Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Tonight I pulled out
...my well-worn copy of the King James Bible, the one I used in a course on the Bible and literature. Of all the English courses I took, it was the most memorable and valuable. You can tell by all the highlighted passages. I obviously took the course during my yellow and blue phase. Anyhow, I just revisited Ecclesiastes 12. Earlier today H phoned to tell me that George Elliott Clarke was up next on Sounds Like Canada. Apparently Shelagh Rogers is checking in with him regularly this year and will do so again in the coming weeks. H and I are both big fans of Clarke's work. So I clicked on CBC and learned that Clarke recently received the Order of Nova Scotia and an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University of Waterloo. He said he took the opportunity to read Ecclesiastes 12 to the students. He went on to say how important it is to "be in touch with truly great works" and the Bible is tremendous literature. As I read Ecclesiastes 12 I thought yes, it is important to be in touch, but when I came to 12.12-14, a passage I'd highlighted in yellow years ago, a passage that didn't sound the least bit familiar now, I began to wonder how important it is to stay in touch.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
My pop culture mentor
...sent me another puzzling postcard. I've been studying it for days. There's sand. And an audience. And 80s high tops. The frog on the far right has no shoes. And what's with those stripes? Yikes. Not to mention the frog heads and tutus. Anyhow, tonight I broke down and did some searching. It looks like these frogs were part of what's now called the puppetista movement. Before now I knew nothing about the history of radical puppetry.
I just had the pleasure of hearing
...Kimmy Beach read from fake Paul over at AuthorsAloud. What a great site. I'm happy to say I have fake Paul on my shelf. In my library. I mention this because today I learned about LibraryThing over at Salt and Ice. Of course I checked out his library and saw a number of books I'd like to borrow. Anyhow, I think all my friends should have LibraryThing on their blogs. Then I could eye up their books as well.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Must artists protect themselves
...against the commercial world if they are to remain powerful and true? Of course there's the matter of prizes and the so-called "economy of cultural production and prestige" to consider.
Thanks to these two articles, my period of procrastination has stretched well into the evening. I think procrastination is part of my writing process. A necessary part. Sometimes I picture myself as an elastic band on the thumb of my muse. My muse will pull me back, aiming, until my patience is so thin you'd think I'd snap. Then he lets go and I fly off, hitting the target or missing, but flying just the same. It's great. Other times, when he hasn't positioned me quite right, I smack into his thumb. Not so great.
Thanks to these two articles, my period of procrastination has stretched well into the evening. I think procrastination is part of my writing process. A necessary part. Sometimes I picture myself as an elastic band on the thumb of my muse. My muse will pull me back, aiming, until my patience is so thin you'd think I'd snap. Then he lets go and I fly off, hitting the target or missing, but flying just the same. It's great. Other times, when he hasn't positioned me quite right, I smack into his thumb. Not so great.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
The point of poetry
..."is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away" says Paul Muldoon in this review of his latest book. I plan to memorize that. I like what he says about making little jokes, something which I've been playing with of late in my own work.
There's a post over at Eyewear responding to this review and to an article about Muldoon in The Economist which I haven't read. Swift's remarks about the concepts of lyric ego and poetic artifice have left me thinking.
I just got off the bike. I spent the last hour with the tension cranked, pedalling to the words of Tim Lilburn's Moosewood Sandhills, a book I've read many times. My heart is still pounding.
There's a post over at Eyewear responding to this review and to an article about Muldoon in The Economist which I haven't read. Swift's remarks about the concepts of lyric ego and poetic artifice have left me thinking.
I just got off the bike. I spent the last hour with the tension cranked, pedalling to the words of Tim Lilburn's Moosewood Sandhills, a book I've read many times. My heart is still pounding.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Hats off
...to those who planned the SWG Conference and AGM. It was excellent. The Park Town Hotel is the perfect venue for the event. I love the place.
On Friday I had to choose between concurrent sessions. I attended "Imagine Getting Published" and listened to Barbara Sapergia and Geoffrey Ursell of Coteau Books and Paul Wilson of Hagios Press discuss the realities of publishing and ways writers can work with it. That evening, hyped on chocolate, I emailed some writer friends from afar about some of the points made in the session that applied most to my own situation, and we yapped back and forth a bit before I went to the lecture. I just revisited the emails.
After that I attended Warren Cariou's session called "Narrative Economies: Telling, Showing, and the Experience of Time." In the session he had us revisit and rethink the advice we've all heard in creative writing classes and workshops: show don't tell. The discussion around the collapsing and expanding of time in a narrative was timely and useful. Hopefully my novel will be better paced as a result.
Then I hosted Dave Carpenter's session "Re: Vision" which focussed on revising. Again, this session was timely. There was an active discussion during which a number of established writers in the audience shared their experiences. Thanks to them, I feel a bit more at ease with my projects.
That evening I attended the Caroline Heath Memorial Lecture presented by Denise Chong. If you were there, lucky you. Here I go with the superlatives again, but it was incredible and incredibly moving. The next day I heard several people say that they were awake well into the night because of it. I was still trying to get to sleep at 3:30. I kept thinking about what Chong said about mining memory. I imagine the lecture will be published in Freelance, so be sure to read it. Unfortunately, what she said during the Q&A that followed will not be published. A professor and writer asked for the low-down the next day, but I was unable to properly summarize it. I'm happy I was there.
The next morning I drank too much coffee at the Hot Issues Session. Some great things came up.
After that I sat in on "Imagine a Writing Life." Brenda Baker and Steven Ross Smith discussed the challenges and rewards of fitting writing into their lives. The awareness of time, of having only so much time left in life to get the writing done, really resonated. I heard this again today in the Bookninja interview with Trevor Cole. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
That afternoon I attended a session called "The Censored Imagination." The panellists Warren Cariou, Denise Chong, Jean Hillabold and Candace Savage talked about censorship, self-censorship, voice appropriation and the problems around political correctness. Again I came away with plenty to think about. I'm now aware that I haven't given adequate thought to the problem of self-censorship.
Then I hosted the session called "Imagine Your Literary Archives." Archivists Cheryl Avery and Ken Dahl talked about what to save, how to store it, and how to prepare your material for the archives. During the discussion I was thinking about their emphasis on correspondence, the importance of it, and the ephemeral nature of digital media, email, of course, included. Nowadays most of my correspondence is by email. For the past few years I've been involved in the editing of poets' work and this has been done entirely through email. What evidence of that process will survive to see the archives?
After readings by Warren Cariou and Denise Chong, and a great chat with a gathering of writers in the lounge, I attended the John V. Hicks Dinner. This year the John. V. Hicks Long Manuscript Awards recognized plays. Two Saskatoon actors, Cheryl Jack and Bruce McKay, gave us a great taste of the winning manuscripts of Barbara Sapergia (Saskatoon), Gordon Portman (formerly of Regina, now of Brandon) and Geoffrey Ursell (Saskatoon). The food was great. I ate way too much cake.
Then Gerry Hill hosted the open mike. Hats off to Gerry. His introductions are hilarious. Brilliant. It was a lot of fun. I read a couple poems from my new project Grid. During the evening I saw several writers taking the opportunity to talk to Joanne Gerber, Literary Arts Consultant with the Saskatchewan Arts Board and Paul Seesequasis, Program Officer in the Writing and Publishing section of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Our table was the last to leave. A few of us wandered over to the pub and chatted. It was fun. I caught the hockey highlights and learned that Mats Sundin scored his 500th. I quit watching TV as soon as the non-hockey fans among us threatened to give a play-by-play of the Toronto-Calgary game, which, for some reason, they were broadcasting again.
The AGM was held on Sunday morning. A good turnout. Again I drank too much coffee. I did manage to avoid the sweets table. I left Saskatoon early in the afternoon with a belly full of pizza, a jar of Tracy's irresistible salsa and a CD of the Klass Brothers / Cuba Percussion, also from Tracy.
The thing I found most remarkable at this conference and at Talking Fresh earlier this year was a noticeable increase in the amount, range and level of audience participation. Specifically, many more established writers in the audience asked questions and contributed to the discussion. This adds an enormous amount to the sessions. Hats off to all of them.
On Friday I had to choose between concurrent sessions. I attended "Imagine Getting Published" and listened to Barbara Sapergia and Geoffrey Ursell of Coteau Books and Paul Wilson of Hagios Press discuss the realities of publishing and ways writers can work with it. That evening, hyped on chocolate, I emailed some writer friends from afar about some of the points made in the session that applied most to my own situation, and we yapped back and forth a bit before I went to the lecture. I just revisited the emails.
After that I attended Warren Cariou's session called "Narrative Economies: Telling, Showing, and the Experience of Time." In the session he had us revisit and rethink the advice we've all heard in creative writing classes and workshops: show don't tell. The discussion around the collapsing and expanding of time in a narrative was timely and useful. Hopefully my novel will be better paced as a result.
Then I hosted Dave Carpenter's session "Re: Vision" which focussed on revising. Again, this session was timely. There was an active discussion during which a number of established writers in the audience shared their experiences. Thanks to them, I feel a bit more at ease with my projects.
That evening I attended the Caroline Heath Memorial Lecture presented by Denise Chong. If you were there, lucky you. Here I go with the superlatives again, but it was incredible and incredibly moving. The next day I heard several people say that they were awake well into the night because of it. I was still trying to get to sleep at 3:30. I kept thinking about what Chong said about mining memory. I imagine the lecture will be published in Freelance, so be sure to read it. Unfortunately, what she said during the Q&A that followed will not be published. A professor and writer asked for the low-down the next day, but I was unable to properly summarize it. I'm happy I was there.
The next morning I drank too much coffee at the Hot Issues Session. Some great things came up.
After that I sat in on "Imagine a Writing Life." Brenda Baker and Steven Ross Smith discussed the challenges and rewards of fitting writing into their lives. The awareness of time, of having only so much time left in life to get the writing done, really resonated. I heard this again today in the Bookninja interview with Trevor Cole. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
That afternoon I attended a session called "The Censored Imagination." The panellists Warren Cariou, Denise Chong, Jean Hillabold and Candace Savage talked about censorship, self-censorship, voice appropriation and the problems around political correctness. Again I came away with plenty to think about. I'm now aware that I haven't given adequate thought to the problem of self-censorship.
Then I hosted the session called "Imagine Your Literary Archives." Archivists Cheryl Avery and Ken Dahl talked about what to save, how to store it, and how to prepare your material for the archives. During the discussion I was thinking about their emphasis on correspondence, the importance of it, and the ephemeral nature of digital media, email, of course, included. Nowadays most of my correspondence is by email. For the past few years I've been involved in the editing of poets' work and this has been done entirely through email. What evidence of that process will survive to see the archives?
After readings by Warren Cariou and Denise Chong, and a great chat with a gathering of writers in the lounge, I attended the John V. Hicks Dinner. This year the John. V. Hicks Long Manuscript Awards recognized plays. Two Saskatoon actors, Cheryl Jack and Bruce McKay, gave us a great taste of the winning manuscripts of Barbara Sapergia (Saskatoon), Gordon Portman (formerly of Regina, now of Brandon) and Geoffrey Ursell (Saskatoon). The food was great. I ate way too much cake.
Then Gerry Hill hosted the open mike. Hats off to Gerry. His introductions are hilarious. Brilliant. It was a lot of fun. I read a couple poems from my new project Grid. During the evening I saw several writers taking the opportunity to talk to Joanne Gerber, Literary Arts Consultant with the Saskatchewan Arts Board and Paul Seesequasis, Program Officer in the Writing and Publishing section of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Our table was the last to leave. A few of us wandered over to the pub and chatted. It was fun. I caught the hockey highlights and learned that Mats Sundin scored his 500th. I quit watching TV as soon as the non-hockey fans among us threatened to give a play-by-play of the Toronto-Calgary game, which, for some reason, they were broadcasting again.
The AGM was held on Sunday morning. A good turnout. Again I drank too much coffee. I did manage to avoid the sweets table. I left Saskatoon early in the afternoon with a belly full of pizza, a jar of Tracy's irresistible salsa and a CD of the Klass Brothers / Cuba Percussion, also from Tracy.
The thing I found most remarkable at this conference and at Talking Fresh earlier this year was a noticeable increase in the amount, range and level of audience participation. Specifically, many more established writers in the audience asked questions and contributed to the discussion. This adds an enormous amount to the sessions. Hats off to all of them.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
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.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Superlatives
...were on the menu last night. A writer and I chatted about their use in a flurry of email. Make that a slough of email. I have my email programs set to croak like a frog every time someone sends a message and the frog was croaking non-stop. Anyhow, I'm smiling because I just finished Steven Price's Anatomy of Keys, a book more than worthy of superlatives. Price has an extraordinary ear. It's an extraordinary book. I couldn't help but read much of it aloud. Even the cat was impressed. It's hard to impress the cat.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
For lunch
...I enjoyed H's delicious pear and Roquefort salad while listening to John MacKenzie read poems by D. H. Lawrence and Czeslaw Milosz. What a fantastic dining experience.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
What a thrill
...to be named in the acknowledgements of this thesis! It's the first scholarly study on the poetry of Saskatchewan writer John V. Hicks. I downloaded the pdf last night and lo and behold, there my name was right beside The Dead Parrots. Wonderful!
This week flew by. My days have been long. The poems continue to come. My wall is now sheeted with them.
A large box arrived on Wednesday, a box full of poetry and nonfiction. I dug into the books right away. And, to top it off, on Wednesday night hockey season kicked off. I do my best writing during the regular season. I watched hockey Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (the Montreal-Buffalo game was awesome!) and I'll be on the couch again tonight for Hockey Night in Canada. This is my favourite time of year.
This week flew by. My days have been long. The poems continue to come. My wall is now sheeted with them.
A large box arrived on Wednesday, a box full of poetry and nonfiction. I dug into the books right away. And, to top it off, on Wednesday night hockey season kicked off. I do my best writing during the regular season. I watched hockey Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (the Montreal-Buffalo game was awesome!) and I'll be on the couch again tonight for Hockey Night in Canada. This is my favourite time of year.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
I like to work
...in relative silence. Whenever the phone rings I jump out of my skin. And so it goes. The phone rang a little while ago. I jumped. The cat jumped. The word I was in the middle of writing and all the thoughts that were racing ahead were reduced to a syllable followed by a sudden black line. Argh. I picked up the phone. It was H, alerting me that Roy Miki was up next on Sounds Like Canada. I immediately perked up and clicked on CBC to listen. Miki just received the Thakore Visiting Scholar Award, which honours individuals who show a concern for truth, justice and non-violence in public life. During the interview he read a poem from his book Surrender, a book I have on my shelf. Better yet, he briefly talked about the many ways of entering a poetic space. Thankfully, I was listening.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Hats off
...to The Winnipeg Free Press for their new books section! Wow. It's a gorgeous pull-out tab. The layout is fantastic. Ariel Gordon's review of Mary Lawson's new novel is featured. You should see it. Really. It's in today's paper.
Happy October
...to you. It's a bright morning. Raining leaves. Just outside my window a Ruby-crowned Kinglet is singing a strange version of its song. I'd like to think it's daring me to be as brave. I just looked over yesterday's notes and poems. I can't believe how much I wrote in September. It was one of the most productive months I've had in years. Looking back, I see I didn't get rolling until well into the month. I couldn't resist reading the latest comment on my procrastination post again. It makes me chuckle and I haven't even seen the cartoon.
This morning I've been thinking about the latest articles at Northern Poetry Review, the world of parasitic weeds and the jar of home-made salsa we were promised, how we come to recognise genius, the earth at night, visual attention, the state of the hotel we stayed in last week and the pros and cons of open access. I revisited The Memory Orchard. It, too, left me thinking.
The kinglet is moving off. Perhaps it's time to get down to work.
This morning I've been thinking about the latest articles at Northern Poetry Review, the world of parasitic weeds and the jar of home-made salsa we were promised, how we come to recognise genius, the earth at night, visual attention, the state of the hotel we stayed in last week and the pros and cons of open access. I revisited The Memory Orchard. It, too, left me thinking.
The kinglet is moving off. Perhaps it's time to get down to work.
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