Malahat Review at 40 celebrates legacy of founder Robin Skelton

The Malahat Review next week is celebrating its 40th year as one of Canada's leading literary publications. There will be a series of events at the University of Victoria including a launch party for the issue, a talk by writer Robert Bringhurst, readings by seven celebrated BC poets, and a puppet, spoken-word, and video extravaganza. For details visit www.malahatreview.ca.

The celebration will mark the legacy of the journal's late co-founder, Robin Skelton. Skelton published over 100 books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and history, was well known as an art collector and was instrumental in establishing the University of Victoria's Department of Writing, Special Collections at McPherson Library and The Malahat Review. The 40th-anniversary issue (#160, Fall 2007), which is a Skelton tribute, contains new writing by the late poet and poetry, articles, memoirs, stories and reviews by 40 writers from five countries.

He and English professor John Peter established the quarterly Malahat in 1967, in the midst of an explosion of CanLit publishing that occurred around the Canadian centennial. (The name of the publication comes from the name of a sacred mountain of the Malahat First Nation.) Skelton became sole editor in 1971.

He inspired generations of Canadian writers, including Marilyn Bowering, Rhonda Batchelor (now assistant editor of Malahat), Theresa Kishkan, David Day, Harold Rhenisch and Neile Graham.

“For me, being the Malahat’s editor is a homecoming, as I was Robin’s student more than 20 years ago,” says John Barton, a poet and former editor of Ottawa’s poetry journal, Arc. “I think Malahat still fulfills Robin’s original goal to publish the best of the country’s writing alongside the best from elsewhere.”

The university is raising funds for a scholarship in Skelton's name and that of his wife Sylvia.