Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin's collaborative above/ground chapbook, let lie/, is reviewed in Broken Pencil #57

Lindsay Rainingbird was good enough to review Elizabeth Rainer and Michael Blouin's collaborative above/ground chapbook, let lie/ (above/ground press, 2012) in Broken Pencil #57 (autumn 2012 issue). Thanks, Lindsay! There are a few copies of their bpNichol Chapbook Award-nominated chapbook still available, here. Although I admit to not understanding why so many reviewers in Broken Pencil seem not to comprehend that not all folded/stapled are “zines,” perhaps never hearing the term “chapbook” in their lives. Why the disconnect?

This collaborative work, written over a year and a half and emailed back and forth from Vancouver to Kemptville, Ontario, is a glimpse inside a decaying relationship. What it lacks in punctuation it makes up for in vivid descriptions of the heart’s status. The prose pieces weave seamlessly together, like pages ripped from the same journal, and the endnote confessing “one marriage ended in the process. One survived,” lends a certain intrigue to the work that encourages the reader to delve deeper.

            There is longing, “I would be that cigarette that lighter because it is in your hands / I would be condensation on your glass where you wipe / I would be careful I would be discreet” and there is guilt, “I told you how I felt and the things that I said then I didn’t mean any of them and none of them were true / and remember the lights went off and we checked the window and the whole block was dark as if my own lies had been counted and I had reached my limit.” Then, there is acceptance: “You are what pulls me up / He doesn’t always do that / it’s okay it’s not His job all the time.” Let lie\ is a zine that will stay with you long after the close, and is well worth the $4 fee for even just a handful of the gut-punching lines contained inside.