Recent Reads - Coyote's Bow Grip

I recently found myself staring at the Canadian Lit stacks on the ninth floor of the Wells' Library and came across a smallish novel set in Alberta. I do find myself quite interested in literature with a strong sense of regionalism/place. I grabbed the book, thinking that it might help me with a poetry series I was building on words and the Canadian landscape. I didn't get around to reading Ivan E. Coyote's Bow Grip (Arsenal Pulp Press 2006, ISBN 1-55152-213-6), until almost a month after the whole poetry series was completed for class.

The book won a ReLit award in 2007 and was the first novel for Coyote. Ostensibly, Bow Grip is about a Drumheller, AB car mechanic who is trying to get over a divorce and the loss of his father through developing the hobby of playing cello. Bow Grip contains a certain amount of alluring quirkiness that really helps to pull the reader in. The narrator is strong enough to pull us through his odyssey from rural Alberta town to Calgary and place into a world on the outskirts of "successful" urban life. The characters that inhabit the world of this book are notably and recognizably working class. There is a familiarity in them that is welcoming and embracing.

The single biggest downsize to the book is that it just doesn't seem to linger on scenes or characters enough. It's short, only 217 pages, and seems to need another 100 pages or so just to fulfill the promises afforded by the strong set up of characters. There does seem to be some loose ends that need to be tied up, or closed off. As a writer and a reader, I feel that everything that appears in a work should be there for a reason. I don't always feel that Coyote pulls some of these threads into any sucessful meaning. The most notable of these in the novel is the presence of a french waitress whom Joey's (narrator) friend Hector is trying to set him up with. She appears for a scene and then simply disappears, never thought of or seen again.

All in all though, this is an interesting book and quick read. If anything, Coyote's Bow Grip is a solid way to start off your summer reading.

Happiness is a Good Short Story

Such being the case, May is National Short Story Month. Now get out there and read some short fiction. I'd recommend the journal Short Story. Not just for the title, they honestly do put out some nice work.

Things here in Bloomington are lovely moving along towards summer. The campus has emptied out and now we have plenty of elbow room on the streets of this fine town. The chill air of college town America is one of those rewards year round residents get in the summer. I'm milking it now, reading up on Snyder and Hayden while tending to our garden. The realness of life away from academia is a wonderful breath of air after a semester of literary criticism and over blowing ivory tower issues.

One important note to pass along. READ THIS (out of Montana State University) has lost its last founding editor with the graduation of Cheryl Knoble. Cheryl served as Editor in Chief since the start and really was instrumental in turning the vision of poet john d powers it a reality. It was a great run. One that I'm sure the next generation of editors at READ THIS will carry on nicely. There should be a new issue out in and around Bozeman as I post this. The website has yet to update its electronic version. Congrads Cheryl on the great run and welcome to post-graduate blues. I doubt it will be the last the Literary world hears from her.

May Dispatches

Time has been at a premium over the past few weeks with the Spring semester here at IU wrapping up. One the upside, I've managed to wrap up a small poetry collection concerned with lexicography and the Canadian landscape. All totaled, its about twelve pieces that explore the ways in which language (Canadiamisms), history, culture, and the landscape of Canada are meet. There is a more to do in this vein, and perhaps I'll spend the summer looking into either converting it into a cohesive chapbook or larger enterprise. It was fruitful exploration. A couple of the pieces are out for consideration at a couple of literary publications. I'll be sure to keep any updates as to future publication here. These lit journals are our life blood, so we have to support them.

I've also been diligently working away at the academic-side of life here at IU. My present interests are pulling me into the studies of Christopher Marlowe and his use of "the other" as distraction in the Jew of Malta. I'm still using the Marxist goodness I learned at Trent under Kulcheski and the Native Studies program. Greenblatt has been rather central to the topic thus far. Either way, I'll try and post an excerpt from the piece later this week as it gets closer to completion.

Other than that the garden is coming in nicely despite the fact that sun has been a rare vision in the past couple of weeks here in Bloomington. No swine flu in sight and the front porch has become a welcome addition to our writing/reading space.