When I first picked up this issue of sub-TERRAIN, I flipped it open to page 5 and the first thing I read was Jason Heroux’s poem, “Mozart.” I decided this was bad luck for the other writers in the issue, because reading “Mozart” was such a perfect experience that I couldn’t imagine ever reading anything better. I thought, “For the review of s-T I’ll just quote the whole poem and then say, What are you waiting for, go buy the magazine.” I thought I’d better read the rest of the issue first, though, even if I didn’t tell anybody about it. So I read the first story, “The Day Jackie Kennedy Died,” by J. Nason. It was so good I thought, “Fuck that “Mozart” poem, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever read.” I thought I’d better read more. To be fair, not all the stuff in s-T blew me out of the water the way “Mozart” and “Kennedy” did. In most cases, though, when a piece didn’t work for me, it wasn’t because I felt something lacking in it, but rather, I hungered for a lack. I didn’t want everything spelled out, I didn’t want to see all the connections made. When, in Lizard Jones’ story “Two Ends of Sleep”, the narrator sees a guy on one side of a street putting up posters and a guy on the other side of the street taking those posters down, I didn’t want to be told in the end that, “Rusty felt like she was watching Sisyphus.” What’s needed here in a lot of cases is a good solid edit. I call upon the editors of s-T to do some actual editing. Otherwise start calling Dennis the “Fiction Chooser” and Paul and Hilary the “Poetry Choosers” and you Brian, you can become the “Managing Chooser.”
lit mag / 40 pages / Main Creator: Brian Kaufman (managing editor) / $4.95, 4 for $18 / P.O. Box 1575, Bentall Centre, Vancouver, BC, V6C 2P7