“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.

The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.

I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

Happy Holidays to our Descant friends and family!

As this year comes to a close we look back on another busy and successful year here in our office. Another year of beautiful poetry, prose and artwork – as well as the beautiful people who shared them with us – has passed, and I feel very lucky to have been able to participate in it and thankful to everyone who continues to make this publication a possibility. However, with the swell of pride still in our chest from 2011’s hard work, we are already looking forward to the future. This upcoming year is already proving to be full of new and exciting opportunities to share our love of language with you, our readers and contibutors, and we are already working busily like Santa’s helpers to prepare for a jam-packed January. Don’t feel to bad for us though! There is no shortage of Christmas cheer here… with the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack on repeat and Paul rocking out on his air guitar.

Looking forward to seeing you all in the new year.
Happiest of holidays,

Courtney, and the entire Descant team.

Written in 1989 and allegedly unearthed amongst the Chilean author’s notes, The Third Reich is centred on the first-person account of Udo Berger, a renowned German war games expert vacationing in Costa Brava with his girlfriend, Inebord. Rather than basking in the hot sun of coastal Spain, Udo—a man driven by rules, motives and strategy—opts instead to spend his time indoors perfecting a “variant” of his favourite war game, The Third Reich.

Soon Udo and Ingebord befriend another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, who in turn introduce them to an enigmatic collection of local characters, including a shadowy beach dweller named El Quemado (literally “The Burned One”). When tragedy strikes (or at least appears to), Udo’s perception of the world around him begins to adopt a darker, more bizarre hue. His waking life slips seamlessly in and out of dreams and he begins to suspect those around him of deceiving him.

What results is a quietly brilliant novel that unfurls steadily like a mystery in search of a crime. Clues abound as do suspects, but the object of investigation remains hopelessly elusive—both to readers and to Udo. It is this ever-looming abysm of unknowability, however, that truly interests Bolãno. At one point, Udo, upon discovering the inconsequential factoid that El Quemado is not in fact Spanish but South American, comments: “I didn’t feel deceived. I felt observed. (Not by El Quemado; actually by nobody in particular: observed by a void, an absence).” The novel equates this “void” with a sort of ominous evil lurking in the negative spaces between a cause and is effect, a person and his or her motives. For Bolãno, it seems, existence itself is tantamount to deception. It’s esoteric stuff, but that’s why Bolãno remains such a force: His books coextensively compel and confound.

As expected, The Third Reich doesn’t carry the weight of The Savage Detectives or 2666, but it serves as a fitting and elucidating prelude to both works, providing hardcore Bolãno disciples with what may be the most direct entry to date into the author’s thematic, philosophic and aesthetic interests.

The Third Reich is published by Penguin Canada. Translated from the original Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.

The novel reads like an old Hollywood western, complete with two intermissions, an epilogue and concise chapters you’ll race through with the ease and speed of a belly through the bush. Although written in short, choppy chapters and sentences – true to real Southern-twang and free from frivolity – five or six words alone will hit you with such a force that there is nothing left to do but sit back and say “dang!” There is a striking contrast between the abrupt form, the crude subject matter and the entirely heart-warming sentiment behind DeWitt’s words. It is at all times humourous, tender and tragic. While the Sisters brothers reign in a time nearly unrecognizable to our own, the chaos and destitution of the California gold rush, Eli’s insights are no less relevant today. In this short excerpt, Eli discusses life in San Francisco in a description that is still fairly comparable, and eerily so:

“It is a wild time here, is it not?” I said to the man.

“It is wild. I fear it has ruined my character. It has certainly ruined the characters of others.” He nodded, as though answering himself. “Yes, it has ruined me.”

“How are you ruined?” I asked.

“How am I not?” he wondered.

“Couldn’t you return to your home to start over?”

He shook his head. “Yesterday I saw a man leap from the roof of the Orient Hotel, laughing all the way to the ground, upon which he fairly exploded. He was drunk they say, but I had seen him sober shortly before this. There is a feeling here, which if it gets you, will envenom your very center. It is a madness of possibilities. That leaping man’s final act was the embodiment of the collective mind of San Francisco. I understood it completely. I had a strong desire to applaud, if you want to know the truth.”

“I don’t understand the purpose of this story,” I said.

“I could leave here and return to my hometown, but I would not return as the person I was when I left,” he explained. “I would not recognize anyone. And no one would recognize me.” Turning to watch the town, he petted his fowl and chuckled. A single pistol shot was heard in the distance; hoofbeats; a woman’s scream, which turned to cackling laughter. “A great, greedy heart!” he said, and then walked toward it, disappearing into it. Down the beach, the man with the whip stood away from the dead horse, staring out at the bay and the numberless masts. He had removed his hat. He was unsure, and I did not envy him.

Despite moments of cowboy cliche, and embellishments that I’m sure would make any American historian squirm, DeWitt’s writing is deserving of it’s praise and this novel is an insightful, enjoyable and dignified piece of literature. You will find no balderdash here, The Sisters Brothers is an ace in the hole!

The Turn of the Screw — Henry James

Critics and scholars love churning out essay after essay trying to decode this enigmatic novella about a governess who struggles to maintain her sanity after becoming increasingly convinced that her wards are mingling with ghosts.

The Cement Garden — Ian MacEwan

Not so much frightening as it is off putting, MacEwan’s early foray into the grotesque—with its dead parents rotting in the basement and consanguineal lust—is certain to make anyone’s day a little less cheery.

The Fall of the House of Usher — Edgar Allen Poe

Perhaps not the best work in Poe’s oeuvre, but this short story centred around a haunted house and its ageing denizens remains a genre staple.

The Changing Light at Sandover — James Merrill

This three-part epic poem chronicles the otherworldly communications resulting from Merrill’s own experiments with séances and Ouija boards over a twenty-year period. Very eccentric stuff from the Pulitzer Prize–winning son of Charles Merrill, founder of Merrill Lynch.

The Birth-Mark — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Sure, nobody’s perfect, but that doesn’t stop an ambitious (and, some might say, deranged) doctor from performing a rather untraditional form of cosmetic surgery on his wife who just barely misses the mark of perfect beauty.

The Monk: A Romance — Matthew Gregory Lewis

Nothing romantic about this Romantic novel with its fascination with all things satanic. The Monk remains a seminal novel of the Gothic genre and an enduring favourite among English lit. students.

• TIFF’s slightly frumpy cousin, the International Festival of Authors is on from October 19th to 30th. But who needs glitz? Readings by Joan Didion, Ken Babstock, Michael Ondaajte, Gary Shteyngart and dozens of others, as well as an interview with Douglas Coupland on Marshall McLuhan, and Seth in conversation with Daniel Clowes all promise to be more interesting than Brangelinacloonadonnagosling.
• The Toronto Reference Library has some great authors lined up for their Appel Salon series.  Jefferey Eugenides will be discussing his highly anticipated novel, The Marriage Plot on October 24th.  Umberto Eco will be there on November 16th to talk about his latest novel The Prague Cemetery as well as “semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory” for the legion of The Name of the Rose fans out there. The tickets are free, but are sure to go fast.
• For something a little different, check out Ron MacLean, Canada’s unofficial poet laureate, at the Appel Salon series on November 3rd.
• Or, check out The Wrecking Ball, a series that combines heavy metal and short stories, on October 22nd. There will be readings by Jessica Westhead and Jamie Popowich and music by Kosmograd and Black Faxes.

The head of Medusa became part of Athena’s shield, symbolizing the goddess’s invincibility. At the time of the Romans, the head of Medusa was replaced by a sweet-looking young maiden with stalks of wheat protruding from her head instead of the horrifying snakes. The substitution was probably made to emphasize the fertility of Sicily. The Romans, in fact, used the island as the granary that fed its legions. (p.141)

As an interesting aside, the coat of arms of Dohalice, Czech Republic (pictured on the right) hasn’t undergone such a revision. It prominently displays the ugly, snake-tressed head of Medusa.

Also in the Sicily issue, Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews draws on the myth to characterize the island in her poem, ‘Sicily’: ‘Medusa’s Gorgon lair / of unexpected dangers / rising from her deep, dark seas.’ (p. 131)

With her great metaphorical potential, Medusa has been invoked variously in literature, visual art, psychology, and feminist thought. Some sources indicate that the early stories of Medusa portrayed her simply as a monster with snakes for hair. The myth evolved, however, and in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Medusa was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her most alluring trait. The goddess Athena turns her into a petrifying monster as a punishment after Poseidon rapes her in Athena’s temple. The irony of her fate is horrific, and the images associated with her annihilating power are haunting enough to have endured and captured many artistic imaginations over the centuries.

In the resolution of the Medusa tale, Perseus succeeds in approaching Medusa and decapitating her by looking at her only through the reflection in his shield:

Across the fields and along the tracks he had seen the statues
of men and of beasts transformed to stone at the sight of Medusa.
He, however, had only looked on those terrible features
as they were reflected in bronze, on the shield which he held in his left hand

(Metamorphoses Book 4, trans. Raeburn)

Extrapolated beyond their literal context, these four lines are fascinating for what they imply about the relationship between fear and representation. Perseus’s method resembles the superstitious way we use images to mirror reality, thinking that they will allow us some degree of control over it. We arm ourselves with symbols and ideas as we approach the unknown, not wanting to look at it directly — only ‘as it is reflected in bronze.’

We do the same thing when we assign an emblem to a place. When the Medusa image on the Sicilian coat of arms was replaced with a benign agrarian symbol, the latter represented only one facet of the island’s reality (which, after centuries of war for its control, must have been complex). So perhaps the original Medusa head, as a symbol of the totality that we refuse to face head-on, is a more faithful image for the inscrutable nature of the real world at any single time, in any single place.

Fall is an important season for the literary arts in Toronto. Reading and festivals abound, like this past weekend’s Word on the Street at Queen’s Park, as do writing awards both big and small. With all the hoopla and good cheer, it’s sometimes easy to forget that, though Toronto may indeed be the country’s largest hub of Canadian literature, strong and innovative literary communities do indeed exist and thrive outside The Big Smoke.

Recently I had the opportunity to interview Eric Schmaltz, coordinator of the Grey Borders Reading Series based in St. Catharines. The series is the largest of its kind in the region and, in terms of its talent, among the most variegated in the province. It serves as a compelling testament to the strength of literary life beyond city limits.

Q: Describe the Grey Borders Reading Series. What are its origins? What does strive for?

ES: The series was conceived by Jordan Fry years ago, maybe a decade ago by now, maybe longer. I can’t speak to his curatorial practice, but it’s to my understanding that the series was created to forge an active literary space for St. Catharines and the Niagara region. Later, the series was passed from Jordan Fry to Gregory Betts who organized many outstanding events featuring big names, including Lillian Allen, Christian Bok, and Jaap Blonk. In 2010, Gregory passed the series on to me. I stepped in hoping that I could maintain the energy of the former curators and continue to welcome some of the best writers today. I’m now into my second year as curator and I think I’ve managed to do that.

Q: What, in your opinion, makes the series especially unique?

ES: I think what makes Grey Borders Reading Series unique is our community. Not only is the community supportive, but it is also engaged. People want to meet the writers and read and discuss their works, meet other like-minded people, and of course have a great time. It turns our evenings into lively events.

Q: What qualities do you look for in your authors?

ES: A great deal of thought and work goes into selecting our authors. I’m interested in all shapes and kinds of poetry and fiction—I strive to find writers who are active, but also engrossing, enthralling, exciting, and entertaining. Most importantly, I welcome work that is on the cutting edge. I love small press. I love multimedia. I love sound poetry, visual poetry, and conceptual poetry.

Q: Are many of your authors local to the area?

ES: We have featured some local writers. St. Catharines has a sizable group of young and emerging poets (and some well established). That said, the mandate of the Grey Borders Reading Series is to feature writers from outside St. Catharines. GBRS is a place where our local community can see what’s going on elsewhere. Exposure is really important to the growth of literary community.

Q: Speaking of which, what is the literary community like in St. Catharines and the Niagara region?

ES: The St. Catharines literary community is interested and supportive. We have a substantial crowd for a reading series in a small city—especially a city with few venues for writers and poets. It’s a good mix of young and interested people, academics, locals, and even out-of-towners. It’s encouraging to see so many people united in one place to see and hear poets from all over the country and the world.

Q: What authors/events are you most looking forward to this coming season?

ES: Honestly, I’m looking forward to all of the events this year. The series will include some of the most cutting edge, intelligent, and kind writers that are at it today. I’m grateful and excited!

On October 1 we have what is shaping up to be a night of eccentric poetry, featuring Geof Huth; NF Huth, launching her new 3 Words published by Gary Barwin’s serif of nottingham editions; and Angela Szczepaniak, who has a new book from Bookthug. And on October 14 we have rob mclennan, Tim Conley, and Liz Worth. The winter season looks to be just as promising!

For more information on the Grey Borders Reading Series and its upcoming events, please visit their blog: www.greyborders.blogspot.com

Once a year, Word on the Street moves the written word off of dusty shelves and radiating screens and into the fresh air of Queen’s Park. There is always a surprising amount of energy and fanfare, especially for a literary event, as local publishers set up shop on the city streets that so often inspire their books. Though the festival has wrapped for another year, Toronto publishers Diaspora Dialogues are cleverly keeping words on the street with their interactive project, the LitToronto Map, which asks writers to contribute their site-specific flash fiction or poetry. The creative snippets of writing are then pinned to an online map, for everyone to explore. A look at the map reveals stories around every corner and behind every door, intersecting in surprising ways as they are read at the fleeting pace of a stroll through the streets. As a bonus, if you submit your piece before October 15th you are automatically entered in a contest to win some great prizes.

The project is well timed with the recent release of Amy Lavender Harris’s Imagining Toronto, an engaging survey of representations of Toronto in fiction, poetry and essays. Harris’s book reminds us of some of the fantastic writing that has been inspired by our city. She cites Dennis Lee on the Annex: “Drifting north to the street-storey / turrets and gables, the squiggles and arches and / baleful asymmetric glare of the houses he loves / Toronto gothic”. For poet Corrado Painia, “the summer is different on College…the pantograph of a streetcar / tears through the viscera of the sky / hunks of watermelon / bits of pistachio ice cream / scraps of tomato / and threads of parmesan and pecorino / rain / upon the tables of College”. Alvin Rakoff portrays Kensington Market: “Baldwin Street was a mass of colours. Not organized. Not neatly planted arrays. Not row on row of pristine perfection. As with the front of other peoples’ houses. Not here. But higgledy-piggledy. Random. Colours Bombarding the eye. Colours.”

The writing featured in Harris’s book doesn’t always glorify Toronto’s streets and landmarks, but it is always vivid and evocative. In his book Consolation, Michael Redhill offers a cynical image of Toronto’s city hall, which looks “like a broken ice-cream cone with a tumour in the middle.” The C.N. Tower is also often a lightning rod for civic skepticism, called an “…unplunged hypodermic — / a bubble of thin air” by Diana Fitzgerald Byden, and “a monument to nothing, a space-ship that would never have lift-off” by Gwendolyn MacEwen.

Imagining Toronto presents us with some of the best writing about Toronto so far, by some of our most celebrated writers; with Diaspora Dialogues’ new project, Torontonians can add their own writing to a living anthology about this city.

Join us October 5, 2011 as we launch Descant 154: Sicily in style. Come hear Sicily contributors Valentino Assenza, Gil Fagiani, Darlene Madott and Gianna Patriarca read from their texts in an authentic Italian atmosphere. The event will take place at grano restaurant on Yonge, with doors opening at 7 p.m. Arrive early to partake in the cash bar and antipasto.

The Descant 154: Sicily launch is the perfect place to chat up our Guest Editors Michelle Alfano and Venera Fazio while touring Sicilia through the words of our contributors, as their poetry and prose explore and probe this geographically and historically impressive island.

Don’t miss this exciting evening celebrating Descant 154: Sicily! (In stores September 20, 2011)

It’s been almost 40 years since Dennis Lee’s ‘400: Coming Home‘ was published as the opening piece in Civil Elegies and Other Poems. But Lee’s meditation on the freeway between Toronto and Barrie, the route so many summer vacationers take north from the city, has lost none of its resonance.

Reading the poem this time of year in Toronto, where much of Civil Elegies is set, its element of tragicomedy is more palpable than ever. In this climate, where our compulsion to take advantage of summer light and heat can reach a frantic pitch, ‘there is a kind of laughter’ amid the ‘swish and thud’ of traffic heading south back to the city. The poem doesn’t offer any particular cause or source for this laughter, but perhaps we can begin to understand the muted joke when we observe our own customs from a distance. On the highway with Lee, what had seemed real and solid suddenly seems arbitrary:

Back in the city many things you lived for
are coming apart.
Transistor rock still fills
backyards, in the parks young men do things to
hondas; there will be
heat lightning, beer on the porches, goings on.
That is not it.

The poem begins and ends with, ‘you are still on the highway.’ We are still on the highway moving toward the idea or ideal of a life and the void on the other side of it. Across the median, the escarpment rises above us and ‘the edges / take care of themselves.’ In this in-between space, an undefined freedom could be another cause for laughter: ‘there is / no strain, you can almost hear it, you / inhabit it.’

Many of the themes that Lee will take up in the nine elegies that form the second part of the book appear subtly here. Among them are materialism, the inertia of routine, our exploitation of the land, and ‘void.’ In ’400: Coming Home,’ his political concerns are not yet explicit, but the intense spirituality of the poetry is immediate. And as we discover when reading Lee, the political is not divisible from the spiritual.

This poem does much more than appeal to one’s bittersweet experience of the end of summer, one’s nostalgia for the country, or the thrill of the highway—its impact is complex, its voice both serene and troubled. At the time of its writing, Lee was trying to find a new language and a new way of being in colonized space, but the cadence that began to guide his line was more elemental than a nation or way of life (see his essay, ‘Cadence, Country, Silence‘). Four decades on, this cadence still feels new. Though the setting and events in ’400: Coming Home’ remain very familiar, in the act of reading this poem we also still find ourselves at an uncanny remove from what is habitual and known in our lives.

[Pictured above: Descant #39, the Dennis Lee Special Issue, Winter 1982]