filling Station #83 : a bit of love and something to believe in,

 

As the clavier (still?)makes clear… (The angels between us
& God?) Woodcutforests. Blake, ‘London’ less real than its

soot. Locked in,language’s rooms of one’s own? Death’s life
like ellipsis. Ah, thebody-length turban of prose! Out of Epic

sorts? Words: gods, lemontrees. Reality’s crusts: gaunt readers,
digest. (The round abouthere – poetry, poesy, jars of old light-

ning…) Wind, shardsin the vase. (In moonlight’s chambers,
simile’s slow gin.)Queerly vital lilacs: Being, such an

exhibitionist! (Atoms,abyss abacus.) The slow-
ly rose shadows: thestill yellow

cups. (Sean Howard,“Still Poems (for Wallace Stevens)”)

Incase you weren’t aware, Calgary’s filling Station magazine recentlycelebrated their thirtieth anniversary this year, and a whole slew of pieces celebratingthis milestone, by past contributors and editors, appeared recently via TheTypescript (including Derek Beaulieu, Karl Jirgens, Doug Steadman, r rickey). Thirty years is a long time in publishing, I hope you know,especially a journal with such a combined high turnover of editorial, as wellas its range of high-quality material. The journal originally emerged during animportant period in Calgary writing: one that expanded and exploded acrossexperimental poetry and prose, centred around the University of Calgarycreative writing program [Derek Beaulieu and I worked to acknowledge a numberof the practitioners that emerged from this explosion through our anthology TheCalgary Renaissance]. Throughout all sorts of activity, filling Stationremained, and continues to remain, the publishing heart of that movement, onethat continues to pubish and champion work that might otherwise be seen as toofar “out there.”

Partof what is always interesting about filling Station is the blend ofstyles, leaning an experimental bent (but open to the straighter lyric) acrosswork by emerging and established writers, allowing for the possibility ofpushing against boundaries of form, in matters lyric, visual and through thesentence, and everything in-between. While the visual collage of South Bend, Indiana-based Toronto poet Camille Lendor’s “The Best Pizza Dough Recipe” mightbe built upon the central core of a more traditional lyric, Calgary poet David Martin’s “Mnemotechnics” and California-based poet [Sarah] Cavar’s “GoodbyeForever Party” are curious to see side-by-side, given their echoes of eachother’s striking lines of accumulation. “I go like smoke pulled toward aceiling,” Cavar writes, “Leave bad black brackets on pastel walls.” I’mintrigued as well by the small points, the accumulated moments, of Ottawa poet Frances Boyle’s poem “inflorescence,” more pointillist than her “Stroll,” but withinthe same field of structure. In each poem, she structures a singlesentence-thought across breaks of space, line, breath and thought. “who gave melife / give me this,” the second half of her first poem reads, “our relativesthe air / flood // our rich friend / silt [.]”

There’sa curious short scene, a short story by Cobourg writer, editor and publisher Stuart Ross, “The Red Ink,” that is quite intriguing. He writes to explore and expandupon a single frame [read my essay on his most recent collection of stories, in case you hadn’t seen], a structure he’s used often across his prose, but heldhere as a focus upon that singular moment, one that still allows a view of therippling effect beyond. As he writes, near the end:

            “I am happy here,” perhaps he explained, “but your time isgetting short. The winds are changing, the air is desiccated. The red ink thatflows through your veins will soon start to search for a way out.”
            In the distance, laughter.
            Skates arcing through the air.