fit for this Pacific
prelude.. Blue words mute, he thinks of black
instead. Shakes a mist from his boot.

The iris of an ocean makes its way through
gazers as they pass, possessed by repetition:
breaking wave on breaking wave.

Round O, open voice of coo as blue birds
pass the clouds from their apparent
likenesses. Weather will not do.

The youth, not merely here, but strewn
in thought across the scene, resumes his hum –
lumbers slumped on whicker-woven grass.

Beyond the field is a forest, further still
plutonic bodies in their orbs. Beyond
the orbs are marble nudes – contrapposto

so the pedestals seem small beneath their feet.
Blue is their demeanor. Fixed figures in a god-lust
huddle. Though the water sings them, swans

renounce their names. There’s no hierarchy.
The youth exits, framed by low-hung stratus.
The scene conspires in his absence: blue.

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Poetry Month: Michael Mirolla - Light and Time

2011-04-10T10:28:00.008-04:00

Michael Mirolla calls himself a Montreal-Toronto corridor writer (because he spends so much time travelling between the two cities). He’s a novelist, short story writer, poet and playwright. Publications include two novels: Berlin (a 2010 Bressani Prize winner and finalist for the 2009 Indie Book and National Best Books Awards) and the recently-released The Facility, which features among other things a string of cloned Mussolinis; two short story collections: The Formal Logic of Emotion (recently translated into Italian) and Hothouse Loves & Other Tales; and two collections of poetry: the English-Italian bilingual Interstellar Distances/ Distanze Interstellari and Light and Time. His short story, “A Theory of Discontinuous Existence,” was selected for The Journey Prize Anthology, while another short story, “The Sand Flea,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. A poem, “Blind Alley,” was shortlisted for the Winston Collins/Descant Prize for the Best Canadian Poem in 2007. His short fiction and poetry has been published in numerous journals in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, including several anthologies such as Event’s Peace & War, Telling Differences: New English Fiction from Quebec, Tesseracts 2: Canadian Science Fiction, The Anthology of Italian-Canadian Writing, New Wave of Speculative Fiction Book 1, and The Best of Foliate Oak.

Along with partner Connie McParland, Michael runs Guernica Editions, a Canadian literary publishing house.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Michael Mirolla - Prognostication is for psychics and a psychic I definitely am not. Otherwise, I’d be down at Casino Niagara. However, if there’s such a thing as reading the writing on the wall (the text message on the cell phone is more like it), I have some concerns with respect to the viability of the written word as creative art when it comes to its long-term future. I’m not talking specifically about whether literature – the novel, the short story, the poem – will survive. My concern is more one of the diminishing impact they have in our world. It seems that, more and more, serious literature (writing that takes chances as opposed to Twilight, Harry Potter and Oprah picks) is becoming marginalized.

This is particularly true of poetry. There was a time when poetry was at the centre/core of a civilization’s culture. It was where the creation myths were unrolled and the essence of the people told and re-told until everyone knew it by heart – and able to pass it down. That it is no longer today has more to do with the shifts in society and economic systems and ways of looking at the world than any idea that the poetry itself has an intrinsic problem. Literature still tries to get to the essence of things. Still tries to work itself down into the sweet spot where the human lives. The problem is that this “sweet spot” is being eroded as we speak. It has lost its place in the people’s consciousness and has been replaced with assembly lines and shopping. Sure, we still use the same trigger words – family, love, soul, community, etc. – but they’re used for commercial purposes, or for getting young people to join the military.

Is this reason for despair? Pessimism? An attitude of surrender among writers? Well, it could be. There could come a time when, thanks to interactive technologies and Star Trek holodeck type virtual realities, we will all spend our time entertaining ourselves alone locked in the room of our own imaginations. But it could also mean the opportunity to help in the creation of alternate realities, of worlds where the original values that made us human are once more not only believed in but actually acted upon, or worlds where different ways of acting and thinking are examined.

What will that take? Ah, again only speculating, but I think it will take a leaving behind of the so-called democratic principles connected to the individual as the core unit of society – and the re-establishing of societal connections, kinship, collective identities, and most importantly the re-connection between head and heart. Poets can be at the forefront of such a revolution. They can be the wedge that drives a stake through the dead heart of commercialism. Or their laptops can overheat trying.

As for e-books replacing the printed page, I think we're going to see a process whereby the printed book (and especially poetry books) will become objects d'art, collectors' items. For mass distribution, some type of electronic book (or perhaps eventually a direct implant) will take centre stage. The physical book has had a long run but its time is almost up. I see the physical books of the future becoming similar to the illuminated manuscripts of the pre-Gutenberg era.

In transit I: Primary colours

In the blue corridor, the ghost limb sings:
         there is no grass
           there are no stones
           there are no fathers
         there are no stairs
           there is no door
           there are no handles
           there are no sons
           there are no bricks
           there is no body

In the blue corridor, the hip screw-plate responds:
           there is but wink
           there is but glow
       there is but drip
           there is but tick
       there is but scar

In the green room, the wheelchair moans:
          oh my God
          diaper
          my God
          rash
          my God

In the yellow room, the bedpan laughs:
            haha
          strap him in
           hoho
          tie him down
           heehee
            feed the spoon
            its reflection

In the red room, the curtains chant:
            sorrow incarnate
            night’s chlorine smell
            wrinkles in time
            we are but
            wrinkles in time
            we are but
            night’s chlorine smell
            we are but
            sorrow incarnate

In the blue corridor, the leg brace echoes:
             God
             haha
             oh my
             heehee
            periwinkle slime
            hoho

In the blue corridor, the syringe inscribes:
             ever dutiful, I hold
             my old man’s wound
             all the while
             dreaming
             of poetics
           and the incandescent word
             that will make him sing
             that will make him respond
           that will make him moan
             that will make him laugh
           that will make him chant
             that will make him echo
             that will make him inscribe
             that will make me real

- From: The House on 14th Avenue

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Poetry Month: Karen Enns - That Other Beauty

2011-04-09T10:45:00.006-04:00

Karen Enns is a poet and musician living in Victoria, B.C. That Other Beauty, her first book of poetry, was published by Brick Books in 2010, and has been shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award. Her poetry has appeared previously in The Malahat Review, The Antigonish Review, Grain, PRISM international and The Fiddlehead.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Karen Enns - I don't imagine the role of poetry will change too much no matter what direction we move in. I think it will remain an expression of what it means to be human. Like art, music, dance, it will continue to reflect our way of thinking and living in the world regardless of how that world is defined. I do think, though, that the medium will probably change. It may be the e-book, it may be a form we haven't heard of yet but, yes, I do think the printed page will be replaced by something else eventually. Poems in print once replaced an oral poetic tradition and this will be another shift along the way – a more sudden one, maybe, but I don't think it's any more pivotal.

Varieties of Light

If you could be everywhere.
If you could lie down over the world
and cover its dark, lonely living with your own dark heart.
If the people on the street, the children skipping,
old men and their walking sticks,
could breathe in one breath, deeply,
and the faces of strangers, lovers, friends,
could be one face, cut fine
against a close, clear sky,
you would know the bones behind the eye,
the pupil’s deep flint.
But what you know is like the pulsing leaf-light
from the window of the bus, patterns
slashed across your eyelids, loss you’re blinded by,
then not, and changing every quarter-blink.
What you know are only fragments of a glare,
varieties of light, thin dreams
that catch the blade of splendour.

Listen!

Listen to Karen Enns read more audio selections from That Other Beauty by clicking here.

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Poetry Month: rob mclennan - Glengarry

2011-04-08T10:29:00.005-04:00

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections Glengarry (Talonbooks, April 2011), kate street (Moira, January 2011), 52 flowers (or, a perth edge) – an essay on Phil Hall – (Obvious Epiphanies Press, December 2010) and wild horses (University of Alberta Press, April 2010) and a second novel, missing persons (The Mercury Press, October 2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review (ottwater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com), and has edited numerous collections for Insomniac Press, Black Moss Press, Broken Jaw Press and Vehicule Press, and, in June 2010, a special “Canadian issue” of the Swiss online pdf poetry journal Dusie. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com. He is currently working to complete another novel or two, a collection of short stories, and a post-mother creative non-fiction work entitled “The Last Good Year.”

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world, and do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

rob mclennan - Poetry (and literature generally) has already gained much ground thanks to the internet, moving more easily across borders, opening writers up to much larger audiences. Influence need not be geographic, not by a long shot. Some of my first and most immediate readers live overseas; could any of us have really said that a decade ago?

Still, I don’t think the e-book can take the place of the printed page. I mean, how could it? I think there will always be those who prefer the printed page, the physical feel of the book. Authors and publishers and booksellers shouldn’t be threatened by trends, but we should all know how to move with the technology. It’s simply a different way to gain access to material. Weren’t there voices who said a century ago that telephones were the tool of the devil? That people would no longer talk to each other? That we would stop writing letters? Or half a century later, when television programs were supposed to have killed movies? Everything changes, and these are all simply tools in which to receive content; certainly, the content will change alongside the tech, but so too do the readers and content-providers (writers).

I see e-books as something that can only add to an already existing experience.

Alexandria, a quarter mile

1.

depth-rise; used to take the horse,
cutter; town, the village

, slip; a documentary
blink,

white rain a frozen sky, is
gathered dust,

or highway when the dog hit,

bear sparks,

2.

white air is heavy,

great emptiness of slush; sleek
shoulder flow,

3.

the tire tracks a name
small highways memorize,

a marriage,

of buildings,
settlers, long forgot

shadow of a shadow,

how to write in poems when
the stores close?

most folk here

drive an hour, work
the city shore,

barns abandon, de
compose

return to,

4.

small town symmetry,
, silky green

provincial main,

, spring melting snow

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Poetry Month: Cynthia Cruz - RUIN

2011-04-07T11:32:00.005-04:00

Cynthia Cruz’s poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Boston Review, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review and others. Her first collection of poems, RUIN, was published by Alice James Book and her second collection The Glimmering Room is forthcoming from Four Way Books. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and is the Hodder Fellow in Poetry at Princeton for the year 2010-2011.

TTQ - What role do you see poetry playing in an increasingly digital world?

Cynthia Cruz - I see poetry living in the digital world: showing up on facebook, and in online journals and sites such as Poetry.org and PSA, for example, --places where people who don’t want to buy a book can browse, sample poetry and hopefully eventually buy an actual book.

TTQ - Do you feel the e-book will ultimately take the place of the printed page?

Cynthia Cruz - No, I don’t. Or, rather, no, I hope not. I am a bibliophile, I love the paper, font, the feel of a book in my hands. I love libraries and bookstores, have in fact a small library in my home. I collect copies of books—1st editions, and so on— Maybe the world will move onto e-books (seems possible) but I’ll happily remain in the dust: reading and collecting books.

STAR

In the homeless shelter-slash
Greyhound Station in Springfield,
Mass., the loneliest man and woman
Just limped past me
En route to the shooting gallery
Called the men’s bathroom.
Dead, I think, but happy.

And the world lives on
Inside the TV set bolted above
The plastic seats of the bus station:
Glue sniffing boys in Basra,
A UN supply truck
Carrying food and water, held up
At gunpoint. And tanks plow
Into the burning city--

Is it true, we are all passengers,
And this world a room
We are traveling through?

*Note - Originally published in The American Poetry Review

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