My experience of this year's THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival will be incredibly tangled.
I'm going to be reading at the festival for the first time, which I'm OVER the MOON about. I've got a contract to run their blog, now in its fourth year. And I'm working at Aqua Books, which is hosting events for the fest for the third year in a row.
Basically, I won't know who I'm working for - the fest, Kelly, or myself.
But this Friday, I'll be appearing on Kelly Hughes Live! as part of his annual THIN AIR preview.
For those of you not-from-Winnipeg, KHL! is a live talk show that bookstore owner Kelly Hughes does most Friday nights. He has guests, he has a band, he even does a monologue.
People like it. He likes it. And it bleeds off some of his excess did-I-mention-I-used-to-ACT energy, which believe me, is a good thing. (Fewer showtunes while I'm at work for one...)
I was reluctant to appear on the show because goddamn it, I work there and everyone knows it. Also, working there is all Kelly Hughes Live all the time.
Also, when I attend regular events at Aqua that Kelly is hosting, I tend to heckle him voraciously. And vice versa. So it might be ridiculous.
But Kelly asked nicely and the festival asked nicely and so I'm doing it.
It'll either be an EPIC meeting of banter or chairs will fly.
* * *
Kelly Hughes Live! Into THIN AIR I
Host Kelly Hughes interviews writers Charlene Diehl, Ariel Gordon and Jordan Wheeler, with music by classical guitarist Skender Sefa
Winnipeg's only live talk show, Kelly Hughes Live! brings you all the trappings you've come to expect from the television talk show: comedy, music and celebrities.
The only difference is that (with the exception of a few ringers like Kids in the Hall's Kevin McDonald and Hugo-nominated writer Nick DiChario), it's all local heroes.
Guests like Tina Keeper, Fred Penner, Al Simmons, Brian Glow, Margaret Sweatman and Robert Enright have been joined onstage by the likes of stellar Winnipeg musicians The Paperbacks, Todd Hunter, Ingrid Gatin and Rollin Penner and the Traveling Medicine Show.
(But it's not like TV in that you will have to leave your house.) It's the TV talk show without the TV.
*
Charlene Diehl is possibly best known in these parts as the brightly plumaged dynamo at the hub of the THIN AIR writers festival. But she is also a hard-working poet, and the author of the new book, Out of Grief, Singing.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. She has two chapbooks to her credit, The navel gaze (Palimpsest Press, 2008) and Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999 (Rubicon Press, 2009) and this spring, Palimpsest published her first full-length poetry collection, Hump. She is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.
From the Charles Gordon First Nation (Southern Plains Cree), Jordan Wheeler has been writing professionally since 1982 and working in film and television since 1984. An author (Brothers In Arms, Just A Walk) and columnist (Winnipeg Free Press, Weetamah), Wheeler’s focus since 1992 has been scriptwriting, story editing and show running for television drama including the award winning series North of 60, The Rez and renegadepress.com. He’s been nominated for numerous awards including three Geminis. He won one, but still smarts at losing to Paul Haggis in ’94.
Skender Sefa is a professional classical guitarist with four full length classical guitar CDs on the GFI Masterworks, Uncontrollable Records and Marquis Record Labels. He teaches classical guitar performance and music theory at the Manitoba Conservatory of Music and Arts and is a Director of the Winnipeg Music Festival and the President of the Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society. In recognition of his career in classical guitar performance, Skender has received awards from both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council. In addition to performing, teaching and recording, Skender is an active music adjudicator/clinician.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Torontonian's collection focuses on environmental concerns
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Reviewed by: Ariel Gordon
THE Good News About Armageddon (Brick Books, 112 pages, $19) is the third book from Torontonian Steve McOrmond.
In keeping with the title, this is mostly irreverent eco-poetry, as in this excerpt from the title sequence:
"This just in from Hubble: a pair of black holes / locked in death dance. Make it your screen saver."
Reassuringly, the vulgar, witty snark of tweets and Facebook status updates is underlined by a real melancholy, a real search on McOrmond's part for what, exactly, we're all meant to do now.
Straight Crossing, another long poem, details the grounding of a ferry just off McOrmond's native P.E.I.
It is a much leaner, much more intimate take on large-scale disaster, even as it telescopes in and out of local history, other accidents, other realities.
* * *
Michelle Elrick, a poet and musician who splits her time between B.C. and Manitoba, recently won the nationwide Show Me the Book contest sponsored by local literati CV2 and J. Gordon Shillingford Publishers.
The result is Elrick's first full collection, To Speak (The Muses' Company, 96 pages, $15).
Best described as travel poetry that stays home, Elrick's work maps the distance, literal and metaphoric, between her two bases.
Like McOrmond, Elrick asks, "What now?" But her referents are longing and grief, identity and place, as in the opening poem, Bread:
"I shape the loaf with a roll and even pressure / of hands accustomed to morning prayer. / Score the taut skin with the edge of a knife -- / North and South, the passing flights / of birds."
Of particular interest is the long title poem, but there is enough alchemy and spark here to satisfy even the most exacting readers.
* * *
U.K. writer Ruth Padel wrote six books of poetry and two critical works on reading modern poetry before she took her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin as her subject.
It's a brilliant conceit, but what Darwin: A Life in Poems (Vintage Books, 176 pages, $24) gains in terms of authenticity and access is squandered when it comes to the poetry itself.
The poems are crowded by annotations and footnotes that include dates, geographical locations, even bios of relevant characters. Literally and figuratively, Padel has not left herself enough room.
Bright spots include the poems from the point of view of Darwin collaborator Alfred Wallace. Since they don't have the same "burden of proof" for Padel, she is able to beg, borrow and steal details from the historical record and make art.
The poems - as in A Spot of Malaria in the Moluccas, for instance - are much looser:
"A lucid interval, a slime wind between / the liquid shiverings sucking his flesh / like a lamprey. Yes. These are his hands. Yes."
Also great fun are the poem titles, which include A Desperate Way to Avoid Paying Your Tailor, The Awfulness of Plymouth, and Why Hermaphrodite is Second-Best.
* * *
Apologetic (Turnstone Press, 120 pages, $17) is the fourth book from B.C's Carla Funk.
Written in part while Funk served as Victoria's inaugural poet laureate, Apologetic cements her reputation as the mistress of the small moment writ large.
As in The Sewing Room (Turnstone Press, 2006), her previous title, Funk touches on relationships, faith and the passage of the seasons, as in her Evening Song:
"The complicated heads of deer raise / question marks in fog. Neighbourhood dogs / turn and turn, then stretch out in the sun's oily rags."
Though Funk writes with confidence and grace, a reader might wish for more spit and a touch less polish.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipegger whose first book of poetry, Hump, was published this spring.
Reviewed by: Ariel Gordon
THE Good News About Armageddon (Brick Books, 112 pages, $19) is the third book from Torontonian Steve McOrmond.
In keeping with the title, this is mostly irreverent eco-poetry, as in this excerpt from the title sequence:"This just in from Hubble: a pair of black holes / locked in death dance. Make it your screen saver."
Reassuringly, the vulgar, witty snark of tweets and Facebook status updates is underlined by a real melancholy, a real search on McOrmond's part for what, exactly, we're all meant to do now.
Straight Crossing, another long poem, details the grounding of a ferry just off McOrmond's native P.E.I.
It is a much leaner, much more intimate take on large-scale disaster, even as it telescopes in and out of local history, other accidents, other realities.
* * *
Michelle Elrick, a poet and musician who splits her time between B.C. and Manitoba, recently won the nationwide Show Me the Book contest sponsored by local literati CV2 and J. Gordon Shillingford Publishers.
The result is Elrick's first full collection, To Speak (The Muses' Company, 96 pages, $15).
Best described as travel poetry that stays home, Elrick's work maps the distance, literal and metaphoric, between her two bases.
Like McOrmond, Elrick asks, "What now?" But her referents are longing and grief, identity and place, as in the opening poem, Bread:
"I shape the loaf with a roll and even pressure / of hands accustomed to morning prayer. / Score the taut skin with the edge of a knife -- / North and South, the passing flights / of birds."
Of particular interest is the long title poem, but there is enough alchemy and spark here to satisfy even the most exacting readers.
* * *
U.K. writer Ruth Padel wrote six books of poetry and two critical works on reading modern poetry before she took her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin as her subject.
It's a brilliant conceit, but what Darwin: A Life in Poems (Vintage Books, 176 pages, $24) gains in terms of authenticity and access is squandered when it comes to the poetry itself.
The poems are crowded by annotations and footnotes that include dates, geographical locations, even bios of relevant characters. Literally and figuratively, Padel has not left herself enough room.
Bright spots include the poems from the point of view of Darwin collaborator Alfred Wallace. Since they don't have the same "burden of proof" for Padel, she is able to beg, borrow and steal details from the historical record and make art.
The poems - as in A Spot of Malaria in the Moluccas, for instance - are much looser:
"A lucid interval, a slime wind between / the liquid shiverings sucking his flesh / like a lamprey. Yes. These are his hands. Yes."
Also great fun are the poem titles, which include A Desperate Way to Avoid Paying Your Tailor, The Awfulness of Plymouth, and Why Hermaphrodite is Second-Best.
* * *
Apologetic (Turnstone Press, 120 pages, $17) is the fourth book from B.C's Carla Funk.
Written in part while Funk served as Victoria's inaugural poet laureate, Apologetic cements her reputation as the mistress of the small moment writ large.
As in The Sewing Room (Turnstone Press, 2006), her previous title, Funk touches on relationships, faith and the passage of the seasons, as in her Evening Song:
"The complicated heads of deer raise / question marks in fog. Neighbourhood dogs / turn and turn, then stretch out in the sun's oily rags."
Though Funk writes with confidence and grace, a reader might wish for more spit and a touch less polish.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipegger whose first book of poetry, Hump, was published this spring.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Yay Melissa!
The Sou'wester
August 26, 2010
New writer-in-residence relishes latest challenge
By: Simon Fuller
Melissa Steele is the Winnipeg Public Library’s new writer-in-residence for the upcoming 2010-11 season.
The Winnipeg short story writer has a few weeks to sharpen her pencils before her seven-month tenure at the Millennium Library begins Oct 1.
Steele’s mandate will include working with aspiring writers through individual consultations and workshops, as well as allocating time to her own writing projects.
"I’m excited," said Steele, 47, who lives in Fort Rouge. "I have taught creative writing courses at the University of Manitoba, and in some ways, this will be a similar experience. But I’m looking forward to interacting with writers on a one-on-one basis without having the agenda of grading their papers."
Steele, who won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer at the 1999 Manitoba Book Awards, will also bring a sense of empathy to her new position.
"I know how hard it is to focus on writing and how hard it is to write well. But as a mentor, I won’t have all the answers," said Steele, who hails from California but has collectively spent more than half of her life in Winnipeg and attended Argyle Alternative School.
"And I like to encourage people to read all the time. People often tend to read narrowly in one genre, but there are many different choices."
During her upcoming tenure at the library, Steele — whose husband, film professor George Toles, is known for his script collaborations with Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin — will also spend time focusing on her own writing.
She has already penned two short story collections, Donut Shop Lovers and Beautiful Girl Thumb, which were both published by Turnstone Press.
The latter work is currently shortlisted for the 2010-11 On the Same Page community reading campaign, which is co-sponsored by the Winnipeg Foundation. The other writers in the running are Michael Van Rooy, Catherine Hunter and Jake MacDonald. Readers can vote online at www.onthesamepage.ca.
In the past, Steele has also been involved with the mentorship program at the Manitoba Writers Guild.
"Melissa is a really wonderful mentor and a complete smarty pants," said Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon, who is also events co-ordinator at Aqua Books in Winnipeg.
"As a mentor you want someone who cares about you and your work. And she was a really good role model for a young female writer," added Gordon, who lives in Wolseley.
"Melissa’s mentoring style is very intense and very careful. And what I particularly like about her is though she primarily writes short fiction, she can ably talk about many genres of writing."
The writer-in-residence program, which is a free service, was established in 1985 and created to give new, emerging and established writers a chance to have their manuscripts read and critiqued.
Copies of manuscripts can be dropped off at any Winnipeg Public Library branch, emailed to wpl.writerinres@gmail.com or sent to the Millennium Library, attention: Writer-In-Residence, Reader Services, 251 Donald St., Winnipeg, MB R3C 3P5.
Manuscripts must be by typed in 12-point font (prose: doubled-spaced, poetry: single-spaced) on one side of the page only. Prose submissions should not exceed 15 pages and poetry submissions should not exceed six poems.
* * *
Melissa mentored me as a part of the MWG's Sheldon Oberman Emerging Writers Mentor Program in 2002 and so I was thrilled to see that she's been selected as this year's Writer in Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library.
It was an honour to talk to a reporter this past week about how very excellent she'll be at the job. Which sounds like typical lit bumf, but she really is very good.
Also: submit! Submit!
August 26, 2010
New writer-in-residence relishes latest challenge
By: Simon Fuller
Melissa Steele is the Winnipeg Public Library’s new writer-in-residence for the upcoming 2010-11 season.
The Winnipeg short story writer has a few weeks to sharpen her pencils before her seven-month tenure at the Millennium Library begins Oct 1.Steele’s mandate will include working with aspiring writers through individual consultations and workshops, as well as allocating time to her own writing projects.
"I’m excited," said Steele, 47, who lives in Fort Rouge. "I have taught creative writing courses at the University of Manitoba, and in some ways, this will be a similar experience. But I’m looking forward to interacting with writers on a one-on-one basis without having the agenda of grading their papers."
Steele, who won the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer at the 1999 Manitoba Book Awards, will also bring a sense of empathy to her new position.
"I know how hard it is to focus on writing and how hard it is to write well. But as a mentor, I won’t have all the answers," said Steele, who hails from California but has collectively spent more than half of her life in Winnipeg and attended Argyle Alternative School.
"And I like to encourage people to read all the time. People often tend to read narrowly in one genre, but there are many different choices."
During her upcoming tenure at the library, Steele — whose husband, film professor George Toles, is known for his script collaborations with Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin — will also spend time focusing on her own writing.
She has already penned two short story collections, Donut Shop Lovers and Beautiful Girl Thumb, which were both published by Turnstone Press.
The latter work is currently shortlisted for the 2010-11 On the Same Page community reading campaign, which is co-sponsored by the Winnipeg Foundation. The other writers in the running are Michael Van Rooy, Catherine Hunter and Jake MacDonald. Readers can vote online at www.onthesamepage.ca.
In the past, Steele has also been involved with the mentorship program at the Manitoba Writers Guild.
"Melissa is a really wonderful mentor and a complete smarty pants," said Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon, who is also events co-ordinator at Aqua Books in Winnipeg.
"As a mentor you want someone who cares about you and your work. And she was a really good role model for a young female writer," added Gordon, who lives in Wolseley.
"Melissa’s mentoring style is very intense and very careful. And what I particularly like about her is though she primarily writes short fiction, she can ably talk about many genres of writing."
The writer-in-residence program, which is a free service, was established in 1985 and created to give new, emerging and established writers a chance to have their manuscripts read and critiqued.
Copies of manuscripts can be dropped off at any Winnipeg Public Library branch, emailed to wpl.writerinres@gmail.com or sent to the Millennium Library, attention: Writer-In-Residence, Reader Services, 251 Donald St., Winnipeg, MB R3C 3P5.
Manuscripts must be by typed in 12-point font (prose: doubled-spaced, poetry: single-spaced) on one side of the page only. Prose submissions should not exceed 15 pages and poetry submissions should not exceed six poems.
* * *
Melissa mentored me as a part of the MWG's Sheldon Oberman Emerging Writers Mentor Program in 2002 and so I was thrilled to see that she's been selected as this year's Writer in Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library.
It was an honour to talk to a reporter this past week about how very excellent she'll be at the job. Which sounds like typical lit bumf, but she really is very good.
Also: submit! Submit!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Hump sighting
The LPG table at the 2010 Canadian Bookseller Association's national conference in May. Photo courtesy: Literary Press Group of Canada
* * *
Okay, this is undignified, but...look at the back row. Look really really hard. MY BOOK! IT'S MY FREAKING BOOK!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
spotted deer and fallen acorns...
...were all over the forest today. I'm not sure if it's spill-over from FINALLY finishing this month's poetry column, but all I felt whilst walking the forest's paths was immense relief.
Monday, August 23, 2010
THIN AIR A-Z
THE ABORIGINAL WRITERS COLLECTIVE, ISMAILA ALFA, DAVID ARNASON, DAVID BERGEN, SANDRA BIRDSELL, GILES BLUNT, BATHELEMY BOLIVAR, MARTHA BROOKS, MARGARET BUFFIE, REYNALD CANTIN, DAVID CARPENTER, RHEAL CENERINI, SIMONE CHAPUT, NATE CRAWFORD, DONNA CREIGHTON, DORA DUECK, AMY JO EHMAN, KEN FINKLEMAN, THODORE FONTAINE, ARIEL GORDON, NORA GOULD, MARCEL GOSSELIN, CAROLYN CRAY, JAN HORNER, JUDITH KEENAN, ROGER LAFRENIERE, RACHELLE LAMOUREUX, MICHAEL LISTA, IGNATIUS T. MABASA, GREG MACARTHUR, SHARON MCCARTNEY, kevin mcpherson eckhoff, JENNY MUNDAY, GEORGE MURRAY, BETRAND NAYET, UMA PARAMESWARAN, SHANE PEACOCK, LAURENT POLIQUIN, CRAIG FRANCIS POWER, SINA QUEYRAS, DOMINIQUE REY, LAWRENCE SCANLAN, CAROLYN SMART, A.J. SOMERSET, ALLAN STRATTON, COLLEEN SYDOR, JOAN THOMAS, ANNE VILLENEUVE, MICHAEL WEX, JORDAN WHEELER, EVA WISEMAN and RICHARD B. WRIGHT
Sunday, August 22, 2010
"My enthusiasm. Also, my hair."
So novelist Pearl Luke, whose books I have read (fire tower romance! charismatic cultist romance!) and who is married to former mentor-of-mine Robert Hilles, has started a book club website for Canadian writers...
...and they're opening the book club floodgates to poetry!
So I signed myself - and my book - right up.
Here's an excerpt from the interview I did for the site:
Why do you write?
Two things consistently bring me pleasure: hot sweet tea and writing. Which is not to say that either are particularly good for me…I use entirely too much sugar and so far don’t find sucralose to be a good alternative. Also, writing is not a practice that engenders confidence. Quite the opposite. It’s about making yourself deliberately insecure so that you can write the next thing and have it be worth reading.
And that’s not even taking into consideration the business end of things, which can make you bitter if you’re not careful…
But I’ve spent my the bulk of my life to date figuring out the right mix of fat and sugar in my tea and also, how to get incrementally better (I hope…) at the writing, so I’m not giving it/them up!
What is your greatest strength as a writer?
I’m not sure I know yet. Or if that’s a good thing for me to know. So far, my greatest strength as a writer is that I write...
What quality do you most value in yourself?
My enthusiasm. Also, my hair.
...and they're opening the book club floodgates to poetry! So I signed myself - and my book - right up.
Here's an excerpt from the interview I did for the site:
Why do you write?
Two things consistently bring me pleasure: hot sweet tea and writing. Which is not to say that either are particularly good for me…I use entirely too much sugar and so far don’t find sucralose to be a good alternative. Also, writing is not a practice that engenders confidence. Quite the opposite. It’s about making yourself deliberately insecure so that you can write the next thing and have it be worth reading.
And that’s not even taking into consideration the business end of things, which can make you bitter if you’re not careful…
But I’ve spent my the bulk of my life to date figuring out the right mix of fat and sugar in my tea and also, how to get incrementally better (I hope…) at the writing, so I’m not giving it/them up!
What is your greatest strength as a writer?
I’m not sure I know yet. Or if that’s a good thing for me to know. So far, my greatest strength as a writer is that I write...
What quality do you most value in yourself?
My enthusiasm. Also, my hair.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Litter: being an occasional poem
One quarter of the litter you see on streets is cigarette butts.
One third is mosquito & horse fly carcasses, which rustle & snap when stepped on. City workers build buzzing pyres every few weeks. We disperse after they're lit, satisfied.
One eighth is Jets jerseys, arms flung wide.
One quarter is pigeon & pigeon parts, inclusive of the beer glass & grit in their crops but not the sharp raptors overhead.
Four-and-a-half per cent is grubby dandelion bouquets, seeping milk.
* * *
This one had its genesis in this item from my newsfeed on Facebook:
"Tired of seeing cigarette butts? Over one quarter of the litter you see on streets comes from cigarettes. See the plan to clean up our city. Watch CBC News Winnipeg starting at 5 p.m."
One third is mosquito & horse fly carcasses, which rustle & snap when stepped on. City workers build buzzing pyres every few weeks. We disperse after they're lit, satisfied.
One eighth is Jets jerseys, arms flung wide.
One quarter is pigeon & pigeon parts, inclusive of the beer glass & grit in their crops but not the sharp raptors overhead.
Four-and-a-half per cent is grubby dandelion bouquets, seeping milk.
* * *
This one had its genesis in this item from my newsfeed on Facebook:
"Tired of seeing cigarette butts? Over one quarter of the litter you see on streets comes from cigarettes. See the plan to clean up our city. Watch CBC News Winnipeg starting at 5 p.m."
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Blackened butterfly
* * *
So I banished M + Aa from the house this afternoon so I could work on the review that's coming due.
We'd noticed that the original chrysalis had turned from palest green to translucent black that morning but had no sense of how long it would be between black...and butterfly.
In order to see it better, we'd put the chair on top of the dining room table. And then left it there...
And so, a half-hour after M + Aa had left, I lifted my eyes from Steve McOrmond's The Good News About Armageddon to see that the chrysalis was...well, unzipping itself.
The next hour was spent frantically finding safe things for the less-than-regal monarch to climb as it inflated its wings. It climbed my fingers. It climbed the chair. It climbed the houseplant under the window.
And it fell. A lot. Which was anxiety-producing, because the last thing I wanted to do was kill the first of eight monarchs that will be emerging from chrysalises over the next few weeks.
I mean, what kind of pseudo-naturalist allows a butterfly to fall to its death?
When I finally had the presence of mind to check the internet for just what I might expect of a newborn monarch, I slapped together an 'emergence cage' in five minutes from the large basket that we put our hats in, the mesh from an old tent, and two bungee cords.
And left for dinner at the in-laws, thinking on nectar.
SPORED: Anna Swanson, pt. 2
Anna Swanson and her Pass Creek Tower: Solstice, from The Nights Also (Tightrope Books, 2010).
SPORED: Jonathan Ball, pt. 2
* * *
Jonathan Ball and his poem [61], from Ex Machina (BookThug, 2009).
SPORED: Barbara Nickel, pt. 2
Barbara Nickel and her poem Annular, from Domain (House of Anansi Press, 2007).
* * *
Another attempt at spore printing, another failure. So I left the mushrooms on the pages, in the hopes that they would at least rot interestingly. And then, instead of decomposing, they dried.
So I left them on the windowsill in the hopes that I'd figure it out.
And then, when my daughter was painting, I had an idea. Potato printing! Except with a mushroom!
But only one of them was stiff enough to survive painting and pressing on paper. The others sort of crunched. So I used the same purplish mushroom on all three.
I'm determined to keep going until I have an actual spore print on poems from all three of these poets. But until then...
Friday, August 13, 2010
Hands on: the butterfly edition
* * *
I swore I wouldn't shoot my own hands for the Hands On Project.
I'm breaking that rule because I wanted to show you the handiwork of the past few weeks: five monarch butterfly chrysalises.
There's a sixth hanging from one of our dining room chairs, from before I wised up and confined them. The seventh and final specimen is a day or two away from its own chrysalis.
Caring for these caterpillars has meant work every day, principally in sourcing milkweed leaves, the only food they'll accept.
I've never taken such pointed walks. The point being: where-is-the-g-d-milkweed?!?
But once I found it, the caterpillars would fall on the leaves - literally - like it were the last food on earth. Hunger manifest.
I've also never taken a pet to the movies before.
(It was a hot Saturday. We'd a whole day of activities planned, including a matinee and a morning run for milkweed. We couldn't leave the hungry buggers at home, weren't planning to return until bedtime, and couldn't leave them in the broiling-hot car whilst we were at the movies. So they spent the movie under my seat...)
Over the past few weeks, I've had to inure myself to the cleaning up the stunning amount of poop the monarch caterpillars produced.
But I'm used to that. I mean, that's what babies are all about: hunger Hunger HUNGER and poop.
So here's to my hand-reared darlings.
I just hope I don't kill them when they emerge from these chrysalises, probably at the rate of one a day for a week. Which is the rate at which they confined themselves.
(Thanks to Mary East, who helped me to find milkweed early in this process. Thanks to Kerry Ryan, who let me pilfer it from her garden late towards the end, and for being mercifully just-down-the-street. Thanks, finally, to the Living Prairie Museum - I think - for infesting me with butterflies.)
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Keywords: McNally Robinson, literary, chat, tea, coffee, discussion, reading
So I'm going to doing two events as part of THIN AIR, Winnipeg International Writers Festival...
...in addition to my role as HOT AIR blogatrix...in addition my job as events coordinator Aqua, where a handful of THIN AIR events will be held.
I've just discovered that one of these events will be fall under the aegis of the Culture Days weekend.
It should go without saying that I'm honoured to be included in THIN AIR. This just makes it a two-fer.
Fun!
* * *
Culture Days
Celebrating Arts + Culture from Coast to Coast to Coast
Date: Friday, September 24, 2010
Time: 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Location: McNally Robinson Booksellers, 1120 Grant Avenue, Grant Park Shopping Centre
Type of activity: Seminar / Panel
Description:
The THIN AIR festival’s Afternoon Book Chats are the perfect excuse for a coffee break! Come down to the Atrium at McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park, which takes on a café ambiance for this series of relaxed conversations about writing with Director Charlene Diehl.
From irreverent games to delicately rendered impressions, kevin mcpherson eckhoff and Ariel Gordon show the power and play in poetry.
ARIEL GORDON
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. She has two chapbooks to her credit, The Navel Gaze and Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999, and this spring, Palimpsest Press published her first full-length poetry collection, Hump. Gordon coordinates literary events at Aqua Books and for several years has been the driving force behind THIN AIR’s Hot Air blog. She is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer. When not being bookish, she chases her young daughter or tromps through the woods photographing mushrooms.
KEVIN MCPHERSON ECKHOFF
kevin mcpherson eckhoff ’s visual poetry has appeared in the anthology Boredom Fighters (Tightrope Books) and in such magazines as dandelion and filling Station. A winner of the Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award, he studied English literature at the University of Calgary. Rhapsodomancy, his first full-length poetry collection, was recently published by Coach House. It dives into two notation systems, Shorthand and Unifon, in order to explore the crossed lines between visual language and voice. eckhoff recently traded his life for a house in Armstrong, British Columbia, and a job teaching literature at Okanagan College.
...in addition to my role as HOT AIR blogatrix...in addition my job as events coordinator Aqua, where a handful of THIN AIR events will be held.I've just discovered that one of these events will be fall under the aegis of the Culture Days weekend.
It should go without saying that I'm honoured to be included in THIN AIR. This just makes it a two-fer.
Fun!
* * *
Culture Days
Celebrating Arts + Culture from Coast to Coast to Coast
Date: Friday, September 24, 2010
Time: 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Location: McNally Robinson Booksellers, 1120 Grant Avenue, Grant Park Shopping Centre
Type of activity: Seminar / Panel
Description:
The THIN AIR festival’s Afternoon Book Chats are the perfect excuse for a coffee break! Come down to the Atrium at McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park, which takes on a café ambiance for this series of relaxed conversations about writing with Director Charlene Diehl.
From irreverent games to delicately rendered impressions, kevin mcpherson eckhoff and Ariel Gordon show the power and play in poetry.
ARIEL GORDON
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. She has two chapbooks to her credit, The Navel Gaze and Guidelines: Malaysia & Indonesia, 1999, and this spring, Palimpsest Press published her first full-length poetry collection, Hump. Gordon coordinates literary events at Aqua Books and for several years has been the driving force behind THIN AIR’s Hot Air blog. She is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer. When not being bookish, she chases her young daughter or tromps through the woods photographing mushrooms.
KEVIN MCPHERSON ECKHOFF
kevin mcpherson eckhoff ’s visual poetry has appeared in the anthology Boredom Fighters (Tightrope Books) and in such magazines as dandelion and filling Station. A winner of the Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award, he studied English literature at the University of Calgary. Rhapsodomancy, his first full-length poetry collection, was recently published by Coach House. It dives into two notation systems, Shorthand and Unifon, in order to explore the crossed lines between visual language and voice. eckhoff recently traded his life for a house in Armstrong, British Columbia, and a job teaching literature at Okanagan College.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Reprint: Prairie BOOKS now
From the Summer 2010, no. 53, issue of Prairie BOOKS now:
I've spent most of my writing life in this city reading the profiles in PBN and so it was an honour to be article-d, especially given how few poetry titles they're able to include.
It was a further honour that my profile was assigned to Polly Washburn, former writing group member and producer/PM extraordinaire!
I've spent most of my writing life in this city reading the profiles in PBN and so it was an honour to be article-d, especially given how few poetry titles they're able to include.
It was a further honour that my profile was assigned to Polly Washburn, former writing group member and producer/PM extraordinaire!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Reprint: Matrix
From the Summer 2010, Issue 86 issue of Montreal-based lit mag Matrix:
I'm quite sure the fact that this was called The Drinking Issue has nothing to do with the judgments on offer in the review...heh.
I'm quite sure the fact that this was called The Drinking Issue has nothing to do with the judgments on offer in the review...heh.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Butterfly hangover...
On July 18, M and Aa and I spent the afternoon at the Living Prairie Museum's Monarch Butterfly Festival.
Whilst there, I signed up for a membership with the friends of the LPM. The membership came with a square silver planter they were calling 'the prairie in a pot' in that contained four representative plants that would typically be found on the tallgrass prairie.
Given that this was a monarch festival, it was no surprise that there was a small swamp milkweed seedling in the pot.
What WAS a surprise was that there was a monarch on the milkweed in the pot.
We discovered the caterpillar a few days later, nibbling delicately on the milkweed's few leaves.
The next morning, the milkweed was a bare stem. And we quickly realized that if we didn't want to decimate the monarch we'd have to find it more food.
Now monarchs only eat milkweed. A friend of ours told us that the school garden near their house had plenty of milkweed, so we ventured forth with scissors, water, and a mason jar.
We put the mason jar with the freshly cut milkweed sprig on our dining room windowsill next to the 'prairie in the pot.'
Even though we examined the milkweed closely before snipping it, clearly we didn't look closely enough or we were too worried about being heckled by overzealous school administrators or righteous neighbours for pilfering from the garden.
Because the next day, we had two happily munching monarchs on our windowsill. And then, the next day, a few more.
When the milkweed seedling sprouted new leaves, the monarchs negotiated a path from mason jar to pot and ate it down. Again.
Eventually, the original monarch, now the size of one of Aa's fingers, disappeared.
This morning, I realized I still had three largish caterpillars (and two smaller ones) that would probably also disappear at some point. So I put the remaining caterpillars in a bug observation container of Aa's and swept up the fallen leaves and caterpillar poop.
I was moving a dining room chair out of the way when I saw the cocoon.
And it is like minutely worked jade. And it is like a capsule of the rarest medicine. And it is like a carved bullet.
And all three of us laid down on the floor to take pictures of it.
I don't quite know what we're going to do, precisely, when the original monarch emerges from its chrysalis - shoo it out of the house? invest in a supply of oversized nets? - but I'm now sort of glad the rest of the monarchs are cooped up.
Whilst there, I signed up for a membership with the friends of the LPM. The membership came with a square silver planter they were calling 'the prairie in a pot' in that contained four representative plants that would typically be found on the tallgrass prairie.
Given that this was a monarch festival, it was no surprise that there was a small swamp milkweed seedling in the pot.What WAS a surprise was that there was a monarch on the milkweed in the pot.
We discovered the caterpillar a few days later, nibbling delicately on the milkweed's few leaves.
The next morning, the milkweed was a bare stem. And we quickly realized that if we didn't want to decimate the monarch we'd have to find it more food.
Now monarchs only eat milkweed. A friend of ours told us that the school garden near their house had plenty of milkweed, so we ventured forth with scissors, water, and a mason jar.
We put the mason jar with the freshly cut milkweed sprig on our dining room windowsill next to the 'prairie in the pot.'
Even though we examined the milkweed closely before snipping it, clearly we didn't look closely enough or we were too worried about being heckled by overzealous school administrators or righteous neighbours for pilfering from the garden.
Because the next day, we had two happily munching monarchs on our windowsill. And then, the next day, a few more.
When the milkweed seedling sprouted new leaves, the monarchs negotiated a path from mason jar to pot and ate it down. Again.
Eventually, the original monarch, now the size of one of Aa's fingers, disappeared. This morning, I realized I still had three largish caterpillars (and two smaller ones) that would probably also disappear at some point. So I put the remaining caterpillars in a bug observation container of Aa's and swept up the fallen leaves and caterpillar poop.
I was moving a dining room chair out of the way when I saw the cocoon.
And it is like minutely worked jade. And it is like a capsule of the rarest medicine. And it is like a carved bullet.
And all three of us laid down on the floor to take pictures of it.
I don't quite know what we're going to do, precisely, when the original monarch emerges from its chrysalis - shoo it out of the house? invest in a supply of oversized nets? - but I'm now sort of glad the rest of the monarchs are cooped up.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
SPORED: Anna Swanson
Anna Swanson and her The smell of heat, from The Nights Also (Tightrope Books, 2010).
SPORED: Barbara Nickel
Barbara Nickel and her poem Annular, from Domain (House of Anansi Press, 2007).
* * *
So I mentioned that I had attempted to do spore prints last week. And that the mushrooms I picked had white spores and so didn't produce a visible print.
I figured out this was likely to be my outcome as the mushrooms wilted on the windowsill, so I pulled out my camera.
So these are resultant spore prints, just ones overly um, influenced by the notion of palimpsest.
Heh.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Hands on: Patrick Pilarski & Nicole Pakan
* * *
Nicole Pakan and Patrick Pilarski are Edmonton poets who are engaged to be married.
And performance is important to both of them, so part of their process is rehearsing to each other.
It's probably inevitable that when they're reading, they tap out the beats of each other's poems by bobbing their head or drumming fingers on available surfaces.
* * *
Patrick Pilarski is the co-editor of DailyHaiku, an international journal of contemporary English-language haiku, and poetry editor for its new sister publication, DailyHaiga. His first full-length collection, Huge Blue, was released in 2009 by Leaf Press, and he is the author of the chapbook Five Weeks (2007). Patrick's poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies across North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan, recently including The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, CV2, Literary Review of Canada, The New Quarterly, and on CBC Radio One as part of the CBC Poetry Face-off. Patrick is on the organizing committee for the Edmonton Poetry Festival, and is Alberta/NWT representative for the League of Canadian Poets. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in computing science at the University of Alberta.
Nicole Pakan is an active member of the Edmonton literary community, performing and organizing events around the city. She is the Co-Editor for the international online and print literary journal DailyHaiku, and Art Editor for its sister publication DailyHaiga. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in: Filling Station, Carousel, CV2, Other Voices, and the Blue Skies Home and Away anthology. Nicole was also the winner of the 2009 Edmonton CBC Poetry Faceoff, placing third in the national competition.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)