Carleton’s literary publication, In/Words, is publishing a poetry chapbook (a short collection of poetry) written by a Carleton humanities student.
The Rose Bush and the Myrtle is a collection of poems by Colin Mylrea, and will be released on Jan. 31. The launch party and joint open mic will be held at the Clocktower Brew Pub on Bank Street, featuring a musician and live painter.
The small publication has developed a lot since its humble beginnings at Carleton. Founder and professor, Collette Tracey, started In/Words as a university-based magazine back in 2001 with a team of her students. According to editor Manahil Bandukwala, In/Words has expanded into more than just a student-run magazine.
“It was started to promote literature and give emerging writers a voice, and now it’s bridging over to literature and art in Ottawa and in Canada,” she said.
This year, In/Words has paired up with Mylrea, a poet with a strong vision for his creative work.
“The poets have a lot of freedom with how they want their chapbook to look . . . with [Mylrea] he wanted a very specific idea of what he wanted,” Bandukwala said.
Mylrea began gathering pieces for The Rose Bush and the Myrtle last year.
“I took the same poetry writing seminar last year as [Bandukwala] . . . and we had a mutual admiration of each other’s work,” he said. “I mentioned that I was gathering pieces together for a collection, and she asked if I would be interested in publishing it through In/Words.”
Mylrea is a student in Carleton’s humanities program and co-editor of North, a journal published by Carleton’s College of the Humanities. Describing his style as Imagist (favouring the depiction of precise, clear images), he cites Ezra Pound and Hilda “H.D” Dolittle as his two biggest influences.
But his creative process for the chapbook didn’t begin by diving into the poetry.
“I spent more time looking at visual art that inspired me rather than writing, which is a given since most of my poems are well under a page,” Mylrea said. “I wrote ekphrases [descriptions of visual art] for some of these and used them as a starting point for most of my poems.”
Those who pick up a copy of The Rose Bush and the Myrtle can expect a gritty theme, touching on the subject of decay.
According to Mylrea, readers can expect to see a range of Mary Oliver-inspired poetry next. And after a long hiatus from the genre, Mylrea has begun working on some prose fiction work.
“It’s very much an extension of the poetry in The Rose Bush and the Myrtle in terms of its style,” he said. “Writing grotesque-but-austere in prose is much more challenging but I’m enjoying the process very much.”
As for the In/Words press, the magazine is starting to reach readers across the province with a new contract in Toronto.
“I think it’s going to keep being this way for students to connect with figures in the literary community. And to keep being a voice for emerging writers,” Bandukwala said.
Photo by Marieta Osezua
