An unexpected shift
Wanda O'Connor
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Shift & Switch (Mercury Press, pp. 192, $19.95)
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Experimental poetry gets turned "on" by new Canadian anthology
A recent flurry of Canadian poetry anthologies attempting to compile the best in a trend of genre-specific collections has had one CanLit press house after another deliberating on who exactly makes up the "new Canadian poets." The latest is called Shift & Switch from Mercury Press. Its three editors selected "41 contemporary poets" that editor-contributor Derek Beaulieu notes are "working to define poetics beyond the scope of the 'expected.'"
Beaulieu considers how "epiphanic" (reflection) type poems don't account entirely for how language works, and how each Shift poet traverses genre to "confront the unchallenged." Like philosopher Jacques Derrida's deconstructions of logic, these poets strip away at previously known, comfortable structures to engage the poem, and challenge form, content, reason, and the still and active space of the page. The verse in Shift & Switch displays a poem's open energy, at times owing little to rational thought, and employs a number of avant-garde techniques.
Some poems live inside vigorous worlds, at play with meaning and arrangement, such as Gregory Betts' anagram piece "If Language". Here, his iambic fusion is precise: "With scissors he inserts deletions, insisting all the while it/ is no violent act, but for his frank type/ of truth."
Jay Gamble toys with expected norms of syntax and punctuation in "Gagged": "howls or burns incandescent and lights/ upon the. scratches along and empties/ through the gaping. never to heal." Frances
Kruk's work is physical and eloquent. With a typewriter, she purposefully shifts perspectives at the strike of a key. Larissa Lai takes another approach, through her poignant play with logic and the minimal in "Rachel", the emotionally barren female replicant of Bladerunner: "i mourn purity/ in guilt in fear/ my perfect construction's/ the instrument of." Shift & Switch also delves into the enigmatic visual poem. Max Middle's layered scotch-tape messaging creates a cryptic cacophony that reads as a patchwork lover's plea, whereas Gustave Morin's comic cut-up "Ack" speaks to chaos, yielding a coiled voice. At times, it's difficult to know what the point is of some of these visual elements, but they involve the reader nonetheless.
Despite the book's mediocre paper quality, a few bland visual elements, and some poems being fraught with too much trickery and novelty (or simply overdone), as a collection, Shift & Switch presents good evidence of a core of Canadian poets working outside the norm of structure-specific poetry. Its accomplishments are summed up well in contributing poet Natalie Simpson's compelling "Tide": "What desire, having begun with desire, what deserve."
The Shift & Switch Ottawa book launch happens Friday January 13, 7:30 p.m., at Mother Tongue Books (1067 Bank Street). Readings by Jon Paul Fiorentino, Max Middle, Angela Rawlings, Rob Read, and Mark Truscott. Admission free but seating is limited. Info: max@maxmiddle.com.
We had a book launch in Ottawa, supported by an article in this publication with no comments here to date. Now, here is the first!
What, no one for poetry?
To begin with I doubt that many attended the launch. Remember that perhaps five of the poets whose work would have been in the book were to attend to read their poetry. The location is very small and therefore there would have been little space for spectators or any one keenly interested in experimental poetry. I, for one, am interested but did not attend because of the location, time of the year and Friday nights are precious for other activities.
That having been said, any books of Canadian poetry are most welcomed by the few who truly love poetry. For a few words on Ottawa as a site for the development of poets, it is excellent! The two major universities have students who belong to poetry clubs and do publish their works. There are many poetry reading groups which meet on a regular basis, most often with a featured reader and with opportunities for others present to read their poetry. Ottawa has a most hospitable environment for the support and encouragement of all poets be they experienced or neophytes.
There are a number of book launches in Ottawa each year and some of these are for poetry. In addition, there are many chapbooks published by small press publishers. Last week, Crow Eagle Press published a chapbook by Louis Henry Reeves with the title "Experimental Poetry I." Here we have a clear indication of an aspiration to have a series of experimental poetry publications.
All is well in "Poetry Ottawa", in spite of the turn out for that book launch, and the lack of comments on the O'Connor article.
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Louis Reeves
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