Humanyms

5 things, 5 People

The parallels continue between Chris and I as she talks of Poetry month. Incidentally she says nearly verbatim what rob said in the last workshop.

Way, way back, poetry was an aid to memory, the repository for heritage, ancestry, and the lineage of one’s cattle. Professional rememberers knew the formulas for oral poetry and could recite the story of a people’s creation, battles won and lost, the coming of animals into the world.

What niches do poetry fill now? Still memoirs even if not oral myth and history bard. A medium for message question is often worth considering.

Thanks to Chris of At My Soiree for the appreciation Award. The meme originally asked for 10 things about self, or 5 things you enjoy or 5 things you love, and to pass it on saying why you love and would recommend these other blogs. It has been going around crafter blogs since 2008 and sometime late last year it started spreading out. So…

Glad Game: 5 things I like:

1. Spring. Lilacs are nearly blooming. It is pleasant to be outside, lie on the grass, look at the clouds except that makes pollen fall directly into face in a new expanded allergy season. Apparently my body is off the blocks already.

2. Playing peekaboo with water fountains. The boxes are coming off. People have been rollerblading for weeks and some tulips are done but still most of the water fountains are still under cover.

3. How relaxation can be as simple as touch by fingers.

4. Writers festival starting tomorrow. It has a group blog where I may post some things over festival. Saturday evening and Monday night will have the poetry at the Mayfair Theatre on Bank St.

5. And lastly, a sudden upsurge in the amount of Joseph Massey…he interviews Rae Armantrout and has two new chapbooks coincidentally coming out at the same time Exit North from BookThug and Mock Orange from Longhouse.

5 blogging folks I’d recommend reading:
In no particular order…

1. Colleen Redman for her look into the world at Floyd. She makes a quiet restful space from what she photographs of the small beauties in an arts community that thrives, thanks in part to her years of involvement, nurturing the information flow in the community thru her interest and her newsletter.

2. rob mclennan for how he continually turns out from his information hub new, interesting things like Kaufman’s Waterproof Bible, a call for Glosas, this Shearsman title I’d run across word of but hadn’t seen yet, this interview series of small press, such as Tente of Angela Carr called ” a collapsible, feminist poetry and poetics press, a small, collective intervention.” The blog can be wikipedia-level sticky.

3. Brian Pirie who has rolled the best of his ergonomics and design blog into a static ideas page of Sketchbook Pro, Velib, interaction design, but now has also launched his site of sites done. (I’ll admit I’m biased but it’s gorgeous.)

4. Joseph Harker who has been doing a poem a day at a high levels for as long as I can remember. Amazing output and sustained higher than usual quality.

5. Figleaf who poses interesting questions, such as What is sex was mundane exercise but hot soup was taboo? or why is eroticized female nudity ubiquitous but males are rarely anything but clothed in ads and calling out the mess when feminism is accused of or falls to misandry “I think a strong case can be made that the “stay angry” phenomenon is an embarrassing but necessary stage in the maturation progress of any movement or field of social research fueled by its own subjects. ”

Quote: “The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.” ~ Hubert H. Humphrey at QB

Arctic Twilight

From the collected letters from Leonard Budgell who worked in the north for HBC. You can pick any page, and there are stories that make you want to read on from that point, whether some aspect of Inuit life, a story of 3 generations of a rifle, or the story of a whale in wild and in captivity, or the lifetime of a ship. He puts any story in context and vividly with character.

From the opening page when admitted to hospital for tests,

So I came here and had more people fussing around. I felt like a chicken on the assembly line. I expected to see Colonel Sanders with his herbs and spices any minute. Forgot that he was already gone where all the chickens whet, well, not all the way either. He never would have qualified. At his age, more the boiling type, I’d guess.

Spoiler: He checked out fine.

The stories range around the northern part of the country and thru decades of people and places. He has an eye for detail, a curiosity, humour and compassion tied with writing skill and an interesting life path. Rather a winning combo I’d say.

Claudia Coutu-Radmore worked with Len to select stories to compile in a collection. This collection was launched on Parliament on March 31st.

Here’s Claudia signing copies for the line-up of people. It was pretty well-attended as a drop-in sort of meet and greet with I’d guess, probably 60 people coming thru.

Here’s another excerpt from p. 376, on whale birth in the wild

Did I tell you how I once sighted from the land what I thought was a dead whale, probably crushed by ice? On paddling up to it I was convinced, because the water was bloodstained. I was almost near enough to touch the great creature when I noticed that eye was alive. Then I saw that the whale was suckling a newborn calf. That was the reason for the blood in the water. She lay on her back, head half-submerged. her flukes were twisted at an angle to her body, and on them lay the calf, partly supported by the water, partly by its mother. It was nursing and making much the same sounds that a human infant feeding does.

My canoe was white and whales don’t have great vision so she probably figured me for a piece of ice with a big raggedy gull sitting on it. In any event she didn’t stir.

Justin Trudeau came to the launch, pictured here with Senator Hon. Bill Rompkey (Labrador) at the left, Claudia Coutu Radmore, middle and Betty Warrington-Kearsley in the back.

Or p. 32-3

We spent a very hard winter together. there was no food to be had except what we got from the land and not much of that. There was hunger. People died. There was no air relief in those days [...] One day [the wonderful old man] came to see me. He had his winter’s catch of fur, mostly white fox, beautifully cleaned and dressed, even though it was a bad year and we had no fuel. He paid a small debt he owed to the Company and ought a few things. he left a balance on the books, and said when the ship came in summer, I was to to see his wife got a new tent.

That didn’t sound right, so I asked him if we was going away, perhaps to hunt for a long period. He said only, “I will walk.” Claudia, he took the things he had bought and dropped them off at his igloo, and walked out into a dreadful storm, straight across Repulse Bay. His wife, still much younger, sat in the igloo and never said a word. he knew and she knew that she could stay alive, she could easily remarry. She didn’t want him to go but she would not try to prevent him. The priest, too, he knew and he prayed to his god, but he never condemned the old man for suicide. It took tremendous courage on all sides, terrible cold courage, magnificent courage.

The launch of Arctic Twilight was hosted at Parliament Hill by Senator Hon. Bill Rompkey (Labrador) and Patrick Boyer, president of Blue Butterfly Books (on right).

On p. 45 is Len’s memory of seeing a square-rigged ship come in,

There was a sailor standing casually on the foot rope at the end of the royal yard and leaning against the huge spar. He was filling his pipe and gave me a wink and smile as he passed. Perhaps I never envied anyone as I did that man, standing on a thin rope hooked under the heels of his leather sea boots and filling his pipe as if he were standing on solid ground, not on forty feet of thin air.

Poetry Links: The next Tree on April 13th will have rob mclennan leading the workshop and Shane Rhodes as the speaker. Out of the usual time slot of Tree are 2 workshops in two weeks time to help poets conquer nervous reading habits and read more engagingly.

Online, there’s an article about me at the Globe and Mail column on poetry by rob mclennan

Out in Toronto Influency is on it’s marks set for April 7th. Toronto New School of Writing, Meet the Presses in June.

Book Link: Charlotte Gray has a new book on the Klondike gold rush.

Quote: The Crees say “nis-ko-mitten”, the Eskimo “nak-o-mak”, but English can only say “I am grateful” – Leonard Budgell, p. 331

Floral Accented

In answer to AC‘s question, by the foundation’s heat sink, crocuses bloom. Flowers can be perennial, long term, in the comparable way to how clocks can be redundant in the immediate.

It’s not only my 38th BD, it’s the 99th International Woman’s Day.

I’m normally feeling blessed but over three five dozen well-wishes for birthdays from various directions (and in digital, face to face, phone and paper), and then the response to the book launch too…

And come Thursday I’ll be the guest on Literary Landscapes on CKCU radio, hosted by the ever-lovely Christine.

Quote: “And all your future lies beneath your hat.” ~ John Oldham

Rogue Stimulus Launches

Leigh Nash in her Canada scarf and Christine McNair at the Parliament Hill launch in her team Canada Jersey.

They were readers at the afternoon and evening launches of Rogue Stimulus, 72 poems for the prorogued parliament. I’d guess there’d be 35 to 45 people at the reading at any given time at each of the readings. Some drifted in late or for a while.

The next Rogue Stimulus launch is in Toronto on March 2 at 7:30 pm at The Monarch Tavern, 12 Clinton Street.

There are some of the advantages of seeing a reading live, not just getting the book

In person adds some textured ambiance. As Christopher Doda (pictured right in the evening reading) read his own poem about things he’s like to prorogue from his life and from Priscila Uppal’s poem Canadian Parliament: Reality TV Version. At the centennial flame (used as a wishing well fountain), Doda had just arrived at the part of her poem, proposals and supplications/ with fire in their mouths and dollars in their bellies as a dad and few kids arrived behind the reading and dad was instructing kids “throw the money at the fire”. The two words “fire” nearly overlapped and so echoed one another. The poem and family group proceeded along and as the dad urged the pitching of pennies “at the flame, got it” while the poem’s words of Money erupts like a volcano. Stadiums belch cars. Kinda neat.

Or as when Gwendolyn Guth proceeded from her poem The Canadian Politician Don’t Meet to her reading Amanda Earl‘s poem I have a cat named Stephen Harper which was named before there was a Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and now everyone hates her cat — and the sky opened up with hailstones. You don’t get such a dramatic special effect indoors.

Guy Simser reading Brenda Schmidt‘s poem to Harper, About My Boob. Like many of the poems, there’s a light-heartedness matched with skill. (And on right) Michael Dennis read his poems as well as those of George Elliott Clarke we were instructed to picture Dennis as taller and more handsome for this bit.

A few people read in the day, for the hour and half of rain, snow, wind, hail, sleet and fun and different ones came out for the night launch. Here is the flickr set of 33 pictures from the launch on Parliament Hill and at Gallery 101 on the 27th. Or for excellent pictures, two of John’s. And a few more below:

Jim Smith, H Masud Taj, Steven Artelle and Andrew Faulkner. Taj’s poem was a response to press galleries closed, so let us ask the PM about roses. He also remarked, if it takes proroguing parliament to make a collection this good, it’s worth it. Artelle’s poem was entitled “Findings: Commission of Inquiry into the Supernatural Animation and Fatal Plunge of the Central Block of Parliament into the Ottawa River”.

There were 15 readers in all, at each and a couple speakers, one from CAPP and one from the Mansfield publisher. Jamie Hawes and Mike Buckthought made it out to the afternoon one. Mike was back for the evening among others and Amanda Earl and Marcus McCann made it out as readers to the 101. The room was full that night.

The evening ended with The AB Series hosting Call Me Katie and a reading of new material by Monty Reid.

The music was transporting as ever. Some new songs. Some familiar ones. Good sweet notes.

And the Reid reading was fun as well, but given the poet, how could it not be?

A bit of the background of the anthology is here and here. Keep up to the news with Mansfield Press on twitter.

Quote: “Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too
weak to maintain its own existence?” ~ Abe Lincoln

Random Acts of Poetry

The Be Blank Consort performed Saturday with 5 Ottawa people lending their voices to the sound pieces. (More pics on FB and in the Flickr stream).
[I was considering offering a prize for who guesses all the names but maybe I'll just unveil instead: John Bennett, Amanda Earl, John Lavery, Sandra Ridley, Scott Helmes, Colin Morton and Max Middle]

It’s Random Acts of Poetry Week in Canada. In light of it, I’ll give a sampler from what’s on my desk…

fold it in thirds
our yoga teacher says
the blanket, that is

- Margaret Chula, The Smell of Rust (Katsura Press, 2003), haiku, p. 78

m> next>dition
||reada|||||>>tri
mester||> i> aRU
_s etcera> ||s

- david fujino, hangnail (fmachinery, sept 2009)

Arm in Arm

Along the Tolka in the Botanic Gardens
my father and I stroll.
The sun bursts through
and blends him into itself.

- Mary Melvin Geoghegan, (Summer Palace Press, 2009) When They Come Home, p. 48

moon at dawn
two birds answer each other
in the graveyard

- Ion Codrescu, Mountain Voices Vocile muntelui (AMI_NET International Press, 2000), p. 61

He leaves a candle where the future died.
There still are things that he can never say.

- Jim Knowles, Poetry Superhighway contest winning poem

there’s your hand again. Did anyone notice how close our
knees are? Did the light turn apricot to emphasize your eyes?

Are you a plot against my past, color and curl designed
to entice me from my path? The questions logjam:

- Sina Queyras [who's speaking at the Writers Fest soon], Slip (ECW Press, 2001) excerpted in Prismatic Publics, p. 331

My breasts have held milk
and expressed milk and
held language by the tit
so to speak attachment

The modification of any object
by who own it
I mean the person thinks
they can own something
and then there must also
be things not owned

- Margaret Christakos, [who is speaking at AB Series soon], What Stirs, excerpted in Prismatic Publics (Coach House 2009), p. 131, edited by Kate Eichhorn and Heather Milne

At dawn, a white light on the top of a mountain / things start to move / an old woman side-flank on a donkey at dawn / wobbling up the mountain, picking over the stones / a Mercedes glides past, the light there / in her eye ever shining / / Slowness of the dawn beetle / western promise / worth goat-dung

- Peter Riley, Greek Passages (Shearsman, 2009), p. 9

She listed her hobby as disclosure. Many of the new remarks unfolded as she pressured silence to relax its throat hold on her policies. One of the immaculate new moods undressed as a neighbour’s eloquence [...] One of the falsehoods I unraveled was a synonym for gravity.

– Sheila E Murphy, Letter to Unfinished J (Green Integer, 2003), p. 33

you tell me the tale of our shoulderblades,
how they’re traces left over from seraphim wings
or their reticent buds, their seeds,
so either we’ve fallen, or feathery inklings
are waiting inside us to lift us to and guide us.

Science has measured the sole distance
left for the mad, that span from moon to earth,
to the nearest inch.
They beamed lasers at mirrors placed n the surface.
How strangely unwavering light is.

– Nick Laird, To a Fault (Faber & Faber, 2005) p. 47

birch-waver, pine-sway. animated talk of struck glass. rhythmic gusts bending the lengths of trunks awat from our neighbour’s porch.

a gust, a new one, bends them violently again, again, and back to still

- Daphne Marlatt, The Given (McClelland, 2008), p. 13

Applewood, hard to rive,
its knots smoulder all day.
Cobweb hair on the morning,
a puff would blow it away.
Rime is crisp on the bent,
Ruts stone-hard, frost spangles fleece.
What breeze will fill that sleeve limp on the line?

- Basil Bunting, Briggflatts, (Bloodaxe, 2009) p. 28 and CD (1968 recording)

This is it. The pendulum is swinging back from doomsday sayers and I can’t-do-anything-so-why-bother apathy. Commit random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. It’s coming back around. We will have to care in order to rebel. So go into the streets and smile. Talk to people in bus stops. Reclaim your community because when we stop being afraid of truly connecting is when we will belong.

- Danielle K.L. Gregoire, Optimism is a Constant Struggle, (Vanorange, 2009) CD, track 7

Fallen dynasty–
from the rubble, children
gather hopscotch stones

- John Brandi, Stone Garland: a haiku journey: northern Viet Nam (A Tooth of Time Book, 2000), p. 14

Links: Child Parliament in Congo speaks up for ethics and in Beni 80% of the brothels were closed by the mayor. Worldwide, making a different angle of difference to establish new patterns is Kiva doing microloans [via]

A photo from Dusty Owl yesterday with Danielle Gregoire holding Fiona while Steve assists as a music stand.