Hats off to the newest sites dedicated to reviewing

...Canadian poetry: Northern Poetry Review and PoetryReviews.ca.

I plan to spend the weekend reviewing poetry as well, but in a less formal way. Tomorrow morning I'll read some Szymborska before I head outdoors to paint. I'll sit in the rocks and review the words. The world. I'll work in oil. I'll begin with a basic palette.

See you on Monday.

The first poem I read today

...was "Autonomy" by Wislawa Szymborska from Poems New and Collected.

After a morning of invigorating conversation

...with fellow poets, the email flying back and forth, I needed some time to think. Some places encourage thought.


This creek is one such place. We've lived in this area for more than twenty years, yet we didn't even know it was there. I was photographing a culvert when H discovered a well worn trail leading upstream, so we followed it into the forest. Every step was new. For the longest while I listened to the water and stared at the moss. Then I stared at the water and listened. I couldn't hear the moss, but for a moment I could feel it. I wasn't touching any moss at the time and I declined to do so later. Why mess with a memory that feels that good.

The first poem I read today

...was "Could Have" by Wislawa Szymborska from Poems New and Collected.

When ideas start to pile up

...in intolerable heaps, I will get a sudden urge to shovel them out. That urge struck this afternoon. At 5 p.m., after I went on and on about an idea that I've gone on and on about many times before, we hopped in the car and headed down the Hanson Lake Road. Thirteen kilometers later we were at Annabel Creek.


I was standing on the road when I took this photo. I found the first two subjects of my new blog directly below.

The first poem I read today

...was "Three Airs" by Frank O'Hara from Lunch Poems.

I've heard many good things

...about Wallace Stegner House. The place came to mind when I saw Good Reports' call for photos for Visions, a CanLit photo album of places mentioned in books by Canadian authors.

The first poem I read today

...was "From the Middle Distance" by Simon Armitage from The Dead Sea Poems.

In my quest

...to bridge a few of my pop culture gaps, I watched Pocketful of Miracles. I'm not sure what I took away from it, but it was a fun movie. Apple Annie sure had big shiny apples. Lucky apples. Maybe it's the luck that made them look so unusual.

A lucky apple must have passed through my house recently. A review of More Than Three Feet of Ice appeared in the March 2006 issue of Books in Canada. The review is now on Amazon. Just look down the page. I'm tickled.

I'll post again next week.

The first poem I read today

...was "Selected Lies" by Jon Paul Fiorentino from The Theory of the Loser Class.

Beauty and its absence

...have been on my mind of late. I was thinking about it the other day when the call came. A sentence had been haunting me. "Poverty is also the absence of beauty" says Jan Wong in the third part of her Maid for a Month series. Also. I'd finished reading Dionne Brand's Inventory a couple days before, and bits of it, sharp bits, kept coming to mind. I thought about it as we drove out to Bakers Narrows. The headlines I'd read just before we left -- 10 killed in a car bombing in Baghdad, a case of mad cow disease in BC -- traveled with me, too. On the way out of town, we drove by a couple gas stations. $1.099 a litre. We had half a tank left, so we were good to go. Twenty minutes later we came to a stop, Lake Athapapuskow a stone throw away, its ice dark and broken near shore, the open water even darker. Beyond, the ice was a dead grey. Dead and scarred. Snowmobile and ATV tracks melted into blue grooves. Everywhere blue grooves and blue puddles. H spotted the Bald Eagle immediately. That's what had prompted the call. Its mate was sitting on a nest in an old poplar just across a creek. Just as H got out of the car, an otter popped up a few feet from shore. The sun slipped over its head as it watched us. H photographed the otter, who appeared to be posing, and then photographed the eagles. I stood back and watched.

That night we drove down the Hanson Lake Road to do the annual nocturnal owl survey. It's easy. We stop every 1.6 kilometers and listen for two minutes and fill in the blanks on the forms. The outing always includes hot chocolate. So there I was, standing on the edge of the highway, hot chocolate in hand, listening to Boreal Owls and a world of wood frogs. There I was. Thinking.

The first poem I read today

...was "Ken" by Don McKay from Strike/Slip.

A fine poet gave

...me a moleskine a short while ago. It came in the mail, alone in a package, not a word of explanation to be found. I suspect it's a way of telling me to get to work. I've been writing in Hilroy 120 page wireless neatbooks and the like for as long as I've been writing. Not very classy, but functional. I didn't think it would matter what I wrote in as long as I had a pen and a surface on which to write. Boy was I wrong. I've spent the last week getting to know my moleskine. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it. Sometimes I pick it up and mull over its texture, weight and size. My handwriting looks so different on those creamy pages. So alien. Oddly enough, I believe it's had an effect on the writing itself.

Be sure to listen

...to the new audioposts over on Salt and Ice. John MacKenzie has an incredible voice.

I especially like the Lowell poem. It's new to me. I think I'll memorize it. It would be a great one to recite.

The first poem I read today

...was "Devonian" by Don McKay from Strike/Slip.

Sweet little bunnies

...and sweet sweet eggs came in the mail today.


And let's not forget the little chick. These are not from the great cupcake baking mentor. I'm lucky to have another mentor, a fantastic poet who not only helps me along, but makes fantastic cookies on top of it all. They're so cute! I'll feel guilty for eating them, but eat them I will.

The first poem I read today

...was Inventory by Dionne Brand. Actually, it's a long poem and I'm only a few pages into it.

A giant

...bunny and The City of Galvez were my greatest finds of the evening. I don't think the bunny will find its way into my work, but I was inspired by Oscar Guzmán's work. I've read his statement several times already. It begins: "The line that divides the real from the imaginary is more imaginary than real..." His words about the index got me thinking.

(The Guzmán link is from wood s lot)

The first poem I read today

...was "Cartography" by Rhona McAdam from her new book Cartography. The book arrived yesterday.

Have you ever seen

...an exhibition that stayed with you, so much so that years later you can recall not only particular paintings, but where they were hanging and the angle at which you'd encountered them? Paul Sisetski's work did that to me. I saw the show in the 90's I think, though it could've been before that. I remember walking into the gallery and stopping. The work caught me off guard. It changed the way I see. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to seeing his latest exhibition Don’t Shoot the Messenger, which is currently at The Mendel Art Gallery.

The first poem I read today

...was ""Why Did I Awake (Flatman 3rd draft)" by Anne Carson from Men in the Off Hours.

Last week was a great week

...for mail. I received two lovely packages. One I'll let you in on. It was a large box. Inside we found explicit instructions. Beneath that a giant spider.


As the people who attended the winter colony know, I am working on a new project that involves spiders. I took 34 large prints of H's spider photos with me to St. Peter's Abbey and had them spread out in the room while I worked. I read work from the project at the final reading. I've received some thoughtful spider-related gifts from colonists. One left "A Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman on my door. Another sent me a musical version of the same poem. And now, thanks to my pop culture mentor, a giant spider sits in my office, staring at me with all eight eyes, as if expecting something.

While reorganizing my office today, I was listening to the cd my pop culture mentor sent me, a superhero mix with every Superman and Spiderman song known to humankind, with a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ninja Turtles thrown in. The cd ends with Rossini's William Tell Overture. Rossini does not impress the cat, but it certainly got me moving. I got tons of work done.

The first poem I read today

...was "Music at the Heart of Thinking Eighty-Three" by Fred Wah from Alley Alley Home Free.

A giant turkey-like dinosaur was found

...in Utah. A giant flightless turkey. That's the stuff of nightmares. The stuffing.

The first poem I read today

...was "Untrees" by John Reibetanz in Grain, Winter 2006, Vol. 33 No. 3. It's the issue titled "Don't Fall Asleep." Be sure to check it out if you haven't seen it already. The design is incredible. I won't try to describe it. I don't want to detract from the visual and tactile surprise. Even the sound of my fingers on it makes me want to pick it up again. Great stuff.

The 10th Annual Festival of Words

...launch was held last night. Margaret Atwood headlines the festival, which will be held July 20 - 23. The list of presenters is fantastic. I'm thrilled to be among them.

The first poem I read today

...was "The General" by A. F. Moritz from Rest on the Flight into Egypt.

The first poem I read today

...was "The Old Poet, Dying" by August Kleinzahler from The Strange Hours Travelers Keep.

As my fellow alumni from the Sage Hill Fall Poetry Colloquium know, I begin each morning with coffee and poems. It's been a habit of mine for years, but it was especially conspicuous at St. Michael's because I'd park myself in one of those large armchairs, feet up on a register, the view of the Qu'Appelle Valley before me. It was heavenly. At home I always begin my morning reading by my favourite window, the east light falling on the pages, the cat curled up beside me. Anyhow, I thought I'd post the first poem I read today, a variation of Edward Willett's practice on his blog.

The Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist

...has been announced. Right away I grabbed my copy of Sylvia Legris' book. It is wonderful. Phil Hall's book arrived in the mail the other day (many thanks to the sender). I don't have Erin Moure's yet, nor do I have any of the international shortlist.

I'd like to see

...the Alice Munro interview tomorrow, but I don't think we get TVO. I know we get CBC and TSN. That's where I find hockey. Otherwise I watch very little TV. Anyhow, I learned of the interview on a US blog.

This is unrelated, but I've been thinking about the erratic way I list books on this blog. Though I never intended this to be a book blog, some days I do mention the books I purchased. Some days I mention the books I'm reading. Most of the books, however, never get mentioned at all. My inconsistency troubles me. I know it's highly unlikely that any readers of this blog are saying to themselves Hey Schmidt, I know you bought my book. Why haven't you mentioned it?, but it worries me just the same. I have no reason to offer. No excuse. I thought about trying Ariel's system (see the bottom right hand corner of her blog), since I like checking to see what she's been reading. I also thought about noting the books in a weekly post. A big part of me wants to continue doing what I've been doing. Just reading reading reading like I've always done.

See, my studio

...is not the only one that houses an odd assortment of work. I wandered around my studio today, uttering the odd ah, sighing the odd sigh. I've been restless. It's time to paint.

Tonight the launch of the Society took place. I wanted to be there. Instead I spent the evening wandering around. I came across Languagehat's lovely post on Margaret Avison and a sobering poem by Robert Hass.

Redundancy

...notice?

April 4: update.

These eyes met

...some beautiful things in recent days, so beautiful it seemed a crime to blink. A wolf spider the colour of a dirt road crossing a dirt road between snow-filled ditches. The ice-laced snow lingering over the melt water. The poems that arrived in my inbox. It all became more beautiful each time I thought of it. Then I read Andrew Motion's review of Seamus Heaney's latest collection. His words on watchfulness in the final paragraph left me squinting, blinking and terribly aware of all the time my eyes spend closed.