OysterCatcher

This BC eco-zine is a blend of poetry, fiction and personal reflection, none of it particularly compelling. Like many zines that seek to illuminate societal ills, OysterCatcher will not convince those that are not already convinced because its content is aesthetically lacklustre. Even a reader who is politically aligned with the contributing writers may be put off by their didacticism and sentimentality.

Ron Sakolsky’s lanky, fragmented poems rarely hold more than two words per line and have an on-message spoken word quality that doesn’t really work on the page:

Politicos /make a motion, /fake e-motion. /We need more /Loco-motion. /Ideas /dancing /furiously

The unmistakable highlight of the issue is a scattershot but enthusiastic excerpt from Green Hermeticism, a recent book on what might be described as eco-alchemy. The rest of the non-fiction does little more than wax nostalgic about bygone activism. Nostalgia is reactionary, not revolutionary, even if it’s nostalgia for a time when people were supposedly more politically engaged. (Daniel Marrone)

zine, Ron Sakolsky, issue #4, [email protected], A–4062 Wren Road, Denman Island, BC, V0R 1T0