Happy Holidays from The Fiddlehead!

It's snowing today outside The Fiddlehead office!

 Have a wonderful holiday season! We'll be back in the new year.

Interview with Sue Sinclair

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with accomplished Canadian poet and current University of New Brunswick writer-in-residence Sue Sinclair. Over the course of my academic career I have been fortunate enough to hear Sue read her poetry often and finally had the chance to discuss some of the most intriguing and complex elements of her work.

Author of Secrets of Weather and Hope (finalist for the 2002 Gerald Lampert Award), Mortal Arguments (finalist for the 2003 Atlantic Poetry Prize), The Drunken Lovely Bird (winner of the 2005 International Independent Publisher’s Award for Poetry) and Breaker, Sue is currently completing her Ph. D. in Philosophy.

Listen to the interview in your web browser 
(Right Click or Control Click on the above link to download mp3 file)

Kayla Geitzler

Editorial Assistant

Reading Forugh Farrokhzad in December

Iman bivarim beh aghaz fasle sard —

“Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season”

As the weather grows colder and academic deadlines collide with the hectic holiday season, the urge to procrastinate mounts. At some point I eventually give in and spend a few of these long, gray afternoons with the poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad. Her intricate manoeuvring of abstraction, visceral imagery and dense metaphor remind me why, like her, “I respect poetry in the very same way religious people respect religion” (Collected Works).

I first came across the Iranian poet and filmmaker by chance at the annual University Women’s book sale in Moncton, NB when I was ten years old. Despite my general lack of acquaintance with the adult world and its gender politics, her work possessed and moved me — something of the deeply nuanced and complicated subject matter conveyed through deceptively simple language entranced me. The book Tavallodi digar or Another Birth was lost in a move and my parents were unable to locate another English translation.

Fourteen years later, an Iranian friend re-introduced me to Farrokhzad. He gave me a bilingual Farsi/English collection and loaned me recordings of her poetry which, despite the language barrier and sometimes distracting musical interludes, greatly contextualized her lyrical phrasing.  This eloquent performativity that expounded her Modernist free-verse and feminism deeply offended the conservative male Iranian poets of her time. Farrokhzad was the first to detail the difficulties of life for Iranian women and she re-wrote stereotypes of modest, subservient women as caged, passionate, independent, and sexual individuals. She also wrote about her lovers in detail and had no issue juxtaposing the erotic with Islamic tradition (“Conquest of the Garden” & “The Wind-Up Doll”).

As the citizens of Iran and other Middle Eastern countries strive in hopes of achieving leadership that more accurately reflects contemporary visions of its peoples’, I cannot help but think of Forugh Farrokhzad whose nature seemed to be innately connected with a desire for equal human rights. In her poem, “Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season”, Farrokhzad re-examines her life’s struggles against prominent ideology. The poem’s tone is largely pessimistic: “And this is I/ a woman alone/ at the threshold of a cold season/ at the beginning of understanding/ the polluted existence of the earth...and the incapacity of these concrete hands.” Yet it claims believing in “the beginning of a cold season” as central to the metaphor renewal, of taking up the struggle once again: “next year when spring/ sleeps with the sky beyond the window/ and her body exudes/ green shoots of light,/ branches will blossom./ Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season.”

Raised in a household that strove to maintain a conventional appearance, she was married at 17 and divorced at 19. Custody of their son was awarded to her ex-husband. While composing and performing poetry has been and continues to be a vibrant and thriving art form in the Middle East, as a divorcée writing about feminist concerns and her sexuality, she gained much disapproval. When living abroad she met her long-term lover Ebrahim Golestan and after their return to Iran she filmed a documentary called The House is Black that explored the inhumane treatment of lepers. She died in a car accident in 1967, at the age of 32.

In 2010, Forugh Farrokhzad was excluded from an Iranian published compendium of poets despite her continuing international and Iranian popularity. Most critics believed this was a political decision as her poetry is still considered inflammatory (PayvandIran News).  However, Farrokhzad’s popularity and politics took a stance the 1999 film Bad ma ra khaha bord or The Wind Will Carry Us by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, the title an abbreviation of one of Farrokhzad’s most popular poems. In one scene, the protagonist (or antagonist, depending on how he feels that day) recites a portion of “The Window” and “The Wind Will Carry Us Away” to a young woman as a way of encouraging her to find ways of meeting the world outside her village.

The most recent and contemporary translations of Farrokhzad’s work have been collected by Sholeh Wolpe who has chosen what she considers to be Forugh’s best or most provocative poems. Wolpe’s translations are very fine but in some instances I feel she has stepped too far away from Farrokhzad’s traditional lyricism. This edition was published under the title Sin by the University of Arkansas Press in 2007. A Lonely Woman: Forugh Farrokhzad and Her Poetry by Michael C. Hillman, is a text that critically examines her life and literary career; excellent translations of her better known poems are included. Internet book dealers can usually scrounge the odd bilingual copy of Asir (Captive), Divar (The Wall) or Tavallodi digar (Another Birth).

Kayla Geitzler

Editorial Assistant

Grumpy Old Men (On Richler and Sendak)

At my Jewish high school in Montreal, Mordecai Richler, of course, was a bit of a hero. Whether or not he liked it, and even though he relentlessly lampooned the Jewish community, he was still one of ours. February at our school was public speaking month. So, every February, the teachers compiled and distributed a list of quotations to all of us groaning, gawky teenagers – possible speech topics from which we were to choose. Each year, not unexpectedly, writing from Richler’s books was excavated and placed completely out of context on this public speaking list. Richler’s “memorable quotes” could be read alongside pieces of wisdom from the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.
 
A recurring favourite was a piece of dialogue lifted from a scene in Duddy Kravitz. Drunk Aunt Ida tells Duddy: “The human personality is like an iceberg. Nine tenths of it remains submerged.” Of course, our teachers chose this quote because it’s something all teenagers feel: misunderstood.  So, predictably, each year, earnest speeches of the you-don’t-know-me variety proliferated. We applauded our classmates and felt better about ourselves.

We had no idea where these words came from, so neatly pared down and packaged as generic “inspirational quote.” We didn’t know, but our teachers did. They knew that Duddy, by way of response, thought, Ver gerharget! or drop dead! 

They were making fun of us.

Appropriately, of course, because Richler was famous for making fun. The fragile teenage psyche certainly didn’t escape his mockery. He also ridiculed Pierre Trudeau, the Jewish community, the Church, the Montreal police, and other writers. Byron was a "sicko," Dylan Thomas "a schnorrer born" (that's a sponger, for those of you who'd like to add another Yiddish word to your vocabulary and help keep a dying language alive - alas! alas!).  Celebrated writers in general are "outrageous liars, philanderers, drunks, druggies, unsuitable babysitters, plagiarists, psychopaths, cowards, indifferent dads or moms and bad credit risks." He also gently mocked his friends, his family, and above all, himself. Have you read Barney’s Version?  (Have you at least seen the movie? I missed the one weekend it played in Fredericton because I was occupied complaining about how the local cinema never shows the good movies. But my friend Jacob went to high school with the lady who plays Barney’s daughter and I saw her at a bar one time. Just saying.)

Richler has been on my mind because another of my favourite curmudgeons, Maurice Sendak, has recently released a new book, Bumble-Ardy, and he’s had a lot of publicity. He's a popular interview subject because he makes these crabby pronouncements that the interviewer imagines will get her readers all hot and lathered and sending outraged e-mails. For instance, he tells The Guardian's Emma Brockes, of Salman Rushdie, "He's detestable. I called up the Ayatollah, nobody knows that." Brockes notes that Rushdie once gave Sendak a terrible review in The New York Times, and he's nursed the grudge ever since. So, you see, it’s really about him. Are they narcissists? Sure, but that is part of the game. The thing about Sendak and Richler is, they give offense, but with such a strong sense of self-mockery that it's hard to stay angry. My favourite moment in the Brockes interview is when Sendak says of his dog, an Alsatian called Herman, "He's German.” After a beat, he adds, “He doesn't know I'm Jewish." This kind of sweet self-effacement covers all manner of sins. Sendak pokes fun, and if you're not laughing, well, then, you're a tedious thing, aren't you?

I love these writers because their writing is iconoclastic. Sendak says that he refuses “to cater to the bull — of innocence”: the children in his books are as “ferocious, inventive and troublesome as they are in real life.” Richler just had everybody wringing their hands. I love these writers because their utter irreverence is so calculated. They are smart, incisive, funny, and totally uncompromising.

The knowledge that the author of Where the Wild Things Are is an irate (but mostly loveable) man comforts me. It gives me hope that I, too, could someday tread a little less lightly in my writing. I’ve had Richler and Sendak on the brain because, as I make progress on my thesis (honest, Ross!), I’m beginning to realize how much I censor myself. Instead of saying what I mean, I find myself writing into an idea(l). I try to be nice, or sparse, or pretty, when really, I would like my writing to be more like theirs – uncompromising, just a little. 

Sarah Bernstein

Editorial Assistant

Small Presses, Literary Magazines, and the “big times”

Interesting conversation going on over at Hayden’s Ferry Review on what is the role of the small press (including literary magazines) other than as a stepping stone to the “big times” (major publishers). Seems to me that the big times just got a whole lot bigger and a whole lot smaller in recent times. Bigger in that some writers and their books are getting more exposure and publicity than ever. Smaller in that fewer and fewer writers are getting any type of exposure or support at all in the big-time world. Not surprising since the big-time world's foundations are built on the bottom line.

The small presses meanwhile usually survive with their caps in hand. In these environments, risk is not to be avoided but often to be encouraged. In the case of The Fiddlehead, speaking for myself, my interest lies solely in the writing. While I have no interest in discovering the next big thing, I have great interest in discovering the next best story. Sometimes they arrive that way, and sometimes it means working with a writer to probe it out. That's an end in itself. While small presses and literary magazines are often used as stepping stones, they are more rightly to be considered cornerstones that all other stones ought to be set in reference to.

Gerard Beirne
Fiction Co-editor

Acclaimed Author Steven Heighton Reading at UNB Fredericton

Poet, novelist, and short-story writer Steven Heighton will be reading from his new novel, Every Lost Country, on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 at 8 pm in the Alumni Memorial Lounge.

 The novel, Every Lost Country, and the collection of poetry, Patient Frame, were published to acclaim in 2010, and a collection of his writing, entitled Workbook: Memos & Dispatches on Writing, is forthcoming in 2011 from ECW. His most recent novel is the story of Lewis Book, a politically strong-willed doctor, who travels to Nepal with his daughter to join a climbing expedition. When the travellers encounter a group of Tibetan refugees attempting to evade Chinese soldiers, Lewis intervenes. He and Amaris, another member of their expedition, are caught up in the events and captured by the Chinese soldiers. The climbers are forced into dangerous circumstances as they work desperately to help their companions. The novel has recently been optioned for film by Rhombus Media.

Steven Heighton is the author of three novels, Shadow Boxer (2000), Afterlands (2005), and Every Lost Country, as well as five books of poetry, including The Ecstasy of Skeptics (1994), Address Book (2004), and Patient Frame (2010). Heighton has received the National Magazine Award gold medal for poetry and fiction, was a finalist for the Trillium Award and the Governor General's Award for Poetry, and received the K. M. Hunter Award for literature.
Most recently he has received the 2011 P.K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry from the Malahat Review for the poem "Jetlag" which is included in his collection Patient Frame.

The reading is presented by the UNB English Department, the Canada Council for the Arts, the UNB Fredericton Bookstore, & The Fiddlehead journal.

Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.

RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers: Call for Submissions

The Writers Trust of Canada is accepting submissions for RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. To be eligible a submitter must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, under the age of 35, unpublished in book form and without a book contract, but whose literary work has appeared in at least one independently edited magazine or anthology.

A prize of $5,000 will be awarded to the best collection of short fiction. Two honourable mentions will each receive $1,000 prizes. The deadline for submissions is 30 January 2012.

Submissions should be sent to:

RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers

c/o The Writers' Trust of Canada

90 Richmond Street East, Suite 200

Toronto, Ontario, M5C 1P1

For further information visit www.writerstrust.com or contact:
416-504-8222 ext 242 or info@writerstrust.com