Optimisms 23: Jacob McArthur Mooney
Good morning, Optimism Followers. Jake Mooney here. As this project’s curator, I was quite hesitant to try and “summarize” or otherwise lay personal claim to the thrust of the project. The project has grown many thrusts. A quick review of the month’s worth of optimisms (available here) will show you that better than I can. So, instead, I’ve decided to let the participant’s words have the last words, and have cobbled together the following cento out of snippets from umpteen of mini-essays, poems, and interdisciplinary pieces that made up The Optimisms Project. I hope you like it. But, more than that, I hope you like what it’s made from.
Last Optimism (a cento)
after the participants in “The Optimisms Project”, 2010.
Perhaps it’s time to reconsider these blues and greens.
They spend their days staring out of written records,
treacherous sheets. Apathy and hatred and arts cuts
plague the news. But I love listening, not
becoming the translator. We are not what we were.
Anyone who isn’t seeing this is missing the point.
Joy is often overlooked and mistaken for irony.
We need to start from a fuzzy, problematic, light.
Don’t get me wrong, in the 1950s Frank O’Hara had to
“buy an ugly economics”. But I love listening, and not
being born of national passions. I’m hopeful we’ll all
pick up on something: twin talk, home libraries, an
allowance for food. I’m waiting to see what happens.
It’s Canadian. It may take time. Hold to that and go forth.
Jacob McArthur Mooney is Torontoist’s poetry columnist and the gentleman responsible for the poetry blog Vox Populism. He is the author of The New Layman’s Almanac (McClelland & Stewart, 2008) and a forthcoming collection arriving in 2011 from the same press.
Opening Up the House
Last year, we both celebrated and lamented Toronto’s newest major literary event, the Open House Festival. While we loved the line-up of authors and the eclecticism of the programming, we also suffered from a bit of frostbite, finding the festival to be a bit colder and a bit more rigid in its presentation than we were hoping. The second Open House takes place this weekend, and in anticipation we thought we’d revisit the festival that’s trying to open up Toronto’s literary landscape.
Read more
Optimisms 22: Cory Lavender and Sharon Harris
Today’s our penultimate optimism, folks. We’d like to thank the kind people who’ve read along and said such nice things about the project. The Optimism’s Project curator, Jacob McArthur Mooney, offers a doubleheader today, from two submitters who came up with inspired material, material that spoke to the spirit of the project, but who submitted knowing full well they were over the project’s age limit. How’s that for a form of optimism.
Anyway, Jake was so taken by these two optimists, that he decided to forgo the rules and include them in the project. So, without further introduction, here are Cory Lavender’s nod to transcending the usual canons (the product of a thinker who recently walked away from grad school, incidentally) and former Torontoist Book Editor Sharon Harris’s creative/critical one-two punch.
Cory Lavender
When E.H. Dewart compiled the first anthology of Canadian poetry in 1864 (Selections from Canadian Poets) he lamented the relative “coldness and indifference” that poetry was met with in pre-Confederation Canada. Poetry still faces its undue share of cold shoulders in Canada, but it has built a strong case against its indifferent treatment. Exhibits A through Z: the fine group of anthologies that we have seen published in this country since the millennial turn.
For anyone who cares about literature, I think it would be difficult to observe the breadth of what’s happening in Canadian poetry and fail to feel optimistic. And the broadest views can sometimes be seen through the narrowest lenses. Open Wide a Wilderness collects a rich history of Canadian nature poems, but the diverse ecological poems gathered in Regreen extend our view and demonstrate how endangered the traditional nature poem is. In Fine Form documents Canadian poets’ preoccupation with formal concerns, but lest anyone should think this anthology might be the last word, Jailbreaks shows us just how much innovative spirit Canadian poetry has brought to a single poetic form: the sonnet. Steadily plodding or flipping through any one of the recent Canadian anthologies, accepting them as faulty cultural barometers, but barometers nonetheless, it’s clear to me that Canadian poetry has plenty cause for optimism.
Cory Lavender isn’t exactly “young,” but lately he has been feeling younger. He lives in Guelph.
Sharon Harris
Fun With ‘Pataphysics Experiment No.163: How Do I Write An Optimistic Poem?
Lay a piece of writing paper on a windowsill, and place a polished glass of water upon it. Tape a postcard with a pencil-width slit to its outside so that a ray of sunlight shines through, and onto the water’s surface. Bands of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet will form on the paper.
Pause to thank the sun, air, and water. If you manage to keep your ego out of the rainbow you’ve created, then only happy words will assemble on the page. When you are finished, take a long draught of the water, and write an ecstatic chapbook.
No. 163a: Optimistic Poems
An optimistic poem is a natural phenomenon that causes a nearly continuous spectrum of light to appear in the sky. Its existence depends on the observer’s location: that is, even on a sunny day, not everyone can see a happy poem.
Optimism is part of Canadian poetry despite the poor ability of humans to distinguish it from lesser emotions. Sometimes we only manage a fleeting glimpse. Joy in poems is often overlooked, and sadly mistaken for irony.
Sharon Harris has lived in Toronto since 1992 but grew up in Sarnia, Ontario, with brief stays in Burlington and Bowling Green, Ohio. She loves TO: her first book, Avatar (The Mercury Press) was published here; she was Books Editor at Torontoist.com; her photography exhibition, I Love You Toronto, was a love note in graffiti to the city. Her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers across Canada (Geist, The Globe & Mail, National Post, EYE WEEKLY) and on television and radio. She blogs at theiloveyoublog.com and curates iloveyougraffiti.com.
An Interview with Toronto Cartoonist Jeff Lemire
Jeff Lemire is a self-taught Toronto cartoonist who did the seemingly impossible: he worked diligently at learning his craft, self-publishing his idiosyncratic work for many years, and then submitted a coming-of-age graphic novel to Top Shelf that the American comics company actually agreed to publish. Since then, his graphic novel trilogy Essex County has won widespread acclaim and many awards both north and south of the border. His new work, Sweet Tooth, is published by Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics.
Jeff will be appearing at TCAF May 8 and 9th. He recently spoke with Torontoist’s comics columnist, Dave Howard.
Dave Howard: What started you writing Tales from the Farm, the first book in the trilogy?
Jeff Lemire: At the time I had another book, Lost Dogs, which I had published myself. I spent a year or so trying to figure out what I wanted to do next and I had sent out a bunch of projects that didn’t really go anywhere. I think I got fed up with all these things that weren’t working, and I just wanted to do something that was really simple and really, like you the old cliché of writing what you know. I just tried to go back and explore where I grew up, and do a simple coming-of-age story.
Howard: Is it partially autobiographical?
Lemire: It’s not directly autobiographical. The setting is definitely a real place, it’s where I grew up. I tried to capture a certain mood of the place and what not, but none of the characters are real people and none of it really happened to me. I wasn’t really interested in doing autobiography, I’ve always been much more interested in fiction. But you know you’re going to draw on things from your own life and create characters as metaphors to represent them.
Howard: How long did it take for you to get picked up by Top Shelf?
Lemire: Well I had actually finished Tales of the Farm in it’s entirety before I submitted it to any publishers. I just did it on my own and decided I would submit it to a couple of my favourite publishers, and if no one was interested I’d just self publish again. Top Shelf showed interest right away, and at that point I was starting to work on the second volume of Essex County, so as soon as I started talking to them about it, I already had the idea of the trilogy, and that was all a part of our initial talks. And luckily the first volume did well enough they were interested in doing the others.
Howard: You live in Toronto now, are there parts of Toronto that are around you that are in it? Why did you choose the McCormick?
Lemire: I actually play hockey there. All the Toronto scenes were pretty important to me at the time. I live in the east end now, but I lived in the west end when I worked on that, and for years. I still play at the McCormick pretty much every week with the team.
Howard: How long did it take to get through to write the three books?
Lemire: I think I started in 2006, and finished the third book at the beginning of 2008. The whole process was about two and a half years I think. The second book took the longest, it took about a year and half.
Howard: What was your routine like? How did you find you find yourself able to support yourself during the time you were making the book?
Lemire: Well, up until recently I worked as a cook at La Hacienda restaurant on Queen Street. Basically I would work night shifts so I could draw all day, because I like drawing in the morning especially. I’d get up early and just start working and work until four in the afternoon, and then go and work my night shift, and that’s basically what I did for seven or eight years. I did that until about two years ago; I finally was making a living on comic books and I quit.
It was just something I was passionate about, so I just really applied a lot of discipline and will power and just stuck to a really set schedule every day. That’s the only way you can really get comics done because it’s such a labour-intensive art form.
Recovering Nicely with Susan Juby
Best-selling author Susan Juby’s Nice Recovery is a lot like her other projects–it’s written specifically for young people and is full of insightful humour–but unlike her popular Alice MacLeod series, the book is a work of non-fiction, chronicling Susan’s struggle to get clean and sober before her 20th birthday. After seeing increasing numbers of young people turn to drugs and alcohol over the last decade, Susan decided it was time to share her story. Nice Recovery is part memoir, part guidebook, and completely candid. Susan deals with tough subjects with a lighthearted wit without trivializing her struggles or the struggles of others. The result? A refreshing yet powerful look at the road to recovery.
Susan chatted with Books@Torontoist about what it was like to share her story and what she learned during the writing process.
Torontoist: Tell me about Nice Recovery.
Susan Juby: Nice Recovery is about my life from 13 years old to just past 20, and my problems with alcohol during that time. It’s about what alcohol did for me, how it worked and how it didn’t work, and what early recovery was like, at least for me. The end of the book explores the stories of others, with interviews with young people, as well as information to help those struggling with addictions of their own.
TO: Why did decide to write the book?
SJ: My story was private for a long time. I’ve been sober for 20 years. Throughout this time, however, I’ve seen the demographics in recovery changing. When I first sobered up, people in recovery tended to be in their 40s, 50s, 60s–it was rare to see a young person at a treatment centre. Now, it’s common to see people who are in their late teens and early twenties entering recovery. People are starting drinking early and wiping out fast and hard. It’s changing the culture of recovery. I felt I had a story and a message that these young could relate to. It’s not meant to be universal. It’s my story and the stories of a few others. Hopefully our stories can help people through their own journeys.
TO: Nice Recovery is partly memoir, partly stories of others, and includes a lot of helpful information. Why did you decide to go with this format?
SJ: I intended the book to be funny and light hearted, but I also wanted to show young people what to expect when they’re in treatment. Including so much of my personal story wasn’t part of the original concept. It was going to be a “what to expect when you’re in treatment” type of book and fleshed out with my experiences. I wanted to give people some insight into the kids they see at school, the kids who are the ones “getting into trouble.” I wanted people to get inside that and try to understand that. I also wanted to share what I learned during my recovery process. It’s tough being sober. All of a sudden, you’re clean, you’re better, but you’re stuck with the 10-, 11-, 12-year-old version of yourself, the person who were before you drank or did drugs. That’s tough to deal with. Also, being sober is boring. I was deadly bored when I was 20 and I had to learn how to have fun without alcohol. There is a chapter in the book about deadly boredom, something I was convinced I’d have to deal with for the rest of my life . And I was 20. A couple of people asked me to go to a sober dance. I was so bored and so lonely that I went, even though I thought it was ridiculous. It had some lame aspects. I was by myself. I was a total wallflower. There were some people that were a little sick. But, it was one of the first times I had fun. I didn’t think that was possible unless I was loaded. It was a big moment of change for me. Anyways, after I found a publisher and started to work on it, my story became a much larger part of the book than I expected.
Coach House Countdown: Alan Reed
Jen Currin, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Alan Reed, Thom Vernon, and Rachel Zolf will all be reading from their latest works at the Coach House Spring 2010 launch tonight (scroll down for details). To mark the occasion Books@Torontoist made these authors fill out a brief questionnaire. We’ll print one a day until it’s party time.
Today’s installment of the Coach House Countdown is Alan Reed, author of Isobel and Emile, an achingly beautiful and powerfully stark tale of loneliness and separation.
What’s your book about and what makes it unique?
My book is about what comes after a love story. It is unique for its very short sentences, near total absence of adjectives, and liberal use of puppets.
Which fictional literary character is your favourite?
Lucas, from Agota Kristof’s The Proof. I found a copy of The Proof in a remainder bin when I was in high school and it’s stayed with me since. The book is a large part of why I decided that stark miniminalism would be a good idea for my own book, and Lucas has this inexplicable, unwavering sureness about him that amazes me. Jakob von Gunten and Don Quixote would be next up.
Who are some of your greatest writing influences?
Critical theory should probably be first up on the list, because I am a geek for that sort of thing: Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irrigaray, Maurice Blanchot–but mostly Roland Barthes. There are an ecclectic bunch of writers. I will try to keep this short and I will not mention Roland Barthes again, even though I want to: Beckett, Artaud, and Kafka, Gaetan Soucy and Matthew Remski; nathalie stephens, Marguerite Duras, Kathy Acker, and Jeanette Winterson; Leonard Cohen and Anne Carson; Peter Milligan, Alessandro Baricco, Eric Chevillard, and the aforementioned Agota Kristof. And lately (in the past year) I have been reading Haruki Murakami, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Marie Redonnet, Virginia Woolf, and Heidegger, and soon I will be making a brief foray into Proust.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Write. Writing’s not something that you can figure out by thinking about or talking about; there’s something magical and necessary that happens when you’re in the moment actually doing it. Figure that out, learn how to learn from it, and you’re set.
What’s your favourite bookish spot?
I am one for a good cup of coffee in a raucous cafe. I am not that picky as to which cafe–lately it has been either Cagibi or L’Escalier. I get my coffee, I sit down with a book, and I spend an afternoon alternately reading and watching people.
What do you love about Toronto?
Gwartzman’s Art Supplies on Spadina. The best place I’ve ever found to buy notebooks. Anytime I’m in town, I end up leaving with an armful of them. The Tequila Bookworm, even though it hasn’t been the same since I moved away from Toronto and they renovated. (Sometimes, I do not deal so gracefully with change.) And I used to love Pages. Sigh.
Keep Toronto Reading is all about spreading literary love in this city. What book would you recommend to Torontonians?
On The Ceiling by Eric Chevillard. It’s about a man who has decided, as a matter of princliple, to wear a chair upside down upon his head at all times. It may be a bit hard to track down, but it is well worth the effort. Chevillard is dazzlingly clever and in possession of a wickedly absurd sense of humour.
Why should people come to the Coach House launch?
Why would anyone in their right mind not come?
Coach House Books’ Spring 2010 launch will take place at Revival (783 College Street) on Wednesday, April 28th. Doors open at 8 p.m.
Optimisms 21: Aisha Sasha John
Today’s of The Optimisms Project, brought to us by Aisha Sasha John, speaks the pure and playful language of poetry. Enjoy.
For project curator Jacob McArthur Mooney’s introduction to The Optimisms Project please go here.
What makes you feel optimistic about the future of poetry in Canada?
75 70 true things right now today as in 1:24 pm october 29 08 la plaine
- six lumps of mosquito bites.
- those girls were not from here. it wasn’t the clothes—it was the walk:
- they were chest-lead.
- if i go to the waterfall with h., he’ll see me in my bathing suit.
- nuh uh.
- he hands me a few mangos
- and i soften.
- cheap?
- a nice gesture, even if there’s lust behind it, deserves return.
- actually, no.
- he actually believes it possible he’ll get?
- men are amazing.
- either a.’s cautious, unusually subdued, or
- not quite there.
- number three.
- which is why i’m grumpy.
- oh how form provides direction.
- when the kids get home from school, that is amazing.
- w. has the family eyes.
- i see lots of want.
- i kinda want to barf
- a rubber band tied to the prongs of a flip-flop can secure it around a young ankle.
- i don’t really give a fuck to write the rest of the 52.
- 52—what a terrible number.
- prime factors 13 and 2: lame.
- so many to go and it weakens me.
- a nap would be very cold lemonade
- with honey.
- that cock crowing looks like he wants to barf.
- what kind of number is seventy-five?
- far.
- a challenge powers the will
- and who breathes without dreams?
- the dream seems very distant some days. this day right now.
- and the dream is what
- a state or a thing got?
- this kid, 18 months, is heeling me in the arm which is fine because it’s itching one
lump of a bite. - it’s important to write everyday because that’s what earns you the title. enough of being good.
- every line is plucking a torn hair.
- if this child falls it wouldn’t be nice. it looks as if that’s his dream.
- they’re back!
- the difference between losing and misplacing is perspective. retrospection? something about optimism or likelihood or, really, optimism.
- i do it because i started.
- all day long i’m right here and how long is to
- outside all day there is what they call industry
- why wouldn’t he.
- because i’m too too?
- like he’s going to hurl, upchuck, and he bosses the hens for food.
- they talk to the sun they are hollering.
- are they mad at the fact of the day?
- who would look at that feathered beast and think yum?
- when you sip you close your eyes. a four year old told me this, laughing.
- always smiling. what are you smiling at? she said. also laughing. this one, thirteen.
- if from little, delight; then from little, distress.
- here: cleve sounds like cliff. roselle like rosehill.
- it’s important to get out.
- it was considered and dismissed: bringing me.
- that is part of the appeal, the skin
- certainly
- also her height, the slimness.
- these are sure things if not true.
- that rooster again. fowl cock.
- is the will worth powering?
- i could get fucked
- told you
- what’s changed
- something i don’t know.
- it’s going to be more than fine. believe!
- trust!
- close enough
Aisha Sasha John is a poet, playwright and performer. Her work has appeared in such places as The Danforth Review, Exile Quarterly, CV2, Carousel, Existere, The White Wall Review, and the Diaspora Dialogues anthology, TOK 3: Writing the New Toronto. In 2009, Aisha completed her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph; in 2010, she’s writing plays as part of Nightwood Theatre’s Write From the Hip program as well as Theatre Passe Muraille’s theatre creators group, Upstarts. Aisha is also currently completing a manuscript of poems called The Shining Material. Visit her at hugetime.tumblr.com.
Optimisms 20: Sandy Pool
Sandy Pool, today’s contributor to The Optimisms Project, sees no contradiction in being both mean and optimistic. “The willingness to be unpleasant (when necessary) in poetry,” Pool insists, “is the key to unlocking the crafty poet spy.”
Hey, no argument here.
For project curator Jacob McArthur Mooney’s introduction to The Optimisms Project please go here.
What makes you feel optimistic about the future of poetry in Canada?
On Being Mean and Meaning It:
the art of socio-poetic optimism
Poesis, or literally the act of making has always been imbued with a cock-eyed sense of optimism. After all, the question of what we are making, inevitably begs the larger question: why are we making it? As a political poet, my answer has undoubtedly been to create a kind of omni-directional hope; the kind of hope which questions and prods, not only the situation itself, but also the poetic container. To quote Tony Hoagland, “Once upon a time, meanness (in poetry) was poetically permissible, even celebrated.” This sense of being mean or brutal is often misconstrued as lacking in optimism. However, the willingness to be unpleasant (when necessary) in poetry is the key to unlocking the crafty poet spy. To quote Hoagland: “the willingness to be offensive sets free the ruthless observer in all of us, the spiteful perceptive angel who sees and tells, unimpeded by nicety or second thoughts. There is truth-telling, and more in meanness.” Unlike Hoagland, I don’t necessarily advocate documentary objectivity without a sense of poetic irony. The reason I am willing to show the unpleasant is that it allows me to shed a kind of fuzzy problematic light on the world; a kind of optimistic light, which searches, and asks for more. Of course, there is always a personal tone in my meanness, perhaps more rigidly pessimistic than I intended, but I do try to view poems as small, complicated containers for optimism. My poetic offerings are not glasses, either half full or half empty; they are grasshoppers covered in chocolate.
Sandy Pool is a poet and multi-disciplinary pessimist who lives in Toronto. She has been published in literary journals across the country and was most recently anthologized in TOK: Writing the New Toronto and Writing Without Direction, upcoming with Clark-Nova Books. Her first book, Exploding Into Night, was recently published with Guernica Editions, and her opera “One Lump Or Two” premiered with Tapestry New Opera Works in 2009. Currently Sandy teaches at Humber College and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Calgary.
LitBlog Spotlight: Salty Ink
In November 2009, writer Chad Pelley launched Salty Ink, a blog dedicated to covering the Altantic Canadian literary scene. Since then, Salty Ink has emerged as an authoritative voice on all things bookish on the East Coast, covering everything from book design (they held a Judge a Book By Its Cover contest earlier this year) to emerging Maritime and Newfoundland writers (check out their monthly Shedding Some Ink On… profile series). Atlantic Canada has a vibrant literary scene, and Salty Ink covers it with humour and heart.
Chad Pelley chatted with Books@Torontoist about what it’s like to blog and why he chose to cover the East Coast.
Torontoist: Why did you decide to start Salty Ink?
Chad Pelley: Basically: my first novel came out in October 2009, and I did quite a few radio shows and interviews that all asked the generic, “Who are your biggest influences?” I started to notice that I was always offering up an Atlantic Canadian author, particularly a Newfoundland author, which surprised me. I hadn’t really noticed the impact Atlantic Canadian authors have had on my writing, or the sheer diversity of books and writing coming out of here. I think a successful book blog needs a focus (or something to make it distinct), so I thought, There’s my niche: Atlantic Canadian writing.
TO: Salty Ink is relatively new, having been launched in November 2009. How has the blog evolved since then?
CP: Salty Ink spent November and December finding its legs. It started as a place to dump various bits of news about Atlantic Canadian writing. As of January, I’ve added some regular features: a “Book of the Month” that grants the featured book a glowing review, free ad space for a month, and some other future and retroactive perks that are in the works. I also do an “overview of and interview with” an author on the tenth of every month, and I run an annual “Judge a Book By Its Cover” competition. I’ve sprinkled some regular features around random bits of news to help establish the site and give meaning to its commentary. I have ideas for some of these regular features beyond Salty Ink, or offshoots of Salty Ink, that are too vague to mention right now. Also, some publishers have gotten in touch about author blog tours. I am looking forward to that. And visitation has been tripling every month, which helps justify all the time I spend on it.
TO: What have you learned about book blogging?
CP: To do it right, it is quite time consuming. It is a part-time job. You have to love what you are talking about. Despite having had some great writers, critics, editors, and book types offer assistance, I have chosen to run the site solo, so that it can be “branded,” and people can decide if they like or disagree with Salty Ink’s suggestions. I don’t think doing it alone makes it narrow in its opinions, as I have a broad-ranging love of all styles of literary fiction.
TO: What’s surprised you the most about book blogging?
CP: How much some publishers have embraced book blogs: I get free books in the mail every week. Which is overwhelming because I am a slow reader, doing this alone, and can only talk about so many books. Also, the feedback and positive reaction to this site has been uplifting proof of that some people still love the book more than the movie.
TO: What role do book bloggers have in today’s book industry?
CP: Things like author blog tours and interactive contests should be something publishers, not just readers, are embracing. Via book blogs, any author—established or emerging, small press or Random House published—can be flashing there in front of every Canadian reader’s face and getting into Canada’s reading conscious. The world is online now, and so are the most successful publishers and authors, in terms of marketing. The pros of book blogs are numerous and incontestable. With so many book blogs, readers can pick and choose the ones they enjoy. Book blogs are also free, and their entire archives of articles are there and searchable. Book blogs can be interactive, with people all over the country. There’s blogcasts and podcasts, and vote-based competitions and other giveaways. Book blogs can summarize everything happening in the industry at the click of a mouse (See Book Ninja) or they can have a specific focus, like Salty Ink. I guess I like the niche site aspect of book blogs, and individual readers finding individual blogs that excite or inform them. The con of a book blog is that, unlike a newspaper or magazine, there is no hiring process: everyone and their dog can blog about books (but not intelligently and fairly and objectively).
TO: Why are Atlantic Canadian books important to you?
CP: Because of their influence on my own writing, sure, but mainly: there is an astounding diversity of style, delivery, and subject matter coming out of Atlantic Canada. So much of it is so fresh and crisply written that, as a writer, I get plain excited by it. I am reading Amy Jones’s Metcalf Rooke award-wining What Boys Like at the moment, and what she does with narrative structure in some of those stories is brilliant.
TO: Can you recommend some great Atlantic books and authors for our Toronto readers?
CP: It’s too hard. I can say that the best book I’ve read so far in 2010 has been Jessica Grant’s first book Making Light of Tragedy. From a writing stand point, there is only one Jessica Grant, but I’d like to see a dozen more. Or would that dilute what I like about her? As for my favourite Atlantic Canadian novel, I don’t have a favourite book, or I’ve yet to read it, but I default to David Adams Richards’ Mercy Among the Children. Michael Winter’s This All Happened is the book that got me writing.
TO: Do you feel Atlantic Canadian lit is a genre unto its own?
CP: It’s a yes and no situation. There is an astounding diversity of style, delivery, and subject matter coming out of Atlantic Canada, all of which cannot be lumped together. How do you compare, say, Lisa Moore to Kenneth J. Harvey? That said, there are packs of writers you could categorize together, beyond what you could from other regions, particularly Newfoundland writers. So, I don’t think it is a genre unto its own. No, our writers are too distinctive or diverse in subject matter, and yet there are distinctive styles of writing coming out of Atlantic Canada. I could say “Ryan Turner is like early Michael Winter” and you’d know what I mean. I think Atlantic Canadians are very supportive of their own, and they read a lot of each other, and therefore possibly influence each other, which may explain any vague similarities. I know I consider myself a “best of collection” of all the writers who have influenced me. They all happened to be Atlantic Canadian authors. (How’s that for talking in circles?) I don’t think it is a genre, no, our writers are too distinctive. But Atlantic Canadian Lit IS more cohesive and identifiable than than Western Lit (a term that’s never dubbed for that reason: I can’t think of a group of comaparable western writers as readily as I could Atlantic Canadian writers). Although all of our top-notch writers are distinct from each other, there are distinctive unnamed subgenres coming out of Atlantic Canada.
TO: As a writer yourself, how have you approached writing about other writers’ work?
CP: I don’t read like a reader, I read like a writer. I don’t do it on purpose, but what I tend to focus on in critique is what I admired from a writing perspective. Not story, not pageturnerness, or who the author is, but how evocative the sentences are, how effective a narrative structure is, or how distinctive a style is, that sort of thing. The books I get the most excited about are the ones I am fondly jealous of, because I didn’t write it myself. Not the ones that compelled me as a reader. There’s a slight difference.
Coach House Countdown: Rachel Zolf
Jen Currin, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Alan Reed, Thom Vernon, and Rachel Zolf will all be reading from their latest works at the Coach House Spring 2010 launch on Wednesday. To mark the occasion Books@Torontoist made these authors fill out a brief questionnaire. We’ll print one a day until it’s party time.
Today’s installment of the Coach House Countdown is provided by Rachel Zolf, whose poetry collection Neighbour Procedure is a dazzling collection of conceptual poetry that combines the unlikeliest of neighbours and ideas.
What’s your book about and what makes it unique?
Depressing stuff like war, torture, and occupation, but with a unique ironic sensibility!
Which fictional literary character is your favourite?
The fly on the wall in Gail Scott’s forthcoming book, The Obituary.
Who are some of your greatest writing influences?
NourbeSe Philip, Erín Moure, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Gail Scott, Paul Celan, Edmond Jabès, Margaret Christakos, Betsy Warland, Jeff Derksen, Kate Eichhorn, and Walter Benjamin.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Write (to be trite–just do it)… and read read read…and oh yeah, read.
What’s your favourite bookish spot?
Of Swallows, Their Deeds, & the Winter (new bookstore/gathering space at 283 College), This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, and the Toronto Women’s Bookstore.
What do you love about Toronto?
One of the best places in the world to be queer.
Keep Toronto Reading is all about spreading literary love in this city. What book would you recommend to Torontonians?
Angela Carr’s The Rose Concordance (BookThug, 2009). Beautifully written—and very sexy, with many fountains…
Why should people come to the Coach House launch?
To support the most important literary press in Canada, so that it may still exist next year. And oh yeah, because it’s a good party.
Coach House Books’ Spring 2010 launch will take place at Revival (783 College Street) on Wednesday, April 28th. Doors open at 8 p.m.
Author photo courtesy Moyra Davey