Few novels

...make me laugh, fewer yet make me cry, but to my cat's dismay The Art of Salvage by Leona Theis managed both. It's a fine, fast-paced novel. And penetrating. I flew through the 343 pages in record time, but in doing so I failed to dog-ear pages. I'll go back and do that. There's a number of passages I want to return to.

I've been writing a lot over the past several weeks. I've got pages and pages of new work pinned up in front of me, the superheroes and black cats staring at me from between poems. I tacked my latest poem up beside the latest black cat card, a postcard I received from France just the other day. Given my poor grasp of French, I only recognize the words chat and noir. Worse yet, the cat is staring at me like I'm clueless.

Imagine a loon calling

...as you're sitting with a poet on the deck at a cabin, chatting about a new poem, your belly full after overindulging on the fantastic feast that poet had whipped up, which included that poet's own poet-grown zucchini and poet-grown tomatoes and for dessert, a fabulous chocolate cake. Needless to say, it was heavenly. Not only that, imagine a poet who proves to be an enthusiastic blueberry picker just like yourself. Yes, I'm happy to say this week marks the first time I've picked blueberries with a poet. We talked poetry. We covered a lot of ground as we picked.

Great experts

...can be created deliberately. I guess I should've started writing novels when I was three instead of colouring all those colouring books. My favourite crayons were the orange and violet ones, colours which the Crayola crayon chronology says have been around since the beginning. I still love the way crayons smell.

Clumps of cranberries

...lit up the rocks this evening. I felt guilty for picking off the beauty.

I shot some culverts, too.

It's a good year

...for blueberries in this neck of the woods.




H and I picked berries again tonight. I get lots of thinking done while I pick. Sometimes when I grab a handful of berries I'll grab onto a solution to a problematic poem. Sometimes I end up with a bit of a line. Sometimes a sound. And I don't mean the scream I let out when the ant sunk itself into my leg.

It's pouring

...so I spent the morning at the computer, working and watching it rain. I started the day by editing another poet's poem. What a pleasure. After that I overhauled one of my own. In front of me is a bulletin board on which I've pinned all the poems I've written over the past week. Under each of them are drafts of their former selves, the underlying words faint and eerie. This method of layering is new for me.

Just now I hauled out the pile of paper I took away from Karen Solie's poetry master class. It was a well organized and well thought out class with plenty of handouts. Impressive. I'm looking for the list of recommended reading to see which collections of essays on poetry and poetics I haven't yet read.

Solie's class was held on the opening day of the Festival of Words. That night I read at the fun Readception, the first of four readings I'd give at the festival. Tracy's excellent festival diary covers many of the same events I attended, though there are some differences as there was plenty of choice for each time slot. The diary also glances over some of the collateral events that materialized in the heat of the merriment.

The festival marks the first time I've seen Margaret Atwood in person and I was tickled, but it was H who had a marvellous chance encounter with not only Atwood, but Adrienne Clarkson, Graeme Gibson and John Ralston Saul. What luck. Oh yes, I failed to mention his close encounters with David Gilmour. H is obviously hogging the horseshoe.

Another highlight

...of the Festival of Words was the launch of Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method by Daniel Scott Tysdal. The book was designed by Duncan Campbell. I mention this because the book is something to behold. Be sure to check out a copy so you can see what I mean. I could write a 1000 words and still fail to adequately describe the way its content and design meet. It's exciting to look at and to read. I just finished reading "Metro" which the notes in the back tell me is a trailerization of Pound's "In a Station of the Metro." This marks my first known encounter with a trailerization. I must say it's fantastic.

How to spot

...a noun.

On the subject of nouns, if someone told you to close your eyes and think about the word "potato" what would you do?

The most moving

...event I attended at the Festival of Words was the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Andrew Suknaski's Wood Mountain Poems. I'd read the book only once before. Now I finally own a copy. Andrew Suknaski signed it for me. Last night I stayed up until the wee hours, rediscovering the poems, finally turning out the light after I read the last one. It's an incredible book.