Reviews
Poetry review by David Goldstein: Leaping Beauty of Peter Sanger's New Poems
John Stokes’ Horse, the ninth collection of poetry by the Nova Scotia writer, Peter Sanger, is haunted by the modest things that compose the world. From the first poem, which asks
how do you like
this air
on
a flute
worth a sou
to the book’s phenomenal closing essay, “Leaping Time,” chronicling the lonely occupations of an isolated boy, this book concerns itself with the small, the overlooked, the objects we take in “at a glance.”
Read Goldstein's review in full
Issues
The 50 Issues Project:
Issue #113 Winter, 1995
To celebrate the University of Victoria’s 50th anniversary in 2012–13, The Malahat Review is highlighting 50 of the finest issues from its backlist, which stretches back to January 1967. The magazine is almost as old (and mature) as the university. Look for our featured issue every Friday!
Two notable poets stand out in this Winter issue of The Malahat Review. Five poems by Tomas Tranströmer and ten songs by Jan Zwicky exemplify how poetry attempts an ineffable structure for memory and emotion.
Staff
How to impress our poetry board: Q&A with Rhonda Batchelor
Write poetry? Want it published in The Malahat Review? Have a look at what our Assistant Editor and member of the poetry board, Rhonda Batchelor, is looking for.
Describe your ideal poem.
I’m drawn to poems that take emotional risks, that speak from the heart. Of course I appreciate form and craft and original expression, but intellectual rigor can never resonate, for me, in the same way. A poem’s subject doesn’t matter, only the genuineness of the poet’s response to it. I want to feel something in the way of what sparked the work. This isn’t a deal-breaker in my appreciation of a poem, but it’s an important element that can’t be faked, either way.
Issues
The 50 Issues Project:
Issue #112 Fall, 1995
To celebrate the University of Victoria’s 50th anniversary in 2012–13, The Malahat Review is highlighting 50 of the finest issues from its backlist, which stretches back to January 1967. The magazine is almost as old (and mature) as the university. Look for our featured issue every Friday!
Blue Nude II (1993) by Sarah Gee—who also sits on the editorial board—covers this Fall issue of The Malahat Review. The figure looks toward the outside of the cover, waiting for the works within.
Marjorie Stelmach's “The Tower” evokes the shade of Georg Trakl, an Austrian expressionist poet who battled with mental illness.
Congratulations to Eliza Robertson!
Our fiction board member and 2009 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction winner, Eliza Robertson has been named regional winner for the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Canada & Europe!
Eliza has also recently been shortlisted for the 2013 CBC Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Anansi Broken Social Scene Story Contest.
Go Eliza, go!
Literary Victoria: May 13 - 19, 2013
What's happening this week in Victoria's literary scene?
Tuesday, May 14th: Russell's Vintage grand opening with Steven Price, Esi Edugyan, and Marita Dachsel.
Wednesday, May 15th: Book Lovers Unite! Orca Books launch with several local authors.
Thursday, May 16th: May Q. Wong reads from A Cowherd in Paradise.
Friday, May 17th: Planet Earth Poetry reading series presents Untying the Apron launch.
E-Newsletter
Malahat lite: May 2013 edition
The May edition of Malahat lite is up!
Read Cody Klippenstein's short story, "Dainty, Pretty Things" from issue #182, Spring 2013 and "Walk the Line of Sense and Comfort: Patrick Grace in Conversation with Cody Klippenstein."
Find out what poetry board member (and Assistant Editor) Rhonda Batchelor is looking for in poetry submissions.
Stay up to date on two readings we'll hold as part of Congress 2013 in June.
Meet Friend of The Malahat Wally du Temple.
Read the May edition of Malahat lite
Issues
The 50 Issues Project:
Issue #107 Summer, 1994
To celebrate the University of Victoria’s 50th anniversary in 2012–13, The Malahat Review is highlighting 50 of the finest issues from its backlist, which stretches back to January 1967. The magazine is almost as old (and mature) as the university. Look for our featured issue every Friday!
This mammoth special summer issue, concurrent with the XV Commonwealth Games in Victoria, includes writing from across the empire. According to Derk Wynand's “Notes,” the issue encompasses a “cultural component” for the games, the tone set by the writers, and surprisingly, “features no Caribbean writers ... living in Canada.”
Issues
Issue #182: Poems by Lorna Crozier
Check out some of our Spring 2013 issue, #182, online. You can read Lorna Crozier's poem, "Blackberry Pickers," here, and read "A Longing for our Life on Earth: John Barton in Conversation with Lorna Crozier" here.
"Blackberry Pickers"
by Lorna Crozier
This is the hour of the blackberry pickers,
before the birds bring in the dawn,
before the smell of coffee wafts from the window
of the farmhouse across the road.
Read the rest here.
"A Longing for our Life on Earth: John Barton in Conversation with Lorna Crozier"
JB: The new poems in the Malahat’s Spring 2013 issue are simultaneously different from one another and unified by recurring preoccupations. They also divide neatly between free verse and the prose poem. I realize that intuition often guides the formal choices we make as poets, but I’d be curious to know what led you to write “The Afterlife” as a prose poem and poems like “Book of Small Mistakes” in verse.
LC: I follow my instincts, not knowing how a poem will end or what it’s going to be about. Most of the time, though, the form presents itself pretty close to the start. If the poem is going to have long lines like “Book of Small Mistakes,” it almost immediately lays itself down that way.
Read the rest here.
Literary Victoria: May 6 - 12, 2013
What's happening this week in Victoria's literary scene?
Friday, May 10th: Planet Earth Poetry reading series presents Jacob Sheier and Jeremy Loveday.
Friday, May 10th: Bolen Books presents Cheryl Strayed.
Contests
Far Horizons Award for Fiction Deadline May 1
Writers whose fiction has not yet been published in book form are encouraged to enter our 2013 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction!
Deadline: May 1, 2013 (postmarked or emailed)
Prize: $1000 CAD
Entry fee: $25 CAD for Canadians; $30 USD for US residents; $35 USD for entries from elsehwere
(entry fee includes a one-year subscription to The Malahat Review)
Enter via email or regular mail. See full guidelines for details.
Find out what this year's judge, Alissa York, is looking for in a winning entry.
Read what winning our 2011 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction did for Zoey Leigh Peterson.
You can also read an interview with Zoey Leigh Peterson about winning the 2012 TNQ Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award (won after her 2011 Far Horizons win) on The New Quarterly's site.
Full guidelines and links to interviews here
Issues
The 50 Issues Project:
Issue #105 Winter, 1993
To celebrate the University of Victoria’s 50th anniversary in 2012–13, The Malahat Review is highlighting 50 of the finest issues from its backlist, which stretches back to January 1967. The magazine is almost as old (and mature) as the university. Look for our featured issue every Friday!
Herbert Siebner, one of Canada's foremost painters, covers this winter issue of The Malahat Review with Alleine in Berlin (1964); however, the opening commences with Jan Zwicky's poetic symphony: five poems “boundless and momentary.” She needs no introduction, yet these poems rise and fall like the first stitching of Songs for Relinquishing the Earth.
CONTEST
DEADLINES
Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize
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