I didn’t find myself getting particularly excited about this issue of “ink”. I wanted to be excited. Or disgusted maybe. Or angry, or depressed, or even really, really bored. There were places where I almost became excited. The poems by David Ayer held some surprises. One, a meditation on a spilling cup of tea; the other opening with these two classic lines: “Who in that hard-assed Zen tradition/could still harbour the deficient need for ice cream?” There’s some other decent poems in here, as well. In fact, not a single one of the poems is particularly bad. And Tim Conley’s story, “The Frightening Glow,” is actually very readable. The photographs might or might not be good, it’s too hard to tell from the photocopies in the mag. Maybe it’s the peripheral stuff in “ink” that gives me this feeling. The editorial, the reviews, the interview. There’s a real laissez-faire feeling to all of it. Sometimes I think there’s too much of this kind of stuff around. All these words spewed out, most of it not all that bad. But that’s thing — I almost long for something really bad. If you can’t give me the really great stuff, give me something bad. Take some chances. Do something unexpected. Suprise me.
lit mag / 40 pages / Main Creator: John Degen (editor) / $2.50, 4 for $8 / P.O. Box 52558, St. George Postal Outlet, 264 Bloor St. W., Toronto, ON, M5S 1V0