Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 100

An open letter to Susan Antonacci

Dear Susan,

My name is Ariel Gordon and I'm a Winnipeg-based writer and editor.

I'm writing today to tell you that I really really liked that you listed McClelland & Stewart's Canadian Poetry 1920 to 1960 in the What's Inspiring Me This Month sidebar of your editorial in this month's Canadian Living.

There's a lot of very good Canadian poetry (and fiction and non-fiction) out there these days and I'm happy to see it in Canadian Living's pages, though I can't help but want more.

A Canadian books ...

Wetland workshop this weekend!

Poetry Workshop
with Poet & Author Ariel Gordon

When: June 20, 3-6pm
Where: FortWhyte Alive, 1961 McCreary Rd.

Join us at the beautiful Siobhan Richardson Field Station for an afternoon workshop of poems and prose writing lead by Ariel, with readings from Hump (Palimpsest Press, 2010). Hump is a mash-up of pregnancy-and-mothering poems and urban/nature/love poems.

Start the session with a guided walk to the field station departing from the Alloway Reception Centre at 2:30pm.

Join us again and invit...

Be-league-red

So I spent the weekend at the League of Canadian Poets conference/AGM. And of course I took the red-eye, which functionally meant that I had three hours of sleep before I got up to fly to Toronto.

Luckily, I slept on the flight and then again after I'd checked into my dingy little room.

Whatever reserves I've built up over the past few weeks lasted me until Friday night at 10 pm, when I read as a part of the traditional New Members event.

The reading was held in Toronto's city hall, which was wi...

Hands on: Susan Musgrave

* * *

After her panel on making poetry "more visible" at the League of Canadian Poets conference, Musgrave clasped and reclasped her hands against her belly.

She mentioned that she frequently finds herself rubbing the bony brainpan of her bird ring.

Then she clasped her hands against her belly. And shifted and clasped them again, differently.


* * *

Susan Musgrave's most recent novel was Cargo of Orchids (Knopf, 2000) and latest collection of poetry was Obituary of Light: the Sangan River...

Pano at the Black Sheep

* * *

M went quiet for long minutes, over breakfast at the Black Sheep, our favourite breakfast place when it's just the two of us, as he took and then processed this panorama.

I have two thoughts regarding this image:

1) "M and his bloody devices!" (Though I do benefit from it, I'm rich in profile pics if nothing else...)

2) "I suppose I should figure out what I'm reading tonight/tomorrow/the next day, huh..."

The latter is because I've three readings in three days, starting tonight at Aqua with ...

Hands on: Colin Smith

* * *

"You're photographing my left hand, Ariel. I write with my right hand."

"Tell you about my hands?"

"Well, I run warm. And the texture of the skin on my hands is ridiculously soft. But I DON'T spa. And I DON'T put cream on them every night, yada yada."

* * *

Colin Smith is a poetry scalawag. Books = 8X8X7 (Krupskaya, 2008) and Multiple Poses (Tsunami, 1997). More current work pops up in CV2, The Collective Consciousness, and Dandelion. Rarely meets a curse he doesn't like.

dentition

mmmulch

All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. June 7, 2010.

* * *

I really really enjoy watching for - and then seeing - the first few harbingers of spring/summer.

Like yellow lady's slipper orchids. Or those white mushrooms that look exactly like teeth. Or the variety of native violets, strawberries and other low shrubbery that is now in bloom.

And then there's that corridor where you're surrounded by wild roses. And the smell of being surrounded wild roses. I mean, it's no stinkhorn funk, but it...

Reprint: Night Table Recommendations

After my launch at McNally Robinson May 5, events coordinator John Toews asked me if I'd be interested in doing one of their Night Table Recommendations columns.

There were no parameters in terms of style or format or length or even date of release...

...which, given that I'm staring down another poetry column (ulp!), made writing this immensely pleasurable.

* * *

Ariel Gordon - Night Table Recommendations

Posted by McNally Robinson
Thursday, Jun 03, 2010 at 9:25am

I recently published my first b...