Matrix 79 Reviews
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 79 ]
Matrix 79 will be on the shelves soon, with reviews of:
The Real Made Up by Stephen Brockwell
The Notebook of Roses and Civilization by Nicole Brossard, translated by Robert Mazjels, Erin Moure
The Girls Who Saw Everything by Sean Dixon
At the Bottom of the Sky by Peter Dubé
Long Story Short: a novella and stories by Elyse Friedman
Ovenman by Jeff Parker
Anatomy of Keys by Stephen Price
More to Keep Us Warm by Jacob Scheier
Baby Remember My Name: An Anthology of New Queer Girl Writing Edited by Michelle Tea
Obon: The Festival of the Dead by Terry Watada
The Alphabet Game: a bpNichol reader edited by Darren Wershler-Henry and Lori Emerson
At the Bottom of the Sky by Peter Dubé
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 79 ]
DC Books, 2007
Read by Vincent Tinguely
At The Bottom of the Sky is a collection of linked short stories. A main character in one tale might reappear as an incidental figure in the next, lending the overall impression of a loosely-knit community – vaguely artistic, decidedly intellectual – interacting against the background of an anonymous urban scene. (more…)
Matrix 78 reviews
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 78 ]
Exit Wounds and The Complete Peanuts, 1963 to 1964
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 78 ]
Exit Wounds
by Rutu Modan
Drawn & Quarterly, 2007
The Complete Peanuts, 1963 to 1964
by Charles Schulz
Fantagraphics, 2007
Read by Joe Ollmann
I first discovered the work of Rutu Modan in Drawn & Quarterly Volume 5. In the story Jamilti, she told the story of an average, bickering, engaged couple, whose day out buying wedding dresses and making wedding preparations is interrupted by a suicide bombing. In this primitively drawn story, Modan evoked empathy for how ordinary and familiar the characters are to us, then suddenly points out the difference between their lives and ours with the intrusion of civil war. (more…)
Six Ways to Sunday by Christian McPherson
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 78 ]
Nightwood Editions, 2007
Read by Laura Roberts
“Dirty pool halls, greasy restaurants, suburban skateboarder showdowns, and dangerous drug dens—some things in life just aren’t very subtle,” begins the back cover blurb for Christian McPherson’s collection of short stories, Six Ways to Sunday. True enough, these stories are about the gritty parts of Canadian cities that most of us like to avoid in our day-to-day lives, but often crave in our fictional outings. The problem is that for all their promises of stark realism, these people and places don’t quite ring true. (more…)
Basement Tapes by Andrew Faulkner, Nicholas Lea and Marcus McCann
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 78 ]
The Onion Union, 2007
Available at www.theonionunion.com
read by Jesse Patrick Ferguson
In Basement Tapes, three bright young poets have created a wry and surprisingly uniform collection—that is, uniform tonally and stylistically, not in terms of the relative success of each poem. The collection works within the constraints of a “call-and-answer” framework, with each poem borrowing from another to varying degrees. With this type of work it is difficult to avoid comparative evaluations of the writers, but each of these three more or less holds his own. (more…)
Avatar by Sharon Harris
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 78 ]
Mercury Press, 2006
Read by Jenny Sampirisi
“I love you.”
The word love in poetry is often noosed with cynicism. Love brings with it an expectation of sentimentality that is (or has become) too abstract and sarcastic to be considered sincere. But what is that if not a poetic challenge? In Avatar Sharon Harris examines the world of the sentimental and shows us that poetry itself is love.
The poetry in Avatar microscopes in on the central phrase “I love you” through multiple entry points: visual, linguistic, pataphysical, and methodological. Replying to bpNichol’s concrete “I love you” poem, it makes sense that the mode of Harris’ response should be in part visual. Through concrete and language poetry, Avatar exposes the interconnectivity of objects to subjects, and of those, to the universe. (more…)
The Atheist’s Bible by Shalom Camenietzki
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 78 ]
Thistledown Press, 2006
Read by Aaron Tucker
Despite the title, The Atheist’s Bible is a compilation of stories that is deeply indebted to faith. While Judaism leaks into every story and guides each character, direct religiosity itself is at the fringes of the work. This collection instead puts a great deal of belief in the modern fable and the construction of urban allegory as a means to guiding a person’s morality. It is this balance between the traditional faith of Judaism and the immediately applicable tale that powers these works in tightly spun pseudo-parables. (more…)
Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid by Simon Armitage
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[ Reviewed in Matrix 78 ]
House of Anansi, 2007
Read by Aaron Tucker
There is a joy in Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid that readers will be hard pressed to find in many other books of poetry. Armitage employs a child-like wit and innocence through the images and tone of his poems, which allows each piece a whimsical playfulness reminiscent of plastic figurines and bedroom floors. While this tone is consistent, even funny, throughout, the lyric work as a whole is too fragmented to maintain any sort of momentum and the reader, working from one poem to the next, is often left puzzled or half-satisfied. (more…)
