ALONE ON A WINDY RIDGE: Saskatoon is

Monday, September 18, 2006

Saskatoon is

...a beautiful city, even more beautiful in the rain. We spent the weekend there and it rained the whole time. It was wonderful. On Saturday night we went to a fantastic thesis celebration. There we met some great people. I'm sure I ate my weight in cake. The cheesecake was unbelievable. It was by far the best cheesecake I've ever inhaled. I thought the celebration would be the perfect time to return the book I'd borrowed from her way back when. I even put it in a gift bag.

After that we zipped over to the Brick Books and JackPine Press co-launch. It was a full house. I now own When Earth Leaps Up by Anne Szumigalski and the marvelous new chapbooks by Don Domanski and Holly Luhning. On the way home the next day, I read Don Domanski's chapbook aloud. Then I read it again. And again.
It's amazing.

2 comments:

Paula Jane said...: I am so SO happy you came to the party. It meant a lot and I love my new toys. People came and went all evening - about 30 in total - and things finally wound down around 1 am. Thank you for being there. *hugs*; 19/9/06 9:20 AM
Brenda Schmidt said...: I was thrilled to be invited! I'm happy the toys meet your approval. I hope you managed to untie Batman from the gooseberry bush without breaking his wings off. H had him tied up pretty tight.; 19/9/06 4:00 PM

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"This is a skilled poet having good fun, and inviting us all to join the party." - Shelley A. Leedahl, SaskBooks Reviews. Read more.

"Employing a variety of forms and the culvert stories — who knew? — of numerous people, she digs beneath the obvious roads to find out what keeps the water — the subconscious, the unconscious — flowing smoothly, discovering a variety of things about herself, notably the everyday masks we wear and the aging process we won’t always admit to." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"For Schmidt is indeed a poet. Readers can expect to encounter many visual and acoustic delights along the way, from internal rhymes to arresting images." - Trevor Cook, The Antigonish Review #196.

"In Grid..., Creighton's Brenda Schmidt turns a colder eye to the landscape than most other Canadian poets." - Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press. Read more.

"You can just feel the stones rattling off your undercarriage on this Grid." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"Like the Prairies, this is not a collection that gives itself away: the true beauty of this book lies in subtleties that may not be obvious at first glance." - Emily McGiffin, The Malahat Review. Read more.

"In Grid, moments are approached in their apparent stability only to be swept away in song rife with interruption and fresh stimuli, lending a new perspective. It is as though the familiar ground is an eye glancing back and the reflection only a nodal-point, open to opportunity and play." - Justin Dittrick, SPG Book Reviews. Read more.

"There is grit in these poems, so much that it seems unfair to think of them as nature poems; like the best nature writing, they undo our expectations of nature rather than uphold them." - Tanis MacDonald, Arc Poetry Magazine. Read more.

"In her fourth collection Grid, Schmidt’s wry humour transcends what we have watched heap up in Canada for more than a century—nature poems—balancing in canola fields between the beautiful lure of nature and our curious urge to separate ourselves from disappearing allotments of our own solace. We have wandered “off the grid” but fortunately Schmidt is an entertaining and insightful guide who can still find Li Po in a Dark-eyed Junco, if she has to." - Garry Thomas Morse, Jacket 2. Read more.

"These supple, witty, and incisive poems delineate our relationship to grids and systems both visible and invisible, natural and political." - Judges' citation, Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry nomination. Jurors: Shawna Lemay, Barbara Nickel, Sharon Thesen.