1/16/2009

oh... and strawberry pocky

A list of my favourite things would include a number of expected items: Krest Bitter Lemon, Mini Golf, Spongebob Squarepants, Capture the Flag... oh the list goes on. But near the top of the list would be the poetry of Al Purdy and the city of Vancouver.

Ok, a strange introduction to this post, I admit... but I say all that only to emphasize how overjoyed I am to have poems of mine forthcoming in both "Purdy Country", an anthology to raise funds to save Purdy's A-frame in Ameliasburgh, and "Verse Map of Vancouver" (maybe not its final name?), an anthology of poems set in Vancouver (which is being prepared by current Vancouver poet laureate George McWhirter).

The Purdy poem, called "How little we need to learn, to know", didn't start as a Purdy-related poem, but I realised early on that I was stealing almost every element of the poem from various Purdy poems. Instead of trying to cut it all out, I went with it, and it worked out fairly well.

The Vancouver poem is on Nat Bailey Stadium, and called "One Down at the Nat". It's 50% about baseball and 50% about Pablo Neruda and 100% about the many sunny days I boiled away on the uncovered bleachers on the first-base line at Nat Bailey.

Both are due out midway through 2009 - I'll be sure to post updates on their progress here. Thanks, anthologists!


p.s. One recent publication is already online - though I should hardly get credit. I wrote one half of one couplet out of 88...1/176th the credit! Bet you can't guess which line is mine... Take a look here. Oh, and Daniela Elza has a new poem up on the same site right now, another collaboration - read it here.

3 comments:

Zachariah Wells said...

Ahem, that's anthologist. So, are you following me, or am I following you? I'll get real suspicious if your poems start showing up in Nova Scotia anthologies...

Rob Taylor said...

But you'll admit that anthologizers sounds better, no?

The Purdy one was following you, to be sure, but I think it might be the other way around for Rocksalt and Vancouver Verse.

Lit magazines in NS have always been more receptive to my work than anything around here, so you'd better keep quiet on the submission calls if you want them to yourself...

daniela elza said...

Exciting news, Rob. We will meet again, I mean "read".

The couplets were fun, ( will not give away which line is yours), and the comedy of errors made it even more daring and adventurous on my end.

anthologist? the gist of flowers? such small verses of meadows and woods...