186. phases of the harpsichord moon by Gary Barwin (Angelhouse, 20115)
A pretty neat object, beautifully made and the story of preface and postscript interesting as well. This was a re-release of what was Barwin’s first chapbook of Serif of Nottingham Press, that which started so much in motion of his creativity, and his movement in small press. His young mind at work about 30 years ago is remarkably similar to now with the sense of play at unexpected angles. The poems hold up.
187. I Wonder by Marian Banjes (The Monacelli Press, 2010)
This is an utterly madhouse book. It is exquisite, strange, lush, bizarre. It is You Can’t Do That on Television but for typography except sophisticated and complex. She proposes in one essay in the book a system for corporate logo descending from the principles of heraldry so with a glance we can tell their industry, age, greeneness and parent company lineage. She has a chapter on gravestones, another on what wonder is in an age of modernism, an another on a close read of her mother’s paper head, steno pads she kept for decades. She wrote her title pages in broken wheatabix, then another in pasta, then in flowers. She wrote one chapter entirely in her own alphabet of code for codebreaking. Which breaks my head. There. In 5 unequal pieces on the floor.
188. The Anatomy of Type: A Graphic Guide to 100 Typefaces by Stephen Coles (Quid Publishing, 2012)
Who knew that a book like this could be so funny?
He has strong opinions on fonts, on their use, beauty, gender. Sometimes the humour that struck me was how much he read into fonts, and sometimes that one of the few female typographers made font most suitable for jam jars. Oh my. If only he were joking. Isn’t he? The families of fonts, the histories of the makers of fonts, but mostly the details of what distinguishes, such as a size of eye of an “e”, the square or round counters, the calligraphic flourishes or ball or angled edge to the r.
It’s really impossible to reproduce, as they intend. The scale of the book and the depth of detail doesn’t make much sense in small tiles but in person, is quite fun.
189. Poems for Mishka by David Currie (Shreeking Violet, 2015).
In the first season of Shreeking Violet doing full-on chapbooks, handbound and special paper stock, oddly enough it is Dave Currie and I again, having just been part of the same season of chapbooks from In/Words as well. Small poems and moments with his dog. How can you, dear reader, not love a dog?
190. Matrix, issue 102 (Matrix, 2015)
This issue was a treat to be in and to read. The winner of the short story is about the chicken industry from the perspective of a chicken which while heartbreaking is well-written and people love to break their own hearts.
191. Rough Ground Revisited by Kate Braid (Caitland, 2015)
Many of the poems were familiar since I’ve lived with them for years, taught some in class, little sparks of light that women are capable of holding their own in a man’s world. Such a message matters to me since it was my father’s grief that I was born a girl therefore there was no one to take over his farm or share it with since I should not as a female be roughed by that hard life. When he was doing fencing and roofing my job was to bring him lemonade or lunch. When he was changing the car oil my job was to stay out of the garage. In this mouse maze of can’t, how inspiring to see someone walk along the walltops. Comparing them against the original of Covering Rough Ground (Polestar, 1991), I find a new favourite which has been added, Jesus’ Younger Sister. Where Virginia Woolf postulates that if William Shakespeare had a sister with the same interest and natural aptitude, systemic barriers would have prevented her from becoming a playwright, would probably lead to her suicide, Braid paints a girl who would do woodworking, and Jesus as a theory-flake. She gets her chance in a man’s world.
192. Imagine Mercy by David Groulx (Bookland Press, 2013)
I heard one of these poems performed a couple times but both times had no cash on me to buy the book. (When you keep hearing and poem and still like it, don’t you owe the book that much?) His book is featured as part of AllLitUp profiles of presses this week.
Winnipeg gets a water advisory? Fixed immediately. Reserves? Waiting for decades.
Groulx has been taking the time to plough energy into making a lot of poems over the last few years and each book gets stronger than the last. This one can be daunting at time with the grief and rage of human rights abuses that live in native communities. No safe drinking water for decades, underfunded schools. The book pre-dates finding the 2nd biggest diamond in history on native land but of course none of that money will filter down since our land is the skim of topsoil and mineral rights are given to others.
193. perpetual by Rita Wong and Cindy Mochizuki (Nightwood, 2015)
Also on the water theme, this is the graphic novel we told you about on Literary Landscape a while back with illustrations by Mochizuki. I am out of my depth with the format since don’t grok the genre of graphic novel. I understand that images don’t make it for kids. I understand that for learning disability the illustration can help bridge. I watch videos on mute with subtitling on. I turned on subtitles to my mom’s tv while I visited since she was having trouble hearing it and she was mad. “If I wanted to read I have books. Why would I want to read a movie!” she said. This book does good advocacy and brings people up to speed on dams and native relationships to water and ecological movements.
194. The Technology of the Future Will Emerge Hungry: erasure poems by Paul Vermeersch (Proper Tales Press, 2013).
Looking at some of the source poems for these erasures, they’re huge so it must be easy to say something with all that material. But looking at the diversity of source styles and topics, how they boiled down to a selection where all the erasure poems fit with each other, that’s daunting. And then to understand it better, I took them all apart and made a set of erasure poems from his. Each of his pages boiled down to 3 lines. And how hard it was to make concrete controlled vivid turns as he had. And how little he used the letter A. I wanted to say “a” not “the” but couldn’t. How often he used past tense and yet contrary to the rule of thumb that mandates monipresent simple present tense for immediacy, the poems felt immediate.
195. Light Behind the Darkness: Stories of Compassion from the Holy Land by Raouf Omar and Claude Well (General Store Publishing House, 2011)
Touching stories where I find myself saying, hey, listen to this one and reading another aloud to hubby. Each story has a photo plate of stained glass window paint on plexiglass which complements the story. The book and more stained glass is available at Jordan Restaurant, Bank Street. The stories are not about peace time but memories, most of them, when they were soldiers and someone from the other side of the war treated them kindly or did a human kindness to the “enemy”.