Reviews

Edmonton Journal, Ed Magazine, Feb. 4, 2006

Tiptoeing Through the Verses: When You Love Something, Nothing Is Too Much Trouble

by Jay Smith

Kristy McKay's passion is poetry. It's a passion that has spilled beyond meter and metaphors and has, in effect, turned her into a one-woman poetry promoter. Of Course, McKay writes poetry. Each copy of her debut chapbook, released in October and being launched in Edmonton today, features her hand-done finishing work. She edits a monthly poetry newsletter. And if she had a little more space (and a little more patience), she would happily print it off herself.

"If I had my way, I would actually own an old hand-press, you know, a linopress, a hand-rolled printing press," says McKay, a recent transplant from Ottawa. "Unfortunately, I can't own a hand-press because they're so huge. I found one on e-Bay - this is how ridiculous it is. I could buy it for $80 because it weighs a tonne, literally. They're messy, you get oil and paint everywhere, and they're a nightmare, except for me!"

The hankering for such a mechanical behemoth is part of McKay's love affair with the small press industry, a fascination that began when she moved to Ottawa and started taking creative writing seminars from Seymour Mayne. Mayne, says McKay, has "been all over the place doing neat things. He was there in Vancouver and Montreal to see what was happening in the '60s and '70s, when small press really was alive in Canada" When he offered McKay the opportunity to have her chapbook - Barefoot Through the Pickybushes - published through the U of O's English department imprint, she jumped at the chance to participate in the modern small press movement herself.

To this end, each copy of Barefoot Through the Pickybushes is hand-stamped and hand-sewn by McKay herself. "I really like the (original) small press look" that the rubber-stamping on the cover approximates, she explains.

One of the driving themes of the collection is the realization that, in McKay's words, "life was so good when I was 12. Gosh life was good then. I don't know if this is something that everyone goes through." Growing up in a small town, she spent most of her childhood outdoors. In pieces such as Meeting Paul Bunyan, Mining, and S.O.S (a call of distress from a woman who finds herself trapped in an urban environment), the influence of the wilds of the Canadian Shield is clear. "Pickybushes," McKay admits, "is really a nonsense word. When I was a kid in northern Ontario, they were the underbrush that you'd sometimes find in the bush."

Aside from the obvious benefits that a printing press would bestow to any self-publishing endeavours, it would aid McKay in one of her other poetry-related "hobbies": the production of a monthly broadside called Spire Poetry. Adopting the mission statement that poetry should be put into public spaces, the one-sheet publication typically features the work of two or three poets. Distributed across the country, Spire Poetry gets the word out about Canadian poets both established and upcoming. Like her chapbook, each edition of Spire Poetry is hand stamped by McKay, in her effort to embody the esthetic of the original small press movement.

"A lot of people have said, 'Oh, this is working. you should turn it into a real magazine.' But that's not the idea - I want something that I can sustain on my own." The flexibility of such a small publication lets her publish poets that she encounters at readings and events without any of the headaches that can plague more formal publications. And, with her network of kindred individuals spanning the country, Spire Poetry has readers in almost every province and territory. Aside from the already demanding roles of poet and editor, McKay's other "hobbies" include the production of hugh amounts of poetry-related ephemera: buttons that read "Poetry IS fun!," postcards of verse that have appeared in Spire Poetry, T-shirts, posters, and audio recordings of poetic performances.

For this afternoon's chapbook launch, the crisscrossing of urban / sylvan boundaries, the traversing of geographies, and the happy melange of established and upcoming poets will be on display. McKay points out the impressive list of participating readers that have been featured in Spire Poetry: Doug Barbour, Alice Major, Nico Rogers, Patrick Pilarski, Marie Specht, McKay herself, among others. In particular, she is looking forward to seeing Rogers, a sound poet recently arrived in town to do his PhD at the U of A, interact with Barbour, one of Canada's legendary sound poets. "They have never met," says McKay, "and I know they'll get along."

(The launch party for Barefoot Through the Pickybushes, by K.L. McKay, takes place today from 3 to 5 p.m. at Orange Hall (10335 84 Ave.). The party features readings from a variety of poets, plus musical entertainment from McKay's partner Trevor Tchir. Admission is $5.)

New Hope International Review - An independent small press poetry review by John Cartmel-Crossley
K.L. McKay: Barefoot Through the Pickybushes

This collection has been lovingly produced by the author, published in a limited edition of 300 copies, each hand-stamped, sewn and numbered by the author. And it is simply, a delight.

Twenty-one wonderfully considered poems meticulously presented on the page, then carefully assembled and hand-sewn and blocked. Thus there is a very real sense of being favoured by the poet in the receipt of the work.

Clearly these are poems of nostalgia and beginnings, poems of past loves and relationships as well as signage towards eternity. (...)

In the closing lines (...) we meet the poet (...) and possibly recognise the cadences of Yeats and Dylan Thomas that creep affectionately into her verses.

BAREFOOT THROUGH THE PICKYBUSHES is a collection to acquire for all manner of reasons. It is, as I have said, a delight for any reader and should be read and re-read. And it should be prescribed for aspiring poets to see how it should be done