YOU NEED TO PURCHASE BOOKS NOW FROM jwcurry, part one

Called “the best concrete and visual poet in Canada” as well as the third largest collector of small (& micro) press in Canada, Ottawa writer/editor/publisher/bookseller jwcurry is going through financial straits, so I am posting this list of some (selected) items you can purchase directly from his Room 302 Books; other items available by various writers such as Stuart Ross, bpNichol, Frank Zappa, Nicholas Power, Peggy Lefler, Nelson Ball, David UU, Daniel f. Bradley, Mark Laba, Lillian Necakov [see her 12 or 20 questions here], Steven Smith [see his 12 or 20 questions here], Laurie Fuhr, William Hawkins, Steve McCaffery, issues of Open Letter, The Berkeley Horse and others; check with curry directly for other lists, titles, etcetera. If you want to know more about some of jwcurry’s publications, check out the piece I wrote on him in Open Letter (or wait a few weeks for the same piece to run in my collection of literary essays); he’s an indispensable resource that isn’t taken advantage of nearly enough. Items run from into the hundreds of dollars to mere a penny; annual subscriptions available.

this list selected from 1 of 3 different catalogues (more to come later):

from list #10A, jwcurry, separate publications
3. (w/ Lillian Necakov) 2 Collages. North Vancouver, Silver Birch Press, aug89 (The Berkeley Horse #19) 1/100 copies. 16 pp/10 printed, offset. 4 ½ x 5 ½, stapled wrappers, 2 volumes of 8 pp each w/ rear covers tucked together. poetry & collage. $7.50
19. a mo(nu)ment for bpNichol. Toronto, 1cent, 28nov88 (1cent #214) 1/54 trade copies of an edition totaling 78. 8 ½ x 11, silkscreen & rubberstamp broadside. a concrete poem. $10.00
23. a necessarily vague outline of MAKING TRACKS. Toronto, privately published, 29jul92. 1/6 copies. 34 pp/17 printed, photocopy. 8 ½ x 11, leaves stapled at corner. a project description prepared to accompany a grand proposal, consisting of a cover letter, poem, correspondence excerpt & a cover photograph by Lance LaRocque. somewhat rumpled. $40.00
24. an excerpt from KNOTS. being a homolinguistic translation of R.D. Laing. Toronto, Curvd H&z, 25may82 (Curvd H&z #135. Pomez A Penny #83. Th Wrecking Ballzark #38) 1/75 copies. 4 pp/3 printed, rubberstamp. 6 ½ x 4 ¾, leaflet. a concrete poem. $17.50
38. a talk by Marvin Sackner. Toronto, Room 302 Book for Birganart Gallery Framing, 5oct90. 1/200 copies. 8 ½ x 11, photocopy broadside. a visual poem on flyer for Sackner’s talk 20oct90, incorporating a portrait of Sackner from a photograph by Chuck Fadely. $3.00
48. BODY OF DOG. Toronto, Curvd H&z, 3mar84 (Curvd H& #281) 1/90 #d trade copies of an edition totaling 100. 156 pp/7 printed, rubberstamp w/ 3 colour photocopy plates. 4 x 5 ¾, stapled wrappers. serial graphics & a poem. $15.00
49. ____ ____ 1/10 copies letters & signed, 19jan86. 20 pp/7 printed, as above but w/ silkscreen cover, 4 ½ x 5 ¾, sewn in cloth boards. $175.00
51. bpNichol 1944-1988. Toronto, Trystero, 26apr94. 1/125 trade copies of an edition totaling 127. approx. 1 ¼ x 1 ½, rubberstamp broadside. a portrait from a photography by Karl Jirgens. postage stamp on ungummed stock “Commemorating the naming of bpNichol Lane, 30apr94, BRoNK mailout #L & the inaugurative issue of the Trystere PX (est.c.1585)”. printed on 5 #d sheets of 25 – plus 2 unique proofs – 2 of the sheets were kept intact, the other 3 broken up into 75 individual stamps, the selvedge discarded, of these 75, 26 were cancelled by W.A.S.T.E. on GRoNK MAILOUT #L. many others similarly used, not a lot of exemplary copies distributed. $8.00
62. CLAM CHOWDER. Toronto, Curvd H&, 3aug83 (Curvd H&z #225) 1/110 copies. 6 pp/3 printed, rubberstamp. 4 ½ x 7, leaf laid in wrappers w/ plain cover label. a poem. $1.00
75. curryafterlabaafterspicer. 3 Wordsearches Translated From 3 Poems Translated From Jack Spicer. Scarborough, No Guff Stuff, 12jan84 (No Guff #6) 1/99 copies. 6 pp/4 printed, photocopy in rubberstamp covers. 8 ½ x 11 broadside folded into 7 x 10 ¾ bag. w/ 3 poems by Mark Laba for the wordlists. $7.50
80. David UU : No Sleight of Hand. Toronto, Room 302 Books, 23dec92 (List #7) 1/102 copies. 24 pp printed, photocopy. 5 ½ x 8 ½, stapled wrappers. bibliographical sketch, w/ illuss. by Barbara Caruso, Ingrid Harris, Damian Lopes, B.P.Nichol, UU. $3.00
91. EXPERIMENTAL WORKSHOP. London, Writers Forum, for 25jan92. 8 ½ x 11 ¾, photocopy broadside. poster by Bob Cobbing reprinting Curry’s “THESE”, the workshop including a performance by Bill Griffiths & the :launch of a new publication by jwcurry THAT FUCKING LINE THAT”, creased horizontally. $25.00
92. EXPOSURE. Toronto, Ganglia Press, 18oct82 (GrOnk Flash #4) 1/50 copies. 14 pp/6 printed, photocopy. 9 ½ x 14 ¾, 6 leaves laid in plain plastic folder. a serial concrete poem, cover xerographic by B.P.Nichol. $20.00
113. Gesture Press. a checklist for 19’nov’82 – 27’feb’92 in recognition of the end phase 1 & the beginning of all the rest. Toronto, Room 302 Books, 27feb92. 1/53 trade copies of an edition totaling 96. 36 pp/25 printed, photocopy & rubberstamp. 5 ½ x 8 ½, sewn wrappers w/ cover label. bibliography, reprints poetry by Gary Barwin, Randall Brock, Greg Evason, Nicholas Power, Yves Troendle, w/ a rubbercut cover portrait of Power from a photograph by Stuart Ross. $10.00
122. (editor, w/ Michael Dean) HEADS & H&Z. Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 3jul85. 1/200 copies #d & signed by the editors. 360 pp/213 printed, photocopy, rubberstamp, offset, silkscreen, typescript & holograph. 9 x 11 ½ x 1 ½, 68 leaves, leaflets, envelopes & variously-bound pamphlets in box w/ detached lid & cover label (some copies have an interior ISBN label). a collection of reissue of early Curvd H& publications (mar79-apr82), many in revised formats. contributors include David Aylward, Brian Dedora, R.D. Hanson, Mark Laba, Peggy Lefler, Steve McCaffery, Bonnie McDowell, B.P.Nichol, David UU… $29.99
129. (w/ Qaani Curry) HOLY MOLEY MR. RABBIT. It’s Qaani’s Birthday Party. Toronto, privately published, for 11oct86. not more than 14 copies. 4 pp printed, rubberstamp. 3 ¼ x 4 1/4, leaflet. invitation to Qanni Curry’s 7th birthday party w/ collage interior. $12.50

write to jwcurry for this and other catalogues:
ROOM 302 BOOKS
#302 – 880 Somerset Street West
Ottawa Canada K1R 6R7
(613) 233 0417

coming soon: selections of List #10C: jwcurry: contributions to periodicals and List #10-D: jwcurry: editorial responsibilies

related notes: jwcurry in Calgary; jwcurry & Richmond Landing: The Martyrology Books 4 and 5; a bpNichol cerebration: jwcurry reading the entirety of The Martyrology in Toronto; jwcurry reading The Martyrology; an all-weather event

related (other) links: John W. MacDonald on curry; Messagio Galore website;

Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad

I’ve been wanting to read this for a while, ever since finding out about her participation in various writers from around the world rewriting a series of myths (but this the only one I’ve read so far), especially since my own first (published) novel, white, does a version of the same (I won’t tell you how). I’ve always preferred her shorter prose works to those of her longer books, from the magnificent short novel Surfacing (1972) to Murder in the Dark (1983) to Good Bones (1992). The Penelopiad (rewriting the myth of Penelope and Odysseus from Penelope’s point-of-view, in case you’d missed it) is vintage Atwood, from the clever reworking of an old and overworked story, to the snide remarks and dry, cutting humour, and the sheer intelligence of the writing.

The problem, if one can call it that, is the sheer amount of one-liners that managed to work their way into my notebook, from “To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.” or “It’s always an advantage to have something to do with your hands.” or “Dripping water wears away a stone.” or this little passage:

And so I was handed over to Odysseus, like a package of meat. A package of meat in a wrapping of gold, mind you. A sort of gilded blood pudding.

But perhaps that is too crude a simile for you. Let me add that meat was highly valued among us – the aristocracy ate lots of it, meat, meat, meat, and all they ever did was roast it: ours was not an age of haute cuisine. Oh, I forgot: there was also bread, flatbread that is, bread, bread, bread, and wine, wine, wine. We did have the odd fruit or vegetable, but you’ve probably never heard of these because no one put them into the songs much.

I admire anyone willing to go into such a familiar text willing to work through the holes and, through doing, subverting the text as a whole, something that takes a whole lot of knowledge of the original text, and a great deal of skill (much like Tom Stoppard did in his magnificent play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead out of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, first performed in London in 1966, and later turned into a film in 1990). I like any book, too, where you can tell just how much fun the author is having through the whole process. This is a book I’d recommend (and already have been).

TODAY IS MY THIRTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY

map of edmonton (birthday)
for myself, naturally

the deal is this
normal arc

potatoes
under the frozen
earth
— Fred Wah, Articulations

1.

a crossword our bodies
push into

of highways

a lie or a line

asks, how old are you now

a question
or statement

, reflection of birds
like an echo

is teamwork, no legs

a dream
to get nowhere

2.

a capture of dark
creeping up

these long years

never feel so, a maul
out of stone

& shopping

concentration
of birds

& belgravia, hearts
in a deadlock

, stone maul

3.

a slight, & a hope
out of sight

year is
year

is here

water, a genesis
of words

go speak ripe

am a portion of fish
winding trees

the accident is what
we had

in common

4.

where would I talk
that I still not get lost

in looking back

a life
of long creases, sides

in creasing long

edmonton downs
& thus capital

cross across

neglected love
& a bairn

a dream of this place
in a caretakers grid

5.

does the day
earn the scope

of the pattern
, a thickness

of ages

I know not
what

when proved

to contradict
self

Today is my thirty-eighth birthday (as of 8:15am). It is always interesting (to me, at least) to stop and look around, take stock, and see where I am (I feel as though I make time for it so rarely). The past few years have been pretty intense, working novels, essays (that I launch in Ottawa and Edmonton next month), the travel book (that we launch in Ottawa this afternoon), publishing house(s), all my projects on Andrew Suknaski, and everything else I feel the need to somehow be doing (American poet/publisher Jessica Smith recently told me, via facebook, that the reason I don’t get as much mail as I send out, is “because you are 5,000x more productive than any other human being. not sure how you do it, but no one else could dream of keeping up pace.”). Hell, the last few weeks have been just as overloaded, feeling I'm pushing 150% for, what, two months or so?

Thursday night, the flight from Edmonton to Ottawa, and Friday morning, needing to be in Ottawa's A Channel studio at 6:30am for a 6:51am spot on Breakfast Television (if you missed it, Pearl Pirie's husband Brian posted the damn thing on YouTube...), to promote Ottawa: The Unknown City (Arsenal Pulp Press) that I launch later on today. Between the jet-lag, the fact that I'm up usually four hours later than 6am, the time change and daylight savings, I'm amazed I even made it at all, although I did notice, once in the cab there, that my glasses were still sitting beside my bed (I couldn't see a thing, luckily). At least (according to an email from Amanda Earl, one of about half a dozen who have already emailed about witnessing it live), I was charming, and perhaps even charmed the host, despite my messy uselessness. Who the hell plans anything for pre-7am? Back to Edmonton on Monday, the Factory (West) on Tuesday, and then a reading in Red Deer a day later...

A year ago, but a month into the idea of Alberta; unbelieving the whole business. Where will I be in a year’s time? (Pushing, not just leaning, on forty.) I’ve posted nearly 150 interviews since I arrived west, working chapbooks and a couple of (still secret) projects, some Edmonton-based, some that should see fruition by June, September, Christmas… I’ve written forty or fifty letters to my lovely daughter that she never responds to (I saw her at Christmas at least, where she claimed she did appreciate the letters and books I’ve been sending, and then complained about my poor grammar and “rambly” letter-writing style…), but that’s okay.

I’ve been pushing myself pretty hard out here, in this Edmonton place. All the grief and the stress of the past fifteen years, almost unable to take too much of a break, to float along… I’ve been attempting the opportunity, instead, as a springboard, to push ahead further considerations into poetry, fiction, non-fiction, publishing and various other schemes.

Ah, but by the end of May I will be home again (paying but one rent instead of two), and broke and cranky again, and everything will have gone back to normal (but I would love to another writer-in-residence gig; what else is available?); still, where do I go out from here?

listening to the new Kathleen Edwards cd; it's everything I hoped it would be.

related notes: what I was on about last year; another photo of rob in West Edmonton Mall (same day as this one); review of Wah's Articulations;

12 or 20 questions: with Catherine Bush

photo credit: martin schwalbe


Catherine Bush is the author of three novels. Claire’s Head (M&S, 2004), shortlisted for the Trillium Award, and chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail. The Rules of Engagement (HarperCollins, 2000), a national bestseller, was published internationally, shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award, and chosen as a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by the LA Times and the Globe and Mail. Minus Time (HarperCollins,1993), her first novel, was also published in the U.S. and the U.K., and shortlisted for the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the City of Toronto Book Award. Bush has a degree in Comparative Literature from Yale University, has taught Creative Writing at universities including Concordia, the University of Florida, and the Universty of Guelph, and is an adjunct professor in University of British Columbia’s on-line MFA programme. A native of Toronto, she has been Writer-in-Residence at McMaster University, the University of New Brunswick, and the University of Alberta. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Guelph. Her nonfiction has appeared in numerous publications including the Globe and Mail and The New York Times Magazine. Her website can be found at: http://www.catherinebush.com/.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

Writing my first novel, Minus Time, proved to me that I could do this thing I’d always longed to do; publishing it proved to me that no matter what we manage to achieve, we always long for more. Writing the second novel was more terrifying in ways impossible to predict in advance -- if retrospectively predictable.

2 - How long have you lived in Toronto, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I was born in Toronto and lived here, mostly, until I went to college in the U.S. I stayed away ten years or so, although the years since have been shaped by a continual going away and returning, often of necessity, for work. Toronto is home, though; there is no doubt of that. In my fiction I seek to create an imagined Toronto, to dramatize lives that in one way or another have a connection to this city, to make this city, in fiction, a place of unusual collisions and transformations, one inevitably linked to the rest of the turbulent world. Undoubtedly issues of race and gender are seamed through my fiction, although I am loathe to discuss this outside of the specifics of character. Novels live through the specifics of character.

3 - Where does a piece of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I’m a novelist at heart, and I think through the long line of the novel, through its trajectory. Sometimes I begin with image or scenario: the challenge then is how to push scenario into movement, into the pressure of consequential movement -- because of this, then this -- which brings us to plot.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

In the middle stages of a project, it can be useful to hear the words aloud, in front of an audience. By the time a novel is published, it’s a matter of finding out which sections work best in front of an audience, which given the long line of the novel, is sometimes not easy.

5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Questions are crucial to my process, but they are not theoretical questions, they are more a long the lines of: Why did these two young men decide to fight a duel over this young woman? Why didn’t she try to stop them? Is this person going to reveal that about someone else or not? If a character is indirectly responsible for another’s death, what does that make her do? These are morally inflected questions, and that level of investigation is crucial to me. But really, as far as process goes, I walk into a scene as through a door to see what I will discover.

6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Essential, although the best editors simply pose questions or point out problems; you have to resolve them.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

Each book is different. The only thing that’s easier is that I’m more accepting of the difficulties. But I want to set myself challenges. Otherwise what’s the point?

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I eat pears in the autumn, apples in the winter, rhubarb in the spring. In summer it’s a free for all.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

If you can stop writing, stop; if you can’t, keep going until you can’t possibly do anything else. (Advice given to me as a very young writer. Scary at the time but invaluable, and I’ve never forgotten it.)

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

My days are shaped by my dog, a standard poodle, and begin with an hourlong walk. While I write, she sleeps (it was hard work, all that walking). Mid-afternoon, she gets up and begins the process of rousing me from my desk (the stare, the nudge, the truly ferocious stare). We walk. But who can write for more than five hours in a day anyway?

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

The long walk, opera, other music, books, imaginary vacations.

12 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

It feels different but that’s private: I can’t really explain why.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I love, and certainly ascribe to the sense that a novel is part of a conversation with other novels, or books, or even works of art, but I also attempt to follow in the footsteps of Henry James who exhorted all writers to “try to be one of those people upon whom nothing is lost.”

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

The work of the Spanish writer Javier Marias has been very important to me over the last couple of years given his obsessions with how we observe others, form judgements of others, which are in turn crucial to my current project, not to mention my interest in human nature generally. And the novels of American writer Norman Rush, which are set in Africa. And Mavis Gallant’s short stories. And wherever I go, I try to carry my Norton Anthology of Poetry with me, so that I can read John Donne one night and Roo Borson the next.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?


Finish Don Quixote.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Since most of us who write are usually juggling writing with something else, or more than one something else, perhaps I should have trained for the circus. But I didn’t. I am planning to go goatherding in Vermont for two months this fall. No joke. The writing life is one of endless transformations.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Writing is a way of doing a whole lot of other things without actually having to do them.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

On Friday nights, I’m not always looking for greatness, but I was deeply struck by the superbly acted Scottish film, Red Road, which uses as its starting point the way our lives are altered and distorted by the presence of surveillance cameras (surveillance issues being of great interest to me at the moment). I’ve been reading Gwendolyn McEwen’s short stories in Noman, and Phyllis Brett Young’s recently reissued novel from 1960 The Torontonians, as part of a desire to explore these earlier fictional imaginings of the city of Toronto, and because I adamantly believe such works of fiction must not be lost.

19 - What are you currently working on?

A novel called The Thief, set in Toronto and Addis Ababa, which, amongst other things, involves an Ethiopian children’s circus. And a stolen wallet.


12 or 20 questions archive

some new above/ground press titles;

slowly working through the inevitable backlog...

WEDNESDAYS' by Douglas Barbour (Edmonton AB)

ALBERTA SERIES #7

$6

STRUM OF UNSEEN by Pete Smith (Kamloops BC)
$4

The Sad Phoenician’s Other Woman by Amanda Earl (Ottawa ON)

$4

curse of canada by Gregory Betts (St. Catharines ON)

$4

map of edmonton (rossdale flats) by rob mclennan (Ottawa ON/Edmonton AB)

$2

oath in the boathouse by Pearl Pirie (Ottawa ON)

$4

some other recent titles still available:

Forcing Bloom by Jenna Butler (Edmonton AB)

ALBERTA SERIES #6

$6

FYRE by Catherine Owen (Edmonton AB)

ALBERTA SERIES #5

$6

The Peter F. Yacht Club #9 (Fredericton NB issue), edited by Jesse Patrick Ferguson

$5

DIRTY WORK by Natalie Simpson (Calgary AB)

ALBERTA SERIES #4

$6

The Trees of Periphery by Christine Stewart (Edmonton AB/Vancouver BC)

ALBERTA SERIES #3

$6

TOCKING HEADS by George Bowering (Vancouver BC)

ALBERTA SERIES #2

$6

The Peter F. Yacht Club #8 (Edmonton issue), edited by rob mclennan

$5

sex at thirty-eight: letters to unfinished g. by rob mclennan (Ottawa ON/Edmonton AB)

ALBERTA SERIES #1

$8

subscription information and some other backlist;

To order any of these little books, add $2 for postage, & in Canadian currency; if sending from outside Canada, send in American, payable to rob mclennan, c/o 858 Somerset Street West, main floor, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1R 6R7 (until the end of May 2008, write rob c/o writer-in-residence,Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta, 3-5 Humanities Centre, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E5); above/ground press subscribers receive (honest!) a complimentary copy; calendar year subscriptions available for $40 & include chapbooks, broadsides, STANZAS magazine & The Peter F. Yacht Club.

forthcoming publications include: Margaret Christakos' [see her 12 or 20 questions here] STANZAS (Toronto ON) & Andy Weaver's [see his 12 or 20 questions here] STANZAS (Toronto ON), a chapbook by Cath Morris (Vancouver BC), various broadsheets by rob mclennan, kevin mcpherson-eckhoff and Robert Majzels [see his 12 or 20 questions here], as well as two new issues of The Peter F. Yacht Club...

ongoing notes: some journals (The New Quarterly & Brick: A Literary Journal)

Here’s a painting by my friend David Cation (his work also graces my poetry collection aubade), as he calls it, the “hotel montreal piece.”

Waterloo ON: Now that I’ve finally found a good magazine store in Edmonton (on Jasper, near 104), I just picked up the new issue of The New Quarterly [see my note on the previous issue here], I’m very much liking this new format, far more than the previous. It makes the content look far less scrunched-up inside the issue, giving it all room to b r e a t h e. The new issue has a pretty interesting interview with and non-fiction piece by Toronto poet Souvankham Thammavongsa [see her 12 or 20 here; see her interview in Poetics.ca; see my review of her chapbook and second book], taking about her magnificently-enviable boiled-down poetic, and writing her poetry collection Found out of her father’s journals. Her comments on her own work, and her own choices, are utterly charming and extremely interesting, especially compared to other works out of various other versions of “family document,” more interested in writing her relationship to the journal than out of the journal itself.

Everything in his scrapbook is written in Laotian. I don’t know how to read or write Laotian but I do know how to speak it. Everything I found and everything in Found is about what I felt, discovered, put together while reading through the scrapbook. I never asked my father to translate or explain anything he put in there. That belongs to him, even the questions themselves. What I wanted most was to protect my parents, to respect and honour their private and personal experience. I wanted to tell our story but not to exploit or polish it or get caught up in the sadness that could have been there. Found is about where I came from and am coming from and what I can do with that. It’s also about what I want from poetry and life itself. How poetry has the capacity to do so much with so little, but more than that, how a life can go far and wide and deep even when given so little. And that’s when it stops being about my father or about me but about all of us.

I’ve been very taken with the “Falling in Love with Poetry” pieces that TNQ has been including in various issues over the past little bit [I even wrote my own here], and the one in this issue, “Rink at the Foot of Parnassus,” by Jeffery Donaldson, is no different. Writing about entering writing through hockey, here’s how the short piece ends:

Now that thirty years later I have a library of poetry and not, I don’t think, a single book on hockey, would I be justified in saying that the tables have turned? Not really. For one thing, I think the scenes of childhood show up in our thoughts and behaviours more and more centrally as we age. But I also think that, to judge fairly by some of my recent poems, the game has picked up on the lessons once evinced by those three volumes of Robert Service on the family bookshelf: be patient, give way, and you will abide.

Toronto ON: Brick: A Literary Journal [see my note on a much earlier issue here] is one of the few magazines/journals I can say I truly cherish (when will I ever become brave enough to submit something?). Now with their 80th issue, it features interviews with Mavis Gallant, Barbara Gowdy and Gil Adamson (in conversation with Michael Ondaatje), as well as various other of the usual and unusual features that make Brick such an interesting read. How do they keep finding such magnificent material? New poems by Sharon Olds and Don McKay, some love letters by Graham Greene to his mistress, a short piece by Eleni Sikelianos on a photograph of Robert Creeley and Robert Duncan, a strange piece of fiction by Leon Rooke and a piece by Robert Hass celebrating Tomas Tranströmer, among other pieces.

Michael Ondaatje: […] How long did the book take you to write, altogether from when you began?

Gil Adamson: Ten years. I started ten years ago, and that makes it sound like I’m the slowpoke from hell, but I did produce other things in between. I produced a poetry book and I sort of half-wrote another novel, so I would drop this project for periods of time. There was a time when I stopped writing for about two years. I just had no interest in being a writer, but this project was always in the background and it was sort of the fun project that I liked to do. And really, for the last four years, The Outlander has been my only project.

MO: Did that two-year silence help you?

GA: Yes, I loved it. Sometimes you just want to be a normal person, forget it for a while. Once or twice I suspected my life was kind of purposeless. But I was fine with it, I always had faith I’d get back to writing, and when I did it was a pleasure and not a chore. I don’t know how many will admit to that, but I think it happens.

I don’t know how they got it, but this issue includes the most amazing memoir by the late Dr. Gregory Altschuller (d. 1983), writing about being a child in Checkhov’s house. It’s the sort of piece that is easily gone over and over and through multiple times.

I don’t remember Chekhov. I saw him. I was often in his house, but as a child, and my memory does not retain his image. I spent many hours in his house, in fact, many days. When I got measles, it was thought only natural that I should be moved to the Chekhovs’ to keep me away from my brothers; and there, in a big guest room downstairs, with a famous portrait of Pushkin on the wall behind my bed, I spent more than a month under the stern but kind supervision of Chekhov’s sister, Maria Pavlovna. My sister also went promptly to the Chechovs when, in her turn, she got erman measles. The big downstairs guest room must have been occupied, because she slept on the sofa behind Chekhov’s desk.

The first thing I remember vividly is the day my father brought us a book written by Chekhov.

“Children, Anton Pavlovich sends you this book.”

The book, a wonderful dog story, I kept through all the years of my émigré life, and it is now in the possession of my children and grandchildren.

I know so well the world Chekhov lived in during the last years of his life. Not the great world of literature, theatre, and worldwide fame, but the small world of a little provincial town, the now-famous Yalta, and the still smaller circle of the Chekhov family, which was so infinitely close and dear to my father and, through him, me.

ABUNDANCE: The Mackie House Conversations about the Writing Life by Robert Kroetsch and John Lent

This conversation between Robert Kroetsch and John Lent is guided by love – of the word, of stories, of reading, of teaching. And of the work of writing, which seems, to a young writer, to come naturally and easily to all who have gone before you. You feel as if everyone is sure of themselves but you.
-- Sean Johnston, “Introduction: ‘The traces could count…’”

As part of a month-long writers residency set up through Okanagan College in Vernon, British Columbia, the relatively-recently-revived Kalamalka Press (the same press who published Karen Connelly’s first poetry book, oh so long ago) produces a book after the fact, as part of that residency. The fourth in the series, the only one I’ve seen previously is the poetry collection by Dennis Cooley, Country Music: New Poems (2005) [see my review of such here]. Published as part of writer Robert Kroetsch’s residency, he and author/prof. John Lent had a conversation about writing that lasted days, edited and transcribed into a single volume. Abundance (Vernon BC: Kalamalka Press, 2007) reads very much as a conversation between two old friends talking about writing generally and fiction specifically in a casual, thoughtful way. In places they even return to the teacher/student or mentor/student relationships of previous years (Lent usually moving in this direction, there and here); it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do, given Kroetsch’s years as an extremely generous and attentive teacher and mentor to so many writers over the years and years and years.

R: You’ve raised some interesting questions. First of all, writing is sound written down, and you want to recover that sound for the reader. That’s not easy to do, because the notion of accent and so on comes into play, and then there’s the question of audience, and the audience wants to hear accurately. The acoustics of the narrative have to work for the listeners and you were saying as a musician you check the acoustics of the building when you’re going to play, and maybe we have to check the acoustics when we’re going to write a novel or a poem or a short story. Where are we writing? Who are we writing for?

It’s interesting just how far-ranging Kroetsch’s influence has spread, moving across generations and across geographies, spreading through writers in various parts of the country for some four decades, and continuing, moving even into younger writers such as Jon Paul Fiorentino and Amanda Earl, for example. Introduced by former Ottawa resident and author Sean Johnston [see his 12 or 20 questions here], it must be said that such a piece is worth the price of the book alone (especially considering this fine piece is a mere ten dollars).

You begin your life as a writer alone. This aloneness is sometimes heartening, often frightening. Then you begin to realize you’re not alone, and this is by turns annoying and encouraging. You become overwhelmed by all the voices around you, angry at their insistence when you have so much writing to do and for writing you have to be alone, as you began. Then you are encouraged, because these voices have said these things for you and you don’t have to worry about saying them yourself. Then you’re scared again, because everything has been said. You feel alone again, because you are the one who has to come up with something new to say, because the voices have not said anything the way you would say it, or could say it.

And this is the life a writer lives every day, with the blank page, fighting voices and being soothed by them. Even if the voice they are at war with is the voice of themselves the day before. That’s the reason for Kroetsch’s ‘escape’ to the north, that’s the reason for his writing in the margins. Necessary, of course. And now you begin, yourself, and you begin in the margins of the literature of Kroetsch’s generation, to Lent’s, to your own and so on.
-- Sean Johnston, “Introduction: ‘The traces could count…’”

One thing that I do wonder, why didn’t the book actually acknowledge which days the five interviews took place? Labelled as “Day One,” “Day Two,” etcetera, does it matter which days were which, or if they happened consecutively or with a week or more in between? Was it as simple as a work-week’s worth of interview? And how does this conversation hold up beside that other publication from the 1980s (I can’t find a single reference to it online...), critical interviews with Kroetsch published by NeWest/Longspoon? And when will we see more Robert Kroetsch poems, a fiction? Where has the story gone?

R: Well, maybe this is a good place to try to wind up for the day…do we need a new story?...can we find a new story? Is there a new story?

J: I’ve thought about that a lot…because I think we’ve been moving towards a new story…or making new stories…in this last century…and they’re a different kind of story…I don’t know…maybe I’m just hallucinating…and romantically want a new story…I’m seeing evidence of it…certainly, when I read your work, I sense a new story…like a new design…and it’s a very comforting design...because at this point in this new century, when there’s such a terrible push back, politically, to some kind of, almost very rigid design, such extremes of nationalism and violence and certain male behaviour…I have this horrific sense that people would love to return to a simpler time when things were really clear-cut, and I don’t think I want to go back to that world because I think it was terrifying…so, in a sense, what is the antidote…and I think it’s imagining life, almost a hybrid kind of life, that’s different, that has a different sense of the family, of sexuality, of beauty, of love, of all those things…so you wonder, are these new stories…are they preliminary designs…some kind of indication?...I guess I’ve always felt that the stories do capture things, do mirror things…oh!...what am I trying to say?

related notes: The Crow Journals; Poet's Talk: conversations with...; The Snowbird Poems;

The Western Swing: a slew of Saskatchewan + Alberta Poets

The Pitch

Long time League member and former Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan Glen Sorestad [see his 12 or 20 questions here], Saskatchewan Rep Katherine Lawrence and Alberta Rep Dymphny Dronyk have cooked up a National Poetry Month adventure they're calling "Western Swing" as part of the League's Poetry Without Borders initiative during National Poetry Month in April.

Here's what happening during the four stop Western Swing tour:

Stop 1. April 12, 3-5 PM - Tour kicks off when five poets from Saskatchewan - Glen Sorestad, Shelley Leedahl, Lynda Monahan, Gerry Hill and Katherine Lawrence come to Edmonton for reading at Mandolin Books with rob mclennan, Allan Boss, Jenna Butler [see her 12 or 20 questions here], Wendy McGrath, Andy Michaelson, and Dymphny Dronyk.

Mandolin Books & Coffee Company, 6419-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB T5W 0N9

Stop 2. April 29, 7:30 PM - Tour crosses Alberta's western border for a reading in Grande Prairie at the Rabbit Hole Bookstore with Donna Kane from Dawson Creek, BC as well as Jenna Butler, rob mclennan, Alexis Kienlen, Catherine McLaughlin and Dymphny Dronyk.

Rabbit Hole Bookstore 10020 - 100 Ave, Grande Prairie, AB T8V 0V3

Stop 3. May 2, 6:30 PM [NOTE TIME CHANGE]- Tour does reading in Calgary at Pages Books with rob mclennan Allan Boss, Jenna Butler, Wendy McGrath, Andy Michaelson, Bob Stallworthy, Stuart Ian McKay and Dymphny Dronyk.

Pages Books 1135 Kensington Road NW, Calgary, AB T2N 3P4

Stop 4 May 3, 7-9 PM - Six Alberta poets head east to Saskatoon for a reading there with rob mclennan, Allan Boss, Jenna Butler, Andy Michaelson, Dymphny Dronyk, Bob Stallworthy as well as a gathering of Saskatoon's finest!

Amigos 632 10th St. E, Saskatoon, SK, S7H 0G9

The purpose of the tour (other than a great excuse to embark on a road trip just as the prairie is greening to the hopeful hues of spring) is to raise awareness and a wee bit of money for the venerable League of Canadian Poets.

info: Dymphny Dronyk at dymphny@telus.net

rob in Red Deer, Alberta

If you can't show up March 15th in Ottawa or March 18th in Edmonton (or even March 27th in Ottawa), be sure to catch me reading poems at the Red Deer College Library, main floor (100 College Boulevard), at 7:30 on Wednesday, March 19th. It's hosted by poet and fiction writer (and Red Deer College prof.) Joan Crate. Info 403 314 2448 or joan.crate@rdc.ca

Gil McElroy's Last Scattering Surfaces

In his ongoing poetic project involving the small moment and the small turn, Gil McElroy’s [see his 12 or 20 questions here] third trade poetry collection, Last Scattering Surfaces (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2007), works almost a poetry combining Paris, Ontario poet Nelson Ball, the late American poet Robert Creeley, and the poetry of Toronto writer Christopher Dewdney in terms of form and language.

RAMEAU’S NEPHEW

Mornings,
hatless between the fingers,
blinded
by syncopations.

His tiny feet,
he lets them
catch up, hums
in allegro with all the metric pattern
of crabs.

My music,
I always like to make it
tick.

Broken up into five parts, the third is part of an ongoing sequence called “Julian Days,” each included as a section in his trade collections, starting with Dream Pool Essays (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2001) and continuing with NonZero Definitions (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 2004). In an interview I did with him back in 2002 (published online (but now missing) in The Drunken Boat), he talked about his writing as a whole, and his “Julian Days”:

I suppose I’ve never had the opportunity to see my books as fitting in together in a larger picture. It took so very long for my first book to come out, and there were many variations on its contents as I pulled it apart and reassembled it while seeking a publisher for many a year.

I do, however, see some continuity – a thread, if you will – running through what I hope will be the books to come. It has, of course, to do mainly with my interests in the serial poem, and “The Julian Days” sequences that form a section of Dream Pool Essays and the newly completed manuscript with the working title of Nonzero Definitions. With no beginning or end to the larger whole that is the sequence, I think it forms the central core of the books around which the other sections much orbit and interact.

Each poem in the “Some Julian Days” sequence works a small fragmented poem on some aspect referencing McElroy’s daily life, but without the familiar temporal markers to place them (unless the reader actually knows the Julian calendar, which seems, on the whole, somewhat unlikely).

Large
by size
& metre, he
has solved well, he
has been strong enough, pulling
upward, not
settling
down

just as fluids
do (“2447184,” from “Some Julian Days”)

Then, in the same sequence, he manages to contradict himself slightly, placing some of these pieces in his more recent Ontario, where he has lived for the past few years, just outside Colborne, and sub-titling some of these piece “from A Colborne Psalter.” According to one on-line dictionary source, a “psalter” is “A book containing the Book of Psalms or a particular version of, musical setting for, or selection from it.” I am intrigued; I’d like to know more about McElroy’s slight shift in considerations for his “Julian Days” series, and where the project “A Colborne Psalter” might be going. Just what is it about that stretch between Toronto and Kingston, just north of the 401 Highway, does McElroy equate with praise, a kind of singing?

Listen
to us,
who, guided,
wait, re-
collecting
our vital
heat

who,
waking,
shall clear away the branches
& so see up, toward the full
Moon

who will
sound/who will
hear

who will
feed you/who will
fill you
up, open,
up (“2452827 / from A Colborne Psalter,” from “Some Julian Days”)

As Michael Ondaatje quoted Jack Spicer (who, I believe, coined the term “serial poem”) in his introduction to the first Long Poem Anthology (1979), the poems can no better live by themselves than we can, and it seems that McElroy’s poems are perhaps some of the finest testaments to that statement.

sex at thirty-eight

I’m calmer now, to learn. love may not save us.
— Barry McKinnon, “Sex at 38”

is less direct;

is not a boundary
or a given room, intact

& pushes, sometimes; strong

has nothing to prove
& has everything

to suggest

is not where you are
or where you have

been


2.

restful, restless
all the same

is memory as much
as most
ten-fold, patience
, the sake of a wound

there is no what
there is no why

a math of sex
at thirty-eight

heart goes out
& song

there is little
else

her simmerd smile
, laugh


related posts: Sex at Thirty-One -- McKinnon, Fawcett, Gold, Stanley, etc.; sex at thirty-eight: letters to unfinished g.; sex at 31 (redux): Kate van Dusen; sex at 31: Kristina Drake & Wanda O’Connor; the perpetually-forthcoming Collected Sex anthology, eds. Barry McKinnon + rob mclennan;

what Wednesday, what (Bishop, Queyras, Irvine, gryner…)
A lot of things happened yesterday. At noon, the Canadian Literature Centre hosted its fortnightly Brown Bag series, with a reading by Edmonton writer and U of Alberta prof. Ted Bishop (I’ve been waiting a couple of months for him to do his own “12 or 20 questions” interview…), author of that magnificent non-fiction book Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books (Penguin, 2005). I was fortunate enough to read the book in January, after he and I had traded books; his memoir comes out of a sabbatical year motorcycling down to Texas and back to dig through literary archives on projects relating to Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, and is an extremely smart, funny and eclectic mix of motorcycle road-story, technical manual, stand-up comedy routine and highly researched academic work, and one of those books I actually had difficulty putting down. As part of his reading, he introduced with another non-fiction piece about touring the book, including literary awards and publishing in places such as Prairie Fire and Playboy (he was on one of their “top __” lists, in the same issue as centerfold and also-Canadian Pam Anderson; he said the editor even hugged him at one of his book launches), and then commandeered members of the audience (us unfortunates in the front row) to help perform the section of the book where he purchases his first motorcycle (with extra voices provided by myself, Mike O’Driscoll and Christine Wiesenthal). I could post the section he read from, but it’s rather long, and a lot of the flow and humour fall away to excerpt, so I’ll just tell you to read the damn thing, and quote from this far later part of the book:

The classical pianist Alfred Brendel once told a New Yorker interviewer, “I like the fact that ‘listen’ is an anagram of ‘silent.’ Silence is not something that is there before the music begins and after it stops. It is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all. It’s wonderful when the audience is part of this productive silence.” He was talking of the highway. Some of the best moments on a bike come when you are not moving: roadside moments. You stop, kill the engine, and take off your helmet, and all is still.

Not exactly a funny piece, but a memorable piece. The next Brown Bag event, apparently, is Christine Wiesenthal [see her 12 or 20 questions here] on March 12.

The second event was current University of Calgary writer-in-residence Sina Queyras giving a reading at the University, reading from all three of her published poetry collections [see my reviews of her books and chapbook here and here and here and here], as well as a selection of new work. Due to the low tones of her voice and the bad acoustics of the room (why was she in L3?), there was a lot of the reading that I missed, but there was a lot that I didn’t, including selections of a prose work (a novel, perhaps) that she’s been fragmenting together for a number of years. Written in little prose fragments, these are absolutely lovely bits of thinking prose; I am very much looking forward to seeing them as a single unit. Have any been published, I wonder, as fragments anywhere else?

I’ve always admired her blog (wishing I could be as well-spoke and well-thought as she), and found it interesting that she feels as though she must before really feeling as though she wants to be doing it, for an otherwise lack of a certain kind of conversation about writing and writers (she threatens, every year or so it seems, to shut the whole of it down…).
It was interesting, too, how she talked about a section of her third trade collection Lemon Hound (Coach House), writing a section from Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, talking about using Woolf’s own words from that book to write a piece of her own, using only Woolf’s words and in the order in which they were originally used (which is exactly what Gregory Betts has been talking about for a while, in his “plunderverse”; check out his essay on same in Poetics.ca). Fortunately, Queyras is around for another few days, so it gives me an opportunity to ask her a few more questions about such things…

On the way to Queyras’ reading, I saw musician and old pal emm gryner at the Student Union Building post-office, preparing for her sound-check for last night’s show with Josh Ritter (the two are on a Canadian tour); I’ve known emm since 1999, around the time of her Science Fair album and tour, when she was opening for Ron Sexsmith at Ottawa’s Barrymores. She was nice enough to put me on the guest-list, and somehow I managed the first row (how did I do that, you ask? because I’m the luckiest stupid bastard in the world, that’s how…). It was a great show; I’ve always been a fan of emm’s work (although I was a bit disappointed she didn’t play longer, and didn’t play her “Pour Some Sugar on Me” cover, which is completely lovely…); I had heard the name Josh Ritter before, but hadn’t really paid much attention to his work. Not bad (I prefer when emm introduced me to the work of Andy Stochansky, who is perhaps one of the finest singer/songwriters in Canada), but I did admire just how tight he and his band were, without sacrificing any of the looseness that comes only with pure comfort and skill, and just how much fun it looked like they were all having. At the end, emm and Ritter did a lovely duet that seemed to echo (emm’s new dress helped) a “Johnny Cash/June Carter” kind of appeal (with Ritter being the goofy one). Later on, emm + her husband Sean + I drank red wine in her dressing room, and talked about many things, including her new album, out sometime this year…

Also, my pal Dean Irvine, who teaches at Dalhousie University these days, is around campus doing various official things that end today, so apparently we’re to hang out tonight, before he heads back east tomorrow…

Dear Friends and Colleagues/


Do please join us for the Canadian Literature Centre’s annual flagship event: the 2008 Henry Kreisel Lecture, at the TIMMS Centre for the Arts, March 5th, 2008, 7.30 p.m. This year’s lecturer is Wayne Johnston, and his talk is called “The Old Lost Land of Newfoundland: Memory, Family, Fiction and Myth.” Johnston will be discussing the myths and realities around the perception of Newfoundland.


Wayne Johnston is the author of seven books as well as a contributing editor of The Walrus. His first book, Bobby O’Malley, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Baltimore’s Mansion, a memoir dealing with his grandfather, his father and himself, was tremendously well-received and won the prestigious Charles Taylor prize for creative non-fiction.


His novels The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York spent extended periods of time on bestseller lists in Canada and have been published in the US, Britain, Germany, Holland, China and Spain. Wayne Johnston divides his time between Toronto and Roanoke, Virginia where he has held the Distinguished Chair in Creative Writing at Hollins University since 2004.


Please join us ! Admission is Free !
Reception and Book-signing to Follow.


Wednesday, March 5th, 7.30 p.m.
TIMMS Centre for the Arts (87 Ave & 112 St)
University of Alberta

12 or 20 questions: with Monty Reid [photo: Pearl Pirie]

Widely published as a poet and essayist, Monty Reid has produced a substantial volume of literary work. His volumes include The Life of Riley (Saskatoon SK: Thistledown Press, 1981), These Lawns (Red Deer AB: Red Deer College Press, 1990), The Alternate Guide (Red Deer College Press, 1995), Dog Sleeps (Edmonton AB: NeWest Press, 1993) and Flat Side (Red Deer College Press, 1998), a collection of new and selected poems, Crawlspace (Toronto ON: House of Anansi, 1993), and the chapbooks cuba A book (Ottawa ON: above/ground press, 2005), Sweetheart of Mine (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2006) and Lost in the Owl Woods (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2007). His work is also included in the anthology Decalogue: ten Ottawa poets, published as part of the first season of books by Chaudiere Books, the same time his book Disappointment Island (Chaudiere Books, 2007) appeared, which went on to be shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award and win the Archibald Lampman-Duncan Campbell Scott Poetry Award. He has won the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry three times and is also a three-time Governor General's Award nominee. He spent nearly twenty years working at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, in the heart of the Alberta badlands, before moving to the Ottawa area in 1999 to work at the Canadian Museum of Nature. His newest book is The Luskville Reductions, out this spring with Brick Books.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

It's difficult to say. It was a confidence-builder for sure, and it sortof legitimized being part of the literary community, and it felt pretty good - it's always nice to say you're a published poet. But I still had a family to raise and a job to attend to, so the basic trajectory of my life didn't change much. So one of the things it made me realize was that a book very rarely changes things in a significant way, and that's helpful in managing expectations, and also in making you understand (or at least making me understand) that the most important thing is one's own relationship to the work, and not in publication per se.

2 - How long have you lived in Ottawa, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I've lived in the Ottawa are since 1999, altho the first 5 years of that was on the Quebec side of the river, which is a bit different. I've lived in downtown Ottawa since 2004.

Geography has always had an impact on my work - I'm conscious of it. Less so race and gender, altho I'm sure those are there as well.

3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

A poem can begin anywhere. An overheard conversation, a dream, a piece of rock, a rhythm, another poem. I used to get the beginnings of poems when I was driving. Sometimes I begin with an idea, but not often. The ideas are always percolating, but I usually need to be given a means to work them out.

I'm working on poetry right from the beginning. Any piece might end up as a book, or might end up as a haiku. I try not to pre-define it. But it's always the work, always the life-long poem, which I keep writing and re-writing.

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

No. They're a way of engaging the literary community directly. I find that I'm often changing poems before a reading, so it's kind of an editorial process for me too.

5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I do find that my work does tend to circle around theoretical concerns, altho rarely 'literary' concerns. Some issues for me include the status of the so-called natural world (which takes a very shallow form sometimes as the status of the 'animal'), the production and engagement of a community, and the related production of meaning. But I almost never begin a poem with the express notion of working through any of these things. What I am always conscious of is that I write against loneliness.

6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Editors have been useful for me over the years, even when difficult. If you want to put your poems out in the world, you should have some sense of the world's response, and an editor can be an attentive, if partial, way of testing that. So, not essential, but useful.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

Not sure what you mean. The writing itself is always an exploration and a challenge - that hasn't changed over the years. Publication itself, with the new technologies available, seems to me to be easier these days than it has for a while.

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

I had a pear and blue cheese for dessert a couple of nights ago.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Strangely enough, the best piece of advice I ever received was from an ex-Jesuit who was a bureaucrat in the Alberta government many years ago. He said "err on the side of generosity".

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to song-writing)? What do you see as the appeal?

It's never been a huge gap to cross for me - they're all part of the same project. They demand different attentions, and there's more immediacy with the songs, along with the sense of collaboration - you're probably going to be playing them with other musicians. Working in different formats also has the benefit of keeping you at it, should one part or the other go dry for a spell. And I find that persistence valuable.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

A typical day begins for me around 5:30 am. I try to write every morning. I don't have the discipline I used to have tho, but I try to write every day.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Hmm. I have a variety of tactics. Sometimes I'll try translations. Sometimes I'll write songs. Sometimes I'll immerse myself in some big book, like Joseph Brodsky's Collected Poems in English. I don't believe in banging my head against any given wall, but move on to something else, and come back if necessary. The important thing is to keep writing, something.

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

Every book feels old to me. Because I'm usually engaged with something else by the time they actually come out. The book coming out this spring (The Luskville Reductions) is a good example. It was written at a fairly difficult point in my life, and it's hard for me now to really re-engage with it. It was hard during the editorial process too. Just because the situation, the location even, was over and removed.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Books don't just come from books. There was a first one, and ur-book, somewhere. All sorts of things influence my work, and I'm very glad of it.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

The rest of my life is important of course, but there any many writers whose work has influenced me and many that I admire. William Carlos Williams, for instance, has been a touchstone for me ever since I started writing. I also read a lot of scientific material.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

move my piano

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

musician

or given my perfunctory cooking skills, a chef

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Well, it's never been opposed to something else for me. I want to write, and do the something else too.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Great, who knows. But I really enjoyed Wayne Koestenbaum's Hotel Theory. I like pretty well any film with food in it.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Host, a book about parasites.

Cuban translations

songs

and this interview

12 or 20 questions archive

Fred Wah’s Articulations

0.1 (Rilke)

Looks like the Angel got through. Wrapped.
Swaddled. Between the rock and the river.

Seen speaking as having held to mere fact.
Mirroring on the wall, not me, begründen.

Watch who’d turned us round, turned and stopped.
Just for taking leaves from the bottom of the tree.

Of which the years build up their larger mounds.
Pudenda’d down moss, “the smell of the heat is…”

Spectacle of Mrs. Erickson’s totem. Private parts.
Thread round desire like a crack through the cup.

Stare, stare — nothing there. Camp. Earth. House.
Poof! said the beak. Not a ripple. By a hair.

After years without publishing a new trade collection of poetry [see my earlier note on Fred Wah here] comes this new chapbook from Peter and Meredith Quartermain’s Nomados Press, Articulations (Vancouver BC: Nomados, 2007), as perhaps a teaser, a precursor to his forthcoming spring 2008 collection with Talonbooks, Sentenced to Light. Even before the more obvious focus of his collection (and ongoing series) Music at the Heart of Thinking (Red Deer AB: Red Deer College Press, 1987), Wah was working from and with a series of responses, whether to breath, other writing or, in his later “ArtKnot” series [some are posted here], on specific works of visual art. Over the past few years, Wah has even collaborated with a filmmaker, and produced another chapbook All Americans (Calgary AB: housepress, 2002), that responds as a collaboration with visual artists. Included in the chapbook of seven poems, Wah writes:

All Americans is a text that was serialized for an installation called ‘Storybook Story’ curated by Luanne Martineau for the Art Gallery of Calgary 14 September - 11 November 2001. The text is meant to resonate with the weekly installments of three other writers involved in the same project (Skawennati Tricia Fragnito, Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew, and Rosemary Nixon). All of our texts were written in response to two panorama renderings of the Minnesota Massacre of 1862 from the Glenbow Museum's permanent collection. The first installment of our texts was due on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I've used parts of their texts in my own, as well as some text from Snow Crash by Neal Stephanson.

As he writes in the back of the chapbook Articulations:

Articulations is a series of texts written for a collaborative project of paintings and textual transcreations. Calgary artist Bev Tosh and I intended an intertextual and generative dialogue that explores not only gesture and reading but also the textual surface of human figure, typed letter, and artifact. The original project, a series of fifty paintings, incorporates both installation and performance, elements utilized as extensions and repetitions in the making of conversational art.

It is almost as though, over the past decade or so, Wah has been more interested in pursuing this “conversational art,” writing pieces in dialogue with other artworks; as opposed, one could easily argue, with the “conversational art” he has been doing previously, writing in dialogue with himself, his family and his own history (such as in Diamond Grill, for example, or even Waiting for Saskatchewan). One could even say that his whole writing career has been one of “conversational art,” going back to responding to Pictograms from the Interior of B.C. (Vancouver BC: Talonbooks, 1975). In his new afterward to the recent tenth anniversary edition of Diamond Grill, "Re-Mixed: The Compound Composition of Diamond Grill," Wah writes:

In hindsight now, I sometimes think I can locate a tangible beginning for Diamond Grill. It was in a poem in a book of transcreations (Pictograms from the Interior of B.C., Talonbooks, 1975, p.16) of Indian rock paintings I worked on in the mid-70s.

September spawn
fish weirs everywhere
all through the narrows

Upstream, upstream

A feast for all of us
cousins and old friends
everybody dancing
like crazy, eh?

That word "transcreation" is from Coleridge (Literary Reminiscences [1839], IV, 166).

"Not the qualities merely, but the root of the qualities
is transcreated. How else could it be a birth, a creation?"

and that etymon, "trans-", becomes, also, like "cousin", a little burr, another little thorn, that has prodded the discourse of the hyphen for me since "betweenness" also frequently engages a "crossing over," a trans-creation, trans-lation, trans-port. The implications of such a term around notions of Diaspora, foreignicity, and multiculturalism are clear (see p.5, Yet Languageless, Mouth Always A Gauze, Words Locked). […]

After Pictograms, the bio started to demand more in my writing. As a long poem, Diamond Grill is really anchored in my next project after Pictograms, a collection of poems called Breathin' My Name With a Sigh (Talonbooks, 1981). This was a crucial writing project for me since, around 1979, finally, after twenty years of writing, I was able to confront my racialized past, albeit mostly as an address to my father's death fourteen years earlier. So that other RE, the more nebulous RE of regarding, starts to particularize my own name, Wah. What's that all about, I start to ask. Breathin' My Name With a Sigh opens with this poem:

I like the purity of all things seen
through the accumulation of thrust
forward especially the vehicle
container maybe/or "thing" called body
because time seems to be only it appears
to look into the green mountains valleys
or through them to the rivers & nutrient creeks
where was never the problem animal is
I still have a name "breathin' it
with a sigh"

Robert Kroetsch once said that literature is a conversation; does that make everything Wah has worked up to this point boiled down to a series of ongoing conversations, between himself and the world?

48. (leg to stand on)

the deal is this
normal arc

potatoes
under the frozen earth

not worth
the digging

a month
in which to stay warm

phantom calisthenics
shadow eyes

calendar empty
the tumblers unlocked

a limb
to go out on

a leg
to stand