Ariel Gordon's Blog, page 83

Robin Robertson mines sacrifice, regret

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Reviewed by: Ariel Gordon

Though Robin Robertson is a Scottish-born poet now living in London, England, there are moments in his latest book that will be familiar to any Winnipegger.

His "Signs On a White Field", about spring breakup on an unnamed lake, is particularly apt at this time of year:

"The rocks are ice-veined; the trees / swagged with snow. / Here and there, a sudden frost / has caught some turbulence in the water / and made it solid: frozen in its distress / to a scar, or a skin-graft."

The Wrecking Light (Anansi, 112 pages, $23) is Robertson's fourth collection. His previous, Swithering, won Robertson international critical acclaim and the U.K.'s Forward Poetry Prize.

Here, as in Swithering, we find Robertson reframing poems from Ovid, translating Italian poet Eugenio Montale, and writing poems to Swedish playwright August Strindberg.

Though he's working the same vein, in The Wrecking Light Robertson comes to the surface with rougher stone. Which seems appropriate, given his preoccupations: sacrifice, everyday astonishment, and regret.

Drawing on both Greco-Roman myth and Scottish folklore, Robertson is somehow able to invoke both antlered men and selkies and have it all make perfect - albeit bloody - sense.

* * *

Susan Musgrave's Origami Dove (McClelland & Stewart, 128 pages, $19) shares The Wrecking Light's coppery reek and surprising range of registers.

The Vancouver Island poet's first major collection in 10 years has four radically different sections: sad/wise love poems, spare nature poems, raucous efforts, and a sequence on women from Vancouver's downtown east side.

Which is to say, enough tragedy to break your goddamn heart. But also enough craft to parse it for her readers.

A good example is "Winter", where the narrator attempts to bury a frozen wren:

"As I push through earth locked in sorrow, / in ice, find a hollow between rocks / where her body will lie, a winter wren lights / on the handle of my shovel."

To sum: these poems might be bitter pills but they're coated with artisanal chocolate and gold leaf.

* * *

As opposed to Musgrave, who published her first book when she was 19, Ann Scowcroft's first book will appear just as she turns 50.

The Truth of Houses (Brick, 118 pages, $19) comes with a blurb from Michael Ondaatje (!) and includes poems on both her son's slippery birth, the phantom-pain pangs she experienced when he moved out, and everything in between.

The rural Quebec-based poet, who works as a humanitarian aid worker when not writing, is slyly and wryly optimistic in her poetry.

Particularly poignant is the long poem "(Palimpsest)", which is as much about the stretch and tug of mother-daughter relationships and the physiology of the brain as it is about generations of incest:

"She drums her fingers, then locks / my eyes, tells me her sister had said / while packing her bag, / Your husband is a pervert."

* * *

Poets and Killers: A Life in Advertising (Snare, 80 pages, $12) by Calgary-based feminist scholar Helen Hajnoczky is another intriguing debut.

Hajnoczky sets the tone for her with a (somewhat condensed) epigraph from Aldous Huxley: "It's easier to write 10 passably effective sonnets than one effective advertisement."

Poets and Killers is composed entirely of advertising copy, culled from the 1940s to the present day. As such, Hajnoczky didn't so much write these poems as shape them.

By turns absurd and deadly serious, the poems are meant to reproduce a life via advertising, starting with baby detergent and ending with wholesale coffins.

Though this is a quick, quirky read, under the conceit Hajnoczky is probing at some vital questions. Like: to what extent are our wants and needs shaped by advertising? Like: are we for sale?

Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon won the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry for her collection Hump at last Sunday's Manitoba Book Awards.

Reading copy

Last night, I read In Praise of My Own Breasts at McNally Robinson as a part of the launch of her new book, A Peeled Wand: Selected Poems by Anne Szumigalski (Signature Editions, 2011).

The other readers included Frances Bitney, Di Brandt, Alison Calder, Sharon Caseburg, Lori Cayer, Dennis Cooley, Victor Enns, Michelle Forrest, Clarise Foster, Patrick Friesen, Ariel Gordon, Sara Harms, Jan Horner, Tessa Loran, Mariianne Mays, Barbara Schott, Colin Smith, Tony Szumigalski, and Janine Tschuncky.

And it was lovely to hear the poems in so many throats, to hear all of Anne's layers and nuances interpreted by so many poets.

I had to fix my interpretation, to mark the words and phrases I wanted emphasized. And so I marked up my copy, which I thought I'd share.

Even with my notations, I was still feeling rushed and a bit out of sorts when it was my turn.

But I have a feeling I'm going to read this poem in public again.

(Thanks to Andris and Kate for asking me to read...)

gleam

burn

flare

shadow

All photos Assiniboine Forest, Winnipeg, MB. April 18, 2010

Manitoba Book Awards

So last night was the Manitoba Book Awards gala...and I was all frocked up.

It was such an honour to be nominated for two prizes, especially when there were so many books eligible this year, that I hadn't thought through the idea that I might win one/both/neither of them.

So when I sat myself down in the auditorium for my ritualized read-thru of the programme, I was mostly looking forward to the learning the judges' identities and reading their comments on each of the short-listed books.

Here's what the judges for the Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Le Prix Lansdowne du poesie jury, Michael Harris, Kenneth Meadwell, and Serge Patrice Thibodeau, had to say about Hump:

"Hump is Ariel Gordon's first book, coming on the heels of a variety of magazine publications and two chapbooks. The focus of Hump is the rich experience of motherhood and marriage on the one hand, and of city life in the integrated context of the natural world, which is everywhere engaging, fierce, beautiful, and unstoppable. This is capable, exuberant writing, at once passionate and meticulous. Hump is a worthy first book indeed."

I read the comments about Hump, I thrilled a little...and then I realized that the Lansdowne was the first prize to be awarded.

Urk!

And it was only a few minutes later that I heard my name, spoken by bookstore owner Kelly Hughes. (!)(!!!)

A day later, I'm still full to the brim with gratitude. For the support this community has given me in the year since Hump came out.

For all the times M came home from work and said, "Have a good reading/workshop/signing," as I walked out the door...

I was also up for the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, three awards later. And Sheila McClarty was so so gracious as she accepted the award in addition to being deserving.

But I walked away from that adjudication with something of definite value: the judges' comments, specifically from Sharon Butala, Claire Holden Rothman, and Andris Taskans.

"Hump is a sensual song celebrating the love that fuels all of life. In this strong debut collection, Winnipeg writer Ariel Gordon vividly evokes springtime in the forests and wetlands of Manitoba. Frogs "hump spring's wet backside in the ultimate catch-and-release slip-slide," and "moss gross so silently / it can be heard." Gordon also explores her own pregnancy and motherhood, revealing the wonder and devilment of bringing new life into the world."

Thanks all! (But especially Dawn and Sarah at Palimpsest and my beloved M!)

Reprint: CBC's Manitoba Scene

The CBC's new local arts website, Manitoba Scene, is doing coverage of some of this year's Manitoba Book Award nominees.

(As you'll recall, I was interviewed for CBC's Weekend Morning Show just before the MBA nominee lists were announced. The radio interviews and the web coverage is part of the same CBC whole...)

Here's what I contributed to the site:

When CBC producers suggested that I write something, anything about poetry for Manitoba Scene, for the first time in a long time I was stuck.

I can write poems on subjects as diverse as breasts and light bulbs, but ask me to write 300 words on anything-at-all and I've got...nothing.

So I checked the website. Fellow Manitoba Book Awards nominee Dora Dueck wrote on the topic Some Reasons Why I Write. And I cursed her, not because of her nominations or her book, but because I coveted her subject.

I could have written about that, I thought mournfully. And rubbed my tired eyes.

And then I craftily submitted a poem called How to Write a Poem. It's a prose poem and so I thought would fool the copy-hungry producers.

And it's even funny, I thought bleakly. Funny is good.

Except I forgot that it's ALSO chock full of swearing, oral sex, and uses the word 'porn' prominently.

When they wrote back suggesting that I excise the naked bits or, you know, actually write something, I agreed that was probably best.

And returned to muttering and mashing my eyes, which by now felt like they might start weeping blood.

My last contact with the CBC included the suggestion that I write about the first poem I ever wrote.

Oooh! I squealed. I like that.

And I did, except that when I sat down to write about 'my very first poem,' I couldn't remember what my very first poem was.

Partly, that's because I started writing 'seriously' at 13, which is a quarter century ago now.

It's also because my first attempts at writing were image-dense, clause-heavy fictions that ran about a page. Teachers and, later, editors weren't sure if they were fiction or poetry. I just knew they were what I was driven to write....

So here I am, arrived at my 300 words. And I've mostly just complained.

Sadly, that's completely typical of my life and my writing life.

Oh! I almost forgot: I deeply and desperately love poetry. And I think you should too.

Manitoba Scene's MBA coverage also includes posts by Charlene Diehl, Di Brandt, and Joan Thomas, which are smart and feeling takes on their writing practices (i.e. the polar opposite of my post).

Yay slight answers to serious questions! Fun!

Reprint: Goodreads

This is what the Goodreads website says about itself:

"Goodreads is the largest social network for readers in the world. We have more than 4,500,000 members who have added more than 120,000,000 books to their shelves. A place for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads members recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they've read and would like to read, form book clubs and much more. Goodreads was launched in December 2006."

This is what Goodreads member Holley, from Alcoa, TN, said this about Hump on the Goodreads site:

"Although I'm not a mother yet, I will one day be one. This collection of poems enlightens me in the way of emotions I have yet to feel but can't wait to experience. So real and raw, I loved the journey of this book."

(My very first Goodreads review! Squee!)

Holley won one of two copies of Hump I gave away on the Goodreads back in September.

So it's not a completely random review. But I'm VERY tickled that she read and reviewed it.

Because that's how poetry gets out. One copy and one reader at a time.

Eileen McTavish Sykes

Th Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book nominees (l-r): Craig Russell, Ariel Gordon, Keith Cadieux, Sheila McClarty.

The final nominee, Theodore Fontaine, couldn't make it to the reading...

* * *

The Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book is awarded annually to a Manitoba author whose first professionally published English language book is deemed the best written.

The award will be handed out April 17 the Manitoba Book Awards gala, which will be held at the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain.

* * *

When I asked the nominees to assemble at the back of the room for a picture, I was sort of shocked to see half the room wheel around and start taking pictures. It was like having lit paparazzi.

Of course, half of the pictures on my camera feature me instructing the volunteer photographer on which button to push. Because I'm bossy...but also because it's a semi-complicated camera.