Chapbooks from
Apt. 9 Press, Ottawa.,
by Andrew Vaissius
Lea Graham, This
End of the World:Notes to Robert Kroetsch, 2016, 26pp.
Marilyn Irwin, the
blue, blue there, 2015, 36 pp.
The great summer
sport in my neighbourhood is mowing ones lawn – over and over again. Several
times a week. There arises an obnoxious thrum of internal combustion engines
that drown out even the cawing of a crow in the back oak tree, which if heard,
sounds far more intelligent than the engine's whine. Crow pro-vides the
connection with Lea Graham's chapbook. These notes can be interpreted as not
only to, but also about Kroetsch. Remember his novel, What the
Crow Said, in which Vera Lang is brought to climax by a swarm of bees, and
a card games erupts that goes on forever? Lights and siren go off, and to hell
with manicured lawns. This is the world of tall tales and multifaceted
word-stones. The taller the tail the higher the horse. This slim chapbook of
notes presents the reader with the same kind of entertainment: hard to pass up
being dealt in, and harder not to feel a bit diddled with. As any book by or
about Kroetsch is likely to be, this chapbook riots with language and glories
in how a word denotes as much as what that word denotes. “Crows
valentined dumpsters” slows the reader right down with image, and doesn't
forget that now we must take that black wing in hand on a stroll. Later we discover
another line in “A Deviating Elegy for RK”: “The unintentional details of love
deliver us.” It comes together.
The book is
dense and requires a close and attentive read because Graham is onto something
here – on about place and place names, and on about from where a writer writes.
Kroetsch taught at Binghamton University in New York for 17 years, but he never
really left the prairie. His best
writing originates from his western experience, but he was far from being
provincial. Graham, like Kroetsch, nudges the reader on with sham, myth, and
guffaw. Enough said simply means think about it – like the weather there's
always more on the way. It is a good thing that such a worthy homage of
Kroetsch comes from a non-Canadian. In an edition of 80, and very lovely.
* * * * * *
I must say that
an atheist epigraph harkening what might come within the covers is a welcome
change from the usual fare. We are given a profound Neil deGrasse Tyson quote
about how we are make of stardust from the Big Bang. It would be even more
comforting if Irwin made the necessary distinction between science and
technology, but that's a quibble. The chapbook before me entitled the blue,
blue there – the sea and sky? - is a handsome work from Apt. 9 Press. On
the title page under the author's name is a stick and dot drawing of the
constellation Pisces, the fish. In only the second poem, “one fish, two fish”
the author runs to the constellation in a kind of tension, or Mobius strip, or
bounces off padded cubicle walls. Irwin has an engaging sense with her imagery.
In “creature, comforts” - beware of the commas in her poems - she concludes the short poem with the words:
“empties, overflowing”. Empties cannot be overflowing, except as a metaphor, or
more likely here as bottles, not their contents, spilling out of the case.
Irwin succeeds in making a relatively simple poem into a bit of a mystery.
In “bingo” Irwin
missteps in the last line. The poem, set up cleverly, includes the bingo call
of I-28 in both French and English, but for some reason to the penultimate
lines “this is community/ no, this is just where we are” she appends “everybody
wins.” But everybody doesn't win, especially in the poem, especially at bingo.
The game is a gamble, and gambles are fraught with mostly losers and pay-offs
for very few winners. Be assured that more poems succeed than trip up. Irwin
writes short poems especially well. These following two are funny-true:
poem
for poets
like when
you spell
onomatopoeia
correctly
first try
and
throat clearing
sometimes
it's just nice to be heard
Cameron Anstee
at Apt. 9 Press in Ottawa has done a superlative job in the presentation of
these poets. Both volumes are stitched, and showcase an attention to detail and
abiding concern for nurturing word and writer. Irwin's chapbook comes with a
navy blue cover overlaid with a title strip of textured cream-coloured paper
with feathered edges. On this strip the second “blue” in the title stands out
in a blue tint, though a couple of shades lighter than the cover paper. The
book is long and slim and a pleasure to hold. Anstee chose to design Graham's
book a bit oddly, yet thoroughly attractively. It is executed with a four
square patterned stitching comprising a larger fifth square. Only two thirds of
the book can be spread open, but this doesn't make reading a problem since the
printed material on the pages restricts itself to an easily accessed ½ page.
The cover leaves are black with cream-coloured pages. These two books are
similar yet distinctive publications. They are objects of beauty, and Anstee
deserves recognition for their appearance as well as contents.
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