Today the focus shifted

...to muskrats.

Today I was doing research

...for the writing project that I'm working on now. The following pics were taken by H.

Here's our guide and his camo-coloured cat.



Here's what he found for us.



Notice the coyote in the top right corner of this one.



And here's a couple does.



It was great to climb through the coulees. Wildlife everywhere.


What a glorious day.

What are we prepared to do

...asks Michael Geist at the end of his talk on privacy implications. Now that I've read the post, watched the video, and followed the links over at Salt and Ice, I'm ready for a long night of nightmares about a broad surveillance society. Yikes.

The time has come

...to ship the box of books back to Washington. H will take the box to the post office tomorrow. I'm sorry to see the books go, but grateful to have had time with them. I was quite taken with the books by Tess Gallagher and Yusef Komunyakaa. I'll likely order them down the road so I can spend more time with the poems. Both books are lengthy. Komunyakaa's is well over 400 pages.

Yesterday I wrote a letter to accompany the books in reply to the letter that he'd sent me. I write an enormous number of emails, so one would think writing a letter would be just as easy. It wasn't. It took forever to finally type "Dear..." Once I did I thought I was away. And I was, but at tortoise speed. It took quite a while to comment on each book and offer my impressions without writing a review of each one. I don't write reviews after all. Oddly enough, after I was done I felt pretty proud of myself. Perhaps I should write letters more often.

I made two changes

...to the studio. The cat now has a new bed, which she seems to like. And I added another plant. H's jade. It's been with us for years. Unlike the cactus that we had to part with, the jade is very slow growing. H transplanted it a few days ago. It's now in a 10 gallon crock. It was heavy and awkward to move, but we managed to get it into the studio without injuring ourselves or the floor.


Speaking of changes, H went out to Rocky View a few days ago to retrieve my paintings. Sadly, they've closed their doors, at least temporarily. On the bright side, H came home with fewer paintings than expected. A number of them had sold. What a boost! These paintings are among my most recent watercolour landscapes and represent quite a shift in style, a shift that I'd been worrying about ever since we took the paintings out there. Perhaps now I can let some of that worry go and get back to the easel.

*

Out of the ever changing bookseller-distributor-publisher-customer relationship comes this noteworthy post from Biblioasis, a small literary press who puts out lovely books that have been receiving attention nationwide. The points he raises concern me. Here's what Zach Wells has to say about it. As you might recall, I had problems with my last order from Amazon. Living where I do, I rely heavily on online shopping. Since the enormous number of books being published in this country and elsewhere are conveniently listed in online catalogues, I can add the books I want to my shopping cart with a simple click. And I do. And I always order enough to qualify for free shipping. That's never a problem. Unfortunately, I've let that little shopping cart run over my common sense. For whatever reason, I expect the delivery to be just as quick and easy and I get frustrated when it isn't. I expect great savings. Really. It's time I rethink my expectations and the way I go about buying books.

Update:
October 25 - Today Biblioasis posted an interesting follow-up.

This afternoon I got a call

...from Luther College at the University of Regina. Professor Gerry Hill and his English class, in a course called "Writing the Western Landscape," were looking at "More Than Three Feet of Ice," the title poem of my last book, and they had some questions for me. Some very challenging questions. It was a fun call. Of course any line of questioning that starts off with a line containing an outhouse is bound to be fun.

UPDATE:
Here's Gerry's account. I plan to track down that Banting text.

I've been hanging around

...CanCult.ca lately. It's slick, clean and the tone really appeals to me. And the images add a lot. In fact, I just subscribed to CanCult.ca's feed, a first for me. I've been resistant to RSS , though I have absolutely no reason. I subscribed to one other feed as well. It's to a blog.

*

I read the Goran Simic interview over at Words at Large. A very good interview. His words about Gwendolyn MacEwen are especially poignant.

*

Today I finally decided I should not read science news prior to editing my poems. It's never a good sign when one looks at a poem and says, well...we all know what happens when a weighty, dying star's core collapses. Then, turning to the cat....I don't feel a gravitational tug, do you?

The Hyland Award

...was presented on Saturday at the Hyland Award Luncheon at the Hotel Saskatchewan. It was incredibly moving. More about it here and here.

This little pin

...measures 2.5 X 1.5 cm. Though small in size, it means a great deal to me. It was presented to me yesterday at the SWG's annual general meeting. All the outgoing board members received one. While the SWG president Robert Calder said a few words, I stood beside him and looked around the room at the members. I saw faces of people I don't yet know. I saw the smiling faces of friends. And I saw the faces of people I've long admired not only for their outstanding achievements as writers, but for their steadfast commitment to the community of writers. They are great role models. Tears began to well as I looked at the ones who had come up and spoke to me at my first public reading in 2000 at the launch of the first volume of spring. I didn't know anyone then. I didn't know how or if I'd ever fit in. Their kindness meant a lot. It still does.

The SWG conference and AGM was excellent as usual. It was held at the Hotel Saskatchewan this year. I have nothing but good things to say. I attended the sessions and readings and came away with plenty to think about. Our days wound up in the Monarch's Lounge. The John V. Hicks Awards dinner was held in the Cortlandt Dining Room. The open mic was held there, too. How wonderful to read with that glorious chandelier above our heads!

The open mic, masterfully hosted by Gerry Hill, was special as always. While the open mic had many memorable moments, I was absolutely thrilled when Elizabeth Brewster took the mic. Born in 1922, she has had a long and distinguished career as a writer and academic. And there she was at the open mic, elegant and eloquent, showing a wonderful sense of humour and setting a great example for us all.

The launch of spring Volume V

...was held tonight at the Hotel Saskatchewan in Regina. Nine of the contributors read. I was sitting near the front, but from what I could tell from a quick crank of the head, there was a good crowd.

It was great to chat face to face with writers, friends and fellow bloggers. Here's a pic of Tracy Hamon, Kelly-Anne Riess, whose work appears in this volume of spring, and me.



And it was great to see my pop culture mentor, Paula Jane Remlinger, whose work appears in this volume as well. Here's the two of us.



And here's me with Gerry Hill, the editor and poetry editor of this volume of spring.


Gerry is hosting the open mic on Saturday at the conference. I'm looking forward to it. It's always a great time and his introductions are legendary.

There will be a display of members' work spaces

...at the SWG conference this year. I emailed some pics of my work space this afternoon to be included in the Power Point presentation. Anyhow, I thought I'd post a few pics of what my office looks like today as a way of responding to SMS's comment on a previous post.

So here I am at my desk after we got home from having coffee at the Orange Toad.


In front of me is a poem that I've been working on and a notebook in which the first draft of another poem waits to be put on the computer. (Never mind the four little brown ceramic bunnies in front of the phone.) Above that, just under the monitor, is a moleskine and under that is CNQ 71. To the right of the monitor are my dictionaries and beside them is a thesaurus that I never use. In the pile to the right is John Metcalf's An Aesthetic Underground, which I just finished reading. Under that is the latest issue of Freelance, which I've almost finished, a bunch of poems that I've been editing, a couple issues of Scientific American that I've been reading, and on the bottom is the manuscript of my upcoming book.

On the wall above the desk is a piece by Cara Winsor Hehir.

To my left is a bulletin board with a number of poems-in-progress. Above the poems are a few superhero cards from my pop culture mentor, a Frank & Ernest cartoon about procrastination that H clipped out and gave to me, and a quote from George Bernard Shaw. Beneath the quote you can see the top of "The Penguin of Death" card, also from my pop culture mentor. On the bottom right of the bulletin board is a quick ink sketch of the cat's sister, who died a few years back. She used to sit on the bookcases and watch me work.

In front of the bulletin board is the printer, on top of which is the pile of books from the US writer, and the letter that accompanied them. I've been reading my eyes out so I can return the books to him. As you can see, many of them are lengthy. The printer sits on a two-drawer filing cabinet where I keep current material. The other filing cabinets are downstairs.

In the bookcase to the right of my desk I keep material I don't want to misplace. Most of it applies in one way or another to what I'm currently working on. On the top shelf behind the lamp is a stuffed spider given to me by Paula Jane. Spiders are central to the book that I'm working on now. Under the stuffed spider is a black box stuffed with correspondence. The little orange thing sticking out of the box is a finger puppet. A tiger. On the far right of the second shelf is a pile of books that I borrowed from Tracy. On the third shelf beside the binders is an unruly pile of stuff that needs sorting and filing. The bottom shelf is where I keep supplies and other binders.

Behind me is a wall of bookcases.


I couldn't get them all in, but you get the idea.

Today H advertised the cactus yet again

...on Traders' Post, the buy, sell, or give away program on the local radio show. Much to our surprise, someone promptly called and said she'd be here this afternoon to pick it up. I couldn't believe it.

The cactus stood patiently in the driveway, waiting for her to arrive.


And soon a truck pulled into the yard. The cactus was then carefully removed from the pot, gently placed on a blanket and lifted into the truck box.


I was pretty choked up as I watched the truck pull away. But happy for the cactus. It has found a new home.