MICHAEL CRUMMEY · MARY DALTON · SPENCER GORDON · LENEA GRACE · KYM GREELEY · AUDREY HURD · BRUCE JOHNSON · ALLISON LASORDA · JANAKI LENNIE · CARMELITA MCGRATH · COLLEEN PELLATT ·JEY PETER · NED PRATT · SHEILAH ROBERTS · SUE SINCLAIR · KAREN SOLIE · JANE STEVENSON · JENNY XIE A JOURNAL OF ARTS & CULTURE No.13 No.13 A JOURNAL OF ARTS & CULTURE A JOURNAL OF ARTS & CULTURE # 13 A GENUINE NEWFOUNDLAND No. 13 — WINTER 2013 ISSN: 1913-7265 $14.95 AND LABRADOR MAGAZINE Mary Pratt, Salmon on Saran, 1974. Oil on Masonite, 45.7 x 76.2 cm. Collection of Angus and Jean Bruneau MAY 11 – SEPTEMBER 8, 2013 MARY PRATT Renowned Newfoundland and Labrador artist Mary Pratt will be celebrated in a 50-year retrospective exhibition that will open at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in May 2013, then tour Canada until January 2015. A project by The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage, Museums Assistance Program. When you appreciate art. When you crave creativity. When you’re happiest being inspired, challenged, even surprised. There’s one place where your spirit can truly soar: The Rooms. www.therooms.ca www.therooms.ca | 709.757.8000 709.757.8000 | 9 Bonaventure | 9 Bonaventure Ave. | St. Ave.John’s, | St. NL John’s | NL FreshFiction FROM BREAKWATER Baggage JILL SOOLEY “This is honest, gripping, funny stuff.” – THE TELEGRAM Braco LESLEYANNE RYAN “A bombshell of a book… harrowing and instructive and maddening.” – MARK ANTHONY JARMAN, AUTHOR OF MY WHITE PLANET The Mean Time JAMES MATTHEWS A powerful story of how life is lived and lost between regrets. In the Field JOAN SULLIVAN Part narrative, part documentary, part ghost story: In the Field reminds us how a soldier’s sacrifice resonates, long after he has fallen. AND FreshNon-Fiction Here Be Dragons BRUCE HYNES Does the massive Kraken lurk off the coast of Newfoundland? Find out in this engaging catalogue of the strange creatures said to prowl our coves and barrens… Fluctuat Nec Mergitur: JC Roy’s Newfoundland ART JEAN CLAUDE ROY Painted almost entirely on-site, each image is the story of one day in the life of a community. “Hums with the strength and buoyancy Roy sees in all his landscapes, throughout Newfoundland…” – THE TELEGRAM Fall 2012 BREAKWATER is NEWFOUNDLAND 1.800.563.3333 www.breakwaterbooks.com available as ebooks New from Creative Book Publishing Walk With My Shadow: The Other Side of Midnight: The Life of an Innu Man Taxi Cab Stories GEORGE GREGOIRE MIKE HEFFERNAN Meet George Gregoire, an Innu man The Other Side of Midnight: Taxi Cab who was born in the Labrador bush Stories describes the experiences of an in the middle of the last century, yet underwritten portion of Newfoundland’s mustered enough education to working class. Comical, absurd and write his memoirs. In the authentic often dramatic, many of their reminis- voice of a storyteller, George invites cences will be of long hours and years the reader to see Innu society and on the job, their hopes and decayed culture from the inside. dreams. George Gregoire Mike Heffernan 978-1-77103-000-7 978-1-897174-96-8 Memoir/Biography Non-Fiction 5.5 x 8.5 / 200pp 6 x 9 / 250pp b&w photos b&w photos $19.95 $19.95 CREATIVE BOOK PUBLISHING • 430 Topsail Rd., Village Shopping Centre, St. John’s, NL A1E 4N1 Tel. 709-748-0813 • Fax 709-579-6511 • www.creativebookpublishing.ca FENC IT GETS EVEN I ER ONL I NE riddle n SED iv, 93 ‘riddle sticks’ D. Attrib SUBMISSION riddle (rod) fence ([1987] QUINLAN 30). 1981 SPARKES xv To make a riddle fence, GUIDELINES a top and a bottom rail are first either nailed to posts or are tied in position with WE PUBLISH THE BEST green withes. A middle rail is then set in IN CANADA. MAKE US place. The riddles are forest thinnings of young spruce, about as tall as a man and A JOURNAL OF ARTS & CULTURE not much bigger than a man’s thumb. They waNT TO PUBLISH YOU. No. 13 — WINTER 2013 are laced vertically on the three rails in a Riddle Fence is a Newfoundland-based jour- basket-weave manner. nal of arts and culture, published three times from The Dictionary of Newfoundland English yearly. We endeavour to publish high quality fiction, non-fiction, poetry, artwork and anything else that fits on paper and punches Riddle Fence above its own artistic weight. PO Box 7092 St. John’s, NL, Canada A1E 3Y3 [email protected] www.riddlefence.com So what are we looking for? Simply amazing fiction, non-fiction, poetry and visual art. We ISSN 1913-7265 Publications Mail Agreement No. 417 250 14 Charitable No. 84167 9822 RR0001 only accept previously unpublished work. We license first North American serial rights. Who We Are For fiction and non-fiction, our suggested Riddle Fence is a Newfoundland and Labrador-based journal of arts and culture, published three maximum word count is 5,000 words, but if times a year by Riddle Fence Inc., a registered Canadian charity, and managed by a volunteer edito- it’s brilliant and a bit longer, we just might rial executive and board of directors. The mandate of Riddle Fence is to publish high quality artwork, go with it. essays, interviews, poems, reviews and short fiction. Distributed by Magazines Canada. For non-fiction, we’re looking for essays Executive Director Associate Editors Proofreader on the arts or on particular artists, or on Shoshanna Wingate Art: Susan Rendell aspects of “culture” and “art” as an idea or Bruce Johnson & Editorial Board as a specific practice. In-depth book reviews. Managing Editor Poetry: Board of Directors Interviews with artists of all disciplines. Carson Butts Danielle Devereaux Chip Clark (chair), Michael Creative non-fiction with a strong narrative Randy Drover Crummey (vice-chair), Bob Designer James Langer Hallett, Pat Hayward, Lisa drive. What aren’t we looking for? Travel Graham Blair Fiction: Moore, Dave Paddon. writing, re-told folklore or academic essays. Susan Rendell Your best bet? Read some back issues of Catherine Hogan Safer Riddle Fence, and you’ll quickly get an idea of what we publish. For visual art: 300 dpi minimum. We do publish colour, but we also love, love, love black and white. When submitting, please make sure your submission goes to the right e-mail address: Front cover: Back cover: Ned Pratt, Transicold Trailer, Herring Season (2011). Ned Pratt, Facade, Northern Peninsula (2008). [email protected] Ink jet print, 46.25” x 34.75”. Ink jet print, 446.25” x 34.75”. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] WEEKEND ARTS MAGAZINE Join host Mack Furlong as he tours artist studios and galleries, jumps on stage with actors, comedians and musicians and chats with the province’s latest literary lights. Weekends 6 - 9:30 am 8:30 am Labrador NEWS VISUALS NQ ARTS $30/year CULTURE ED 4002 Memorial University POLITICS HISTORY St. John’s, NL A1C 5S7 FOLKLORE p 709.864.2426 f 709.864.4330 POETRY FICTION e [email protected] A Cultural Journal of N&ewfoundland MORE and Labrador CONTENTS Guest Editorial Karen Solie Bruce Johnson Rental Car 38 Newfoundland Standard Time 9 A Western 40 The National Gallery 42 Fables of the Reconstruction 44 Fiction Affirmations 46 Jane Stevenson Michael Crummey Sadie’s Bone 17 The Kids Are Alright 55 First Prize Winner/ Getting the Marriage into Bed 56 Riddle Fence Short Fiction Contest 2012 Small Clothes 58 A Carry-On 60 Colleen Pellatt Cause of Death and Remarks 61 Pop 27 Spencer Gordon Sheilah Roberts Okay Lolita Cupidx 62 The Big Wheel 47 Mary Dalton Jenny Xie Vertical Panel 78 Carry-On 65 Gauze 80 Cross-Stitch 82 Jey Peter Source notes for Mary Dalton’s Centos 106 Confessions of a Synesthete 87 Allison LaSorda Ending in A 84 Poetry Carmelita McGrath Lenea Grace Old Crooked Fellow 96 Proof 12 Harmless Jack 98 Tracing One Warm Line 14 With Apologies to the Little Dove 100 Escape Velocity 102 Sue Sinclair All the Gods I Know Are Out on the Mashes 104 1st Corps de Ballet 21 Exercise in Beauty No. 2 22 Visited 24 Contributors/Acknowledgements 108 Poem for Nietzsche’s Eyes 25 6 ON THE FENCE Carson Butts I figured I didn’t need to buy any more and then covered in dirt, topsoil and sod gold and silver. What with those two big to disguise it as a regular ole mound in ornate chests full in my bedroom closet. I the topography below during flyovers. Of didn’t need to buy a gun either, seeing as I’d course I dug tunnels from hill to cellar to purchased one a couple years back for the shed and all the rest. And of course I had gun rack behind the kitchen door of the new a big boy all wired up in the living room house—gun bought, waste not. I had bullets to blow out the windows and doors when too—first in my truck, then under the bed, necessary and make everything above then in a safety deposit box (which really ground all uninhabited looking. I didn’t didn’t make sense). I decided to collect them need people moving in when the time and just keep them with the gun; the cabinet came; I’d rather contract cholera. door locks and I don’t have any kids. Now, I didn’t forget the finer things. I also didn’t need to buy any more I had one of those big pillows for the groceries.