Black Cat 115 is the kind of publication that meets the challenge of the word ‘literary’ the same way a drowning stray paws at the torrential current. So it doesn’t necessarily stay afloat, but the battle is sickly enervating, enjoyable from almost any perspective save the wet one. What we have here is a new litzine that gives us a peek into the drowning struggle: ruthless writing reads like the war-cry of a dying feline. So okay enough drowning cat jokes. There are a lot of names in Black Cat 115 from all over Canada. One of the most prominent is Crad Kildoney, the grand- daddy of self-published punishment. His reprinted story Lighting Strikes My Dick leads off the magazine and really sets the tone for what proves to be a veritable romp through the underworld of letters. Let’s see — J. McCarthy’s Deluge, and David Pahn’s twisted night-club visit How Not To Be A Babysitter come to mind as works that really get the go get if you know what I mean I’m talking all the pain and you’re still laughing! Something tells me that the kind of writing this mag is after is more conducive to the short-story. That’s not to say that this here product is without some biting bits of word-stuff rhymed and otherwise (Lionel by Byron King, I’m thinking here particularly of Lionel maybe we will reprint it if there is room and we get permission etc.) Well perhaps I should just learn to appreciate overtly ardent poetry of the kind favored in Black Cat (Not Lionel, I’m not talking about Lionel here). Okay — save the cat throw a life-line include the cash get scratched.
lit zine chapbook / #4, 40 pages / publisher: Black Bile Press / main creator: Matthew Firth / $2.50 / 115 Niagara St., #4, Windsor ON, N9A 3V8