The personal may be the political, but neither perspective guarantees good writing. In their editor’s note, Ryan Anderson and Bryan Samis describe OutWrite!: A Queer Review’s mandate as not only offering a creative outlet “for queer and queer-positive individuals to voice their diverse life experiences,” but “educating the Queen’s and Kingston communities on issues to which they may otherwise not be exposed.” Judged as a chronicle of queer personal experience and a reminder of relevant issues, OutWrite! has little to be embarrassed about. Applying a critical standard to the creative work, however, leaves the journal with a much more mixed record.
The first piece in the review is Morgan Vanek’s “It’s What Comes After The Words.” As Vanek discourages the casual use of words like “fag” and “gay” on campus, the letters capitalized against the right margin spell out “FAGGOT FREAK DYKE SO GAY.” Aside from one convoluted sentence, the work balances a political message with an aesthetic conceit more successfully than several other contributors. Although not subtle, it’s memorable.
Vanek also closes the review with a short story, “Unbeatable Odds.” She abandons any laboured political message to concentrate on two characters, a transgendered teenager and his mother. Though the plot is occasionally obscure, much of the description is precise and vivid: “Chris’ smoke rises into the muscular orange light, and he is … cocky as he smiles around his cigarette at the dishjockeys and the busboys.” The story’s concentration on fully rendered scenes gave me a better opportunity to identify with queer experience than if I were beaten over the head with clumsy rhetoric.
Ainsley Brittain’s “Out” is a failed attempt to bring the narrator closer to understanding a friend who grew up closeted. “I can’t imagine,” she begins, and the rest of the poem demonstrates her difficulty. While perhaps more successful as a spoken word piece than on the page, its conclusion is cringe-worthy: “He was looking for liberation / Not damnation / Fuck! Love is love!”
M.E. Thomas’ lust poem “Wendy in the Morning” is one of the better pieces in the review, hitting universal nerves with fresh, simple lines like “I didn’t know for sure/whether I was jealous/or in love” and “nose always running / I felt like a child.” Simplicity also enhances Mary Pearson’s two black-and-white photographs, “Breasts” and “Self-Portrait,” which display a fine sense of movement and shadow. The latter is an especially compelling image of a man sprawled across the ground with his face hidden, reaching toward the left side of the frame. Suggesting shame, desperation, and struggle, the photo effectively conveys the difficulty of reconciling one’s sexuality with the self and others.
In “Outed,” Andrew McWilliams uses rather overheated prose to describe the painful experience of being involuntarily outed through an acquaintance’s gossip. While some of the language is at least viscerally effective, such as “shrivel up into a crippled mass of disbelief and vomit,” elsewhere the melodrama of “quivering breath” and “anger’s venom, shooting through my veins” distances the reader from the narrator.
One of the pieces that had the greatest impact on me, however, was Raye Peters’ “Always Both,” even though it’s not particularly well crafted. Maybe this is the exact strength of OutWrite!’s mandate—the uniqueness of the voices they seek to publish can make what they have to say interesting, even if the way it’s said isn’t as impressive. “Gender fluidity. / It’s not visible like race. / It’s who I am and part of all I do,” Peters writes, confronted by uncertainty every time she looks at the men’s washroom sign on the way to the women’s washroom, or has to fill out her sex on forms. Written in a simple and almost naïve voice, it makes Peters’ argument seem similarly basic and undeniable.
Like many campus publications, the content of OutWrite! is hit-and-miss. Much of its best writing is buried in the middle of otherwise unremarkable pieces. And a rather dark design with an unfortunate choice of typefaces doesn’t encourage extended browsing. If you’re willing to wade through some substandard love poetry and sentimental polemics, though, there are some promising artists behind the identity politics.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].