Risk is what interests Anne Simpson these days,” or so states the How Poems Work section on CBC’s site Words at Large, in its synopsis of Quick’s opening poem “Clocks of Rain.” The poem depicts a car accident from the point of view of an observer intent on gathering all the aesthetic data she can from agony, like a morbid Midas. The rhythmic punches of ‘stops’ assonantly counterpointed with the also-repeated ‘clocks’ shape a stanzaic veering on the page that works, but the three chunks of text, the last almost an entire regurgitation of the opening stanza, are replete with lax renditions of pain.
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Recollected Poems 1951 to 2004 – Daryl Hine
Eric OrmsbyPaul Verlaine, no slouch when it came to eloquence, advised aspiring poets to “take eloquence and wring its neck! (prends l’éloquence et tords-lui son cou!).” Verlaine never followed his own advice, nor has Daryl Hine, Francophile though he may be. In fact, for decades now, Hine has been grooming and caressing that mellifluous throat and has managed to coax out of it some of the most sumptuous, accomplished and beautiful poems of the past half-century. He knows that eloquence is a skittish and wily critter, a swan with attitude, and that, tempted as it is to take wing, it needs the resistance of the subtlest of tethers. He keeps a firm, lightly threatening grip on that slippery neck.
A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove – John Newlove
Steve NoyesA Long Continual Argument is probably the best summation of John Newlove’s inimitable poems that we are likely to get, and I have no quibble with the selection, which includes poems from all of Newlove’s books. I can think of no memorable Newlove poem that is excluded, and this edition includes several important longer poems, even the extensive and latterly “Progress.”
Selling Civilization
David MasonIt isn’t easy being a bookseller these days. We are being assaulted from every side, by what seems to be progress, or at least that’s what people call it. A few years ago I referred in print to the current explosion of instant world-wide communication technology as the Electronic revolution, comparing it to the Industrial [...]
The CNQ Interviews
Rabindranath R. MaharajRobin was interviewed by mail by John Metcalf.
The questions have been deleted to make for smoother reading.
Part One
Iwas born in 1955 in George Village, Tableland, a small agricultural district between two very old towns: Princes Town, given its name from a visit by Prince George, and Rio Claro, which I will always associate with ancient, [...]
My White Planet – Mark Anthony Jarman
Alex GoodIf there is such a thing as a stream of consciousness, at least as we see it represented in literature, then its current is just as likely to be driven by sound as sense. Sometimes the resulting babble adds depth of meaning – an unconscious woman’s “senseless, scentless thigh,” the “fracture and fracas” of a battlefield, frozen fields along the St. John River a “lunatic lunar blue,” the “sail lofts on the estuary, statuary and spires” of London – but in each of these cases what is primary is the way one word suggests another, not the relation between associated ideas. If you ask what the narrator in the following passage is thinking about, the only answer is . . . cod:
Cockroach – Rawi Hage
Matthew FoxWhat is a human being’s existence, exactly? Gristle and meat, with blood moving throughout? A series of decisions along a moral code? A set of delusions that sustain? The impact one makes on a place? On others? Or is it mere survival – fighting against mortal threats that can hide behind any corner?
The Journey Prize Stories 19: The Best of Canada’s New Writers – Eds. Caroline Adderson, David Bezmozgis, Dionne Brand
Megan FindlayIn the wake of this year’s controversy over Canadian short story anthologies, with CNQ and The New Quarterly contesting the inclusions and exclusions in The Penguin Book of Short Stories, it’s encouraging to know that emerging writers are continuing to lick stamps and mail their stories to literary journals. Even as the debate pitches and rages around them about who defines the old Canadian canon, they are defining the new. The absolute best of their efforts are anthologized each year by McClelland & Stewart’s Journey Prize Anthology. The 2007 edition of the anthology, in which four-time nominee Craig Boyko finally earns the $10,000 top prize, is a superb example of why this collection is the definitive source for well-crafted, fearless stories by Canada’s brand new writers.
The Darren Effect – Libby Creelman
Kerry ClareBy necessity, Heather Welbourne has become something of a stalker, a huntress, but ever-elusive remains her prey – her boyfriend, Benny Martin, who is married to another woman. Their distance is only augmented when Benny is diagnosed with terminal cancer and Heather is forced to have her mother “poke around” for details of his condition.
Fuck Books
Steven W. BeattieTime is a blind guide.
Bog-boy, I surfaced into the miry streets of the drowned city. For over a thousand years, only fish wandered Biskupin’s wooden sidewalks. Houses, built to face the sun, were flooded by the silty gloom of the Gasawka River. Gardens grew luxurious in subaqueous silence; lilies, rushes, stinkweed.
No one is born just once. If you’re lucky, you’ll emerge again in someone’s arms; or unlucky, wake when the long tail of terror brushes the inside of your skull.
Fuck books!