Last month I spent a lot of time

...checking out the links on this Italo Calvino site. Now Metafilter has given us a look at the work that Calvino has inspired. (via Bookninja)

I'll be spending the rest of this month on the road. The road trip includes a stop in Winnipeg. My next post should appear on June 1.

The Academy of American Poets

...has overhauled Poets.org. (Thanks, T)

I checked out

...the Ukrainian poetry on the Poetry International Web, a site I found via Wanda O'Connor's blog. I was looking for Oksana Zabuzhko, a poet I saw read in Saskatoon in 1998 (I think). That's when I bought a copy of A Kingdom of Fallen Statues, a book of her poems and essays. It's been quite a while since I read it and I can't remember what I thought of it, but I do remember bits about her reading, the delivery. I remember Janice Kulyk Keefer's reading as well and where she stood as she read, among others, the poems "Kyiv, 1995" and the title poem from Marrying the Sea. At least I think she read those poems. Regardless, that's what my memory tells me. Who am I to argue? I saw other readers that night as well. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I was at my first SWG conference and that was the first reading I'd ever attended.

Here's a poetry questionnaire

...and Silliman's responses.

Definitional drift

...is what I found in "Definitional Drift: Math Goes Postmodern" by Margaret Wertheim.

In my search for an elegy

...I found Theodore Roethke's Elegy for Jane.

While I like the Roethke poem, Oliver Goldsmith's elegy seems most fitting.

The bit about pulling wires

...in DJ Taylor 's "Undeservedly obscure" is pulling me away from the task at hand. I've never thought of this pulling of wires as a phenomenon.

P.S. I was unable to post last night due to a thunderstorm. The cat and I were in hiding.

Pilgrimage

...a poem by César Vallejo, translated by Clayton Eshleman, can be found at the bottom of this page. The "sick opal footsteps" and the second last stanza will haunt me all night.

House readings

...do sound cozy, especially the ones described here. I like the idea of having space for conversation between reader and audience. If I move to a city I will definitely host house readings. Would you come to The Schmidt House Reading Series?

The southern swing

...down to Saskatoon, Regina and Moose Jaw, SK was great. Thanks to everyone who came out to the readings. In Saskatoon I was given fantastic cookies, in Regina fantastic cake. Thanks to the ones who created these incredibly sweet versions of More Than Three Feet of Ice. In Moose Jaw I read with Tracy Hamon and Dan Tysdal. It was great fun.

in Just

...is a poem by EE Cummings, a poem that suits this "mud-
luscious" day. I'm anxious to read EE Cummings: A Biography by Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno. Here's an extract from the book. Here's another.

Farewell

...for now. I'm off to do some readings. I'll post again on May 16.

The City of Regina Writing Award

...was recently presented to Tracy Hamon. Here's the address and reading given by Roger Moore, one of the judges, at the award ceremony. Here are the poems Tracy Hamon read.

A link to How2

...just appeared in my inbox. (Thanks, K) It's new to me. This issue of How2 carries a critical feature on Nicole Brossard, who happens to be the facilitator for the poetry colloquium at Sage Hill this summer.

Over the past few days I've enjoyed

...Kimmy Beach's fake Paul, Peter Sanger's Earth Moth and Mark Truscott's Said Like Reeds or Things. While I don't normally list the books I've read here, I thought I'd mention these not only because they are so different from each other, but because they left me thinking about what it means to enjoy.

Here's a link to twenty free MP3 lectures

...by P.C. Hodgell and Michael Levy from English 3020 Studies In Narrative: Science Fiction & Fantasy. I haven't listened to any of them yet, but I plan to compare them to what I remember from the fantasy course I once took, a course that introduced me to Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. What a wonderful book.

I think this Triceratops

...illustration is the highlight of Paleo Art: Highlights from the Department of Paleobiology. (via Hassenpfeffer)

You know you're on a northern book tour when

...you have to stop the car and wait for the caribou to mosey off. We just got back from Snow Lake, Manitoba where I did a presentation and reading. Thanks to the organizers in Snow Lake, The Pas and Cranberry Portage and thanks to everyone who came out. We had a great time.

If you're ever in The Pas, Manitoba

...be sure to check out The Pas Regional Library. The place is a work of art. We were given a tour of it before my reading tonight. Check out its history and take the virtual tour on the site. Click on the red triangles to get an idea of the ramps. The natural light, all that light, melted into the interior colours, and the wonderful reading nooks made me want to sit right down...I could go on and on. They even have a bird!

Completely captivated

...was I, as I went through Don Austin's "ned after snowslides". (Thanks, K)

The problem

...of beauty stuck with me today. In "Introduction to Poetry and the Problem of Beauty", Lisa Samuels says "we might well find, for both modern and postmodern versions of beauty, common ground in an aesthetics of intensity." Hmm.

The problem of beauty

...steps forward in Mark Truscott's latest post.

Evanescent

...art, specifically the work of earthworks artist Andy Goldsworthy, is the subject of this post by Ron Silliman.

Mythological imagery

...is the subject of "Make me a god," a great article in which Malcolm Bull says this: "The ancient gods crept back into western culture as fashion accessories and garden ornaments, without anyone taking them seriously." I'll never look at earrings or garden gnomes in the same way again.

Writers take back seat at Alberta Scene

...is the headline of this story.