Issue archives

#208 (Spring 2011)
Prison Writing

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Editorial

Roxanne L. Rimstead and Deena Rymhs

• Prison Writing/Writing Prison in Canada (p. 6 - 11)
• Subjects: Cultural Studies

Articles

Alison Toron

• The Model Prisoner: Reading Confinement in Alias Grace (p. 12 - 28)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  This article explores the complex physical and psychological space of the prison in Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed historical novel Alias Grace (1996). Rather than understanding the imprisonment of the convicted nineteenth-century “murderess” as an aberration, this article argues that it is part of a spectrum of confining and repressive institutions that have defined Grace Marks’s existence. Yet despite obvious restrictions, Grace uses the prison setting and her interviews with the young psychiatrist Dr. Simon Jordan for her own ends, engaging in a form of self-therapy that disturbs these seemingly top-down power relationships. This article suggests that by using storytelling as a means of escape and empowerment, Grace positions her narrative within recognizable tropes in prison literature, but her challenges to the cathartic power of narrative can be read as exploring the epistemological limits of prison narration.

• Subjects: Historical Fiction, Landscape/Space, Law & Prison, Literary Criticism

Deena Rymhs

• On Making The Meaning of Life: An Interview with Hugh Brody (p. 30 - 47)
• Subjects: Film, First Nations, Law & Prison, Native Studies

Dominic Marion

• D.A.F. de Sade et Hubert Aquin (p. 49 - 63)
• Subjects: History, Law & Prison, Philosophy

Keavy Martin and Sam McKegney

• Inuvialuit Critical Autobiography and the Carceral Writing of Anthony Thrasher (p. 65 - 83)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  Prevented by geographical distance and carceral containment from enacting a traditional role as provider for his community, Inuvialuit author Anthony Apakark Thrasher invokes tales of “the legendary… Eskimo past” (323) in his prison writings as a way of making meaning out of imposed immobility. Cultural precedence for such translation of restricted movement into communal purpose can be found in Inuk elder Ivaluardjuk’s “Cold and Mosquitoes,” which depicts the speaker’s metamorphosis through age from hunter of game to hunter of words who contributes to the cultural rather than material survival of his people.

  While celebrating Thrasher’s creative resistance to state-imposed restrictions, this article worries about the possible danger of overemphasizing prison writing’s emancipatory potential. We consider how Thrasher’s imaginative identification with a mythic Inuvialuk hunter who bears witness to the colonial containment of his people offers a means of accounting for authorial agency without allowing that agency to become unmoored from unjust power relations that restrict both prison inmates and the Inuvialuit community.  

   

• Subjects: Autobiography, First Nations, Law & Prison, Life Writing, Northern Canada

Stephanie Oliver

• Diffuse Connections: Smell and Diasporic Subjectivity in Larissa Lai's Salt Fish Girl (p. 85 - 107)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  This essay argues that smell plays a crucial role in shaping diasporic subjectivity. It thus marks a conceptual shift from the visual and auditory frameworks that tend to characterize postcolonial and diaspora criticism. This essay also extends studies that examine taste and smell together by exploring how smells mark diasporic subjects differently than tastes. Aromas have the ability to evoke memories of past “homelands” and mark diasporic subjects as “foreign” in their present living places. Examining scents’ varied functions thus complicates approaches to diasporic subjectivity that emphasize memory and nostalgic longing. By re-conceptualizing “diffusion,” the first part of this essay uses an olfactory metaphor to theorize both the intersubjective encounters that emerge from diasporic movements, and the intersecting spatio-temporal experiences that inform diasporic subjectivity. This essay then explores the dynamics of diffusion in Larissa Lai’s novel Salt Fish Girl and examines how Lai’s text draws attention to histories of olfactory discrimination against Chinese immigrants in Canada. 

   

• Subjects: Asian Canadian, Diaspora, Speculative Fiction

Douglas Ivison

• "It's no different than anywhere else": Regionalism, Place, and Popular Culture in Lynn Coady's Saints of Big Harbour (p. 109 - 125)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  This paper argues that Lynn Coady’s Saints of Big Harbour (2002) resists the static and stereotypical portrayal of place and identity often associated with Atlantic-Canadian culture and literature by portraying the participation of the adolescent characters (in early 1980s Cape Breton) in a transnational popular culture rather than an ‘authentic’ local folk culture, by emphasizing the banal sameness rather than the unique particularities of Cape Breton, by downplaying the impact of geography on identity formation, and by critiquing the parochial and localist understandings of place associated with some of the adult characters.  In doing so, Saints articulates an understanding of place as unfixed and porous rather than as static and bounded, and thus provides a portrait of Cape Breton as part of not apart from the contemporary world.

   

• Subjects: Atlantic Canada, Cultural Geography, Globalization, Regionalism

Poems

John Donlan

• Out All Day (p. 29)

Chris Ewart

• for yukon (p. 48)

Changming Yuan

• Class 761, Shanghai (p. 64)

rob mclennan

• lake, verse (p. 84)

Phinder Dulai

• ash (p. 108)

Book Reviews

Ends of Days (p. 126 - 128)

by Brett Josef Grubisic

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel
2. Player One: What Is to Become of Us by Douglas Coupland
3. The Sky is Falling by Caroline Adderson

Subjects: Novel, Twenty-First Century

Altering Historical Circumstances (p. 128 - 129)

by June Scudeler

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Circumstances Alter Photographs: Captain James Peters' Reports from the War of 1885 by Michael Barnholden

Subjects: First Nations, History, Photography

Quêtes (p. 129 - 130)

by Emmanuel Bouchard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Epiphany, Arizona by Pierre Barrette
2. La lenteur du monde by Michel Pleau
3. Les Yeux sur moi by Martin Thibault

Subjects: Poetry

The Year of Memory and Discovery (p. 130 - 132)

by Shao-Pin Luo

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Amazing Absorbing Boy by Rabindranath Maharaj
2. The Year of Finding Memory by Judy Fong Bates

Subjects: Asian Canadian, Life Writing, Memory & Identity, Novel

Portraits de la littérature québécoise (p. 132 - 133)

by Frédéric Emmanuel Rondeau

Book(s) reviewed:

1. L'ecole du regard by Antoine Boisclair
2. La fatigue d'etre by Jacques Beaudry

Subjects: Quebec

Celebrating Lowry (p. 134)

by Paul G. Tiessen

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the World by Bryan Biggs and Helen Tookey

Subjects: Art, Biography, British, Landscape/Space, Photography

Folle jeunesse (p. 134)

by Cyril Schreiber

Book(s) reviewed:

1. ne pas humecter by Charles Drouin
2. Offrandes de la jouissance by Marylène Bertrand
3. Orpailleur de bisous by Laurent Poliquin

Subjects: Poetry

Place au spectacle! (p. 135 - 136)

by Véronique Trottier

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Mai au bal des prédateurs by Marie-Claire Blais

Subjects: Quebec

But Enough About You (p. 136 - 138)

by Tim Conley

Book(s) reviewed:

1. A Short History of Forgetting by Johanna Skibsrud
2. I Do Not Think That I Could Love a Human Being by Johanna Skibsrud
3. The Annotated Bee & Me by Tim Bowling

Subjects: Poetry

Six Kings and a Pawn (p. 138 - 139)

by Ted Binnema

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Letters From Rupert's Land, 1826-1840 by Helen E. Ross
2. Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600-1900 by Stephen R. Bown

Subjects: Canadian Studies, History

Explorer ciel et grotte (p. 139 - 140)

by Émilie Théorêt

Book(s) reviewed:

1. [mystism]: Terre ne se meurt pas by Michaël La Chance
2. Cahiers d'Icare by André Brochu

Subjects: Poetry

Témoignage et réflexion (p. 140 - 141)

by Lucie Lequin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La transculture et ViceVersa by Bruno Ramirez, Fulvio Caccia, and Lamberto Tassinari

Subjects: Essays

Seriously Taken (p. 141 - 143)

by Kathryn Carter

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Down the Road to Eternity by M.A.C. Farrant
2. Loose Pearls by D.C. Troicuk
3. The English Stories by Cynthia Flood
4. Welcome to Canada by David Carpenter

Subjects: Short Fiction

Par petites lampées (p. 143)

by Geneviève Dufour

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Extraits de cafés by André Carpentier

Subjects: Quebec

Rendez-vous avec la mort (p. 144)

by Virginie Doucet

Book(s) reviewed:

1. ROM: Read Only Memory by Jacques Rousseau
2. Sous pression by Jean-François Chassay

Subjects: Quebec

The Many or One (p. 145 - 147)

by Douglas Barbour

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Be Calm, Honey by David McFadden
2. Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip by Lisa Robertson
3. Revolver by Kevin Connolly

Subjects: Poetry

Le coeur de la tempête à lire (p. 145)

by Jean-Sebastian Ménard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Le coeur de la tempête by Louis-Dominique Lavigne and Herménégilde Chiasson

Subjects: Novel

Inventer la vie (p. 147)

by Jean-Sebastian Ménard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Je ne veux pas mourir seul by Gil Courtemanche

Subjects: Quebec

Quand la littérature veut sauver le monde! (p. 147)

by Jimmy Thibeault

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Le Monde, Le Lézard et Moi by Gil Courtemanche
2. Sauver le monde by Marc-Alain Wolff

Subjects: Quebec

Un thème, deux poétiques (p. 148 - 149)

by Stéphane Girard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Chacal, mon frère by Gracia Couturier
2. Fractures du dimanche by Michel Ouellette

Subjects: Quebec

Splashed and Swallowed (p. 149 - 151)

by Samuel Martin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Galore by Michael Crummey
2. Where White Horses Gallop by Beatrice MacNeil
3. You Better Watch Out by Greg Malone

Subjects: Atlantic Canada, Canadian Folklore, Life Writing, Novel, World War I

Comic Bildungsromans (p. 151 - 153)

by Evan Munday

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Fishing for Bacon by Michael Davie
2. Lemon by Cordelia Strube
3. Stripmalling by Jon Paul Fiorentino and Evan Munday

Subjects: Novel

Collecting His Wits (p. 153 - 155)

by George Elliott Clarke

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Collected Works of George Grant: Volume 4, 1970-1988 by Henry Roper and Arthur Davis

Subjects: Philosophy, Politics, Religion

Sundry Tundra Fun (p. 155 - 156)

by Hilary Turner

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Bird Child by Nan Forler
2. Out of Slavery: The Journey to Amazing Grace by Linda Granfield
3. Sail Away with Me by Jane Collins-Philippe
4. What Came First? by Sandro Natalini

Subjects: Children's Literature

The Dynamics of Readerly Engagement in Three Poetic Texts (p. 157 - 158)

by Heather Milne

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Implicate Me: Short Essays on Reading Contemporary Poems by Elana Wolff
2. Mobility of Light: The Poetry of Nicole Brossard by Nicole Brossard and Louise H. Forsyth

Subjects: Poetry

Les poupées russes (p. 158 - 159)

by Nathalie Warren

Book(s) reviewed:

1. L' Hiver retrouvé by Marie-Noëlle Gagnon
2. Rose Amer by Martine Delvaux

Subjects: Novel

Frye's Legacy (p. 159 - 160)

by Graham Nicol Forst

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Northrop Frye on Twentieth-Century Literature by Northrop Frye and Glen Robert Gill

Subjects: Literary Criticism, Twentieth Century

Vocations: First Nations Voices (p. 160 - 162)

by Madelaine Jacobs

Book(s) reviewed:

1. she walks for days inside a thousand eyes: a two-spirit story by Sharron Proulx-Turner
2. Skin Like Mine by Garry Gottfriedson
3. The Lil'wat World of Charlie Mack by Dorothy Kennedy and Randy Bouchard

Subjects: Ethnic History, First Nations, Gender, Poetry, Sexuality

Actualité de Réjean Ducharme (p. 162 - 163)

by Jean Morency

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Présences de Ducharme by Marie-Andrée Beaudet, Élisabeth Haghebaert, and Elisabeth Nardout-Laferge
2. Réjean Ducharme: une marginalité paradoxale by Élisabeth Haghebaert

Subjects: Literary Criticism

Regional to the Core (p. 163 - 165)

by Mark Harris

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker: David Rimmer's Moving Images by Mike Hoolboom
2. Playing With Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin by David Church

Subjects: British Columbia, Film, Regionalism

Authors Contribute to South Asian Narratives (p. 165 - 166)

by Sharanpal Ruprai

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Her Mother's Ashes 3: Stories by South Asian Women in Canada and the United States by Nurjehan Aziz
2. In the Wake of Loss by Sheila James
3. The Fourth Canvas by Rana Bose

Subjects: Indian/South Asian, Novel, Short Fiction

Captivity and Race (p. 166 - 167)

by Heidi Darroch

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles

Subjects: Historical Fiction

Beyond the Page (p. 168 - 169)

by Myrl Coulter

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Fauna by Alissa York
2. The Age of Water Lilies by Theresa Kishkan

Subjects: Novel

Diasporic Possessions (p. 169 - 170)

by Christopher Lee

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Pulse by Lydia Kwa

Subjects: Asian American, Diaspora, Gay/Lesbian, Novel

Nouvelles du large (p. 170 - 171)

by Michel Nareau

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Hors du bleu by Luc LaRochelle
2. Le souffle du dragon by Jean-Marc Beausoleil

Subjects: Quebec

Native Arc (p. 171 - 173)

by Beverley Haun

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The New Media Nation: Indigenous Peoples and Global Communication by Valerie Alia
2. When the Other is Me: Native Resistance Discourse 1850-1990 by Emma LaRocque

Subjects: First Nations, Historiography, Journalism, Media & Communications

Le pardon, cette histoire « qui nous concerne tous » (p. 173 - 174)

by Simona Emilia Pruteanu

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Cinq secondes by Jacques Savoie
2. Eucalyptus by Mauricio Segura
3. Quinze secondes de célébrité by François Leblanc

Subjects: Novel

Recovery and Revaluation (p. 174 - 176)

by Veronica Austen

Book(s) reviewed:

1. African Nova Scotian-Mi'kmaw Relations by Paula Madden
2. Multimodality in Canadian Black Feminist Writing: Orality and the Body in the Work of Harris, Philip, Allen, and Brand by Maria Caridad Casas

Subjects: Afro-Canadian, Atlantic Canada, Caribbean-Canadian , Diaspora, Feminism, First Nations, Multiculturalism, Oral

Heavy and Light Hearts (p. 176 - 178)

by Sarah Banting

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Billy Twinkle: Requiem for a Golden Boy by Ronnie Burkett
2. Toronto the Good by Andrew Moodie
3. While We're Young by Don Hannah

Subjects: Drama

Finding Hope, Finding Home (p. 178 - 180)

by Sarika P. Bose

Book(s) reviewed:

1. After Peaches by Michelle Mulder
2. Shapeshifter by Holly Bennett
3. The Gnome's Eye by Anna Kerz
4. Walking Backward by Catherine Austen

Subjects: Children's Literature, Immigrant

(Un)Satisfying Hunger (p. 180)

by Kim Snowden

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Porny Stories by Eva Moran
2. The Hungry Mirror by Lisa de Nikolits

Subjects: Novel

On Gender, Genre, and Graphic Art (p. 181 - 182)

by Fiona Tolan

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood by Reingard M. Nischik

Subjects: Feminism, Gender

Lost and Last Prayers (p. 182 - 183)

by Susie DeCoste

Book(s) reviewed:

1. In Another Life by Raymond Fraser
2. Seven Ravens: Two Summers in a Life by the Sea by Lesley Choyce
3. The Wanton Troopers: Reader's Guide Edition by Alden A. Nowlan

Subjects: Atlantic Canada, Life Writing, Novel, Regionalism

All Thought Up and Nowhere To Go (p. 184 - 185)

by Greg Doran

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Therefore Choose by Keith Oatley
2. Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk

Subjects: Exploration, Historical Fiction, Memory & Identity, Novel, World War II

Gauging Young Readers (p. 185 - 186)

by Rick Gooding

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Molly's Cue by Alison Acheson
2. The Broken Thread by Linda Smith
3. The Secret Fiend by Shane Peacock

Subjects: Young Adult

L'art, le temps, la mort (p. 186 - 187)

by Nathalie Roy

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Une idée simple by Yvon Rivard

Subjects: Essays

Tropes of Time and Place (p. 187 - 189)

by Crystal Hurdle

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Against the Hard Angle by matt robinson
2. Poems for the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names by Soraya Peerbaye
3. R's Boat by Lisa Robertson
4. Track & Trace by Zachariah Wells

Subjects: Poetry

Images vives de la mort (p. 189 - 190)

by Ghislaine Boulanger

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Aeterna: Le jardin des immortelles by Nancy Vickers
2. noir blanc nabis by Diane-Ischa Ross

Subjects: Poetry

Une résurrection pour le christianisme? (p. 190 - 191)

by Patricia Nourry

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Le christianisme à un tournant by Paul-Emile Roy

Subjects: Religion

Mapping and Way-making (p. 191 - 192)

by Erin Wunker

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke by Jon Paul Fiorentino
2. Fierce Departures: The Poetry of Dionne Brand by Leslie Sanders and Dionne Brand
3. Lousy Explorers by Laisha Rosnau

Subjects: Poetry

Breathing Lessons (p. 192 - 194)

by Andre Furlani

Book(s) reviewed:

1. declining america by Rob Budde
2. Pause for Breath by Sarah Robyn
3. Swim Class and Other Poems by George Whipple

Subjects: Poetry

Unsettling History and Text (p. 194 - 195)

by Heather Latimer

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Unsettled Remains: Canadian Literature and the Postcolonial Gothic by Gerry Turcotte and Cynthia Sugars
2. What the Furies Bring by Kenneth Sherman

Subjects: Gothic, Literary Criticism, Postcolonialism, Trauma

He Married a Buddhist (p. 195 - 196)

by Matt Hiebert

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Tibetans in Exile: The Dalai Lama & the Woodcocks by Alan Twigg

Subjects: Life Writing

Positioning Globality (p. 196 - 198)

by Meagan Dallimore

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Transnational Canadas: Anglo-Canadian Literature and Globalization by Kit Dobson
2. Unfastened: Globality and Asian North American Narratives by Eleanor Ty

Subjects: Asian American, Asian Canadian, Globalization, Literary Criticism, Transnationalism

Adventure-Packed Historical YA Fiction (p. 198 - 200)

by Lynn (J.R.) Wytenbroek

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Clay Man: The Golem of Prague by Irene N. Watts
2. Medina Hill by Trilby Kent
3. The Battle for Duncragglin by Andrew H. Vanderwal
4. Wounded by Eric Walters

Subjects: History, War , Young Adult