While I'm gone, keep an eye out

...for my sonnet. It should be among the Random Highbrow entries shortly.

So far today has been all work and no play. I just mailed off an application that I'd been dragging my heels on. I also mailed a hefty package of work. I crossed my fingers as it went out the door. It's on its own now.

Though I only glimpsed at the literary sites today, this bit about Nabokov's last unpublished manuscript caused me to pause. What should you do with work that you don't want anyone to see? How do you see to its future?

That's it for a few days. I'm taking off. I'll post again on Monday.

Presentism

...and the myths surrounding Canadian literature. (From Quill & Quire)

The cat watched every single book

...slide into the bookcases as if she couldn't believe her eyes. It was a long day of rearranging, but it's done and the cat is now sleeping, leaving me to stare at the new arrangement. The new bookcases in the living room look lovely as does the one in the sun room. The same cannot be said for the ones in my office. These are the books that I stare at every day while I think, my eyes wandering across familiar spines until finally I become lost. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to lose myself tonight. The books look terribly uncomfortable next to their new neighbours and that makes me uncomfortable. I should've expected that, as it has happened before, but I thought the care I took in their arrangement would keep it from happening this time. I must say I had a lot of fun with the shelves of poetry books, arranging them as I would a dinner table, placing Tracy Hamon beside Jorie Graham, George Murray next to John Ashbery and Geoffrey Hill, John MacKenzie next to Seamus Heaney, Mark Truscott next to Fred Wah, and so on. I even put some reviewers next to people they've reviewed. I had a great time. Now I have to live with what I've done.

The limitations and longevity

...of Sherlock Holmes.

My world is not

...a Barbie world. I've never owned a Barbie, nor have I ever wanted to. Dolls were not my thing.

I haven't put any books in the new bookcases yet

...for some strange reason. I see I'm not alone.

I came across

...a nice review of my book just now.

I also came across George Szirtes' TS Eliot Lecture 2005. (From The T.S. Review)

I did not come across the names I expected to see among the entries to the new Random Highbrow competition. Some writers I know plan to submit poems to it. Who knows, maybe I'll whip up a sonnet for the occasion.

Today was an exciting day in the Schmidt house

...after the new bookcases were delivered and more exciting yet when they were assembled. Even the cat was excited. They look exactly as pictured. Tomorrow we'll load them up. Our bookcases have been crammed for quite some time. I weeded them out and took some novels to the used bookstore not so long ago, but new books arrived in the mail. I brought books home from everywhere I went. I have piles of books all over the place. Mountains of books. And yes, I read them.

Why Sartre

...matters.

Life, Still & Otherwise

...arrived today. I just finished reading it. Greenboathouse Books outdid themselves again. What a beautiful book. I had a good look at a copy of the paper wrapped version when I was in Winnipeg and I must say the hardbound copy is far more impressive to look at and to feel. The various textures sing under my fingers, in harmony with the music of the work. The hardcover perfectly suits the weighty, justified prose poems and the style of the sentences. The last poem is two pages long, each page a matching, perfect box of text, so perfect that the two-line title - each line of it no more than 2/3 the length of the poem's body - seemed incredibly heavy, pushing down as I read, the relentless pressure contributing to the overall power of the poem. Incredible.

Life here has been anything but still. My cat has entered her second kittenhood. Apart from her usual nap times, all she wants to do is play. And so we play. When I read she bunts my book. It does nothing for my reading speed, but it makes her happy, so I let her bunt away. Then night comes. 2:30 a.m. The cat is jumping and running, batting her toys, bouncing off the furniture. 2:35 a.m. The cat is running flat out, bounds on the bed, an inch from my nose, then leaps onto the bookcase. 2:40 a.m. The cat jumps down, landing on the other side of my head, then races off. Repeat. This has been going on for weeks.

This little article speaks

...volumes.

Dark

...impulses. I followed the link to the Serpentine Gallery and from there I went to check out the incredible installations on Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's site. The introduction to The Antenna caught my attention with the bit about twinkling: the "I see - I don't see" effect. The Antenna and its twinkling make me wonder if the Kabakovs have constructed or made conscious whatever it is that powers a poem.

Ah, the human

...predicament.

I spent very little time online today. One article I came across made me think of my photographer friends, another, specifically the bit about Tolkien, just made me chuckle.

I actually spent most of the day reading books. At one point I flipped through a monstrous stack of them, squinting, scowling and smiling at the various fonts. I decided I'm a serif kind of gal.

Note the size

...of this new book prize and the size of the jury.

trans-Scribing Canada:

...Canadian Writers in Taiwan is happening this week. Larissa Lai, one of the writers on tour, is providing great same day accounts on her blog.

Marriage

...is 293 lines deep. Indeed. Marianne Moore surfaced on a couple blogs today and a couple comments captured my attention. I dived into Moore links on wood s lot and deeper and deeper I went. I just came up gasping and unsure if I really know how to swim.

This portrait is arresting.

Today a chicken

...almost did away with a fine writer. This is for her. It's by Grant Wood, the artist famous for American Gothic. His landscapes are just as striking.

From the Heart

...a celebration of Saskatchewan will be happening this week in Ottawa.

Good writing

...is the secret to "How (not) to get published." I like the bit about synopses.

Late last week on the way to Saskatoon we had the most bizarre experience. I've been distracted by it ever since. Five minutes earlier or five minutes later and it would not have been. After we got back in the car, I told H that this was the beginning I'd been missing, but he already knew that. I proceeded to lay out a fairly coherent synopsis of a nonfiction book that I'd talked about in quite sketchy ways before. He said this is a book that needs to be written. He said he'll help with the research. As we drove, the synopsis grew out of itself. It's still growing. It's definitely the seed of a collaboration.

Unmanageable Imaginations

...will be monitored on a daily basis. Now I'm wondering what the heck DeLillo means.

Next time there's a lull

...in conversation and if I have a pencil in hand, as I often do, I will have something to say about free-floating electrons as I grind shiny black holes through the words on the paper, right through the p's and the o in "pseudo-relativistic particles." Then I'll go on to say "I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils."

There is a Keats connection

...to this grow-op installation, but it's a bit hazy.

Stories

...like this make my day. I'll definitely check out his comic.

If the title

...of this story isn't enough, get a load of the description of Simon Armitage's haircut. Good grief. Speaking of Armitage, I'm almost finished The Dead Sea Poems. I just have the concluding long poem left to read. It will have to wait though. I'm really into Mootoo's book.

A Set of Deadly Negotiations

...arrived today from Frog Hollow Press. Both the book and the sonnets it contains are incredible. Incredibly beautiful.

My eyes have been glued to woodcuts

...this evening. When I close my eyes I can still see "Saint Michael fighting the Dragon." This woodcut is part of A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books. (From Plep)

A plan to toughen sedition laws

...in Australia is causing alarm.

That's it till Monday. Before you go, take a look at today's images over at wood s lot. They're as stunning as ever. What a fantastic eye.

Now I'm going to tackle

...Shani Mootoo's He Drown She in the Sea. As soon as I open the book the cat will start bunting it. It makes it tough to read. She's terrible with hardcovers.

I like the found pitch

...Heaney speaks of in his article on his translation of Sophocles' Antigone.

Even Einstein

...made mistakes.

There are no great women comic artists

...in the “Masters of American Comics” art exhibition. Why?