Canada's war poet experiences rocket attack

...and as the sirens sounded I was likely sleeping, maybe dreaming about Atwood's The Year of the Flood. I'm halfway through and hearing sirens of a different sort.

A self-induced seizure

...as performance art. Apparently the project received an arts council grant.

The bottom fell out

.

...but that happens.

Wasps and writers

...have some things in common. This occurred to me while I was taking these pics of paper from a wasp nest.
.

For one, they both spend a great deal of time chewing things over.
*

And I read tonight that wasps deposit pulp while backing up. Makes sense. They certainly do come up with some great lines.

Fleck

...

In the mail this week

... a signed copy of Cantilevered Songs by John Lent.


Big thanks to Tracy for this. I wanted to attend one of Lent's readings when he was touring through Saskatchewan, but it didn't work out. Also in the package was this cool ruler. Rulers of Impressionism. Paul Cezanne is at the 3 1/4 inch mark.

Speaking of Lent, I finished Abundance: The Mackie House Conversations about the Writing Life last night. The conversation between John Lent and Robert Kroetsch was just what I needed. It was inspiring. I spent the day writing in what I'm now calling my cave, eager to roll a boulder in front of the door. Before rolling it in place I'll likely give a little wave and say see ya. In three years. No sooner. Unless I run out of ink. Mind you, I can order that online. After all, we do have courier service up here.

Now back in the cave. Open...Saskatchewan!

So there's a number of grouse

...in the OED between groupuscule (which is a small political group or an extremist splinter group) and a whole lot of grout


and in the yard right now between the house (which has its share of splinters too) and a whole lot of willow, a whole lot more.

There's no sign of aesthetic tribalism

...in Saskatchewan's writing community. At least not that I can see. I'm talking about the aesthetic tribalism described in this post on Table Music. If a lack of interaction is what creates certain camps, as Chris Banks suggests, then I can see why we are like we are. In Saskatchewan we interact all the time. Our doors are wide open. And while we find ourselves in various circles of like-minded writers from here and there across the country and beyond, place does matter. Saskatchewan's new formalists, surrealists, narrative-lyricists, popomos and everything in-between frequently sit down together at a table and break bread. We hear each other read. Then we sit down at another table afterward and chat some more. Writers of all types are brought in from across the country and we sit down with them. The Saskatchewan Writers Guild and The Sage Hill Writing Experience have been important community builders in this regard and have been for decades. Of course there's the Saskatchewan Festival of Words. The reading series Tonight it's Poetry in Saskatoon and the Vertigo Reading Series in Regina do this as well. And we spend time with each other and with writers across the country and beyond at the Saskatchewan Writers/Artists Colonies, which have been held for nearly thirty years. There we chat over three square meals a day and at happy hour and hear each other's work at the weekly readings. So I belong to no poetry camp. I can't imagine it. I have no fort. I like to think I could sit down with any writer anywhere and have a nice chat. I like to think I'd be welcome. This thinking sits down with me at every table.

Who owns the comments

...made on blogs? That's the question posed in this post on Lemon Hound. Good question. Checking in on the comments today, I followed a link posted by Lemon Hound to this post on The Tolerance Project. If you're interested in the issues around the MFA and the professionalization of poetry, this post and the comments that follow are well worth the time.

There's an abundance

...of berries in the yard right now. An abundance of birds.


This pic was taken through a triple pane window a little while ago and you can tell. It's just not clear. The snow was falling then and it's still falling. The grosbeaks come and go, that yellow against the snow bringing to mind the disruptions of which Robert Kroetsch and John Lent speak in Abundance: The Mackie House Conversations about the Writing Life. Gerry had an extra copy and offered it to me and I jumped on it, as both Kroetsch and Lent have been important to me and my work. I'm partway through the conversation. It's wonderful. When I'm done I'll let it sit then read it again with pencil in hand. There will be marks. In abundance. Unresolvability, for one, will be underlined.

*
Disruptions here today, interruptions yesterday on Capacious Hold-All. A time of ruptions. I just looked ruption up in the OED and found that it's now rare or obsolete. Not specific enough I suppose. Doesn't sit well on the tongue either. Nor in the ear.

What a cool cover

...on Track & Trace by Zachariah Wells. Here's a macro of the debossed footprints.




Here's a take on the book itself.