Heckling

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I always force audiences to threaten/heckle me, just to keep things interesting. (From last night’s NPM in the WFP 2018 event at McNally's.)

Launching NPM in the WFP 2018!

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I was super tired and Jason had the flu, but we launched the NPM in the WFP 2018 and it was a great night. Standing room only, lots of new-to-me voices, lots of fun.

I made terrible jokes. I said some strange things. But it didn't matter. It was a great night despite me.

I do so love this project, even it is sort of odd.

My thanks to Jason for co-editing and John Toews for organizing/hosting the event.

NPM in the 2018: PRINTED!

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So here are the two pages of NPM poems that ran in yesterday's Winnipeg Free Press. I'm so pleased with the third edition of this project and grateful for co-editor Jason Stefanik and 49.8 editor Scott Gibbons as well as designer Leesa Dahl and photographer Michael Deal.

My deep thanks to participating poets: Di Brandt, Conni Cartlidge, Rebecca Danos, Kristian Enright, Sarah Ens, J. Robert Ferguson, Sally Ito, Ted Landrum, Louella Lester, Kim MacRae, Michael Minor, Amber O’Reilly, Patricia Robertson, and David Yerex Williamson.

See you 7pm on April 30 at McNally's for the launch of the 2018 NPM in the WFP project!

Jason Stefanik's Night Became Years

From Jason Stefanik’s launch of Night Became Years at The Edge Gallery and Urban Art Centre. I hosted the event, which featured poet Colin Smith, musician Jason Eastwood, and artists Gabrielle Funk and Ian Johnson.

So nice to see Jason launched!

TreeTalk-ing at Tallest Poppy!

Winnipeg’s street trees were recently hosts for three infestations: cankerworm, elm spanworm, and tent caterpillars. Which meant most Winnipeggers ate/wore worms for weeks at a time. The worst-hit trees had their leaves eaten down to the stem, which means they’ve spent July growing a new canopy’s worth of leaves…


The mature elm outside Tallest Poppy is middle-aged, anywhere from 70 to 100 years old. It’s survived round after round of construction, billows of pollution, drought, even gig posters stapled to it.

In TreeTalk, my Tallest Poppy Residency July 29 & 30, I’ll work with/next to the tree to add a new layer of leaves to our ideas on street trees.

Throughout the weekend, I’ll work on the Tallest Poppy patio, composing snippets of poems which I'lll hang from the tree using paper and string. Passersby will be invited to TreeTalk too — their secrets / one-liners / meditations / haiku will also be hung from the tree.

Along the way, I’ll will document the leaves via photography. I’ll ask people in her Winnipeg and Canadian networks to add leaves via comments on social media.

By the end of the weekend, the tree will have a new, temporary coat of leaves, as ephemeral/beautiful as the original. It will be infested with words/ideas. I’ll compile all the texts into a found poetry piece, which will be launched at the First Friday After Party at Tallest Poppy on August 4, 2017.

On Sunday, July 30, I’ll hold a one-hour writing workshop, where people are invited to come and TreeTalk, writing poems and letters to the tree.

The Pas in April

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I'll be doing two workshops and two readings as part of the UCN Language Arts Festival.

Once the festival is complete, I'll be doing a reading on April 27 at the Pas Public Library with Lauren and Duncan as part of National Poetry Month.

I'm grateful for organizers Keith Hyde and David Williamson for all their work and the University College of the North and the League of Canadian Poets for their support.

Speaking Crow THIS TUESDAY

"Crow is back from a short break with an exciting reading from Ariel Gordon! September is National Honey Month, so you know it'll be a sweet time.

Sign up for the open mic, or participate as an audience member. Carol Shields Auditorium. Performers have a strictly enforced 3 minute time limit. Sign-up at 7, show at 7:15.

To ease the transition from Chim to Bruce, we're bringing in Everyone's Favourite Steve Locke, Steve Locke! The natural halfway point between two other bespectacled people.

Speaking Crow is always a treat, and a free one, at that."

* * *

So I'll be reading as part of the Speaking Crow Reading Series this Tuesday, which is Winnipeg's longest-running reading series.

I'm going to be reading some of my Poetry Barter Project poems, so if you're interested in food, urban nature, and occasional poems, this is the evening for you!

Out-of-Town-Authors: Kerry Gilbert

I don't think I've met Vernon-based poet Kerry Gilbert before.

I know several people in her writing group and in the broader northern BC literary community. Partly that's because I read in Vernon and Kelowna back in 2013.

Partly it's because I value my relationships with women writers who live outside of of the 'poetry hotbeds' of Toronto and Vancouver and especially women writers who have children.

Over the last ten-fifteen years, I've befriended women/writers and then writer/mothers at conferences, at joint readings, and at retreats. And I've worked to maintain those relationships, not just because I admire their writing but because I like the idea that we're all writing in tandem.

I like that we can swerve into each other's paths as necessary. For a quick and dirty edit, for midnight chats on Facebook about everything and nothing, for commiseration when things get hard. And when there's something to celebrate, like a shortlisting for a contest or a residency or a new book, I'm loud/proud.

So, when Kerry 'friended' me and then asked for my advice on promoting her latest book, Tight Wire, it quickly became obvious that I should interview her. Because even though we've never met, I recognize her.

Hey Kerry. What do you want people to know about Tight Wire? 

Tight Wire came out of a place of imbalance. I was trying to manage that illusive parenting / working / writing balance and it wasn’t going well. I wasn’t writing at all, actually, and many of the poems erupted from that lack—a rebellion.

Speaking of rebellion, the circus and the carnival are central to this collection. They had a very particular idea of the feminine, didn’t they? Women were either exaggeratedly or transgressively feminine: the tightrope walker (“beauty. sequins. perfection. poise.”) or the tattooed lady (“how could this happen to you?”). Tell me how you found yourself at the circus…

I was/am really interested in the arbitrary nature of gender expectations and of the feminine on display. In the circus we normalize and celebrate abnormal behavior, which served as a fantastic metaphor for these things. There is something about the show of outward appearance—of holding things together—versus an inward falling apart that has always interested me. While trying to balance the work / writing / family life, I felt suddenly submerged in a kind of circus and yet everyone just kept smiling painted-on smiles as if everything was just fine.

This collection is also about women in danger. Women—mothers—sacrifice themselves for their children, for children who in some cases are “already saved.” Women find that their bodies are made of clay or seaweed. Is this a nod to all the transformations, all the transmogrifications, of pregnancy and mothering?

Yes, it’s a nod to the contortionists in most of us. I know some of the women in this book. Some of them are me. Some of them are women that I’ve never met, but their own anecdotes echo as a warning of what happens when we spread ourselves too thin with expectations, trying to put on this lovely, grotesque show.

What were your goals for Tight Wire?

There was a moment, very early on in the manuscript, where I was feeling really, really frustrated / stagnant / resentful / burnt out as a person; the poet in me said: what does this look like? The poem “with a tiny scalpel, she carefully cuts the skin just underneath her blouse line. down the sides to her hips. to her ankles. around and up her inner thighs—both sides” came out of that question. For me, it captured all of my abstract “angst” into something concrete and tangible. The rest of the collection 

was a succession of different versions of the same question—what does this look like?

Which leads me to my next question. In addition to the ‘what does this look like’ moment in “with a tiny scalpel…” there are all kinds of surgeries in the book, all kinds of interventions, from childbirth to hysterectomies. There are also a number of hearts in jars…

All of the surgeries and interventions and scalpels are really about loss. I don’t think we can truly find balance without letting things go. Cutting things out. Having things taken away. Faking the real thing and hoping it’s good enough.

What does guilt do to your writing? Feed it or starve it?

In the case of Tight Wire, it fueled the manuscript and the urgency I felt to write at the time helped create the style/tone. If I take myself too seriously, though, guilt (and fear) could certainly starve it.

In terms of craft, tell me why you’ve gravitated towards the prose-poetry form. Does a prose-y line have more bounce for you than a standard line of poetry?

This is the first time I’ve worked in all prose for a collection. The theme and tone needed the denseness of the form, for me. And, because balance became central, the juxtaposition of the single line on the left side of the page made the prose all that much more important on the right.

Now that Tight Wire is out, have you found your ideas around balancing your time between teaching AND raising a family AND trying to write have changed?

This is a work in progress. I’m getting better at valuing all of those acts equally, which is going against the grain (society only truly values the one that makes money).

What is the arts community like in the Okanagan compared to the other places you’ve lived?

The Okanagan has a vibrant writing community, and many talented writers calling it home, but you have to work at outwardly finding it here more than other places. Maybe that makes it all the more rewarding and special when you find it.

You’ve found a writing group within that community, yes? Tell me how being in a group influences your process. In the case of this book, did it help that the people giving you feedback were also writer / mothers?

Yes, I am very grateful to be part of a seven woman writing group, called Spoke. It is absolutely central to my process, in that it keeps me accountable, productive and humble. As a group we share the ups and downs of this whole writing business, which is a great reminder that there are both. I value their feedback and support for this book and for many other things. These talented women inspire me to keep writing, no matter what.

What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?

I’m reading Hannah Calder’s Piranesi’s Figures for fiction and Lorna Crozier’s The Wrong Cat for poetry. I’m working on two different poetry manuscripts—one on fear and parenting and one on women and education. I’ve said too much. :)

Lit-POP-ed

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So I found out today that a poem of mine was shortlisted for this year's Lit POP Award for Poetry.

Aside from my Montreal dreams, I'm happy to see friends and colleagues on the shortlists!

For a vaseful of lilacs

Rhubarb plundered from a friend's garden last year.

I have an idea for a poetry project.

I want to trade someone in Winnipeg a poem for a vaseful of lilacs. 

And later, a poem for two handfuls of rhubarb. Or a bowlful of prairie roses/bagful of mint/bag of apples/massive zucchini....

The way it would work is that the week before the 'thing' come into season, I put out a call.

 If you've got an abundant lilac, you pledge me a vaseful. You give me 5 words of your choosing, which I will incorporate into the poem. Then, in a week's time, you deliver the lilacs and I hand over a fresh poem.

M would photograph the lilacs/rhubarb/prairie roses/mint/apples/zucchini.

You get a custom poem. I get the lilacs/rhubarb/prairie roses/mint/apples/zucchini I would normally shake you down for anyways...and, eventually, I have a bundle of bartered poems. 

So who has a lilac bush and NEEDS a poem written just for them (and then poetry audiences everywhere)?

* * *

I just posted this to FB and have already arranged for my first poetry barter! 

The words are: dinosaur, birds, love, childless, peace.

Wine & Words 2016

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Writers! Actors! Wine! What else is there?

(My poem "Collapsar" is being performed by Justin Otto, which I'm greatly looking forward to...)

Suffrage 100

"With this issue, Prairie Fire marks the 100th anniversary of some women’s right to vote in Manitoba (a right that would be inexcusably denied to First Nations women for another 36 years). This milestone is commemorated with a number of short pieces by Manitoba women.

The issue also includes fiction by Alanna Marie Scott, Margaret Sweatman and Meg Todd; non-fiction by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt; and poetry by Sylvia Legris, Jan Zwicky, Yvonne Blomer, Kate Cayley, Tanis MacDonald, Maryann Martin, Julietta Singh, Vivian Vavassis, Christine Wiesenthal & others."

* * *

I'm pleased to say that I have a suite of poems called "No Votes for Women!" in Suffrage 100.

Here's how I described it for the issue: "Poems to & from Nellie McClung (1873–1951) on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of (White) Women Getting the Vote in Manitoba."

It was strange 'writing-about,' because I usually discover what the 'about' is after I've finished writing a poem. Beyond that, it took me quite a while to find a way into working with Nellie McClung's writing, both technically (found poems? cut-up poems? dictionary poems? glosas?) and in terms of tone. 

Nellie was most often earnest. When that didn't work, she used gentle humour, cajoling her audience into coming around to her point of view. 

I was most often angry while working on these poems, which culminated in the final poem of the suite, "Give us our Due."

The thing that saved me? A buncha great women poets, specifically Basma Kavanagh, Kerry Ryan, Yvonne Blomer, Tanis MacDonald & Leena Niemela. They read and re-read these poems. They pushed me to take them further, to not hide behind technique. 

Which is why it's so lovely that Yvonne & Tanis have poems in the same issue. 

My thanks to editors at Prairie Fire for asking if I'd submit something and to the staff at St. John's College Library at the University of Manitoba, who kept me in books-by-Nellie.

Reprint: A Poem a Day for NPM

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So my introduction to the NPM in the WFP site is up on the Winnipeg Free Press website.

The intro relies heavily on Robert Kroetsch's Seed Catalogue, of course...

They'll post a poem every weekday in April, starting on April 4.

Fun!

National Poetry Month in the Winnipeg Free Press!

Starting April 4, The Winnipeg Free Press will be publishing poems on their website as part of a National Poetry Month project edited by Ariel Gordon.

Poems by Manitoba writers will be posted to the WFP website every weekday in April. WFP staff will be taking portraits of poets and recording audio of the poets reciting their work, both of which will run alongside the poems.

Eligible poets: All Manitoba poets, which includes urban and rural Manitobans as well as former Manitobans. I'm committed to a diversity of voices: emerging, PoC, spoken word, Indigenous, established, and page poets.

Details: Email your poems to poetrymonthwfp@gmail.com. Send 3-5 poems, with each poem being no longer than 30 lines. As is this an unpaid gig, previously published (i.e. in magazines or book form) is fine. The deadline is March 23.

About the Editor: Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her second collection of poetry, Stowaways, won the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry at the Manitoba Book Awards. Most recently, she’s working on essays about Winnipeg’s urban forest. In addition to her English and creative writing training, Ariel also has a Bachelor of Journalism and works as Promotions Coordinator at University of Manitoba Press.

Poetry in Voice 2016

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So I'll be an Online Semifinal Judge again this year for Poetry in Voice: A Recitation Contest for Canadian High Schools.

There are nine poet-judges this year, including Gillian Jerome, Pierre Nepveu, Michael Crummey,
Joanna Lilley, Deanna Young, Andrée Lacelle, Liz Howard, and Éric Charlebois.

Poetry in Voice coincides with the Concour D'art Oratoire competition at my daughter's French Immersion school, so I've been thinking about what it means to get up in front of people.

In particular, I'm remembering when I did my own Concour D'art Oratoire presentations and my first poetry readings. I'd blush and stammer and run out of air...

So I have a lot of appreciation for the French Immersion elementary school kids who've spent the last few weeks memorizing speeches (my daughter's is about our cat) and all the high school students who've gotten poems off-book...

Reprint: Gory

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So my poem "Gory"—my period poem, my menstruation glosa— is ALSO in the 10th anniversary issue of The Goose, a critical/creative web journal published by the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada (or ALECC).

The poem glosses “Seas” by Erin Robinsong, which appeared in Vol. 13, Issue 2 of The Goose.

Here's what poetry editor Camilla Nelson had to say about the poem:

"In “Gory,” Robinsong’s work inspires Ariel Gordon to address the sea of blood through, by and from which we all—not just the “leaky collection of wives & daughters” she initially references—travel."

There's lots of great work in this issue, including poems by Jenna Butler, Gary Barwin, Basma Kavanagh, Don McKay, Ken Belford, and gillian harding-russell.

Thanks to Camilla and to The Goose editors for including me!

Reprint: Hilarity, Wit and Tenderness

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So Regina poet Gillian Harding-Russell reviewed Stowaways for the 10th anniversary issue of The Goose, which is the creative/critical journal run by ALECC (Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada).

Harding-Russell's review opens with the following:

"In Stowaways, Ariel Gordon reflects a feminist and often a mother's perspective in which zany metaphor and unusual collage are poised to startle and challenge the reader. And if this imagery and meaning brought about through juxtaposition are not enough to disrupt the reader's ordinary
senses, surreal angles and surprise turns are guaranteed to dislocate sensibility and overturn old ways of seeing. At the heart of Gordon's postmodern view, comedy and cleverness and an intrinsically parodic inventiveness reign, as witness the slew of 'how to' survive poems that make up the
last half of the collection."

It should go without saying that any poet appreciates close readings of her work. But in this case, I deeply appreciate that it was Harding-Russell, a senior female poet from the prairies, who provided that close reading. She seems to have 'gotten' many of my aims and efforts, which is always nifty...

You can read the rest of the review here and, if you'd also like to read reviews of books by my Palimpsest pressmates Yvonne Blomer, Patricia Young, and Ruth Roach Pierson, they're also reviewed in this issue.

The Puritan

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And then, a day later, I have another poem in The Puritan. Months and months go by without a new poem of mine in the world and then there are two in two days!?!

Today's poem is "Local Smoke," which I wrote in June and submitted while I was at the Deep Bay Cabin. It's an occasional poem, in that it was written based on a specific event, a particular place and time.

The occasion for "Local Smoke," was the forest fire smoke from drought-dry Saskatchewan and Alberta that blew into Winnipeg in early June that co-incided with the stabbing of a teenage boy at a Winnipeg high school. Both events caused me look at the world slightly differently, to shift my perception of normal, and I wanted to mark that somehow.

Interestingly, it was also a poem that came together very quickly, during a walk home from work.
Which is how I found myself standing in the no-man's land between the turn from Stafford onto Academy and the Maryland Street Bridge, scribbling madly—and awkwardly, leaning on the St. Mary's Academy fence—in my notebook.

My thanks to editors at the The Puritan for putting my poem in such excellent company. It's wonderful to see and hear (because editors get contributors to submit audio recordings of accepted poems...) my work alongside that of writer friends like Brenda Schmidt and John Wall Barger as well as that of young poets whose work I'm just getting to know like Cassidy McFadzean and Kayla Czaga.

Fun!

Weak Wood

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So a suite of found poems called "Weak Wood" was published on the Our Teeth blog.

Run by poet/parent/prof kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Our Teeth has the following mandate: "converses with/about/around/within/underneath/beside/without contemporary verses, diverses, perverses!"

While I don't usually co-mingle with experimental poets, kevin and I recognize each other as poets. Which is more than enough for us to be able to work with and also alongside each other.

But when Kevin asked that I submit something months ago, I was swamped. So I put it off and put it off and then, finally, had a look at current work to see if there was anything I could send.

And I had this suite of poems I'd composed while at the Deep Bay Cabin back in June/July, based on my reading of Donald Culross Peattie's A Natural History of North American Trees.

At the time, I was trying to learn more about the 24 species of trees that are native to Manitoba. I was also trying to jam some names for the coniferous trees that surrounded the cabin into my head. After a few sessions with A Natural History of North American Trees, I was most struck by the contrast between Peattie's lyrical writing about the beauty of trees and his listing of their uses by the lumber industry.

Of course, I gravitated towards the trees that were categorized by lumberjacks as useless—i.e. weak wood. First, because the useless trees  happen to be among my favourites, and second, because I realized that I am usually surrounded by copy paper, particle board, and MDF.

Basically, I pulped Peattie's mini-essays and built strange little structures—found poems—out of them.

It was great fun but the poems weren't successful, to my mind, until kevin had a look. He helped me push them further that I could have done on my own.

It reminded me, again, why working with editors is so essential to  writing. The best editors don't say "THIS IS WRONG. DO IT THIS WAY," they say "Hmm. Have you thought about this? This section here is especially intriguing...."

So: new poems from me, about trees. Also: submit to Our Teeth, because that kevin is a good nut.

Go Fly a Kite

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So I contributed a prose poem to Carin Makuz' The Litter I See Project: litter inspired writing by Canadian writers, for literacy.

The project is supposed to benefit Frontier College, which has "been recruiting dedicated volunteers to work with Canadian children, youth and adults from all over Canada since 1899." Frontier College also organizes the Giller Light Bashes around the country...

Carin sent me this image of a scrap of paper and asked me to write something.

I immediately fastened on the words/concept "Julie Andrews." I mean, she gamboled through the fields of my childhood, looking radiant and behaving sensibly. But she was the ultimate maiden (Maria) and crone (Mary Poppins): even though she was providing all kinds of childcare, she was removed, somehow, from the grit of it all. She made it look easy, as long as you had a magic carpetbag and some spare curtains.

And nothing about trying to balance a job and a partner, a child and a house, is easy. 

So this is my fanciful pushback, including taking the title of Mary's anthem "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and shortening it to "Go Fly a Kite," which is what my mother advised me to tell the people who were picking on me in elementary school.