Aesthetic Tribalism, the 1950s edition

I was going thru my archives today and came across this old essay of mine, which I wrote about nine years ago in grad school and which won me the Wynne Francis Prize for best essay on Canadian Poetry (there were two applicants and it was declared a tie). Since, you know, I haven't been talking enough about poetry lately, I thought I'd post it here. Not sure how well the formatting will translate, but I'm not about to try and de-bug it on blogger. Enjoy.

The Mountain Came to Him

Situating Irving Layton in the context of Black Mountain poetics

Abbreviations Used

BMR Black Mountain Review

IMF In the Midst of My Fever

LCC Irving Layton & Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, 1953-1978

NAP The New American Poetry, 1945-1960

PV “Projective Verse”

RCS A Red Carpet for the Sun

SC Selected Poems: Robert Creeley

TIB The Improved Binoculars

WG Wild Gooseberries

In order to give the reader some sense of the history of the period and the primary alignment of the writers, I have adopted the unusual device of dividing the poets in five large groups, though these divisions are somewhat arbitrary and cannot be taken as rigid categories. ... The first group includes those poets who were originally closely identified with the two important magazines of the period, Origin and Black Mountain Review, which first published their mature work.

-Donald Allen, ”Preface,” The New American Poetry, 1945-1960

The “somewhat arbitrary” tendency of anthologists and academics to group writers by nation has, generally, been taken for granted as a necessity for reasons of expediency and economy.[1] And this principle could easily go unchallenged in the present instance, but for the presence of one poet: Irving Layton.[2] Although he was, and is, a Canadian, Layton’s involvement in the two Black Mountain organs Allen names was in many ways greater and more central than some of the poets Allen does include, such as Denise Levertov and Larry Eigner. But Allen should not bear the full brunt of blame for the lack of serious writing on Layton’s Black Mountaineering. Irving Layton’s life and works have been more often mauled than mulled over by his critics. His relationship with the Black Mountain poets has been, as a consequence, studiously ignored or glibly dismissed in this country[3], as it has in the United States because of Layton’s dubious “American”[4] status as a Canadian. Even Layton’s more serious critics tend to stop short of the 49^th parallel when discussing the poet’s achievements.

Layton’s involvement with Black Mountain, however, came at the crest of both his own early career and those of his American contemporaries, Robert Creeley and Charles Olson.[5] Moreover, the Canadian’s contribution to the new American poetry was great[6]: he was, in his own words, “adopted as the white-haired boychick by the Black Mountain boys”(Quoted in Wiens 18). Why this was so is difficult to determine—and not merely due to questions of nationality. Whereas Olson and his projective cohorts stressed the importance of separating from established, or imposed, poetic traditions, Layton could, somewhat reductively but with no slight justice, be termed a traditional formalist in his approach. Also, whereas “Projective Verse” emphasized the importance of ego-less, “objectist”[7] creation, Layton’s egoism and egotism were already well-established facets of his poetic persona in 1953. His involvement in the Black Mountain movement, therefore, does much to problematise commonly-held notions of that group’s doctrinal coherence, even at its very core. His welcomed presence points out that Olson and Creeley’s “open verse” operates more as a positioning device, an index of orthodox views, than as a methodological doctrine of orthoprax composition.

Many of Layton’s Canadian critics are puzzled by his inclusion in an American avant-garde college. Wynne Francis, in an otherwise thoughtful and comprehensive study of Layton’s life and work, chooses to ignore his Black Mountaineering all but completely. Francis Mansbridge writes that “Layton described himself as ‘a reactionary at heart,’ but it’s hard—from the vantage point of forty years later—to see why his poetry should have been so enthusiastically embraced” by Black Mountain (Mansbridge 67).[8] Similarly, Elspeth Cameron tells us that “Creeley’s response to Layton’s work was amazing. Creeley’s poetry was not at all like Layton’s”(Cameron 209). She is right,[9] but does little by way of exploring this apparent conundrum. The warm reception that Layton and his poetry received from the American poets is somewhat baffling, but not as insoluble as Mansbridge and Cameron suggest.

A constellation of similar interests and stances first compelled Robert Creeley to write to Layton on February 17, 1953, praising the Canadian’s poetry and offering to publish a book for him (LCC 3). Probably most significant of these resemblances was a common ambivalence vis-à-vis the canon. The matter of tradition is often cited as a puzzling incongruity in the partnership of Layton and Creeley et al. Cameron, for example, points out that the latter’s forms were “cool, sparse, condensed” and “technically experimental”(Cameron 210). This is, if rather vague, a generally accurate assessment, as poems like “A Counterpoint”(NAP 78) demonstrate:

Let me be my own fool

of my own making, the sum of it

is equivocal.

One says of the drunken farmer:

leave him lay off it. And this is

the explanation.

Layton, by contrast, often employs inherited patterns of metre and rhyme in his work, as in this stanza from an early poem, “Mrs. Fornheim, Refugee”(RCS 4):

Very merciful was the cancer

Which first blinding you altogether

Afterwards stopped up your hearing;

At the end when Death was nearing,

Black-gloved, to gather you in

You did not demur, or fear

One you could not see or hear.

Layton, Wynne Francis tells us, “regards the new directions taken by contemporary poets as deadends [sic]. He prefers to associate himself only with the greatest poets of a tradition running from Homer to Yeats”(Francis 151). Creeley himself noted that Layton was “closer to an english [sic] ‘tradition,’” than he was, which heritage Layton used “as a point of departure” for his poems (LCC 12; April 26, 1953). And Cameron finds it odd that Creeley would have admired Layton’s work for its roots in the very tradition that the Black Mountain movement blamed for the sad state of American poetics (Cameron 210).

Both critics’ assessments, however, are simplistic reductions based on too rigid an interpretation of the somewhat arbitrary labels “avant-garde/experimental” and “formalist/traditional.”[10] If Creeley had an appreciation for Layton’s use of metrics, it was because he himself invested heavily in existing rhythmic models. George Butterick observes “how well grounded Creeley was in the inherited literary tradition,” and

how several of Creeley’s poems owe their success to a purposeful variation of traditional beginnings, and how even in his most personal lyrics he might introduce other men’s words, mostly in an effort to find an alternative to the dominant and oppressive forms of the day.(Butterick 119)

Butterick qualifies the above by saying that Creeley’s inscription of traditional forms often serves the ends of parody (124), but that “it is the more sober and deliberate adjustment of tradition that marks Creeley’s accomplishment: not simple irony or parody, but a dexterous mastery of all effects, as the occasions arise”(129).[11] Certainly, Creeley never adopts inherited forms chapter and verse, but neither does he throw them out with the bathwater of his poetic inheritance.

It is precisely this spirit of experimental adaptation that Creeley admired so much in the work of his Canadian friend:

...it is that you can use these forms with a tenseness, and thus a ‘rightness,’ utterly the issue of your own emotions...I like your poems, anyhow, because you do damn well invest formal or traditional metrics ... with your own immediate presence. And you also experiment, within this area, to such an extent that you make a lot of so-called ‘avant-garde’ types look that much the sicker.(LCC 6-7; April 5, 1953)

Thus, for both Creeley and Layton—who equated restricting oneself to inherited verse patterns with using “the snotrag of someone else”(LCC 24; July 8, 1953)—traditional forms were not ends in themselves, but means towards the sincere expression of the poets’ own thoughts and emotions.[12] Their respective means of negotiating this common heritage, of expressing themselves poetically, were, for the most part, radically different, but their outlooks remarkably similar.

A shared perspective on form was not the only point of connection between Layton and the Americans—which should not be surprising, since form, according to Olson via Creeley, “IS NEVER MORE THAN AN EXTENSION OF CONTENT”(PV 387; emphasis in original). The Black Mountain concern with form was thus an extension of a concern with the overall social, political, intellectual, cultural climate of the western world.[13] Layton, in top form on New Year’s day of a crucial year for him and Creeley,[14] articulates it thus:

We’ve discussed it many times, and I know he [Louis Dudek] feels about you and what you are doing to make this a more civilized planet to live on pretty much as I do.[sic] All of us: Olson, Rexroth, Blackburn, Corman, Souster et al share a common outlook, a common philosophy, a kind of angry secularism, a poetic down-to-earthness which I think the healthiest thing to have come out of the war and as a result of it.(LCC 84; January 1, 1954)

Poets on both sides of the border were deeply concerned with what they perceived to be a pervasive atmosphere of genteel academicism and the ubiquitous influence of post-war mass consumer culture. They saw the bulk of poets—particularly those in the New Critical school of Eliot, Cleanth Brooks et al—comfortably yoked in the harness of the university, detached from society, detached even from themselves, failing to engage meaningfully with anything. Layton expresses it thus:

The kind of commodity-oriented civilization which huge mass increases in population are forging requires efficiency and conformity to carry on: imagination, spontaneity, individualism are so much sand in a smooth-running machine. The pistol is aimed at all our heads.(LCC 123; August 1954)

Layton’s response to this threat, and the general complacency with which it was regarded, was to write reams of scathing invective and satire, Olson’s to compose highly intellectualized anti-Eliot program-poems like “The Kingfishers,”[15] Creeley’s to engage in a sort of deep, meditative emotional introspection. The colour and shape of the pearls these men made were different, but the sand that irritated them was the same.

Black Mountain’s response to the disembodied, objective poetics of Eliot was to reinscribe the human body in poetry and poetics. In “Projective Verse,” Olson’s prime concern is with the accurate representation of the writer’s “breath.” He shifts the emphasis away from the controlling mind that would seek to dominate reality with synthetic forms of metre and metaphor, to the more organic, spontaneous operations of “the HEAD, by way of the EAR, to the SYLLABLE/the HEART, by way of the BREATH, to the LINE”(PV 390; emphasis in original). Layton, too, felt that the inscription of the body was essential, although his means of accomplishing this end had more to do with direct representation than Olson’s prosodic praxis, as in “Anti-Romantic”(RCS 202):

You went behind a bush to piss.

Imagine Wordsworth telling this!

About Lucy? And Robert Bridges

About his dear lass?

The poets are such bad liars.

Damn them and all their admirers.

The stars, the moon, for all their talk’s stone—

Coynts, not always clean.

Yes, and they’ve solid interests

In mournful birds, in clouds, in mists.

Did La belle Dame sans Merci a-shit?

Keats nowhere says it.

But read the Oxford Book of Verse

By whatchamacallit, and curse:

Second-rate thoughts, weakness, groans, laments,

And soft sentiments.

You, Love, fat, fat-assed, pissed away.

The odour was that of cut hay;

The flood came toward me with brown mirth.

O waterfalling earth! O Light!

Layton opposes his brand of scatological realism to the bad lies and soft sentiments of the Romantics and their heirs.[16] He tells Creeley that

the shits and pisses ... are a necessary antidote to the prevalent gentility and false idealism. ... It is for our time that the paradox is reserved that the soul must be saved by the body, the highest by the lowest; and men’s equal claim to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness justified by their common possession of an anus.(LCC 221; March 20, 1955)

This kind of frank physicality, articulated in everyday slang, was well-aligned with the Black Mountain agenda-items of locality, reality, and specificity; Layton’s voice, as Eli Mandel observes, was to the Americans “vulgar and therefore poetic”(Mandel 16, italics in original). Of Eliot’s contemporaries, he and Layton favour D.H. Lawrence over the New Critics, with his emphasis on physicality and sex and his contempt for the “beastly” bourgeoisie.[17] Although Creeley’s voice was reserved in comparison with Layton’s—and he was generally more concerned with the representation of specific emotions than biology—sex and other bodily functions were nevertheless important planks in his poetic platform, as in “Something”(SC 53):

I approach with such

a careful tremor, always

I feel the finally foolish

question of how it is,

then, supposed to be felt,

and by whom. I remember

once in a rented room on

27^th street, the woman I loved

then, literally, after we

had made love on the large

bed sitting across from

a basin with two faucets, she

had to pee but was nervous,

embarrassed I suppose I

would watch her who had but

a moment ago been completely

open to me, naked, on

the same bed. Squatting, her

head reflected in the mirror,

the hair dark there, the

full of her face, the shoulders,

sat spread-legged, turned on

one faucet and shyly pissed. What

love might learn from such a sight.

The tone is far more sedate than “Anti-Romantic,” but Creeley’s emphasis is strikingly similar to Layton’s: the insistence on the ‘literalness’ of “loved”; the playful puns on “embarrassed” and “turned on”—the latter emphasized by enjambment; the use of words like “pee” and “pissed”; and the conclusion, reminiscent of Williams’ red wheelbarrow upon whose concrete specificity so much depends. Wordsworth wouldn’t write this of Lucy, but Creeley, more strictly empirical, must.

Although the affinities that existed between Layton and his American colleagues are surprisingly manifold, it is the things that distinguish him from the College,[18] and the debates he entered into with its members, that round out and complicate his contribution to, and later eschewal of, Black Mountain poetics. At the heart of his disagreements with Creeley and Olson are the issues of the inscription of the self into poetry and the role of the poet vis-à-vis his subject matter. Olson, in “Projective Verse,” outlines an ideology he calls “objectism,” which

is the getting rid of the lyrical interference of the individual as ego, of the “subject” and his soul, that peculiar presumption by which western man has interposed himself between what he is as a creature of nature ... and those other creations of nature which we may, with no derogation, call objects. For a man is himself an object, whatever he may take to be his advantages, the more likely to recognize himself as such the greater his advantages, particularly at that moment that he achieves an humilitas sufficient to make him of use. ... If he sprawl, he shall find little to sing but himself ... if he stays inside himself, if he is contained with his nature as he is participant in the larger force, he will be able to listen...(PV 395)

Olson’s program is to “hunt among stones”(“The Kingfishers,” NAP 8), to purge the poem of the poet’s ego, to inscribe the self as an archaeologist or archivist, collecting and cataloguing objects[19], as in “As the Dead Prey Upon Us”:

O souls, in life and in death,

awake, even as you sleep, even in sleep

know what wind

even under the rearend of the ugly automobile

lifts it away, clears the sodden weights of goods,

equipment, entertainment, the foods the Indian woman,

the filthy blue deer, the 4 by 3 foot ‘Viewbook,’

the heaviness of the old house, the stuffed inner room,

lifts the sodden nets(NAP 31)

Olson’s speaker here presents the reader with a list of juxtaposed objects that are supposed to be significant in and of themselves; the poet does not interfere by imposing his personal interpretation of their abstract ‘meaning’ in the poem. There is an element of this in Layton’s work as well, as in a poem like “De Bullion Street”(RCS 11) in which an observing speaker paints a streetscape. But Layton, unlike Olson and Creeley, is not content to let the objects in his poem speak for themselves. “The corner mission and the walled church grow/Like haemorrhoids on the city’s anus,” and “Here private lust is public gain and shame.” Layton, as poet, must pass judgment.

Sabrina Reed, in an attempt to make sense of Layton’s involvement with and later departure from the Black Mountain poets, claims that Layton, in the early work that first attracted Creeley, was aligned with objectism’s doctrine of ego-less creation. Later, she tells us, “he began consciously to reject Creeley and Olson’s elimination of the ego”(Reed 236). But there is precious little proof that Layton ever agreed with this aspect of his colleagues’ program.[20] Reed, like a physicist denying chaos, plots the careers of Layton and Creeley as arcs on a graph, starting and finishing at different points, but contiguous for a brief and blissful period. This makes her argument for Layton’s briefish contact with Black Mountain work, but it proceeds from the argument itself, rather than vice-versa. Throughout his correspondence with Creeley, Layton stresses the importance of the poet’s personality, the smell of which had “gone out” of contemporary poetry collections with their “antiseptic unity”(LCC 8; April 17, 1953). Layton’s program was, in this regard, antithetical to Olson and Creeley’s from the beginning, as his goal was not to uncover immanent truth in the rejectamenta of society, but to “dominate reality” with his personality,[21] to make sense of the world’s “fertile muck” with his imagination, which is that of a myth-making “fabulist” (RCS 126).

An extension of this issue of self-inscription is the matter of descriptive representation. Charles Olson warns that the “descriptive functions generally have to be watched, every second, in projective verse, because of their easiness, and thus their drain on the energy which composition by field allows into a poem”(PV 390). Similarly, Creeley argues against the “great preoccupation with symbology and levels of image in poetry insisted upon by contemporary criticism”(“Olson & Others” 410). Layton, as fabulist, was very fond of descriptive functions and symbology. This became a ‘vexed question’ very early in his epistolary friendship with Creeley. In response to a query by the American regarding the “self-ironical” subject of his poem “Vexata Quaestio,” Layton wrote that its “subject or theme” was “Hebraism vs. Hellenism; modern man torn between the Hebraic/Christian impulse toward good and the Greek impulse toward beauty and self-expression”(LCC 9; April 17, 1953). Creeley responded in turn by telling Layton that “You don’t ever want to speak for ‘Everyman,’ when you can speak so damn finely for yourself”(LCC 13; April 26, 1953). This disagreement was mild and a matter of differing exegetical emphases—both men liked the poem very much—but it highlights a basic epistemological rift that was a ubiquitous undercurrent in Layton’s exchanges with Black Mountain.

Layton often expressed his displeasure with certain aspects of Black Mountainology. Although he respected Olson for his views and his part in shaking the dust off of contemporary poetry, Layton had little time for the man’s writing. He called Olson’s poetry “prose wrapped up in curlers”(WG 61; letter to Louis Dudek, Aug. 28, 1955) and his prose “abominally affected & opaque”[22](LCC 23; July 8, 1953). Although he generally held Creeley’s writing in higher esteem,[23] Layton was not shy in voicing his distaste for his more experimental Olsonian “strateg[ies] of syntax”:

Reading you and Olson at your worst I sometimes have the feeling I’m looking over the shoulder of one of my students taking notes: everything but the barest essentials, clues, reminders, tags and signposts. But what in the fucking hell is the good of a signpost if there isn’t a bloody road to be seen anywhere? ... Nobody talks like that. Then what’s the point of writing like that? (LCC 168; Oct. 24, 1954)

Again, the issues of form and subject intertwine. Olson’s theory was that revolutionary thought had to be scripted in revolutionary syntax. Somewhat oddly, he saw Layton as an embodiment of the same notion: “the syntax is of [Layton’s] own making, not something accepted as a canon of the language in its history”(Quoted in Cameron 217). Layton would not have agreed; he consistently downplayed—which is not to say ‘denied’—the importance of technical experimentation: “The point is that what I say is NOT TRADITIONAL”(WG 42; Letter to Louis Dudek, Sept. 1954; emphasis in original).

Layton’s point was also that Olson was not saying anything particularly novel or inspiring. He had a hard time understanding what Olson was getting at in his prosodic manifesto. Creeley’s explanation that open verse was “a disposition of the mind, rather than a formal methodology” didn’t do much to clarify its importance to Layton (LCC 28; July 11, 1953). To him, the poetics didn’t do anything for the poetry, except perhaps drag it down:

Olson and the others ... think they’ve gotten hold of something new (it isn’t, it’s as old as Wordsworth) about getting poetry close to speech .... [N]o one ... ever talks the way they write. It’s phoney, and affected, from the word go....I am not interested in poems as the exemplification of any particular theories, and I couldn’t be less interested in poetic fads: what I want is good poems.(WG 22; Letter to Cid Corman, July 13, 1953)

Layton was attracted to Corman and Creeley because he thought that they were good poets, just as they had been attracted to him, even though he did not employ “open” composition practices. Layton ultimately rejected Olson because he failed to measure up where he thought it mattered most: in the poems. The two younger poets’ continued faith in Olson’s poetics, combined with Layton’s increasing celebrity in Canada,[24] had to be a significant factor in his drift from Black Mountain and his denigration of the College in the seventies.

Layton’s involvement in Black Mountain, though significant, was tenuous. He and Creeley/Corman/Olson’s mutual attraction had more to do with common enemies than with any profound sympathies or resemblances. Layton could only be said to have adhered to the fuzziest tenets of “Projective Verse,” and even then only accidentally. What Layton did possess was a “projective” personal presence and poetic dynamism that acted like a magnet on the imaginations of Olson, Creeley, and Corman. And the applause of an enthusiastic audience, not to mention the fruitful exchange of ideas about poetry and society, was music to Layton’s ears, since he was used to critical neglect and censure in Canada. Even if the ego was not something that Creeley and Olson wanted inscribed in their poems, the egotism of a self-proclaimed übermensch like Layton was just the sort of adrenaline injection their college needed. Layton’s self-glorification is analogous to Olson’s “Projective Verse”—both breathe, even if they are orthopraxically nonsensical, a confidence in revolutionary orthodoxy so crucial to the establishment and survival of a grass-roots, avant-garde movement.

Works Cited

Allen, Donald, ed. The New American Poetry, 1945-1960. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1999.

Butterick, George. “Robert Creeley and the Tradition.” Robert Creeley: The Poet’s Workshop. Ed. Carroll F. Terrell. Orono: The National Poetry Foundation, 1984.

Cameron, Elspeth. Irving Layton: A Portrait. Toronto: Stoddart, 1985.

Creeley, Robert. “Inside Out.” The Collected Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 554-64.

---. “Olson & Others: Some Orts for the Sports.” The New American Poetry, 1945-1960. Ed. Donald Allen Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1999. 408-11.

---. Selected Poems. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962.

---. “To Define.” In The New American Poetry, 1945-1960. Ed. Donald Allen. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1999. 408.

Faas, Ekbert and Sabrina Reed, eds. Irving Layton & Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence, 1953-1978. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1990.

Francis, Wynne. “Irving Layton and His Works.” Canadian Writers and Their Works. Vol. 5. Eds. Robert Lecker, Jack David, Ellen Quigley. Toronto: ECW Press, 1985.

Layton, Irving. A Red Carpet for the Sun. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1959.

Mandel, Eli. Irving Layton. Toronto: Forum House, 1969.

Mansbridge, Francis. Irving Layton: God’s Recording Angel. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995.

---, ed. Wild Gooseberries: The Selected Letters of Irving Layton. Toronto: MacMillan, 1989.

Olson, Charles. “Projective Verse.” In The New American Poetry, 1945-1960. Ed. Donald Allen. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1999. 386-97.

Reed, Sabrina. The Place of American Poets in the Development of Irving Layton, Louis Dudek and Raymond Souster. Toronto: University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies, 1988.

Sherman, Kenneth. “An Interview with Irving Layton.” Essays on Canadian Writing 1978, 10, 7-18.

Tomlinson, Charles. Introduction. William Carlos Williams. Selected Poems. N.Y.: New Directions, 1985.

Wiens, Erwin. “From Apocalypse to Black Mountain: the Contexts of Layton’s Early Criticism.” Canadian Poetry 1985, 16, 1-20.

Appendix: Layton/Black Mountain Chronology

1912: Born Israel Lazarovitch in Tirgul Neamt Northern Romania, youngest of 8.

1913: Family emigrates to Montreal.

1945: First book, Here and Now, published.

1948: Now is the Place published.

1951: Self-publishes The Black Huntsmen.

1952: Cerberus, poems by Layton, Louis Dudek, and Raymond Souster published by Contact Press.

-Canadian Poems, edited by Layton and Dudek, published by Contact.

-Souster’s Contact magazine started.

1953: CIV/n magazine publishes Origin poets.

-Love the Conqueror Worm published

February 17: Robert Creeley, having read copies of The Black Huntsmen and Canadian Poems, writes to Layton and invites him to submit a manuscript to Creeley’s Divers Press. This is the beginning of an extensive correspondence over the next four years.

June: Receives visit from Cid Corman, editor of Origin, who introduces him to “Projective Verse.”

September 21: After reading a poem of Layton’s in Contact, Olson invites Layton to teach at Black Mountain College. Layton unable to accept due to commitments in Montreal—including teaching at SGW college—and the fact that he is banned from the U.S. by the McCarran act.

1954: In the Midst of my Fever published by Divers Press, Mallorca.

-Creeley leaves Mallorca to teach at Black Mountain College.

-Black Mountain Review started, with Creeley as editor, and Layton, Olson, Paul Blackburn, and Kenneth Rexroth as contributing editors.

-Contact folds.

-The Long Pea-Shooter published.

-Autumn: Layton featured in Origin 14, including 20 poems and a short story.

1955: CIV/n folds.

-The Cold Green Element and The Blue Propeller (with help from Creeley) published.

1956, Winter: Layton guest-edits Origin 18, featuring new Canadian poetry.

-The Improved Binoculars, selected poems, published by Jonathan Williams’ Jargon Press, as eighteenth in a series which included Olson, Creeley, Zukovsky, Kenneth Patchen, Joel Oppenheimer, Denise Levertov, et al.

-Ryerson Press, Canadian distributor of The Improved Binoculars, refuses to release its copies, because of “controversial” content.

-The Bull Calf and Music on a Kazoo published.

1957: Black Mountain Review folds.

-Layton and Creeley’s correspondence ends for five years.

1958: A Laughter in the Mind published by Jonathan Williams.

1959: A Red Carpet for the Sun published by McClelland and Stewart and Jonathan Williams.

1960: The New American Poetry published.

1962: Layton and Creeley meet for the first time, at UBC, where Creeley was teaching.

-Layton’s application to UBC blocked by the head of the English Department.

---

[1] And for the sake of expediency and economy, I won’t go into other factors (e.g. nationalism, cultural identification, etc.) the existence of which I acknowledge, but which are not of particular relevance to the present discussion.

[2] Because of his work publishing Black Mountain poets in Contact magazine a case could be made for Raymond Souster as well, but Souster was not embraced, as a poet, in the same way that Layton was.

[3] With the exception of Sabrina Reed’s unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Place of American Poets in the Development of Irving Layton, Louis Dudek, and Raymond Souster. The collected correspondence of Layton and Robert Creeley is another obvious exception, but I refer here, primarily, to critical texts.

[4] In fact, Layton was officially regarded as decidedly un-American, as he was barred from entering the United States for his political activities as “a hot left-winger”(LCC 53, Oct. 9, 1953).

[5] I focus on Creeley and Olson—and to a lesser extent Cid Corman, whose contribution to the movement was greater as editor of Origin than as a poet—both because they were the most central Black Mountaineers and because they were the closest of them to Layton.

[6] Not only did he regularly publish poems in Origin and BMR, but he was featured in one issue of the former (Origin 14) and edited another (Origin 18); was, at Creeley’s invitation, a contributing editor of BMR; and published a book, again at Creeley’s request, with Divers Press (IMF), and his first “selected poems” (TIB) with Jonathan Williams’ Jargon Press.

[7] Which doctrine I elucidate below.

[8] Mansbridge misses a great deal here. Not only does he seem to be unaware of the proper definition of “reactionary,” but his notion that it is harder now to understand Layton’s link with Creeley, Olson et al. than it would have been in the 1950s is just plain silly, particularly since he quotes here from the Layton-Creeley correspondence, which publication sheds much light on an otherwise obscure topic (an absurdity rendered all the more poignant by the fact that Mansbridge is the editor of Layton’s letters). It seems to me that Mansbridge uses this “difficulty” as a handy excuse to move on to other topics.

[9] Although one has reason to doubt that the correctness of this observation is based on anything more substantial than chance, since she goes on to generalize, “Olson also wrote tough, short, tight little poems”(Cameron 210), a statement that contains only slightly more truth than, say, “Olson was a short, tight, little man.” The unreliability of Cameron’s Harlequinesque biography of Layton is already notorious, so this will be my last dig at her.

[10] Francis’ offhand dismissal is a tad misleading, as her focus is on the big picture of Layton’s development, in which context there is considerable justice in saying that Layton saw contemporary experimentation as a dead end. This broad perspective, however, obscures and unreasonably diminishes the importance of Layton’s involvement with Black Mountain in the 1950s. Since Layton’s career and poetics have been nothing if not protean, to borrow George Woodcock’s term, brief flirtations with this school or that are at least as worthy of attention as any kind of synthetic picture of the poet’s entire career.

[11] In particular, Butterick cites the general influence of Campion’s short lyrics, echoes of Byron in “The Bed,” and Creeley’s use of ballad metres in such poems as “Ballad of the Despairing Husband” and “The Three Ladies.”

[12] Or, as Creeley puts it, “Tradition is an aspect of what anyone is now thinking,--not what someone once thought.”(“To Define,” NAP 408)

[13] I know this sounds incredibly broad, but if anything it isn’t broad enough, since Black Mountain’s international connections stretched as far ‘east’ as Japan, through the relationships of Cid Corman and Robert Creeley to such writers and artists as Katue Kitasono.

[14] See appended chronology.

[15] The Maximus Poems are also highly relevant. As Reed states: “While Maximus maintains his individuality, the populace has been corrupted by mass production.”(Reed 205)

[16] Although Layton is elsewhere effusive in his praise of Keats and Wordsworth. His critical writings—and indeed his poetry—are far too contradictory to be of any use in drawing simple conclusions about his ambivalent position vis-à-vis the Romantics (or any of his influences, for that matter). Creeley and Olson’s positions are likewise hazy. Suffice to say that a discussion of these matters could fill a book, so I will not attempt to probe them too deeply here.

[17] Creeley states this more unequivocally than Layton (“Lawrence was on it, the sexual, was standing exactly on that ground. Hence ... my own mentor, finally the only one I can have”(Quoted in Butterick 126)). Still, Layton’s critical writing and correspondence is peppered with references to Lawrence’s influence on his own work.

[18] Here, I don’t mean to suggest that the individual members of the Black Mountain movement existed as some kind of homogeneous unit; rather, that Layton’s reservations regarding projectivist doctrine were greater than those of other Black Mountain writers.

[19] Cf. William Carlos Williams’ doctrine: “No ideas but in things.” (Quoted in Tomlinson 12)

[20] Or that Creeley felt the need to impose it on Layton. Sabrina Reed claims that Creeley “consistently criticized Layton when he talked of himself as a poet or of the poet’s role in society”(249). While it’s true that Creeley never adopted or endorsed his friend’s didactic approach—stating that he was “not here to bring enlightenment or a resolving of human wills, [but] to tell you what happens as best I can”(quoted in Reed 222)—his praise for such works as The Long Peashooter—a book Layton dedicated to him—was effusive nonetheless.(LCC 193; Dec. 27, 1954)

21 By way of contrast, Creeley is explicit: “Insofar as I is a vehicle of passage or transformation, its powers are clear. Realized as will or personality, that ‘mealy seal’ as Olson called it, the power vitiates as soon as the energy necessary to sustain it exhausts itself.”(“Inside Out” 563)

22Later, Layton would claim, “I’ve at last seen the light re Olson’s prose”(Correspondence 192; Dec. 19, 1954), but Layton’s mercurial shifts in temperament are legendary, and this one statement does little to balance the scales.

23 Much later, Layton would make disparaging remarks about “Robert Creeley dron[ing] inaudibly some of his skinny poems”(Sherman 12). It seems to me that this is just an example of Layton’s typically hyperbolic polemical posturing. Layton was reacting to the prominence of the TISH poets in the mid-seventies, whom he saw as Canadian Black Mountain copy-cats, and to discredit TISH, what better tactic than to discredit Black Mountain?

[24] A phenomenon which would have, at least, been delayed considerably, had it not been for the support of Creeley, Olson, Corman, William Carlos Williams, and Jonathan Williams.

Brian Palmu responds...

...to Jacob Mooney.

Dr. Ursus also weighs in.

Hm, looks like this isn't going away...

Jacob Mooney wades into the fray...

...with arms held wide, yelling "whoa! whoa! whoa!"

Seriously, a thoughtful and heartfelt post. But I have a few things to say in response:

1) This has never been professional. It was personal from the get-go and I never pretended otherwise. I'm just not that disingenuous. No attempt was ever made to engage with any piece of criticism I have written. I was accused of trying to ruin careers and lives and take over the tadpole puddle of Canadian poetry with my shadowy cabal when all I was doing was a bit of freelance journalism. I responded in kind. It should be said that I've never met one of the people on the other side of this and have only met the other one--an old friend of hers, who got pissy with me on a previous occasion for calling her out on a passive-aggressive swipe--on a couple of occasions. Why they think they have some kind of privileged access to my motives is something only they can explain. Altho it would seem even that is to be doubted. At any rate, as soon as they cut it out, I will too.

2) Different sorts of conversation can happen at the same time. I'm always ready and willing to talk about poetry and/or criticism. Engaging in online dustups doesn't "choke" that anymore than talking about baseball or the weather does. People are multi-faceted that way.

3) This is so a game. And so is art. And very low-stakes games at that, at least in this part of the world. There's nothing wrong with games. I continue to participate in this one because I'm a small person and it continues to amuse me. If you're a big person and it doesn't amuse you, please see 4)

4) No one is making anyone read anything they don't want to. If, as my site stats suggest, people are fascinated by this argument--even if that fascination is rooted in disgust, they are nevertheless fascinated--they should be honest with themselves about the reasons why. You really want it to stop, you ignore it, you don't write long blog posts studded with links.

Carry on.

Crisis Averted!

For all of you who have no doubt been kept up at night worrying about my financial predicament, rest easy: I got a job. Say hello to Reader's Digest's newest freelance editor. I'm already enjoying the work quite a bit. Best part is I can do it in my p.j.'s!

New Interview

Alessandro Porco's interview with yours truly about Track & Trace and other matters is now up at Maisonneuve. Alex asked me some very insightful questions; hope you enjoy the answers.

Showdown at the No-Go Corral

For all those who've been following the latest tempest in the Canadian poetry teapot, there's been an interesting development, for a change. On Steven Beattie's "That Shakespeherian Rag" yesterday, Brenda Schmidt suggested that the four main parties in the dispute--Chris Banks, Brian Palmu, Sina Queyras and yours truly--put our money where our mouths are, in a metaphorical sense. Her idea was that all four of us write a review of the same book "and then post the works for us all to see and compare." At first, because I no longer write reviews for little or no remuneration--I've turned down many invitations to review over the last several months because the editor inviting me to review couldn't make it worth my while, financially--I said I'd be willing to do it if someone was willing to pay. I realized after saying this that no one would be willing/able to pay $600 for four people to review the same book, so I had the idea that we should all four literally put our money where our mouths are and pony up $50. The reviews and money would be submitted to a neutral party (Brenda, e.g., since she suggested the reviews in the first place) who would then forward the reviews, without author i.d., to a neutral judge, who would decide which of the reviews was best. Winner takes the pot. I suggested this in large measure because it's been charged by both Queyras and Banks that I and the people of my "tribe" are not competent to review poetry and that they have a better idea about how it should be done. Not surprisingly, these suggestions were met by deflection on the part of Queyras and silence on the part of Banks.

But now, I can say that CNQ wants to publish some version of this proposal and will pay all participants for their trouble. Problem is, accepting the invitation would create proof that Zach Wells and his Legion of Doom aren't trying to silence other voices, crush all poets who fail to conform to a rigid set of aesthetic standards and impose a homogeneous formalism on all the land, so I expect more deflection and silence.

Sarah Palin, author, under snark attack

Ottawa Launch Audio

For all of you who couldn't make the Ottawa launch for Track & Trace, here's an aural facsimile:

A Bit o' Dissonance

Herewith, a quasi-complete alphabetical list of poets whose aesthetics and/or sensibilities are markedly different from mine, yet whose work I've been able to appreciate, publicly, in print or its online equivalent:

Robert Allen
Margaret Avison
Alfred G. Bailey
Walid Bitar
Tim Bowling
Di Brandt
Robert Bringhurst
Shannon Bramer
Stephen Brockwell
Colin Browne
Alice Burdick
Kevin Connolly
Margaret Christakos
Michael deBeyer
Barry Dempster
RG Everson
Thomas Heise
Amanda Lamarche
Dennis Lee
Kenneth Leslie
Noah Leznoff
Jennifer LoveGrove
Jeanette Lynes
James McIntyre
Eric Miller
Erin Moure
Emile Nelligan
John Newlove
Richard Outram
KI Press
Al Purdy
Lisa Robertson
Stuart Ross
Peter Sanger
Lazar Sarna
Goran Simic
John Smith
Fraser Sutherland
Souvankham Thammavongsa
Anne Wilkinson

13 Shits

Brian Palmu on the increasingly amusing spectacle of certain dogs chasing their tails.

Hear, hear!

I reject the either/or premise of this argument, and in general the way this entire issue is being framed here in Canada, and in other streams. Very convenient to set the terms for what one wants and handily reject anything that seems to rattle that. Nuance is I believe what I’m calling for. More, not less rigor, sharper, more penetrating critiques, more evaluative criticism, a broader perspective, more illumination, more context. More discussion about what makes something excellent, in fact, why? What is at work in it?

CAPITAL PROJECTS

A nature-loving lady gets bushwhacked
by a bushwolf and sends park rangers
on a coyote-killing spree. Stranger:
I've stopped receiving paycheques
because the company that hired me
laid me off and claims to have no money--
but when I stop by work, I find something funny:
brand new asphalt on the parking lot. You see,
that cash comes from a different pot--which smells
to me more like a crock of something fragrant
used to fertilise a field. Such flagrant
sophistry! Next up, collars and bells
for predatory wildlife in the Highlands
and bridges linking all the Thousand Islands!

Steven W. Beattie on the endlessly ongoing argument over negative reviewing

Steven Beattie has weighed in with a typically thoughtful post on some of the things we've been following here on CLM. I'll have more on this when I've got more time.

Ottawa whirlwind report

Great launch last night. Besides having family and friends from various past lives (high school, university, Montreal, Iqaluit) in attendance, there were three very special audience members: the daughter and granddaughters of Kenneth Leslie. One of the granddaughters, Elizabeth Dickson, is writing a biography of Leslie right now and all the family is very excited about the forthcoming Essential Kenneth Leslie selection I've edited. Their support for the project means a great deal to me.

Had the pleasant surprise of sitting next to Susan Gillis, one of my favourite people from Montreal days, on the train from Ottawa to Montreal. I'm just in Montreal right now waiting to board my train. When I get home, I'll upload the audio from the reading. I'm really pleased with how it went and that the substantial pile of books was all sold, as were several copies of Jailbreaks and Anything But Hank!, one of which, magically, already bore signatures from both authors and the illustrator!

I just discovered that there was a pile of unmoderated comments that had accumulated over the last few weeks. I now know how to moderate comments and won't leave them languishing in like manner again. Promise. If you're interested in reading them, just scroll back thru the entries since Oct. 25.

Emotion and Poetry: Fuel and Destination

If you believe that the poet's emotions are the subject of a poem, you are likely to emphasize, even overemphasize, the typicality of poems dealing explicitly with es., such as Shakespeare's sonnets, Coleridge's Dejection, and even (as in the case of many romantic critics) lyric poetry in general. If on the other hand you regard e. as merely the fuel, you have to deal with the fact that the writing of philosophy, psychology, even mathematics may often be fueled by e. The romantic doctrine of the presence of the writer's e. as not merely external cause but in some way intrinsic to the product at least had the advantage that it provided a criterion for distinguishing poetry (more generally, imaginative lit.) from other forms of writing.

--New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, entry for "Emotion"

I think a corollary to the romantic overemphasis of the lyric mode and mood is often, among those who mistake emotion (as opposed to language) for the medium of poetic art, is the reliance on bald statements of feeling as vessels for emotional content. Such direct statements are usually--tho by no means always; timing is everything--oddly ineffective means of jumping the emotional spark-gap between poem and reader--unless the reader is preternaturally empathic. Far more effective, in my experience, are the cold tools of a poet's trade: image, metaphor, rhythm, various forms of rhyme, etc. To say nothing of the weight of what isn't said.

Come see me in Ottawa

I'm off on the train tomorrow for Ottawa, where I'll be reading Saturday night:

Collected Works, 1242 Wellington, 7:30 pm

Should be good fun; I always enjoy visiting my old hometown. For those unable to attend, I will try to remember my tape recorder this time.

I got some disappointing news today. Some funding I'd applied for, to help get me thru the winter--because I didn't work near enough hours this year to qualify for EI, thanks to those dickhead bankers in the US--and help me finish my book of criticism, didn't come thru. Apparently, a shortfall of approximately $30,000 over a 12 month period does not constitute a "financial crisis." I was asking for less than half that amount. Being inordinately unemployable in fields outside of airlines and railroads--which aren't hiring at the moment, oddly enough--I'm going to have to get some truly lousy job or figure out some other way of making money. If anyone wants to hire me for manuscript consultations, editorial work, book reviewing, etc., drop a line. Of course, if anyone wants to just send me a big cheque in the mail, that's cool too.

Encore!

Got a note today from my CNQ colleague Michael Carbert:

Please allow me to direct your attention to a new website you may find of interest. http://www.encorelit.ca/ is a literary website featuring original poetry, fiction, reviews and interviews. Our first posts are a new poem by Marko Sijan, and an interview with award-winning author Asa Boxer. Upcoming features include reviews of Grant Buday's Dragonflies and Philip Roth's latest novel, plus new fiction by Joyce Randall. We welcome your input. Please reply to this email to submit queries, suggestions, comments, or material for publication.

Check it out!

From the West Coast Finnish Chapter

Brian Palmu weighs in on "aesthetic tribalism." Worth a read, but if you don't have time, this comes close to saying it all:

And if I wanted to kiss ass and "get ahead" in an intricately staged secret hand-shaking power-broking nod-nod-wink-wink-off, I'd say that shit was sherbet, and fashion my efforts and desires around the community and not the poem.

Starbok: the State of Canadian Poetry

Wish I could be in Calgary for this night of the long poetry knives, but alas I'll be reading in Toronto on the night in question. Hope someone's video-taping it for posterity.

ON LISTENING TO AN INTERVIEW WITH TERRY EAGLETON

The church around the corner's been torn down,
a fenced-off crater--ground zero of some
megatonne explosion--in its place. Dumb
puns adorn the signboard of its neighbour--
UNLIMITED WIRELESS ACCESS TO CHRIST--
enticing strangers off the street to de-ice
its empty pews. And while the diocese
reels from the cataclysmic news
of the bishop's love for boys, the pope's thrown
open the universal church's mews
to welcome homophobic refugees
from the Sodom of the crumbling English kirk.
It's not that I think God is dead and gone--
it's that He seems to be a righteous fucking jerk.

Mooney's top 10

Jacob Mooney is making a list of his ten favourite poetry collections of the 2000s. I'm not a big fan of lists. I was recently asked to name the three top books of the aughts for Quill & Quire and did so with some reluctance. For one thing, books are hit and miss affairs; when I think of poetry I love, it's most often one poem at a time, rather than a whole book of them. For another, I don't rank writing. It's simply not the relationship I have with it. I did pick three books and I do believe they're worthy candidates, but I could easily have picked a different three on a different day. Another problem is that with poetry, as with wine, you can't always tell what's going to age the best. A few years is too short a period for making a really solid call.

Anyway, I'm linking to Mooney's first post because he's not taking the shortcut of just posting a list, but is providing thoughtful commentary--justifications for his choices--which redeems the otherwise vacuous critical act of list-making. His first choice is my former prof Jason Camlot's The Debaucher. Sorry to say I haven't read this yet, nor Jason's second book Attention All Typewriters--too damn many books, too damn little time. I did read his first book, The Animal Library, which was uneven and occasionally slight, but contained a few poems that I still occasionally think of and go back to, eight-odd years after I first read them. Which, to me, is a sign of some damn good poetry.

Speaking of Tribalism

You know you've made the big-time when you're cited several times in a turgid MA thesis!

Tribeadours and Snark Attacks

There's some back n forth--including a rather long-winded response from yours truly--over at Brenda Schmidt's place concerning the alleged problems of aesthetic tribes and the mean-spirited brute squad of poetry reviewing.

It's been said in that conversation that the poetry world of Montreal is schismatic. Aesthetically, this is no doubt true, but socially I've found the opposite to be the case. While I was living in Montreal and in subsequent visits, I've had very pleasant exchanges, and in some cases friendships, with Robert Allen, Oana Avasilichioaei, Stephanie Bolster, Asa Boxer, Suzanne Buffam, Jason Camlot, Angela Carr, Geoffrey Cook, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Corey Frost (whose apartment I took over when he moved to NY), Ian Ferrier, Gabe Foreman, Zach Gaviller, Susan Gillis, Katia Grubisic, Michael Harris, Jack Illingworth, Catherine Kidd, Leigh Kotsilidis, Michael Lista, John Lofranco, Dave McGimpsey, Sachiko Murakami, Eric Ormsby, Peter Richardson, Robyn Sarah, Carmine Starnino, Joshua Trotter, Melissa Weinstein. (And some fiction writers, too, but they don't count, now do they?) Now, some of these folks have aesthetic leanings similar to my own, but many of them write in very different directions. To say nothing of the fact that I met my wife while living in Montreal and our aesthetics couldn't be much more different; she writes historical documentary long poem/prose sequences and I tend to write isolated short lyrics, inclined towards the accentual/metrical. I would suggest that if a person finds the poetry communities of Montreal divided, it is more of a reflection on that person than on any irreconcilable rifts in the social fabric.

Launch Report

The launch last night was great fun; strong readings all round and a crowd of about 40 to hear them. Many books bought and sold; many good, and a few silly, conversations. All a launch should be. Alas, I neglected to bring my recorder, so it's lost to posterity. You'll have to take my word for it if you weren't there.

"Wells works wonders"

The Coast, a Halifax weekly, has a wee review of my litel bok.

Halifax Launch! Tonight!

Thursday, November 5, 6 pm, The Company House, 2202 Gottingen

Join me, Wayne Clifford and Amy Jones for a three-author launch. I'm launching my new book Track & Trace; Wayne is launching three (!) recently published books: Jane Again (Biblioasis), The Exile's Papers Vol. II (Porcupine's Quill) and Learning to Dance with a Peg Leg: Three Dozen Tunes for a Third Mate; and Amy is launching her Metcalf-Rooke Award-winning collection of short stories What Boys Like and Other Stories.

Each of us will give a reading and books will be sold. Come one, come all!

Wellses: Always Ahead of the Curve

An interview with my dad about his role in pioneering advances in renewable energy research on PEI:

Notes from The Last Time: Andy Wells and the Institute of Man and Resources from Peter Rukavina on Vimeo.

PAN(DEM)IC

A boy has died, a boy has died! And half
the city queues outside to get a shot
for keeping flu at bay. Oy vey! what a lot
of panic a misjudged lede can cause. I'd laugh,
but all this hogwash kind of makes me sad;
the parents dragging kids out in the dark
and rain to prevent them getting sick?
These selfsame twits who pull their healthy kids
from class are glad to pack them off on buses
without belts or airbags, with cash
to pay for Coke and french fries in the caf.
The med supply's dried up and the pack-
a-day mom--her bottle-fed daughter made high-risk
by asthma--is screaming murder, smokin' mad
her precious girl gets no protection.
Days like this make me want to spread infection.

Middle Brow Lit Lovers, Where Are You?

Jacob Mooney asks where the lit festival crowd--that elusive critter otherwise known as the non-specialist reader--is during the other fifty weeks of the year. I've noticed this same phenomenon on several occasions: how if you make people pay and create an atmosphere of sanctioned legitimacy, folks'll line up for literary events, whereas all the free ones held in cafes and bars are attended mostly by writers and their friends/family. I rather suspect it has something to do with the desire of some people to appear "cultured" by going to high profile cultural events where they will be seen by other people who also wish to appear cultured.

ZW on the Ceeb

I'm being interviewed today by Stephanie Domet, host of the local CBC afternoon show, Mainstreet. It's a taped interview, so I'm not sure when exactly it will be on, but it'll be sometime between 3 and 6 pm, Atlantic time. I'll try to find out more precisely when I'm down for the taping later.

And Thursday, I'm launching Track & Trace here in Halifax. It's going to be a great event. Amy Jones, this year's Metcalf-Rooke Award-winner, will be here from Toronto launching her story collection What Boys Like & Other Stories; and my good friend Wayne Clifford's driving up from Grand Manan Island to launch, belatedly, his excellent collection Jane Again, as well as, in more timely fashion, the second volume of his sonnet sequence, The Exile's Papers (which I've not yet read, but am looking forward to very much). This is a three-book year for prolific Wayne; he's also launching his limited edition collection Learning to Dance with a Peg Leg: Three Dozen Tunes for a Third Mate. This is a terrific book; I picked one up this summer when I was on Grand Manan for Wayne's launch there.

Launch details: November 5, 6 pm, The Company House, 2202 Gottingen. Hope to see you there!

UPDATE: I taped the interview today, but am told that it'll be broadcast on Wednesday afternoon. Then, you can hear me choke on simple questions about my life.

"Oddly hopeful and more alive"

Brenda Schmidt on Shane Neilson's Meniscus. Did I mention that I edited this amazing book? Glad it's finding appreciative readers; hope it finds lots more.

Zach Wells Sucks Forum

Think I suck? Like to talk about it with like-minded folk? Well, now you can!

Another Sitemeter Gem

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Paul Vermeersch on T & T

Paul Vermeersch has posted a brief review of Track & Trace on his blog. Thanks, Paul.

We should have more mature conversations...

...about cheating and stealing. Indeed.

CLM out and about

My post on Creationism and why it should be taught has been picked up by Maisonneuve. It looks pretty much the same over there, but I thought I'd point it out in case anyone wants to see if it generates any back and forth. So far, not much action, other than a diligent spell-checker.

For the Record.

Not me.

Would the Real Bachinsky Please Stand Up

Alessandro Porco on the "Janus-like poetic praxis" of Elizabeth Bachinsky. He raises some interesting questions.

Guriel on Dodds and Johnston

He likes them both, how about that? Good to see some south-of-the-border exposure for the quick and the immortal.

Linda Besner

tries to figure out what to call her book. (About a third of the way into the podcast.) I've been reading Linda's poems in the recently published anthology Rutting Season. Good stuff; I'm looking forward to her book, whatever it's called.

Also on this podcast is an interview with Norman Doidge, whose book is amazing.

Creationism should be taught in science classes

So say 54% of Britons, apparently. Well, 54% of the almost 1000 people polled. It might come as a surprise to regular readers of this blog that, whatever the numbers might be, I actually agree.

The unfortunate thing about a poll is that, however "scientific" it might be, the results tend to be presented in the media without any sense of possible nuance in the answers.

The unfortunate thing about a lot of hard science advocates--and I consider myself to be one--is that they tend to see clear-cut boundaries where there's actually a considerable amount of haze. The thing about modern science is that it's part of an epistemological continuum. The history of myth and the history of science are not 100% discrete and science should not be taught in an ahistorical manner. Both myth--the picture of creation presented in Genesis, e.g.--and science--the story of evolution as told by Darwin and his followers--spring from the human desire to explain origins and predict destinies. To teach only Darwinian evolution, divorced from the intellectual and cultural contexts in which it, ahem, evolved is to paint a picture of spontaneous intellectual generation--to borrow terminology from another debunked hypothesis I learned about in Biology 11.

Darwin's version is an improvement upon earlier stories. It is supported by enough evidence to be a bona fide theory and not merely a hypothesis. Creationism has a lot of company. Lamarckism, for instance, which is routinely taught in schools, in precisely the way it should be: as a theory that once had some scientific currency, but is now discredited. (Notwithstanding the fact that Canada's federal science minister still thinks it's valid.) Incorporating Creationism into science curricula gives teachers the opportunity to present it for what it is: an antiquated idea that should not be taken seriously as a useful path to anything resembling objective truth. Leaving these topics to religion classes--of which I had none in my 13 years of pre-university schooling and which are probably only de rigueur in religious schools--is to risk having them taught as valid scientific theories and increases the risk of significant portions of the population thinking that one "theory" is as good as any other. Why would you want to do that?

One of the people quoted in the Guardian piece says that the poll results show how ignorant "the public" is. The public doesn't get that way by accident and it won't be cured by ignoring or suppressing certain topics in the curriculum.

Joshua Trotter

gets questioned. I'm very pleased to be editing Josh's forthcoming collection. He's got mad skillz.

US vs. UK

Thanks to Josh for the tip on this piece about the differences between US and UK poetry. The focus is largely sociological, which is inevitable. I'm increasingly skeptical about comparisons of this nature--as in my conversation with Molly Peacock on the subject of the supposed difference between US and Canadian poetry. Generalising tends to obscure and elide at least as much as it reveals. Still this seems like a solid and reasonable take on the topic--in large part because its author is conscious of the problem.

UNDERWHELMED, IF THAT'S A WORD

I'd say the book was disappointing,
but I had no expectations
of its excellence, so that would be
misleading. I'd say my team's performance
fails to satisfy, but its salary
and management point to precisely
such a mediocre season. I'd complain
about the weeds that choke my garden,
but their presence is testament to my
indifferent stewardship. I'd say inadequate
is not the proper word to summarise
the manifest insufficiencies
of life here as we know it, but I
can think of nothing better at the moment.

Thomas Lynch on the Mathematical Puzzle of Poems

So much of poetry depends on such counting and calculation, figuring and refiguring the stressed and unstressed syllabics of language, the iambics of our heartbeats and heartbreaks, lexicons and clockworks, inspirations, expirations, meters and rhymes.

The Essential Kenneth Leslie

The listing for The Essential Kenneth Leslie, a book I'm very proud to have edited, is now up at The Porcupine's Quill website.

Clive James

An interesting piece on the poet, critic, songwriter and TV host.

"Critical Prose Before Egos"

Funny how things cycle around in the wash basin of the lit scene. Picked up the new issue of Quill & Quire today. Their "Last Word" column in this number is by a writer and reviewer named Claude Lalumière and the title is the same as this post's. The subtitle: "Authors who complain about negative reviews need to grow up."

My my, how snarky. Yet, as is so often made manifest, hell hath no snarkiness like an author scorned. Lalumière goes on to recount some anecdotes of hate mail and paranoid complaints. This should sound familiar to anyone who's done any amount of honest reviewing. He has some none too kind words for the poor darlings who say he and others should play nice:

"Another blogger ... mentioned a dismissive review of his own first novel and went on at length about how hurtful negative reviews are to authors, whining about all the hard work that goes into creating a book.
I find that attitude, so pervasive in the writing community, both unprofessional and childish."

Hells ya!

"Too many writers like to talk about what hard work it is to write. Get over it. Life is hard for everyone, and we writers don't deserve special treatment."

Say it, brotha!

"An author's work is not published in a vacuum, but within literary and cultural contexts. The critic's job is to situate and evaluate a work within those parameters."

I'd say "duh," but I'm constantly having to explain this to people who think I shouldn't bring in to a review anything from outside the book, that doing so is somehow automatically "ad hominem."

"[I]sn't having your work discussed at all, amid the chaos and sheer varietyof cultural products available to the public, preferable to having it ignored?"

Well, it should be, but some people apparently just want to be left alone.

Stuart Ross's "Heron"

Thanks to Alex Good for reminding me what an amazing and profoundly sad poem this is.

Some of the searches that bring people here crack me up...

...but maybe that's because I'm not a real Nova Scotian:

Domain Name		comcast.net ? (Network)
IP Address		71.230.218.# (Comcast Cable)
ISP		Comcast Cable
Location		Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : Pennsylvania City : Reading Lat/Long : 40.3375, -75.9445 (Map)
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Guest Post: Juvenal

As translated by Peter Green:

You get the same stuff from them all, established poet
And raw beginner alike. I too have winced under the cane
And concocted ‘Advice to Sulla’: Let the despot retire
Into private life, take a good long sleep, and so on. When you find
Hordes of poets on each street-corner, it’s misplaced kindness
To refrain from writing. The paper will still be wasted.
Why then have I chosen to drive my team down the track
Which great Lucilius blazed? If you have the leisure to listen
Calmly and reasonably, I will enlighten you.
When a flabby eunuch marries, when well-born girls go crazy
For pig-sticking up-country, bare-breasted, spear in fist;
When the barber who rasped away at my youthful beard has risen
To challenge good society with his millions; when Crispinus -
That Delta-bred house-slave, silt washed down from the Nile -
Now hitches his shoulders under Tyrian purple, airs
A thin gold ring in summer on his sweaty finger
(‘My dear, I couldn’t bear to wear my heavier jewels’) -

Why then, it is harder not to be writing satires.

Cool News

This is a page from a quarterly published somewhere in the former Yugoslavia. (I'm not sure where, or I'd not use such outmoded terminology.) It features a review of an anthology of Canadian poetry translated into Serbo-Croatian, edited by Goran Simic, in which appear three poems from Unsettled: "Small Song of Wonders", "Herman Nelson" and "Reaching the Mountains." I haven't got my copy yet. I'm very curious to see what my poems look like in a language I have no idea how to speak. I'm curiouser yet to know how they sound.

"The lyric is a severely underappreciated... hey, is this thing on? I don't even know how these doohickeys work. Hello?"

Ouch

"Kids these days..."

Succor

Reactionary Anglican? Hate women and fags (but harbour secret hankerings for young lads)? Fear not, pilgrim, the Catholic Church wants you.

Chris Banks...

...is blogging, and appears to be channelling Andy Rooney. Youngsters these days! (It should be pointed out that Brian Palmu is almost fifteen years older than the supposedly "senior poet" he is trashin' in Oedipal fashion. Speaking of, you know, mythological implications and what not.)

On a less mocking and "snarky" note, very cool to see he's got himself a letterpress machine. One of these days, I'd like to have one myself.

But for now, back to mathematically solving the puzzle of poems!

A Few Li'l Things

Fraser Sutherland's review of Track & Trace is now online at the Q&Q site.

My review of Lorna Crozier's memoir is also online at Q&Q.

The Essential Kenneth Leslie, edited by yours truly, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Hot on the heels of its GG nomination, Carmine Starnino's This Way Out has been shortlisted for the QWF A.M. Klein Award. I'm happy to hear this; I had to decline an invitation to judge this award because I would have been in conflict of interest vis-a-vis Carmine's book. Glad the jurors seem to like it as much as I do.

Also shortlisted for the QWF Hugh MacLennan prize is my friend Harold Hoefle's very good novel-in-stories, The Mountain Clinic. Congrats to Carmine and Harold.

A'right, a'right, a'right

I know you've all been waiting eagerly for my verdict on the GG poetry list. Alas, it doesn't look like there's any dirty dealing this year. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) And there's at least one very worthy book on the shortlist. That book is Carmine Starnino's This Way Out, which I'm very glad to see get the recognition.

I've read none of the other books in their entirety, so can't say with any authority whether they're good or bad choices. But I will say that I'd be amazed if Philip Kevin Paul's book is much good, based on what I've seen of his work in the past. I've read parts of McFadden's book, and what I read was uneven, occasionally slight, occasionally quite lovely; one might say the same of his body of work. I've read almost none of Sina Queyras' work, but the excerpt I saw on Coach House's website didn't make me want to pick up this book; struck me as having, to borrow Keats' phrase, rather palpable designs on its reader. I've been meaning to read more David Zieroth for a while; I saw a pretty nifty suite of poems by him in Event a while back.

It's a pretty symmetrical shortlist, save for the fact that four of the five poets are male. Two are senior poets; two are no longer young but not yet old and both are nominated for their fourth book; the fifth, Paul, is the requisite upstart and a politically progressive choice. I heard Sherman Alexie talking to Eleanor Wachtel on the radio the other day. He said an interesting thing: that native writers are all simultaneously overrated and underrated; overrated by white people, simply because they're native and underrated by natives because they're not native enough. I have to suspect that Paul finds himself on this list because of the former.

If so, this is a pity not just because it's passively racist and does no good politically, but because it prevents a number of noteworthy books from getting the same recognition. This is, on the whole, an underwhelming list. Where is David O'Meara's Noble Gas, Penny Black? Patrick Warner's Mole? Karen Solie's Pigeon? Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip? (I've yet to read it, but I suspect that Robyn Sarah's recently released Pause for Breath would have also made a strong candidate.) If, as seems to be the case most years, there's some felt need to propel a younger writer into the spotlight, why not Jason Guriel for his whipsmart Pure Product? Or James Langer for his earthily lyrical Guns Dogs? All of these books were so good that I have a hard time imagining the four that did make the list being better. Had four (or even two, come on) of these books made the list, Carmine's book would have some bona fide competition. Maybe he does. Maybe I should give the other shortlisted titles a closer look. But I kind of doubt it. And I doubt, seeing what got left off, that Carmine will win, even tho I think he should. We'll see. My bet: Zieroth.

There are two books that are rather too close to me for me to be objective, but that I would have loved to see get some attention: Shane Neilson's Meniscus (which I edited) and Wayne Clifford's Jane Again. Ain't that the problem with these stupid winner-take-all awards...

I'm off on the rails tomorrow. Been a while and thought I'd be called upon no more till, maybe, xmas. But I've lucked out, just in time to delay my search for winter income. Hi ho, hi ho.

Riddle Me This

The good folks at Riddle Fence want your exceptionally good verse or prose. Details below:

Call for Submissions to Riddle Fence Issues #5 & 6

For Immediate Release

Kill Date: December 1, 2009

Riddle Fence, a journal of arts & culture, is accepting submissions for its fifth and sixth issues. We are now considering previously unpublished submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Please send no more than 3-4 poems OR 1 piece of prose, maximum 5,000 words in length. Payment is $30 per printed page (prose and poetry) for first Canadian serial rights, plus a copy of the issue in which your work appears.

What are we looking for? What is anyone looking for: brilliance, innovation, that certain je ne sais quoi de sage-like insight that will blow away the doldrums and give our lives greater meaning. Thus far, we’ve published the work of Mary Dalton, Jeramy Dodds, Monica Kidd, Elise Partridge, Carmine Starnino, Russell Wangersky, and many others [ed: *cough* Zachariah Wells *cough*].

The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2009.

E-mail submissions can be sent to the genre appropriate email address below. Please submit work as Word or Rich Text Format attachments and include in the body of your email as well:

poetry@riddlefence.com

fiction@riddlefence.com

non-fiction@riddlefence.com

Submissions may also be made by regular post (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope or sufficient IRC postage in the case of submissions from outside Canada):

Riddle Fence

PO Box 7092

St. John's, NL

A1E 3Y3

For information, contact info@riddlefence.com, or visit our website: www.riddlefence.com

Ursus on T&T

The enigmatic Dr. Ursus has an informal response to the Poetry Weekend and Track & Trace on his blog:

I personally think the Seth illustrations are straight outta Calvin and Hobbes, I kept looking for a Transmogrifier and Calvin clones. I don’t want to share my book with anyone; and Zach’s book is polluted by “Decorated By Seth” prominently displayed on the cover. I’m sure Zach would agree that it’s the poetry that matters, and I think that’s where I’ll dwell: his first book, Unsettled, was hobbled by its abrasively true blue collar cred, its insistence on the worth of the working man. But Track and Trace is transcendent: it’s got sonnetry, it’s got acrostics, even a Purdy imitation, but the important part is that the form is not the cause or the concern, it’s the rocket fuel: the poems jitter and shake, they move their mountains, and though I’d still say of Zach that there is a tethering coldness (I’m sure he’d retort that my poems go so far that they manipulate emotionally) this collection heats up, almost paradoxically, because of its reserve. I was impressed and surprised. I think it will go far. Surely the idiots who generically challenge him, saying the criticism outpaces the poetry, will have to shut up, or at least revise upward. Intelligence has been cultivated, and though there are a few too many “I’ve been everywhere man” poems crippled by in-your-face anaphora, the rescuing and elevating poems are just too numerous for him not to find his ideal audience. This is a great book.

Carmine Starnino reads with Paul Durcan...

...in London? New York? Toronto? Nosir, in Cobourg, ON. Great opportunity to see a distinguished internationally renowned poet in an intimate setting:

Paul Durcan will do a Poetry Reading in Cobourg Tuesday, October 13, 2009 (MEET AT 66 KING EAST).

This is an amazing opportunity the Cobourg Poetry Workshop has been given!

Paul Durcan is an internationally acclaimed poet from Ireland who is a past winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize and who is the author of over 25 critically-praised collections of poetry.

(Mr. Durcan will be reading in Cobourg 11 days before he reads in Toronto at the Harbourfront Reading series.)

To accommodate Mr. Durcan's busy schedule, our reading will be held on Tuesday, October 13 -- instead of our usual 3rd Thursday (so, not October 15).

Because Paul Durcan will give a 40 minute reading, this evening will feature only 2 poets (rather than our usual 3 readers).

Our second Guest Poet will be Carmine Starnino from Montreal.

We anticipate we could surpass what has been our biggest audience until now.

Below are 2 links you can click.

The first is some information about Paul Durcan:

http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth01J17P482412620204

The second links to an excellent piece in Northumberland Today (Thursday, October 8, 2009 edition), titled:

"Famed poets Durcan, Starnino to read in Cobourg Oct. 13"

The url is:

http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2090188

Doors open 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - MEET AT 66 KING EAST, Cobourg.

Michael Reynolds answers some questions

Cool little Q&A with Michael Reynolds over at Open Book Toronto, which I post here for purely self-serving reasons, as Michael names Jailbreaks as one of three books he'd give to a visitor as a welcome to Canada present. I recently completed one of these same Q&A's and, shamefully, also named Jailbreaks. But c'mon, I'm unemployed and I get a deal on them!

Belated Poetry Weekend Post Mortem

As promised, a belated report on the Poetry Weekend.

First off, I have to admit that when I got the schedule for the readings, my heart sunk a bit. Over fifty readings in six sets over two days sounds, in the abstract, rather more like something out of Dante's vision of hell than a pleasant way to spend a weekend. The Poetry Weekend started spontaneously in 2004 and remains "the most disorganised literary festival in Canada," but it has certainly grown into a popular destination for poets from all over the country. My chagrin at the epic size of the event proved to be ill-founded, but more on that anon.

When I arrived at Shane Neilson's parents' house--where I was crashing for the weekend--I got my first look at Track & Trace as a printed and bound book. I was not disappointed. I can't say how lucky I am to have a publisher like Biblioasis, without whom I would probably never have had the privilege of a book designed by Seth.

I also got my first look at Meniscus, Shane's first trade collection, which I had the honour and pleasure of editing for the press. It's a helluva book. There aren't many poets out there with the combination of sheer guts and craft to be found in Shane's poems.

Friday night, we met up with Sharon McCartney, Karen Schindler (in town for the festivities from London, ON) and Mark Jarman, then headed out for Goose Lane Editions' fall launch. Quite the do. I was amazed how many townsfolk turn out for a book launch in Fredericton. I think it really speaks to that publisher's strong roots in the community. There, met up with several folks, including Brent MacLaine--who was launching his new book, Athena Becomes a Swallow--, my good friend Wayne Clifford and Goose Lane poetry editor and host of the festival Ross Leckie.

On Saturday morning, we got down to the serious business of listening to people read poems. To make a long story short, I was very pleasantly surprised. Not only were there a helluva lot of good readings of good poems, but, most importantly for such epic bouts of sitting and listening, the pace was brisk throughout the weekend. Some highlights that stood out for me: Brent MacLaine doing a very theatrical reading in the voice of an indignant Greek mendicant; Sharon McCartney's "uplifting" poem of praise for Fredericton; Shane Neilson's reading of his "Love Poem," which gave me that much sought-after spinal tingle; ditto for Peter Norman's reading of "Up Near Wawa"; Jeffery Donaldson's on-the-spot cento, incorporating lines from every single poet who read prior to him; much else that was very good to excellent.

The Saturday night party was great fun, too, as always. Shane, a much more sober and sensible soul than I, left relatively early, so I had to find a place to catch a few winks before the Sunday readings. I snuck into Mark Jarman's house and slept on his couch. He never even knew I was there. Till I told him.

I read on Sunday night as part of an outstanding set of readers. If you want to hear the whole thing, see my earlier post or head over to Branta, where Eric Hill has itemized things far more nicely than I did. If you just want to hear my reading, here it is:

The sun was breaking out as I left Oromocto Monday morning, but most of my 450 km ride was wet. Fortunately, I had my books in a rubbermaid box, but my leathers are still damp and crusted with road salt. Last long ride I'll be taking before the bike goes into storage for the winter.

The rest of October's quiet for me in terms of readings, but I've got some things coming up next month in Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto, which should be good fun.

It's looking like I'll be getting no more work on the railroad this year. Normally, I love this point of the year, but I worked so little this year, that I'm left in a precarious spot now: I didn't get enough hours to open a new EI claim, so I'm going to have to figure out how to generate sufficient income to eke out the winter. If anyone needs some editing done, I'm your man, eh.

Purdy contest

Owen Percy at the U of Calgary asked me to pass this along, for anyone who's interested. I might enter myself, but for the fact that I already wrote and published such a poem...

POETRY CONTEST: After Al Purdy

Following Al Purdy’s death in 2001, The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust was formed
in order to save the poet’s home in Ameliasburgh, Ontario from the
wrecking ball by transforming it into a writer-in-residence retreat. This
retreat will offer Canadian authors and critics a secluded, historical
setting in which to develop the manuscripts that will shape the next
generation of Canadian literature. Towards this end, the After Al Purdy
Poetry Contest offers poets the chance to engage textually with the legacy
of one of Canada’s most important poets, while also contributing to the
fundraising initiative to save the A-frame.

The Contest: We are seeking poems that engage in some direct way with Al
Purdy’s poetry, poetics, and/or poetic legacy. There is no limit on the
length or number of poems submitted as long as the appropriate entry fees
are included. The judges will select the top three poems in each category
(see Categories, below). Event, The New Quarterly, and The Antigonish
Review will each publish two of the winning poems in 2010. The winners
will also receive a selection of titles from Harbour Publishing (including
Paul Vermeersch's forthcoming The Al Purdy A-Frame Anthology) and Freehand
Books.

Categories: Entries will be judged under one of two categories: emerging
poet or established poet. An established poet is someone who has published
a book of poetry (longer than a chapbook), or has one forthcoming with a
confirmed publisher.

Contest Fee/Donation: Entry fee is $10/poem, with all monies thus
collected going directly to The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust. Further donations
to this initiative are welcomed and encouraged. Tax receipts will be
issued, upon request, for any submission fee/donation of $50 or more.
Cheques and money orders must be made out to The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust.

How To Enter: Send a cover letter identifying under which category your
poem(s) is/are to be judged, along with one hard copy of each poem, and
the appropriate entry fee ($10/poem) to:

After Al Purdy Poetry Contest, Department of English, University of
Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB. T2N 1N4

Please include your contact information, including your name and email
address at the top right-hand corner of each submitted poem. Email
submissions will not be accepted. Please keep a copy of poem(s) submitted;
entries will not be returned.

Contest Closing Date: Entries must be post-marked by Friday, November 13,
2009. Winners will be announced by January 1, 2010, and will have their
winning poems published in 2010. Entries will be judged by University of
Calgary English Department graduate students and faculty:
Suzette Mayr, Owen Percy, Robyn Read, and Tom Wayman.

Sponsored by the English Department at the University of Calgary, Freehand
Books, Harbour Publishing, The Antigonish Review, Event, and The New
Quarterly.

Visit After Al Purdy Contest on the web at
www.english.ucalgary.ca/afteralpurdy
More information on The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust can be found at www.alpurdy.ca

Poetry Weekend Audio

At last, after several abortive attempts, I've got all the audio from the 2009 UNB Poetry Weekend uploaded to archive.org. Check it out, if you've got a few hours to kill...


Here's the breakdown on the readings:

1. Ross Leckie reads Dodds, Matt Robinson, Justin Joschko, John Reibetanz, Josh Trotter, Sarah Khokhar, Matt Mott, Daniel Renton, Sue Sinclair

2. Leigh Kotsilidis, Jennifer Houle, Rebecca Geleyn, Allison Lasorda, Gerry Beirne, Karen Schindler, Sharon McCartney, Peter Norman

3. John Donlan, A. F. Moritz, Kevin Connolly, Christina McRae, John Wall Barger, Brent MacLaine, Jesse Ferguson, Jeffery Donaldson

4. Peter Forrestell, Celia Thompson, John Donlan, April Ripley, Michael deBeyer, Brian Bartlett, Ross Leckie, Danielle Devereaux

5. Holly Luhning, Shane Neilson, Matthew Tierney, Tammy Armstrong, Danny Jacobs, A. F. Moritz, Carson Butts, Eric Letcher

6. Zachariah Wells, Vanessa Moeller, James Langer, John Reibetanz, Katia Grubisic, Anita Lahey, Sue Sinclair, Ross Leckie reads Jeramy Dodds

Back Home

Got back from Fredericton late this afternoon, wet and tired. Great weekend. Really great. I will tell you all about it when I'm drier and more alert. I'll also upload and post recordings of the readings. But I beg your patience, as Tuesday and Wednesday are my heaviest parenting days and I've got other things nipping at my heels.

In the meantime, might I direct you towards Bloggamooga, where Stuart Ross has posted his latest column. Coincidentally, it's on the topic of Theme and/or Project Books. Seems to be in the zeitgeist.

Track & Trace cover

Finally, folks, here's a facsimile of the front cover of Track & Trace. I say facsimile because all those footprints won't actually have a colour on the finished hard copy, but will be debossed into the stock. Can't wait to see what it actually looks/feels like.

Have book, will travel

I'm off Friday morning to attend the sixth annual UNB Poetry Weekend in Fredericton. This will be my fifth time attending; couldn't make it last year as I was at the Ottawa Writers Fest, which seduced me away with more money and beer. The Poetry Weekend is always a lot of fun, even if it is something of a feat of endurance to attend all the readings. This year, there are apparently 45 readers over the course of six readings on Saturday and Sunday.

It was looking touch-n-go for my new book making it to the weekend, but got word tonight that the good folks at Coach House have managed to bind up 20 copies each of my book and Shane Neilson's Meniscus (also published by Biblioasis and edited by yours truly), which they'll be delivering to Shane in Guelph before he takes off for NB. Kudos and thanks to publisher and printer both.

I'm also supposedly launching T&T in Charlottetown a week tomorrow, but haven't squared up all the details with the venue yet. More anon.

Another Moronic Minister

No wonder Harper is always keeping his people from talking to the media. Oy.

Another Felicitous Find in the Rootbed

The English language is a similar historical mishmash of homage and pragmatism. We include Greek, Latin, French, Old English, and many other roots, at a cost known to every first- and second-grader. Linguists classify English as a morphophonemic writing system because it represents both morphemes (units of meaning) and phonemes (units of sound) in its spelling, a major source of bewilderment to many new readers if they don't understand the historical reasons. ... In essence, English represents a "trade-off" between depicting the individual sounds of the oral language and showing the roots of its words.

--Maryanne Wolf, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

And that, brothers and sisters, is another reason why the English language poet is better off paying attention to the little bits than the big books.