Issue #40
Issue #40 - Fall 2011 |
Editorial Comment Highlights |
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A milestone marks a journey: it might be the departure, the destination or the half-way mark, and quite frankly I have no idea what this particular milestone marks except that we’ve done something that is, as any parent will tell you, both extraordinary and banal. We’ve made it through a generation. Yep. That’s right. We’ve published the writing of a generation of young authors. That is to say, anyone who was born in the year The Claremont Review “was dragged squalling from the publisher’s muck” (as editor Terence Young wrote in the first edition) is now too old to be published between these pages. And now here we are, all grown up. But that’s a fallacy, of course. If the editors look in the mirror and experience that weird duality that happens to all who have seen someone or something, whether it’s a partner or a project, a child or a career, through twenty years—that is, the face has aged but the mind and spirit are the same as ever—the writing between the covers of this magazine is just as fresh, as buoyant, as profound, as dynamic as ever. The table of contents in this issue strikes the chord of wanderlust before embarking on a metaphysical journey: Dementia, Discourse in Magnetic Poetry, Cartography, Standard Deviation, Endangered Species, Eplarex, Respire. These titles give a sense of the breadth and depth of intellectual and lyrical territory covered in this issue. We especially congratulate the winners of this year’s poetry and fiction contests. The writers come from close to home and across the continent. Their works are as diverse in subject and style as the genetic structure of any one person from the next. What they have in common though, as poetry judge Cynthia Kirkham says, is courage—because writing, offering one’s voice to a reader, is “an act of faith.” And speaking of faith, we ‘d like to acknowledge here our great supporters ABE Books, who have sponsored this and many past contests over the years through advertising and financial contributions. Special thanks also goes to the parents’ association of Claremont Secondary school, to Saanich School District #63, and to St. Michaels University School who have helped us through these thin times when changes to government financial aid groups have reduced our funding.
The great Cavalier poet Robert Herrick once wrote “that age is best which is the first/when youth and blood are warmer.” Herrick warns the virgins in his poem that “Old Time is still a-flying.” His paradox, of course, is that in writing the poem, you conquer time. The writers published in our first issue have all moved on: some of them to writing careers and others in different directions. Some of them are celebrating their own twentieth reunion even as this magazine goes to press. Their voices though, are as fresh and warm in the pages of that first edition of The Claremont Review as are those you’ll find between the covers of this, our fortieth issue.
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Table of Contents
Poetry
Hannah Roberts The Apple Lady Claire MacKay No, Mother Sarah Khan Looking at a Shopping Cart Thompson Wong White Clouds Danielle Charette The poem we've all written Prime Time Brianna Cerkiewicz Discourse in Magnetic Poetry Nicole Heron Varicosity Broken Up Robyn Van Ek Grandmother She Plays Me Mitch Cram Nest Gatherers of Tiger Cave Eryn Sylvester Pillow Talk Madeleine Goodman Dramatic Irony Amir Dada Never Nangarhar Alexandra Garcia Sunday, Childhood Portrait of an Artist Do The Pine Needles Ever Rest? Olivia Valdes Exhortations to a Young Abstraction Robyn Hope To a Heart Mary Lapp Maiden Monica (Kyung Yun) Lee Eleven Ways of a Chopstick Ian Kapron-King November Kaylaa Dornan The Scene Kid Michael Abramson Muddy Feet A Corporate Dream Madeline Petersen Dementia Danielle Charette Standard Deviation Elizabeth Ballou A Song for Emma Mariah Brian Christensen Paralysis Nicole Heron Endangered Species Sarah Khan Cartography Madeline Petersen The husband who loves you Cliona Quail-Bradley Under the Porch Robyn Van Ek And So We Needed an Armchair Fiction
Kaitlin Jennrich The Taste of Blue Meg Eden Four-Colour Pens Oliver Brooks Eplarex David Murray On the Other Side Tiffany Chan Face Down Christina Zhou Respire Sophia Ma Goodnight, Moonlight Aya Tubinshlak The Music Teacher Visual Arts
Elise Pearson Blackbird, Fly Sea Spray Barbara and Friends Grace Budeweit Spirit of Play Miscellaneous Fiction Judges' Comments Poetry Judges' Comments
Contributor's Notes