ALONE ON A WINDY RIDGE: The coming weekend promises

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The coming weekend promises

...to be full and fun. I look forward to seeing everybody. I just printed off a poem to test-drive at the open mike. It's from Grid, a manuscript in progress. A few of you heard a very early version of it in February. A few of you saw another version in mid July. In late July one of you suggested it end a few lines earlier, so now it does. Another one of you saw the revision last week. Sometimes it's hard to believe you all live where you do. Spread all over the place. You seem so close. Just a couple clicks away. Possibly wobbling.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...: Have a great time at the AGM, B! I'm sorry I won't see you there, but I'll hope to catch up with you in Feb.; 11/10/06 11:35 PM
Ariel Gordon said...: Enjoy yerself, B...; 12/10/06 10:05 PM
Brenda Schmidt said...: Hey Berlynn, wish you were here. Hope to see you in Feb.

Will do, Ariel. Wish you were here too.; 12/10/06 10:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Spending time with 56 teens and 7 other adults wasn't so bad as it sounds. And the music they made was spectacular! I'll bet my writer friends had a spectacular time, too!; 15/10/06 10:05 PM
Brenda Schmidt said...: Twas spectacular, Berlynn. I'll post on it shortly.; 16/10/06 10:44 PM
Brenda Schmidt said...: 56 teens! Wow.; 16/10/06 10:46 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.