1/16/2014

an Ontario usage

My agent introduced me, when Jean and I were making an anthology, to the term "A-List Writers." I immediately assumed that it is an Ontario, or maybe Toronto, usage. You know that I deplore the shift of attention (by newspapers, etc.) from books to book prizes. I can see that fiction writers might be tempted (or if they are UBC Creative-Writhing students, trained) to make a career of writing, but for the life of me, I cannot understand a poet's wanting to do that. If you want a career, you have to produce something that resembles what is already there, don't you?

- George Bowering, in interview with Judith Fitzgerald, as published at the back of Bowering's new poetry collection, Teeth, Poems 2006-2011 (Mansfield Press, 2013).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"UBC Creative-Writhing students" -- oh, too funny, but probably not in the original, eh?

Al

Rob Taylor said...

Nope, not a typo. A George Bowering original, I believe...

An earlier version of the quote/interview is here, if you still don't trust me ;)