Reprint: Write out of Wolseley

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So I was interviewed a few weeks ago by Meg Crane for The Leaf, whose slogan is "Serving Winnipeg's Wolseley Neighbourhood."

We met at the Neighbourhood Cafe, where I slurped on loose-leaf tea while chatting with Meg about Stowaways and the Manitoba Book Awards.

My thanks to Meg & the Leaf!

Reprint: UM Today

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So UM Today, which is the weekly journal at the University of Manitoba, wrote an article about the Manitoba Book Awards where my Landowne Prize win for Stowaways was the lede.

Also mentioned in the article were Maurice Mierau, Jonathan Ball, GMB Chomichuk, and Brenda Sciberras as well as the two awards won by UMP titles.

Fun!

Lansdowne Prize for Poetry

It was the last thing I expected, but I'm pretty happy that Stowaways won the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry last night at the Manitoba Book Awards.

Here are the judges' comments:

"Stowaways is well imagined and well crafted, each poem tight, the poet’s attention evident. From wildlife to the clutter of the everyday to “how-to” offerings, the reader is charmed and enticed by the poet’s light touch and sure pen.

Images jump out at us, grab us by the throat, leave us gasping. Ariel Gordon’s second collection is as strong as the parts of its sum.”

—Margaret Michele Cook, Katia Grubisic, and Paul Savoie, judges of the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de Poesie.

Laurent Poliquin ("A deep and far-reaching exploration of the possiblity of words and language"), Alison Calder ("There is so much of breathtaking beauty in Alison's Calders In the Tiger Park"), and Luann Hiebert ("A true ephiphany of sound, structure, meaning, allusion, intent") were also nominated.

I expected Alison to win, because, as the judges put it, she's a "a thoughtful imp that sneaks into our night mind, a tender and wry traveller inviting her readers along." And, also, because I admire her work so very much...

As such, I didn't have any comments prepared, so I mostly mocked/thanked M, who had commented just before my award was announced—having watched Rick Chafe's gracious wife accept the inaugural Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright—that spouses should always get to accept awards.

(M was there in two capacities: loyal/long-suffering spouse but also as someone who'd worked on the Winnipeg Free Press' City Beautiful book, which was nominated in the design category...)

I also acknowledged Alison as her role as member of my writing group, along with Kerry Ryan and Jennifer Still.

And then I made the crowd chant "Poetry is Forever" which was sort of fun, but completely forgot to thank my publisher Palimpsest Press or editor Jim Johnstone or the MWG or even my colleagues at UMP. Sigh...

But I had a new dress for the occasion from Foxy Shoppe and had had my hair done at Edward Carrier, so between the wedge heels I was wearing and the pompadour I was sporting, I was at least six and a half feet tall...

The ballroom at the Marlborough Hotel was spacious but also suffocatingly hot, so people rushed out when all was said and done, but a group of us went to the Round Table and had buckets of bacon. Which was a nice end to the evening...

Fun!

(My thanks to Anthony Mark Schellenberg for the acceptance speech photo, from the moment when I got the crowd to chant "Poetry is Forever," mostly because I could. And because I believe it...)

Manitoba Book Awards

So the news is two weeks old now, but the shortlists for the 2015 Manitoba Book Awards were released on March 30.

Sixteen awards will be handed out this year at the ceremony April 25th at the Marlborough Hotel. The list includes two new prizes, the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award & the Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright.

And University of Manitoba Press authors got eight Manitoba Book Award nominations in five categories.

I'm proud of that, even though I had very little to do with it in my role as Promotions/Editorial Assistant at the press.

I'm also proud that my poetry collection Stowaways was nominated for the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de poésie.

Many thanks to Palimpsest Press for its support of the book & to Toronto poet Jim Johnstone, who edited it.

Also nominated for the Lansdowne are the following books / poets, all of which I recommend you check out:

De l’amuïssement des certitudes by Laurent Poliquin, published by Jacques André Editeur

"Que peut rappeler le poétique au politique, la poésie à la loi ? Que la poésie va vers ce qui résiste. Elle provoque le réel, elle interprète ce que le corps et la voix peuvent tracer de l’espace et du temps. Laurent Poliquin, dans son recueil De l’amuïssement des certitudes, présente sa quête dans laquelle il cherche à structurer sa souveraineté et son opposition à l’asservissement quotidien. C’est dans la musicalité des mots et une certaine sensualité qu’il engage un combat contre la pesanteur de l’existence. Ainsi, les défis cinglants face à la mort, l’aliénation contemporaine, la brume des incertitudes s’atomisent dans ces poèmes épurés, fougueux et sans contredit: amoureux"

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In the Tiger Park by Alison Calder, published by Coteau Books

"Alison Calder's poetry is known for shining the light of the poet's curiosity on all manner of 'natural occurrences,' which nevertheless stand out. Again, as with her first book, Wolf Tree, this collection is about what exists at the edges of human experience, what's out there but is largely unseen by the average human being – animals, the line a receiver makes running down a football field, the calligraphy of pheasant wings in the snow. It's about ghosts, how these things operate as ghosts to us now, in this age—things that might have, in another age, occupied a more central place in our lives."

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What Lies Behind by Luann Hiebert, published by Turnstone Press

"What Lies Behind, Luann Hiebert’s debut collection of poetry, explodes the notion of the common and everyday. The seductive songs of motherhood and love and springtime on the prairies are confronted with illness, death, and the coldness of time marching on without us. With the weight of history behind her, Hiebert arrests the patterns of daily life and in their place leaves a beautiful truth that is more awesome and delightful than memory could serve."

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So: congratulations to all the writers who were nominated. I'm also thinking of all those writers whose books weren't nominated. Here's to all of us!

I'm off to assemble a vaguely-1920s costume...

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!

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...

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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.

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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.

Aqua Books Lansdowne

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

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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.

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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.