Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine

Wittgenstein wrote: The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Incomplete in several languages, I grow heartened in the places I rub against the edges of different tongues. The world’s languages push against this English I write, they work their way in, ingeniously trespass. Writing, I imagine my text will become a conduit for illegal traffic, a body to incubate a different type of future—fractured, polyphonic, cacophonous, but sutured with silence, with all that remains impossible to put into words.

Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe, most experiences are unsayable. They happen in a space that no word has ever entered and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.

Another library, endless rows, enough space: the shelves are populated with volumes of complicated questions phrased with uncommon beauty. (Najwa Ali, “Writing, In Transit”)

Edited by Meghan Bell and the “Growing Room Collective” and co-produced through and by Vancouver’s Room Magazine and Caitlin Press is the anthology Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine (2017), an impressive four hundred pages plus of poetry, fiction, essays, translations and interviews covering the first four decades of a journal dedicated to publishing, supporting and promoting a series of diverse voices of Canadian writers. Sectioned into decades, part of what is fascinating about this volume is the way in which each section opens with an interview with an editor from that period, from co-founder Gayla Reid (“The First Decade (1975-1987)”), editor Mary Schendlinger (“The Second Decade (1988-1997”), editor Lana Okerlund (“The Third Decade (1998-2007)”) and former Managing Editor Rachel Thompson (“The Fourth Decade (2008-2016)”). The interviews provide an essential context for not only the journal and its activities, but the surrounding culture and communities. As co-founder Gayla Reid responds in her interview:

We felt very much that we belonged in the feminist landscape. High time that women had their own space to write about whatever we wanted. Women’s voices needed to be heard. Silent no more. There was no requirement that submissions should explicitly address sexism. We wanted to publish writing by women that was good writing, and we were convinced that there would be a lot of it around—and there was. At the time, writers typically got started by publishing in a little literary magazine (usually edited by men). So, Room would be a place where women could get started. Our voices could be heard, we could emerge, develop, blossom—all those growing images.

What becomes interesting, as well, is in beginning to understand, by creating a thoughtfully-edited journal of great writing, just how much Room helped to carve out a real and sustained space for feminist writing and conversation, opening the door to multiple writers, conversations and journals, including more recent publications such as Canthius and Minola Review. As Reid continues, in her interview:

At first we were busy choosing from submitted works. After a few years, we also sought out specific Canadian female writers. The first adventure we had in this area was a special issue on Québécoise feminist writers [4.1], which was tremendously exciting because we did not know their work—very little of it was available in translation

            In terms of literary writing, I’d say we were most often looking for what Doris Lessing called the “small personal voice,” which is what poetry and short fiction writing is particularly good at rendering.

Featuring work by seventy-eight Canadian writers—including Marie Annharte Baker, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Juliane Okot Bitek, Nicole Brossard, Lynn Crosbie, Leona Gom, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Nancy Holmes, Aislinn Hunter, Amy Jones, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Jen Sookfong Lee, Erín Moure, Dorothy Livesay, Susan Musgrave, Sina Queyras, Rebecca Rosenblum, Carolyn Smart, Ayelet Tsabari, Betsy Warland and others—Making Room attempts to track some of the shifts in and responses to the culture, from shifts in language to responding to rape culture as well as the Montreal Massacre, conversations around gender issues and multiple other subjects. Just as often, by simply providing a space, Room was at the forefront of some of those conversations, as Vancouver writer and editor Amber Dawn writes to end her introduction, “Overturning Scarcity: Forty Years of Abundant Change”:

Room changed CanLit when Cyndia Cole’s groundbreaking “No Rape No” (p. 24) was first published in the 1970s. Room has shown CanLit that women’s complex bodies are indeed a bit, with fiction like Juliane Okot Bitek’s “The Busuuti and the Bra” (p. 109) and with poems like jia qing wilson-yang’s “trans womanhood, in colour” (p. 376). Room continues to recognize that trans and non-binary gender narratives are an inherent and esteemed part of feminist literature by calling attention to Ivan Coyote’s “My Hero” (p. 195) and Lucas Crawford’s “Failed Séances for Rita MacNeil” (p. 364). By honouring work like Doretta Lau’s “Best Practices for Time Travel” (p. 388) and Eden Robinson’s “Lament” (p. 221, Room challenges tired notions that social justice and Indigenous speculative fiction are anything less than synonymous with great literature.

             As you read this anthology, you will undoubtedly regard it as a timely collection of seventy-eight exceptional literary works. Please also take a moment to marvel at how scarcity and shame have not claimed a single page, not a single line or word of this anthology. You, dear readers, and I, and the seventy-five remarkable contributors are both teaching and learning a new message, right now. Say it with me. There is Room. We do fit.

Queen Mob's Teahouse : Jeremy Luke Hill interviews Kasia Jaronczyk

As my tenure as interviews editor at Queen Mob's Teahouse continues, the thirty-first interview is now online: Jeremy Luke Hill interviews Canadian writer Kasia Jaronczyk. Other interviews from my tenure include: an interview with poet, curator and art critic Gil McElroy, conducted by Ottawa poet Roland Prevost, an interview with Toronto poet Jacqueline Valencia, conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Drew Shannon and Nathan Page, also conducted by Lyndsay Kirkham, an interview with Ann Tweedy conducted by Mary Kasimor, an interview with Katherine Osborne, conducted by Niina Pollari, an interview with Catch Business, conducted by Jon-Michael Frank, a conversation between Vanesa Pacheco and T.A. Noonan, "On Translation and Erasure," existing as an extension of Jessica Smith's The Women in Visual Poetry: The Bechdel Test, produced via Essay Press, Five questions for Sara Uribe and John Pluecker about Antígona González by David Buuck (translated by John Pluecker),"overflow: poetry, performance, technology, ancestry": kaie kellough in correspondence with Eric Schmaltz, Mary Kasimor's interview with George Farrah, Brad Casey interviewed byEmilie Lafleur, David Buuck interviews John Chávez about Angels of the Americlypse: An Anthology of New Latin@ Writing, Ben Fama interviews Abraham Adams, Tender and Tough: Letters as Questions as Letters: Cheena Marie Lo, Tessa Micaela and Brittany Billmeyer-Finn, Kristjana Gunnars’ interview with Thistledown Press author Anne Campbell, Timothy Dyke’s interview with Hawai’i poet Jaimie Gusman, Hailey Higdon's interview with Joanne Kyger, Stephanie Kaylor's interview with Kenyatta JP Garcia, Jaimie Gusman’s interview with Timothy Dyke, Sarah Rockx interviews Gary Barwin, Megan Arden Gallant's interview with Diane Schoemperlen, Andrew Power interviews Lauren B. Davis, Chris Lawrence interviews Jonathan Ball , Adam Novak interviews Tom Stern and Eli Willms interviews Gregory Betts.

Further interviews I've conducted myself over at Queen Mob's Teahouse include: Geoffrey Young, Claire Freeman-Fawcett on Spread Letter, Stephanie Bolster on Three Bloody Words, Claire Farley on Canthius, Dale Smith on Slow Poetry in America, Allison Green, Meredith Quartermain, Andy Weaver, N.W Lea and Rachel Loden.

If you are interested in sending a pitch for an interview my way, check out my "about submissions" write-up at Queen Mob's; you can contact me via rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com

Shane McCrae, In the Language of my Captor

My grandfather—although I didn’t know whether he would have described himself in this way—was a white supremacist. He wouldn’t have been ashamed to admit that he believed white people were superior to black people—especially superior to black people in particular—indeed, he happily—or, really, “gleefully,” would probably be a better word, since white supremacists don’t ever seem happy so much as gleeful—admitted to this belief many times when I was a child. But I suspect he might have thought the phrase “white supremacist” was too fancy for him. He had been, as a child, the younger brother of a much larger boy, and, along with his older brother Thomas, and his younger brother, Raymond—who grew up to become a landlord, who would eventually be shot through the neck by a tenant he had evicted a few days before, and would die in a soft-top convertible, blood spraying from his neck, his head rolling slightly from side to side on his shoulder as he pointed toward a narrow gap between two dumpsters, wordlessly urging his wife, who was already crawling away from the car, to safety—as a child, he had lived in poverty, in the wake of the Dust Bowl, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Because of and despite this, he hated “white trash” almost as much—although the hate was a different kind of hate, a sad duty—as he hated blacks, my father especially. (“Purgatory: A Memoir / A Son and a Father of Sons”)

What strikes, beyond the obvious elements, of Ohio poet Shane McCrae’s fifth full-length collection, In the Language of my Captor (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017), are the rhythms of his lines, a cadence that bounces, staccatos, shifts and lifts through and out the other end of an extremely powerful evocation of power and language lost, frayed, betrayed and rebuilt. I am curious to hear how these poems would be read aloud, enjoying the collisions and collusions his rhythms and phrases accomplish. The poems in In the Language of my Captor are centred around racial tensions—cultural, historical and deeply personal— in a book of rage, acknowledgment, inquiry and violence, as McCrae moves between what appears to be memoir and research, articulating a sequence of abandonment, dislocation and systematic racism, and writing a history that is still very much present. As he writes to close the poem “Banjo Yes Recalls His First Movies”: “White folks stay clean / ‘cause how they own you is they own     your options // You can be free / Or you can live [.]”

McCrae’s title is reminiscent of the late Vancouver poet Roy Kiyooka’s own engagement with writing “inglish,” employing his own take of the oppressor’s language as a response to racist attitudes toward Japanese Canadians, and racism in general, while declaring himself very much a presence, as both artist and human. As did Caliban against Prospero, how does one move through the language of the oppressor? Constructed as a book-length suite, McCrae’s In the Language of my Captor is a damned good book of poems, and writes an evocation of what is still so painfully relevant, and desperately required.

JIM LIMBER THE ADOPTED MULATTO SON OF

JEFFERSON DAVIS WAS ANOTHER CHILD FIRST

They put me in a dead boy’s clothes dead Joseph

Except he wasn’t dead at first they put

Me in his clothes dead Joseph’s      after Joseph

Died and I used to call him Joe      they put

Me in Joe’s clothes at first before he died

Joe wasn’t five yet when I met him      I

Was seven      I was seven when he died

Still but a whole year bigger then but I

Wore his clothes still and the whole year I lived with

Momma Varina      and with daddy Jeff

I never lived so good as when I lived with

Them and especially it was daddy Jeff

Who kept me fed and wearing those nice clothes

Until they fit as tight as bandages

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Allison LaSorda

Allison LaSorda’s writing has appeared in Brick: A Literary Journal, Hazlitt, PRISM international, and The Fiddlehead, among others. Her first book, Stray, was published by icehouse poetry / Goose Lane Editions in 2017.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Writing can be an isolating experience, and one that is abstracted and interior, so it can be disorienting to bring the product of that experience to others. Poems languish on my desktop and rarely feel finished. I find it tough to let go. I’m not sure about my life changing, but having my work published in book form, on real, pulpy pages, makes me feel as though I have completed something concrete.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I don’t recall making the decision. An impulse to tackle something small, to ask questions, or to play with language was probably what first drew me to attempting poetry. Now, though, writing poetry and fiction both feel necessary to me.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

When it comes, the writing comes quickly. There tend to be large gaps between productive periods. First drafts are very similar to the shape of final drafts, though of course they’re clumsy and in need of chiselling.

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I tend to start small. Shorter pieces accumulate, and maybe they echo each other in their tone or topic or obsessions. It’d be interesting to start with a larger thematic project in mind, but I expect it would be challenging for me.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I feel neutral about public readings. I’m grateful for any audience that gives poems a chance, but in general, I prefer to watch rather than be watched. While reading I might have the opportunity to notice the awkwardness of a phrase, or a repetition that went unnoticed, so in that sense it is helpful to my editing process.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I don’t consciously apply theory to my writing. If I think about it, I venture to say I am trying to clarify what is difficult to articulate, and to anatomize what a particular instinct or choice or system is presenting as simple. I’m concerned with humour and absurdity. I’m trying to ask why certain questions are important to me, and why poetry is the way to open them up. What settles in my mind right now are questions of memory, gender, logic, attachment / detachment, and more that I probably haven’t identified quite yet.  

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Man. I worry about being idealistic. Writers can forge the potential for new ways of seeing, can look inward and outward at the same time, and can be mindful of context, uncertainty, and empathy. But there isn’t one way to be a writer any more than there is one way to write.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I find it absolutely essential.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

I like this Jack London quotation: Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

It’s been natural in some ways and tough in others. The appeal, for me, is to bring the energy of fiction and poetry, of far-reaching and tinkering, and mix them into each other.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don’t have much of a routine. On a free day, and a good writing day, I hustle out of the house in the morning and write in a café until I get restless. Otherwise, I tend to write at night. I feel that fatigue helps me escape being too cautious.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

If I can’t write, I’ll edit. If I can’t edit, I’ll read. Reading boosts my brain.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Burning leaves.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I’m influenced by, or at least preoccupied by, everything and everyone most of the time.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

In a sense each book I read is important, whether it drives me up the wall or it gives me renewed energy. At the moment, I’m lucky to read books-in-progress by my talented friends, and otherwise I’m absorbing the work of whip-smart writers like Patricia Lockwood, Danez Smith, Kevin Connolly, Karen Solie, and Ottessa Moshfegh.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Oh, that’s a list. At the top are: Surf. Write a novel. Stick a handstand.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I’d choose to be a professional mountain climber or a midwife. I think if I hadn’t pursued writing in a real way I’d be a veterinary technician.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I think writing is, in practical ways, a very low maintenance art form. I just need a computer. I love to read and consume, but there was an urge to engage and participate. What made me write was the feeling that writing is an end in itself.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I’m late to the party, always. Book: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Film: Hell or High Water.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Stories. And what maybe could be a novella.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;