Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 400

Profile of Pearl Pirie's phafours, with a few questions,

My profile of Pearl Pirie's phafours (with a few questions), which will be exhibiting at both this weekend's ottawa small press book fair and the upcoming Meet the Presses' 2014 Indie Market, is now online at Open Book: Ontario.

Redell Olsen, Film Poems

My short review of Redell Olsen's Film Poems (Los Angeles, CA: Les Figues, 2014) is now online at The Small Press Book Review.

70 Canadian Poets, ed. Gary Geddes

My review of 70 Canadian Poets (Oxford, 2014), ed. Gary Geddes, is now online at Cordite Poetry Review.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Shalan Joudry

Shalan Joudry is a writer, performance artist and storyteller whose poetry has appeared in The Nashwaak Review and Mi’kmaq Anthology II . She works as a cultural interpreter and community ecologist at Bear River First Nation, Nova Scotia, where she lives with her two daughters. Generations Re-merging (Gaspereau Press, 2014) is her first book.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
A printed/published book is different to my usual oral storytelling and spoken word/reading poetry that i do. There is a kind of comfort in that oral tradition. Something this permanent was nerve-wracking, but poetry is so very dear to my heart and was my first artistic medium as a child. Publishing a book was a fantastic phase for me. My life changed in that i made that commitment of sharing so open and public. i no longer have control over who experiences my art as it is no longer within a certain setting and me performing live. With that are both positive feelings and challenges. Above it all, i published with purpose:  to share messages, stories, and art. i want other Mi'kmaq to know that we are welcomed in the world of poetry and literature. i feel blessed and honoured to have this book. i have a renewed sense of place.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
i say that poetry was first, although now that i look back, fiction was almost there as well. i was a shy child and found it difficult to find kin friends. With many moves (father in the military), i ended up finding my own comfort in reading and writing in the school yard instead of running around the playground with the others. i had this non-stop imagination and crafted fiction in my mind. But the day i wanted to write, i chose poetry because it appealed to the even more artistic place i could go. In poetry i had to choose my words so very precise and meaningful. i had to find the rhythm so very precise in my own intention. i wove meanings and artifacts from my worlds around me. i fell in love with the power and challenge of one page.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
For poetry, i have a few various modes i work under. My favourite mode and the majority of the poems in this collection are from when an analogy or moment fills my head in words. i have it then. Almost entirely. i have to find paper quickly to gather the inspiration. (These are usually moments after digesting an event in the community or my life, or from experiencing a wonderful experience on the land.) Editing takes a year off and on to chisel away at a few lines or word choices, making sure that i used the best fit. The majority of my pieces, though, are partial ideas or concepts that i must work on in quiet bits of time over the course of 6 months to complete.

i must have silence to write. Which, with two young children, it means that more crafting is done late at night. A full collection will take a few years to compile if i continue this way.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
My pieces are separate things. i am working on other writing that are more connected purposefully. However, most poetry i write are separate pieces and not linked as a book until i feel they are ready to be joined in a certain order, and only certain pieces that have a way of telling a larger story by the end.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Reading poetry is so new to me! As an oral storyteller i very much need that listener engagement as i craft edits or new stories. With my poetry i write in silence and edit them in silence, whereas public readings are not silent places and it just doesn't sound "right" to me. But as people enjoy hearing my tone and expression to better connect to the pieces, i will continue to read for them.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Good question!!

For me, i'm trying to answer how we arrived here in certain struggles as Mi'kmaq, part-Mi'kmaq, as Nova Scotias, as humans with issues of unsustainability. And alternately, where i hope we are headed. For example i want to understand which themes Mi'kmaw communities are wrestling with are actually universal themes. If it makes sense that we struggle for identity as throughout ancestral history and around the world, so too struggle in many histories and modern contexts, perhaps these are human struggles. Although it doesn't alleviate these challenges, it might help put focus on what we can do to work through these things. My answer is one of hope,.. holding onto those same teachings of flux and transition, so too are the challenges and the state we're in. These are all temporary. What comes next is up to us.

The pieces and the book are personal stories and not every one addresses directly these questions, but because those are the concerns that fill my mind everyday they come out in my poetry as well as being the reason i want to share them. I'm examining my own life in ways i believe others are examining theirs.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
i was taught many wonderful ideas about the role of the writer/storyteller/poet in a community or culture. Some, like other arts, are the mirrors by which we can see ourselves or each other a bit more fully or with more meaning. Some are prophets or medicine people bringing us visions of the past or the future for us through stories and writing.

Mostly, the writers/storytellers are our teachers, passing along teachings for us to learn and remember through story. With this in mind, many more people should and can embrace storytelling and writing as modes of living in a family in community, even if not professional writers. In some way, we all need to share storytelling. How else can we share such depths of who we are, without arts and without story. Tom King reminds us that perhaps all we are, are stories.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
It is usually only my written work that receives an outside editor. And i have always found it helpful. They become the check-point and looking glass for my own self and writing, so that i can be sure that i reviewed the corners and edges from other angles i might have missed. The editors have asked good questions of my intent and use of certain parts of story or phrasing. At the same time, you need an editor who understands various influences your work has and what you need to keep intact to honour your vision. Those editors need to trust my judgement as i theirs. So far so good.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
i remember years ago wise women describing human nature to me, describing the roles and powers of women and they made sure that i understood that when i begin to feel hurt or loss or chaos, that i need to not fight against it, not suffocate it, not ignore it,.. but ride with it. They taught me to trust and to feel the very core of what came. Recovering, staying balanced and true to the human experience are important lessons in life. i usually follow that advice and it has made for such a rich life. i have learned how to collapse without breaking too much of myself,.. how to hold onto inner strength and pick myself back up. And i find inspiration from others who model that for me.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to performance to storytelling)? What do you see as the appeal?
They have been natural mediums for me. i find certain inspiration needs to be told through a short story,.. or a performance,.. or a poem. i find the right fit and tell it. i am also drawn to music and use song at times. This teaches me that i am an auditory learner and artist. Some stories i want to share might need a few different versions and i love playing with that as well.

i naturally think in storytelling. i am addicted to weaving words and stories. i am always crafting,.. constantly,.. every single day. While i wash dishes... while i load my children into the car,..  while i walk the trails looking for rare plants on my fieldwork days,..  while i sip tea late at night by the window,..

However, i cannot grasp visual arts as well. It amazes me to watch painters, sculptors and choreographers, etc, work! 

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
i'm not a good routine person. i write when i need to write. However, most of the time daily work or mother duties trump spontaneous inspiration and it makes me uneasy until i get the chance to write what had been waiting. i mourn all of the stories i never wrote.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Always the woods. Or a stream. From there i imagine our past and our future. There is also the calmness that i need to write, to be able to hear my stories and poetry in my mind.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Pine and balsam!

Or a salt water breeze.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
i wish that i had time for more books, music, science and visual art.  Luckily my ecology work and mothering take me back to nature and provide the time even when i am not writing to capture that influence. i think the other influence is getting to know people better. The deeper i get to understand others, i grow more empathy, purpose and intrigue to human story.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Listening to Elders speak is very important to all of my work.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
i have a very long list. But i'll share one:  live as a hermit.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
i would be a non-writing ecologist. Or an herbalist.

i'm sure i could think of more lives i'd love to live.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
i didn't choose it. it came and i accepted the task.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Book:  i've returned to Green Grass Running Water (Tom King).

20 - What are you currently working on?
Oohh... i'm writing some very fun things. i just haven't decided how long or short and which ones connect to which. They are short stories or a short novel in chapters.... i'm listening, i'm accepting.

wela'lioq
shalan

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose (is a)

Oh, Gertrude Stein. Well, most folk know by now that Christine returns to work today, completing her maternity leave, which means I'm home full-time with our wee Rose (who turns a year old in two and a half weeks).

Which means: my months of intense half-days attempting to complete projects, meet deadlines and various other schemes and scrambles have been building up to this. Which means: I might take slightly more time to complete reviews, answer emails, and other such things. If  you are expecting such, be patient, please.

And shush: Rose and I are reading and re-reading.

Kate Schapira, TOWN

FROM THE DREAMWALL: I dreamed I smashed all the dishes, all the jars. I stood at the factory fire and threw handfuls of corn into it, from the blackness outside it. By the time it’s a story there will be no one to tell it. Mild eyes will make no distinction. Trees and the remnants of houses will grow up through the streets. It’s too late not to think about it. Once the trail roared through with its long golden mane in the dew-soaked morning. War never came here, but change came to thicken the water, to the spheres of flesh inside, tiny possibilities. Who dreams they give birth to the town’s tree-heavy future? Write your dream underneath mine.

FROM THE DREAMWALL: Sometimes I don’t think laws are so bad.
While in the United States recently, I was able to pick up a copy of Kate Schapira’s TOWN (Queens NY: Factory School, 2010). It’s only the second title of hers I’ve read so far (and I think the first I’ve seen from Factory School), after The Soft Place (Horse Less Press, 2012) [see my review of such here], not including her two chapbooks produced through above/ground press. As she writes at the back of the collection, the original materials for TOWNwere solicited, compiled and re-worked, and she includes her original solicitation, which includes: “What I’d like you to do is tell me one thing about this town’s past or present. You don’t have to think about it too hard. Just type it in and send it to me. May I suggest that you do it sooner rather than later, for busyness and memory reasons.” Her “About Town” post-script continues:
            As information about the town came in from friends, relations and acquaintances (some of whom are working writers, others not), some of it started to contradict itself (some pieces contradicted others), and since I’d decided that everything people told me about the town was true, I had to revisit my ideas about consensus: how do contradictions mutually and simultaneously exist and what gravity do they exert on one another, without one erasing or swallowing the other?
Composed as a suite of fragments, prose-poems and lyric descriptions, Schapira explores the variety of ways a town can be described, allowing the directions provided to her through solicitation to provide an expansive town portrait, one that becomes richer and deeper through those contradictions she mentions (as every town, just as every person, contains at least one contradiction). From the other trade work I’ve seen of hers— The Soft Place —Schapira appears to be interested in the extended suite, whether the sequence of such for that later collection, or the book-length quilt of poems that accumulates into her TOWN. It makes me curious as to where else her work is capable of heading.
Another element of the book I can’t help but enjoy: the cover artwork by James McShaneincludes a collage of maps, and a fragment on the left of the front cover not only includes a section of a map of Ottawa, but a swath that runs along the 417/174 Highways, from Heron Road all the way north to the Ottawa River, which means I can see where my lovely wife works (the corner of Innes/St. Laurent), not an eight minute drive from here.












CUSTOM / LAWFOOD
CHANGES

A family moved into a house on a quiet street. Once they were unpacked they evoked all their neighbor’s doors to invite them over for a watermelon margarita block party. The night of the house only two old women came. As the second entered and was greeted by the couple she shook hands with the other. Both women were widowed. Their houses sat next to each other and each had lived in her own since just after a young marriage. On this night they were introduced.
Hospitality holds its breath as the mixture delivers. Both have grown old and human. To say, “We’re both old,” that age happens not to the other but both, to be part of both in town, to remember the houses they moved from dwindling in memory, becoming matchstick, streets spreading and tiring easily, evening melting in cautious red sips. They were about the changes of which other neighbors were a part, sitting as they’d been taught, two women spreading and diffusing to reenter matter, like soaked gauze, quietly into the fiber of town as streetlights marked out the web of veins filled with isotopes moving weakly.
The couple whose house it was told everyone how sweet it was from the outside, quick coming to tongue, loosening flavor. The sunset looked like a lake of watermelon margaritas.

a new poem, "domestic haibun #1," at small po[r]tions

I've a new poem, "domestic haibun #1," newly posted as part of the third issue of small po[r]tions. Damn that Chris Johnson for getting me rereading the haibun again. Damn him to hell.

Ryan Pratt reviews Acceptance Speech (phafours, 2014)

That kind and attentive Ryan Pratt was good enough to review my mini-chapbook Acceptance Speech (phafours, 2014) over at the ottawa poetry newsletter. Thanks, Ryan! The poems are from the work-in-progress "World's End," that also includes poems posted on small po[r]tions , Konundrum Engine Literary Review , AngelHousePress and Moss Trill. I'm half-hoping to be completed the manuscript in 2015, but who knows (I'm really trying to complete a collection of short fiction first).

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Martha Silano

Martha Silano is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception , winner of the 2010 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize and named a Noted Book of 2011 by the Academy of American Poets, and Reckless Lovely (Saturnalia 2014). She is co-editor, with Kelli Russell Agodon, of The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice (2103). Her poems have appeared in Paris Review, North American Review (where she won the 2013 James Hearst Poetry Prize), Cincinnati Review (where she won the 2013 Schiff Poetry Award), American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online , and elsewhere. Martha teaches at Bellevue College and serves as poetry editor of Crab Creek Review.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
The main thing that changed: I got a little bit of exposure. For instance, one of the poems from What the Truth Tastes Like appeared on Poetry Daily, and I was invited to read at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble in Manhattan. It also helped me make a life-long friend, Susan Blackwell Ramsey, who read my poem “Sausage Parade” and reached out to me via email. Did it make me more confident or less anxious about putting together my next book? Did it mean the whole poetry biz  thing got a lot easier? Not at all.

My new work differs in that it is less personal. When I wrote my first book I was single, childless, in my early 30s. Many of the poems are about food, my childhood, friends, failed romantic relationships. I was struggling with being musical and metrical while at the same time saying things that mattered, that seemed important. I was less facile with crafting and revising. When I re-read my second book, Blue Positive, my instinct is to grab a pencil and start crossing words out. If I had the chance, I would tighten up those poems. In my newer work I’m taking more risks with subject matter and points of view – a poem about toxic furniture, an ode to Frida Kahlo’s eyebrows, a poem in the voice of Mona Lisa. I am less interested in my own life and way more interested in the lives of copepods and northern flickers. But I remain steadfast to the belief  that poetry is music first and foremost, and remain most interested in poems that take advantage of sound—especially assonance, consonance, and internal/slant rhyme.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Characters don’t pop into my head and start talking to each other, or to me for that matter. First lines of poems do. I tend to be plodding and wordy when I write non-fiction. I think I was drawn to poetry in high school because it elicited feelings; I wanted to feel more. Novels could do this too, but poetry did it in a concentrated way – it was like the poet was talking directly to me as my friends did—intensely, as we used to say. It gave me a jolt to have all that concentrated emotion washing over me. I enjoyed that, so I started imitating the poets I was reading—Dickinson, Frost, the Beats, whoever they were publishing in The New York Quarterly back in the late 1970s.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It depends. An idea for a poem might incubate for twenty years or more before I write a single draft. Other times I have an idea and immediately begin writing.  First drafts are often written in very sloppy long hand – they are shaggy, messy things that don’t become poems until I start typing them up on the computer – adding detail, rearranging, cutting, figuring out the shape/stanza pattern, checking all my verbs to make sure they are strong, making sure I’ve got just the right word both meaning and music wise, improving the metaphors, etc.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
There is no usual way for a poem to begin. Sometimes I rely on writing prompts. Sometimes a title or first line pops into my head. Other times it’s an image, something I read or heard. I usually figure out a book’s trajectory once I have a pile of about twenty poems. Knowing the theme of the book helps me to write the rest of the poems, but the new poems also influence the theme.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
There are aspects about public readings I enjoy very much, one of which is acquainting myself with bookstore owners, then buying lots of books to show my appreciation. I love listening to and getting to know my co-readers, and, if no co-readers, having dinner beforehand with kind people who are interested about my kids, my teaching schedule, and my quirky writing practices. I am a social person, so I like all that comes before and after a reading, even weeks before a reading, when I am emailing back and forth with the organizers. The hardest part of the reading is ... the actual reading. Especially if it’s a solo reading.  Short group readings are a lot of fun. With solo readings, I am not sure “enjoy” is the right word. I work very hard to make it seem like I am naturally eloquent, brimming with interesting anecdotes and quotes, but in truth I have spent hours writing down everything I plan to say and whittling it down to a key-word outline. It’s an exhausting process, and I am usually completely wiped out when it’s over. 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
No, I am not trying to answer or address any theoretical questions when I write. Not that I know of, anyway.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I think the writer’s role is to be a role model, a mentor, and an inspiration.  The goal should be to make the world a better place for all, including plants and animals. Admirable poets are compassionate, empathetic, ethical, and view their subject matter from all sides. A poet simply cannot set a bad example with lazy word choices, clichés, tired tropes. It’s a tall order. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you, as Auden says in The Dyer’s Hand, enjoy fooling around with language.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Difficult but essential. My editors at Saturnalia Books—Henry Israeli and Sarah Blake—have been amazingly generous with their editorial suggestions. It is humbling and exhilarating to work with talented individuals who take a keen interest in poems I’ve been looking at so long I neglect to see room for improvement. I am grateful for their vision, for their willingness to be forthright. Their insights have made a huge difference.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Sometime in the mid-1980s, I was watching a videotaped performance by Robert Bly.  He was in his Iron Man John phase. At one point he asks the audience a question: “So, you want to be a poet. Do you have fifty years? Because that’s how long it’s going to take.” 

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Writing poems is what makes me feel most alive, most like I am in the act of doing what I have been given to do. Critical prose  - you mean literary criticism? Usually I need to be solicited to write that kind of stuff, and on deadline. Otherwise, it has to be something I am really, really fired up about, reacting to passionate, wanting to say my piece in response. Otherwise, it’s all poetry all the time.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Writing is like physical exercise for me. If I miss a few days, no biggie. But if weeks go by? Not good at all. There is no typical day for me. Sometimes I write first thing in the morning. More often I take time out in the middle of my working day to scribble out a draft in longhand or pull up a poem on my screen and tinker. Or sometimes I write late at night, when the house is finally quiet. Sometimes there are too many papers to grade, or submissions to read, to give my full attention to the idea(s) simmering in my brain. It gets put off till the next day or week. Sometimes I write four poems in a day – a result of meeting up with a writer friend, swapping prompts in a coffee shop or around a kitchen table, setting a timer. Then there are the trips to writing retreat centers and artist colonies. I try to go away for at least a week, two or three times a year. In these places I am able to start or finish a book, dream big, research and revise even bigger.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? 
I turn to the Poetry Daily archives, the Poetry Foundation website, poetry books by those who inspire me (I own hundreds), my old notebooks and unfinished drafts, how-to manuals, and my own book, The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice , co-edited with Kelli Russell Agodon. There’s an exercise for every day of the year, but I randomly choose one that peeks my interest, then start to write with lowered expectations and a mindset that I’m just playing around, not really writing.  

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home? 
Vanilla.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
All four, but especially nature, science, and visual art. Recently, my subject matter is pretty much solidly the natural world. I am sort of on a mission to save the planet one poem and one species at a time.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
If I hadn’t read Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I don’t think I would have been brave enough to enroll in Biology 101 in college, which would lead to me signing up for Plant Taxonomy, Animal Ecology, and the daunting “bio units,” including Plant Morphology and Oceanography. Oh, and Organic Evolution. Dillard was the one who gave me the crazy idea that I could dive in.

Not sure what kind of voice I’d have without the Beats, especially Ginsberg, whom I first read in high school. Also Bly and Stafford. And Snyder! I am glad I read Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Turgenev when I was in college. I almost majored in philosophy – Socrates had a profound effect on me. But before that, so did Holden Caufield. And Laura Ingalls Wilder. And Katie John.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Hike the Coast-to-Coast trail across England. Go to Florence. Go back to France. Eat more baguette, salami, and brie. Drink more Blanquette. Visit more caves. Spend more time in the Everglades. See more manatees. Watch my children grow up. Enjoy old age with my husband (we joke that we will sit around watching videos of our kids). Write a book of essays and/or a memoir. More long jogs on the beach!

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Honestly, it’s lucky this writing/teaching writing thing worked out, because truthfully no other occupation appealed to me, except maybe wildlife biologist or park ranger. I love reading autobiographies of astronauts, but no way am I cut out for space travel.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Writing came relatively easy. I kept at it because I was mostly okay at it. I never got a 32 on an English test (can’t say that about math). I was better at it than mowing the lawn, watering the garden, or calculating the slope of a line. I stuck with it because I’m not particularly logical or strong. I didn’t grow up ambitious or determined. I took the easy way out.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I liked A Sand County Almanac . Also, Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes, Don DeLillo’s White Noise. Francine Prose’s Blue Angel.  I am not sure about the word great, but Cheryl Strayed’s Wild had me in its grip for a couple of weeks last summer – I was “in” after the first few sentences and didn’t pop out till I finished the book in tears on a train in France.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I am finishing up a book of poems titled Mission Boulevard, and also working on poems directly and indirectly related to our current carbon emission crisis. These may or may not become part of a book titled Life in the Anthropecene. I plan to continue with these two projects right after I type this period.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Fence magazine #29 (spring-summer 2014)

SECOND LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE
When learning a third language, one often accidentally uses the second tongue, even if it’s barely rooted. In that moment of interference—there is a box in the mind that springs open. occupied. Two spiders per web. The dark matter of conflict. There is a shifting, making space for the stranger getting onto your subway car. You are a subway car. Or the language is in you like a mind. (Jennifer Kronovet)
By now, you’ve most likely figured out that one of my favourite American literary journals is Fence magazine , and their most recent issue recently arrived at my door: Fence magazine #29 (spring-summer 2014). I have to say I was charmed by Trey Sager’s editor’s note at the opening of the issue, titled only “EDITOR,” in which he discusses the process of a small handful of editors with varied tastes and biases, working together to produce various issues. The piece ends with:
Our conversations about what we want to publish have included shared enthusiasms and interests in work from different categories spanning (at minimum) race, age, sexuality, gender, class, level of artistic success, languages, and aesthetics, and how to find stories therein that are challenging and new and explosive and relevant. But I’ve also come to a temporary conclusion that a roster of diverse stories is what’s most important to me. Why? Because that means we’re reading stories on their own terms, that we’re not beholden to a reductive or singular idea of what “high quality” is. I also believe that a diverse group of stories necessarily results in a diverse group of authors. As a democracy, the give Fence fiction editors are each other’s fail-safes. We help check each other’s underlying motives. The subconscious is some deep shit.
Probably ours is not a perfect system, but the latest result is the fiction in this issue, a diamond of a gamut. More or less I’m still following the same Sherpa as before, only now he’s wearing an Iron Maiden tee and quotes Charles Olson, “Limits / are what any of us / are inside of.” Where’s he taking us? Up the mountain, of course.
Everybody carries some water.
Part of that broad scopes includes the caveat that, once published in an issue of the semi-annual Fence, that same author can’t submit again for two years, providing any reader the opportunity to discover at least a couple of very interesting authors previously unknown in every issue. I’m always happy to see new work by Brian Kim Stefans, Jenny Zhang, Evie Shockley, Cara Benson, Jacob Wren, John Pluecker, Sampson Starkweather, Barry Schwabsky, Katie L. Price and Laura Mullen, for example, but was also quite pleased to be able to discover the works of writers such as Dawn Marie Knopf, Jennifer Kronovet and Sandra Simonds; Simonds’ sequence, “The Lake Ella Variations” is worth the price of admission alone. A fragment of the thirteen part sequence reads: “The song of the lake and the song of the human / make / the electric chair. // The song of the hand and the syringe / make / the bread-maker. // The song of the wheat flour and sticker-book / make / the bed.” Sager makes the case for a strong array of fiction in each issue, but it is always the poetry that strikes me first (perhaps my own bias is simply coming through). It is through journals such as Fencethat make me optimistic of the state of literary culture, and some of the possibilities of the poem, opening every issue to a series of striking short lyric poems and/or sequences, such as this, the opening of Dawn Marie Knopf’s sequence, “selections from THE ARIAL CRITIQUES”:
The boundary gathers all along the length of the same. If I recollect with any accuracy I felt it just after we passed the Interstate Shield but you likely dumbed
down the controls for my sake, my simple mind. One side is on this sideand one side is on the other side. To cross Stateline is to re-establish
our conversation. Over our second course in the third town in the great landPerpetua I continue with what I saw.