February 2001 ISBN 921870-80-9   7 3/4 x 8 7/8 112 pp, $16.95 pb Poetry Photographs

 

Ronsdale Press offers a new edition of Steveston, this much loved work by two of Canada’s finest poets and photographers. For this edition, Marlatt has written a new poem, never before published, to offer a postscript from 2001 on the original 1974 undertaking. At the publisher’s request, Minden has returned to his photographic archive bringing 9 additional images of Steveston and New Denver to light. In addition, Marlatt and Minden have rethought their decision to interleave poems and photos, and have, instead, created two separate but connected stories — poetry and pictures that evoke their own rhythms and then speak to each other of their connections. For the first time, Minden talks about their joint project of recreating Steveston, in verse and photos, as two overlapping but distinct "folios." For all the newness of this edition, Steveston retains its old magic: with Marlatt’s long lines recreating the ebb and flow of the Fraser River, the sense of the two artists outside the mainly Japanese-Canadian community, but also through their art evoking the multiple layers of community, the traces and erasures of presence. As Marlatt recalls, "There was something in Steveston which drew us, over and over again, and which our work attempted to enunciate — something under the backwater quiet, the river hum of comings and goings, the traffic of work, that was ‘shouting’ at us to tell it."

"Steveston has already become a Canadian classic." —Smaro Kamboureli

Daphne Marlatt, who has spent most of her life living and writing on the West Coast, has played an important part in creating an alternative poetic line. Her previous poetry titles include Salvage, Ghost Works, Touch to My Tongue, and How Hug a Stone. She has also published two novels: Taken and Ana Historic. She now makes her home in Vancouver.

Robert Minden is a photographer, storyteller and composer. After teaching sociology at several universities, he turned to the still camera for a more intuitive inquiry. The Steveston photographs soon followed. His recent photographs, a series on artists, accompanies his contemporary journey as an experimental musician/composer. He lives in Vancouver.