Thursday, September 6, 2007

Pooped

A hectic day of getting and spending yesterday. Fortunately, my mother-in-law loaned us her van, so I didn't have to put my comfy recliner (a score at the Salvation Army) on my motorcycle. Scored another nice chair at the Sally Ann, a bunch of necessary junk at Canadian Tire, and a few more items at Ikea, where we had a late supper of, what else, Swedish meatballs. The place is starting to look and feel like home now, but we still need some things for the walls and the hideously painted bedroom (it's a banana yellow) needs a facelift. I'll work on that on my next set of days off, methinks.

Just learned that one of the most overrated bores in Canadian poetry, the Black Mountain disciple George Bowering, will be the Canuck member of the Griffin Prize jury, continuing the prize's trend of making past nominees future judges. Not much hope for a good Canadian shortlist next year. They really need to let a barbarian or two in on this process (maybe even, following their own past practice, invite Christian Bok to play)--but I guess with $100K at stake, the trustees don't want to gamble... Which is too bad, because it could make things interesting, instead of either head-scratchingly dumb or perfectly predictable. The picks couldn't, for the most part, get a whole lot worse.

Well, I've got to return a van now. Toodles.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hopefully James Lasdun will check Bowering's insidious influence. I always seem to be recommending The Atlantic, but I will again: he has a new poem there next month.

Zachariah Wells said...

I doubt it, Michael. One hears it rumoured all over that the int'l judges pretty much leave the Canadian selection up to the local judge. Which makes sense, given the enormous number of books these guys supposedly "read" before reaching a decision.