Froth

I'm beginning and ending several things this week, this month, this season.


The manuscript, which started with heaves and broad gestures, is now filling with puffy half-breaths before wobbling off. It has started to take on a shape of its own, which is what I always hope for with a poem, nevermind a book.

(I've never thought before on the scale of the book...)

I've also started working on what will be my first poetry review for the October edition of the monthly poetry column in the Winnipeg Free Press.

Poet Jennifer Still, who'd inherited the column from longtime reviewer/poet Maurice Mierau, asked if I'd be amenable to sharing the bloody thing.

Which means a review every second month and SOME reading that's not on-topic. And we've pledged to exchange books and then talk about them, which is actually the most exciting part of the whole parcel.

It should go without saying that despite my 30+ fiction reviews, I've got tremours. The usual: fear that I'll be found out for posing-as-a-poet-when-I'm-really-NOT, as unintelligent, as unlettered.

But it feels like something I should be doing, even if, again, I'm wobbly. And I think I'm ready.

Big breath in...