Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 33

speared

Broken reading

Photos from the Winnipeg launch of Brecken Hancock's Broom Broom. (Photos by Anthony Mark Schellenberg and Michael Deal and me, though most of my photos were crap...)

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So last night I read with Luann Hiebert and Alison Calder and Brecken Hancock last night at McNally's.

Which meant a bag with a change of clothes hauled to work and then meeting M and the girl, fresh from work and daycare pick-up, at the resto for a quick pre-reading dinner. Which meant rehearsing in the senior common room at lunch, trying on the poems like they were a spandex dress I'd discovered at the back of my closet: Oh! That!

Which meant getting-to-read with Alison Calder, who heckled me from the podium and then very quickly asked me to not hurt her.

Alison is very smart and her poems are dryly funny like artisanal gin—full of fennel and bits of peel that taste exotic but also instantly recognizable, like the earth—but she still laughs at my jokes, which I appreciate in a fellow poet. And I've been wanting to read with her for aaaages.

I read three summery poems from Stowaways: "Sidelines," "Picked Out," and "Pear Suite." And it was great fun, not the least bit broken, even if Brecken read "Evil Brecken," which contains all kinds of rhymes with her name: reckon, lichen, thickened, chicken.

Thanks to Brecken and Coach House and John Toews at McNally's for having me!

(Interview with Brecken to follow, once I locate my gumption...)

A week away

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I'm looking forward to this: Summer-y poetry! Slurpee and zucchini poetry!

Funny, but while Brecken and I were chatting, we realized that she and Adrienne Gruber had published a poem of mine in Backyard Ashes, the little SK-based lit mag they published back in the day.

I don't remember when or which poem, of course....

Death camas

These are apparently called Death Camas. Because they're poisonous to livestock and to people. (No poetry here, eh?)

I should mention that I only have names for these bits of flora because staff at the Parks Canada office put together a pamphlet called "Flowers in Bloom Checklist."

It was helpful because my in-car field guides only cover aspen parkland and boreal forest. And short-grass prairie is NOT either of those...

Speaking of galls...

...here are some on teeny tiny wild rose plants at the very bottom of the 70 Mile Butte trail, completely engulfed by galls.

I wonder how they'd compare, nutritionally, to rose hips. Could you make rose gall tea? (After discarding the buggy tenant, of course...)

Wolf willow

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I'm particularly fond of willows. They're host to the most interesting galls. The yellow willows glow so magnificently in the fall. And in the spring I always like getting a snootful of big, ratty pussywillows. It reminds me of my grandmother's backyard and how she'd always trim some branches for her biggest vase. And then we'd eat peanut butter and marshmallow square.

But I'd never seen Wolf Willow before, despite a stay at the Stegner House in nearby East End.

Here it is in bloom. (Thanks to Harvey Schmidt for the ID!)

Low everlasting

Also called Pussy Toes. (You can tell I'm from Manitoba because I almost wrote "Toews.")

This is from our walk to the medicine wheel/radio tower just outside of Val Marie. Apparently, this is/was PFRA land...

Grassland-ing

Photo from the top of the 70 Mile Butte trail in Grasslands National Park by Anna Deal.
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So we spent nine days in and around Grasslands National Park in Val Marie, SK in mid-June. (And it has taken THIS long to post the pics...sigh.)

It was raining or overcast most of the time we were there, but there was only one day that we couldn't do the walk we wanted. And even then, after reading all day and playing games and drawing as the storm blustered outside, we were able to get in an evening walk up and down the looong gravel driveway of the hotel where we were staying and then also drive into the park.

The day we were left, all the consecutive days of rain had taken their toll. The road into the park was washed out, as were several other smaller roads. I had wanted to hike the 70 Mile Butte one last time, but the trail would have been nothing but gumbo, so we skipped it.

If anyone is a wildflower and bird enthusiast, I'd strongly recommend Grasslands in June. I found a respectable amount of mushrooms, given that this was the shortgrass prairie - think bleached grasses and heat and cactus - and I hadn't really expected to find any.

The best part of our trip, I think, besides the new-to-me wildflowers, was spending a bit of time with poet/birder Brenda Schmidt and her husband Harvey. Suddenly, there were birds everywhere. And they had names!

I also got really fond of my daily observation of the family of great horned owls, two adults and two juveniles, who lived in a tree on the hotel's property. (On the stormy day, they hid in a little valley bisected by a fence, sitting on the posts & looking very stoic...)

How to Prevent a Shark Attack

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I think there are still spots in next week's workshop, if anyone has talented but aimless teens...

PBN: Beverley Brenna & Marc Mongeau

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From the spring 2014 issue of Prairie books NOW.

Worth noting is that PBN has been completely reformatted, from tabloid to magazine.