Column 120 — November/December 2013
The Latest from the Otherstream
Small Press Review,
Volume 45, Numbers 11/12, November/December 2013
a book of variations, love–zygal–art facts. bpNichol.
Edited by Stephen Voyce. 2013; 391 pp. Pa; Coach House Books,
80 bpNichol Lane, Toronto ON M5S 3J4 Canada. $21.95.
www.chbooks.com
Do not write in this space. Edited by Marshall Hryciuk.
2012; 74 pp. Pa; Nietzsche’s Brolly/Imago Press,
30 Laws Street, Toronto ON M6P 2Y7 Canada. $100.
Rattle. Volume 18, Number 2, Winter 2012. 181 pp.
Editor-in-Chief: Alan Fox. Published quarterly. Pa;
12411 Ventura Blvd., Studio City CA 91604. $20/yrly.
www.Rattle.com
I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes with bpNichol’s a book of variations before I was ready to put it at the top of my list of the best of poetry collections of 2013 (if I kept such lists). I was ready to go further and state that no collection of poetry coming out later than it would surpass it although there were over eight months left of the year when I began my journey through it. Having now gotten to the end of the book, but far from finished my journey, I am convinced not only that no other collection of poetry published in 2013 will surpass it, but that none will equal it.
Take just one small section of it entitled “allegories,” 32 pages of cartoons featuring letters, each of which one could write an essay on that would swirl enlightening everywhere without finally explaining the allegory depicted. Perhaps my favorite of these, #18, shows the top of a cartoon man clasping his hands in front of him. Between a smiling half and a . . . nonplussed? half of his face is a sort of 3-D cubist “H.” A cartoon balloon above the face has the text, “NOTING/NOTHING.” The balloon is a thought balloon on the left, a speech balloon on the right. The thought half is connected by bubbles to the smiling half-face, the other half to the other face. So much to note, especially the significance of what must have been bp’s favorite letter, the “H”–including, fascinatingly, the nothing that is there. So much to think about. Smile about.
And whaddya know, there’s even a long division poem here! It’s actually a specimen of a kind of puzzle in which stock symbols such as a generic sailboat, girl in a bathing suit, giraffe, replace the nine integers whose identity one is intended to determine so different from my long division poems (thank goodness that for once he didn’t anticipate one of my inventions–although someone else may have in this case).
According to its back cover, a book of variations places love: a book of remembrances, zygal: a book of mysteries and translations, and art facts: a book of contexts side by side as they were meant to be. It includes an excellent, informative introduction by editor Stephen Voyce. I think it may well become considered as important a contribution to poetry as nichol’s nine-volume poem, The Martyrology. In any case, I hope it attracts some longer reviews than I have room for here!
Another book I was recently sent is Do Not Write In This Space, which is another wonderfully eclectic anthology of artworks from Nietzsche’s Brolly that editor/publisher Marshall Hryciuk calls “a collection of unsolicited ‘surprise’ or ‘already opened accidently’ mail or, so it seems, items dropped off on my desk or drawers at this new Imago’s shared and open office space.” The rest of the works are from various art-friends Marshall asked for work when he found that, due to another move, he hadn’t enough found items for this anthology.
The works range from a personal essay on a dream of “the perfect bookshop” by Rose DeShaw, who uses her dream as a doorway into a thoughtful meditation on the value (and, I would add, poetic ambience) of literary bookstores, through four conventional but intriguing poems by Sam Kaufman, to several of Guy R. Beining always brilliant, collage-centered visual poems, including one of his subtle “haiku-vu” (number 153).
Among my favorites of the works in the Hryciuk anthology is “3 Photos,” by jw curry. It consists of three strange negative photographs of a man with the label “UNWANTED” above him against glimpses of city scenes, one of which is mostly lake. I was also struck by the nine works in the anthology by Carlyle Baker. One called “double negative” I found particularly fascinating. It’s not a poem, for me, but–for one thing–a visualization of a person’s attempt to find an answer to some unknown but worthy question. He uses some kind of positioning grid–placed over a similar grid. Over the two he draws white lines–with a few scribbles toward some sort of understanding that fails to emerge–but do pin down the location of the unknown involved with a large X. I also read in it (less compellingly) the narrative I read in almost all asemic works, the struggle of language to emerge, in this case from thick-lined networks forming layers away from what the language is struggling to speak of, with an abstract outline of what it apparently must include above it. Or the map of a big city, or a close up of a side of such a city . . .
Do Not Write In This Space, in short, is an excellent example of where interesting poetry is. An even better example of where it is not is Rattle. I had a copy of the winter issue because I entered a visual poem in a contest it was running, and to enter the contest, one had to subscribe to the magazine (for $20). Ten poets would be selected as finalists by the editors, each getting $100. The readers of the magazine would then vote to decide which should get the grand prize of $1000. I had the idiotic notion that the editors would choose my poem because they thought it refreshingly different. No chance. poems that flood your core with the frenzied thrill of just being alive.” Here’s its first stanza:
Who sells used sex toys at a garage sale?
I knew I had to pull over as soon as I saw
that table full of dildos
just to hear this woman’s story
Nothing wrong with this kind of poem, but neither it nor the other nine finalists was what you could call “refreshingly different.” I later entered my poem in a local contest for poems about Monet. By coincidence ten winners would be selected for display at the local visual art center. Needless to say, I lost again. Fortunately, there was no entrance fee. The rest of Rattle, which is a nicely-produced slickzine, is pretty much what you would expect from the excerpt I quoted. Extremely standard.
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