Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 20
April 28, 2015
Out-of-Town-Authors: Bren Simmers
Quill & Quire, WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Ariel Gordon
Bren Simmers' second collection, Hastings-Sunrise (Nightwood Editions), is a long poem that spans a year of living in the East Vancouver residential neighbourhood, one of the city’s oldest.
Though she is now based in Squamish, B.C., Simmers noted that the book came out of a long effort “to find home and a sense of belonging in a city where so many people struggle with the cost of living.”
Simmers spoke to Q&Q about the collection.
What is it like writing from and to a neighbourhood, especially one as freighted as Hastings-Sunrise?
I think that we’re drawn to our neighbourhoods as extensions of ourselves. Working on this project, I’ve come to see that home is a much larger idea than just our address or personal belongings. Where we shop and eat, or even the streets we walk on and the people we walk past, tell the story of a neighbourhood. And of course, this is just one story of Hastings-Sunrise. The neighbourhood is changing so quickly, and everyone with a connection to the place could tell a different story in a different time. In the years that I lived there, gentrifying forces became accelerated to the point of the neighbourhood being rebranded as the East Village. In these poems, I wanted to both acknowledge my complicity in that process and capture a portrait of a particular time and place.
You worked with Barbara Klar on this book. You mention in acknowledgements that she encouraged you to “put yourself in these poems.” What was it like, writing about your home? Did it place any unexpected demands on you or on the poems?
Barbara pushed me to go deeper in these poems, to connect my surface observations of the neighbourhood to my process of making a life there. I think this advice ultimately made Hastings-Sunrise a more meaningful book. To put myself in the poems I was forced to create a character sketch of myself that found a balance in both narrative voice and specific details. The challenge was being able to tell my own story rooted in a time and place while also leaving the reader enough room to reflect on their own experience of home. By writing about your own life, you discover you have blind spots. I am grateful to friends who read earlier versions of this manuscript and provided me feedback, pointing out gaps that were subconsciously filled in by my personal experiences.
To read the rest of the interview, see the Quill & Quire website.
* * *
This interview is part of a National Poetry Month feature on Quill & Quire. Upcoming: interviews with Elena Johnson & K.I. Press.
By Ariel Gordon
Bren Simmers' second collection, Hastings-Sunrise (Nightwood Editions), is a long poem that spans a year of living in the East Vancouver residential neighbourhood, one of the city’s oldest.
Though she is now based in Squamish, B.C., Simmers noted that the book came out of a long effort “to find home and a sense of belonging in a city where so many people struggle with the cost of living.”Simmers spoke to Q&Q about the collection.
What is it like writing from and to a neighbourhood, especially one as freighted as Hastings-Sunrise?
I think that we’re drawn to our neighbourhoods as extensions of ourselves. Working on this project, I’ve come to see that home is a much larger idea than just our address or personal belongings. Where we shop and eat, or even the streets we walk on and the people we walk past, tell the story of a neighbourhood. And of course, this is just one story of Hastings-Sunrise. The neighbourhood is changing so quickly, and everyone with a connection to the place could tell a different story in a different time. In the years that I lived there, gentrifying forces became accelerated to the point of the neighbourhood being rebranded as the East Village. In these poems, I wanted to both acknowledge my complicity in that process and capture a portrait of a particular time and place.You worked with Barbara Klar on this book. You mention in acknowledgements that she encouraged you to “put yourself in these poems.” What was it like, writing about your home? Did it place any unexpected demands on you or on the poems?
Barbara pushed me to go deeper in these poems, to connect my surface observations of the neighbourhood to my process of making a life there. I think this advice ultimately made Hastings-Sunrise a more meaningful book. To put myself in the poems I was forced to create a character sketch of myself that found a balance in both narrative voice and specific details. The challenge was being able to tell my own story rooted in a time and place while also leaving the reader enough room to reflect on their own experience of home. By writing about your own life, you discover you have blind spots. I am grateful to friends who read earlier versions of this manuscript and provided me feedback, pointing out gaps that were subconsciously filled in by my personal experiences.
To read the rest of the interview, see the Quill & Quire website.
* * *
This interview is part of a National Poetry Month feature on Quill & Quire. Upcoming: interviews with Elena Johnson & K.I. Press.
April 27, 2015
Reprint: Brain, Child
* * *
So I got a simultaneous tweet from The M Word editor Kerry Clare & email from Hilary Levey Friedman mid-afternoon. The e-hubbub was because Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers had just posted an article that referred to Clare's collection of conversations about mothering.
I clicked through, which lead me to a "Top 10 Humour Books" list. I expected to see my name mentioned in passing, as is usually the case with anthology reviews, but was surprised/pleased to see that the book was listed because of my essay.
Which is sort of fun. Anyways, if you can't be bothered to click through—even though the article also includes references to Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott & Porn for New Moms From the Cambridge Women’s Pornography Collective—here's the section that deals with The M Word:
The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood Edited by Kerry Clare
In trying to summarize the intention of the anthology editor Clare writes that it’s about life with a uterus, in all stages of life. This collection by Canadian women isn’t all funny—far from it in some cases. But one of the essays, “Primipara” by Ariel Gordon, made me laugh so hard when I read it, and it stayed with me for a long time. In the piece she reveals a poem to a coworker she wrote that says that if she had had twins, she would have eaten one or sent it back. Gordon’s honest take on why having only one child was the right choice for her is elevated by her language choices (“I regret, too, that the girl won’t know the burnt caramel of loving and hating a sibling.”) and her insight (“People mostly ask me when my next book is coming out instead of when my next child is due. It’s a relief to have the poetry and the parenting separate again, though really they’re not separate at all.”). Proof that humor comes to us all individually in different forms.
April 26, 2015
Lansdowne Prize for Poetry
It was the last thing I expected, but I'm pretty happy that Stowaways won the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry last night at the Manitoba Book Awards.
Here are the judges' comments:
"Stowaways is well imagined and well crafted, each poem tight, the poet’s attention evident. From wildlife to the clutter of the everyday to “how-to” offerings, the reader is charmed and enticed by the poet’s light touch and sure pen.
Images jump out at us, grab us by the throat, leave us gasping. Ariel Gordon’s second collection is as strong as the parts of its sum.”
—Margaret Michele Cook, Katia Grubisic, and Paul Savoie, judges of the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de Poesie.
Laurent Poliquin ("A deep and far-reaching exploration of the possiblity of words and language"), Alison Calder ("There is so much of breathtaking beauty in Alison's Calders In the Tiger Park"), and Luann Hiebert ("A true ephiphany of sound, structure, meaning, allusion, intent") were also nominated.
I expected Alison to win, mostly because, well, as the judges put it, she's a "a thoughtful imp that sneaks into our night mind, a tender and wry traveller inviting her readers along." And because I admire her work so very much...
As such, I didn't have any comments prepared, so I mostly mocked/thanked M, who had commented just before my award was announced—having watched Rick Chafe's gracious wife accept his award for the Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright—that spouses should always get to accept awards.
(M was there in two capacities: loyal/long-suffering spouse but also as someone who'd worked on the Winnipeg Free Press' City Beautiful book, which was nominated in the design category...)
I also acknowledged Alison as her role as member of my writing group, along with Kerry Ryan and Jennifer Still.
I also made the crowd chant "Poetry is Forever" which was sort of fun, but completely forgot to thank my publisher Palimpsest Press or editor Jim Johnstone or the MWG or even my colleagues at UMP. Sigh...
But I had a new dress for the occasion from Foxy Shoppe and had had my hair done at Edward Carrier, so between the wedge heels I was wearing and the pompadour I was sporting, I was at least six and a half feet tall...
The hall at the Marlborough Hotel was spacious but also suffocatingly hot, so people rushed out when all was said and done, but a group of us went to the Round Table and had buckets of bacon. Which was a nice end to the evening...
Fun!
(My thanks to Anthony Mark Schellenberg for the acceptance speech photo, from the moment when I got the crowd to chant "Poetry is Forever," mostly because I could. And because I believe it...)
Here are the judges' comments:"Stowaways is well imagined and well crafted, each poem tight, the poet’s attention evident. From wildlife to the clutter of the everyday to “how-to” offerings, the reader is charmed and enticed by the poet’s light touch and sure pen.
Images jump out at us, grab us by the throat, leave us gasping. Ariel Gordon’s second collection is as strong as the parts of its sum.”
—Margaret Michele Cook, Katia Grubisic, and Paul Savoie, judges of the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de Poesie. Laurent Poliquin ("A deep and far-reaching exploration of the possiblity of words and language"), Alison Calder ("There is so much of breathtaking beauty in Alison's Calders In the Tiger Park"), and Luann Hiebert ("A true ephiphany of sound, structure, meaning, allusion, intent") were also nominated.
I expected Alison to win, mostly because, well, as the judges put it, she's a "a thoughtful imp that sneaks into our night mind, a tender and wry traveller inviting her readers along." And because I admire her work so very much...
As such, I didn't have any comments prepared, so I mostly mocked/thanked M, who had commented just before my award was announced—having watched Rick Chafe's gracious wife accept his award for the Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright—that spouses should always get to accept awards.
(M was there in two capacities: loyal/long-suffering spouse but also as someone who'd worked on the Winnipeg Free Press' City Beautiful book, which was nominated in the design category...)
I also acknowledged Alison as her role as member of my writing group, along with Kerry Ryan and Jennifer Still.
I also made the crowd chant "Poetry is Forever" which was sort of fun, but completely forgot to thank my publisher Palimpsest Press or editor Jim Johnstone or the MWG or even my colleagues at UMP. Sigh...
But I had a new dress for the occasion from Foxy Shoppe and had had my hair done at Edward Carrier, so between the wedge heels I was wearing and the pompadour I was sporting, I was at least six and a half feet tall...
The hall at the Marlborough Hotel was spacious but also suffocatingly hot, so people rushed out when all was said and done, but a group of us went to the Round Table and had buckets of bacon. Which was a nice end to the evening...
Fun!
(My thanks to Anthony Mark Schellenberg for the acceptance speech photo, from the moment when I got the crowd to chant "Poetry is Forever," mostly because I could. And because I believe it...)
April 25, 2015
Reprint: Lemon Hound's New Winnipeg Poets Folio
* * *
So I have two new poems included in Lemon Hound's New Winnipeg Poets Folio, "Hairshirt" and "Goose egg."
The poems are about hairballs and getting a booter and both contain in-poem swearing. (Ahem.)
Jonathan Ball, professional smart-ass, selected the poems. And his new Winnipeg poets folio includes both colleagues and friends and new-to-me poets, which is exactly as it should be:
Candice G. Ball, Michelle Daly, Kristian Enright, Joanne Epp, j robert ferguson, Ariel Gordon, Hannah Green, Luann Hiebert, Eileen Mary Holowka, Adam Kroeker, Kevin Kvas, Laura Lamont, Ted Landrum, Matthew Legall, Louella Lester, Jenn Angela Lopes, Chris Macalino, Janis Maudlin, Kegan McFadden, Maurice Mierau, Carmelo Militano, Adam Petrash, Davis Plett, Marika Prokosh, Kerry Ryan, Angeline Schellenberg, Cam Scott, Aaron Simm, John Stintzi, Chimwemwe Undi, Melanie Dennis Unrau, Joshua Whitehead
April 16, 2015
Lit Live-ing!
* * *
My next reading will be in Hamilton as part of the Lit Live reading series.
I'm excited to read with Patrick Friesen, who is a once and forever Manitoban and a very good poet.
I'm also looking forward to encountering the work of Andrew Forbes, Valerie Nielsen, and Kate Marshall Flaherty as well as the emerging writers. And rambling around Hamilton a bit more, after my brief stop there in October.
Dirty hands
Spec-fic poems! Live-drawing!
* * *
So last night was the ChiSeries reading in Winnipeg to celebrate National Poetry Month, which meant a slate lousy with poets but also live-drawing, which is a nice combo.
The event featured myself, Jonathan Ball, Adam Petrash, and GMB Chomichuk (who was the aforementioned live-draw-er...).
And it was fun to spend some time with the work of these writers. How-Tos on how to avoid becoming a horror movie cliche (not mine, shockingly). A poem on Leatherface and his chainsaw-wielding interpretive dance. A clutch of my were-mummy poems, both from Stowaways and newer variants. And a cut-up poem from Greg's Imagination Manifesto, which he handed out after.
It was also fun to go for a good, old-fashioned gossip over beer and buckets-of-bacon after the reading was done.
My thanks to Samantha Beiko and Chadwick Ginther for the organizing and hosting goodness!
April 13, 2015
Manitoba Book Awards
So the news is two weeks old now, but the shortlists for the 2015 Manitoba Book Awards were released on March 30.
Sixteen awards will be handed out this year at the ceremony April 25th at the Marlborough Hotel. The list includes two new prizes, the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award & the Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright.
And University of Manitoba Press authors got eight Manitoba Book Award nominations in five categories.
I'm proud of that, even though I had very little to do with it in my role as Promotions/Editorial Assistant at the press.
I'm also proud that my poetry collection Stowaways was nominated for the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de poésie.
Many thanks to Palimpsest Press for its support of the book & to Toronto poet Jim Johnstone, who edited it.
Also nominated for the Lansdowne are the following books / poets, all of which I recommend you check out:
De l’amuïssement des certitudes by Laurent Poliquin, published by Jacques André Editeur
"Que peut rappeler le poétique au politique, la poésie à la loi ? Que la poésie va vers ce qui résiste. Elle provoque le réel, elle interprète ce que le corps et la voix peuvent tracer de l’espace et du temps. Laurent Poliquin, dans son recueil De l’amuïssement des certitudes, présente sa quête dans laquelle il cherche à structurer sa souveraineté et son opposition à l’asservissement quotidien. C’est dans la musicalité des mots et une certaine sensualité qu’il engage un combat contre la pesanteur de l’existence. Ainsi, les défis cinglants face à la mort, l’aliénation contemporaine, la brume des incertitudes s’atomisent dans ces poèmes épurés, fougueux et sans contredit: amoureux"
*
In the Tiger Park by Alison Calder, published by Coteau Books
"Alison Calder's poetry is known for shining the light of the poet's curiosity on all manner of 'natural occurrences,' which nevertheless stand out. Again, as with her first book, Wolf Tree, this collection is about what exists at the edges of human experience, what's out there but is largely unseen by the average human being – animals, the line a receiver makes running down a football field, the calligraphy of pheasant wings in the snow. It's about ghosts, how these things operate as ghosts to us now, in this age—things that might have, in another age, occupied a more central place in our lives."
*
What Lies Behind by Luann Hiebert, published by Turnstone Press
"What Lies Behind, Luann Hiebert’s debut collection of poetry, explodes the notion of the common and everyday. The seductive songs of motherhood and love and springtime on the prairies are confronted with illness, death, and the coldness of time marching on without us. With the weight of history behind her, Hiebert arrests the patterns of daily life and in their place leaves a beautiful truth that is more awesome and delightful than memory could serve."
*
So: congratulations to all the writers who were nominated. I'm also thinking of all those writers whose books weren't nominated. Here's to all of us!
I'm off to assemble a vaguely-1920s costume...
Sixteen awards will be handed out this year at the ceremony April 25th at the Marlborough Hotel. The list includes two new prizes, the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award & the Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright.And University of Manitoba Press authors got eight Manitoba Book Award nominations in five categories.
I'm proud of that, even though I had very little to do with it in my role as Promotions/Editorial Assistant at the press.
I'm also proud that my poetry collection Stowaways was nominated for the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de poésie.
Many thanks to Palimpsest Press for its support of the book & to Toronto poet Jim Johnstone, who edited it.
Also nominated for the Lansdowne are the following books / poets, all of which I recommend you check out:
De l’amuïssement des certitudes by Laurent Poliquin, published by Jacques André Editeur
"Que peut rappeler le poétique au politique, la poésie à la loi ? Que la poésie va vers ce qui résiste. Elle provoque le réel, elle interprète ce que le corps et la voix peuvent tracer de l’espace et du temps. Laurent Poliquin, dans son recueil De l’amuïssement des certitudes, présente sa quête dans laquelle il cherche à structurer sa souveraineté et son opposition à l’asservissement quotidien. C’est dans la musicalité des mots et une certaine sensualité qu’il engage un combat contre la pesanteur de l’existence. Ainsi, les défis cinglants face à la mort, l’aliénation contemporaine, la brume des incertitudes s’atomisent dans ces poèmes épurés, fougueux et sans contredit: amoureux"
*
In the Tiger Park by Alison Calder, published by Coteau Books
"Alison Calder's poetry is known for shining the light of the poet's curiosity on all manner of 'natural occurrences,' which nevertheless stand out. Again, as with her first book, Wolf Tree, this collection is about what exists at the edges of human experience, what's out there but is largely unseen by the average human being – animals, the line a receiver makes running down a football field, the calligraphy of pheasant wings in the snow. It's about ghosts, how these things operate as ghosts to us now, in this age—things that might have, in another age, occupied a more central place in our lives."
*
What Lies Behind by Luann Hiebert, published by Turnstone Press
"What Lies Behind, Luann Hiebert’s debut collection of poetry, explodes the notion of the common and everyday. The seductive songs of motherhood and love and springtime on the prairies are confronted with illness, death, and the coldness of time marching on without us. With the weight of history behind her, Hiebert arrests the patterns of daily life and in their place leaves a beautiful truth that is more awesome and delightful than memory could serve."
*
So: congratulations to all the writers who were nominated. I'm also thinking of all those writers whose books weren't nominated. Here's to all of us!
I'm off to assemble a vaguely-1920s costume...
