ALONE ON A WINDY RIDGE: March 2012

Friday, March 30, 2012

Yes, more books

...arrived on this blustery day. I'll soon need more shelves and another house.

Assiniboia by Tim Lilburn.

Rain; road; an open boat by Roo Borson.

Paradoxides by Don McKay.

Phyllis Webb and the Common Good by Stephen Collis.

I learned of the book on Webb over on Calm Things. I've really been into reading about Canadian writers lately.

Crowds of redpolls and grosbeaks in the yard. Big flocks of Bohemian Waxwings moving through. More books on the way!

Monday, March 19, 2012

The latest additions

...to my lovely collection of books.

Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke by Theodore Roethke. I ordered this after seeing a quote from it over on Calm Things.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver. I ordered this after seeing it mentioned over on Poet Shoes.

A Likely Story: The Writing Life by Robert Kroetsch. I ordered this after a recent conversation in which it was recommended.

The first crows of the season arrived last week. The first junco arrived yesterday just before our first thunderstorm. It was brief, but a storm is a storm.

Monday, March 05, 2012

Heads up! The Sage Hill Spring Poetry Colloquium

...deadline has been extended. The news just hit my inbox. I know some poets who worked with Barry Dempster at Sage Hill last spring and they were thrilled with the quality of the experience. Here's the scoop:

Sage Hill Spring Poetry Colloquium

The deadline for this spring’s Sage Hill Spring Poetry Colloquium with Barry Dempster has been extended to March 15 - at last, a chance to be glad for the ides of March. The colloquium is a terrific opportunity for poets closing in on a new collection to work with a master facilitator and editor for two weeks, May 4-17, in the beautiful setting of the Qu’Appelle Valley near Regina. Details at http://www.sagehillwriting.ca. You won’t be sorry.

I've been to two Sage Hill poetry colloquiums. Worth every penny.

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Grid is coming

...in April. It's a book of poems. Here's what the publisher has to say about it.

I finished going over the proofs today. I'll mail them off tomorrow. Then I'll wait for the ice to break up on the lakes. It will be a while yet. Lots to do before then.

Friday, March 02, 2012

More good-looking books

...came in the mail on this fine sunny day.

Dancing, with Mirrors by George Amabile.

Restless White Fields by Barbara Langhorst.

"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.