Rampike 24/1 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INDEX Emma Paveley p. 2 Editorial p. 3 Clemente Padin p. 3 Daphne Marlatt p. 4 Gustave Morin p. 4 Frank Davey p. 5 Christopher Dewdney p. 6 Erin Mouré p. 7 George Bowering p. 8 Steve Tomasula p. 15 bill bissett p. 16 Dennis Cooley p. 17 Lillian Allen p. 18 Diane Schoemperlen p. 18 Marty Gervais p. 19 Christian Burgaud p. 19 Paul Dutton p. 20 Joe Haske p. 22 Guido Vermeulen & John M. Bennett p. 22 Steve McCaffery p. 23 Carol Stetser p. 23 James Gray p. 24 Keith Garebian p. 25 Brian Henderson p. 26 Rolland Nadjiwon p. 27 Jay Smith p. 28 Armand Garnet-Ruffo p. 29 Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm p. 30 Lance Olsen p. 38 Frank Sauers p. 40 Di Brandt p. 41 Stuart Ross p. 42 Nicole Markotić p. 43 Steven Ross Smith p. 44 Barbara Henning p. 45 Andy Weaver p. 46 Tom Dilworth p. 47 Susan Holbrook p. 48 Bernie Harder p. 49 Sean Braune p. 50 Omaha Rising p. 50 Marshall Hryciuk p. 51 Onyinye Oyedele p. 52 Publications Received & Recommended p. 52 Nathan Dueck p. 53 Kristjana Gunnars p. 54 Lesley McAllister p. 55 Amanda Earl p. 55 Carolyn Gerrish p. 56 Eugene McNamara p. 57 Steven Da Gama p. 57 Liana Vrajitoru Andreasen/Mihaela Moscaliuc p. 58 Natalee Caple p. 61 Ellie Csepregi p. 61 Peter Jaeger p. 62 Stephen Emmerson p. 64 SJ Fowler p. 64 James Davies p. 65 Tom Jenks p. 65 Merete Helle p. 66 Morton Sondergard p. 67 Mari-Lou Rowley p. 67 Julien Blaine p. 68 Josh Smith p. 68 Elke Grundmann p. 68 Alan Lord p. 69 Laura Solomon p. 70 Katie Solbecke p. 73 Joanne Arnott p. 74 Britt-Marie Lindgren p. 74 Eddie Mumford p. 75 Wally Keeler p. 75 Micheal Laverty p. 76 Arthur Levine p. 76 Fausto Bedoya/Literary Hybrids Review p. 77 36 Years of Rampike Quotable Quotes p. 78 Richard Kostelanetz p. 80 1 Rampike 24 /1 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ COVER ARTIST’S STATEMENTS : OUTSIDE FRONT COVER: “DARK MATTER PUNCTUATION” – GARY BARWIN (CANADA) is a writer, composer, multimedia artist, and the author of 18 books of poetry and fiction. His most recent collections are The Wild and Unfathomable Always (visual poems, Xexoxial Editions, 2014) and Moon Baboon Canoe (poetry, Mansfield Press, 2014). New and forthcoming books include I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthdontist, 251-1457 (fiction, Anvil 2015), Sonosyntactics: Selected and New Poetry of Paul Dutton (WLUP, 2015), and Yiddish for Pirates (Random House Canada, 2016.) He lives in Hamilton, Ontario, and at garybarwin.com. Barwin comments on our cover image, “Dark Matter Punctuation” as follows: “A hidden comma curled like a seahorse in the mind. Wraithlike periods, ghostly ellipses, the semi-colons, albino and invisible, spectres of phantom punctuation, the incorporeal spirits of the mouth, gathering the breathlessness of thought, run-on and undivided, as if between the narrow hands of parentheses. If the written word is weather fallen from the troposphere of speech, then, punctuation, rising from the apostrosphere, is the seasons, giving shape to the spoken year with its ecliptics and paradoxes, its long summer dashes, its bitter winter of exclamations. Grammar, the pre-emptive counsel of language before the chaos of the mouth. What would a sesqui-colon look like? A deca-colon? A giga-colon? The dark matter of punctuation, the metaphysic breath, the beginning, the ending, the between of things. An almost infinite antimatter of punctuation, a predomination of quotation marks, air quotes where there is no air, language speaking the world into being with care, compassion, inadvertence, pity, irony.” – Note: Some of Gary Barwin’s sound works can be found at: soundcloud.com/himself-1 and at PennSound.org INSIDE BACK COVER: “LONG TIME AGO” – CARLA BERTOLA (ITALY) was born in 1935 in Torino. Bertola started producing Visual Poetry in the 80s and published books in many countries, where she had solo and collective exhibitions, and Sound Performances. She is in The Last Vispo plus other anthologies. She has edited Offerta Speciale, an International verbo-visual magazine, since 1978. About her work she says: “In the last 30 years, I want to stress two complementary aspects of my research calling them “Rivisitazioni” and “Interferenze”. Revisitations are creative handwriting works, hyper-writings using “multilingual” meanings and signifiers done with pen and ink or felt-tip pens on paper or other materials, including works that revisit texts conceived or realized previously, creating installations indoors or in open spaces. The Interferences began in 1996 and are still revealing themselves as “phenomena where two sound or light waves can annul each other” and are present in her visual poems. Her recent work “Long Time Ago” created for this issue is a further Interference of a previous work, in another time, and a different media. Time goes on, once again. OUTSIDE BACK COVER: “RELICS” – ELISE PUDDY (CANADA) is an artist working out of Newmarket, Ontario. “For this series, I took unmixed inks, water and solvents, and froze them into cube forms. Then, on a horizontal surface, I laid down some pre-treated paper. Next, I placed the various prepared and colourized ice cubes onto different pre-treated paper sheets. Then, I left them to melt and dry. I like the idea of letting the properties of the materials work together with very little manipulation. This way, I become less of a variable while allowing the physical properties of the materials to interact. The specific combinations of acrylic ink, metallic acrylic ink, water, solvents, and terra skin paper (which is a paper that is stone- based) combine into an emergent language. This series of statements arises from the inter-actions of the materials themselves, with the added elements of time and chance. The aleatory results feature fluid contours, metallic like sediments, transparencies, and opacities ensuing from a constrained control over the media.” PHOTO: “RAMPIKE SUNSET” EMMA PAVELEY (CANADA) 2 Rampike 24/1 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Editorial: Rampike “Time” I began this publication in 1979 while studying at the Ontario College of Art. At that time, I had the pleasure of interacting with scores of energetic Toronto artists, writers, editors, and publishers, notably, the Underwhich Group. Back then, I felt that the small magazine landscape was too limited and a tad pedestrian. I thought it important to introduce a forum for more progressive art, writing, and theory. As a title, I chose the Canadian word “rampike” for its symbolic value. The lodge-pole pine regenerates when burning. If struck by lightning or forest fire, the pine releases winged seeds that float above the inferno. After the flames subside, seedlings descend and settle on the fertile ashen soil. A new generation. A “rampike” is the skeleton that remains from a tree struck by lightning, or burnt by fire. A phoenix image. A “rampike” is also a battering-ram, capable of cracking out of cultural confines. In 1979, I talked with Stan Bevington at Coach House Printing, and we devised an 18 inch tall and 6 inch wide format, in keeping with the “rampike” concept. Coach House has done wonderful work printing this magazine from the start, including this final issue. The original “tall” format sold exceedingly well, and we quickly found distributors on four continents. However, in the mid-90s many independent bookshops fell victim to big box stores, and the big box stores refused to sell our “tall” format, claiming that it didn’t fit their inventory. They insisted that they would not carry Rampike unless we published in a more conventional shape. The somewhat narrow format of the issue you hold in your hands today is a compromise, a gesture to our earlier “tall” Rampike shape. Small magazines rarely make profits, but can provide a grass- roots forum for both emerging and established talents who have something extraordinary to offer. Rampike has also served a diplomatic function, introducing Canadian talent to the world, and world talent to Canada. More recently, the digital explosion has transformed the publishing landscape. Times change. Many editors, myself included, work on a volunteer basis. After 36 years in print, with 54 issues, and over 4500 pages published, I’ve decided to pack it in, and devote more time to my own writing. Rampike has served its purpose. The goal of providing a forum for innovative expression of the period has largely been met. And, since 1979, other progressive new magazines have emerged on the literary horizon. Along the way, Rampike enjoyed a decade or so of funding from the Ontario Art Council, as well as support from the Canada Council for the Arts for the full duration of this periodical’s life. My warm thanks go to the stalwart editorial correspondents who helped make this publication a success, including Jim Francis, Joe Revells, James Gray, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Alanna Bondar, Frank Davey, W.M. Sutherland, Stuart Ross, Victor Coleman, Paul Dutton, Richard Martel, and Peter Jaeger among many others. We’ve had so many other wonderful collaborators, but space prohibits mentioning them all. Over the years, we’ve built a marvelous cadre of Correspondents at Large (see; our Masthead listing our numerous colleagues). Since 1979, we’ve published an authors’ list that reads like a Who’s Who of ground-breaking innovators (view; our “36 Years of Quotable Quotes,” on p. 78). We’ve introduced three generations of fresh talent, and, we’ve featured established writers, artists and theorists from a broad range of Canadian and international groups, along with our Québécois correspondents, and our Indigenous fellow travellers. Rampike’s readership includes eminent artists, writers, and thinkers from around the globe.