My first thunderstorm

...of the year passed over a while ago. It was brief. A couple cracks. Some spitting. The cat didn't seem too worried. At the time I was reading Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirshfield. Gerry had an extra copy and gave it to me at the poetry salon. I was thrilled. I'd borrowed a copy from the colony library a couple years back, read some of it and decided to order it once I got home so I could take my time and revisit it whenever I want. I never did order it. I suspect my wish list never made it out of the notebook that I used for that colony. Oh well. I'm happy I have a copy now. The timing couldn't be better.

As I've mentioned before, I begin my mornings with coffee and poetry. This morning I was reading A Ghost in Waterloo Station by Bert Almon. I stopped after reading "St. Cuthbert and the Sea Otters," an intriguing prose poem that I'll revisit tomorrow morning before carrying on.

I don't know if I mentioned that I joined the Brick Book Club again this year. The spring titles showed up last week or the week before. So far I've read John Donlan's Spirit Engine and The Luskville Reductions by Monty Reid. I still have Brenda Leifso's Daughters of Men to read. I think I'll save Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems by Randall Maggs till fall when the next hockey season begins. Speaking of which, I understand CBC won't be showing as many Leafs games this coming year. I didn't care for the variety pack approach Hockey Night in Canada employed at the end of the regular season. How does one get behind a team when you only see them once in a while? I suppose now I'll have to watch the Leafs on my computer. Ugh.

Back to books. In the mail this week was The Sleeping Life, a collection of poems by Kerry Ryan. I met Kerry when I was in Winnipeg.

Also arriving this week was After the Blizzard by Zachariah Wells, a lovely chipbook, or mini chapbook, published by littlefishcartpress. What lovely paper.

Also new to my bookshelf is Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets, edited by Zachariah Wells. I picked it up when I was in Saskatoon last and have been dipping into it. There's great variety and notes on the poems to boot.

I also recently bought A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. I found a used copy in the Orange Toad in Flin Flon. Hardcover. Mint condition.

More books will be arriving next week. No shortage of summer reading in the Schmidt house.