Fog of the Outport
JackPine Press / 23 December 2014

Fog of the Outport by Robin Durnford, artwork and design by Meagan Musseau Published by JackPine Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $30.00 ISBN 978-1-927035-07-8 JackPine Press is well-known for publishing artsy chapbooks. I was prepared for the unconventional, but admit I didn’t know how to approach Fog of the Outport. The textless, off-white cover and grey, hand-stitched spine offered no clues as to what might be inside; thus genre, creators, and even the title awaited discovery. I opened the book and was delighted to find a dramatic landscape reflected in silkscreen prints; a design that merges with the unfoldable back cover to create an innovative, three-paneled panorama. This limited-edition chapbook, written by Robin Durnford, and illustrated\ designed by Meagan Musseau-Newfoundlanders both-is a gorgeous collaboration featuring prose poems named for each month of the year-“february” to “february”. It’s a memorial to the life of the poet’s father, whose own father died when he was five, and it’s an homage to Durnford’s widowed grandmother, left with nine children to care and provide for on “the exposed bone-belly” of Francois NFLD, an isolated, south coast outport. There is story here, and art, and language that made my mouth water. In the first…