I'm currently at the Banff Writing Studios, where my U of Alberta residency gives me a near-week at the Leighton Studios for a writing retreat (I return to Edmonton tomorrow). Thanks to my old friend Amanda Earl, I've been nominated for 2008 Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere (whatever that means). A number of people have already been campaigning on my behalf, which is awfully sweet, including Paul Vermeersch, Pearl Pirie, Warren Dean Fulton and Carmel Purkis, and there have even been some responses to same by a few people I don't even know, like here and here and even Pearl, here. What does it all mean?
Either way, here's what I've been working on since arriving in Banff on Tuesday, in between visits with Myrna Kostash, Greg Hollingshead, Laura Farina, Tim Bowling, Shelley Leedhal and Steve Ross Smith;
The Banff Sessions
a lovers place is often ambiguous
darkness like trees, smell a mountain failure
batch, how much
not of hunger but of heart, a trauma
paper-thin weight
is not enough of me blood in pages you
bare lifted hands another
note in pencil shipwreck, there you plied a written
, why you different I am
one spring day fundamental arguments,
through telephone disguise
falls out, pushes love
, you first
what your argument needed here these mountains
a lovers place is architecture, crows
, what that thing I said the wind
, or string the valley bow
tectonic plate a kitchen overlooks
same speech, a karaoke dog
was home for wayward girls
her purple thin a hand clip snow
or south a rapture
rocky mountain park
drawn spartan hood, do airplane then
slip of siding 29, a sulpher slide on rock,
debate or die the body muscle feeds &
break you tell me; hand in you my tongue
import swim mountain guides
the backdrop miss all I shall, shall begin with failure
letter-made, a pact made hollow
, worst imagined song
compile lists accumulate a point, you plied me
wonder slice on leg where shaved, a
reason lists
says war is over, where
the only left
how much I love I would not try
, as well, true buffalo hunt
for a poem that might, out of shower
I could count of cars not yours
even bridge construction becomes erotic
, abstract made of crows
the first to occupy an abstract, mountain passion
or a mountain lust
construction bridges gaps, the line groan
long beneath you, pub tomorrow
gone that I’m away; am naked, stolen
beach-head in the verve
crow, a linen shower, full force
swimming pools, olympic-shaped
calgary curves, a number of your poems
easy briefly door the stairs the stairs
, the eastern slopes
the head to one side there enough
giving out so readily, chase a buffalo milk
of course it tastes;
the siding 29 imported route
passing close to present day; I strip off concrete
clothing from your bones;
the last fall out of telephone, construction
bridge contains
is all I am a round, wide eclipsed moon,
your argument a needed
food your tear a tea
went on to ensue; the body muscle feels & breaks
into the cree, kootenay, blackfoot
tribes vulnerable, red football jersey
stolen & am halved, naked
daily in the south of you; would springs,
had many renovation
become the birthplace then of crows
I read a number of your lines today evolved
from spartan woodland but
to what you wrote a railroad, palatial structure
is office tower you a there?
leaving I would rather hand in you
& swimming, pools
the growing need to reside, I could count cars
& conifers, abstract of peaks & locals,
woodland to the core;
easily brief a sliding door, two fingers three
for that the body had enough
am left alone by glaciers
tongue inside the lure of falling, failure
clientele unmatched
desire breeds out fact; at present, urge
of anodyne or homegrown splash
for wayward digital girls,
a red red block
what tongue the mountains cougar, overlooking
kitchens; settlements of beans
, raw crow
a concrete sledge, trickery of eyes
power suggested trees, park
curves of stairs & conifers
poem number, the head one side
stick it into some; how well
I love, says thin hard blue
says shower full of needles, pins
elevators, liminal
rooms we would not break
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