The Line Has Shattered: Vancouver, 1963
It was open…everything, all of a sudden, was open… This looks fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. Must have.
Adam Sol: Short Take on Lists
Short Take on Lists, Adam Sol Nicholas Papaxanthos’ short piece on Dean Young made me think of another user of lists, Don McKay. Young and McKay are very different poets, but they both have a tendency to “pile on.” As Papaxanthos observes, Young’s triplets are “purposely leaving something out,” to force us to make connections...
On Reviewing: Zoe Whittall
LH: What do you think the purpose of a review is? If you also write about books on a blog (as opposed to an official publication), why? What does blogging let you do differently? ZW: To start a conversation about a new book that a) lets readers know it exists b) talks about how it...
Colin Fulton: Empty & Hungry
Twin Conscience On June 11, 1981, Issei Sagawa, a 32-year-old student studying Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne Academy in Paris, invited a fellow student, Renée Hartevelt, over to dinner at his apartment under the pretense of translating some German Romantic poetry for a class they were taking. Upon her arrival, after convincing her to begin...
Synapse: Guillaume Morrissette
the last time I saw you I was so angry at the most unnegotiable parts of yourself that I thought “black hole lobbed around twice‟. my thoughts were distorted, this is how angry I was. it felt like I meant the anger and was afraid to lose the anger. now I miss the anger. my...
How to Suppress Women’s Writing: Joanna Russ
Bad Faith Denial of Agency Pollution of Agency The Double Standard of Content False Categorizing Isolation Anomalousness Lack of Models Response Aesthetics I have been gathering found poems such as the one above for several years now. They are, in a sense, too easy and I’m wary of actually doing anything with them, but...
David Seymour: With Love, Jan
With Love, Jan but to go there the mind endlessly is singing – Sappho The poems we haven’t read must be her fiercest: imperfect, extreme. – Jane Hirschfield [These are not propositions, but several halves of several potential metaphors.] Like wind turns a strand of exhaled smoke in a helical twist like a skipping rope,...
Rachel Levitsky: from The Story of My Accident is Ours
REPRIEVE The demands of our personal salvations pose the challenge. Despite our commitment to making things or perhaps because of it, we are ill-equipped to accommodate the immediate occurrences of extreme discomfort and the sufferings they cause. The State and its affiliates, on the other hand, effectively utilize their riches and resources, and their experience...
Lisa Robertson on Dionne Brand
Dionne Brand In another place, not here, a woman might touch something between beauty and nowhere, back there and here, might pass hand over hand her own trembling life, but I have tried to imagine a sea not bleeding, a girl’s glance full as a verse, a woman growing old and never crying to a...
Brad Cran: The Death of Ronald Reagan: A Final Love Song
THE DEATH OF RONALD REAGAN: A FINAL LOVE SONG Nancy with your nights on fire, let me be your cold wet rag. My ghost will walk to the empty tomb where I will wait for you to die. When I met you in the middle you became my everything. The trumpets loose,...
Mud Is Mud: Ongoing Notes Toward An Essay On The Art Of Fiction
Clarity is not accessibility. Accessibility is not simplistic. Brevity isn’t minimalism. Oblique is often too much distance. Less is not always more. Excess is not experimental. One room needs to be in relation to the next. Quantity is not quality. Distillation takes time. Ideas in abundance are not enough. Murky is not mysterious. Language isn’t...
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VOLUME 5 IS LIVE