Assignment 9: A Review of The Malahat Review

The literary journal The Malahat Review: Essential Poetry & Fiction, (this issues being fall 2009, 168) is a Canadian journal that has poems, fiction, and creative non-fiction. The journal is published by the University of Victoria in British Columbia. The journal itself has quite good production value, in that the cover is in color and the paper seems to be of high quality. The cover has a painting entitled Bar Girls (II), by Michael Collard Williams, which has rich and interesting colors. The publication does not have any stated goal or vision, but one can be inferred. The fact that it is a Canadian journal, which only has Canadian authors and poets, it could be said that the journal’s goal is to show Canadian themes. The journal may be trying to capture some purely Canadian feeling that Canadian readers will be able to relate to in particular. It may also be attempting to keep up Canadian literature and poetry, as advertisements in the back mention writing workshops at Canadian colleges/universities, the benefits and uniqueness of Canadian magazines, and supporting Canadian writers. I have a hard time finding any similarities between poets we read in class and those in this publication. However, Eliza Robertson’s Ships Log is somewhat reminiscent of Gabriel Gudding’s poem, "Hair." The short story looks at things in new and interesting ways while its also very imaginative and playful. There is this lack of seriousness, while not joking or trying to be funny, is quite playful in its imagery and language in general. Stephanie Yorke’s poem Busts has similarities with Matthea Harvey’s poems in Pity the Bathtub its Forced Embrace of the Human Form in that she utilizes line brakes to create double meanings as well as heavy enjambment to do the same thing while also increasing tension. There is also a certain aspect of comedy in the poem Busts at the end that is also similar. The poem discusses white statues of great Roman/Greek heroes and how elegant the sculpting and features are, but at the end it mentions, while discussing the bit of chest always showing on sculptures, that “it must be bare chest-our foremost sculptor, never accomplished coarse curls more convincing than pubic hair fastened into a cake of soap.” My favorite poem in this issue is On Reading “When You are Old,” by Jeffery Donaldson. This poem has an interesting mix abstractness, creativity, and familiarity. The meaning of the poem, which I find to be about love over time and things not quite working out as planned, to be accessible enough to vaguely get the idea but not too clear as to be unimaginative and/or cliché. I don’t think I would look at this literary journal before other ones with a more solid goal or at least more common themes/styles and subjects.