Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 42
December 17, 2013
shelfie
* * *
A different kind of 'shelfie' : being all the books I've worked on since starting at UMP in 2011.
(See all the orange I've snuck in?)
December 13, 2013
PBN: Melanie Dennis Unrau
* * *
From the Winter 2014 issue of Prairie books NOW.
(If you've been paying attention, this is my second interview with Melanie...the first was a part of my Unicity blog-based interview series for Winnipeg writers.)
December 11, 2013
How to Drive to Regina
Last Friday morning, I threw a hastily packed bag, a box of books, and a bin full of bags and shoes in my partner's car, which is a small SUV with four-wheel drive.
Photos courtesy Shelley Banks.And then I muttered something like, "He said he cleaned!" before systematically ejecting his CDs and inserting CDs of my own into the stereo. Waiting for the car to warm up, thinking on the pair of boots, snowpants, and M's super-mitts that I'd also stowed in the back. Just in case.
I was scheduled to do a reading and workshop in Regina and I wasn't taking any chances.
I had meant to go up on Thursday, but we'd had a pile of snow in addition to the all the terrible cold on Wednesday.
I've made that drive to Regina a bunch of times over the past ten years, but mostly during the summer and fall. So I let myself be talked out of doing the drive on Thursday, even though it meant missing the radio interview that had been scheduled for mid-day on Friday.
But I was in luck. Even though I dreaded getting out of the car to gas up or eat, the roads were bare and it was an easy drive to the Queen City.
I got to Tracy Hamon's place just in time to change and head out to a dinner-with-poets. Which is the best kind, especially if it's at a Korean/Japanese fusion place where you can simultaneously eat bibimbap and reminisce about the time you read there.
Saturday was the workshop, where I deployed strategies for working with texts, for drumming up inspiration rather than waiting for that particular lightning strike. We spent the afternoon wandering around 13th Ave, visiting the fancy paper shop and the craft store and sourcing my favourite Saskatchewan product: Lucky Bastard Gin.
Sunday night was the reading with Garry Thomas Morse at the SWG offices. It was a cold night, but we had a nice crowd. And Garry sang operatically as part of his reading.
I read a few poems from Hump, a few poems from How to Make a Collage (and am now down to my last copy...) and a few brand new poems which will be published in Stowaways.
Afterwards, a bunch of us headed to La Bodega, where I had mussels and gin...and then it was back to Tracy's...and then back home the next morning.
My hearty thanks to the SWG for having me, to the Canada Council for funding the entire affair, and to Tracy Hamon, whose next book will be out in fall 2014.
Photos courtesy Shelley Banks.And then I muttered something like, "He said he cleaned!" before systematically ejecting his CDs and inserting CDs of my own into the stereo. Waiting for the car to warm up, thinking on the pair of boots, snowpants, and M's super-mitts that I'd also stowed in the back. Just in case.I was scheduled to do a reading and workshop in Regina and I wasn't taking any chances.
I had meant to go up on Thursday, but we'd had a pile of snow in addition to the all the terrible cold on Wednesday.
I've made that drive to Regina a bunch of times over the past ten years, but mostly during the summer and fall. So I let myself be talked out of doing the drive on Thursday, even though it meant missing the radio interview that had been scheduled for mid-day on Friday.
But I was in luck. Even though I dreaded getting out of the car to gas up or eat, the roads were bare and it was an easy drive to the Queen City.
I got to Tracy Hamon's place just in time to change and head out to a dinner-with-poets. Which is the best kind, especially if it's at a Korean/Japanese fusion place where you can simultaneously eat bibimbap and reminisce about the time you read there.
Saturday was the workshop, where I deployed strategies for working with texts, for drumming up inspiration rather than waiting for that particular lightning strike. We spent the afternoon wandering around 13th Ave, visiting the fancy paper shop and the craft store and sourcing my favourite Saskatchewan product: Lucky Bastard Gin.
Sunday night was the reading with Garry Thomas Morse at the SWG offices. It was a cold night, but we had a nice crowd. And Garry sang operatically as part of his reading.
I read a few poems from Hump, a few poems from How to Make a Collage (and am now down to my last copy...) and a few brand new poems which will be published in Stowaways.
Afterwards, a bunch of us headed to La Bodega, where I had mussels and gin...and then it was back to Tracy's...and then back home the next morning.
My hearty thanks to the SWG for having me, to the Canada Council for funding the entire affair, and to Tracy Hamon, whose next book will be out in fall 2014.
December 5, 2013
Out-of-Town-Authors: Darryl Joel Berger
Darryl Joel Berger is a Kingston-based writer and visual artist. In addition to his day-job as a graphic designer.
Yes, I know, he's hateful.
But Darryl's second book of short fictions came out this fall. And if you order it from him, it comes stuffed with little drawings and other beautiful ephemera.
So I thought I'd completely mangle his book title and, also, ask him flippant questions. (FYI, Darryl gives as good as he gets...)
* * *
What do you want people to know about Dead All Day?
Dead All Day is a great title, and I'd like to read that book. Sounds like it might tap into that whole zombie/undead thing the kids love so much. And let's face it: the real money is in the vampires-that-sparkle crowd.
My own book, Dark All Day, is undoubtedly a *lot* less lucrative. It's mostly about desperate and dreadful lives, or bad things happening to bad people, or the nature of bad things themselves. Loads and loads of suffering. At the same time, it's all very quick and quiet. Like little monsters on padded cat feet.
As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
I hate the whole performance aspect of art. The writer or artist should have nothing to do with it. I like reading about someone like Lucian Freud, who was just an appalling little gangster of a man, but I don't like knowing about him in relation to his art, because it affects my experience. And don't even get me started on Woody Allen.
So a writer reading/performing his or her own words is often a terrible idea. There you are, in person and with a voice, both of which might subtract from your work.
On the other hand, who the fuck else is going to do it? You're kind of stuck. So you might as well do your best at it. And practicing your reading makes you a better speaker, I believe.
Have you ever just tried being cheerful? Also, when are you writing a novel?
Someone recently asked me if I had any happy stories. The question felt like getting hit in the mouth with a shovel. I mean, there you are, digging all these holes for the reader, and they turn around and whack you.
So: no. I'll leave the cheerful stuff for the marketing department.
Writing: I have three novellas that are essentially unfinished. I'd like to tackle one over December, once I've sufficiently submitted my dignity to the smear-fest called Christmas.
Have you ever been to Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I lived in Winnipeg for ten years. By the time I left, I'd convinced myself that I'd done all the cool things there was to do. And my favourite places had become a little too favourite, like bad habits.
It's a great city, most of all in terms of affordability and friendliness. But it's a bit insular, and too easily insulted, because no one ever goes there. Winter there is like having rubella on your soul.
How do you balance your visual artist and writing practices? And your day-job as a graphic designer? And the micro-press you run with your wife Christina Decarie? And your small child?
I don't. It's all done in the margins, in a kind of second life, or doubling. For example, instead of having lunch, I'll often go to the library and draw. Or I'll spend my lunch hour writing. Or on my walk to work I'll stop to write down some thoughts in a little notebook I always carry. Or do a thumbnail of something I want to draw or paint. Or I'll write emails to myself. Other than that, I get one morning and one evening a week in my studio, and I hit the door running.
I don't want to talk about graphic design. It's an egregious way to make a living, where you have all of the responsibility and none of the authority, and it all very quickly devolves into proficiency with software. As a profession, it should be completely dead within ten years. But then maybe I can use that Dead All Day book title of yours!
Upstart Press is mostly my wife Christina's work. She's entirely the brains of the operation, full stop. I just do some lifting in terms of illustration, design and production. It works because we both want to give people real books (copy-edited, designed, registered, professionally produced, properly launched, etc) as opposed to some fuzzy, false-positive experience of being published (like print-on-demand or self-publishing, which is basically just taking people's money).
My four year-old, Oona, is here to test my willingness to be charmed and insulted all at once.
What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm listening to Marcus Aurelius, who is the fountainhead of stoic thought. I *was* reading 2666 (again) but it felt (again) like one of those Spartathlons I clip out of the paper and use as conversation pieces. I also just gave up on William T. Vollmann's The Royal Family, despite how beautifully written it is. I just took Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler out of the library, and I'm looking forward to giving up on that.
I'm writing a lot of short stuff at the moment, just these one-off's that are like finishing a thought. And of course our exquisite corpse project, which you might have to explain to your readers, and that has been fun, and properly inventive.
Yes, I know, he's hateful.
But Darryl's second book of short fictions came out this fall. And if you order it from him, it comes stuffed with little drawings and other beautiful ephemera.
So I thought I'd completely mangle his book title and, also, ask him flippant questions. (FYI, Darryl gives as good as he gets...)
* * *
What do you want people to know about Dead All Day?
Dead All Day is a great title, and I'd like to read that book. Sounds like it might tap into that whole zombie/undead thing the kids love so much. And let's face it: the real money is in the vampires-that-sparkle crowd.
My own book, Dark All Day, is undoubtedly a *lot* less lucrative. It's mostly about desperate and dreadful lives, or bad things happening to bad people, or the nature of bad things themselves. Loads and loads of suffering. At the same time, it's all very quick and quiet. Like little monsters on padded cat feet.As a writer (i.e. someone whose artistic practice is predicated on time spent alone) how do you approach performance? What do you get out of it?
I hate the whole performance aspect of art. The writer or artist should have nothing to do with it. I like reading about someone like Lucian Freud, who was just an appalling little gangster of a man, but I don't like knowing about him in relation to his art, because it affects my experience. And don't even get me started on Woody Allen.
So a writer reading/performing his or her own words is often a terrible idea. There you are, in person and with a voice, both of which might subtract from your work.
On the other hand, who the fuck else is going to do it? You're kind of stuck. So you might as well do your best at it. And practicing your reading makes you a better speaker, I believe. Have you ever just tried being cheerful? Also, when are you writing a novel?
Someone recently asked me if I had any happy stories. The question felt like getting hit in the mouth with a shovel. I mean, there you are, digging all these holes for the reader, and they turn around and whack you.
So: no. I'll leave the cheerful stuff for the marketing department.
Writing: I have three novellas that are essentially unfinished. I'd like to tackle one over December, once I've sufficiently submitted my dignity to the smear-fest called Christmas.
Have you ever been to Winnipeg? What have you heard?
I lived in Winnipeg for ten years. By the time I left, I'd convinced myself that I'd done all the cool things there was to do. And my favourite places had become a little too favourite, like bad habits.
It's a great city, most of all in terms of affordability and friendliness. But it's a bit insular, and too easily insulted, because no one ever goes there. Winter there is like having rubella on your soul.
How do you balance your visual artist and writing practices? And your day-job as a graphic designer? And the micro-press you run with your wife Christina Decarie? And your small child?
I don't. It's all done in the margins, in a kind of second life, or doubling. For example, instead of having lunch, I'll often go to the library and draw. Or I'll spend my lunch hour writing. Or on my walk to work I'll stop to write down some thoughts in a little notebook I always carry. Or do a thumbnail of something I want to draw or paint. Or I'll write emails to myself. Other than that, I get one morning and one evening a week in my studio, and I hit the door running.
I don't want to talk about graphic design. It's an egregious way to make a living, where you have all of the responsibility and none of the authority, and it all very quickly devolves into proficiency with software. As a profession, it should be completely dead within ten years. But then maybe I can use that Dead All Day book title of yours!
Upstart Press is mostly my wife Christina's work. She's entirely the brains of the operation, full stop. I just do some lifting in terms of illustration, design and production. It works because we both want to give people real books (copy-edited, designed, registered, professionally produced, properly launched, etc) as opposed to some fuzzy, false-positive experience of being published (like print-on-demand or self-publishing, which is basically just taking people's money).
My four year-old, Oona, is here to test my willingness to be charmed and insulted all at once.
What are you reading right now? What are you writing right now?
I'm listening to Marcus Aurelius, who is the fountainhead of stoic thought. I *was* reading 2666 (again) but it felt (again) like one of those Spartathlons I clip out of the paper and use as conversation pieces. I also just gave up on William T. Vollmann's The Royal Family, despite how beautifully written it is. I just took Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler out of the library, and I'm looking forward to giving up on that.
I'm writing a lot of short stuff at the moment, just these one-off's that are like finishing a thought. And of course our exquisite corpse project, which you might have to explain to your readers, and that has been fun, and properly inventive.
December 1, 2013
Another season later
All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. November 30, 2013.* * * So I did a eco-poetry workshop loosely focused on water with Dennis Cooley at CMU yesterday.
Afterwards, as the light was falling, M met me at the nearby forest. And we walked quickly, talking over our day/week. It was dim and cold and and I didn't have my camera and neither of us were really dressed for it. But the forest is one of the best ways we spend time together, so...
We stopped once at this clearing, the one where we saw that wayward moose that time. For most of the time I've been walking in the forest, its thatching of burned logs has kept it a clearing, despite the colonial tendencies of the trembling aspen all around it.
Last fall, a buncha teenagers had a bonfire at the edge of the clearing. And that fire spread, turning the burnt logs to ash. And so I've been watching as the clearing changes.
Since this was my first winter walk in the forest, I grabbed M's phone and took this photo.
(And then we went for Korean and I nearly swooned over my soontofu chigae...)
November 29, 2013
Shaving by candlelight
Does that make me Cary Grant? ("If he can talk, I'll take him!") Or, since this is the end times, are you auditioning for the role of Paul Novak?
Does this mean that your delusions have finally consumed – and excreted – you?
Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?
Did you know that most predators kill their prey by biting their necks? They’re after the big vein or the trachea: you bleed out or suffocate. Wolves slash at the muscles and ligaments in the legs. But you’re no large ungulate.
Do you think zombies go to heaven?
Does it matter that the noise I heard outside was a stony-eyed girl with a growling dog? We burned things and ate out of cans. A few days later, a pair of buzzcutt-ed boys with fresh needle marks. (We shared out our pork n’ beans.)
They didn’t mind my necklace of teeth but the beard scared them. So I shaved by candlelight.
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?
I caught a cold from one of the kids. Does it matter that I intend to survive?
* * *
Exquisite corpse #20.
Darryl Joel Berger's (harrowing) #19 is here.
Does this mean that your delusions have finally consumed – and excreted – you?
Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?
Did you know that most predators kill their prey by biting their necks? They’re after the big vein or the trachea: you bleed out or suffocate. Wolves slash at the muscles and ligaments in the legs. But you’re no large ungulate.
Do you think zombies go to heaven?
Does it matter that the noise I heard outside was a stony-eyed girl with a growling dog? We burned things and ate out of cans. A few days later, a pair of buzzcutt-ed boys with fresh needle marks. (We shared out our pork n’ beans.)
They didn’t mind my necklace of teeth but the beard scared them. So I shaved by candlelight.
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?
I caught a cold from one of the kids. Does it matter that I intend to survive?
* * *
Exquisite corpse #20.
Darryl Joel Berger's (harrowing) #19 is here.
November 27, 2013
Reprint: The M Word
* * *
From Goose Lane Editions' spring 2014 catalogue.
My essay/poem "Primipara" (more properly, my poem "Primipara" is at the centre of the essay, which is also called "Primipara") is part of this anthology.
Other contributors to The M Word include:
Heather Birrell, Julie Booker, Diana Fitzgerald Bryden, Kerry Clare, Myrl Coulter, Christa Couture, Nancy Jo Cullen, Marita Dachsel, Nicole Dixon, Amy Lavender Harris, Alexis Kienlen, Michele Landsberg, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Deanna McFadden, Maria Meindl, Saleema Nawaz, Susan Olding, Alison Pick, Heidi Reimer, Kerry Ryan, Carrie Snyder, Patricia Storms, Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang, Priscila Uppal, Zoe Whittall, Julia Zarankin.
November 22, 2013
Blurbing others
So I got my copy of Darryl Joel Berger's Dark All Day in the mail this week, with assorted goodies tucked inside the envelope.
(Except for the mini-ninjas at the bottom of the image. Those are my daughter's...)
Darryl and I have been collaborating for nearly two years. At first, we just sent images (him) and text (me) back and forth.
Which was great - many of the texts have found a place in my upcoming collection - but after a year of that, we decided to complicate things.
So for the past eight months, we've been working on a alpha-bestiary and an end-days epistolary novel.
Somewhere in there, Darryl was getting ready to publish his second collection of short fictions + drawings with American publisher Fjords. And he asked me to blurb it:
"Each of the illustrated fictions in Dark All Day is a few minutes of true darkness in a world of humming fluorescence. Taken together, they're an eclipse that doesn't require special eyewear, a black eye without the looming fist. To sum: Darryl Joel Berger's second collection of stories is a bleakly excellent mash-up of image and text." - Ariel Gordon, author of Hump.
This was my first blurb. Writing them is like gnawing on a chunk of horseradish, like sitting on the floor all day. Which is to say that I was sore all over but oddly proud of myself (and him) by the time I'd finished drafting it.
It turns out he asked everyone to blurb: Peter Darbyshire, Diane Schoemperlen, Gillian Sze, Carolyn Smart. But I'm still proud! (And will be interviewing for for an upcoming installment of Out of Town Authors...)
Heh.
* * *
About DARK ALL DAYFiction. "From the first page, you know you're in the wrong hands. So perfectly, exquisitely wrong," Peter Darbyshire said about DARK ALL DAY, DJ Berger's second book. Inconsolably drawn to the end of things, and the forlorn beauty of wreckages, "With his second collection of short fiction, DJ Berger offers 41 discrete tales of indiscreet characters. They will blow your mind one by one. If you crossed Stephen King with Raymond Carver you'd be getting close to what's going on here. The vision is bleak indeed, but also funny, intimate, and more than painfully real: a true dark triumph," said Carolyn Smart. Each story is introduced with a sketch in Berger's signature style. Hope and humor are used as distant but gleaming stars, to undermine the darkness where it can, and what fires many of these stories is a sense of anarchic theatre, where anything might come next.
About the Author
Darryl Joel Berger's first collection of stories-called Punishing Ugly Children - was published in Fall 2010 by Killick Press. This same manuscript won the 2007 David Adams Richards Prize and was shortlisted for the national/Canadian ReLit Awards. His short story "Scissors" was a finalist in the 2007 Commonwealth Short Story Competition and his novella Broken Hill was a finalist for the Malahat Review Novella Prize. He lives with his wife Christina and daughter Oona in Kingston, Ontario. See more of his illustrations at http://red-handed.blogspot.com/
(Except for the mini-ninjas at the bottom of the image. Those are my daughter's...)Darryl and I have been collaborating for nearly two years. At first, we just sent images (him) and text (me) back and forth.
Which was great - many of the texts have found a place in my upcoming collection - but after a year of that, we decided to complicate things.
So for the past eight months, we've been working on a alpha-bestiary and an end-days epistolary novel.
Somewhere in there, Darryl was getting ready to publish his second collection of short fictions + drawings with American publisher Fjords. And he asked me to blurb it:
"Each of the illustrated fictions in Dark All Day is a few minutes of true darkness in a world of humming fluorescence. Taken together, they're an eclipse that doesn't require special eyewear, a black eye without the looming fist. To sum: Darryl Joel Berger's second collection of stories is a bleakly excellent mash-up of image and text." - Ariel Gordon, author of Hump.
This was my first blurb. Writing them is like gnawing on a chunk of horseradish, like sitting on the floor all day. Which is to say that I was sore all over but oddly proud of myself (and him) by the time I'd finished drafting it.
It turns out he asked everyone to blurb: Peter Darbyshire, Diane Schoemperlen, Gillian Sze, Carolyn Smart. But I'm still proud! (And will be interviewing for for an upcoming installment of Out of Town Authors...)
Heh.
* * *
About DARK ALL DAYFiction. "From the first page, you know you're in the wrong hands. So perfectly, exquisitely wrong," Peter Darbyshire said about DARK ALL DAY, DJ Berger's second book. Inconsolably drawn to the end of things, and the forlorn beauty of wreckages, "With his second collection of short fiction, DJ Berger offers 41 discrete tales of indiscreet characters. They will blow your mind one by one. If you crossed Stephen King with Raymond Carver you'd be getting close to what's going on here. The vision is bleak indeed, but also funny, intimate, and more than painfully real: a true dark triumph," said Carolyn Smart. Each story is introduced with a sketch in Berger's signature style. Hope and humor are used as distant but gleaming stars, to undermine the darkness where it can, and what fires many of these stories is a sense of anarchic theatre, where anything might come next.
About the Author
Darryl Joel Berger's first collection of stories-called Punishing Ugly Children - was published in Fall 2010 by Killick Press. This same manuscript won the 2007 David Adams Richards Prize and was shortlisted for the national/Canadian ReLit Awards. His short story "Scissors" was a finalist in the 2007 Commonwealth Short Story Competition and his novella Broken Hill was a finalist for the Malahat Review Novella Prize. He lives with his wife Christina and daughter Oona in Kingston, Ontario. See more of his illustrations at http://red-handed.blogspot.com/
November 15, 2013
Regina workshop!
How to Write a Poem: A Poetry Workshop with Ariel Gordon
When: Saturday, December 7, 10:00 am - 1:00 p.m.
Where: SWG Regina Office (1150-8th Avenue, Regina)
Cost: member: $48+GST, student member: $36+GST; non-member: $72+GST, student non-member: $48+GST
Have you ever wondered how to rip a phone book in half? Or how to survive in the woods? Or, even, how to seduce a woman in poetry?
This workshop with Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon is designed to open up your writing process via a variety of writing exercises. By the end, you’ll have tried your hand at all of them.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her first book of poetry, Hump (Palimpsest Press), was published in 2010, and her second is slated for publication in 2014. Most recently, she won Kalamalka Press' inaugural John Lent Poetry-Prose Award, which resulted into the letterpress chapbook, How to Make a Collage. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.
For more information about the workshop, or to register, please contact Milena at (306) 791-7746 or swgevents@skwriter.com.
* * *
Saskatchewan's writing and publishing community is my second home. Over the past few years, I've made the six hour drive to Regina a dozen or more times for workshops and readings and awards ceremonies.
(The drive to Regina is good for me in that it means six hours alone, drinking tea and singing along to music at the top of my lungs, and there's all the sun out the windows...)
So I'm especially looking forward to this workshop, which is followed by a reading with Garry Thomas Morse on Sunday.
My thanks to the SWG for bringing me out!
When: Saturday, December 7, 10:00 am - 1:00 p.m.Where: SWG Regina Office (1150-8th Avenue, Regina)
Cost: member: $48+GST, student member: $36+GST; non-member: $72+GST, student non-member: $48+GST
Have you ever wondered how to rip a phone book in half? Or how to survive in the woods? Or, even, how to seduce a woman in poetry?
This workshop with Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon is designed to open up your writing process via a variety of writing exercises. By the end, you’ll have tried your hand at all of them.
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Her first book of poetry, Hump (Palimpsest Press), was published in 2010, and her second is slated for publication in 2014. Most recently, she won Kalamalka Press' inaugural John Lent Poetry-Prose Award, which resulted into the letterpress chapbook, How to Make a Collage. When not being bookish, Ariel likes tromping through the woods and taking macro photographs of mushrooms.
For more information about the workshop, or to register, please contact Milena at (306) 791-7746 or swgevents@skwriter.com.
* * *
Saskatchewan's writing and publishing community is my second home. Over the past few years, I've made the six hour drive to Regina a dozen or more times for workshops and readings and awards ceremonies.
(The drive to Regina is good for me in that it means six hours alone, drinking tea and singing along to music at the top of my lungs, and there's all the sun out the windows...)
So I'm especially looking forward to this workshop, which is followed by a reading with Garry Thomas Morse on Sunday.
My thanks to the SWG for bringing me out!
November 12, 2013
Reprint: The Poets Caught by Giant Despair
An excerpt from a conversation between Ariel Gordon & Gillian Wigmore:
GW: I found the only way I could get back into writing poetry after my first book was to tell people (and myself) I was writing fiction and then devote my time and learning to that. The sneaky thing that did was get me off the hook for poetry which I then started to write secretly and much more freely and privately for myself. The demands were gone – exactly what you said: permission not to be productive. I've put a tonne of pressure on myself for fiction but poetry is now allowed in the margins and that's where I write it. I think writing days for poetry would make me die – I'd spend them frivolously and then hate myself for it. The way I'm doing it now is for pleasure - the rigour is still there and the research but it's mainly for pleasure. The problem with this system is that there is no built in time for it so when a deadline comes up for an edit or a whole book edit, I'm screwed and I have to go back to the negotiating table with the family and find time. It also means that I'm not very organized for submitting to things so I'm having to finally devise systems for figuring out where I've sent stuff and what's pending and what's being published or been published... it's tricky.
I keep in touch with my closest writing friends through Facebook, email, phone, cards and letters – no one I'm actively writing with (alongside, in tandem, or on projects) lives here. That's not because there aren't writers here but because my writing kin are far flung. I'm very thankful for the internet. It's just hard to clink glasses over wireless.
I feel like when we met at Banff so many years ago it was the very beginning of the beginning – the start of the conversation we are having and our work is having, the start of the cross country glass-clinking. Anna Swanson and I sat down and wrote out goals there that have since come true. How and when are we next going to get together and plan the next goals?
AG: You know, I still think back on that day, when I was sitting in my dorm room at Banff, contemplating the poem I was working on for Robert Hilles but mostly wondering if my nose was going to start bleeding again. And then you two called, saying that you were holed up in yet another dorm room, working on submissions for the Bronwen Wallace Prize and that you liked me and that I should come over. So we could be ambitious all in the same room.
I usually don't respond to those kind of pitches, but I was lonely and my nose had just recently bled and I was convinced that no one in the program liked me.
So...can we talk about envy? Because even though both you and I consider our networks of writers across the country as part of what keeps us going, even though we're both invested in the idea of community, the reality is that there are limited resources available to writers in this country. We all want a Canada Council grant and spend five glorious months writing. We all want to win the civic / provincial / national prizes for best goddamn book of poetry. We all want to teach creative writing in a university or semi-rural retreat setting.
So what do you do if your relationship with another writer becomes tinged with jealousy? What do you do if you're the one whose work has gained some attention and your friends are less than enthusiastic: "Yay for you! Again!"
All of which is a way of asking. What good does an engorged ego do a poet/her pocketbook?
* * *
Thanks to Shawna Lemay & Kimmy Beach for creating a space for conversations like this one....and to Gilly Wigmore, for all the late night emails about despair.
GW: I found the only way I could get back into writing poetry after my first book was to tell people (and myself) I was writing fiction and then devote my time and learning to that. The sneaky thing that did was get me off the hook for poetry which I then started to write secretly and much more freely and privately for myself. The demands were gone – exactly what you said: permission not to be productive. I've put a tonne of pressure on myself for fiction but poetry is now allowed in the margins and that's where I write it. I think writing days for poetry would make me die – I'd spend them frivolously and then hate myself for it. The way I'm doing it now is for pleasure - the rigour is still there and the research but it's mainly for pleasure. The problem with this system is that there is no built in time for it so when a deadline comes up for an edit or a whole book edit, I'm screwed and I have to go back to the negotiating table with the family and find time. It also means that I'm not very organized for submitting to things so I'm having to finally devise systems for figuring out where I've sent stuff and what's pending and what's being published or been published... it's tricky. I keep in touch with my closest writing friends through Facebook, email, phone, cards and letters – no one I'm actively writing with (alongside, in tandem, or on projects) lives here. That's not because there aren't writers here but because my writing kin are far flung. I'm very thankful for the internet. It's just hard to clink glasses over wireless.
I feel like when we met at Banff so many years ago it was the very beginning of the beginning – the start of the conversation we are having and our work is having, the start of the cross country glass-clinking. Anna Swanson and I sat down and wrote out goals there that have since come true. How and when are we next going to get together and plan the next goals?
AG: You know, I still think back on that day, when I was sitting in my dorm room at Banff, contemplating the poem I was working on for Robert Hilles but mostly wondering if my nose was going to start bleeding again. And then you two called, saying that you were holed up in yet another dorm room, working on submissions for the Bronwen Wallace Prize and that you liked me and that I should come over. So we could be ambitious all in the same room.
I usually don't respond to those kind of pitches, but I was lonely and my nose had just recently bled and I was convinced that no one in the program liked me.
So...can we talk about envy? Because even though both you and I consider our networks of writers across the country as part of what keeps us going, even though we're both invested in the idea of community, the reality is that there are limited resources available to writers in this country. We all want a Canada Council grant and spend five glorious months writing. We all want to win the civic / provincial / national prizes for best goddamn book of poetry. We all want to teach creative writing in a university or semi-rural retreat setting.
So what do you do if your relationship with another writer becomes tinged with jealousy? What do you do if you're the one whose work has gained some attention and your friends are less than enthusiastic: "Yay for you! Again!"
All of which is a way of asking. What good does an engorged ego do a poet/her pocketbook?
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Thanks to Shawna Lemay & Kimmy Beach for creating a space for conversations like this one....and to Gilly Wigmore, for all the late night emails about despair.
