M Train by Patti Smith, Knopf Canada, 258 pages, $32.
Seated at her favourite table in her neighbourhood coffee shop with her regular order of black coffee and a notebook open in front of her Patti Smith shares her thoughts on writing, love, loss and those experiences that have shaped much of her adult life. Just as a sound or smell can trigger a memory, Smith's routine brings her back to times spent with her husband, Fred Sonic Smith and the life they shared. A trip to Europe, an old boat never put back in the water stir deep feelings and with her wonderful writing we share in both the experience and its impact.
Smith draws us into her life, and with the ordinary references that we can all relate to, like the memory of a lost toy, the care of a pet, the joy of a remembered book, she leads us to new discoveries.
Her stories travel between the realms of poetry and journals, allowing us to witness her approach to her work. Filled with references to the writers and poets that have influenced her, Smith takes us on several journeys to pay tribute to them.
As easily as she looks backwards, Smith also opens herself to the future. It is her powerful writing that smoothly links her thoughts on beginnings and endings and rewards us with a look inside an incredibly creative mind.
n Anna Banana, edited by Michelle Jacques, Figure 1, 160 pages, $40.
Actions and reactions have been central to the artist known as Anna Banana for 45 years. Born in Victoria, the quiet provincial capital seems like an unlikely location to spawn the renegade artistic temperament that infuses her work.
In 1971 she sent a copy of her newsletter, the Banana Rag, to a friend in Vancouver who in return sent her a copy of the Image Bank request list. This listing of numerous artists would become the beginning of a career of mail art. Since that time she has sent out and received artwork with like-minded artists around the world.
Her early interest in Dadaism and Pop Art ropelled her into the art scene in San Francisco and from there on to New York and later Europe. Maintaining a focus of incorporating the banana design in her works, she expanded into a wide range of mediums. Performance art, exhibitions, events have all played a part in her artistic vision but central has been the mail exchange.
Stamps, postcards, newsletters have been her most consistent mediums and through them she has maintained her autonomy over her art, spreading her avant-garde message. Examples of these fill the pages of this book along with articles by various artists and curators who all speak to her importance as an international leader in the mail art movement.
