» #59 on newsstands now!
subTerrain’s special Vancouver125 issue features 125 Vancouver inspired poems and is on newsstands now! Featuring work from bissett to Zomparelli, from uptown to downtown, from concrete to lyric, it’s a 136-page issue packed with Vancouver poetry, past & present.
Also includes essays (and non-essays) by Peter Babiak, Michael Turner, Betsy Warland, Ray Hsu & Anna Ling Kaye, Catherine Owen, Michael Barnholden, Clint Burnham, Daniel Zomparelli.
Illustrated throughout by Dave Barnes.
Give a subscription of subTerrain as a gift to someone you love—even yourself. Extended until January 16, only $20 for two years.
Darryl Gillingham illustration
» Fiction
Poolside
They are teens, actually, the women poolside. The boys decide which ones wear g-strings, which ones straddle laps, who is off-limits. The boys bend into easy shapes, kick feet at the spray, watch. Taut on the diving board, the girls stretch their mouths into child’s screams as they fall at the water. It’s fall but every day at the indoor pool with the high ceilings and the fogged-up sunroofs and the Kool-Aid blue water feels like a performance—just like summer.
Couches and ConfessionsGirls at the liquor store checkout bragged about their All Included’s in Varadero. To Jane this sounded like, “Ha-ha Jane, you never made it there, did you? Where was it you spent your honeymoon? Nowhere, Nova Scotia? Nice there this time of year.” How could she compete? It was enough to pin Stan to the marriage, let alone getting a trip off him.
Maurice
Maurice and his family lived next door to us on the Island. They were all dwarves: the mother, the father, the two girls and Maurice. The old man worked on the coal boats and their house was chock-a-block full of miniature furniture.
» Creative Non-Fiction
Working In Steep Ditches
So why did I go again? Couldn’t tell you. Actually I could tell you. I could tell you it’s because I woke up and I knew it would be a good day. That after the free hockey tickets, the overtime comeback, and the smile from the cute girl on the train, I knew it would be a good night. I could tell you it’s because I was due. No one runs so bad for so long. Maybe I’d run cold again, but I wasn’t going to run bad. My favourite, the one that always gets me moving, is that I’d only stay a couple hours, till two at the latest, and then I’d go. Right. This time for sure though.
The PavilionFor weeks I have been disappearing to The Bunny Room in our basement in order to get high on cough medicine. My two rabbits, Marcello and Caravaggio, have become my sole connections to the living world, to any flesh and blood creature.
The Heights
On the first day the wait to try it was two hours: far too long, we agreed. I myself have no head for heights but my eldest, unconcerned at nine, finds them no trouble. In Japan the Ferris wheels are giant and slowly revolve, each cabin sealed. She went alone. What did you do up there, I said, after I had waved goodbye and then paced struck by terror, suddenly picturing her opening the door and falling to her death. The phone call to her father, my weak explanation. She wanted to go. I thought it would be fine. I don’t speak the language, how was I to know? And finally: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
» Featured
Our Special Van125 Poetry Issue features 125 poems inspired by the fine city of Vancouver. Includes work by Al Purdy, Earle Birney, Brad Cran, Roy Miki, Peter Mitham, Sachiko Murakami, Nedjo Rogers, Carleton Wilson, Alan Twigg, Brian Kaufman, Tom Osborne, Lakshmi Gill, Roy Kiyooka, Larissa Lai, Joanne Arnott, Renee Rodin, Daniel Zomparelli, Phillip Quinn, Ray Hsu, Patricia Smekal, George McWhirter, Sharon Thesen, Fred Wah, Phinder Dulai, Clint Burnham
» Read more
» Poetry
» Book Reviews
- Books Reviewed in Issue #58 (Spring 2011)
- Pain and Passion: The History of Stampede Wrestling
- Hooked
- Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War
- Lillian the Legend
- Buying Cigarettes for the Dog: Stories
- Down and Out on Murder Mile
- Dragonflies
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- White Album
» Commentary
« strong voices »
By the Editors
Lush 2011 Winners!
We are pleased to announce the winning entries in the 2011 Lush Triumphant Literary Awards:
Fiction:
Michael Kissinger (Vancouver, BC) for "The Phantom"
Runner-up: Lee Kvern (Calgary, AB) for "Detachment"
Creative Non-fiction:
Mark Anthony Jarman (Fredericton, NB) for "The Troubled English Bride"
Runner-up: Madeline Sonik (Victoria, BC) for "Passing"
Honourable Mention: Gaye Fowler (Vancouver, BC) for "Something for You Today"
Poetry:
Kevin Spenst (Vancouver, BC) for "Five Poems from Ignite"
Runner-up: Alison Watt (Nanaimo, BC)
Thanks to all who entered! All entrants receive a complimentary one-year subscription to subTerrain magazine. The winning entries will appear in Issue #60 (Winter 2011). The runners-up will appear in Issue #61 (Spring 2012)
Better Than Evens
At the opening of Samuel Beckett’s 1953 tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot, we see two “tramps,” Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi), waiting beside a dead tree on a desolate country road. They are waiting for a man to arrive, a man named Godot. They appear to have bet the farm on this chance meeting and are down to their last carrot and turnip, their clothes and shoes worn to tatters.
That Sinking Feeling
Last fall, as announcements were hitting the news that the BC arts community would likely suffer severe cuts to their provincial arts funding (as high as 80-90%), many thought that this hobbling of the arts had as much to do with the Olympics as it did with the sputtering world economy. Provincial funding cuts, and an almost total disappearing of Direct Access Gaming funds (revenues derived from gambling) for most arts organizations as well as many non-profits, appeared to be a fairly transparent cash-grab to bolster the government coffers.
A Few Thoughts On subTerrain’s Origins and Intent
subTerrain started out as a dream, an idea of literary rebellion, a shadow-self calling out to be born. It was 1988, the nascent days of desktop publishing, and truly a transitional period in the world of print. For the first time in the history of printing, the means of production were actually in the hands of the masses. Armed with only a Personal PC, a “typesetting” software program (not some expensive commercial typesetting equipment such as a Compugraphic machine) and a laser printer, virtually anyone could produce a professional looking publication.