The Open Issue
Fall 2011 · Vol. 34 No. 2
We interview Jennifer Still, and bill bissett and David Eso invent a new form of the interview. This issue includes poems translated into French, winners from our past two contests, new book reviews, and, of course, lots of poetry.
online content from this issue
- A Walking Interview with bill bissett Most interviews are staid conversations in stable environments where the Q and A makes a metronome monotony that goes against everything bill bissett’s poetry stands for. So while riding the SkyTrain from East Vancouver to English Bay, I was trying to come up with ways to add fresh dynamics to the interview situation. I needn’t have bothered. Bill’s natural M.O. is as in MOvement and meeting up with him ...
- An Interview with Jennifer Still Clarise Foster: Your new book, Girlwood, is quite stunning; Brick Books makes beautiful books, both inside and out. Congratulations. Talking with you in this issue marks an anniversary of sorts for me and for CV2. Back in 2001, I was in the midst of putting together the first issue of the magazine after it almost went under. It was called “Why Poetry,” and it featured interviews with and writing by ...
- Innocence The gnarled tree is a presence / Standing back from the tiled walkway / Between the sun-baked paving stones ...
- Art Sometimes Makes Me Vague / L’art parfois me confond Art Sometimes Makes Me Vague / / Some day we’ll live in the sky, Birdine. The big idea. ...
- Answers to Wittgenstein’s Seven Propositions What is the case? / Small infractions. Bent brier, turned leaf: / integers opening the whole / a trail ...
- Less It’s a morning of razor-cut tissue wrap over the ridges. It’s breakfast by touch, / molar-pinching coffee. It’s ...
- Frigidarium Navy blue in the hall. / Five and five doors / and blue navy rising, / rising under the underslots. / ...
- South Grand Forks, Fargo, any North Dakota town with a Super8 / and a Target. To be out of your mind was really to be / ...
- Field Test Twenty years measuring / strangers’ eyes, entire fields / of vision. Despair and happiness / / look ...
- Contest winner The Angle of Repose Unlike the western slopes and save for the Thompson River, / the northernmost edge of the Cascade Mountain Range ...
- Contest winner Cockatoos Yes, we've heard their sad repetitions, / the 'pieces of eight', the rote 'Pretty boys', / dropped from tired ...
- Contest winner Breast Reduction Beep beep beep beep the regular heart beat. / Whoosh, ventilator for every breath. / Acrid smelling blue ...
- Contest winner Alice Underground Night-blind she fingers the rosary, wraps it round, / mumbles prayers by rote. Only the feel of the beads / ...
- Contest winner the colony china doll in full fatigues / splayed across the jungle floor / / yellowed curls quibble against lex ...
- Contest winner New Old Place We move into a 90-year-old building / on top of Seattle’s steepest hill. / Cascade of pavement breaking onto ...
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