TDR
Interview: Meaghan Strimas
Part of TDR's feature on Toronto
Books: Spring 2008
 Fresh off the launch of
The
Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen (Exile Editions, 2008), TDR caught up with editor
Meaghan Strimas
to discuss this brand new take on the late Toronto poet’s
work.
Related links:
(April 2008)
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TDR: What drew you to putting this new anthology together?
MS:
It was Exile who approached me & asked if I would be
interested in editing The Selected Gwendolyn MacEwen. According to Barry
Callaghan, editor of Exile, after some deliberation, he & Rosemary
Sullivan had decided that it would be best to have a "new"
pair of eyes comb through MacEwen’s body of work and make the
selections for the book. I was lucky enough to be the person they
picked.
I was apprehensive at first, only because I’m a great fan of
her work, her poetry in particular, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t
do the writing justice—but I was also very excited by the project and
I knew that rereading MacEwen would be a whole lot of fun so I said yes
and I’m glad I did.
I spent some time reading through a pile of early
MacEwen editions that Barry had lent to me and I also worked away in the
Toronto Reference Library because I love the place: there is always
someone looking for conversation or looking for help with the
photocopier and I like this kind of interaction (mostly)—I also like
going home as well: it’s quiet at home and no one taps me on the
shoulder.
Also, at home, I have this amazing Gwendolyn MacEwen poster
above my desk: a photograph that was taken by a fella named John McCombe
Reynolds in 1971. MacEwen is wearing her signature khol eyeliner (and
clothes, of course), inspired by Nefertiti (the eyeliner), queen of
ancient Egypt.
TDR: What do you think it is about MacEwen’s work that is so
compelling, so lasting?
MS:
In my mind, MacEwen is one of the most brilliant people who
ever happened to this country: she was worldly in a time when the rest
of Canadians were slow-moving potato-eating bugs, or say, sloths
swimming the front crawl (hell, we’re still bugs and sloths, and I
include myself in the bug/sloth category)—she taught herself numerous
languages, she travelled the world—even though she didn’t have much
cash—she wrote incredibly intelligent poems, novels, stories and
plays, many of which are still relevant. For instance, check out her
poem, "Letter to a Future Generation." (Enough said, but do
read more.)
MacEwen had brilliance to spare and it’s a shame she didn’t
take the time to wager the full force of her talents on us; perhaps we
are the unlucky ones and she was the one who was spared. Yeah, I’m
being dramatic, but one has to admit that MacEwen wasn’t wholly
satisfied with the world that actually surrounded her: as Joe Rosenblatt
writes in his collection of essays, The Lunatic Muse, "from the
outset [MacEwen’s writing was mythopoetic] [in] that there was a
connection between magic, madness and poetry." MacEwen’s writing
was directed by magic and myth (and by realism, still—and the realism
is likely what got the best of her).
TDR: What are your hopes for this book?
It is my hope that MacEwen’s work finds a bigger audience: the
people who knew her have not forgotten her; the poets of Canada have not
forgotten her—but we are a small bunch. I’ll end this with a line
from one of Gwendolyn’s poems: "for we are great statements in
our days / and on the basis of that we can expect small audiences."
So right she was, but we can always hope for more.
Nathaniel G. Moore is TDR’s features editor.
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