DESCANT Profiles: Matt Carrington, Co-Editor and Prisons Guest Editor

In celebration of our fast-approaching Fall issue, D150: Writers in Prison, we would like you to get to know the issue’s creative team. Over the past two weeks you have heard from Kathryn Franklin and Jason Paradiso, two of the three guest editors for this unusually large issue of Descant. Today, we bring you some insight into Matt Carrington, Descant co-editor and the third and final member of the Writers in Prison guest-editing team. Read on to learn more about Matt…

—————————

DESCANT: What brought you to Descant? What is your role at the magazine?

Matt: I started at Descant six years ago as a volunteer/intern after starting in Ryerson’s Book Publishing program, was the production editor for Descant 128 and have been a co-editor on the editorial board for the past few years. This fall’s Writers in Prisons issue is the first issue of Descant that I have guest edited.

D: When you’re not helping out on new issues of Descant, how do you fill your time? Tell us a little about yourself.

M: I am finishing my first year of working toward a PhD in English at York University. My focus is on Canadian Poetry, and my proposed project tackles the role of the small literary magazine in Canadian literary/poetry culture — since after working in publishing I was convinced that it is important to attend to the material context of a text’s production (and circulation/reception). Small magazines have played an important (and under-scrutinized) role in Canadian literary history.

D: Tell us about your creative life. Any current or forthcoming projects?

M: I consider reading of all kinds and critical writing to be part of my creative life. I am working on some essays currently and am also always writing poetry.

D: Could you share with us a little about your creative process?

M: I read a lot and then I think a lot and then I try to write a little, often after having to disconnect myself from the Internet.

D: What would be your ideal theme for a future issue of Descant?

M: I think that a future issue on work/labour would be fantastic, especially with all the precarious work situations that many in the “cultural industries” (including writers, editors) find themselves in, and the interesting relationship between making a living and unpaid labours of love (internships?) — go read Jeff Derksen’s poem “But Could I Make a Living from It.” Mark Kingwell has a great essay in the back of the fall (2010) issue of Descant about work in literature, but there is always room for more writing on this topic, which seems to be discussed constantly among my friends (partly perhaps because my girlfriend studies freelance labour).

Since I am increasingly focused on the poetry that Descant publishes, I would also be interested in an issue that explores the history of poetic forms or specific poetic forms — Descant’s theme issues tend to focus on that paraphrasable half of the utterance, content, but it would be great to go the other way (as Descant did, for example, with the issue on speculative fiction). I am thinking of Poetry magazine’s recent issue on “flarf,” which is a fantastic departure for the magazine and is a terrific look at what’s happening in current poetics even if you hate the idea of flarf poetry.

D: What kind of submissions would you like to see more of coming in to the journal?

M: My friend and colleague Kathryn Franklin noted in her profile the extreme lack of calligrams in Descant. And it’s true: we need calligrams. I would love to publish more visual poetry of any stripe.

I would also like more exchange with the west coast (I’ve been reading the recent Open Letter about the Kootenay School of Writing and noting the absence of any of these poets in Descant). I think that Descant needs to be more open to (or needs even to champion) the experimental/innovative/radical poetries that are being written and published in chapbooks and small presses in Canada. The modernist cry for the “new” hasn’t ended. Let’s expand what we mean when we think poetry.

D: What are you reading/ watching/ listening to at the moment? Tell us about it.

M: Along with spending my summer reading nineteenth-century Canadian fiction, I’ve been loving Jeff Derksen’s book of essays Annihilated Time: Poetry and Other Politics (if you haven’t read his poems you should probably do that now). Everyone loves Susan Holbrook’s hilarious book of poems Joy Is So Exhausting, so I won’t mention that again.

I also watch a lot of horrible television and am thrilled to have a new wire that sends digital video signals to my television from my laptop (also, stereo sound). Is Louie hilarious? It is. Also it seems obvious that Miles is going to win Work of Art — prove me wrong, world.

I am excited about the new show Next Great Poet, in which emerging poets young and old compete to become the next poet laureate of a small city by writing occasional poems.

D: Which blogs or websites are you faithful to these days? What’s the appeal?

M: Too many. The appeal is inundation and excess.

—————————

To get a taste of D150: Writers in Prison, check out the sneak preview on our website — and don’t forget to get on Facebook and RSVP for D150′s celebratory launch on October 6th.

Next week in this space: Our series of interviews with the D150 team comes to its thrilling conclusion!