one asks for bread and is given a plethora of sounds

With only a few exceptions - Lawrence, Rimbaud - the modern poet has been an empty windbag and a chatterer. No wonder anguished people turn from him in amusement, boredom, or pity. He has nothing to say worth listening to. One asks for bread and is given a plethora of sounds. The major poets are children lost in a painted forest, making as much noise as they can to attract attention; the lesser ones absent-mindedly continue bringing their posies into the swept courtyards of Auschwitz and Belsen; all of them intent on proving to the world how sensitive they are, how perceptive, how erudite and archetype-crammed. The truth is this: instead of remembering they are prophets and the descendants of prophets, the poets have swapped roles with entertainers and culture-peddlers.

- Irving Layton, from the foreword to Balls for a One-Armed Juggler, 1963

christmas-cellanea

1. Cormorant Books' Spring 2011 Catalogue is online! See Mom? I told you I wasn't make the whole book thing up... (If you click the link, give the catalogue a second to load before scrolling through).

2. One Ghana, One Voice is now on Twitter. Follow along on all things Ghanaian + poetry at http://twitter.com/ghanapoetry. While on the subject of OGOV, don't forget to vote for your favourite poem of 2010.

3. The second issue of The Incongruous Quarterly is now online. You can read it here. If you're feeling nostalgic, you can read my poem from the first issue here.

4. Merry Christmas to you and yours, lovely readers!

To celebrate, here's a winter scene designed by Daniela Elza's uber-talented 10 year old son, Azlen:



 
I think silaron is now on vacation until the New Year. If so, Happy New Year and see you in 2011!

vote for your favourite OGOV poems

As we do every year at One Ghana, One Voice, we're collecting readers' votes in order to determine our favourite poems of 2010. If you've kept an eye on the site over the year, you can get the info on voting here. If you're out of the loop, you can catch up via our archives.

Favourites from past years can be read here.

rainy-day readings

It's pouring rain in December. That's more like it, Vancouver weather. Snow? In November? That was crazy, dude.

Four readings coming up over the next three days - and there are probably more that I don't know about. I'm reading at one of the Thursday readings, but Anna Swanson's new book, The Nights Also, is darn good, so I wouldn't blame you if you took that in instead (esp. if she reads "The Logic of Trains").

Anyway, here they be:

Leaf Press Reading
Wednesday, December 8th, 6:30- 8:30 PM
Sitka Books & Art
2025 W 4th Avenue, Vancouver
Featuring: Bibiana Tomasic and Sandy Shreve
Free!


TWS Reading Series
Thursday, December 9th, 7:00 PM
Rhizome Cafe
317 East Broadway, Vancouver
Featuring: Grant Lawrence, Renee Saklikar, Melissa Sawatsky, myself and more!
Free!


Robson Reading Series
Thursday, December 9th, 7:00 PM
UBC Bookstore, Robson Square
800 Robson St, Vancouver
Featuring: Anna Swanson and Deborah Willis
Free!


Anvil Press Reading/Launch Party
Friday, December 10th, 7:00 PM
Cafe Montmartre
4362 Main St, Vancouver
Featuring: Kerry Ryan, Tony Burgess, Bonnie Bowman, and more!
Free!

five christmas ideas #2

A reliable source has informed me that my "Five Last Minute Christmas Ideas" post from last year generated at least one purchase of a book of Canadian poetry. A less-reliable source has informed me that my pick of Karen Solie's Pigeon as the first of my five recommendations was the deciding factor in last year's Griffin Prize jury deliberation. My sources, reliable or not, agreed that I should do it again this year.

Here, then, are some more suggestions of new-ish poetry books for poetry fans and maybe-possibly-soon-to-become poetry fans alike:

Paper Radio by Damian Rogers, ECW Press, 2009

Who’s Damian Rogers? A poet. A Canadian one. Well, if you consider Detroit to be "North Windsor", in the Journey-lyrics sense. And she's living in Toronto now, which makes her slightly more Canadian. The internet can tell you more.

What’s this book? Sell it to me like it's a Canadian movie. Hmmm... how about "Poems about Shakers. Wait, don't leave! They're really good. I promise!"

I'm a bargain hunter. Is this book a bargain? Well, there are 48 poems and the book costs $16.95, so you pay a mere $0.35 a poem. You tell me. (p.s. The answer is "Yes!")

When I'm in the bookstore considering my purchase, which poem should I read to seal the deal? “New House”, pg. 23.

Ok, I was lying in that last question. My plan was to Google the poem, then buy the book on Amazon. But I couldn't find that poem online! Got another one? "Dream of the Last Shaker", pg. 55. And also here, lazy.

Living Things by Matt Rader, Nightwood Editions, 2008

Who’s Matt Rader? A poet. A Canadian one, even if he lived in Oregon for a while. Still, Oregon's more Canadian than Toronto, so we shouldn't hold it against him. He's on Vancouver Island now. The internet can tell you more.

What’s this book? Sell it to me like it's a Canadian movie. Hmmm... how about "Poems about trees and plants. Wait, don't leave! They're really good. I promise!"

I'm a bargain hunter. Is this book a bargain? Well, there are 46 poems and the book costs $16.95, so you pay a mere $0.37 a poem. Yes, a bargain once again, it seems.

When I'm in the bookstore considering my purchase, which poem should I read to seal the deal? “Emergency Broadcast System”, pg. 49.

Ok, I was lying in that last question. My plan was to Google the poem, then buy the book on Amazon. But I couldn't find that poem online! Got another one? "The Great Mink", pg. 63. And also here.

But seriously, you should get out more.

Chameleon Hours by Elise Partridge, House of Anansi Press, 2008

Who’s Elise Partridge? A poet. A Canadian one, though I read somewhere that she's a Canadian-American dual citizen. Can't we just keep things simple, people? Anyway, she lives in Vancouver. The internet can tell you more.

What’s this book? Sell it to me like it's a Canadian movie. Hmmm... how about "Poems about chemotherapy treatment. Wait, don't leave! They're really good. I promise!" Man, no one is making this easy on me...

I'm a bargain hunter. Is this book a bargain? Well, there are 38 poems and the book costs $18.95, so you pay a mere $0.50 a poem. That's the cost of a local phone call from a pay phone (remember those?) - a pretty good bargain, if you ask me.

When I'm in the bookstore considering my purchase, which poem should I read to seal the deal? "Chemo Side Effects: Vision", pg. 22.

Ok, I was lying in that last question. My plan was to Google the poem, then buy the book on Amazon. But I couldn't find that poem online! Got another one? "Chemo Side Effects: Memory", pg. 20. And also here.

You're ruining your eyes staring at that monitor all day, you know?

The Essential Don Coles by Don Coles, The Porcupine's Quill, 2009

Who’s Don Coles? A poet. A Canadian one, though he's lived in London, Stockholm, Florence, Munich, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Zurich... oh I give up with this "Canadian" thing. Let's just say he lives in Toronto and move on with it. The internet can tell you more. And more about his "selector", too.

What’s this book? Sell it to me like it's a Canadian movie. Hmmm... how about "Poems about people, some of whom are Canadian. Wait, don't leave! They're really good. I promise!"

I'm a bargain hunter. Is this book a bargain? Well, there are 30 poems and the book costs $12.95, so you pay a mere $0.43 a poem. Plus the poems are selected from six earlier collections. There's no weak stuff here in Bargain City!

When I'm in the bookstore considering my purchase, which poem should I read to seal the deal? "Somewhere Far from This Comfort", pg. 40.

Ok, I was lying in that last question. My plan was to Google the poem, then buy the book on Amazon. But I couldn't find that poem online! Got another one? "Sampling from a Dialogue", pg. 15. You can also read it here.

How about first, though, you take a little walk around the block? You know, just to get the circulation going.

A Short History of Forgetting by Paul Tyler, Gaspereau Press, 2010

Who’s Paul Tyler? A poet. A Canadian one. Ottawa, even (he's not messing around). A number of his poems are set in Baltimore, but that might only mean that he's been watching The Wire... The internet can't really tell you more, though you're welcome to give it a shot yourself.

What’s this book? Sell it to me like it's a Canadian movie. Hmmm... how about "Poems about trees and plants. Oh, and old people. Wait, don't leave! They're really good. I promise!"

I'm a bargain hunter. Is this book a bargain? Well, there are 49 poems and the book costs $19.95, so you pay a mere $0.41 a poem. Don Coles, you've just been undersold. Gordy Dodd is ashamed of you, Don.

When I'm in the bookstore considering my purchase, which poem should I read to seal the deal? "Adam Naming the Animals", pg. 9.

Ok, I was lying in that last question. My plan was to Google the poem, then buy the book on Amazon. But I couldn't find that poem online! Got another one? "Hungry", pg. 23. And also here.

Hopefully, though, you're already on your way out to the book store. I'd hate to think I was enabling your sedentary lifestyle by providing all these links. Don't disappoint me, lazy reader!

Want more recommendations? Vox Populist and Lemon Hound just offered some up as well. OR YOU CAN ALWAYS THINK FOR YOURSELF.

more actual content?

Unauthorized this time, but yes!

Good ol' Statcounter, like a reliable hunting dog, tracked down ilikepoetry for me today. It's a "tumblr" - Jesus, the kids these days and their newfangled toys - run by "Mitch Mitchells" (pseudonym or cruel parents?), where he posts poems, by others, that he likes.

He's got some great poems up there, like Karen Solie's "Tractor" and Jeff Latosik's "Piñata". I'm quite flattered to have a couple of my poems up there as well, "The Same Thing" and "After the Game". Any day I find out someone read (and liked!) a poem of mine (or two!), is a very, very good day.

Clearly, Mr. Mitchells reads a lot of CanPo, as those poems of mine appeared in CV2 and Poetry is Dead, respectively, and I suspect the overlap in readership between the two is... well... me and Mr. Mitchells. You can view his full archive of poems here.



I'm torn about how to feel about sites like this one. I don't post others' poems on this site (though I'm often tempted) - if a poet wants to hoard their poems, that's their business, and their right. I often wonder, though, why poets are resistant to putting their poems online after they've sold the first-publishing rights (for the standard rate of a fist full of pocket change). Do they know of some lucrative second-publishing rights venue, and are keeping it a secret? Or do poets think that hoarding their poems will increase the value of their books? That's a model that's been proven wrong enough times, no? Don't make me bring up Radiohead, people!

All that said, when an unauthorized "tumbl" of one of your poems leads to it getting picked up and "tumbld" on a page as awesome as this, how can anyone complain?



Gonzalo Higuain gets all weak
in the knees around poetry.



actual content?

Hard to believe, I know, but I've posted two poems and the afterword to Lyric on my website.

The poems are "The Party" and "Early Rain". Thanks go to Riddle Fence and subTerrain, respectively, for publishing the poems previously.

The afterword can be read here. Thanks, of course, goes to The Alfred Gustav Press for publishing both the poem "Lyric" and its afterword in my recent chapbook.

Afterwords are a required feature of each chapbook in the Alfred Gustav series. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't have written one. That said, I'm glad I did. The poem is an extended glosa "about the loss of a father and the lessons on love and language that follow" (thank you, back-page bumf!), and the afterword continues working on those themes, if in a slightly more technical fashion.

Hope you enjoy!

just when you thought you were safe from the hype...

First off, I'm reading next week as part of what looks to be a great line-up of readers for the TWS Reading Series:

TWS Reading Series
Thursday, December 9th, 7:00 PM
Rhizome Cafe
317 East Broadway, Vancouver
Featuring: Grant Lawrence, Renee Saklikar, Melissa Sawatsky, myself and more!
Free!

Second, and as you'll have found if you clicked the link above and read my bio, I've got a book coming out in the Spring! It's entitled The Other Side of Ourselves and will be published by Cormorant Books.

I wanted to hold off on hyping it until Lyric came out, so that I could maximize the chap-hype. Now that that lovely beast is in my hands (and hopefully arriving in the hands of subscribers shortly), and this playbill is being sent around the internet, it seemed about time to let spill the worst-kept secret in silaron history.

I don't have much to say at this point, other than that the book is finished and I'm very, very pleased with it. But I will have more to say soon enough, to be sure.

For now, though, dear reader, I recommend that you start saving your shekels, as I expect you to buy fifty copies in the Spring. Also, here's a handy seasonal tip: give everyone on your Christmas list IOUs for The Other Side of Ourselves. Bam! Christmas shopping done.

You can thank me later. In the form of additional book purchases.

I'm out of control and it's only December...

chapbooks!

They've arrived! And it turns out (SPOILER ALERT) that the set includes a bonus mini-chapbook (chap-chap? half-chap?) by Richard Therrien.  Lots of good December reading ahead!

I think my copies came a little before general subscribers, but if you ordered a set it should be arriving soon.

"Lyric" is in the mail!

My new chapbook is in the mail! If you ordered a copy, expect it to arrive soon! Hurrah!

While I'm posting, two interweb-things:

1. How Pedestrian is posting some great Nick Thran poems and readings this week. Check it out here.


2. Join the Poetry Pipeline! It's an online poetry-protest of the Northern Gateway Pipeline, organized by Christine Leclerc. Elizabeth Ross conducted an interview with Leclerc about the project, and you can read that here.

Krissy Darch's "her body is the land", previously published at OGOV, is already part of the pipeline. Maybe you should add a poem?

Now go play in the snow, you crazy kids!

two launches

Is November the new April? Nine readings in two days last week, and two books being launched in the next two days (on top of that, I'm pretty sure I'm missing as many readings as I'm finding - these two were hidden away on Facebook, for instance). Personally, I'd prefer November to April - in November, no one ever looks out the window and wishes they were out playing in the sun. THIS IS BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUN IN NOVEMBER.

Anyway, the details:

Launch of bill bissett's "time"
Wednesday, November 24m 8:00 PM - 11:30 PM
The Anza Club
3 West 8th Ave, Vancouver
Featuring: bill bissett, George Bowering, Gary Thomas Morse, and more!
Free!


Launch of Catherine Owen's "Seeing Lessons"
Thursday, November 25th 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Cafe Montmartre
4362 Main St., Vancouver
Featuring: Catherine Owen and Ray Hsu
Free!

an age of creative writing

Jarrell’s “age of criticism”—the literary climate of the Forties and early Fifties—is not our age. Quite the contrary. Today, criticism is out. Blogs and letters columns are in. When a negative review appears, wounded poets fire off blistering e-mails to the offending magazine (it might be this one)—no matter if the wronging critic was right! It’s possible to imagine, in more melancholy moments, that the once-vital culture of literary criticism has devolved from pointed, perspicacious, well-reasoned articles into huffy Letters to the Editor. Whatever the case, “the elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste” (Eliot’s famous phrase) is not an occupation that interests most contemporary poets; essays and reviews no longer figure as part of a poet’s project. If Jarrell envisioned a critical age, ours is an Age of Creative Writing, and creative writing is in many ways allergic to criticism (except occasionally as an agent of career advancement or generic boosterism). In part, this may be because so many poets’ livelihoods now depend on getting along. Poets are expected to play nice—in universities, on prize committees, in magazines, online. Critics, by contrast, are seen as the black-raincoat kids, skulking and scowling at the edges of the high-school dance.

- David Yezzi, in his essay "The Rest is Criticism" from the Contemporary Poetry Review website.

just in case you want to go to a reading RIGHT NOW... or maybe tomorrow...

Also note the two other readings going on tonight that I mentioned in a previous post. Oh, and this is on, too. Then three more readings tomorrow. Major fun times can be had if only someone would invent that time machine already. Enough talk, scientists! I want results!!!

W2 Real Vancouver Series
Wednesday, November 17th, 7:45 PM
W2 Storyeum
151 West Cordova Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Gillian Jerome, Heather Haley, Dennis E Bolen, and more!
$5


Poetry Around the World Reading
Thursday, November 18th, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Renfrew Public Library
2969 East 22nd Avenue, Vancouver
Featuring: Alejandro Mujica-Olea, Alara Bretanne, Jacqueline Maire and Lilija Valis
Free!


OCW Issue 5.2 Launch Party
Thursday, November 18th, 8:30 PM
156 W Hastings, Vancouver
Featuring: Daniel Zomparelli, Shannon Rayne, and more!
$10 (includes a copy of the new issue)


Respondency West
Thursday, November 18th, 8:00 PM
The People's Co-Op Books
1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver
Featuring: Kim Minkus and Kevin McPherson Eckhoff
$3-5


Drash: Jewish Writing from the Rainy Cities Launch
Sunday, November 21st, 1:30 - 3:00 PM
Jewish Community Centre
41st and Oak Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Diane Tucker and more!
Free!


Short Line Reading Series
Tuesday, November 23rd, 6:30 PM
The Railway Club
579 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Ashok Mathur, Glen Lowry, and Ayumi Kai
Free!

visible verse adds a digit

Everyone's favourite video poem festival is back for its tenth(!) year, at the Pacific Cinematheque. It will run on November 19th and 20th, with the shows starting at 7 PM each night.

If you haven't experienced it before, here's the blurb:

Pacific Cinémathèque and Vancouver poet, author, musician and media artist Heather Haley celebrate 10 years of Visible Verse! First presented at Pacific Cinémathèque in 2000, when the event was known as the Vancouver Videopoem Festival, Visible Verse is a special annual program devoted to video poetry (also known as poetry film or cine-poetry), a hybrid creative form that integrates verse with media-art visuals produced by a camera or a computer. This year, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, Visible Verse features an expanded two-day festival program made up of screenings (including both retrospective and current works), live spoken-word/poetry performances, and a panel discussion.

More info here. And to get you excited, both about the festival and about trees (and yes, I mean "excited" in that way) here's a video by Heather Haley herself:

purdy update + christmas ideas

From the A-Frame Trust:

The Al Purdy A-frame Trust is now well past the $100,000 fundraising mark, but we still have a long way to go, and you can help.

Al Purdy was well known in the bookselling community. Al was a book junky. Yes, he wrote books and yes, he was a voracious and eclectic reader, but Al also was an avid book collector. He was always looking for a great deal or a good trade. Sometimes he would send booksellers packages marked “books” that actually contained bottles of his notorious wild grape wine.

Booksellers coast to coast are supporting the Al Purdy A-frame Trust in many different ways. David Sweet in Picton organizes fundraising readings/events. David Mason has given generously of his time and expertise as we sort through Al’s books and papers in order to ensure the literary estate is well protected. Greenley’s in Belleville supported the recent event at the Belleville Public Library. Many other booksellers are supporting the A-frame project in various ways.

December is coming and if you have book lovers and Purdy fans on your gift list you can support the Al Purdy A-frame Trust and your local bookseller by buying and giving The Al Purdy A-frame Anthology. All contributors donated their works and all profits go to the Trust.

Other gift suggestions:

* Give copies of the Al Stein broadside. It includes the famous Purdy Privy recently discussed in the Globe and Mail and on CBC. $125 plus $10 shipping.

* Give the Purdy Package — one copy of The Al Purdy A-frame Anthology that will be mailed to your gift recipient along with a letter announcing your donation in the recipient’s honor. For $125 a copy of the anthology will be mailed with the donor letter and you will be issued a tax receipt for $100.

To make arrangements for Purdy gift giving or for more information, contact Jean Baird at jeanbaird(at)shaw.ca

p.s. You can now also buy signed copies of Purdy's Sex and Death.

tuesday

I've posted a poem from my chapbook of Ghana poems, Child of Saturday, over at One Ghana, One Voice:


Tuesday


The posting also includes a short Q+A with Prince Mensah about some of the themes of the poem. That can be read here.

some november readings

The Heart Does Break @ the Robson Reading Series
Wednesday, November 10th, 7:00 PM
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
800 Robson St., Vancouver
Featuring: Stephen Collis, Joan Givner and Anne Stone
Free!


TWS Reading Series
Friday, November 12th, 7:00 PM
Take 5 Cafe
429 Granville St.
Featuring: Heidi Greco, Gurjinder Basran, Bonnie Nish and more!
Free!



Spoken INK Reading Series
Tuesday, November 16th, 7:30 PM (Sign-up at 7:00 PM)
La Fontana Cafe
101-3701 East Hastings (at Boundary), Burnaby
Featuring: David Glyn-Jones and Elizabeth Elwood
Free!


Lorna Crozier Reading
Wednesday, November 17th, 5:00 - 6:00 PM
Graduate Student Centre Penthouse, Thea Koerner House
6371 Crescent Road, Vancouver (UBC Campus)
Featuring: Lorna Crozier
Free!


Play Chthonics
Wednesday, November 17, 7:30 PM
Graham House at Green College
6201 Cecil Green Park Road, Vancouver (UBC Campus)
Featuring: Phinder Dulai and Daniel Heath Justice
Free!

update feat. what appears to be a movember pledge, but is really just laziness

Posting on silaron has been slow of late. This is because things have been happening, people. A small example: signing chapbook covers!

My covers for Lyric have been signed and sent back to the press. Chapbooks should be arriving soon! Hurrah!

More examples of things happening to come...

on "pretty-good", "very-good" and "great" writing

As readers, each of us will necessarily put different books into each of these categories, and we may even change our minds about certain books over time. So I never give my students the once-over and think that only those who comprise the top two categories can or should be encouraged. There are many paths to a writing life; those paths twist and turn and are haunted by the cruelties of subjectivity, along with the inevitably erratic application of our gifts. I can forgive anyone’s so-called mediocrity, mine included, as long as the writer herself is not satisfied with it.

- Sonya Chung, on teaching creative writing, in an essay at The Millions. You can read the whole thing here.

it will never end in wisdom if it doesn't begin in delight

Read for pleasure. Read junk. Read every kind of book. But read for pleasure. The reason the Puritans wanted to stamp out poetry was because it gave pleasure. It’s about things you love, things that you care about. Sir Philip Sidney, in the generation before Shakespeare, said, “Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” And it will never end in wisdom if it doesn’t begin in delight and continue in delight. When you read a poem and you think, “God, that is so beautiful, I don’t want to forget that,” and you go on saying it to yourself because you love it, that’s pleasure. That is real pleasure.

- W.S. Merwin, in interview with Ed Rampell at The Progressive. You can read more of the interview here.

the best o' the west

In the midst of the VIWARF (sounds like a sneeze, no?), Tightrope Books will be running its Vancouver launch for The Best Canadian Poetry 2010. The details:

The Best Canadian Poetry 2010 Launch
Saturday, October 23rd, 4:00 - 6:00PM
The Agro Café
1363 Railspur Alley (Granville Island), Vancouver
Featuring: Don McKay, Elise Partridge, David Zieroth, and many more!
Free!

See ya there?

the inside view

Two quotes from the same interview, found eight pages apart, then mashed together for your reading enjoyment:

Ange Mlinko: The Master and His Emissary does more than acknowledge the difference and outright conflict between scientific method and humanistic tradition; it advocates for the embattled latter, by warning us that we are on a slippery slope toward an atomized, utilitarian culture in which intuition and feeling are suppressed, while the quantitative is valorized.

Or, if intuition and feeling cannot be suppressed, they are effectively isolated, not permitted to contribute to the public discourse. That is what I think has happened to poets (at least in the US), some of whom quietly resign themselves to their labeled bin, and some of whom are scrambling right now to reinvent poetry as a discourse as relevant to modern culture as Damien Hirst’s shark in formaldehyde. But the fact remains: poets can’t be considered possessors or transmitters of “knowledge” because we as a society have decided that knowledge is quantifiable—but art is not. Art is precisely the experiment that can’t be reproduced under identical conditions.

...

Iain McGilchrist: That’s a really interesting point. I am not impressed by the trend towards neuroscience in the modern novel—it seems to me bound up with a sense of inferiority, as though, despite the bravado, we accept that our realities are only playacting, while the scientists know what’s really going on. It reminds me a bit of colonial subjects in the bad old days, dressing like the Brits in order to be taken seriously. How it messed up the study of literature, all those university departments that had to prove they were doing something difficult and serious, a form of science! We badly need an antidote to this culture: we should not be concerned with proving ourselves clever, but rejoicing in doing something science could never do on its own, understanding and celebrating experience—otherwise known as life. Poets and all artists take the inside view: as I say in the book, the brain is just the view from the outside. It’s not more real.

- Iain McGilchrist, in interview with Ange Mlinko in the October 2010 issue of Poetry. You can read the full interview here, and the whole issue here.

quote + event listing = quovent?

A great weekend of readings and events is coming up, starting with Steven Heighton and Ian Williams Thursday night at the Robson Reading Series:

Robson Reading Series
Thursday, October 14th, 7:00 PM
UBC Library/Bookstore, Robson Square
800 Robson St. (Plaza Level), Vancouver
Featuring: Steven Heighton and Ian Williams
Free!

Steven also has twelve-or-twenty answers over at rob mclennan's blog. A sample:

The problem with allowing theories or ideologies to understrap your creative work is that they prescribe answers that you unconsciously (or consciously) write towards. Which is death, I think, for any creative enterprise. But of course there are ideological, or at least moral, questions I'm posing to myself when I write. (Questions but no clear answers). These days as a writer I seem to be circling issues of ethical intervention: when is it right to intervene in a situation and when does it make matters worse? Can you even tell beforehand? I guess basically now I'm writing to try to understand how to be a good person.

Read the whole thing here.

And have a lit + fun filled = flit-filled(?) weekend:

TWS Reading Series
Friday, October 15th, 7:00 PM
Take 5 Cafe
429 Granville Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Michelle Elrick, Rachel Thompson, Alexander Winstanley, and more!
Free!


Canzine West
Saturday, October 16th, 1:00 - 7:00 PM
W2 Storyeum
151 West Cordova Street
Vancouver
$5 (includes a free copy of the latest issue of Broken Pencil)


A Taste of Words
Saturday, October 16th, 7:00 — 8:00 PM
Cafe Montmartre
4362 Main St., Vancouver
Featuring: Gurjinder Basran, Daniela Elza, Mona Fertig and Peter Haase!
Free!

two things related only by the colour of their logos

Pink-logo'd thing #1: Fiona Lam has a great article up at The Tyee about Poetry in Transit, in which silaron is referred to as "a colleague's poetry blog." Booyah! We've hit the big time now!

Pink-logo'd thing #2: George Murray is leading the charge to include a poetry book in CBC's tenth-annual "Canada Reads" competition. He's voting for Dionne Brand's Inventory, which sounds good to me though I haven't read it (Brand's Land to Light On is one of my favourites, but ineligible for this as it's too old). I've already cast my vote for A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove. What'll you vote for?

Update: National Post Books is on it!

well made time bombs

Andy Brown: How do you cultivate a culture of interest for esoteric beautiful books of poetry? How do you sell it to the average individual?

Andrew Steeves: I guess to oversimplify the matter, I would suggest you invest heavily in the educational system, and in cultural infrastructure that everyone gets to use – not just in industrial infrastructure like publishing houses...

I think books are only a small piece of the equation. What I’m really all about is getting people to pay attention. You take the small corner of the culture that’s devoted to books and writing and ask why no one is reading the types of books published by literary presses, the reflex response is that it’s because publishers are not professional enough about marketing and promotion. What I’m trying to suggest is that we dig deeper. If we build stronger communities culture will follow. Right now there are programs that fund the writing of book, the publishing of the books, the marketing of the books. Hell, governments fund everything except buying the books too. And yet despite all this investment in 'culture', very little benefit trickles down to the citizen in the street. Only the people directly involved in the industry (the writer, the publisher) really benefit. The average citizen has very little contact with this official literary culture. I don't like it. But let's say you take the same amount of money and instead of funding the arts from the top you fund it from the bottom. Let's say instead you gave every Canadian a voucher to buy one Canadian-published book this year. There are many problems with this suggestion, but the big advantage is that you have engaged the general populace with literary culture. Right now that’s kind of what’s missing. Right now we are propping up an industry that is dysfunctional. We all have a bunch of really great books in our warehouses that nobody’s reading, even though they helped fund their production through their tax dollars. I would rather get those books out there. Afterall, a good book is a ticking time bomb, it can sit there a long time. If it's well made, that is.

- Andrew Steeves, in interview with Andy Brown for Matrix. Quoted from the Gaspereau Press blog, where you can read more excerpts from the interview here.

two more events for the big list

Sad Mag Live
Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 9th, 8:00 - 10:00 PM
The Cultch
1895 Venables St., Vancouver
Featuring: Barbara Adler, Jason Sloan Yip, Lizzy Karp, and more!
$18 (includes a free copy of the fifth issue)


A Taste of Words
Saturday, October 16th, 7:00 — 8:00 PM
Cafe Montmartre
4362 Main St., Vancouver
Featuring: Gurjinder Basran, Daniela Elza, Mona Fertig and Peter Haase!
Free!
Poster:

More upcoming readings here!

it's almost october 1st, eh?

October 1st is the deadline to order my new chapbook - don't miss out! All the details are here.

October 1st is also the date of the launch party for Poetry is Dead #2. It should be an interesting shindig, with contributors to the issue invited to speak on anything they like for five minutes. I'm bummed that I won't be able to make it, especially because I have a poem in the new issue - which is great, by the way, if my quotes from the issue haven't yet tipped you off to that fact.

The details:

Poetry is Dead Issue #2 Launch
Friday, October 1st, 8:00 PM (Doors at 7)
206b Carrall St., Vancouver
Featuring: Billeh Nickerson, Donato Mancini, Nikki Reimer and more!
$10 (includes a copy of the issue)

Go check it out!

'tis the season...

to pretend you have a poetry project. Zach Wells has had enough:

None of my poems has been written according to a pre-conceived blueprint. The variety of subject matter, form, voice and technique in my enclosed writing sample reflects my credo that with every poem one writes, one starts fresh. Having composed a poem on one subject and/or in a certain manner, I am not interested in following the same patterns again. I want to surprise myself and my readers, which is, as a goal, rather difficult to convey in advance of its advent. Writing for me has always been experimental, a process of discovery, rather than an agenda of tasks to be checked off upon completion. Sometimes, I write prolifically. Often, I don't. Much of the creative work I do does not qualify as grantable art, much more yet fails to amount to anything worthwhile, but most if not all of what I decide to publish contributes to literary culture. If I were perfectly honest in a project description, I would have to admit that there is some chance that I will not write a single poem during the period covered by the grant. History suggests otherwise, but it is nevertheless a potentiality I confront on a regular basis. The thing is, one never can say how much work a poet gets done when she appears to be doing nothing at all. One year, I spent several months in an anhedonic funk, during which I wrote almost nothing despite having a wealth of free time; at the end of it, I wound up producing what I think will stand as one my very best poems. This is why “project descriptions” are, frankly, absurd for so many of us (even while, I concede, there are some who seem to work very well within the parameters laid out by a project description).

Read his whole "project description" here.

some oh-damn-i-guess-it's-fall readings

Sixteen (and counting) readings now that we have nothing better to do than sit around inside:

Spoken Ink Reading Series
Tuesday, September 21st, 8:00 PM
La Fontana Caffe
101-3701 East Hastings, Burnaby
Featuring: Burnaby Writers' Poetry Contest winners Michael Aaron Mayes, Franci Louann and Lynda Pupo
Free!


Locution Reading Series
Thursday, September 23rd, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Pulpfiction Books
2422 Main St, Vancouver
Featuring: Lee Henderson, Kevin Spenst, Andrea Bennett and more!
Free!


Rob Halpern Reading
Friday, September 24, 8:00 PM
Spartacus Books
684 East Hastings Street
Featuring: Rob Halpern and Taylor Brady
$3-5


Taylor Brady Reading
Saturday, September 25, 8:00 PM
W2 Storyeum
151 West Cordova Street
Featuring: Taylor Brady and Rob Halpern
$3-5


Word on the Street Vancouver
Sunday, September 26th, 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Library Square and CBC Plaza
300 West Georgia, Vancouver
Featuring: Gary Geddes, Garry Gottfriedson, Anna Swanson, Heather Haley, Billeh Nickerson, Jen Currin, C.E. Gatchalian, Elaine Woo, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Aislinn Hunter, Marion Quednau, Rachel Rose, Kate Braid, Evelyn Lau, Miranda Pearson, Daniela Elza, Ray Hsu, Bren Simmers, and more! And that's just the "Poetry Tent"...
Free!


The Shebeen Club - Going Pro: Getting Real in the Writing World
Monday, September 27th, 7:00 - 9:00 PM
The Everything Cafe
75 East Pender, Vancouver
Featuring: Federation of BC Writers Executive Director Sylvia Taylor
$20 in advance, $25 at the door (includes dinner + wine)


"So Large an Animal" by Bibiana Tomasic Launch
Wednesday, September 29th, 7:00 PM
Vancouver Museum
MOV Studio
1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Bibiana Tomasic
Free!


Robson Reading Series
Thursday, September 30th, 7:00 PM
UBC Library/Bookstore, Robson Square
800 Robson St. (Plaza Level), Vancouver
Featuring: Melanie Siebert and Mette Bach
Free!


Garry Thomas Morse Reading @ Emily Carr
Thursday, September 30th, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Library @ Emily Carr University of Art + Design
1399 Johnston Street, Granville Island, Vancouver
Featuring: Garry Thomas Morse
Free!


Lisa Robertson, SFU Writer in Residence Reading + Reception
Friday, October 1st, 7:30 - 10:30 PM
Segal Centre (room 1400), SFU Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Lisa Robertson
Free?


Poetry is Dead Issue #2 Launch
Friday, October 1st, 8:00 PM
206b Carrall St., Vancouver
Featuring: Billeh Nickerson, Donato Mancini, Nikki Reimer and more!
$10 (includes a copy of the issue)


Literary Deathmatch 100
Friday, October 8th, 8:00 PM
W2 Storyeum
151 West Cordova Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Nikki Reimer, Charles Demers, Steve Burgess and Sarah Bynoe
$10 pre-order, $15 at the door


Sad Mag Live
Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 9th, 8:00 - 10:00 PM
The Cultch
1895 Venables St., Vancouver
Featuring: Barbara Adler, Jason Sloan Yip, Lizzy Karp, and more!
$18 (includes a free copy of the fifth issue)


Robson Reading Series
Thursday, October 14th, 7:00 PM
UBC Library/Bookstore, Robson Square
800 Robson St. (Plaza Level), Vancouver
Featuring: Steven Heighton and Ian Williams
Free!


TWS Reading Series
Thursday, October 15th, 7:00 PM
Take 5 Cafe
429 Granville Street, Vancouver
Featuring: Michelle Elrick, Rachel Thompson, Alexander Winstanley, and more!
Free!


Canzine West
Saturday, October 16th, 1:00 - 7:00 PM
W2 Storyeum
151 West Cordova Street
Vancouver
$5 (includes a free copy of the latest issue of Broken Pencil)


A Taste of Words
Saturday, October 16th, 7:00 — 8:00 PM
Cafe Montmartre
4362 Main St., Vancouver
Featuring: Gurjinder Basran, Daniela Elza, Mona Fertig and Peter Haase!
Free!


Spoken Ink Reading Series
Tuesday, October 19th, 8:00 PM
La Fontana Caffe
101-3701 East Hastings, Burnaby
Featuring: Kate Braid and Clyde Reed
Free!

no one will take away from me the moments of poetic creation

I hate these people who are more concerned with the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, where something is going, and what is happening to American poetry, than the act of creation itself... [Y]ou're not involved in some historical process which is consciously shaping the future of American letters. It's English Department talk. It's the talk of people who are more interested in the historical process than they are in the poetic moment... When they come to evaluate the historical process and what's going on in this country, I'll be long dead. It will make no difference to me. But no one will take away from me the moments of poetic creation and reshaping of the world. Small as they may have been. Unimportant as they ultimately, historically, turn out to be, they are the heart of poetry. And this is what the poet ought to be concerned with.

- George Hitchcock, as quoted on Don Share's Squandermania blog. You can read more here.

go do something sensible

Daniel Zomparelli: What advice would you have for young poets?

George Bowering: If you fuck up, screw ‘em. Actually I was talking to a 15 year old poet, and the father told me to give him advice, and I said “stop writ­ing poetry and go do some­thing sen­si­ble.” He’ll either stop writ­ing poetry, or con­tinue to write poetry and that’s that. Oh, also another piece of advice, read 100 books for every poem… and write a poem every day. Ha!

- George Bowering, in interview with Daniel Zomparelli on the Geist Blog. You can read the whole interview here.

hey vancouver

Toronto

is doing

some cool

stuff.


Whatwegundoboutit?

Well, this is a good start (even if it was Toronto's first).

Lyric - my new chapbook (order by October 1st!)

My new chapbook, Lyric, is ready to order! I've seen a proof copy and it looks beautiful.

The chapbook is being published by The Alfred Gustav Press, an excellent series that I've rambled on about in the past. As usual, my chapbook will be one of three in a package - you have to buy all three, and you have to pre-order. Fortunately, it's cheap ($10 for all three!) and the other two chapbooks are by very strong poets: Shane Neilson and Diane Tucker.

Here are the write-ups for our three chapbooks:

Elision: the Milton Acorn Poems, by Shane Neilson

Elision is a series of lyric poems based on the biography of Acorn, a force in Canadian poetry. Shane Neilson tries to capture that force without taming it: the poems roughhouse as they venerate, they are pieces of irreverent worship, but they stick to the sad arc of Acorn's life, authenticating themselves in the questions asked by the example of this dead Canadian master.

*

Lyric, by Rob Taylor

Lyric is a long poem about the loss of a father and the lessons on love and language that follow. Lyric’s form, an extended glosa, arises from the ten lines of an untitled poem by Al Purdy.

*

Sandgrain Leaf, by Diane Tucker

Sandgrain Leaf speaks into being the birds, bugs and flowers the poet learned to love while growing up in a blue-collar neighbourhood in south Vancouver. These poems are a handful of bright fruit, a bouquet of foxgloves, a summer morning filled with birdsong and wind in the maples.

You can read the full press release for the series here (PDF).

If you're interested in ordering a set of the three chapbooks (did I mention that it's only $10!?). To order, fill out and mail in this form (PDF). The deadline for orders is October 1st.


Note: The inset photo is of Series 4, from Spring 2010.

those rhythms combine to create deep emotional states

Alan Fox: Many poets have talked about music or jazz as being akin to poetry. It seems to me in terms of expressing emotion, maybe it’s easier in music, or painting, than it is in words.

Molly Peacock: Well, music is perhaps the most purely emotional art in that it doesn’t have to “articulate” anything. And painting creates the image. And those are two arts that I feel are tucked inside poetry. When we talk about the vision of the poet, we can liken that to painting, and that’s where we get ideas of word-painting. The music of the poem is—well, there are two musics in the poem: there’s the music of the line, which I think of as like a baseline—if we’re still in the jazz mode—so there’s that baseline going; and then there’s the music of the sentence, quite separate, it’s prose music. People who only pay attention to the music of the sentence get accused of writing chopped-up prose, but there is a distinct sentence music that unfolds over the lines. Those rhythms—the base-line rhythm beneath each line as well as the rhythm of the sentence wrapping around the lines—combine to create deep emotional states. And sometimes, as poets, we’re not even aware of what those emotional states really are. And the imagery—when we talk about the vision of a poet, I think actually we’re talking about a poet’s imagery. When we say, “Wallace Stevens’ vision” or “William Carlos Williams’ vision” or “Elizabeth Bishop’s vision” or “Sonia Sanchez’s vision,” I think we’re largely talking about what they envision in their imagery.

- Molly Peacock, in conversation with Alan Fox of Rattle. You can read a longer excerpt (and hear the original conversation) here.

only the expectation of an emotional kick would deter the reader

I will refer to the kind of writing in which I am involved as conceptual writing. In conceptual writing the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an author uses a conceptual form of writing, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the text. This kind of writing is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive, it is involved with all types of mental processes and it is purposeless. It is usually free from the dependence on the skill of the writer as a craftsman. It is the objective of the author who is concerned with conceptual writing to make her work mentally interesting to the reader, and therefore usually she would want it to become emotionally dry. There is no reason to suppose, however, that the conceptual writer is out to bore the reader. It is only the expectation of an emotional kick, to which one conditioned to Romantic literature is accustomed, that would deter the reader from perceiving this writing.

Conceptual writing is not necessarily logical. The logic of a piece or series of pieces is a device that is used at times, only to be ruined. Logic may be used to camouflage the real intent of the writer, to lull the reader into the belief that she understands the work, or to infer a paradoxical situation (such as logic vs. illogic). Some ideas are logical in conception and illogical perceptually.

- Kenneth Goldsmith, in an essay published in Poetry is Dead #2. You can read the full text here.

an understandable critical privileging of stuff that required critics

Emily Gould: You are the first author since Stephen King in 2000 to be featured on the cover of Time magazine. In the profile, you say that it's important for books to be compelling because readers must resist so much distraction. But I've also heard the complaint from writers that there's enormous pressure to write clear, compelling realist narratives because they're so much more marketable than difficult, densely written art novels. Are books stooping too low in order to level the playing field with TV and the Internet?

Jonathan Franzen: There was a time when it was assumed that a novel was readable. You go back to Richardson and Defoe and then up through Austen and Stendhal and Balzac and all the way through the 19th century, it wasn't even a question. And then we have modernism, which was made possible by the existence of a long tradition of reading novels. The moderns were able to start doing crazy things with narrative and investigate important questions, like "How does time pass?" and "What is the nature of time?" Faulkner was writing about that in numerous books, Proust was writing about that, in his way, and they were doing this in ways that were very challenging. They could do that because the novel was the dominant form, and what they were doing, at its extremes, was only comprehensible to people who undertook with scholarly seriousness to really study the book.

What happened then is modern literature became something comfortably ensconced in the university, and there was an understandable critical privileging of stuff that required critics. But even as late as the '80s, when I was still in school, there was an assumption that the very best serious literature was challenging. And it was never in my nature to write books that were really hard to read. But for a long time, for decades, I thought that that was a fault in me. And it's really only with this last book that I found my liberation from what was arguably an artifact of a particular place in the development of the novel in the early 20th century, and how it coincided with the development of English departments.

So this is all by way of saying that unless you want to discount everything written before 1900, I don't think there's anything wrong with being readable.

- Novelist Jonathan Franzen, interviewed by Emily Gould for Goodreads. You can read the whole thing here.

withdrawing from the realm of common speech

Christian Wiman: You write in your essay that we have “communication sickness.” I wonder if you might explain that for us.

Tony Hoagland: We are terribly, terribly wary of untrustworthy speech. The ways in which we feel helpless and hopeless about our public discourse and about our situation... in a very commercial society. What I’m really concerned about is that poetry, as a result of that “communication sickness,” as a result of that profound disillusionment, and legitimate disillusionment, is withdrawing from the realm of common speech and is no longer building the bridge between [itself and] ordinary readers...

- Tony Hoagland, in conversation with Christian Wiman and Don Share in the September 2010 Poetry Magazine Podcast, discussing his essay "Recognition, Vertigo, and Passionate Worldliness" which appears in the September 2010 issue of Poetry Magazine.

back to school readings

Summers over, kids! Time to go get learned at some readings:


Memewar Fundraiser
Tuesday, September 7th, 9:00 PM
The Railway Club
579 Dunsmuir St, Vancouver
Featuring: Music by Brent Lawrence, Jeremy Braacx Band, and more!
$10


TWS Reading Series
Thursday, September 9th, 7:00 PM
Rhizome Café
317 East Broadway, Vancouver
Featuring: Jen Currin, Kathy Page, Taryn Hubbard, Jason Sunder, and more!
Free!


Launch of "Breathing the Page" by Betsy Warland
Sunday, September 12th, 5:30–7:30 PM
Rhizome Café
317 East Broadway, Vancouver
Featuring: Betsy Warland!
Free (and free appetizers)!


Spoken Ink Reading Series
Tuesday, September 21st, 8:00 PM
La Fontana Caffe
101-3701 East Hastings, Burnaby
Featuring: Burnaby Writers' Poetry Contest winners Michael Aaron Mayes, Franci Louann and Lynda Pupo
Free!


and who can forget...

Word on the Street Vancouver
Sunday, September 26th, 2010, 11am - 5pm
Library Square and CBC Plaza
300 West Georgia, Vancouver
Featuring: Gary Geddes, Garry Gottfriedson, Anna Swanson, Heather Haley, Billeh Nickerson, Jen Currin, C.E. Gatchalian, Elaine Woo, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Aislinn Hunter, Marion Quednau, Rachel Rose, Kate Braid, Evelyn Lau, Miranda Pearson, Daniela Elza, Ray Hsu, Bren Simmers, and more! (And that's just the "Poetry Tent"...)
Free!

some ghanaian poetry updates

One Ghana, One Voice is humming along nicely these days. Our latest endeavour is a Ghanaian version of Arc's "How Poems Work" series. Our first "How Poems Work" went up a couple weeks ago. It's an analysis of recently-deceased Ghanaian poet Kwesi Brew's poem "The Sea Eats Our Lands" by still-living Ghanaian poet L.S. Mensah. It's great stuff, and can be read here.

Along with L.S., another up-and-coming Ghanaian poet making his mark on the scene is Darko Antwi, who has started up the new blog/magazine for African writing, Phillis Wheatley Chapter. My poem on Kwame Nkrumah, "Child of Saturday", has been posted on the site and can be read here. He's accompanied the poem with some photos of Nkrumah, including one with his wife and W.E.B. Du Bois, whose house and library in Accra I visited regularly - those can be viewed here.

Another upstart African publishing venture is Mensa Press, founded by Maryland-based Ghanaian poet Prince Mensah. The press is publishing five (!) poetry anthologies of primarily African content in the coming months. It's a great, and risky, project and I wish Prince all the success in the world in his efforts. One of the books will contain a few of my poems on Ghana, and I have written the introduction for another. I'll be sure to pass on more info about the books as it comes out over the next few months (for now, the sample cover in this post will have to do).

And while I'm on things Ghanaian + poetry, a blog post by one of our OGOV contributors, Holli Holdsworth, has been Twitted about by some local poets (small world, eh?). It's a post on food costs/consumption in Ghana and it's padded out by some... let's say "borrowed"... images and statistics from Hungry Planet: What the World Eats on the average weekly food consumption of families from various parts of the world (which were originally posted on the food blog of one of our dearest friends from Ghana [now living in Nashville] Erin McDonnell - smaller world!). You can read the blog post in question here, and a poem of Holli's from OGOV here.