Monday, February 05, 2007

excelsior!

Hey all,

Over the past few weeks, I've had news of three acceptances and have been quietly, privately, tickled.

Since I'm not especially good at either private or quiet, I thought I'd share the good tidings.

First off, two fallbackian poems, warming the engine and off leash, appeared in PRISM International, now under Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award HM / ARC Poem of the Year winner Bren Simmer's watch.

One of the nicer things about appearing in PRISM, besides it being resume fodder, is the exquisite company I get to keep: Barry Dempster, Maureen Hynes, and Tracy Hamon.

Secondly, a poem entitled To make a charm against love, composed in the narrow Charlotte Bronte room at Hawthornden Castle in June 2005 will be appearing in the Manitoba Writers' Guild silver anniversary anthology.


With my acceptance came notification of the anthology's title and its anticipated publication date (A/Cross Sections: New Manitoba Writing, and September 2007 respectively).

Though I know this only from behind-the-scenes whisperings, apparently a few other members of my new poetry-only writing group will have also work in the anthology

(i.e. yay, both for the fact that the as-yet-unnamed group exists and for the individual members and their individual acceptances...).

Finally, a long(ish) poem from Guidelines, my manuscript-in-the-making of travel poetry, will be appearing in a special supplement to the spring issue of Prairie Fire magazine.

The supplement, entitled Home Place, "will feature new poems by established and emerging poets who live in Winnipeg. The purpose is to draw attention to Winnipeg's fine poets and also to celebrate Manitoba's new poetry prize."

The poem, entitled Wallow, is about a (waterbuffalo) bullfight I attended in Indonesia in 1999.

Though this was the last of the acceptances, the issue will be on the newsstands in April and will be launched during Manitoba Book Week.

It's amazing how long you can coast on tickled...

11 comments:

Brenda Schmidt said...

Congratulations A!

Ariel Gordon said...

As ever, thanks, B!

Tracy Hamon said...

Kudos!

I will want to read them all!

Anita Daher said...

Yay! Let me be quite publicly tickled for you. Congratulations! Wait...
There. I've Snoopy Danced for you (just a small one...I am in my dentist office waiting room right now, pleased to find wireless Internet without a lock on it).

Ariel Gordon said...

Hey Tracy - thanks and my apologies for joining the ranks of those who have mangled your name...

Anita, it's probably safe to say that this is the first comment I've gotten from a dentist's office, though I will say that I don't mind being taken along on your errands. It makes me feel very tom thumbish...

BionicPerry said...

Hey!

I know this isn't timely anymore, but big congrats on all those!!! Fantastic!

Say, maybe you'll be asked to speak at PF's Spring launch of the issue to celebrate that Poetry supplement??? I can pull a few strings, yaknow? Heh. No, no, I know how you hate that. Just kidding. But I might name drop in the PF office once, or a hundred times to make sure your name keeps popping up in PF staff unconscious thoughts...

Ariel Gordon said...

Hey Perry,

Thanks for dropping by - and for the offer to name drop, but I believe that everyone featured in the poetry supplement is going to read at the launch. But I could be wrong...

Now do me a favour and update your g-d blog!

GM said...

Skoal!

Ariel Gordon said...

Hey G,

I assume you mean skoal to be roughly equivalent to cheers - i.e. "of Nordic extraction, from the ancient custom of drinking from the skulls of defeated enemies and toasting friends."

Rather than the other sense, whereby I'd have to assume that you were ordering me to get you some chewing tobacco.

Not that I wouldn't, but...

GM said...

Can't it be both?

Ariel Gordon said...

I don't know, G...chewing tobacco might stunt your growth!

(drinking from skulls! yah!)