Editors' Notes - Issue 3
Welcome to the third issue of Stone Canoe, filled with a mix of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art that is the collective offering of 90 contributors, ranging in age from 11 to 85, some well-established, some published for the first time. The quality of the work presented here is due in large measure to the efforts of the three principal visiting editors for this issue: Eric Gansworth, Phil Memmer, and Gail Hoffman. Their comments below attest to their deep involvement in the project and the care they took in making the choices they did. There is never enough room for all the good work that we see, and the job of choosing is not an easy one. In the end, however, each of the contributors will find him or herself in good company indeed.
The inclusion of the likes of Russell Banks, W.D. Snodgrass, Charles Simic, and Roger Shimomura, a happy circumstance for any publication, provides a certain weight to our ongoing efforts to create a journal that does justice to the artistic richness of the Upstate New York region. Though his work ranges far afield, Banks has chosen Upstate New York for the setting of some of his most important books, and discusses these and other matters at some length in his fine interview with editor and fellow writer Eric Gansworth. Snodgrass, arguably among the handful of poets who helped define contemporary American poetry as we know it, has collaborated for nearly thirty years with the renowned painter Deloss McGraw. The most recent products of that relationship are represented here, for the first time in an arts publication, with four images from McGraw’s series “200 Pictures in Response to W.D. Snodgrass’s Not For Specialists: New and Selected Poems.” The images are accompanied by the original poems by Snodgrass, a long-time resident of the region who spent some of his most creative years as a professor at Syracuse University. Simic’s connection to the region is less obvious, but still important. In 2008, during his reign as Poet Laureate of the United States, he anchored the fine reading series offered annually at Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center, and one of his recent books, Sixty Poems, was our city’s 2008 CNY Reads selection. Offered here for the first time in print are some of Simic’s translations of the Serbian poet Novica Tadic´, from his forthcoming book by BOA Editions, a highly respected Rochester-based press that also publishes Snodgrass’s work. Shimomura’s reputation as a skilled painter and social critic is worldwide, yet his artistic vision was in part shaped during his time as a graduate student in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. We are proud to be able to show a sampling of his recent series, “Minidoka on My Mind,” and hope the reader will be moved to seek out more of his work, a great deal of which is now available on the Internet.
At the other extreme are young artists and writers in the process of getting their footing, showing us hints of the talent that will likely carry them forward in their careers.Two fine nonfiction pieces and two poems included in this issue are by writers still in high school. Here also are older artists who are published for the first time, having decided to try their hand at writing, painting, or photography later in life, perhaps as an avocation, or a full-time passion. Two notable collaborative arts projects pictured within are worth mentioning, both having taken place this past year within blocks of our office. There is “Gas Station Wrap,” a public art installation that involved covering a local abandoned gas station with swatches of fiber collected from hundreds of participants from around the world, and a writing/photography exhibit created by local elementary school students, in partnership with Syracuse University’s Light Work media center. Also featured in this issue is “Adoption Rhode Island,” a Syracuse graduate student’s research project that has had significant impact on children’s lives.
The range of material in Stone Canoe 3 reflects a geographic as well as an aesthetic diversity. The book opens with a piece of short fiction set in urban Buffalo, and ends with an essay on the art of enduring winters in Oswego County. In between is the work of artists and writers from all over the state, and of others who now live elsewhere but for one reason or another remain deeply connected to the region. A wonderful piece called “The Borders We Cross” is from a woman who remembers the experience of emigrating from Ireland to Saratoga Springs, and trying to find her place in her adopted culture. Another piece from a Florida-based medical doctor, “Growing Pains,” is a vivid reflection of his boyhood passage to maturity on a farm in the Cortland area. Yet another offering is by a California writer who meditates on the history of her family farm in Bath. A Syracuse alumna raised in the area but now living in Paris contributes a compelling piece of short fiction, “Dreams of A Runner.” There is a haunting portrait of a woman coping with the narrowness of a life lived in Tupper Lake, a small Adirondack town. There is also a contribution from a writer currently incarcerated in a maximum-security Upstate New York prison.
It is deeply satisfying for us as editors to see all of this work come together as collective proof of the creative spirit that is nurtured within, or touched by, our region. This is news we feel privileged to share with the rest of the world (Ezra Pound once famously referred to poetry as ‘news that stays news’), and we feel strongly that it is best conveyed in the form of a handsomely produced book. Stone Canoe, in other words, should be a vessel worthy of its cargo. Given the combination of market forces and new technologies that are rapidly transforming the traditional book culture, the long-term survival odds for finely produced ‘art’ books might seem very slim indeed. Google has already digitized millions of important titles, and bookstores focus more and more on cheaply printed books with increasingly shorter shelf lives. Yet we persist in believing that there is still some demand for a well-designed book, one with greater “heft” than a typical magazine or quarterly, that can claim an important place on the reader’s bookshelf, or perhaps be gifted to a valued friend. So we will cast our lot with author James Glieck, whose recent New York Times piece, “How to Publish Without Perishing,” ends on this hopeful note: “an old-fashioned book, printed on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it.”
The idea of Stone Canoe as gift is actually key to our enterprise. As much as we might wish for the marketplace to embrace our journal, its true importance lies in its status as a gift from a community of artists to their potential audience. Thus, we and the artists and writers we serve must try to balance on a daily basis the conflicting demands of the world of commerce and the world of artistic inspiration. The tension between these worlds is nowhere better articulated than in Lewis Hyde’s landmark 1983 book, The Gift. Hyde contrasts the gift culture as it is practiced in certain societies with the culture of the marketplace, as epitomized by Western capitalism. A gift is something that is given, of course, but it only stays a gift if it continues to be passed from one set of hands to another. In the market culture, a valued artifact is generally hoarded, since wealth is equated with accumulation. But an artifact has value in the gift culture only if it is shared, and the person who gives away the most is seen as the wealthiest. This will not seem strange to those raised in a Native American culture, though it did seem strange indeed, as Hyde recounts, to the first European visitors to the New World who received gifts from their hosts with the expectation that they be passed on through the extended community, rather than being sequestered in a trophy case, say, or sent to the British museum. Hyde extends his analysis to include the fruits of creative or artistic endeavor, which are, by definition, enhanced rather than diminished when shared or freely given.
I don’t mean to carry the Hyde analogy too far, since he readily admits that his own books sell very well, and we do hope to sell a few of ours to help pay expenses. But our ultimate concern, and the concern of the artists presented here, is that the work simply be shared. As artists, they can take comfort in the idea that this sharing, in and of itself, makes them wealthier in the way that Hyde tries to describe, apart from whatever rewards the market may eventually bestow on them. The wonderful thing about the artistic exchange, and what makes it worth doing, is that it also adds to the psychological or spiritual ‘wealth’ of each reader, or recipient, it touches. To quote Hyde, “this is the gift we long for, the gift that, when it comes, speaks commandingly to the soul and irresistibly moves us.” It is a transformative gift, as were the sacred songs sung by the Peacemaker, in the ancient story of the Stone Canoe.
Finally, there is a more broadly civic aspect to this notion of artistic gift exchange that is reflected in how each issue of Stone Canoe is put together. The work is ordered in a way that emphasizes the importance of what Hyde, in a yet-untitled work-in-progress, calls the “cultural commons.” One popular line of thought in Western culture is that creative work is the fruit of solitary genius: we imagine Thoreau writing Walden in his lonely cabin, though of course he got a lot of support from the local community. Hyde reminds us of an alternative, more communal idea of artistic creation, as offered in a wonderful quote from Goethe:
What am I then? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have
collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless
individuals….Childhood, maturity, and old age have all brought me
…their perspective on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed.
My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name of Goethe.
For Hyde, the creative mind is itself a kind of cultural commons, and should be seen as our collective legacy. In this view, we are all implicated in the creation as well as the preservation of whatever artistic expression manifests itself in our community, and that awareness binds us together. Stone Canoe embodies this idea by juxtaposing the poems of the Pulitzer Prize winner alongside those of the young poet not yet out of school, celebrating them as equally important and interdependent elements in the artistic alchemy that enriches our community. The contribution of each is enhanced by proximity to the other, and together with the rest of their company, they bear witness to the continued health of our region’s “cultural commons.”
Robert Colley
Editor, Stone Canoe
There were urban stories and rural stories, stories of dying towns and towns on the brink of rebirth, stories of people redefining themselves in their environments. I had a difficult upbringing, having grown up in a house with no running water and one electrical outlet, so I am sure that experience has informed my taste as a reader almost as explicitly as it has shaped my identity as an artist. Some of these stories spoke to me because they were born of that kind of life, but I found myself attracted to a story of an exotic dancer who chooses to get a tattoo, because the writer rendered those lives in all their strange beauty. So, to clarify, I am not only interested in stories that reflect my experience. I have never been an exotic dancer, and have no tattoos, nor any intention to take up either of those lifestyle choices. What I found was that these were stories where characters struggled, in harsh landscapes of one sort or another, with the idea of being better people. In each case, the writer’s talent took me by the hand, inviting me to live with these characters for a little while, and made me thankful for the time I spent with them. I hope, as you read, that you agree. If you think some of these stories have only had the names of Upstate towns and cities slapped on them to improve the chances for publication, then I would be bold enough to invite you to read more carefully and come to know your state a little bit better, and to celebrate its diversity.
Eric Gansworth
Fiction Editor, Stone Canoe 3
Each of the previous issues of Stone Canoe has left me amazed at the variety of talent which calls (or has called) New York State home. Not that I am unaccustomed to this embarrassment of riches—
as director of the YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center, I have been privileged to work with many of our region’s literary artists, from talented newcomers to writers of national and even international acclaim. But something about putting a wide selection of those voices between two covers emphasizes just how many terrific poets and writers we have among us; making that selection has been both a difficult and pleasurable task.
It is clear that the Central New York region is—to borrow from Richard Hugo—a place that “triggers.” What form that trigger takes varies wildly from author to author. In some occasions, it is our region’s natural beauty that opens the doorway to art; in others, the poor stewardship of that beauty; in still others, it is both simultaneously. Economic hardship, past and present, also shadows many of these works.
Some of the poets in this issue will be well known to fans of the art (including Charles Simic, whose new translations of Novica Tadic´ are offered here; Simic’s book, Sixty Poems, is the CNY Reads selection for 2008-2009). I am particularly delighted, however, that at least three of the poets whose work is printed here are being published for the first time. Here’s hoping that you will have many future opportunities to enjoy their work, and the work of all of the fine poets included in this third issue of Stone Canoe.
Philip Memmer
Poetry Editor, Stone Canoe 3
Having lived in Upstate New York for 25 years, I’ve had the good fortune to become familiar with the abundance of talented artists in this area. They are a diverse group: some were born and raised here; some are transplants who have arrived for family reasons or job opportunities and found themselves staying longer than they planned. Others have passed through on residencies, or as students, with some returning to make Upstate their home.
Editing for a journal is different than curating a show. We received a number of submissions that would have worked well in a gallery or site-specific environment, but didn’t translate as well in a printed format. Reading or thumbing through a journal is a time-based, personal activity. The text of poets and prose writers is interspersed with visual images. The editors faced the challenge of showcasing an exciting diversity of work while maintaining a sense of flow and unity.
It was interesting to find artists who were already making connections with the written word. In this issue there are artists who incorporated words directly into their work, and one who, having been inspired by a poet’s words, painted directly onto the printed page. Other works evoke personal and universal stories: myth and mystery, childhood memories of incarceration, ancestral hardship, and humor. There is large-scale collaborative work addressing community and environment, and postcard-size work questioning cultural stereotypes. Images of local landscapes, towns, and people caught in familiar seasonal cycles evoke a sense of place that is unique to Upstate New York.
What is striking about this diverse group of well-known, established, and emerging artists is their depth of voice and vision and their ability to surprise.
Gail Hoffman
Visual Arts Editor, Stone Canoe 3
