Featured Review: "Nearly Terminal" by Eleni Zisimatos (reviewed by Bill Neumire)

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poetry review, reviews

(Montreal, QC: DC Books, 2019, $18.95, 100 pages)

Review by Bill Neumire

Vallum’s very own Eleni Zisimatos’ first full-length poetry collection, Nearly Terminal, is out from DC Books, and its bold terminality surfaces in many ways throughout this powerfully staccato collection: the book is full of phrases that begin but are ended abruptly; a central personal relationship for the speaker has ended; and an existential ceasing is also at stake from the very opening epigraph, which warns that “[t]he death of human consciousness is white.” Zisimatos, who was short-listed for the Robert Kroetsch, Irving Layton, and Santa Fe Writers’ Awards, presents her language like tire tracks in snow: white space abounds in this fragmentary diction of abstraction. The speaker characterizes her own voice in a Stevens-like moment: “in the mind a voice / that is not a voice.” The effect is defamiliarization, especially in how to classify the poems, which seem at first glance Eastern in form, but on closer inspection, are very broadly erasure-like and existential. Nearly Terminal employs a distancing from “wild meaning” via frequent lack of punctuation or titles, such that all of the poems become one continuous set of tracks through the dominating snow of the pages. Brevity is central here as each poem is, at most, fourteen lines (and few words make up each line). These, taken separately, are hints at events, at presence. This form makes sense with the poet’s idea of her own process, as Zisimatos has said,

I will not call what I do a “practice,” although the Zen idea of living in the moment has, indeed, been called a practice. I do not schedule when I write. I can honestly say that I live from one moment to the next and have difficulty planning ahead for more than one or two days. As such, the writing that I do comes furiously in sporadic moments, and I can write fifty pages in two days.

The three sections of Nearly Terminal hinge on the missingness that erasure poetry revels in. The book begins with two epigraphs, this second one from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Isaiah, 59:10:

Let us grope along the wall like the blind,
Let us grope like those who have no eyes;
We stumble at midday as in the twilight,
Among the vigorous people we are like the dead.

There is a meta commentary at work throughout these pages to aid the reader as the haiku-like clusters are described by the speaker as “words decentering / releasing // the feel of the animal.” Yes, the feeling is of tracking an animal in winter, of reading “[t]he words of a smart director // involved in a crime.” In another moment, the text is “turned over, beaten / Giving up / The textual.” The short lines make for numerous line break opportunities, and the poet takes full advantage of multiplying possible meanings (to give up the textual, or to give up and use the textual as a vehicle for giving up?) with each turn to a new line. So, what does it mean to give up the textual? Partly it is to become visual, and thus the snow-blind landscape takes on more significance. It is also to become that mind voice without a voice. Like tire marks, the poems, taken individually, only give you a sense of direction and speed. But they add up, not to a full, conventional narrative, but certainly to a tonal sense of loss, of yearning:

With the tire marks fading
The presence of it, yes
It did occur, when, why
It moves like fumes

Narrative and traditional form and pattern seem near dead already in contemporary poetry, but nonetheless, an anti-narrative, anti-pattern is the stance of this speaker who claims a prideful, celebratory identity in the following lines:

And there is us, the fragments
Who have destroyed the Pattern
The glory of the invincible
The rockets firing

The speaker is not the much-attacked confessional I, but at the heart of these abstract tire tracks, there is a motor, a generator, an individual who has suffered personal loss, whose “longing / unmasks itself.” The relationship to narrative and pattern is like the speaker’s relationship to the other that has spurned her, who has left her

Torn by ravens
Illuminations of
A past that
The future rotten
A failure
Movement of streetcars
To move

Into and out of
Cold

Present indication that is

Suspended.

The three sections of the book perform their snow-blind spell to connect the personal life to the larger Life that touches everyone: “My life / This life / Your life.” The role of desire, of failed love and memory is strong, and this despair is always sewn to whiteness: “There is so much despair // Such white.” The speaker continues with this brilliant lament:

You want me to sing, dance
It is not just age
I used to be happy, once
It was then
Like then becomes the altar
To worship to

Then most often becomes the “altar / to worship to” when relationships are at an end, and all relationships end with death. Terminal is, for one thing, an expression of diagnosis, of disease. From the beginning, this is a book of the end: “Knowledge of whom, it all began / With the end.” It is a book of last breaths wherein “Every day is marked // For termination.” The collection, in some ways, has no beginning, no poem titles, and as for endings, “There is no ending sir / just the melody.” This is a book of haiku that aren’t haiku, stories that don’t end, sonnets sliced vertically in half, empty pages that remain largely empty, a book declaring against

Wild meaning
That noose
Declares you must
Know
Everything.

Too much, too much

Walking
Talking

No

It comes to you

This madness.

This honed, roaming madness is Nearly Terminal’s alternative to wild meaning, a new meaning that does not commerce with beginnings and endings, but rather is only interested in “The free sound of your being / That which you will one day not / Hear any more.” Even as it ends with language, it really ends with resonant echoes, echoes which take an overtly hopeful turn in the last few pages, reminding us that giving up is only a “false solution” which crumbles compared to

Certain truth: Love
The looking inwards, outwards

Creating bonds, the
Will that
and

this love, this trust, still
possible

Yes, inward and outward is poetry’s domain, and poetry like this is a sign that those saving, necessary bonds between us are still possible.

Bill Neumire‘s first book, Estrus, was a semi-finalist for the 42 Miles Press Award, and recent poems have appeared in The Harvard Review Online and Beloit Poetry Journal. He reviews contemporary poetry for Scout, Vallum, and Verdad, where he serves as a poetry editor.

To see more from issue 16:2, please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Vallum 2019 Year in Review: Part Three

2019 was an exciting year for Vallum!

We launched Vallum: Contemporary Poetry issues 16:1 and 16:2, and published two new chapbooks: Finding Places to Make Places by Alexei Perry Cox , winner of the 2019 Vallum Chapbook Award, and Swelles by Sina Queyras. Read about our new chapbooks here.

Ellen Chang-Richardson won the 2019 Award for Poetry with “Grotto,” while Conor Mc Donnell received second place with “Participation and passive views (Twin Peaks in under two minutes).” Honourable mention went to Sam Kaspar for “eau de stripper.”

We also hosted two pop-up shops, at Le Cagibi, attended press fairs in New York City, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and hosted outreach workshops with new facilitators and organizers.

To commemorate Vallum’s busy and successful year, we asked this year’s contributors to share their thoughts on the books they read in 2019 and what’s in store for the year ahead.

Here’s what some of the writers published in Vallum Issue 16:1, 16:2, chapbook authors and 2019 contest winners said:

 

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Sally Quon

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

My favorite book of poetry from this year is tied between Cynthia Sharpe’s Rainforest in Russet and the collaboration between Lee Maracle and her daughters, Tania Carter and Columpa Bobb, titled Hope Matters. The cover art on Hope Matters was also done by Tania Carter.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

My reading list for 2020 includes as many Canadian literary journals as I can get my hands on and my wish list is Jude Neal’s A Blooming and Lorna Crozier’s God of Shadows. Right now, I’m working my way through Canadian Poets On-line and I’m fairly certain it will end with a large shipment from Amazon.

3.) Best writerly advice:

My best advice would be this:  Live life boldly. Take your art to unexpected places.

Sally Quon is a photographer and writer living in the beautiful Okanagan Valley. When not out enjoying the splendors of nature, she likes to spend time cooking, reading and painting. Her photography has appeared in Canadian Geographic Magazine and in Nature Alberta’s various birding brochures. Sally was recently awarded a Judge’s Choice Award in the Ontario Poetry Society’s Ultra Short Poem Competition 2018 and was short-listed for the 2018 Exile Writers Gwendolyn MacEwan Literary Competition. She has two beautiful, almost grown children.

 

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Laura Glenn

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

Among the books of poetry that especially intrigued me this year were The Octopus Museum by Brenda Shaughnessy and Like by A. E. Stallings, the latter being more structured than most contemporary poetry that I read.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

Given that my work life keeps me busy, there’s an element of serendipity to how I choose books. I go to the library and return with an armful or peruse a bookstore. I read a number of poetry journals each year and sometimes pursue a poet whose work I come across in them. Martín Espada is one such poet who’s on my list. I’d like to read more Ilya Kaminsky, Terrance Hayes, Joy Harjo, both Matthew and Michael Dickman, and so many more. I get a lot out of returning to the poems of Alice Fulton and hope for new works by her. Typically I reread some poems by Dickinson, Keats, French symbolists, and on. There are also a handful of novels and books of short stories on my reading list, though I’m reluctant to name authors I haven’t read yet.

Laura Glenn is the author of I Can’t Say I’m Lost (FootHills) and When
the Ice Melts (Finishing Line); her poems appear in many journals
and anthologies. She is completing another book of poems. Also a visual
artist, she lives in Ithaca, NY and works as a freelance editor. www.
lauraglennpoetandartist.com. Read her poem “Brief Flight” in Issue 16:2. 

 

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Michael Trussler

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

My most valuable discovery this year has been Brenda Hillman’s Extra Hidden Life, among the Days. Its formal experimentation and rigorous, gentle intelligence is something I keep returning to almost every morning when I get up early to have a coffee and try to set the tone for the day. And also the work of Jean Valentine, both writers being pointed out to me by C.D. Wright.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

For 2020’s reading list: to finally get to Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, Dionne Brand’s Ossuaries; and then to go deep in John Ashbery and Jorie Graham’s poetry.

3.) Best writerly advice:

Read wide and deep—from neuroscience to diaries written in times when almost everyone kept diaries. Be a witness (sometimes friendly, always curious, often hostile) to what’s spread across the spectrum of your times… and make up a new word if there’s nothing better at hand.

Michael Trussler has published poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction. His story collection, Encounters, won the Book of the Year Award from the Saskatchewan Book Awards in 2006. A poetry collection, Accidental Animals, was short-listed for the same awards in 2007. The Alfred Gustav Press published Light’s Alibi in 2018. Read his poem The Nights The Child Dreams Of Numbers in issue 16:2. 

 

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Ellen Chang-Richardson

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

Cameron Anstee’s Book of Annotations.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

River Woman (Katherena Vermette), NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field (Billy-Ray Belcourt), Port of Being (Shazia Hafiz Ramji).

3.) Best writerly advice:

Find your favourite place. Start writing. Never give up. Edit, edit, edit.

Ellen Chang-Richardson (she/her) is an emerging poet, writer and editor of Taiwanese & Cambodian-Chinese descent. Recipient of the 2019 Vallum Award for Poetry, her writing has appeared in Ricepaper Magazine, Coven Editions: Grimoire, Revue PØST, and more. Her inaugural chapbook, Unlucky Fours, is published by Anstruther Press (2020). Ellen is the founder of Little Birds Poetry, a series of editing workshops for poets and creative writers. Find out more at www.ehjchang.com.

 

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J. R Solonche

1.) What was your favourite poetry book published this year?

A Dark Dreambox of Another Kind: The Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton (The Song Cave, 2015)

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

Nothing. I’m too busy writing. At least three books are forthcoming in 2020.

3.) Best writerly advice:

Be compelling. If you can’t be compelling, be concrete. If you can’t be concrete, be original. If you can’t be original, be brief. If you can’t be brief, be funny. If you can’t be funny, try harder to be brief. 

J. R. Solonche is the author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), Won’t Be Long (Deerbrook Editions), Heart’s Content (chapbook from Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems (Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (Kelsay Books), Tomorrow, Today & Yesterday (Deerbrook Editions), If You Should See Me Walking on the Road (Kelsay Books), and coauthor of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in the Hudson Valley. Read his poem “A Gull” in Issue 16:1. 

 

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Cassidy McFadzean

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

I started the year with Marie Howe’s Magdalene, and I’m ending it with Linda Gregg’s All of It Singing.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

In terms of poetry, Canisia Lubrin’s The Dyzgraphist. For fiction, Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands. Cathy Park Hong’s collection of essays, Minor Feelings is also one I’ll be watching for.

3.) Best writerly advice:

Read outside the canon, but also outside your genre, your country, your time.

Cassidy McFadzean was born in Regina, graduated from the Iowa
Writers’ Workshop, and currently lives in Toronto. She is the author
of two poetry collections: Hacker Packer (McClelland & Stewart 2015),
which won two Saskatchewan Book Awards; and Drolleries (M&S 2019). Read her poem “Third Eye” in Issue 16:2.

 

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Bob Brightt

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? 

Stargazing by Astra Papachristodoulou 

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020? 

Harryette Mullen: Sleeping with the Dictionary, Sean Bonney: Happiness: Poems After Rimbaud, Ron Silliman: The Age of Huts (compleat), Lissa Wolsak: Lightsail, Madeline Gins and Arakawa: Architectural Body

3.) Best writerly advice:

It’s generally better not to think that your own writing is rubbish. There is probably at least one person in the world who might like it.

 

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Charles Albert

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

My favorite poetry book was Rage de Temps by Jérôme Turcan. But my favorite book in English was Ballistics by Billy Collins.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

For 2020 I intend to try to read The Book of Disquiet by this Portugese guy I’ve been hearing about, Fernando Pessoa.

3.) Best writerly advice:

I have been writing for 20+ years and only have about four dozen poems and stories published. So I am a terrible source of advice. Unless you want advice on how to keep plodding along despite getting rejection letter after rejection letter. In that case, my advice is probably superfluous — all you really need is someone to hear your pain and to commiserate. And then I’m there with you, sistah! (Or bruthah!) Keep on writing what you love — no one else is going to do it as well as you can.

Charles Joseph Albert works as a metallurgist during the day, lives with his wife and three teenage boys, and writes on the trolley to and fro. His first novel, The Unsettler, is now appearing in Serial Magazine. Recent poems have appeared in Write City Magazine, Jerry Jazz Musician, and Collective Unrest, and his third collection of poetry, Confession to the Cockroaches, is available at many online booksellers. Read his poem “L’accident” in Issue 16:2.

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Helen Robertson

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

I kept trying to rewrite this answer over and over again but simply put nothing has stuck with me quite the way that Arielle Twist’s Disintegrate/Dissociate has.  She is such a wonderful live reader and whether heard or read her poetry guts me in a way very little else does.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

I don’t tend to keep much of a reading list. It is often a very of the cuff decision for me.  I know for a fact though that my next purchase is going to be Lyric Sexology Vol. 1 by Trish Salah.  

3.) Best writerly advice:

Honestly, I don’t know how much advice I could really give.  My ethos basically comes down to:

1. Write everything even if you think it’s terrible and sort it out later.

2. Go for the emotional core and twist the knife.  It is more important to me to effect an emotional response than to be clever.

Helen Robertson is a genderqueer trans woman moving through the lifelong process of accepting how lucky they’ve been; using poetry to excise their ire and sorrow — hopefully turning it into something worthwhile. They have been published in Bywords and have work forthcoming in CV2, The New Quarterly, and The Puritan. They are the secretary of the Tree Reading Series.

 

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L’Abri Tipton

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

The Carrying: Poems by Ada Limon and Oculus: Poems by Sally Wen Mao tie for favourite. 

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Jennifer Croft)
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob 

3.) Best writerly advice:

Trust the gradual accumulation of working steadily and regularly. Time can be carved out, and the half hours of reading and writing add up to days, weeks, and months of your own making. 

L’Abri Tipton is a writer, poet, and printmaker. Her work has appeared in print and online in Dispatches, Descant, Luna Luna Magazine, Conséquences, Lute & Drum, Magma, and Tripwire. She has also been part of live collaborations with The Enemies Project (London). She’s currently writing a non-fiction book about having a body in the world which looks at somatic psychology and the numerous ways a body might carry its pain but also heal from it and grow! You can follow her on Instagram @thequietfight or check out her website, racheltipton.work.

 

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Ashley-Elizabeth Best

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

Brute by Emily Skaja. 

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020? 

There are three books I have been too busy to read in 2019, so I’m promising myself I’ll get to these fully in 2020: Why Poetry Matters by Matthew Zapruder, The Ghost: A Cultural History By Susan Owens, and The Old Way: A Journey on Foot  by Robert Macfarlane.

3.) Best writerly advice:

It’s going to be hard, just focus on getting that first draft on the page and finding some joy in it. Most importantly, trust the process, and read as much as you can. 

Ashley-Elizabeth Best is from Ontario, Canada. Her work has been published in CV2, Berfrois, Grist, Ambit Magazine, December Magazine, Tampa Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, and The Literary Review of Canada. In 2015 she was a finalist for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Her debut collection, Slow States of Collapse was published with ECW Press.

 

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Brigit Truex

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

I have come across new-to-me poets that are likely familiar to many others, namely Natalie Diaz and, maybe lesser-known, Patricia Goedecke. While I’m not sure I’m at a place to give “advice,” I have conducted many poetry workshops over the years. I encourage participants to read widely, to explore different forms as a challenge, as”exercise.” 

Goedecke’s On the Night in Question, I found to be imaginative and quirky. I like the idea of pushing oneself in writing, of experimenting. Try new things, express yourself in unique ways. In order to do that, one must at least become familiar with “accepted” ways of writing — then explore beyond them. 

Given my own heritage of First Nations (Abenaki/Cree), French-Canadian and Irish, I am drawn to Diaz’s writing as well. It appeals to me in that she’s an Indigenous poet, exploring her place in a fractured world. It seems quite relevant especially now, with all the focus on “immigration.” How to maintain your traditions and balance that in a “predominant” culture? As many answers as there are individuals. An additional aside here — the Poetry Foundation website has an entire section devoted to “Native American” poets, many of whom I know personally, which is a wonderful introduction for others who are interested.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

Future reading — while I cannot name anyone specific as “new,” I admit to two things: I will commit to exploring contemporary poets (via the least expensive way, online, keeping posted on readings, talking to other poets) and I will continue to find comfort, reassurance, and subtle inspiration by reading my “old” favorites such as W. S, Merwin, Ted Kooser, Jane Kenyon among others.  

Brigit Truex currently lives on the Bluegrass Plateau of Kentucky, after 12 years in the California Sierra foothills. Her work has appeared internationally in various publications and anthologies, including Atlanta Review, Yellow Medicine Review, The Hopper Journal, Poetry Now, and Nasty Women Poets. She has one full-length book of her poetry, Strong as Silk, and four chapbooks. Read her poem “Season of Bones” in Issue 16:1. 

 

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Marjorie Poor 

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

My favourite book of poetry in 2019 would have to be St. Boniface Elegies by Catherine Hunter (Signature Editions). I can open to any page of St. Boniface Elegies and find line after line that catches my breath and breaks my heart—just one example, “I’m only the reader of the poem. It cuts me twice, / with its escaping and its letting go.” I also loved Mobile by Tanis MacDonald (Book*hug)—her wit and anger hit home.

2.) What’s on your reading list for 2020?

I’m so looking forward to reading Sarah Ens’s debut collection of poetry, The World Is Mostly Sky (Turnstone Press) and Angeline Schellenberg’s new collection, Fields of Light and Stone (University of Alberta Press), both of which are coming out in the spring of 2020.

3.) Best writerly advice:

My best writerly advice is pretty standard, but still the best, I believe: Read—read widely, read deeply, read lots and always.

Marjorie Poor is a publications editor for Manitoba Education and Training,  the editor of Prairie books NOW, and a fiction editor at Prairie Fire. Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Fire and has been featured at Theatre by the River’s annual fundraiser, Wine & Words. She lives in Winnipeg. Read her poem “The Haunted” in Issue 16:2.

 

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Christine Beck

1.) What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?

While I still haven’t finished it yet, I adore Nocturnal by Wilder. The introductory poem has become of my favorites.

2) What’s on your reading list for 2020?  

Apart from assigned reading, I would like to read Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky. I’ve also been meaning to practice my German by reading The Neverending Story in its original text. 

3) Best writerly advice. 

Only let the inner perfectionist speak AFTER you have words written down.

Christine Beck is an American writer hailing from Yakima, Washington.
She started writing short stories and poems for her high school English
classes, and has been writing ever since. Currently, she lives in Spokane
with her fiancée and three cats, studying English at Eastern Washington
University.

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Be sure to check out our Poem of the Week blog for 52 of our favourite poems this year.

Vallum 2019 Year in Review: Part Two

2019 was an exciting year for Vallum!

We launched Vallum: Contemporary Poetry issues 16:1 and 16:2, and published two new chapbooks: Finding Places to Make Places by Alexei Perry Cox , winner of the 2019 Vallum Chapbook Award, and Swelles by Sina Queyras. Read about our new chapbooks here.

Ellen Chang-Richardson won the 2019 Award for Poetry with “Grotto,” while Conor Mc Donnell received second place with “Participation and passive views (Twin Peaks in under two minutes).” Honourable mention went to Sam Kaspar for “eau de stripper.”

We also hosted two pop-up shops, at Le Cagibi, attended press fairs in New York City, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and hosted outreach workshops with new facilitators and organizers.

To commemorate Vallum’s busy and successful year, we asked this year’s contributors to share their thoughts on the books they read in 2019 and what’s in store for the year ahead.

Here’s what some of the writers published in Vallum Issue 16:1, 16:2, chapbook authors and 2019 contest winners said:

Annick MacAskill 

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? 
This is the kind of question writers dread! It’s practically impossible to narrow it down, but if I had to choose, I’d go with Fiona Benson’s Vertigo & Ghost (Vintage, 2019). Reading it was like taking a bucket of ice water in the face (in a good way). 

What’s on your reading list for 2020?
For 2020, I’m looking forward to reading Eduardo C. Corral’s sophomore collection, Guillotine, which is due out in the summer with Graywolf. Another priority is Mary Jean Chan’s Flèche, which came out this year with Faber & Faber. 

Best writerly advice.
All writers have dry spells. When you don’t feel like writing, read and read and read. Eventually, the desire to write will return.  

Based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Annick MacAskill is the author of No Meeting Without Body (Gaspereau Press, 2018), longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, shortlisted for the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award, and named a knife fork book 2018 pick. A second collection will be published by Gaspereau in the spring of 2020. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada and abroad, with recent publications in the Humber Literary Review, Best Canadian Poetry 2019, Prism, The Stinging Fly, The Puritan, and Arc. Read her review of ADAGIO FOR THE HORIZON by Laurelyn Whitt in Issue 16:1. 

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Chinua Ezenwa Ohaeto

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
The favourite book (Chapbook) I discovered this year is Mannequin in the Nude by Logan February.

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  

 

The book on my reading list for 2020 is On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

 

Best writerly advice:

 

My best writerly is the same as my father’s: ‘…put your feelings down…’

 

Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto (@ChinuaEzenwa) is from Owerri-Nkworji in Nkwerre, Imo state, Nigeria and grew up between Germany and Nigeria.
Some of his works have appeared in Lunaris Review, AFREADA, Rush Magazine, Kalahari Review, Palette, Knicknackery, Praxis magazine, Bakwa Magazine, Strange Horizons, One, Ake Review, Crannóg Magazine, and elsewhere. Read his poem “I find it Hard Beginning a Poem Sometimes” in Issue 16:2.

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Carolyn Marie Souaid

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
Bluets, Maggie Nelson (2009)

What’s on your reading list for 2020?
I want to reread all of Louise Glück, beginning with Averno (2006)

Best writerly advice:
Rediscover the joy of making something. Paint, dance, collage, use a camera. Cross-pollinate.

Carolyn Marie Souaid is the Montreal-based author of seven poetry books and the acclaimed novel, Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik (2017). She has performed at festivals and literary events in Canada and abroad, and her work has been featured on CBC Radio. Read her poem “The Inadequacy of the Present” in Issue 16:2. 

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Lou Vani

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? The Collected Poems by Sara Teasdale.

What’s on your reading list for 2020? Any God Will Do by Virginia Konchan and The Only Card in a Deck of Knives by Lauren Turner.

Best writerly advice: Try not to discard, destroy or jettison a first draft of a poem as it may contain your initial thoughts, impulses, intuitions and ideas. These firsts may shape a most sincere and profound work. It seems rare that a first thought is an afterthought.

Lou Vani is an actor from Montreal and enjoys writing poetry. He has appeared in films, television programs and on stage. This is the second occasion Vallum has published his work. Read his poem “Yes I can Recall the Ivy” in Issue 16:2. 

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Christina Shah

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
Hands down, Turning Left to the Ladies, by Kate Braid. It’s not new, and I’d been meaning to read it for ages, but I finally sat down with it. Kate beautifully articulates the ups and downs women experience working in industrial environments– there’s the ever-present danger, the sense of accomplishment, the guys who love you, and the ones who scare you. It’s a wild ride.

What’s on your reading list for 2020?
A number of books on work poetry– namely, Tom Wayman’s The Order in Which We Do Things. and Stanley’s Girl by Susan Eisenberg. Also, (my former teacher) Fiona Tinwei Lam’s Odes & Laments, and of course, my friend Daniela Elza’s the broken boat, which will be coming out in April.

Best writerly advice:
Stay true to what it is you’re passionate about and let that drive your creative process. Keep knocking on doors. If you apply yourself over time, you’ll be surprised at your results (I learned this in sales first). Live dangerously and steal time.

Christina Shah was born in Ottawa, lives in Vancouver, and works in
heavy industry. Her poetry has appeared in qarrtsiluni and spring, with
work forthcoming in The Fiddlehead. She recently completed her first full-length manuscript, if: prey, then: huntress. On hot days, you’ll find her at a good swimming hole. Read her poem “Dig in” in Issue 16:2. 

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Kate Felix

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? 

I thought I Can Hear You, Can You Hear Me? by Nolan Natasha (Invisible Publishing) was superb. I admire his ability to weave whole stories from a yarn of small details. The way he interprets the moments of ordinary life (Blue Jays games, road trips, the leavings of a campfire) are intimate and nuanced and the language, although beautiful, is never isolating.  He writes in a voice one might recognize as their own. 

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  

Right now, I am reading On Second Thought by Priscila Uppal (Mansfield Press).  It is a devastating window into one woman’s journey though her own mortality but it is written with moments of such tenderness and levity that it is often difficult to know how to feel while reading it. Either way it is drawing me in.  

I am looking forward to reading Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry, edited by Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharme (Arsenal Pulp Press) which I feel is an important collection for so many reasons.  

Also on my list is Vivek Shraya’s debut collection of poetry, Even This Page is White.  It came out in 2016, but I just finished reading her book I’m Afraid of Men and admired how she hit every page with a literal hand slap of raw and unapologetic prose. I am hoping for more of that with her poetry and suspect I will not be disappointed. 

Best writerly advice:
I like to listen to the music I think could be my subject or protagonist’s theme song while I am writing.  It helps me to stop thinking like me and lets me crawl into another mind completely.

Kate Felix (She/Her) is a writer and filmmaker based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Room Magazine, Litro, and the Pacific Review, among others. She won the Wilda Hearne Prize for Flash Fiction and has been shortlisted for several other writing prizes. Her small daughter describes her as being “like a rainbow but with one stripe made of darkness.” Find her online at http://www.katefelix.com or @kitty_flash on twitter.

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Leland James

What was your favorite book of poetry you discovered this year? 

Actually, this is a rediscovery, but it’s been so long since I read it (over fifty years) I think it counts as a discovery: Understanding Poetry, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. This book takes us back to the roots of poetry, be it formal or free verse. It elucidates a concept and then illustrates with commentary, annot snippets of poems as many books do, entire poems. 

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  

A History of Modern Poetry, Modernism and After, a book I’ve been promising myself to tackle. Also, I plan to reread: The Anxiety of Influence, A Theory of Poetry, Harold Bloom. Bloom walks a fine line I wish to revisit between originality and the desire to be original, the latter being in my view the source of much of the bad poetry we find in many journals today.

Best writerly advice:
As my suggested readings may indicate: I think the disease of much of poetry just now is the desire to be unique, to break ground, to distinguish one from the past. I don’t think that’s where you start. As Goethe said, “Do not all the achievements of a poet’s predecessors and contemporaries belong to him? Why should he shrink from picking flowers where he finds them?” My suggested books, I being a poet who publishes worldwide in both formal and free verse—not an easy trick these days—encourage young poets (if you’ve done the math you know just how old I am) to take the advice of C.S. Lewis: “[N]o man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring tuppence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original [.]” 

Now, to the day to day: crack your knuckles, find poetry in your fingers. Write what your Muse tells you, and how. Screw advice. It’s you and the page. Do it, and let the chips fall.

Leland James is the author of several poetry collections, children’s books in verse, and a book on poetry craft. He has published poems in journals and magazines worldwide including The Lyric, Rattle, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and The London Magazine. He has won or received honors in numerous international poetry competitions, has been featured in American Life in Poetry, and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. www.lelandjamespoet. Read his poem “Nemeses” in Issue 16:2. 

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Conor Mc Donnell

What was your favorite book of poetry you discovered this year?
My favourite book(s) of poetry this year were anthologies as I always learn so much from the variety of voices included:

Top of the pile was The Next Wave, edited by Jim Johnstone (recommended to me by absolutely everyone). Poetry in Medicine: An anthology of poems about doctors patients illnesses and healing – edited by Michael Salcman (recommended to me by Al Moritz). Technicians of the Sacred: a range of poetries from Africa America Asia Europe and Oceania – edited by Jerome Rothenberg (recommended by Nick Cave)

**For my own personal unearthing of a forgotten gem … Letters to a Stranger by Thomas James, you can read the amazing introduction essay here  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69134/the-rebirth-of-a-suicidal-genius

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  

My early reading list for 2020: 

Democratically Applied Machine by the awesome Robert Colman

What to wear when surviving a lion attack by the fiercesome Paola Ferrante

Resisting Canada: An anthology of poetry – edited by Nyla Matuk

K-Punk: the collected and unpublished writings of Mark Fisher

It gets me home, this curving track – Ian Penman

Underland: a deep time journey – Robert Macfarlane 

Stilt Jack by John Thompson  

10 minutes 38 seconds by Elif Shafak

Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

Best writerly advice:

My writing advice? What the hell do I know about anything? 

But the best advice I received was read and read and read some more. What I would add to that is read widely read passionately and read with critical judgement. When I do sit down to write I put on the soundtrack to Only Lovers Left Alive and write as a starving 1,000 year-old vampire.

 

Conor Mc Donnell is a physician and poet. He has published two chapbooks in Canada, The Book of Retaliations (Anstruther Press), and, Safe Spaces (Frog Hollow Press). In 2018, he received Honourable Mention for The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize and is shortlisted for RawArtReview’s  2019 Charles Bukowski Poetry Prize. His writing has featured in The FiddleHead, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), In Parentheses, Scrivener CreativeReview, 580SpltLip, Carousel,  birdburiedpress online, and many others. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two dogs and is currently writing/rewriting/completing/shredding his first full poetry manuscript.

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Louella Lester

What was your favorite book of poetry you discovered this year?
I really enjoyed It’s a Big Deal by Dina Del Bucchia. 

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
I look forward to reading Mobile by Tanis MacDonald  & Five Wives by Joan Thomas. And of course a bunch of others—the list is endless.

Best writerly advice:

My best writerly advice is to just let it flow when doing a first draft. I have a tendency to revise a lot as I write a first draft, but since I let that go a bit I feel my writing has improved.

Louella Lester writes fiction, CNF, and poetry in Winnipeg. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Lemon Hound, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, The Antigonish Review, CBC News Manitoba Online, and in the anthology Gush: menstrual manifestos for our times (Frontenac House, 2018). Read her poem “Taking Off” in Issue 16:1. 

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Evan J

What was your favorite book of poetry you discovered this year?
None. I read fiction.

 

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  

Kafka.

Best writerly advice:
Move mentally and residentially away from the urban tech ruckus.

Living in the remote town of Sioux Lookout, Ontario, Evan Jspends the winters writing poems. In 2016, he founded and directed the Slackline Creative Arts Series in Toronto. In 2017, he released the chapbook Urchin. In 2018, he won the Vallum Award for Poetry. In 2019, he almost won the subTerrain Lush Triumphant Award for Poetry. Learn more at EvanJ.ca. Read his poem “Bloor-Yonge” in Issue 16:1.

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Leslie Timmins

What was your favorite book of poetry you discovered this year?
The Mean Game by John Wall Barger

What’s on your reading list for 2020?
Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser. Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds. How to Teach Philosophy to Your Dog by Anthony McGowan, and Time is Tight by Booker T.  (memoir of Booker T. and the MGs).

Best writerly advice:
“Why, to write down the stuff
and people of every day,
must poems be dressed up in gold,
in old and fearful stone?”

Pablo Neruda

Leslie Timmins is a poet, editor, and activist whose work has been
shortlisted for the Montréal International Poetry Prize, among other
honours. Her poetry collection, Every Shameless Ray (Inanna, 2018), traces
a fine disorder of possibility through the Canadian wilderness, European
art, grave illness, true love and false. See http://www.poemsunlimited.com.
Read her poem “Mercy” in Issue 16:2. 

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Deborah Bacharach

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
Oh, that’s a hard one because I wrote reviews for 20 books. I think Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminksy was the most astounding book of poetry I read this year.

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
Danger Days by Catherine Pierce, Hinge by Molly Spencer, Rise Wildly by Tina Kelley, Somewhere Between Sweet and Grief by Donna Vorreyer, Foxlogic, Fireweed by Jennifer Sweeney, and Prime Meridian by Connie Post.

Best writerly advice:
Don’t let perfect get in the way of getting started. Give yourself permission to write something bad.

Deborah Bacharach is the author of After I Stop Lying (Cherry Grove Collections, 2015). Her work has appeared in The Antigonish Review, Irish Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Poet Lore, among many others. She is an editor, teacher, and tutor in Seattle. Find out more about
her at DeborahBacharach.com. Read her poem “Valentine’s Day With Teenager” in Issue 16:2. 

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Alex Manley 

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
All Day I Dream About Sirens – Domenica Martinello

This book is such a wonderful expression of what’s possible in a themed poetry collection — Martinello weaves all the little threads of sirens and mermaids in our culture together into a vibrant tapestry that finds space for Disney movies and the Odyssey, the Starbucks logo and the last surviving sea-silk seamstress — and the closer you look, the more you’ll find. She’s a rare poet who delights in wordplay in a way that feels exciting and crackling with intellect, not simply to show off or to induce dad-joke-like groans in the reader. 

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
A bunch of books that came out this year that I haven’t gotten around to yet! 

The Topeka School – Ben Lerner

Resisting Canada: An Anthology of New Poetry – edited by Nyla Matuk

Exquisite Mariposa – Fiona Duncan 

The Crying Book – Heather Christle

Best writerly advice:
Find a nice, comfortable place that’s well-lit, where no one will talk to you — and (most importantly) one that doesn’t have any internet. 

Alex Manley is a Montreal-based writer whose work has appeared in Maisonneuve Magazine, The Puritan, carte blanche, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day feature, among others, and whose debut poetry collection, We Are All Just Animals & Plants, was published by Metatron Press in 2016. Read his Poem “Commitment” in Issue 16:2. 

Vallum 2019 Year in Review: Part One

2019 was an exciting year for Vallum!

We launched Vallum: Contemporary Poetry issues 16:1 and 16:2, and published two new chapbooks: Finding Places to Make Places by Alexei Perry Cox , winner of the 2019 Vallum Chapbook Award, and Swelles by Sina Queyras. Read about our new chapbooks here.

Ellen Chang-Richardson won the 2019 Award for Poetry with “Grotto,” while Conor Mc Donnell received second place with “Participation and passive views (Twin Peaks in under two minutes).” Honourable mention went to Sam Kaspar for “eau de stripper.”

We also hosted two pop-up shops, at Le Cagibi, attended press fairs in New York City, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, and hosted outreach workshops with new facilitators and organizers.

To commemorate Vallum’s busy and successful year, we asked this year’s contributors to share their thoughts on the books they read in 2019 and what’s in store for the year ahead.

Here’s what some of the writers published in Vallum Issue 16:1, 16:2, chapbook authors and 2019 contest winners said:

Alexei Perry Cox

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? 

They came out at the tale end of 2018, at the same time, but I kept living with Dionne Brand’s The Blue Clerk and Theory this year. I guess they were both really informing my hope to write two books at once, ones that spoke differently but registered equally meaningfully and that’s what I’ve been working on. Doyali Islam’s heft really killed me. I think that Islam’s bifurcated form resonates with me as I work on tipping the scales of balance and inbalance in my own work. 

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
Canisia Lubrin Dyzgraphxst
Megan Fernandes Good Boys

Best writerly advice:
This was not “writerly advice” but something fully taken out of context from Tess Liem’s recent collection Obits that now I fully apply to maybe all that I do:

Let yourself be swayed         One way or the other

…… I might only add to it “And the other” just for good measure.

Alexei Perry Cox is the author of the poetry collection Under Her and short fiction collection To Utter a Life’s Sentence. Her work has appeared in various iterations in The Puritan, carte blanche, CV2, Hart House Review, Vallum, Makhzin, Matrix, Cosmonauts Avenue, Rusted Radishes, Journal Safar, The Beijinger, Lemonhound and elsewhere. She has two wondrous young ones named Isla and Ilham. Read her chapbook, Finding Places to Make Places here.

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Adèle Barclay 

What was your favourite poetry book published this year?
The Octopus Museum by Brenda Shaughnessy and Lima Limón by Natalie Scenters Zapico are both brilliant, scathing works that feel like necessary flares in these absurd and violent times.

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
Debuts from Lauren Turner, The Only Card in a Deck of Knives, and Kyla Jamieson, Body Count

Best writerly advice 
Oh gosh, I have no writerly advice these days. I recommending reading aloud the poems that move you until they become part of your body. 

Adèle Barclay’s writing has appeared in The Pinch, The Fiddlehead,
glitterMOB, The Puritan, PRISM, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, If
I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You won the 2017 Dorothy Livesay
Poetry Prize. Her second collection, Renaissance Normcore, was published by Nightwood Editions in fall 2019. Read her poem, “Obviously a Shitty Dream” in Issue 16:1.

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Kevin Irie

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? 

Luckily, Vallum is asking for a “discovery,” thus relieving me of having to choose a favourite book from poets I was already familiar with previously. There were superb collections from poets whose work I knew—Doyali Islam, Karen Solie, Moez Surani, Kaie Kellough, Fiona Tinwei Lam, and Souvankham Thammavongsa—but discovery implies the unfamiliar and there is one book I discovered. REMITTING (Baseline Press) by Nisa Malli is, technically, only a chapbook, but what a chapbook! Bracing, vivid and with a candour to match—”I was a bad worker/ of my own body”—REMITTING seethes with an urgent energy, a strong poetic voice and masterfully uplifting poetic craft even as she records “days when my body trips me just to make me lie /down.” But then, that’s part of the power of poetry, isn’t it?

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  

day/break by Gwen Benaway. For Vallum last year, I cited Holy Wild as the best poetry book of 2018 and so look forward to this one. Gifted, graceful and gutsy, Benaway has a poetic voice and clarity that is truly a gift for the reader.

Long Division by Gil McElroy: a poet who is inventive, intelligent, experimental, and exciting in his use of language–and also, so far, unjustly under the radar despite 20 years of achievement.

Pineapple Express by Evelyn Lau. Trauma, her last collection, was intensely poignant and personal, but Lau has explored different poetic routes for decades now, incisively and with élan, and her ongoing poetic evolution is always something to look forward to with much anticipation.   

Junebat by John Elizabeth Stintzi. If you read the chapbook The Machete Tourist, then you know Stintzi is fresh, insightful, candid, conversational and utterly convincing. It made you want more—and now, here it is.

Roguelike by Mathew Henderson. The Lease, Henderson’s first book, was much celebrated, including a rave review in The New York Times, and now his second arrives after 8 years, apparently focusing more on his personal life than his working life, but the sensitivity, empathy and awareness displayed in that first book makes this a definite collection to read.   

Burning Province by Michael Prior. Prior has displayed his talent in elegant poems that reveal intelligence and grace as he writes about race, generations and injustice in a style that is both measured yet aggrieved, a delicate balance indeed. Though this is only his second book, he has poetically accomplished so much already. 

Field Notes for the Self by Randy Lundy. This will be the fourth collection from a poet who is simultaneously sombre and celebratory, stoic in the face of life yet singing of the natural world around him, a rare and wondrous working portrayed in poetry.   

Best writerly advice:
Read other contemporary poets, let them inspire you, and point you in ways you might not have otherwise considered. And buy their books, since someone should, and support starts with you!

Kevin Irie was a finalist for The Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Award and The Toronto Book Award for Viewing Tom Thomson, A Minority Report (Frontenac House). Work from his current project, The Tantramar Re-Vision, was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. He lives in Toronto. Read his poem “Night Fear” Issue 16:1.

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Shanan Kurtz

What was your favourite poetry book published this year? 
Usually late to the party, I started reading Maggie Nelson this year and especially loved Something Bright, Then Holes and Bluets.

What’s on your reading list for 2020?
Make It Scream, Make It Burn, essays by Leslie Jamison; To Fix the Image in Memory, the art publication on Vija Celmins. And I’d love to track down a copy of Actual Air by David Berman, although I fear that ship may have sailed.

Best writerly advice
Hmmm consistency of practice is good but finding something that tears you open emotionally can be… quicker.

Shanan Kurtz is a visual artist, graphic designer, and semi-secret writer of poetry and non-fiction. She lives in Collingwood, Ontario and was recently a finalist for Vallum’s poetry prize. This is her first publication. Read her poem “Grasp” in Issue 16:1. 

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MA|DE

What was your favourite poetry book published this year?
This year, we enjoyed Sanna Wani’s The Pink of the Seams from Penrose Press. We also spent a lot of time with Jim Johnstone’s anthology The Next Wave from Palimpsest Press, which came out in 2018 but it felt like a chance to catch up on everything we’d missed over the last several years.

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
In fiction, we, like everyone else, are planning to read Ian William’s Reproduction from Penguin Random House. We’ll also be reading Maria Meindl’s debut novel The Work, which is just coming out with Stonehouse Publishing. In poetry, we’d like to read Tanis Franco’s Moon Healing Escalation from Gap Riot Press. In comics, we’re looking forward to The Cursed Hermit by Kris Bertin & Alexander Forbes and Weeding, the debut graphic novel of Geneviève Lebleu, both from Conundrum Press. 

Best writerly advice. 
To make your poetry interesting, read things that are not poetry. To make your poetry good, read things that are poetry. 

MA|DE is a collaborative writing partnership between Mark Laliberte,
interdisciplinary artist and author of Asemantic Asymmetry (Anstruther
2017) and Jade Wallace, author of Rituals of Parsing (Anstruther 2018). MA|DE’s poetry has appeared in PRISM, Poetry Is Dead, and Rat’s Ass Review and is forthcoming in Trinity Review. Their debut chapbook, Test Centre, will be published in spring 2019 by ZED Press. Read more at: ma-de.ca.

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Eric Schmaltz

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? With the many offerings that 2019 had for poetry, I cannot narrow this down to a single book, but I will mention a few: Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real by Moez Surani, Perfact by Nicole Raziya Fong, and Presence Detection System by Nora Collen Fulton were all standout full-length collections.

What’s on your reading list for 2020? 
My reading list for 2020 thus far includes Nishga by Jordan Abel and OO: Typewriter Poems by Dani Spinosa. 

Best writerly advice. 
Think of the long stretches. 

Eric Schmaltz is the writer of Surfaces (2018). His creative work has
appeared in periodicals such as Arc Poetry, The Berkeley Poetry Review,
The Capilano Review, Jacket2, and the edited collection Avant Canada: Poets, Prophets, Revolutionaries (2019). His work has also been featured in galleries in Canada and the United States. Eric is currently a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in English at the University of Pennsylvania. Read his poem “Credit” in Issue 16:1.

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Sonnet L’Abbé

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
I can never answer this with just one title. I’ve been teaching Stevie Howell’s I Left Nothing Inside On Purpose and Billy-Ray Belcourt’s This Wound Is a World to creative writing students and have been thrilled to read both books so closely. D.A. Lockhart’s Devil In The Woods and Kayla Czaga’s Dunk Tank also were favourite reads this year.

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  I want to reread all the Toni Morrison. Interested in Jordan Abel’s new memoir, NISHGA, when it comes out. 

Best writerly advice. 
This is advice I didn’t need so much when I was younger, but that I need more and more now. Notice what situations take you away from speaking freely and which situations encourage you to say what’s on your mind. Do everything you can to keep your connection to your body and feeling, and keep precious your ability to voice what’s true for you, even if those around you won’t want to hear it, even if it might cost you. Practice being honest with yourself, and that integrity will be the backbone of your writing.

Sonnet L’Abbé teaches at Vancouver Island University, an openaccess
institution. Her chapbook, Anima Canadensis, won the 2017 bpNichol Chapbook Prize. “CXLVII” is from her next collection, Sonnet’s Shakespeare, which will be out with McClelland and Stewart in August 2019. Read Sonnet L’Abbé’s poem “CXLVII” in Issue 16:1. 

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Ilona Martonfi

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? 
Hold by Victoria LeBlanc

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
Rooms by Louise Dupre, translated by Karen Isabel Ocana, and Nearly Terminal by Eleni Zisimatos. 

Best writerly advice. 
Write and read everyday. Take notes. Write a journal. Start a poem.

Ilona Martonfi’s latest collection is The Snow Kimono (Inanna Publications,
2015). Salt Bride (Inanna Publications, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna Publications, 2020). Artistic Director of The Yellow Door
and Visual Arts Centre Reading Series. Argo Bookshop Readings. QWF
2010 Community Award. Read her poem “Pupa” in Issue 16:1. 

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Jami Macarty

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year? 
It’s a tie between: A Tomb for Anatole by Stéphane Mallarmé and Columbarium by Susan Stewart

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  
The ouevre of Norma Cole, an American poet, visual artist, translator, and curator.  

Best writerly advice.
If you’re not making the time to write, no other advice can help you. 

Jami Macarty has authored three chapbooks of poetry: Instinctive Acts (Nomados Literary Publishers, 2018), Mind of Spring, winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award (No.22, Vallum Chapbook Series, 2017), and Landscape of The Wait (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She teaches at Simon Fraser University and edits the online poetry journal The Maynard. https://jamimacarty. com/. Read her poem, “Who The Strummer” in 16:1. 

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Michael Mirolla

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
The Perfect Archive (Paul Lisson)

What’s on your reading list for 2020?
Rereading all of James Joyce’s works (Dubliners, Portrait, Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake).

Best writerly advice:
No better advice than that given by Samuel Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Michael Mirolla’s publications include three Bressani Prize winners: the novel Berlin; the poetry collection The House on 14th Avenue; the short story collection, Lessons in Relationship Dyads. His “A Theory of Discontinuous Existence” appeared in The Journey Prize Anthology; “The Sand Flea” was a Pushcart nominee. Michael lives in Hamilton. Read his poem “Id-entity” in Issue 16:2.

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Domenico Capilongo

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?
There are so many but here are two of my favourites of the year, breth th treez uv lunaria: selektid rare n nu pomes n drawings, 1957–2019 By bill bissett and heft by Doyali Islam

What’s on your reading list for 2020? 
I’m looking forward to reading Canticles II: mmxix’ by George Elliott Clarke and For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe by Gary Barwin and so many others.

Best writerly advice.
Write often. Write fast. Use a notebook. Go for a walk. Resist falling in to the internet.

Domenico Capilongo is a highschool creative writing teacher and Karate instructor. His first books of poetry, I thought elvis was italian,
hold the note, send, and his short fiction collection, Subtitles, almost
won several awards. He has a new manuscript based on the song, “Salt
Peanuts” and some poems about the birth of words in the 1970s. Read his poem “Aspartame Noun” in Issue 16:2. 

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Leah Callen

What was your favourite book of poetry you discovered this year?  Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky

What’s on your reading list for 2020?  I’m excited to read Lisa Richter’s forthcoming book from Frontenac House (title yet unreleased) and Portia White: A Portrait in Words by George Elliott Clarke.

Best writerly advice. To me, the best poems surprise the reader with their freshness. I feel there is such pressure to fit into the latest artistic fashion and that only creates stale work. Poets, please resist that impulse and honour your own unique voice — shock and surprise us (and the system) with your ingenuity.

Leah Callen is an emerging poet and playwright who graduated withan MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria in 2015. Her poems have appeared in The Malahat Review and Barren Magazine. “Fallout” was longlisted last year for the Vallum Award for Poetry. Read her poem “Fallout” in Issue 16:1. 

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Look out for more Year in Review responses from poets featured in Vallum coming next month!

Event Recap: ELAN Annual General Meeting & 15th Anniversary

Recap by: Celia Caldwell

The evening of ELAN Quebec’s Annual General Meeting was not only a celebration of the Arts community within Montreal, but rather, it denoted the brilliant diverse, creative work being generated from across all of Quebec. Live music, dance routines and comedy skits were presented by ELAN members as Hundreds of artists from across the province gathered in Theatre Rialto, to congratulate the organization on their 15th Anniversary.

As stated on ELAN’s website, “Since its foundation in 2004, the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) has served as a platform for thousands of English-language artists of all disciplines from across Quebec to share expertise and resources, build audiences and alliances, seek support, and make common cause with the Francophone arts community.”  

During the 15th Anniversary party, the muffling sound of ambiguous chatter, pecks on cheeks and the clinking of wine glasses echoed throughout the Theatre. A sense of community and warmth hung in the air as Artist’s from different backgrounds and disciplines mingled with one another. MC Jimmy Blais amused the crowd with his witty sense of humor and charismatic attitude as he introduced the performers.

As ELAN members and friends settled into their velvet seats with loaded dinner plates, they were astounded to see the drumline, Urban Science, consisting of five musicians, weave their way through the crowd. The Urban Science members wore vibrant coloured suits and sunglasses which complimented their enthusiastic energy.

Several modern dancers scurried across the stage as they performed of Andrea Peña’s “6.58 Manifesto.”

In-between each performance, ELAN played a collection of video clips that featured members and friends reminiscing over their favourite memories of ELAN. Quebec Writers Federation’s Executive Director, Lori Schubert spoke of passed collaborations and literary events.

The evening ended on a wonderful note, as the performers and audience thanked ELAN for all of their fantastic work. The Arts community within Quebec is a remarkable space, and we are extremely grateful for organizations like ELAN, who see the Arts as an essential part of Quebec’s identity.

 

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For upcoming ELAN events, check out their website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “Ragged” by Ricki Cummings

 

Ragged

 Our sentence is up.

Grant Morrison, The Invisibles

This is a working prototype

of 4D printing—printing in the fourth

dimension. Printing spacetime. Writing

in the past so               Future You

   can hold it in your hand.

We asked for spacetime as filament,

like ABS or PLA extruded to

anywhere, anywhen.

We said: Get on it, science!

We said: Get on it, magick!

See who gets there first.

Instead we have ink.

It’s the accidental happenstance

of the universe            poking through.

God from the machine.

Printing an object, an idea,

where and when you want it

is a little           far off,             but this is a start.

The best evidence we have against

time travel, against printing in            4D,

is that we are still here,

that time and memory and ideas

and people       still exist, that we

haven’t written ourselves

out of the past.

 

Ricki Cummings is writer currently living in Chicago. Their work has been published in Vallum, Calibanonline, Solstice Literary Magazine, and Columbia Poetry Review, and has been shortlisted for Vallum’s Award for Poetry. They have just received their MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago.

To view other content published in this issue, 14:1, please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “Leap Day Birthday” by Adam Scheffler

 

Leap Day Birthday

Today, a bright one in February,
sun made it down almost the whole way
into the courtyard. Knucklebones of tiny trees.
Arc of shadow on brick and glass
as something enormous comes near, and
decides to withdraw, peering out of the
vertiginous blue, as it does sometimes.
No, the off-years are better,
the feeling something’s special, different, but the clue only
no worry that it means anything
that it will be solved, going from prologue
to epilogue all at once, a better marker this
absence, this instant of midnight which ingests
a day’s vanishing, this invisible hummingbird,
which alights on my life for an instant and is gone.

 

Adam Scheffler grew up in California, received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his PhD in English from Harvard. His first book of poems – A Dog’s Life – was selected by Denise Duhamel as the winner of the 2016 Jacar Press Book Contest. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Yale Review, The American Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, Rattle, Plume, Barrow Street, Antioch Review, Sewanee Review, Verse Daily, Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, and many other venues. He teaches in the Harvard College Writing Program.

To view other content published in this issue, 13:1, please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

Vallum Poem of the Week: “No Paradise Here” by Mary Ann Moore

No Paradise Here

In the refuse pile behind the taverna, what is discarded and forgotten,
a snake appears from beneath a flattened cardboard box.
No paradise here, where tomatoes rot, geraniums spring from rusted olive oil tins.
The snake had green eyes like yours I tell my mother later.

I dream of fire and a horned devil; snakes around my feet of stone.

In Herakleion, cats under the small blue chair and at my feet,
I sit at a table eating calamari and squash blossoms surrounded by women
calling ourselves Minoan priestesses, cats on our heads,
snakes spiralling skyward in each of our hands.

I dream of bulrushes in water, priestesses wearing long skirts,
snake-entwined.

I cannot describe the shedding of my conventions,
what is underneath,
what is revealed in the alchemical transformation.
What clings ferociously to my naked skin.

I dream a skin casing hanging from a tree.

 

Mary Ann Moore is a poet and writer from Vancouver Island, B.C. whose work has appeared in literary journals, anthologies,
and several chapbooks edited by Patrick Lane. Her collection of poetry is entitled Fishing for Mermaids (Leaf Press). Mary Ann
has been leading women’s writing circles for over twenty years and offers a mentoring program called Writing Home: A Whole Life
Practice. She writes a blog at apoetsnanaimo.ca.

To view other content published in this issue, 11:1, please visit Vallum’s website.

Vallum magazine is also available in digital format. Featuring additional content such as: AUDIO and VIDEO recordings of selected poets, further poems, interviews, essays, and MORE!

Download the FREE APP and FREE SAMPLE EDITION for your tablet, kindle or smartphone through PocketMags OR iTunes.

‘Poetry for our Future!’ at Lasalle Elementary

Until the end of June, our online donations manager, CanadaHelps, is running a contest called The Great Canadian Giving Challenge!

This means that if you make a donation towards Poetry for our Future! before the end of the month, our charity will be entered to win a grand prize of $10,000 for each dollar you donate! Every dollar you donate directly through CanadaHelps will count as an entry for Vallum into the draw. No amount is too small, and is gratefully appreciated! Every donation will go directly towards funding poetry and literacy outreach in our community, helping us grow the number of workshops we offer, expand outside of Montreal, and build our website as a hub and publishing resource for our workshop participants!

During the Great Canadian Giving Challenge, we’re letting you know about some of the great organizations we host literacy workshops with through our ‘Poetry for Our Future!’ outreach program. #GivingChallengeCA

Meet Lasalle Elementary

“LaSalle Elementary School is committed to educating the whole child within a safe, kind and bilingual environment, fostering success for all. The school provides a quality learning environment which encourages each child to develop to their full potential and foster within them a sense of community. Student success depends upon the schools team creating a welcoming and caring school climate where every child feels a sense of belonging and safety.”

Working largely with disadvantaged youths, our workshop facilitators use poetry as a teaching tool to enhance reading and comprehension skills. The collaborative workshops show students how poetry can be a fun way to reflect and express themselves!

You still have one more day to help VSEAL win $10,000 to support ‘Poetry for Our Future!’ workshops! Click here to donate – each dollar you donate before the end of June is an entry into the contest.

Featured Review: Obits. by Tess Liem (Review by Domenica Martinello)

Tags

obits., tess liem

Congratulations to Tess Liem, Vallum contributor and former employee, for winning the Lampert Memorial Award for a debut book of poetry for her book, Obits.!

OBITS. by Tess Liem
(Toronto, ON: Coach House Books, 2018, $19.94, 88 pages)

Tess Liem’s Obits. opens with an epigraph from Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric: “There is no innovating loss. It was never invented, it happened as something physical, something physically experienced. It is not something an ‘I’ discusses socially.” It’s such an elucidating way to enter the book that I must open the same door to begin this review.

But before I go further, I notice my use of the word “enter,” as in “to enter the book”—is it invasive? And now I am aware of my own body, the ways of entering it, ‘it’ being “nothing as a reference / to zero where zero means a vulva,” according to a critical gloss of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The speaker in “My body in three movements (one)” continues wryly, “how nice: / one of my body parts, in being nothing, / is some- thing.”

‘Nothing’ is a symbol standing in for an actual, embodied ‘something.’ Zero for vulva, sound bite for tragic death, and so on. But as the speaker demonstrates, it’s easy to get stuck at an intersection between the two. Throughout her stunning debut, Liem’s self-implicating speaker deepens the reader’s awareness of how statistics, data, news footage, obits, even poems themselves, fail to encompass the complicated and physically experienced ‘something’ of grief and death.

“I was concerned that in writing poems for or about the dead I would turn them into objects or tropes in service of my own feelings of loss or loneliness,” Liem elaborates in an author’s note published on the Coach House blog. The speaker in Obits. asserts that “[s]tories about the dead will be about the dead” in an attempt to unburden those lost of the symbolic baggage often foisted upon them. The book also resists the impulse to universalize this most ‘universal’ of experiences—especially in a world where “some lives count & others are counted”. “Call it” puts it another way:

To speak as if we all share the same loveliness, the same doom,

is not to speak

of the fact that some people have their hands

around other’s necks

Many of the poems in Obits. are centre-justified on the page, giving the impression of making direct eye contact with the reader. Interesting, then, that the speaker worries over the possibility of navel-gazing. In “Aesthetic distance” the speaker observes “how I circle back on myself continually” despite the speaker’s attempts to centre others. A distant but formative aunt who died, Thian Hoei, “steps in & out of my memory again, again, my grief, a timid animal.” The speaker’s sadness is especially acute “[w]hen the object of my mourning is missing” // when no obit. is print- ed.” In the case of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, not only is there no obit printed; one can even agree on the numbers.

Obits., then, raises the complicated question: is there a line between grief and wallowing, mourning and morbid affixation? Who gets to draw it? Does it have to do with proximity, with kinship? Throughout Obits., the speaker grapples with grief both privately (prostrate on the bedroom floor) and publicly (contemplating Obitsarchive.com while riding the metro), trying to parse its uses and applications. “Aesthetic distance” ends on a frustrated, exclamatory note: “What to make of this sadness! // What does it do!” The speaker wants to use sadness and the experience of trauma to do actual good in the world but is often depressed by the feeling of futility.

That’s not to discount futility on the part of others, often in more unforgivably powerful positions. In the collection’s opening poem “Dead theories,” the news of “forty-nine dead in Orlando” is broadcast in the metro and “a man with platinum hair / & his own TV show / [breaks] down crying reading their names.” Of the forty-nine dead in the Pulse nightclub massacre, the majority were queer latinx people of colour. The man with his own TV show, presumably Anderson Cooper, does have a personal stake in the tragedy. He’s gay—he’s also a rich cis, and white. In response to crying on TV, the speaker again wants to know: “What did that do.” These questions aren’t exactly rhetorical, though Liem’s failure to answer them creates some of the collection’s generative energy.

Also propelling the poems forward is the sense of dailiness created by the backdrop of the metro platform or train, and of course the refrain created by the several “Obit.” poems. Public transportation seems to be the perfect liminal space to contemplate death while implicating the body—crowded in with strangers, touch without intimacy, being moved from one place to another. There’s also the physical proximity to death, as the speaker reminds us while contemplating a poster for an adaptation of Anna Karenina during her commute: “her ending is before you / every morning, every evening, on the platform of the metro.”

Of course, the beauty of Liem’s language (“The mango in one hand, knife in the other, a slick, shrinking yellow sculpture”), the deft motion of her mind, and her keen sense of humour (a self-serious professor who only reads and teaches dead men is, “in the year two-thousand-seventeen, // …still worried about Lady Gaga’s influence”), make a book about death undeniably alive. There is also room for hope and tenderness, a space that almost feels more fraught for Liem than death. The first poem in the book ends, for example, with the speaker admitting: “when I look forward to spring / it feels like a risk,” and the last lines of the book acknowledge: “I’m taking a risk / when I don’t know the dead.” Hope and grief, connected through shared emotional risk.

In fact, I’d say Liem’s willingness to risk failure and implicate herself (and others) so fully is part of what makes Obits. distinct. If there is truly no innovating loss, Liem doesn’t allow herself to simply “[s]tep over the potholed thing” and “[c]all the step a poem.” The speaker in Obits. under- stands that “[t]here is a point at which you must jump into the hole / in order to keep digging,” no matter how dark that hole may be.

Domenica Martinello is the author of All Day I Dream About Sirens (Coach House Book, 2019).

To view other content published in this issue, 16:1, please visit Vallum’s website.