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Isa Milman came by today to pick up a few copies of her first book, Between the Doorposts. I published that book in as an honest and moving statement about her heritage, having be born in a deportation camp after the war. It is written in a deep lyric, heartfelt but with no histrionics, and very true to her history. It was good to see her, of course, as we do not often see each other these days, being both busy people.
Her second title, Prairie Kaddish was published by Coteau Books a couple of years ago which deals with a more distant, less personal story, but connected to her history, of the Jewish settlements in the Qu’Appelle Valley of Saskatchewan. Both titles are highly recommended. Isa Milman is a fine and serious poet.
P.K. Page. noted Canadian poet, referred to the recent decision by the Canada Council for the Arts to cut off Ekstasis Edition from funding: “Disgraceful!”
P.K. Page is one of our most important poets, who has written enduring poetry that will rank as among the best of the past century, and will stand beside the best of Wallace Stevens or Elizabeth Bishop..
Reading a Hentoff CBC interview in the Gooselane published book, Ideas for a New Century. I have always like Hentoff’s informal story and in the interview he does not disappoint with several anecdotes concerning such figures as Duke Ellington and so on. But I was really interested in his portrait and relationship with Izzy Stone. Izzy told Nat, when Nat was young, that he never goes to press conferences because the press just gets lied to. Instead he would go later and find a lowly bureaucrat and have a conversation. They liked the attention and would generally open up about information is not available elsewhere, and certainly not in government press releases. Stone was the scourge of governments! It is too bad he was not around during the Bush years, and certainly if he could have gotten on Stephen Harpers back in Canada. One wonders what he would have made of Bush! At least Nat Hentoff did his share on behalf of Izzy Stone.
Aside from the Nat Hentoff interview, the book contains many other readable interviews of various significant figures, however, the two others which I liked were the ones by Stewart Brand, who merged technology with the counterculture, and Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the Kurtzweil electronic piano, which had a full 88 velocity sensitive keys that functioned like a real acoustic piano, and who also believes in the future we will download our thoughts, memories and feelings into a computer hard drive and thereby achieve a kind of immortality. A cycborg future! Instead of circumcision, we will have a USB drive implanted at the base of our skull or perhaps the base f our spine so e can directly interface with our computers. In the future anything is possible. Ideas for a New Century edited by Bernie Lucht (Gooselane Editions).
Today, a satisfying day of reflection and compilation of the next issue of the Pacific Rim Review of Books #12. We have an excellent and densely written article on Samuel R. Delaney by Village Voice writer Carol Cooper. Linda Rogers sent in a feature on Margaret Atwood’s new novel The Year of the Flood. David Day, former editor at Faber and Faber, has offered us a feature on Jack Gilbert, a poet who has surrendered to the restrained Muse, publishing only 4 books, 15 years apart, in 80 years but the mystique around him has only grown. Everyone is interested in his work; he is one of the world’s great poets and he has a new book out, possibly his last, called The Dance Most of All. The next issue of the review promises to be an important one and not to be missed. More about that later.
Aside from that although I have been dealt an unfair and malicious blow by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ekstasis is continuing to flourish and make great progress. We have been working on Linda Roger’s new book of poems, Muscle Memory, and editor Carol Sokoloff has done a fine job of editing the book for publication. We are still trying to gt the cover just right. Linda is something of public personality in Victoria, serving now as the Poet Laureate of our city. Another forthcoming project is Len Gasparini’s When A Kiss Become a Bite. I am busy copy editing that right now. Although we have lost our funding Ekstasis is still trying to put out a limited but full list if we can.
I refer you to my editorial in the summer edition of the Pacific Rim Review of Books, issue #11. Just take a look at last year’s books to see how dim-witted, and in fact malicious, this decision was.
This is the first step towards an Ekstasis dialogue with the world. The first step is always the last, because every conversation always comes back to itself. Ekstasis is a literary press which has served Victoria, served Canada and served the world for almost 28 years. We are enduring a painful restructuring, because of a major funding shortfall (as in “nothing” from the Canada Council) but we are enduring and will continue to produce the magnificent and beautiful books we are renowned for. The shortfall was merely caused by the short sightedness of the current government and the current bureaucrates at the Canada Council. It is an unfortunate setback but with every setback there is an opportunity.
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