NPM blog!

Dennis Cooley, rob mclennan, Linda Crosfield, Heather Cadsby, Fern G.Z. Carr, Alice Major, Mary Angela Nangini, Carol Little, Carol Rose, Stevens Taeho Han, Susan McMaster, Carmelo Militano, Rebecca Leah Păpucaru, Gillian Harding-Russell, Kelly-Anne Riess, Joe Blades, Bruce Rice, Bernadette Wagner, Penn Kemp, Rebecca Anne Banks, Peggy Fletcher, John Oughton, Jennifer Boire, Heidi Greco, Susan McCaslin, Claudia Coutu Radmore, Rosalee van Stelten, Fiona Lam, Marvyne Jenoff, Karen P. Ouellette, Rhea Tregebov, Leanne Boschman, John Brook, Peter McEwen, Melanie Marttila, Cornelia Hoogland, Madhur Anand, Anne Szumigalski, Flavia Cosma, Alison Clarke, Dina E. Cox, Tracy Hamon, Debbie Okun Hill, Ellen S. Jaffe, Colin Morton, Honey Novik, Terry Anne Carter, Janet Vickers, Audrey Ogilvie, Lori Cayer, D.C. Reid, Kath McLean, Sarah Klassen, Christine Smart, Ann Elizabeth Carson, Maurice Mierau, Patricia Anne McGoldrick, Susan Musgrave, Roger Moore, Alisa Gordaneer, Katerina Fretwell, Vivian Demuth, Carol A. Stephen, David Fraser, Lorraine Gane, Elizabeth Woods, Ron Charach, Kate Marshall Flaherty, April Bulmer, Leanne McIntosh, Pearl Pirie, Marilyn Boyle, M.E. Csamer, Bren Simmers, John B. Lee, Kim Goldberg, Steven Ross Smith, Dorothy Mohoney, Anne Swannell…

…and me, today on the National Poetry Month blog.

I chose to share the poem "A year in: fireweed" from Hump, because it's sort of nurture-y. Which is the theme for this year's edition of the blog.

There's still more NPM poetry to come. Two more days of poetry, to be precise.

NPM reading #2

Colin Smith & Deborah Schnitzer at the Millennium Library April 26.

* * *

Today's reading was great fun in that it consisted of four readings by two poets & four books of poetry given away for good guesses of my inane poetry quizzes.

Thanks to everyone laughed and sighed away their lunch hour today & two Tuesdays ago.

Thanks too to the League of Canadian Poets for the funding for this reading and for National Poetry Month just generally...

(For more NPM goodness, see the NPM blog: lcpnationalpoetrymonth2011.wordpress.com.)

Robin Robertson mines sacrifice, regret

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Reviewed by: Ariel Gordon

Though Robin Robertson is a Scottish-born poet now living in London, England, there are moments in his latest book that will be familiar to any Winnipegger.

His "Signs On a White Field", about spring breakup on an unnamed lake, is particularly apt at this time of year:

"The rocks are ice-veined; the trees / swagged with snow. / Here and there, a sudden frost / has caught some turbulence in the water / and made it solid: frozen in its distress / to a scar, or a skin-graft."

The Wrecking Light (Anansi, 112 pages, $23) is Robertson's fourth collection. His previous, Swithering, won Robertson international critical acclaim and the U.K.'s Forward Poetry Prize.

Here, as in Swithering, we find Robertson reframing poems from Ovid, translating Italian poet Eugenio Montale, and writing poems to Swedish playwright August Strindberg.

Though he's working the same vein, in The Wrecking Light Robertson comes to the surface with rougher stone. Which seems appropriate, given his preoccupations: sacrifice, everyday astonishment, and regret.

Drawing on both Greco-Roman myth and Scottish folklore, Robertson is somehow able to invoke both antlered men and selkies and have it all make perfect - albeit bloody - sense.

* * *

Susan Musgrave's Origami Dove (McClelland & Stewart, 128 pages, $19) shares The Wrecking Light's coppery reek and surprising range of registers.

The Vancouver Island poet's first major collection in 10 years has four radically different sections: sad/wise love poems, spare nature poems, raucous efforts, and a sequence on women from Vancouver's downtown east side.

Which is to say, enough tragedy to break your goddamn heart. But also enough craft to parse it for her readers.

A good example is "Winter", where the narrator attempts to bury a frozen wren:

"As I push through earth locked in sorrow, / in ice, find a hollow between rocks / where her body will lie, a winter wren lights / on the handle of my shovel."

To sum: these poems might be bitter pills but they're coated with artisanal chocolate and gold leaf.

* * *

As opposed to Musgrave, who published her first book when she was 19, Ann Scowcroft's first book will appear just as she turns 50.

The Truth of Houses (Brick, 118 pages, $19) comes with a blurb from Michael Ondaatje (!) and includes poems on both her son's slippery birth, the phantom-pain pangs she experienced when he moved out, and everything in between.

The rural Quebec-based poet, who works as a humanitarian aid worker when not writing, is slyly and wryly optimistic in her poetry.

Particularly poignant is the long poem "(Palimpsest)", which is as much about the stretch and tug of mother-daughter relationships and the physiology of the brain as it is about generations of incest:

"She drums her fingers, then locks / my eyes, tells me her sister had said / while packing her bag, / Your husband is a pervert."

* * *

Poets and Killers: A Life in Advertising (Snare, 80 pages, $12) by Calgary-based feminist scholar Helen Hajnoczky is another intriguing debut.

Hajnoczky sets the tone for her with a (somewhat condensed) epigraph from Aldous Huxley: "It's easier to write 10 passably effective sonnets than one effective advertisement."

Poets and Killers is composed entirely of advertising copy, culled from the 1940s to the present day. As such, Hajnoczky didn't so much write these poems as shape them.

By turns absurd and deadly serious, the poems are meant to reproduce a life via advertising, starting with baby detergent and ending with wholesale coffins.

Though this is a quick, quirky read, under the conceit Hajnoczky is probing at some vital questions. Like: to what extent are our wants and needs shaped by advertising? Like: are we for sale?

Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon won the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry for her collection Hump at last Sunday's Manitoba Book Awards.

Reading copy

Last night, I read In Praise of My Own Breasts at McNally Robinson as a part of the launch of her new book, A Peeled Wand: Selected Poems by Anne Szumigalski (Signature Editions, 2011).

The other readers included Frances Bitney, Di Brandt, Alison Calder, Sharon Caseburg, Lori Cayer, Dennis Cooley, Victor Enns, Michelle Forrest, Clarise Foster, Patrick Friesen, Ariel Gordon, Sara Harms, Jan Horner, Tessa Loran, Mariianne Mays, Barbara Schott, Colin Smith, Tony Szumigalski, and Janine Tschuncky.

And it was lovely to hear the poems in so many throats, to hear all of Anne's layers and nuances interpreted by so many poets.

I had to fix my interpretation, to mark the words and phrases I wanted emphasized. And so I marked up my copy, which I thought I'd share.

Even with my notations, I was still feeling rushed and a bit out of sorts when it was my turn.

But I have a feeling I'm going to read this poem in public again.

(Thanks to Andris and Kate for asking me to read...)

gleam

burn

flare

shadow

All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. April 18, 2010

Manitoba Book Awards

So last night was the Manitoba Book Awards gala...and I was all frocked up.

It was such an honour to be nominated for two prizes, especially when there were so many books eligible this year, that I hadn't thought through the idea that I might win one/both/neither of them.

So when I sat myself down in the auditorium for my ritualized read-thru of the programme, I was mostly looking forward to the learning the judges' identities and reading their comments on each of the short-listed books.

Here's what the judges for the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Le Prix Lansdowne du poesie - Michael Harris, Kenneth Meadwell, and Serge Patrice Thibodeau - had to say about Hump:

"Hump is Ariel Gordon's first book, coming on the heels of a variety of magazine publications and two chapbooks. The focus of Hump is the rich experience of motherhood and marriage on the one hand, and of city life in the integrated context of the natural world, which is everywhere engaging, fierce, beautiful, and unstoppable. This is capable, exuberant writing, at once passionate and meticulous. Hump is a worthy first book indeed."

I read the comments about Hump, I thrilled a little...and then I realized that the Lansdowne was the first prize to be awarded.

Urk!

And so it was only a few minutes later that I heard my name, spoken by bookstore owner Kelly Hughes. (!)(!!!)

A day later, I'm still full to the brim with gratitude. For the support this community has given me in the year since Hump came out. For all the times M came home from work and said, "Have a good reading/workshop/signing," as I walked out the door...

I was also up for the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, three awards later. And Sheila McClarty was so so gracious as she accepted the award...in addition to being deserving.

But I walked away from that adjudication with something of definite value: the judges' comments, specifically from Sharon Butala, Claire Holden Rothman, and Andris Taskans.

"Hump is a sensual song celebrating the love that fuels all of life. In this strong debut collection, Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon vividly evokes springtime in the forests and wetlands of Manitoba. Frogs "hump spring's wet backside in the ultimate catch-and-release slip-slide," and "moss gross so silently / it can be heard." Gordon also explores her own pregnancy and motherhood, revealing the wonder and devilment of bringing new life into the world."

Thanks all! (But especially Dawn and Sarah at Palimpsest and my beloved M!)

Reprint: CBC's Manitoba Scene

The CBC's new local arts website, Manitoba Scene, is doing coverage of some of this year's Manitoba Book Award nominees.

(As you'll recall, I was interviewed for CBC's Weekend Morning Show just before the MBA nominee lists were announced. The radio interviews and the web coverage is part of the same CBC whole...)

Here's what I contributed to the site:

When CBC producers suggested that I write something, anything about poetry for Manitoba Scene, for the first time in a long time I was stuck.

I can write poems on subjects as diverse as breasts and light bulbs, but ask me to write 300 words on anything-at-all and I've got...nothing.

So I checked the website. Fellow Manitoba Book Awards nominee Dora Dueck wrote on the topic Some Reasons Why I Write. And I cursed her, not because of her nominations or her book, but because I coveted her subject.

I could have written about that, I thought mournfully. And rubbed my tired eyes.

And then I craftily submitted a poem called How to Write a Poem. It's a prose poem and so I thought would fool the copy-hungry producers.

And it's even funny, I thought bleakly. Funny is good.

Except I forgot that it's ALSO chock full of swearing, oral sex, and uses the word 'porn' prominently.

When they wrote back suggesting that I excise the naked bits or, you know, actually write something, I agreed that was probably best.

And returned to muttering and mashing my eyes, which by now felt like they might start weeping blood.

My last contact with the CBC included the suggestion that I write about the first poem I ever wrote.

Oooh! I squealed. I like that.

And I did, except that when I sat down to write about 'my very first poem,' I couldn't remember what my very first poem was.

Partly, that's because I started writing 'seriously' at 13, which is a quarter century ago now.

It's also because my first attempts at writing were image-dense, clause-heavy fictions that ran about a page. Teachers and, later, editors weren't sure if they were fiction or poetry. I just knew they were what I was driven to write....

So here I am, arrived at my 300 words. And I've mostly just complained.

Sadly, that's completely typical of my life and my writing life.

Oh! I almost forgot: I deeply and desperately love poetry. And I think you should too.

Manitoba Scene's MBA coverage also includes posts by Charlene Diehl, Di Brandt, and Joan Thomas, which are smart and feeling takes on their writing practices (i.e. the polar opposite of my post).

Yay slight answers to serious questions! Fun!

Reprint: Goodreads

This is what the Goodreads website says about itself:

"Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 4,500,000 members who have added more than 120,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006."

This is what Goodreads member Holley, from Alcoa, TN, said this about Hump on the Goodreads site:

"Although I'm not a mother yet, I will one day be one. This collection of poems enlightens me in the way of emotions I have yet to feel but can't wait to experience. So real and raw, I loved the journey of this book."

(My very first Goodreads review! Squee!)

Holley won one of two copies of Hump I gave away on the Goodreads back in September.

So it's not a completely random review. But I'm VERY tickled that she read and reviewed it.

Because that's how poetry gets out. One copy and one reader at a time.

Eileen McTavish Sykes

Th Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book nominees (l-r): Craig Russell, Ariel Gordon, Keith Cadieux, Sheila McClarty.

The final nominee, Theodore Fontaine, couldn't make it to the reading...

* * *

The Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book is awarded annually to a Manitoba author whose first professionally published English language book is deemed the best written.

The award will be handed out April 17 the Manitoba Book Awards gala, which will be held at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain.

* * *

When I asked the nominees to assemble at the back of the room for a picture, I was sort of shocked to see half the room wheel around and start taking pictures. It was like having lit paparazzi.

Of course, half of the pictures on my camera feature me instructing the volunteer photographer on which button to push. Because I'm bossy...but also because it's a semi-complicated camera.

NPM reading #1

Alison Calder & Charles Leblanc at the Millennium Library April 12.

* * *

Which suggests that there's a NPM reading #2, non?

Here are the details:

NPM Reading #2
Featuring Colin Smith & Deborah Schnitzer

When: Tuesday, April 26, 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Where: Main floor, Millennium Library (251 Donald Street)
Cost: FREE!

Every spring, the League of Canadian Poets celebrates National Poetry Month, which is dedicated to reading, writing, speaking and promoting poetry.

In 2011, the League of Canadian Poets will also celebrate 25 years of the Public Lending Right in Canada, which attempts to both nurture poets and provide free access to their work. This spring, explore Poets + Libraries = PLR for National Poetry Month!

*
Colin Smith is a poetry scalawag. Books = 8X8X7 (Krupskaya, 2008) and Multiple Poses (Tsunami, 1997). More current work pops up in CV2, The Collective Consciousness, and Dandelion. Rarely meets a curse he doesn't like.

Deborah Schnitzer is co-editor of the award-winning collection, The Madwoman in the Academy: 43 Women Boldly Take on the Ivory Tower, whose creative writing includes the long poem, lovinggertrudestein, Loving Gertrude, the novel gertrude unmanageable, and most recently, An Unexpected Break in the Weather, winner of the 2010 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. She has collaborated with Shelagh Carter on three short experimental films, rifting/blue, resolve, and Canoe, and with River on the Run North, an eco-arts collective examining environmental challenges to Lake Winnipeg. Deborah is currently at work landscaping a new novel, the woman who swallowed West Hawk Lake and the long poem, water^woman.

PBN: Jennifer Still

* * *

From the spring 2011 issue of Prairie books NOW.

conk

wetland

pussywillow

All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. April 9, 2011.

Reprint: Getting over her hump

Wolseley writer Ariel Gordon talks poetry, parenthood, and Winnipeg’s growing literary community

The Metro
Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

By: Matt Preprost
Posted: 04/6/2011 4:06 AM

It took Ariel Gordon nearly 20 years before she was finally able to have a tangible, 95-page paperback in her hands to prove she was, in fact, a writer.

And since the 38-year-old Wolseley resident’s debut book of poetry titled Hump was released last May, it keeps on giving.

Gordon was recently shortlisted for two Manitoba Book Awards: the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry and the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book.

The nominations follow on the heels of her being named Manitoba’s most promising writer last year by the Manitoba Writer’s Guild.

"When you publish a book, you hope certain things will happen to you," said Gordon, a freelance writer and events co-ordinator for Aqua Books.

"I didn’t expect, after being in this community for so long, that they would all happen to me. People have been kinder than I probably deserve and all of the small dreams I’ve had about publishing a book have come true.

"I’ve been saying I was a writer since I was 19 with no proof. Anyone can say they’re writer, but until you have a book, there’s no real qualitative proof."

The 43 poems that comprise Hump illustrate Gordon’s love of nature, her relationship with her partner, and her transition into motherhood.

"My life was hijacked by getting pregnant and having a child, and my writing life was hijacked, too, because all of a sudden it was all I wanted to write about," said Gordon, whose daughter is now four years old. "It was almost like a compulsion, I didn’t have much choice of what I was writing about. I was really trying to explain pregnancy and mothering to myself."

Also nominated for one of the guild’s 12 awards are Wolseley-based writers David Bergen and Kerry Ryan.

Bergen’s book The Matter With Morris is shortlisted for The Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, which carries a $3,500 award, and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. Ryan was nominated for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer.

Gordon called the awards a "celebration" of the province’s growing literary community.

"When I was 19 and first started going to events in this community, there were only four awards," she said. "The awards have grown at the same time the community has grown and look at how many international writers are from Winnipeg.

"I can’t say that I’m one of them, but one day I’d like to think I might take my place, if I’m lucky and I don’t die or turn into a terrible writer."

Award recipients will be announced on April 17 at the Manitoba Book Awards gala, held at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain in St. Boniface. The event is free and open to the public.

matt.preprost@canstarnews.com

Speaking Volumes poster!

Here's the official poster for Prairie Fire's Speaking Volumes dinner May 7.

I like how Jake MacDonald is growing out of my ample forehead. Like a reverse Zeus/Athena/migraine.

Now that's a pregancy story!

I mean, I get that Metis was somehow able to give birth inside of Zeus. And I suppose I get that Zeus would relieve a headache by taking an axe to his forehead.

But how did Metis get weapons inside Zeus with which to arm Athena?

I mean, Zeus swallowed Metis. Not Metis + an armory. Did she also give birth to weaponry? (Which would make her the mother of swords!)

Maybe since Zeus thought he could solve his marital problems by eating his spouse, at an earlier date he also thought he could create peace by eating his adversaries' weapons.

And they were just rattling around in there. (This is a really long poster, eh?)

Reprint: PLR podcasts!

The Public Lending Right Commission, or PLR, chose to celebrate National Poetry Month by podcasting poems on their website:

Let's Celebrate!

Authors’ associations rally to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Public Lending Right Commission.

The League of Canadian Poets is launching the celebrations!

During the National Month of Poetry, poets and hosts have set up readings and performances in public libraries, and each library will feature a Canadian poetry display during April. The PLRC and the League of Canadian Poets invite you to cultivate poetry in your community. Nurture creators and recognize free access to their work. Foster the love of poetry at your local library!

Let poetry be part of your everyday life. Make a weekly visit to this website to hear podcasts of some of the readings.

p.s. My performance is a little quiet. But I like the performance itself, so PLEASE turn up the volume on the media player on the PLR website AND on your computer. Thanks!

Aqua Books Lansdowne

Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry/Prix Lansdowne de poésie nominees (l-r): Jonathan Ball, Ariel Gordon & Lori Cayer.

* * *

The Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry/Prix Lansdowne de poésie is an annual award presented to the Manitoba writer whose full length adult book of poetry in either French or English is judged the best written.

The award will be handed out April 17 the Manitoba Book Awards gala, which will be held at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain.

* * *

I think I look tired and therefore kind of squinty here. But oh well. Very nice to have heard Jonathan and Lori read, esp. as this was the first time I've been on the same bill as Lori, nevermind the same shortlist.