SPACE! DAD!
by Ian Sullivan Cant & Melissa Bull

W R I T I N G
P R O J E C T

DIARIES

Writing is an excellent way to express your feelings. Some people write in diaries, and I think it's one of the best ways because you can write anything you want to write, nobody's forcing you to write things you don't want to write.

When I'm mad or angry I (sometimes) write out what I feel and it makes me feel better, getting it all out.

Also when you're older and you look at the things you wrote it makes you laugh!


POEMS

Poems are very, very fun to write but if you're angry and you want to get things out by writing poems you'll just get more and more angry there are rules in writing poetry, like in some poems you have to rhyme in others your syllables have to be in the right order or the rhythm has to be right. So you shoulden't write poetry when you're angry!

STORIES

Stories are also fun to write but they take much, much longer to write. X

I'm writing a story about a prince named Atam and a princess named Sherazad and their adventures. I started this story in May '88 and I've only written a chapter, it's very, very hard!

While writing stories you have to be specific so that people who are reading the book will know what's going on!

X than poems.

LETTERS OR FORMS OF COMMUNICATION WRITING

Letters are a form of communication. Most people use them to find out how their friends are going or stuff like that, but there are other forms of communication writing such as telegrams. Telegrams are a bit like letters only they are shorter, simpler, less details and instead of having periods they say; "STOP".

There are also (secret) codes and ciphers they can be used in case of emergency or to hide something from someone. Codes are not the same thing as ciphers. In codes one letter can mean one word one sentence or even the whole letter! Ciphers usually don't change like that. They have for example a drawing or an other letter or sign to represent A or B or what ever, but it is always some sign, etc. to represent a letter.


NEWS PAPERS

News papers are exactly what the word says. It's news written on a paper.

All news papers have articals. You can find articals almost anywhere in a news paper.

THE END

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My misspent childhood. For you.

Free Translation of THE CRATE by Francis Ponge

by Lisa Sookraj

Comprised of planks connecting, intersecting, I am crate. Illiterate.

If I could read, and were I French, I'd find my name between cage and 'cachot' (prison) in the dictionary. What these two things have in common is enclosure. The impossibility of escape. I contain myself. Am a container, myself. Volatile contents restrained. Cageot: A simple box for transporting produce. Or other cargo. That needs to breathe, or else grow disease.

I need not comprehend French to know that crate is meant to be crushed. Once its duty is done. Living a less lengthy life than the items I cradle. From point A to point B or C. For me there is no point. There is no pay-off. This is inherent knowledge.

From hands to truck to hands to hands to trash. Shuffled, sorted and splintered. Briefly self-sustained. Then maimed. Tossed to the curb. Quickly. With finality. This existence leads to depression. A sad state, a sad fate. The bead of moisture most aren't aware wood can create.

(click to enlarge)

HOW LOVE CONSUMES US
by Gabe Foreman

MIDLIFE
by Robin Becker

Everyone here wears a full head of dark hair. Mornings,
they casually allude to parties, getting to sleep at three or four.
As usual, there are a few great beauties;
most still eat eggs.
They treat me like an older sister, hip but no
all-nighters. What happened to my competitive spirit?
My rakish scarf? Like an old man, I miss my
basset hound.

Back home, my Mountain Laurel creates curb appeal,
my mailbox salutes, a sturdy citizen on the road.
Last month I felt great communion with my neighbors
as we all cursed and mowed. Then we hauled
our recycling bins to the street in unison, we made
the collective squeal of our village.

Still, I like these young people,
some of whom still read poetry
and smoke cigarettes.
We share a taste for the linen suits I found
along the Avenue, when I lived in a studio
in Cambridge, city of brick and rescued greyhounds.
Restless, I didn't even know that wanting
was already a kind of having.

Today over lunch I will have an argument with myself
and enjoy it thoroughly, taking both sides,
gesturing and furrowing my brow. Though secure
employment is a sure sign of age, it's so still
in this glade of light and leaves that I might mistake
myself for a bear, a deer.



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I ripped this poem out of the 1999 January/February issue of The American Poetry Review.
I was 21. I lived in an apartment where my room had a towel instead of a door.

I still like that line about wanting being a kind of having, a kind of nostalgia preparedness. And I picture Becker's hipster bevy congregating at Cosmos, the old Cosmos, the way it used to be when Cosmo himself dropped his cigarette butts on the burner and they'd get into the egg. He'd say, What you want today? I make you nice mish-mash, eh? His voice sounded like a fart, or a hangover.


www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/529

(click to enlarge)




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Yes, these are real. Yes, it is ok to publish them. They were remade into a chapbook called Letters to Vienna, by Ian Sullivan Cant. Check out his brandspankingnew site and order a copy up for yourself: unkindnesspress.ca.