Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 60
August 8, 2012
boulevard
* * *
Boulevard mushrooms, a left-over of last week's stretch of rainy days.
We tried to get to the forest this past weekend, and never quite made it. So these are my imaginary stand-ins for the ones likely emerging in the forest as-we-speak.
In other news, I just finished a small-to-medium project, a personal essay on mothering, about the choice to only have one child.
It was one of the more challenging bits of writing I've undertaken over the last several years. Though I enjoy personal essays generally - and specifically, the ones in Fiona Lam's Double Lives: Writing and Motherhood - I've never really attempted one myself, or at least not a long-form version.
So this scared the bejeesus out of me.
I just wanted this to be...well, right. Smart and funny and thoughtful and comprehensive and true and maybe even a teeny bit original. I'm not sure I got all the way there, but I feel like I haven't embarassed myself, which is sometimes all you hope for...
The invitation to contribute an essay came when I was beginning to contemplate the form but hadn't gotten up the gumption to write anything. When I'd started to consciously accumulate essay collections, all of which were by female poets who'd turned to the essay.
The most notable of the bunch being Brenda Schmidt's Flight Calls and Alice Major's Intersecting Sets, which I think I've noted here before. Still, it bears repeating. (And effective repetition is one of the tools of the personal essay writer...)
I wrote an essay on the difference between nature poets and naturalists while I was on retreat, which I should probably spiff up and send out. And I was just gifted with Lorri Neilsen Glenn's Threading Light, so all proceeds apace.
July 29, 2012
Reprint: Paperchase
Ariel Gordon wins prize, publication
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
By Bob Armstrong
Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon has won the inaugural John Lent Poetry Prose Award from British Columbia-based Kalamalka Press.
Kalamalka Press will now publish Gordon's manuscript, How to Prepare a Collage. Her manuscript was selected from 36 entries.
Gordon, author of Hump (Palimpsest Press) and How to Prepare for Flooding (JackPine Press), is a past recipient of the John Hirsch Award for most promising Manitoba writer and the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for poetry.
This fall she will lead a series of reading and writing workshops, through the Winnipeg School Division's Lifelong Learning program, intended to inspire writers of all genres.
* * *
Another little tidbit on the Kalamalka Press chappie, this time in Bob Armstrong's Paperchase column, which appears in the Winnipeg Free Press' Saturday Books section.
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
By Bob Armstrong
Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon has won the inaugural John Lent Poetry Prose Award from British Columbia-based Kalamalka Press.
Kalamalka Press will now publish Gordon's manuscript, How to Prepare a Collage. Her manuscript was selected from 36 entries.
Gordon, author of Hump (Palimpsest Press) and How to Prepare for Flooding (JackPine Press), is a past recipient of the John Hirsch Award for most promising Manitoba writer and the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for poetry.
This fall she will lead a series of reading and writing workshops, through the Winnipeg School Division's Lifelong Learning program, intended to inspire writers of all genres.
* * *
Another little tidbit on the Kalamalka Press chappie, this time in Bob Armstrong's Paperchase column, which appears in the Winnipeg Free Press' Saturday Books section.
July 28, 2012
Napping
Photo from Fort Whyte, Winnipeg, MB. July 29, 2012.* * *So after not visiting Fort Whyte for aaaages, we went for a long sweaty walk this afternoon. It was very humid, but at least there was a breeze. There were walls made entirely of bullrushes around FW's man-made lakes, whose water level looked very low. And duckweed carpeting the water. But we scooped it out of the way and dipnetted like crazy...and pulled in all kinds of whirling dervishes.
As we were walking out, we came upon this butterfly, which landed on a tree ahead of us and then refused to move. It was very un-butterfly-like. But its torpor allowed me to creep up and take a few pictures...
Of course, M wanted to take pictures of it after me. And since he wanted a showier image, he tried to convince it to show it's wings by blowing on it. At which it got up and reluctantly flew away.
No mushrooms at all.
July 24, 2012
Reprint: Castanet.net
John Lent inspires inaugural winner of Kalamalka Press poetry-prize
by Okanagan College
A Winnipeg writer has become the inaugural winner of the Kalamalka Press John Lent Poetry-Prose Award. Ariel Gordon received the award for her manuscript How to Make a Collage.
“The winning selection fearlessly wrestles the complexities of human relationships using emotionally dynamic lines and metaphors,” wrote the judges, Okanagan College English professors Laisha Rosnau, Jake Kennedy and Kevin McPherson. Gordon’s collection of poetry was selected from 36 manuscripts. Honourable mentions went to Kathleen Brown (Documenting the Brink) and Claire Caldwell (Osteogenesis) for their submissions that demonstrate “haunting/halting imagery and profound attention to sound.”
The award is named after retired Okanagan College Regional Dean and English professor John Lent, who co-founded Kalamalka Press.
And it was Lent’s name in part, that drew Gordon to enter the contest.
“Three things were highly intriguing to me about this contest,” Gordon wrote on her blog Jane Day Reader when she heard the good news this week. “John Lent not only had a very interesting career, but is also very generous to new writers, including me from the few times we’ve met.”
Gordon, who works as promotional/editorial assistant at the University of Manitoba Press, said there were other connections as well.
Kalamalka Press recently published Flight Calls by her close friend, writer Brenda Schmidt, and perhaps i should by Peter Midgley, with whom Gordon shared the stage at a recent reading in Winnipeg.
“Winning this prize seems like a convergence of all these different parts of my writing life,” said Gordon from her Winnipeg office. “But first and foremost, it’s an honour to be published with the press John founded, and, specifically, under the aegis of a prize named after him.”
Now with the award in hand, she’s even more thrilled to learn the chapbook – her fourth – will be letterpressed by Jason Dewinetz, another English professor with Okanagan College.
“He’s brilliant,” she said. “I followed his Greenboathouse Books for years. He has such a fine eye for design so I’m greatly looking forward to what he and his students do with this text.”
Gordon will also receive a $100 honorarium as part of the award. Her chapbook will be published in the coming academic year.
Over the years, Kalamalka Press books have been short-listed and nominated for numerous regional and national awards, including the Pat Lowther Award. The press has also been instrumental in launching the significant careers of Karen Connelly, Nancy Holmes, Sue Wheeler, and Dona Sturmanis.
by Okanagan College
A Winnipeg writer has become the inaugural winner of the Kalamalka Press John Lent Poetry-Prose Award. Ariel Gordon received the award for her manuscript How to Make a Collage.
“The winning selection fearlessly wrestles the complexities of human relationships using emotionally dynamic lines and metaphors,” wrote the judges, Okanagan College English professors Laisha Rosnau, Jake Kennedy and Kevin McPherson. Gordon’s collection of poetry was selected from 36 manuscripts. Honourable mentions went to Kathleen Brown (Documenting the Brink) and Claire Caldwell (Osteogenesis) for their submissions that demonstrate “haunting/halting imagery and profound attention to sound.”The award is named after retired Okanagan College Regional Dean and English professor John Lent, who co-founded Kalamalka Press.
And it was Lent’s name in part, that drew Gordon to enter the contest.
“Three things were highly intriguing to me about this contest,” Gordon wrote on her blog Jane Day Reader when she heard the good news this week. “John Lent not only had a very interesting career, but is also very generous to new writers, including me from the few times we’ve met.”
Gordon, who works as promotional/editorial assistant at the University of Manitoba Press, said there were other connections as well.
Kalamalka Press recently published Flight Calls by her close friend, writer Brenda Schmidt, and perhaps i should by Peter Midgley, with whom Gordon shared the stage at a recent reading in Winnipeg.
“Winning this prize seems like a convergence of all these different parts of my writing life,” said Gordon from her Winnipeg office. “But first and foremost, it’s an honour to be published with the press John founded, and, specifically, under the aegis of a prize named after him.”
Now with the award in hand, she’s even more thrilled to learn the chapbook – her fourth – will be letterpressed by Jason Dewinetz, another English professor with Okanagan College.
“He’s brilliant,” she said. “I followed his Greenboathouse Books for years. He has such a fine eye for design so I’m greatly looking forward to what he and his students do with this text.”
Gordon will also receive a $100 honorarium as part of the award. Her chapbook will be published in the coming academic year.
Over the years, Kalamalka Press books have been short-listed and nominated for numerous regional and national awards, including the Pat Lowther Award. The press has also been instrumental in launching the significant careers of Karen Connelly, Nancy Holmes, Sue Wheeler, and Dona Sturmanis.
July 21, 2012
lobster! mushrooms!
* * *
Which I cleaned, sauteed in butter, and ate with rice, BBQ pork slices, and yesterday's kohlrabi greens/kale/garlic/ginger side dish...all in one bowl.
July 19, 2012
cherry picking
This isn't at all writing and publishing. But this summer, I'm either writing/editing poems for the manuscript I've got due or picking/processing fruit, so...
Specifically, this was my first Fruitshare pick of 2012. Evans cherries near the Winnipeg Rowing Club on Lyndale Drive.
And the homeowner was so lovely. In addition to letting us pillage her cherry tree, she also made us lunch and sent us home with basil seedlings and some cut thyme from her garden.
When I got home, I cleaned and pitted enough cherries for freezer jam and a rustic cherry pie. Which was magnificent, even without ice cream. I picked up vanilla ice creams - soy for M and dairy for Aa and I - on the way home from work today and it was even better.
And even though the pick was two hours in the sunny branches of that tree, I had no desire to make poems out of it/them.
So far this summer, I've also picked/processed strawberries from Boonstra Farms and rhubarb from my friend Perry's yard. Some of which went into the freezer and some of which went into my belly in the form of a multitude of fruit crisps.
Multitude. Of. Fruit. Crisps. It sounds even better the second time.
I'm hoping to get some apples and raspberries before the summer's over, but people have figured out what a good thing Fruitshare is. So there's a lot of competition for each pick.
Specifically, this was my first Fruitshare pick of 2012. Evans cherries near the Winnipeg Rowing Club on Lyndale Drive.And the homeowner was so lovely. In addition to letting us pillage her cherry tree, she also made us lunch and sent us home with basil seedlings and some cut thyme from her garden.
When I got home, I cleaned and pitted enough cherries for freezer jam and a rustic cherry pie. Which was magnificent, even without ice cream. I picked up vanilla ice creams - soy for M and dairy for Aa and I - on the way home from work today and it was even better.
And even though the pick was two hours in the sunny branches of that tree, I had no desire to make poems out of it/them.
So far this summer, I've also picked/processed strawberries from Boonstra Farms and rhubarb from my friend Perry's yard. Some of which went into the freezer and some of which went into my belly in the form of a multitude of fruit crisps.
Multitude. Of. Fruit. Crisps. It sounds even better the second time.
I'm hoping to get some apples and raspberries before the summer's over, but people have figured out what a good thing Fruitshare is. So there's a lot of competition for each pick.
July 18, 2012
A stack of poetry! A bale!
I mentioned that Kitty Lewis of Brick Books contacted me last week and offered Brick titles for participants in the workshop I'm teaching this fall, right?
Well, the books arrived in yesterday's mail. And it's a mighty stack. An enviable stack.
Marlene Cookshaw's Double Somersaults. Sue Sinclair's Mortal Arguments. Maureen Harris' A Possible Landscape. Steven Price's Anatomy of Keys. Adam Dickinson's Kingdom, Phylum. Dennis Lee's Riffs. Julie Berry's worn thresholds. Julie Bruck's The End of Travel. Goran Simic's Immigrant Blues. Michael Kenyon's The Sutler. Lyn King's Walking in the Night Sky. Sue Wheeler's Habitat. Barry Dempster's Letters From a Long Illness With the World. Sue Goyette's Undone.
It should go without saying, but...many thanks to Kitty and Brick!
Speaking of which, here are the workshop details again:
Fall Back Into Writing:
A Workshop With Ariel Gordon
Dates: 3 Mondays, Sept 17, Oct 22, Nov 19
Times: 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Location: Staff Room, Kelvin High School
Cost: $79.00 including GST
For more information or to register, see the Life Long Learning / Winnipeg School Division website.
Need a nudge to keep your writing going as the geese migrate and the trees lose their leaves?
Join Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon as she leads a once a month reading and writing course for new writers. Workshop your fiction, poetry, or non-fiction and try your hand at exercises designed to have you writing, thinking and feeling summery all season long.
Well, the books arrived in yesterday's mail. And it's a mighty stack. An enviable stack.Marlene Cookshaw's Double Somersaults. Sue Sinclair's Mortal Arguments. Maureen Harris' A Possible Landscape. Steven Price's Anatomy of Keys. Adam Dickinson's Kingdom, Phylum. Dennis Lee's Riffs. Julie Berry's worn thresholds. Julie Bruck's The End of Travel. Goran Simic's Immigrant Blues. Michael Kenyon's The Sutler. Lyn King's Walking in the Night Sky. Sue Wheeler's Habitat. Barry Dempster's Letters From a Long Illness With the World. Sue Goyette's Undone.
It should go without saying, but...many thanks to Kitty and Brick!
Speaking of which, here are the workshop details again:
Fall Back Into Writing:
A Workshop With Ariel Gordon
Dates: 3 Mondays, Sept 17, Oct 22, Nov 19
Times: 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Location: Staff Room, Kelvin High School
Cost: $79.00 including GST
For more information or to register, see the Life Long Learning / Winnipeg School Division website.
Need a nudge to keep your writing going as the geese migrate and the trees lose their leaves?
Join Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon as she leads a once a month reading and writing course for new writers. Workshop your fiction, poetry, or non-fiction and try your hand at exercises designed to have you writing, thinking and feeling summery all season long.
July 16, 2012
Entanglements
So last I week I proofed my three poems in the upcoming ecopoetry anthology Entanglements, due in November from Scotland's Two Ravens Press.
Cover artwork by Douglas Robertson
This is my first international publication, so I'm sort of over the mooooon about it.
And would you have a look at this list of contributors:
Alec Finlay, Alice Oswald, Alistair Peebles, Allen Tullos, Andrew Forster, Andy Brown, Ariel Gordon, Arpine Konyalian Grenier, Ben Smith, Cathleen Allyn Conway, Catherine Owen, Charles Wilkinson, Chris McCully, C.J. Allen, David Chorlton, David Troupes, Dee Hobsbawn-Smith, Dilys Rose, Elizabeth Dodd, Em Strang, Fiona Russell, Frances Presley, Gerry Loose, Gordon McInnes, Howard Giskin, Ian Seed, Isabel Galleymore, Jane McKie, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, Jane Routh, Jennifer Wallace, Jim Carruth, John Glenday, John Kinsella, Jorie Graham, Jos Smith, Kathleen Jones, Katrina Porteous, Les Murray, Mario Petrucci, Mark Goodwin, Mark Tredinnick, Meg Bateman, Nancy Holmes, Paul Kingsnorth, Paul Lindholdt, Pippa Little, Rody Gorman, Roger Mitchell, Rupert Loydell, Ruth Padel, Sharon Black, Susan Richardson, Susan Rowland, Susie Patlove, Terry Jones.
So even though I greet all good news with the same "Yay! Fun!" I would like to issue a slightly more exuberant than normal version:
YAY! FUN!
Cover artwork by Douglas RobertsonThis is my first international publication, so I'm sort of over the mooooon about it.
And would you have a look at this list of contributors:
Alec Finlay, Alice Oswald, Alistair Peebles, Allen Tullos, Andrew Forster, Andy Brown, Ariel Gordon, Arpine Konyalian Grenier, Ben Smith, Cathleen Allyn Conway, Catherine Owen, Charles Wilkinson, Chris McCully, C.J. Allen, David Chorlton, David Troupes, Dee Hobsbawn-Smith, Dilys Rose, Elizabeth Dodd, Em Strang, Fiona Russell, Frances Presley, Gerry Loose, Gordon McInnes, Howard Giskin, Ian Seed, Isabel Galleymore, Jane McKie, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, Jane Routh, Jennifer Wallace, Jim Carruth, John Glenday, John Kinsella, Jorie Graham, Jos Smith, Kathleen Jones, Katrina Porteous, Les Murray, Mario Petrucci, Mark Goodwin, Mark Tredinnick, Meg Bateman, Nancy Holmes, Paul Kingsnorth, Paul Lindholdt, Pippa Little, Rody Gorman, Roger Mitchell, Rupert Loydell, Ruth Padel, Sharon Black, Susan Richardson, Susan Rowland, Susie Patlove, Terry Jones.
So even though I greet all good news with the same "Yay! Fun!" I would like to issue a slightly more exuberant than normal version:
YAY! FUN!
July 12, 2012
Reprint: John Lent Poetry-Prose Award
In late April, I bundled together some new poems and sent them off to Vernon, BC-based Kalamalka Press just in time for their John Lent Poetry-Prose Award.
The contest called for "chapbook-length works of poetry, short fictions or hybrids thereof." The other stipulation is that entrants had to be "in the early stages of their writing careers, having not published more than two full-length books."
Three things were highly intriguing to me about this contest. First, writers I admire, like Brenda Schmidt and Peter Midgley, had recently published with Kalamalka. So if I won, they'd be my pressmate...and I always like affiliating myself with good writers.
Second, the prize was named after John Lent, who has not only had a very interesting career but is also very generous to new writers. Including me, the few times we've met. So it would be an honour to publish with the press he founded and, specifically, under the aegis of a prize named after him.
Lastly, about a third of the poems I've written lately have been prose poems. And I sort of wanted to see if anyone else thought they worked...
Anyways, Kalamalka made the official announcement today. And I won. Which is lovely and probably more than I deserve. But still!
Here's the text of the announcement:
Thanks too to writer/visual Darryl Joel Berger, whose artworks inspired about half the poems. (He sends me artworks, I send him poems based on his artworks, he sends me new artworks based on the poems...)
The contest called for "chapbook-length works of poetry, short fictions or hybrids thereof." The other stipulation is that entrants had to be "in the early stages of their writing careers, having not published more than two full-length books." Three things were highly intriguing to me about this contest. First, writers I admire, like Brenda Schmidt and Peter Midgley, had recently published with Kalamalka. So if I won, they'd be my pressmate...and I always like affiliating myself with good writers.
Second, the prize was named after John Lent, who has not only had a very interesting career but is also very generous to new writers. Including me, the few times we've met. So it would be an honour to publish with the press he founded and, specifically, under the aegis of a prize named after him.
Lastly, about a third of the poems I've written lately have been prose poems. And I sort of wanted to see if anyone else thought they worked...
Anyways, Kalamalka made the official announcement today. And I won. Which is lovely and probably more than I deserve. But still!
Here's the text of the announcement:
"Kalamalka Press is thrilled to announce the recipient of the first annual John Lent Poetry Prose Award.Speaking of which, I'd like to thank the members of my writing group - Alison Calder, Kerry Ryan and Jennifer Still - for their magnificent input on the poems this year.
This year’s winning manuscript, How to Make a Collage, comes from Winnipeg-based poet Ariel Gordon!
A total of thirty-six manuscripts found their way into the competition.
While the judges for this year’s award, Laisha Rosnau, Jake Kennedy and kevin mcpherson eckhoff, were exhilarated by the range of subjects and aesthetic risks undertaken by most of the entries, they agreed that the winning selection fearlessly wrestles the complexities of human relationships using emotionally dynamic lines and metaphors.
The judges would also like to note two strong honourable mentions: Documenting in the Brink by Kathleen Brown and Osteogenesis by Claire Caldwell, both of which demonstrate haunting/halting imagery and a profound attention to sound.
Ariel Gordon receives a $100 honorarium, while her poems will be published as a fine press chapbook by Kalamalka Press in the coming academic year.
A hearty thank you to all the writers who entered, and we hope to read you again next year!"
Thanks too to writer/visual Darryl Joel Berger, whose artworks inspired about half the poems. (He sends me artworks, I send him poems based on his artworks, he sends me new artworks based on the poems...)
July 10, 2012
Writing/thinking/feeling summery
Fall Back Into Writing: A Workshop With Ariel Gordon
Dates: 3 Mondays, Sept 17, Oct 22, Nov 19
Times: 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Location: Staff Room, Kelvin High School
Cost: $79.00 including GST
For more information or to register, see the Life Long Learning / Winnipeg School Division website.
Need a nudge to keep your writing going as the geese migrate and the trees lose their leaves? Join Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon as she leads a once a month reading and writing course for new writers. Workshop your fiction, poetry, or non-fiction and try your hand at exercises designed to have you writing, thinking and feeling summery all season long.
Ariel Gordon, a Winnipeg-based writer and editor, is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. Her first collection of poems, Hump (Palimpsest Press, 2010) won the 2011 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry at the Manitoba Book Awards. Most recently, she collaborated with designer Julia Michaud on the disaster DIY chapbook How to Prepare for Flooding (JackPine Press, 2011), which was launched at Words Aloud Spoken Word and Storytelling
Please Note: Classes are once a month through the fall: Sept 17, Oct 22 and Nov 19. You will have an opportunity between classes to implement new practises and incorporate your ideas into a piece of writing.
* * *
I advertised this workshop on Facebook today and Kitty Lewis at Brick Books immediately emailed asking if I wanted books for workshop participants.
Which is the loveliest offer I've had in long time.
You should register just to see what Kitty sends!
Dates: 3 Mondays, Sept 17, Oct 22, Nov 19
Times: 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Location: Staff Room, Kelvin High School
Cost: $79.00 including GST
For more information or to register, see the Life Long Learning / Winnipeg School Division website.
Need a nudge to keep your writing going as the geese migrate and the trees lose their leaves? Join Winnipeg poet Ariel Gordon as she leads a once a month reading and writing course for new writers. Workshop your fiction, poetry, or non-fiction and try your hand at exercises designed to have you writing, thinking and feeling summery all season long. Ariel Gordon, a Winnipeg-based writer and editor, is the 2010 recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. Her first collection of poems, Hump (Palimpsest Press, 2010) won the 2011 Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry at the Manitoba Book Awards. Most recently, she collaborated with designer Julia Michaud on the disaster DIY chapbook How to Prepare for Flooding (JackPine Press, 2011), which was launched at Words Aloud Spoken Word and Storytelling
Please Note: Classes are once a month through the fall: Sept 17, Oct 22 and Nov 19. You will have an opportunity between classes to implement new practises and incorporate your ideas into a piece of writing.
* * *
I advertised this workshop on Facebook today and Kitty Lewis at Brick Books immediately emailed asking if I wanted books for workshop participants.
Which is the loveliest offer I've had in long time.
You should register just to see what Kitty sends!
