ALONE ON A WINDY RIDGE: The various meanings of spruce and grouse

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The various meanings of spruce and grouse

...led me to send the image that's included in "Blogging and the Creative Process - A Short Interview with Brenda Schmidt" over on Capacious Hold-All. After all, my creative process does involve endless sprucing and grousing.

Now to spruce things up a bit.

5 comments:

Ian LeTourneau said...: Nice interview! And I would add that your readers, well at least me, probably profit from reading your blog in some of the same ways. For instance, I know I've put things on my reading list that I first saw here. Coincidentally Shawna Lemay's Calm Things is in my cue because you mentioned in a previous post. I was hoping to meet her in Calgary recently at the WGA/TWUC awards gala, and I did see her, but I figured I could find her again after I stood in the long line for food. I was wrong and disappointed on both counts...; 17/6/09 7:41 PM
Brenda Schmidt said...: Thanks, Ian! Calm Things is wonderful. Too bad you missed her in Calgary. So close! The rotten weather this spring ruined my chance to meet her.; 17/6/09 8:19 PM
Shawna Lemay said...: Sorry I missed meeting you Ian! That WAS one heck of a long line for food. Hope our paths cross again....; 19/6/09 7:50 AM
Pearl said...: heh, thanks for the pun.; 23/6/09 1:47 PM
Brenda Schmidt said...: Sometimes I get a bit carried away. :); 23/6/09 1:58 PM

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"This is a skilled poet having good fun, and inviting us all to join the party." - Shelley A. Leedahl, SaskBooks Reviews. Read more.

"Employing a variety of forms and the culvert stories — who knew? — of numerous people, she digs beneath the obvious roads to find out what keeps the water — the subconscious, the unconscious — flowing smoothly, discovering a variety of things about herself, notably the everyday masks we wear and the aging process we won’t always admit to." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"For Schmidt is indeed a poet. Readers can expect to encounter many visual and acoustic delights along the way, from internal rhymes to arresting images." - Trevor Cook, The Antigonish Review #196.

"In Grid..., Creighton's Brenda Schmidt turns a colder eye to the landscape than most other Canadian poets." - Jonathan Ball, Winnipeg Free Press. Read more.

"You can just feel the stones rattling off your undercarriage on this Grid." - Bill Robertson, The Star Phoenix. Read more.

"Like the Prairies, this is not a collection that gives itself away: the true beauty of this book lies in subtleties that may not be obvious at first glance." - Emily McGiffin, The Malahat Review. Read more.

"In Grid, moments are approached in their apparent stability only to be swept away in song rife with interruption and fresh stimuli, lending a new perspective. It is as though the familiar ground is an eye glancing back and the reflection only a nodal-point, open to opportunity and play." - Justin Dittrick, SPG Book Reviews. Read more.

"There is grit in these poems, so much that it seems unfair to think of them as nature poems; like the best nature writing, they undo our expectations of nature rather than uphold them." - Tanis MacDonald, Arc Poetry Magazine. Read more.

"In her fourth collection Grid, Schmidt’s wry humour transcends what we have watched heap up in Canada for more than a century—nature poems—balancing in canola fields between the beautiful lure of nature and our curious urge to separate ourselves from disappearing allotments of our own solace. We have wandered “off the grid” but fortunately Schmidt is an entertaining and insightful guide who can still find Li Po in a Dark-eyed Junco, if she has to." - Garry Thomas Morse, Jacket 2. Read more.

"These supple, witty, and incisive poems delineate our relationship to grids and systems both visible and invisible, natural and political." - Judges' citation, Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry nomination. Jurors: Shawna Lemay, Barbara Nickel, Sharon Thesen.