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#204 (Spring 2010)
50th Anniversary Interventions

Editorial

Margery Fee

• Past, Present, and Future (p. 6 - 8)
• (CANADIAN CULTURE - 19th Century)

Articles

Ching Selao

• Les mots/ maux de l'exil/ ex-île: Les romans de Marie-Célie Agnant (p. 11 - 25) Show/hide Abstract

  • Que ce soit dans La dot de Sara, Le livre d’Emma ou Un alligator nommé Rosa, les romans de Marie-Célie Agnant se placent sous le signe de l’exil et de l’ex-île. Rejoignant en cela l’oeuvre d’autres écrivains d’origine haïtienne, ses romans ont ceci de particulier qu’ils mettent tous en scène des personnages féminins et abordent des problématiques peu explorées par ses contemporains. De la « migrance » – néologisme emprunté à Émile Ollivier – à la dictature des « reines-choches » en passant par la « malédiction » des femmes à la « peau bleue », l’univers romanesque d’Agnant révèle, à travers une écriture d’une violence par moments à peine retenue, les mots et les maux d’un passé dont le deuil est difficilement possible. Ce sont les douleurs liées à l’exil et à l’ex-île, liées également à la mémoire des femmes et à la haine entre femmes, que cet article examine.

• (LITERATURE - Quebec - 21st Century)

Michel Nareau

• La nation à l'épreuve d'un récit métis: Ouvrir le Québec par le biais hispano-américain dans l'oeuvre de Francine Noël (p. 27 - 42) Show/hide Abstract

  • Dans la suite romanesque de Francine Noël entreprise avec Maryse (1983) la représentation du Québec est marquée par un travail d’ouverture de la province à une réalité de plus en plus hétérogène. Ce cycle littéraire part de la réalité culturelle québécoise, des angoisses et projets de l’intelligentsia locale, pour concevoir, au final, un projet utopique métis. Les quêtes identitaires mises en scène sortent de la dichotomie usuelle au Québec (francophones versus anglophones), pour instaurer le biais d’un tiers inclus, le monde hispano-américain. Cet article étudie la progression de ce référent latino-américain, l’usage qui en est fait en tant que découverte de l’altérité, solidarité avec des communautés migrantes, exemple de métissage et avènement d’un hétérolinguisme grâce à l’espagnol. La représentation composite du Québec qui s’y révèle montre une utopie métisse de la nation, qui prend comme modèle des figures des Amériques qui s’intègrent à une trame mémorielle et narrative québécoise.

• (LITERATURE - Quebec - 21st Century)

Bart Vautour

• From Transnational Politics to National Modernist Poetics: Spanish Civil War Poetry in New Frontier (p. 44 - 60) Show/hide Abstract

  • By attending to the Spanish Civil War poems in New Frontier by A.M. Stephen, Margaret Day, Leo Kennedy, Dorothy Livesay, and Kenneth Leslie, this paper outlines an instance when Canadian literary production responds to a transnational event and transforms Canadian articulations of a national modernist poetics.

• (POETRY - General)

Eli MacLaren and Josée Vincent

• Book Policies and Copyright in Canada and Quebec: Defending National Cultures (p. 63 - 82) Show/hide Abstract

  • Despite the rise of Canadian literature in recent decades, Canada remains a place where by far most of the books read are of foreign origin. The causes of this predominance can be traced deep into the past—to the country’s colonial evolution, to the long unyielding protectionism of American copyright law, and to Quebec’s desire to shore up a French identity. Nationalist policies have recently intervened to promote the original publishing of general literature in Canada, making a noticeable impact from about 1920 in Quebec and about 1960 in English Canada. These policies have not been symmetrical: whereas Quebec has implemented a law requiring libraries to buy from local booksellers, the rest of Canada has largely contented itself with granting programs for publishers. The result is that Quebec has achieved broad stability for the spectrum of roles involved in the production of local literature and approached parity in the sale of local and foreign publications in the provincial market. In English Canada, by contrast, independent bookselling is in plain crisis, and as this crucial link to Canadian readers deteriorates, local publishing grows increasingly dependent on government grants.

• (CANADIAN CULTURE - 20th Century)

Sarah Krotz

• Shadows of Indian Title: The Territorial Underpinnings of "The Height of Land" (p. 85 - 101)
• (POETRY - Long Poem)

Poems

Paul William Zits

• from the mouth of the sprach-machine, (p. 9 - 10) Show/hide Poem

  • in a hazy afternoon atmosphere with scarcely abreath of air stirring, but a day after a smart shower fell, the bedding of a dense fog in the morning with candles lighted to enable persons to transact their ordinary business, and with a rumbling of distant thunder and lightning visible in the early evening

    pain, heat or perfume A complete set of natural teeth, beautifully mounted in gold Children may be trusted with impunity to the most careless hands Invalid’s wheel chairs, spinal carriages, self- moving chairs Redness, tan, freckles, and other defects of the skin Heals chilblains Imparts a youthful roseate hue Papier mâché tea trays coffee urns Baths of all kinds, shower, hot, cold, vapour, plunging Loose teeth fastened without springs, clasps or wires Incorrodible, artificial, or natural teeth of surprising beauty applied without contents having been in the slightest degree injured A speedy sure cure for those painful annoyances without cutting or pain Paul’s Every Man’s Friend Tea-caddies, tea-trays, dish covers, magic strops Patent chest expander Botanic cream for the general improvement of the hair Eradicates all pimples, spots, and forks Gold horizontal watches Second-hand silver watches Shaving soap, tooth powder, wash cakes Fire- proof safes and boxes one of his patent fire-proof boxes taken redhot from the great fire at the Royal Exchange, after exposure to the flames for twelve hours, without its Is harmless Efficacy is astonishing Never failed in a single instance Invaluable in sick rooms, crowded assemblies, and warm climates Those who once use it will never be without it Handsome fringes and gimps A cottage to let Iron fenders, parlour fire-irons, with bright pan, knives stout, Crowley’s Alton pale ales Fish and barrelled oysters punctually executed Novel article for the toilet Decidedly one of the most useful preparations ever offered to the public A little of it, twice a day Removes from perspiration the unpleasant odour that usually accompanies its bowels My Working Friend, The Mysteries of Paris, The Latin Governess, Farmer’s Magazine, The Sportsman, Belle Assemblée Brett’s brandies may now be obtained from respectable retailers in all parts of London and the country Sealed pint and quart bottles direct from the wholesale establishment Order by post Reid’s XXX or Buttoning, and comfort and neatness, without pressure Now admitted to be the most unique and best to eradicate either hard or soft corns In opposition to slang, vulgarity, and meanness Ventilating waterproof frock Mr Cockle’s antibilious pills Cure for indigestion and liver complaints, Another most amusing novelty has just been added to the glaciarium Being altogether a matchless exhibition Free exhibition Teaching and encouraging the art of swimming To suit the views and the means of every class of insurers Affords convenience by drawing on without lacing The weather affects the tension of the Indian-rubber

Marie Carrière

• Personne (p. 26) Show/hide Poem

  • Dans l'ombre de ton regard
    S'éclaire ton angoisse
    Que je n'ai toujours pas comprise

    Une lutte entre toi et moi
    Cet écart inéedit de lumière

    Le geste suspendu
    La perte qui s'installe
    Dans un coeur de pierre
    Et d'amertume
    Le miroir embrume
    Mon visage et le tien

    Personne au fond

Sharanpal Ruprai

• Gurdwara in Five Acts (p. 43) Show/hide Poem

  • Act 1—Fortune (Teller)
    in the backyard we use chunis as turbans not quite long enough for our hair black twigs shoot out between silk fibres we set up the holy living room a space of richness with bed sheets forgotten saris and a stuffed tiger we use the good pillows under the largest heaviest book we could find the oxford english dictionary the perfect Guru Granth Sahib the binding of the holy book was ripped so we duct taped the spine

    we thought the book was the size of our fathers' outstretched arms Bimal uses a chuni tied to the end of a stick to fan the english words I sit behind the book having taken off my salvar the monks never wear salvars daily we would see the hem of their kacheras

    I read out humamnama one by one little fortunes tumble from my mouth Guru Nanak says that girls should be able to go to the park shave their legs find love on their own Pavan nods in agreement she sits obediently with a small child in her lap she pats her hard we feel love taps from our mothers bunny and a cabbage patch doll sit with head coverings she slap one then points her finger at the other tells them to sit pay attention and they do just like we do

    I do ardas with one eye open we serve the Guru Granth Sahib our unwanted apples Bimal serves Pavan and the children smarties we chant vahiguru I close the book wrap it in seasame street sheets place it on my chuni turbaned head walk around the corner of the house throw it on the picnic table

    after our seva we play ring around the rosy until we all fall down pain in our arms from holding each other too tightly our backs covered with sweat and dirt we close our eyes to the sun pretending to be good

Jesse Patrick Ferguson

• Keys to Success (p. 61 - 62) Show/hide Poem

  • Control:
    Be Buddha cubicled. Extend
    consciousness as far as these four
    laminate-grey walls. Always strike at the point
    behind the computer screen
    for maximum impact.
    This career path is ergonomically fitted to
    your sitting form. Imagine a plumb line dangling
    from the base of the skull, down through storeys,
    penetrating sewers and subway tunnels,
    touching the untouched earth.
    Just to fathom this, to know how far down
    sympathy can go. Reel it back now;
    lunch is over. This is control.

    Alter:
    Be company guppy Monday, water cooler shark
    Tuesday. Become human resource
    putty. Privilege plasticity, and relocate
    at the drop of a post-it note.
    Downsize your I, and malfunction
    as an all-in-one. Above all, alternately sacrifice
    complacency and comfort on the company alter.

    Delete:
    Memorize the abridged Art of War
    and take a katana to any fat in your system.
    Decapitate your non-work selves
    with devastating keystrokes. Eastern philosophy,
    even superficially grasped, may be a salve.
    Cancer, you will learn, is but a waste
    of company resources, so when in doubt
    delete, delete, delete.

    Conclusion:
    This program of self-actualization
    through overtime was devised
    by the executives at Golden Thread
    central command. When you have mastered
    each skill, the three pinstriped Fates
    will join in holding down your three keys,
    and your long apprenticeship
    will be finally complete.

M. W. Field

• Books are Invertebrates (p. 83 - 84) Show/hide Poem

  • Originating in the germ of an idea, a book gradually accretes pages. In its early stages, a book is a worm: if severed, both parts regenerate. Without a spine, it is extremely vulnerable to predators—notably vicious inner critics with filed teeth. Profoundly unimpressed friends also manage to cull many a larval book from the nurturing shallows of authors' minds. So many meet premature death, in fact, that the spawning ponds of literature are macabre—desk drawers choked with decaying and festering early drafts. Ecologists link the prolific behaviour of mature works—sparking dreams and mating with other thoughts in the minds of readers oblivious to their roles as mere hosts for parasitical concepts—directly to the terrible odds against their offspring.

    There is a huge culling at the next stage, as the pupal manuscript begins the attempt to develop an exoskeleton. Without this, it will surely revert to dust having touched so few readers' minds that it has no chance for successful propagation.

    Thus, the manuscript leaves its draft-strewn swamp of origin cocooned in a covering letter, manila paper and stamps, and swims through the treacherous tributaries and sorting machines of the international postal system to far away publishing houses. Biologists have been fascinated for years with the complexity and unerring accuracy of literary migratory patterns—thousands of completely unsolicited manuscripts continually squirm through the mail slots of glutted publishing houses—hardly ever do the manuscripts travel to welding shops or casinos by mistake.

    Once through the slot, the adolescent manuscript begins trying to mate with every mind it encounters, almost always to find its immature advances rejected, told, “In a word: ick.” Some books are more resilient than others—a great many die quick, excruciatingly painful deaths at this point.

    Those most suited to prevailing environmental conditions attract an editor. This person has the power to help the book achieve its desperate, immediate goal: mass reproduction. A novel, say, that has achieved all this (the Hard-Covered Poetry Book being critically endangered—most of those spotted are very old, of uncertain virility) then begins its adult life as a stud book. The book may peak anytime from immediately after first encrustation to centuries later. Then again, it may never attain anything that could called a “peak”: it is hard to predict in the ecological gene pool lottery of conceptual life what will thrive.

Patricia Young

• Hermaphrodite (p. 102) Show/hide Poem

  • Once I was just like any other
    orchid, all sticky liquid and sweet
    scent, but the bees were unreliable.
    Capricious wind, I’d curse, lethargic birds.
    I never knew—would a bear brush
    against my anther, a goat graze
    my stigma with its gorgeous horns? I got to
    thinking—cross-pollination?
    Inefficient, surely, and I hated that helpless
    feeling, always stuck in one place.
    Seemed I’d been languishing on a rotting tree
    trunk all my life. It was drought
    season, the forest so dry my petals shrivelled
    impending death. And then the night I dreamt
    extinction, woke suddenly, and—I don’t know—
    popped my cap. There I was—stunned,
    shivering, my delicate bits exposed. Next thing
    I knew my rod was rising, curving,
    forward, then down past my rostellum. It felt
    strange, perverse even, as though
    I were spitting on my heritage, contradicting eons
    of resilience and hardy mutations,
    but I’d gone that far, so bent my stipe back up,
    around and then—ta-da!—inserted
    my pollinia into my own cavity. Some say I’m a sexual
    contortionist, others, an exhibitionist.
    Some say mating with one’s self takes self-absorption
    to a new level. Really? I thought
    my elegant little dance was a sensible pulling back
    from the brink of non-existence.
    I thought: defy gravity? Why not an audacious rotation?

Interventions

Laura Moss

• Introduction: Generous and Grounded Connections (p. 103 - 108)

Herb Wyile

• Neoliberalism and the Future of Canadian Literature (p. 108 - 110)

Carrie Dawson

• How Does Our Garden Grow? (p. 110 - 113)

Alison Calder

• What Happened to Regionalism? (p. 113 - 114)

Rita Wong

• Watersheds (p. 115 - 117)

Susie O'Brien

• Canadian Literary Environments (p. 118 - 120)

Sophie McCall

• Diasporas, Indigenous Sovereignties, and Métis Writing in Canada (p. 121 - 122)

Deena Rymhs

• A Different Cosmopolitanism: Indigeneity and Translocality (p. 123 - 124)

Daniel Coleman

• Epistemic Justice, CanLit, and the Politics of Respect (p. 124 - 126)

Susan Gingell

• Negotiating Sound Identities in Canadian Literature (p. 127 - 130)

Deanna Reder

• Awina Maga Kiya (Who is it that you really are)?: Cree and Métis Autobiographical Writing (p. 131 - 134)

Ian Rae

• The Case for Digital Poetics (p. 134 - 137)

Larissa Lai

• Journals in Digital Space: Electronic Circulation, Cultural Commons, and Intellectual Labour (p. 137 - 140)

Christl Verduyn

• Back to the Future (p. 140 - 142)

Lily Cho

• Archives of Diasporic Citizenship (p. 142 - 143)

Christopher Lee

• The Best of the West (p. 144 - 145)

Roxanne L. Rimstead

• Utopian Longing and Literary Futures (p. 146 - 149)

Winfried Siemerling

• Canadian Literatures, Language, Race (p. 150 - 152)

Marie Vautier

• Comparative Canadian/Québécois Literature: The Way of the Future? (p. 152 - 155)

Lorraine M. York

• Agent of Literary Culture (p. 156 - 157)

Linda Hutcheon

• Reviewing in Canada as the "Civil Exchange of Ideas" (p. 157 - 159)

John Clement Ball

• Definite Article: Graduate Student Publishing, Pedagogy, and the Journal as Training Ground (p. 160 - 162)

Books in Review

A Something of Crows? (p. 167 - 169)

by Crystal Hurdle

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. The Rush to Here by George Murray (Nightwood Editions)
2. Human Resources by Rachel Zolf (Coach House Books)
3. Flutter by Alice Burdick (Mansfield)
4. The Lost Country of Sight by Neil Aitken (Anhinga Press)

Poetry's Underdogs (p. 169 - 170)

by Vanessa Lent

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Mary Melfi by Wiliam Anselmi (Guernica Editions)
2. Alden Nowlan by Gregory M. Cook (Guernica Writers Series)
3. Joe Rosenblatt by Linda Rogers (Guernica Writers Series)

(ESSAYS)

New Environmentalist Criticism (p. 170 - 172)

by Lisa Szabo

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Culture, Creativity and Environment by Fiona Beckett and Terry Gifford (Rodopi)

(ECOCRITICISM)

Out of the North, Into the Desert (p. 172 - 174)

by Gordon Bölling

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden (Penguin Books)
2. The Great Karoo by Fred Stenson (Doubleday Canada Limited)

(LITERATURE - Novel)

Jouissances et décrépitudes (p. 174 - 175)

by Kinga A. Zawada

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Corps perdu by Laurent Chabin (Éditions Triptyque)
2. Lomer Odyssée by Pierre Gariépy (XYZ Éditeur / XYZ Publishing)

(LITERATURE - Quebec - 21st Century)

Je me souvien: Memory and Mourning in Montreal (p. 175 - 176)

by Jessica Langston

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Distantly Related to Freud by Ann Charney (Cormorant Books)
2. The Violets of Usambara by Mary Soderstrom (Cormorant Books)
3. The White Space Between by Ami Sands Brodoff (Second Story Press)

(LITERATURE - Novel)

The Past on Display (p. 176 - 178)

by Marlene Moser

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Copper Thunderbird by Marie Clements (Talon Books)
2. The Bombay Plays by Anosh Irani (Playwrights Canada Press)
3. Studies in Motion by Kevin Kerr (Talon Books)
4. Jerome by Ami McKay (Gaspereau Press)

Fine Feminist Workings (p. 178 - 179)

by Susan Rudy

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Nicole Brossard by Louise H. Forsyth (Guernica Editions)

(GENDER STUDIES)

A Diverse Nation (p. 179 - 181)

by Mark Diotte

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Imagining British Columbia by Daniel Francis (Anvil Press)
2. Writing the West Coast by Christine Lowther and Anita Sinner (Ronsdale Press)

Cities in Flames (p. 181 - 182)

by Paul Denham

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. The Immaculate Conception by Gaétan Soucy (House of Anansi Press)
2. Reading by Lightning by Joan Thomas (Goose Lane Editions)

(LITERATURE - Novel)

Education, with Ethics (p. 182 - 184)

by Suzanne James

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Cities by John Lorinc (Groundwood)
2. Slavery Today by Kevin Bales (Groundwood)
3. Lunch with Lenin and Other Stories by Deborah Ellis (Fitzhenry & Whiteside)

(LITERATURE - Short Fiction)

Golden Boy (p. 184 - 185)

by Jerry Wasserman

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. In Spite of Myself by Christopher Plummer (Knopf Canada)

Exhibitions of Diversity (p. 186 - 187)

by Andrew Lesk

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Myself Through Others by David Watmough (Dundurn Press)
2. Queer CanLit by Scott Rayter, Donald W. McLeod, and Maureen FitzGerald (Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library)

Walk the Line (p. 187 - 189)

by Samuel Pane

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Arc of the Medicine Line by Tony Rees (University of Nebraska Press)
2. Beneath My Feet by Phil Jenkins (Emblem Books)

Burdened Paternities (p. 189 - 191)

by Neta Gordon

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Rat Bohemia by Sarah Schulman (Arsenal Pulp Press)
2. Entitlement by Jonathan Bennett (ECW Press)
3. Waiting for Elvis by David Elias (Coteau Books)

(LITERATURE - Novel)

New Voices Considered (p. 191 - 192)

by Caitlin Charman

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. A Song for My Daughter by Patricia Jean Smith (Oolichan Books)
2. Sailor Girl by Sheree-Lee Olson (Porcupine's Quill)

(LITERATURE - Novel)

One Event, Plural Views (p. 192 - 194)

by Emily Johansen

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. The Strike by Anand Mahadevan (TSAR Publications)
2. Red Dust, Red Sky by Paul S. Sunga (Coteau Books)
3. My White Planet by Mark Anthony Jarman (Thomas Allen & Sons Ltd.)

(LITERATURE - Novel)

Negotiation and Dissonance in AC Lit (p. 194 - 196)

by Ranbir K. Banwait

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Asian Canadian Writing Beyond Autoethnography by Eleanor Ty and Christl Verduyn (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
2. A Place Within by M. G. Vassanji (Doubleday Canada Limited)

(TRAVEL WRITING)

Through German Eyes (p. 196 - 197)

by Jenny Bingold

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. Translating Canada by Luise von Flotow and Reingard M. Nischik (University of Ottawa Press)

Seven Days in Detail (p. 197 - 198)

by Julie Cairnie

Book(s) Reviewed:

1. A Week of This by Nathan Whitlock (ECW Press)

(LITERATURE - Novel)