Hands on: SS, take two

Hands on: Struan Sinclair

Struan Sinclair's first impulse was to lay hands on The Stone Angel.

(Being a prop from the film, being the first thing Kelly put in the room after he bought the place.)

He was reading at Aqua because he'd been nominated for the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and here he was, gripping a papier-mache simulacrum of same.

Being far too relaxed for my own good, I immediately asked if there was anything he wanted to tell me about his hands.

Instead of waiting. Sinclair said something quickly and cleverly about how his thumb had been severed or was completely useless...and then he started waggling it.

I nodded dumbly, because that's all I was capable of. What a week/month/year! But, also, what...a...reading.

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Struan Sinclair is the author of the acclaimed short story collection, Everything Breathed (Granta Books, 2000). Originally from Toronto, he now lives in Winnipeg, where he is director of the Department of English Media Lab and Writing Program/Focus at the University of Manitoba. His first novel, Automatic World (Doubleday Canada, 2009), has been nominated for two Manitoba Book Awards.

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For the original set of Hands On Project portraits, see the 2009 edition of HOT AIR, the official blog of THIN AIR, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival.

Verses heave, sigh in new children's book

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Reviewed by: Ariel Gordon

IT has been two years since the animal lipograms in JonArno Lawson's A Voweller's Bestiary had (adult) audiences at the Winnipeg International Writers Festival rolling in the proverbial aisles.

Lawson's new children's book, Think Again (Kids Can Press, 64 pages, $19), adopts the quatrain form, something that will be familiar to smart, moody teenagers reared on Shel Silverstein and Dennis Lee.

Choked with illustrations by Vancouver artist Julie Morstad but given more than enough room to breathe by designer Marie Bartholomew, the verses in Think Again heave and sigh.

Which is apt, given that the illos and the poems together suggest an ill-fated teenage romance.

The poems also have some snap, which is nice for those parents still reading with (and even those reduced to buying for) adolescents:

"You're clever? Good. Resist the urge / To show it. / You're here not to outsmart the world / But to know it."

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After nearly three decades in Newfoundland, Ontario-born John Steffler has acquired the status of familiar come-from-away.

This confers some advantages on a writer with a naturalist's eye and a poet's predilection for re-examining official histories, all of which is amply demonstrated in Lookout (McClelland & Stewart, 112 pages, $19):

"Forest drawn into / this chewing mouth, comes out in paper, smoke, sludge, / paycheques, houses, lovers, mittens, photos, classrooms, / crackups, breakups, poems, single men sitting in cars."

Though this is his seventh collection, Steffler is very clearly still thinking and feeling his work forward. As such, poems about remote corners of Newfoundland make way for those about his mother's Alzheimer's, themselves followed by poems about the impact of heavy industry on nature and on communities.

At 112 pages, Lookout is hefty, but is one of the few recent collections that seems to earn every single extra page.

(Two more review-lets after the turn...)

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As an entry in the dubious "poetry about my divorce" genre, Sharon McCartney's sixth collection, For and Against (Goose Lane Editions, 96 pages, $17.95) is most interesting for its anger.*

Though there are plenty of taboos around women being publicly angry, McCartney is never strident and she never lets content overwhelm form.

The California-born but Fredericton-based poet also has a wonderfully rueful sense of humour, as evidenced in the two-line poem Refrain: "What I fail to do, / repeatedly."

Longtime McCartney-ites need not despair. She includes poems here about her tempestuous childhood and a handful of her trademark in-character poems, this time drawing on novels such as The Sun Also Rises, Lady Chatterley's Lover and (always?) Anna Karenina.

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In Lost Gospels (Brick, 96 pages, $19), Halifax-based Lorri Neilsen Glenn has done what all mid-career poets long to do: make themselves magnificently vulnerable.

Known for her gently feminist lyrics, Glenn has turned her third collection into a series of open-ended questions about faith.

Glenn probes the differences between prayer, song and poetry as a way of getting at what, precisely, faith is. In Loose Gospels, she writes:

"So ask yourself: when desire strums you like a fingerboard, what else can you // feel but faith, how it resonates? Listen: you are the meantime. Walk into the water, / and when the vibration summons your bones, you know you're coming home."

The Prairie-reared Glenn grounds herself, in the midst of all her questioning and uncertainty, in poems about the women in her family, the places they lived and the ways they died.

Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg poet. Her first book will be launched May 5 at McNally Robinson.

Detour: the poster!

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My tourmate Tracy Hamon sourced the movie poster...and then Instant Noodles' Julia Michaud made it excellent.

Thanks to both of them! Fun!

(W)rites of Spring: Manitoba

The League of Canadian Poets welcomes poet, novelist and essayist Anne Simpson.

When: Friday, April 9. 7 pm.
Where: Cre8ery, Upstairs - 125 Adelaide (across from Cdn Footwear)

Also featuring the literary stylings of David Stubel and hosted by your own Ariel Gordon.

There will be cupcakes by Finales. And a cash bar if you want to mix some sugar with your booze or vice versa.

There will be the ubiquitous raffle. This year featuring...

* Fine art Pate de Verre piece by Kathleen Black, glass artist. ($250.00)

* One League of Canadian Poets membership (Associate or equivalent, 1 year)

* Plus some other stuff like coffee table books from Friesen's.

* * *

Anne Simpson was a winner of the 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize for her second poetry collection, Loop (McClelland & Stewart, 2003), which was also nominated for the Governor-General's Award. Her second novel, Falling (McClelland & Stewart, 2008), won the Dartmouth Fiction Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has also written a book of essays, The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness, (Gaspereau, 2009). She lives in Antigonish, NS, though she is currently away from home, working as Writer in Residence at the Saskatoon Public Library.

A grain or two...

We've had several days of good hiking this week, most of it in the Red Cliffs Reserve.

I spent whatever time I wasn't hiking or taking care of the girl reading and thinking my way into this month's poetry column.

I had to read nearly a dozen titles for a 600 word review - and that's after I'd selected which four new books I'd be reviewing - which seems ridiculous but also sort of apt.

This is my third review in a row, as my co-columnist was tits-deep in editing and needed the analytical part of her brain for her own book.

Every month I thought it would be a bit easier, but every month I'd feel a little panicked ten days out from my deadline, my head empty, the books strange & unknowable.

Reading the books before bed helped some. Just as I was drifting off, phrases would come to me and I'd rouse and reach for my laptop. Other nights, it just kept me up.

(But I think that's because my own book is coming out soon and I wonder if anyone is going to train themselves on my strange & unknowable poetry...)

I feel like I'm learning to read all over again, which is the best goddamn part.

Except when I'm ten days out, then it feels like I'm buried to my ankles in loose sand.

The grand tour

I know I've been burbling on about it endlessly of late, but my book will actually be out in the world (as opposed to mostly attached to a few emails) as of April 15.

Tracy Hamon - whose second book will be out with Coteau around the same time, except earlier - has kindly agreed to append me to her mostly-planned western tour.

And since I had such a grand time - and have since met such grand folk - the last time I toured to Alberta, I'm glad glad glad to be going back, especially in T's company.

We make one stop in Saskatchewan, as Dave Margoshes and Dee Hobsbawn-Smith's guest at the Wallace Stegner House. I think we're going to do an afternoon tea, which will be just my speed after a week's worth of driving.

Anyways, I hope to see some of you faceless readers of this shameless blog at an event or two, this spring...

Fun!

* * *

April 19 - Calgary, AB: Pages on Kensington, with Tracy Hamon

April 20 - Edmonton, AB: Edmonton Poetry Festival @ Audrey's Books, with Tracy Hamon and Su Croll

April 21 - Athabasca, AB: Alice B. Donahue Library, with Tracy Hamon

April 23 - Lethbridge, AB: Henotic Restaurant, with Tracy Hamon

April 24 - Eastend, SK: Wallace Stegner House, with Tracy Hamon

April 27 - Winnipeg, MB: Aqua Books, in support of Sandra Ridley's & Jennifer Londry's book tour.

May 5 - Winnipeg, MB: McNally Robinson (launch)

bore

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gnaw

wither

All photos Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, St. George, Utah. March 14, 2010.

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The childcare/weather stars aligned on Sunday so we returned to the spot of one of our most high-stress hikes EVER.

The last hike we did on our last trip to Utah, two years ago, where it was full dark when we made it to the car, knowing M's parents were back at the hotel, fretting.

Ugh.

We started two and a half hours earlier this time, a month or more later in the year...and so we enjoyed a leisurely yet strenuous walk through all of the various environments presented by the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve.

Which I cannot more highly recommend.

Five hours of bloody gorgeous in sun cut by a cool breeze is just about as good as it gets...

mossed

barbed

lichened

All photos Snow Canyon State Park, Utah. March 13, 2010.

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So M and I finally got to go for a hike yesterday.

We've been in Utah for nearly a week but the first few days it was raining and after that, M's parents were golfing, which didn't leave us much time for a good leg-stretch.

Which is not to say that we haven't enjoyed ourselves. I had an entire afternoon to myself, which I spent making my way through the stack of poetry titles I'm reading for the March poetry column.

And yesterday I took part in a poetry workshop in Zion National Park. Though the hike portion of the day's schedule was short and sedate, it was lovely to see a small part of it.

But we were VERY glad to start out from the parking lot at Snow Canyon State Park, map in hand.

Which meant we willfully ignored the few drops of rain that fell, ten minutes in. We only wished we'd brought our rainjackets.

When it started hailing, we were more than halfway down the trail we'd chosen. We were mostly protected from the worst of the driving wind and the styrofoam-sized pellets it carried by the brush and trees and hills.

But by the time we got to the highway, a half kilometer from the parking lot where we'd left the car, we were soaking wet, completely exposed to the wind, and walking uphill.

It was still fun, though. And during those brutal last few minutes, M alternated tucking my freezing hands in his pockets, and his hands inside his pockets were so wonderfully warm.

berried

Zion National Park, Utah. March 12, 2010.

Mr. John Hirsch

The Manitoba Writers’ Guild (MWG) and the Association of Manitoba Book Publishers (AMBP) announced the Manitoba Book Awards shortlists today.

Winners will be announced at the Manitoba Book Awards gala, on Sunday, April 25, 2010, at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain (CCFM), 340 boulevard Provencher.

A pre-awards reception will begin at 7:00 p.m. and the ceremony will run from 8:00–10:00 p.m.

Admission is free and the event is open to the public.

This year's ceremony will be hosted by Neil Besner, Vice President and former Dean of Arts of the University of Winnipeg.

The shortlists are as follows:

John Hirsch Award for most Promising Manitoba Writer

Rosie Chard

Danishka Esterhazy

Ariel Gordon

John Toone

(More info on the award after the turn...)

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The John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer is an annual award established by the Manitoba Foundation for the Arts with a bequest from the late John Hirsch, co-founder of the Manitoba Theatre Centre, and its first Artistic Director from 1958 to 1966.

The endowment from the Hirsch estate will provide a cash award of $2,500 to the most promising Manitoba writer selected by a jury of senior members of the Manitoba writing and publishing community.

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Um. Yay! YAY!

(I'm done.)

Thanks to Jenna Butler of Rubicon Press and Dawn Kresan of Palimpsest Press, both for publishing the chappies that made me eligible and for nominating me.

Buffalo Runs Press spring launch!

My e-reading from Rutting Season is getting around. First of all, it made an appearance at an event in Toronto in October.

Now, apparently, it might be aired at this Montreal event...

...though I hear it's demanding strong hot tea with heaps of sugar and cream in a locally-sourced pottery mug before it'll go on.

Anyways, if you're in Montreal, you can have a listen to my goatish performance.

And an actual look-see at Linda and Michael while they read their poems...which is, admittedly, preferable to my only-audible trills and mutterings.

Anyways...fun!

Hands on: JM autograph

Hands on: Jake MacDonald

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...otherwise known as the BEST AUTOGRAPH EVER!

So I've been neglecting the Hands On Project, which is basically a series of portraits of writers via pictures of their hands.

Given that Jake MacDonald is teaching a course at Aqua this week and next and that I'm a big fan of both Jake and convenience, given this topsy-turvy week, month, season...I decided that he might just be my next subject.

Jake is twinkly. By which I mean that he is a professional, answering correspondence quickly and completely. He doesn't miss a trick.

But he also has a quick wit, which is nowhere more evident than in the pose he selected for his portrait, a second after having the conceit explained to him.

His hands, which are really the point of the exercise, are interesting. Lean, a little rough. Basically, the well-used tools that they are.

He didn't say a single thing about his hands, of course, but he let me keep the note.

And laughed as he walked away...in a twinkly way.

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Over the last twenty-five years Jake MacDonald has produced ten books of both fiction and non-fiction and hundreds of articles for many of North America’s leading newspapers and magazines. Six of his books have been optioned or developed by film producers and some were recognized with national awards. The memoir Houseboat Chronicles, for example, won three awards across Canada, including the Writers Trust of Canada prize for best non-fiction book 2002, and about twenty-five of his magazine stories have won writing awards. MacDonald divides his time between Winnipeg and Toronto and a rustic retreat in Minaki, Ontario.

comma

Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. March 1, 2010.