Chapter 16 Good Things in Small Packages
719 Words
In this city, the small press is big stuff. Independent publishers of mags, zines, and books are a healthy, hyper-literate bunch. Take Taddle Creek (taddlecreekmag.com), a twice-a-year magazine showcasing some of the city's best young writers and often featuring fantastic historical essays by Alfred Holden.
Kiss Machine (kissmachine.org) is Emily Pohl-Weary's irreverent zine of arts and culture, which features theme issues like s*x and condiments (#3) or hospitals and aliens (#4). She's Got labe (shegotlabe@h*********m) is all about s*x, s*x, s*x. Articles cover Kegel exercises and the mysteries of female ejaculation. One issue even came with a blue tickle feather.
Illustrator lan Phillips designs beautiful books at
Pas de Chance (interlog.com/~ian/1. Examples of
these meticulously crafted objets include Elissa Joy's
Quiceñera, a collection of 15 poems with a hand-
printed cover on Japanese wood paper and 3D
peek-a-boo eyeballs that stare out every time you
turn the page. Local authors lend their talents, but
not their names to Emily Schultz's Pocket Canon
(24hourarcade.com/pocketcanon). The first in this
series of anonymously written chapbooks was Anaïs,
a delicious spoof of Ms. Nin's sexcapades.
A REAL NUT Milton Acorn truly lived the life of the poet. Born in Charlottetown, P.E.I., the cigar-chomping, working-class writer lived all over the country. His time in Toronto was not without incident. Like the summer of 1962, when he tried to read his poems aloud in Allan Gardens and was ticketed by a plainclothes cop. We're not too clear on what the actual charge was, but Acorn returned with friends the next week and read again. Again, he was ticketed. This scene repeated itself every weekend that summer, with the press capturing the whole free speech fiasco.
Through most of the 1970s, Acorn lived and worked in a room at the down-at-the-heels Waverley Hotel at College and Spadina. Actually, he lived in many rooms. Seems Acorn was convinced the RCMP, suspicious of his left-wing political views, was bugging his room, so he constantly moved around in the hotel to keep the spies at bay.
Literary Landmarks
The Annex has been a literary neighbourhood for a long time. So long, it's easy to forget all the writers who worked here. Recently, the city has been providing some helpful hints.
Gwendolyn MacEwan Park, an Walmer Road, north of Bloor, is named for the Governor General's Award-winning poet. MacEwan (1941-1987) wrote otherworldly verse, often steeped in myth and magic. She also lived most of her life in the Annex and was known for feeding the numerous stray cats around the streets.
• Matt Cohen Park sits at the southeast corner of Bloor and Spadina. Fitting, since Cohen (1942-1999) called Spadina "the spine of the cosmos." Best known for his GGwinning novel Elizabeth and After, Cohen also wrote children's books under the name Teddy Jam.
A, E, I, O, U, AND SOMETIMES S
Eunoia is the shortest English word to use all five vowels. It's also the title of one of the best-selling poetry books in Canadian history. Written over seven years by Christain Bök, each chapter of Eunoia is devoted to a single vowel. Chapter A, for instance, offers this line: "Hassan can watch cancan gals cha-cha-cha, as brass bands blat jazz razzmatazz (what a class act)." The surprise hit of 2001, Eunoia has sold 15,000 copies where a "successful" Canadian poetry book tops out at 500. The book also won the $40,000 Griffin Poetry Prize for 2002.
Phots: Crating Hornting
• Hidden away behind a string of houses, bpNichol Lane runs north of Sussex Avenue and east of Huron Street. Named for experimental poet and small press editor bpNichol (1944-1988), the laneway features one of his concrete poems (literally!), drilled right into the ground.
A, E, I, O, U, AND SOMETIMES S
Eunoia is the shortest English word to use all five vowels. It's also the title of one of the best-selling poetry books in Canadian history. Written over seven years by Christain Bök, each chapter of Eunoia is devoted to a single vowel. Chapter A, for instance, offers this line: "Hassan can watch cancan gals cha-cha-cha, as brass bands blat jazz razzmatazz (what a class act)." The surprise hit of 2001, Eunoia has sold 15,000 copies where a "successful" Canadian poetry book tops out at 500. The book also won the $40,000 Griffin Poetry Prize for 2002.
- Writer
