Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Bringhurst Launch Report

An interesting evening. Bringhurst decided to read the first paragraph or few of every piece in the book, which wasn't, I think, an altogether successful experiment, but it did give a bit of a flavour for the audience. I would have preferred to have heard him read all of one piece rather than snippets of all. But still wonderful to hear him read his own words. And you can hear them too, as, with Mr. Bringhurst's somewhat reluctant consent ("Do it if you want to," he said), I recorded tonight's reading. You can listen to it here.

Rachel and I had a drink with Liz Bachinsky and her hubby Blake after the event. Very nice to hang out with them, after not seeing them for several weeks.

Picked up a copy of Quill & Quire prior to the reading. The December issue has two reviews by yours truly, covering 5 books (4 poetry books in one review, making for way-too-short evaluations, and Bringhurst's book in a separate, "starred" review). This issue also has the Books of the Year, reprinting reviews of highlight books for 2007. In the poetry category is Barbara Nickel's Domain, which I reviewed for the July/August issue. As I've said repeatedly here and elsewhere, this is a book that you really should check out. Also in this issue is a round-table discussion of Margaret Atwood's Survival, which should be interesting. There seems to be a lot of this sort of thing going around, such as the one I took part in ex post facto, which was posted at Northern Poetry Review a while back. Long live the Victim Position! Sheesh.

1 comment:

Brenda Schmidt said...

Thanks for this. I haven't had a chance to hear Bringhurst in person, so this is great. I listened to it earlier in the day and still have racing around my head that bit about the mind's ear being as potent as its eye. I have The Tree of Meaning. I'll be buying this one, too.