Fred Wah and Margaret Christakos at Emily Carr

Another Review for Anything But Hank!

This one appears to be an excerpt of a longer review in the print version of Canadian Materials magazine. It's mostly descriptive, but ends with a "Recommended." Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

A Cautionary Tale

Apparently, the police are picky about which orifice you use in a breathalyzer test....

A bland and friendly review

... for Anything But Hank!

Anything but Hank! is a rhyming children's picturebook about a young infant in need of a name. His father wants to call him Hank, but his mother is against the idea. A pig decides the boy is in need of wisdom from a Wizard and his Mexican bearded [sic] lizard, which so happens to specialize in naming babies! Together they go on a wondrous journey, brought to life with sweeping paintings by illustrator Eric Orchard. Anything but Hank! is a lovely read-aloud book perfect for storytime.

Notable Omissions

I was at the library yesterday and checked out Graeme Gibson's Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany. It's a gorgeously designed book and looks to be a very well assembled anthology. But there's one glaring omission: no John Clare. How you can put together a book like this--particularly one whose royalties go towards supporting a bird observatory--and leave Clare out, I can't fathom.

One fine thing in the book is P.K. Page's chillingly beautiful poem "Only Child":

Which brings me to another case of notable omissions. Yesterday, The Essential P.K. Page came across my desk. "Only Child" is not included. Nor are "The Stenographers"--probably Page's most anthologized poem, tho also, oddly, left out of her quite large Selected, Planet Earth, by Eric Ormsby--and the stunning "Photos of a Salt Mine" (also left out by Ormsby, which makes me wonder to what extent the editors of the Essential built their book from Ormsby's selection, rather than from the Collected Page and the volumes that followed it; there are two excerpts from her recently published autobiography in verse, Hand Luggage, so the editors have strayed from Ormsby's selection somewhat, at least). Any selection of Page's lapidary oeuvre is worth reading, and I certainly will read it, but I'm scratching my head over these editorial decisions. But, as this article suggests, Page is a tricky poet to anthologize (an essential collection is basically an expanded anthology pick) and the exclusion of these former favourites might be a reaction to earlier editors' choices. But, since Lampert and Gray have decided to forgo an introduction, saying that Page's poetry needs none, one can only speculate as to their motives.

Children are more important than books

Don Denton has an interesting interview up with Tim Bowling. I find Bowling is over-prolific and consequently the quality of his poetry is wildly uneven, but at his best he's in the front rank of contemporary poets in this country, for sure. I also have a lot of respect for his values and the way he practices them. It takes no small amount of discipline to lead the kind of life he lives.

Fool Me Twice...

...shame on me. I returned to Vancouver today to find that, once again, my motorcycle, parked at my employer's office, had been plundered. This time, the helmet--yes, that's right, the more expensive one--was left alone as was my pricey pair of riding gloves, but the thief lifted the dustcover up to take 1) out of one saddle bag, my magnetic tank bag, containing rain jacket and pants 2) out of the other saddle bag, a bag full of bungee cords and 3) from the luggage rack, a Rubbermaid box, containing a pair of rain slicks that fit over my shoes. Again, I've left this stuff on my bike every trip I make and again, it's not especially valuable stuff, but it's stuff that was very useful to me. I'm glad I'm leaving this city. It's really starting to piss me off.

A POEM FOR IVY TODD ON THE OCCASION OF HER 100TH BIRTHDAY (BELATEDLY)

Climbing ivy

clings grace

to a wall,

brings beauty

to bare brick.

It is

the opposite

of death.

Duty Calls

I'm off on the railroad today, one of my lovely Friday trips with no layover in Winnipeg. This will probably be my third- or fourth-last trip of the season. Not that I'm counting. I'm looking forward to October and November. I've got quite a few events lined up, with more to come, I think.

Ciao for now.

On Death, Celebrity and Vicarious Grief

I got myself in hot water a while back when, in a discussion thread on a blog, I suggested that the untimely death of a much-beloved writer had done good things for his reputation. I was leapt upon as an inhuman monster. One person, a friend of the late writer (who died about 20 years ago, of cancer) took my meaning to be "It 's a good thing he's dead." This is only so if you think literary reputation more important than a human life. At any rate, what was from my perspective a detached, value-neutral statement was hardly received as such.

Whether it's writers, musicians, actors or other popular public figures, people generally react very differently to an unexpected early death than they would have had the same figures died quietly at an advanced age. Think Princess Diana, think Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, Page, Cobain. And now, think David Foster Wallace. The reaction seems to be particularly strong if the death is self-inflicted. Part of it has to be that we're disappointed that we'll be seeing no more new work from our hero. Part of it must be that we can more easily see ourselves in that situation than dying of old age. A big part of it has to be that we see these exceptional figures as standing out from the dross of the age, as totems of hope in a hopeless world, and if they couldn't make it, what chance can we have? I haven't seen it explicitly expressed thus yet, but in the case of DFW, who was such a satirist of our society, people probably on some level see him as a martyr, killed by that very society. There has certainly been a lot of rhetoric going around suggesting that DFW was somehow "more human" than the rest of us and hence, presumably, more susceptible to the inhuman brutalities of his social environs. The facts of the matter, insofar as we know them, is that he was badly depressed and used a rope to end his depression.

When Roland Elliott Brown had the temerity to suggest that a public memorial being held for DFW in Toronto might be a "Diana-style vicarious grief-wank," he was immediately pilloried, called a "pitiful fucking troll" and a "fucking douchebag," and was told to "go fuck [him]self." Granted, for anyone planning to attend the memorial, Brown's phrasing was bound to be inflammatory, if only because there's probably very little overlap between the fans-of-Diana and the fans-of-DFW cohorts. Still, the flaming insults seem to me vastly out of proportion with Brown's offense. What he did was call into question the emotional authenticity of DFW's mourners. He went on to elaborate: "People will go there to worship their own idea of a person they did not know. They have been invited to do this. It is a form narcissism." This sounds pretty accurate to me; for someone to claim grief over the death of a stranger, they must have invested something of their own identity in that stranger's life and death: in it, they see a reflection of themselves and what might become of them. This is of course far easier to do with a writer or performer than with most other people. A reader can easily develop a sense that they know the writer from having read his works. But folks, this is a fallacy, pure and simple, an illusion created by the artifice of very good writing.

It's been stated in the Bookninja discussion thread that people's grief and the forms it takes should not be called into question, that it's "absolutely vile" and "reptilian" to do so. Ironically, this charge, along with several epithets thrown at Brown and another person who has had the spine to stand up for his argument, has come from my friend Paul Vermeersch, who has been most outspoken on many occasions in his opposition to religious belief. It's often argued that atheists should not tell people how or what to believe, that this is none of their business. Paul should be aware of this and be able to see the parallels with his own attempted shout-down of Brown's skepticism. For an atheist, the only taboo should be against taboo. There's no reason grief should be left off the table, particularly when it's public grief. The grief, pretend or real, over the deaths of people like DFW is tantamount to idolatry. People who only know the writing of a person have no entitlement to public grief because what they know of that person is the thin edge of the wedge and, moreover, it's not dead.

One of the most regrettable things about DFW's death is that we will never get to read the hilariously incisive satirical essay he might have written about attending one of his own public memorials. This is the worst, most unintentionally ironic thing about all this earnest mourning: it goes against the grain of DFW's work as a writer. Far better the Onion's take on it, which, as George Murray says, "Wallace might have got a kick out of." But what do we know? We never met the guy.

Addena Sumter-Freetag and Matt Rader live at the Railway Club

Sonnet L'Abbé and Russell Thornton live at the Railway Club

@#$%!

So I'm running some errands this afternoon. I park my motorbike around the corner from the grocery store. I'm gone maybe 15 minutes. I come back and find that some son of a bitch has stolen my helmet, which I'd left on the bike's backrest. Now, you're probably thinking, "Serves him right, leaving it there." Thing is, I've been leaving it there for seven years. The only time I take my lid in with me is if it's raining. I've always figured this was a virtually no-risk act, since a)anyone who might need a motorcycle helmet already has one b)a second-hand helmet, being a hat, is not something most people would want to wear, ergo c)the resale value of second-hand helmets is almost nil and d)my helmet was nothing special, a seven-year-old basic black HJC open-face (something like the one pictured, which retails new for about $85). So, I had to ride home a few blocks without protection. Fortunately, I've got another helmet. This one's worth more than three times the stolen one, so I'd better keep a good eye on it.

Anyway, asshole, I hope you enjoy your stinky, worthless new acquisition. And I hope someone does something equally shitty to you soon.

I'm off to a reading tonight. Sonnet L'Abbé and Matt Rader are reading at the Railway Club downtown. I hope to get a good recording of them, which I'll post anon.

Fight the Power!

In my previous post I said that protests against the arts cuts have not been merely futile, but are apt to prove self-defeating. Today, artists are taking some really meaningful action.

The Conservative Party Wants You, Beleaguered and Embattled Aspirational Voter

Thanks to Peter at CanCult for pointing out this very interesting article about Harper's campaign strategies. It confirms what seemed to me quite obvious, that these recent cuts to arts programmes are targeted tactical manoeuvres, not merely ideological reflexes, as the noisy opponents of them seem to believe. I say "noisy" pejoratively not because I disagree with their position, but because I think it's a tactical blunder, playing right into the hands of Harper and his strategists. This is not a stupid man, no matter what anyone thinks. He is a Machiavellian schemer, playing his cards close to his chest. The artists and others who have been loudly decrying his devilish acts (really minor ones, compared to some of the things this guy's up to) would be far better off devising similarly canny responses and in helping to rally support for someone who might defeat him. Instead, they're running around in circles, alienating the very voters Harper's trying to sway.

Personally, I'm for cutting a lot more arts funding (along with EI, welfare, family allowance, CPP and all the bureaucratic apparatus that administer them) and redirecting it into Elizabeth May's proposal of Guaranteed Livable Income. With a GLI, all kinds of creative people would be freed up to do creative things. I'm also for universal, but conditional, free university tuition. But I have a hard time seeing our country being ready to implement such pragmatically visionary policies any time soon. Not till we get rid of first-past-the-post...

"It took everything I had in [sic] to not throw the book to the ground and begin performing a much needed exorcism."

I somehow missed this, erm, review of Unsettled, which was posted back in the spring. One doesn't quite know whether to weep or laugh, but I'm inclined towards the latter.

Difficulties

Just read this very cogent essay on difficulty in poetry by the recently deceased American poet Reginald Shepherd. I'm completely unfamiliar with Shepherd's verse, but anyone who can write so intelligently about poetry is worth a look.

Anything But Hank?

Seems the word is spreading about our new book. There's even a band named after it!

Literary Readings Suck

So says Michael Carbert. And it's true. But I keep going to them hoping for the magic that happens at a really good reading. But yes, for the most part, both hosts and readers don't take the whole business half as seriously as they should.

Kaleb's first train trip

He's not apt to remember much of it, but Kaleb's first train trip was memorable for us at least. I was too busy with work to spend much time with him and Rachel, but he kept himself occupied...

...drinking in the scenery:


...hanging out in the dining car with my colleague Véronique, who threatened to steal him, then downgraded her threat to a standing babysitting offer:


...fraternising with fellow train guests (he was very popular with the ladies, especially):



... chilling out in his room (on the train, the bouncy chair bounces itself, especially in Alberta):



... and spending some quality naked time at the end of a hectic day:



I know how he feels. After 18 hours in my uniform, I too like a bit of naked time.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm 32 today. Celebrated by going to Aqua Books for lunch with Rachel and Kaleb. We also had supper at Alycia's last night. Alycia's is a Winnipeg landmark, a Ukrainian restaurant that was John Candy's favourite. They even have a little shrine in his memory there.

Back on the train to Vancouver in a few hours. I'm hoping the trip back will be a little less hectic than the trip up was. Didn't have much time other than my meal breaks to hang out with R and K.

All for now.

I'm hitting the road...

...and taking the family with me. Rachel and Kaleb are joining me for my trip to Winnipeg this evening. A lovely treat to be able to see my loved ones during and after my grueling days in the first class lounge. Check ya later.

Anything But Hank! launch

The official release of Anything But Hank! is the end of this month. To celebrate, we'll be launching it here in Vancouver next month. Details as follows:

Saturday, October 11
Once Upon a Huckleberry Bush
4387 Main St.
1 pm

Sadly, we'll be launching without Eric, who lives too far away. Hope to see Vancouver-area readers there.

Namesakes

I've long been aware of the existence of pro soccer goalie Zach Wells, but had never been mistaken for him. Until today, when a young woman in Washington DC sent me an email asking me to go for drinks with her and her girlfriends. Naturally, I accepted her invitation.

Rocksalt Launches

Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry, which features a poem by yours truly, will be having launches in the coming weeks and months. Mark it on your calendar:

1. Salt Spring Island-Lions' Club - Sat. Oct 18th. 8pm

2. Granville Island-Agro Cafe, during the Vancouver International Writers' Festival, Thursday - Oct. 23rd 7 pm

3. Vernon - Gallery Vertigo, Wednesday - Oct 29th.

• Contact Howard Brown- Howardandalice@shaw.ca

4. The Nanaimo Library - Sunday- Nov. 2nd. 1 pm

• Contact: Kim Goldberg - goldberg@ncf.ca

5. Prince George- TBA, Nov.

• Contact: Al Rempel - arempel@sd57.bc.ca

6. The Vancouver Pubic Library - Friday- Nov. 7th. 7-9:30 pm

7. Victoria- Bolens Books- Sat. Nov.15th. 7 pm

8. North Vancouver - 32 Books- Fri. Nov. 21st ( eve)

I'm not sure which ones I'll be able to attend, but 7 and 8 look like safe bets at this point, with 6 a possibility.

More on the Salon

The media coverage of the CNQ/TNQ Salon des Refusés continues, with a substantial article in McLean's by Paul Wells.

CNQ review

Just stumbled upon this very nice little review of CNQ's translation issue from someone south of the border.

Love for the Book Bloggers

Don Denton of Literary Photographer passed this on to me and I thought I'd pass it on to you:

http://www.myfriendamysblog.com/2008/08/bbaw-award-nominations-are-open.html

Vote early, vote often!

Pages interviews Dan Wells and Kim Jernigan

Pages books, which hosted the CNQ/TNQ "Salon des Refusés" launch, has posted an interview with the two magazines' editors.

Review Online

My review of Kevin Connolly's Revolver is now up at Quill & Quire. As is my review of Domenico Capilongo's i thought elvis was italian.

Barry Dempster's Long Weekend

Barry Dempster's an under-rated poet. I know, who isn't? Yeah, he's been nominated for a couple of GG's, but one too rarely hears his name come up in conversations about contemporary poetry. I really like Barry's best work. It's clear and direct for the most part, informally colloquial and conversational, which is often mistaken for simple, but is in fact very hard to do well. And he can be damn funny. My favourite poem of his is called "Lucky Pigs," a virtuoso meditation on the prolonged porcine orgasm. I made him read it once. He's a terrific reader. I also quite like the poem "Long Weekend," newly published at Nth Position. Check it out.

Unintentional Irony?

As we were rolling thru Langley this morning on the way into Vancouver, I noticed this place. And hey, they have a rail division!

This is another unfortunately-named establishment the train goes by, in Edmonton.

Michael Bryson on Jailbreaks

I didn't even know before today that Danforth Review prime mover Michael Bryson had a blog, so I was pleasantly surprised to see his review of Jailbreaks pop up in my google alerts.

John Mutford on Jailbreaks

Over at The Book Mine Set, John Mutford has posted a review of Jailbreaks. He objects to me putting none of my own sonnets in, which is a criticism I can live with!

The Fraser River We See

Thanks to Don Denton at Literary Photographer for pointing out this brilliant and fascinating essay by Terry Glavin. Read it.

Hank's debut review

Picked up the new issue of Quill & Quire just now, in which appears a pre-publication review of Anything But Hank! by a children's author named Richard Scrimger. It's a mixed review, leaning towards the negative. The story is "a cool take on the classic dilemma of naming the baby"; but "[t]he poetry too often limps and staggers." The art fares better, Eric's paintings being "lush, strange, and evocative throughout," and the writing does get some props from Scrimger, as "some phrases really resonate." I wonder what kind of review his kids might give it...

Mark it on your calendars, Ottawa-area readers

I'm going to be in Ottawa for the Ottawa International Writers Festival in October. There will be a reading from Jailbreaks, by myself and several contributors, on Saturday, October 25 at 2 pm. (I'm excited to see that my event follows one by Steven Pinker, one of my favourite science writers.) There is also a reading from our forthcoming kids' book, Anything But Hank! on the 24th; I gather it's in a classroom setting, but I haven't heard any details yet. On the 26th, I'll be heading to Montreal for a joint launch of JB and Arc magazine; time and place TBA.

A Little Press for Aqua Books

Thanks to Peter at Cancult for pointing out this article on second hand booksellers. Nice to see Kelly Hughes' Winnipeg store Aqua Books mentioned. I make a point of visiting Aqua every time I'm here in the 'Peg--both for the book browsing and for the very fine food at the Eat Bistro.

Desk Space

I'm featured this week, along with Brenda Schmidt, on Evie Christie's cool new blog, Desk Space.

Once again, my days off have evaporated far too quickly. I'm off to Winnipeg tomorrow. Hopefully a smoother trip than my last one, as interesting as it turned out to be. TTFN

Sad News

Learned today that the I.V. Lounge, longtime site of the eponymous reading series, is closing down. A real shame. I've had some very good times and memorable readings in that place over the years (including the recent launch of Jailbreaks, after which the I.V.'s manager, Kevin, very kindly let a few of us miscreants loiter long into the morning hours), as I'm sure many other writers would testify. With the recent deterioration of the Art Bar series, this leaves a significant hole in the vibrant live reading scene in Toronto.

Mayne report

Had a fab time with the fam on Mayne Island over the weekend. We were there for the nups of my old university friend and roommate, Sean and his partner of seven-odd years, Brook. The weather cooperated beautifully (it only started pouring the morning after the wedding), the ceremony and receptions were very fine (at least the parts of the ceremony we caught before we got distracted by Kaleb's crying and dirty diaper) and it was great to hang out with a few friends I'd not seen in years.

My rental car almost got struck by a buck last night, just as I was about to pull into the driveway of our B&B. There were deer all over the backroads of Mayne at night.

Here are a few photos from the weekend.

Kaleb, fat n happy

The fam at Georgina Point, the beautiful site of Sean and Brook's wedding


Strikin' a pose on the brass bed at Fairview Farm

New CNQ content online

There's a whole whack of new content up at the CNQ website. Check it out.

Ivy at 100

Very cool story on Rachel's great-aunt Ivy in the Vancouver Sun today. When I get back from my next railroad trip, I'll be high-tailing it over to Ivy's 100th birthday party.

Mayne

Rachel, Kaleb and I are off to Mayne Island for the weekend, to celebrate my old friend and former roommate's nups. Should be fun. TTFN

Riddle Fence

Just got a note from my opposite-coast pal Mark Callanan. The mag he edits, Riddle Fence (not to be confused with Raddle Moon or Fiddlehead), is looking for submissions. So send him something, eh.

PLAYA DORADA

At the all-in resort,
while my buddies sun-bathed
by day and chased tail for sport
in strobe-lit bars after dark,
I drank in the shade,
didn’t shave,
muttered “Let ‘em come
to me if they want some.”
They didn’t.
One night the cool kids
conned that eager dumb
schmuck Durrett into chugging
a full tumbler of 151 rum,
whereupon he staggered
down the dew-drenched beach
to plant his shit-bagged
face in the sand--where he barfed.
A scabby stray bitch
appeared to lap the puke
from his lips. Each
day, I woke half-drunk,
had three beers for breakfast.
Each day, the buzz
got harder to build, till at last
I’d drunk myself sober.
Seemed like good fun
at the time. Suppose it was.
I’m not sorry it’s over.

Salon des Refusés

The new issue of CNQ--paired with an issue of The New Quarterly, challenging the Jane Urquhart edited Penguin Anthology of Short Stories--has certainly been garnering a great deal of attention. I heard Adrian Michael Kelly talking about the raging debate on CBC's Q today. The interview's been podcast, and it's well worth a listen if you missed it. The answer to Jian Gomeschi's question about the subjectivity of excellence is that Urquhart herself has said that excellence wasn't necessarily the defining criterion for the choices--both inclusions and exclusions--that she made. It has been widely noted that almost none of the authors in the Penguin book publish with small presses (Carol Windley, a past Giller nominee, being a notable exception). So it might reasonably be posited that a chief criterion for Urquhart was name-brand recognition, particularly considering--as Kelly and others have observed--that Michael Ondaatje, not a noted short-story writer, has two pieces (excerpts of a book-length memoir) in the Penguin book.

I'm still waiting for my copies of the magazines. I'm looking forward to it. I have to admit that the short story is a form I often neglect as a reader. Not because I don't like the form as such; I just seem to have a hard time fitting story collections into my schedule, which involves reading a lot of poetry and non-fiction along with the odd novel. A lame argument, considering that most short stories can be read in a sitting. Whenever I do pick up a book of stories by a terrific writer like Kafka or Borges--or Rooke or Jarman--I think I should read more. Maybe once I figure out how to live without a dayjob...

Anthologized!

I got word the other day that George McWhirter is taking my poem "Leg-in-Boot Square" for his Vancouver verse map anthology. Also might be taking "Heron, False Creek." If he does, that would make "Heron" my most-anthologized poem. Ha. I'm looking forward to this book. It's a really neat idea. My poem "Pat's Grocery" appeared in a similar Halifax anthology, edited by then-laureate Sue McLeod, a couple of years ago. That was a beautifully produced book, with poems, stories and photos, designed inside and out by my old university pal Aaron Harpell of Hammerhead Design. One hopes that Anvil Press comes close to producing so appealing a book.

Trip Report

Things didn't start well. When I got to work on Friday, I was told that the inbound train was about 12 hours late and that our train couldn't leave until after it got in because there wasn't enough staff to crew it. So, after the skeleton crew that was on hand scrambled to get the train set up, we boarded passengers as usual and commenced service, while the train sat at the platform for four hours. We wound up arriving in Winnipeg more than six hours late. Along the way, an elderly gentleman did a faceplant on the platform in Jasper, doing himself minor injury. Shortly after that, another old fellah somehow managed to rip a patch of skin off his arm in my car and I had to perform first aid on him. Most of the passengers were in one or another tour group, so I didn't have much personal interaction with the people. Which was fine by me.

Our late arrival into Winnipeg meant that, according to our CBA, I shouldn't have had to work home. We actually got into Winnipeg 35 minutes after the westbound train was supposed to leave, but it was nine hours late. And because Winnipeg's "spareboard" was also depleted, only one of the Vancouver-based employees was allowed to deadhead home. So I boarded the train at 1 am determined to do the absolute bare minimum that was required of me. I largely succeeded in this, but on the last day of the trip, after passing thru the Rockies in darkness, we went thru the Thompson and Fraser Canyons in broad daylight. The novelty and splendor of the scenery--along with the "natural health beverages" (a.k.a. liquid speed) I was drinking to keep my sorry ass awake--renewed my enthusiasm for my job and I started talking to passengers more. I met a lovely couple from Seattle, who it turns out are close friends of Heather Spears'. I know Heather a bit as she wrote for me a fine review of several translations of Danish poetry for the translation issue of CNQ.

I missed some real excitement en route. Because of our delays, we pulled into Jasper at 12:30 am. Because I wasn't required for the detraining and entraining of passengers, I was already asleep and dreaming by this point. While we were stopped in Jasper, a flash thunderstorm hit. Colleagues of mine reported that a tree within view of the platform was struck by lightning during the torrential downpour. Kind of disappointed I missed it. But relieved it missed us, at least. A big steel tube on steel rails is about the last place I want to be during an electrical storm...

We hauled into Pacific Central Station more than 10 hours late, but it wound up being a pretty enjoyable trip in spite of it. I'm still exhausted, even after a full night's sleep--albeit slightly interrupted by Kaleb. I might be coming down from my natural health high...

In other news, Kaleb had his final post-partum midwife visit yesterday. In six weeks, he's gained three pounds, four ounces (he's now 12-7) and has grown 2 inches to 24. He's sleeping longer (sometimes) and has had his first bottle feed. They grow up so fast.

Jailbreaks reviewed in the Star

Despite the shrinkage of the Toronto Star's book coverage, they found some space for a review of Jailbreaks, along with a collection by one of its contributors, Alan R. Wilson (another expat Maritimer living out here). A bit puzzling to me that Carey's one criticism is the antho's "reliance on past masters" when, as Alex Good pointed out in his review, the book is heavily tilted towards the present.

Crazy train trip (serves me right for saying what a routine summer it's been), about which I'll post tomorrow when I'm a little more human. We incurred over 16 hours in delays during my five days on the road. As I said to one of my colleagues, my sorry-muscle is sprained.

Off to Mayne Island with Rachel and Kaleb on the 22nd for an old friend's wedding. Should be shits and giggles. Well, shits anyway. K has yet to giggle. But he is smiling a great deal.

In transit

As I said I would, I spent the last several days on Lasqueti Island without my computer. It was a nice break. I read a lot. Out of books. (Including the fascinating The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge and The Gift of Stones, an early novel by Jim Crace, who's rapidly becoming one of my favourite living novelists. I've just started a more recent book of his, called Six, after reading, twice, the brilliant Being Dead and his latest, The Pesthouse. Such a good stylist.) How quaint. That's what life on an off-grid island'll do to you I guess. Also did a fair bit of walking and a bit of wood-splitting, which is one of my favourite physical activities, such a fine combination of meditation and aggression.

Here's a shot of me and Kaleb on the beach:


And here we are doing what the Wells boys do best:


His time with Rachel tends to be more manic:

I wish I could've stayed longer, but duty calls. I'm off to Winnipeg tomorrow aft. It's one of my short no-layover trips. Not really looking forward to it, but I'm sure it'll be fine. It's been a singularly uneventful summer on the rails for me. A few modestly late trains, but no real crazy things have happened. Just as well. I've got 8 trips left or so until my layoff. Lots of projects to finish up--two books I've been writing (one collection of poems, one of critical prose), two books I'm editing, on top of the regular editing and reviewing work--, so I'm really looking forward to a bit more time and headspace to work on 'em.

I'll have to be efficient, as we're planning to move back to Halifax in April and there'll be lots to do to get ready for that. We've given BC a good go, and it has lots going for it to be sure, but we miss our half-boho, half-bourgeois Halifax life, in which we lived in our own house instead of someone else's basement. This city's just too damn expensive for folks like us to get ahead. Thanks to a combination of good fortune and shrewd management, we haven't fallen behind, but everything we've done here has had a provisional feel to it and it can't realistically be otherwise, barring a sudden unexpected windfall.

All for now. I'll probably be back in five days or so.

How Poems Work: AG Bailey's "Elm"

My little essay on AG Bailey's sonnet "Elm" (which is included in Jailbreaks) is up on Arc's website.

DECKLE

Some people prefer a keen and perfect
Cutting edge, a right-angled sheet trimmed neat
With borders that might snick an errant

Fingertip. Others play it safer, seek
Corners that are curved or bevel, the better
To deflect attack, embraces and attention.

My own predilection is for the deckled
Indents of a homemade page, fibre-flecked
And textured like a slept-in bed still dented

From the press of its residents, a set
Of lovers well fitted to each other’s
Folding flaws, growing more attached each week

As they fade and sag and grey together.

On the Road

Off to Winnipeg again this evening, trala. Then I'll be heading over to Lasqueti Island to join Rach and her mum for some R&R. Been far too long since I made it over there. Likely sans computer, so CLM will be on a bit of a hiatus.

A Serious Matter

There's been a bit too much fluff here on CLM of late, so I wanted to pose a serious question:























Is Paul Vermeersch becoming Don McKay?

Ride the Train

Jesus.

Audio: "It's Dark in Here"

Our friend Denise gave us a beautiful edition of Where the Sidewalk Ends for K's birth. Some very fun stuff, including "It's Dark in Here." (Which is how it feels much of the time...)

Thou Shalt Teach CanLit

Regular readers of CLM might remember a post last year about the proposed legislation of mandatory Canadian content in BC high schools. Well, the bad guys won. The battle anyway. I'm still slugging away over at the Quillblog, if anyone cares.

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter Darbyshire at CanCult, who reminded me about this relevant article and the discussion that ensued. I'd completely forgotten about it.

UPDATE II: Thanks to Finn Harvor for reminding me that this interview I did with him also dealt with the CanLit in the schools issue. I'm glad someone's keeping track of these things...

A Report on World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia

Today's youth are deeply troubled. Thanks to Mike for pointing out this post.

Kaleb Wells, Superbaby

Just got back from our three-week post-partum visit with the midwife. Kaleb now weighs in at 10 lbs. 14 oz., which means that he's put on 24 oz. (1.5 lbs) over the last 12 days. The high end of normal for such a period at his age would be around 15 oz. There was another baby there who was born the same day as K. and it was freakin' tiny! (circa 7 lbs.) Hard not to feel smugly superior. Numbers aside, the little guy is clearly thriving.

Audio: "Ode on Melancholy"

A couple of separate references to John Keats today led me to revisit "Ode on Melancholy." I'm not the biggest Keats fan, but this is an exceptionally fine poem.

Audio: Hart Crane's "Passage"

Been too long since I did an audio post. Flipping thru The Complete Poems of Hart Crane, I alit on "Passage."

Trip Report

A pretty smooth trip up. From Vancouver to Jasper, my dome car was reserved for the use of tour group comprised of wealthy Americans. This tour company has a special arrangement with my employers to do this, and no doubt it helps to pay my salary, but it's not a very cool thing for the other paying passengers who are excluded from the dome and forced to crowd into the other two. The director of this tour has a rep for being a nuisance, but I've found that nuisances are easily disarmed, if you know what you're doing and don't insist on butting heads with them.

After Jasper, it was pretty quiet. I had a few Australians in my car, two of whom took to calling me "Curly" and have christened Kaleb "Curly Jr." We got along very well.

After some anti-social time, a shower and a nap, I went out to see The Dark Knight with some co-workers. On many levels an impressive action film, but not the Second Coming a lot of the critics are making it out to be. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is very worth seeing, however.

Tomorrow, I have to report an hour early for a "Hazard Prevention Briefing." This promising to be extremely dull, but I should get paid 6 hours for it, since it's "over and above" my regular assignment, hence time-and-a-half, and the minimum number of hours for a callout is four. The extent of my employers' penny wisdom and pound foolishness never ceases to amaze me.

Can't wait to get home. I got a report from Rachel that Kaleb is now looking at things in a focussed way.

Off to Winnipeg

Somehow, my days off have evaporated and I'm back off to Winnipeg in a few hours. Which shouldn't affect the activity here at CLM too much...

Because I'm feeling self-indulgent and it's my blog dammit

Shitting on things is so 1999

Thanks to Bookninja for pointing out this lampoon of avant-garde conventions. So much for the grand plan I had for Kaleb's meconium and the Lawren Harris exhibit.

The history of poetry, like the history of any art form, is not a procession of its “best works.”

So saith Ron Silliman. And he's right. However, the history of poetry, like the history of any art form, is not the art form itself. Silliman repeatedly confuses the history and politics of the poetry world for poetry. Of course, this macro-view (you might almost think that a professional market analyst came up with it...) makes schools, movements and conflicts between them more relevant than the poems produced. Which is an odd position for someone who claims to be a poet to stake. It's really more of a scholar's stance. For most amateur readers of poetry, it's those great works that matter, no matter when they were written.

Trip Report

Got back from Winnipeg yesterday, utterly wiped from the trip. Every third trip I make, there's no Winnipeg layover and this was one of them; it makes for three straight days of 18+ hours, which is one thing on solid ground, but that much more tiring on a moving train. It's good to be home with Rachel and Kaleb, who has gotten over some early feeding difficulties and is now probably back over his birth weight; the weigh-in tomorrow should confirm it. He's a bit of a vampire at this point, up all night and endlessly ravenous. He's much calmer and sleeps more during the day.

The trip went pretty well, especially the return portion. A few times in my work, I've received applause from the passengers at trip's end, and this was one of them. This, along with the gratuities showered upon me, was quite gratifying. Much as I'd like to attribute this to my charm and wit, a lot of it has to do with the passengers themselves. This was a particularly good bunch, which made it that much easier to engage with them. (I wonder if it's a coincidence that there was a higher than usual number of Canadians in my car...) I think part of it is that I've been in an exceptionally good mood since Kaleb's birth. In years past, I was quite adamant about never having kids. I'm glad I changed my stance on that.

Some Commentary About Jailbreaks...

...about which, the less said, the better.

Questions of Nationality

A little piece I wrote about Elizabeth Bishop's regrettable exclusion from Jailbreaks is now online at Maisonneuve's website.

I'm off to Winnipeg for a bit of a rest tomorrow (Friday). Fortunately, Rachel's mom will be camping out here while I'm gone. This is hard to type, as a swaddled Kaleb is occupying my left forearm. Toodles. Back Tuesday.

Interview online

Literary portrait artist extraordinaire Don Denton has just posted an interview with me, focusing primarily on Jailbreaks.

It's Official

I'm a father! Rachel gave birth to 9 lb. 3 oz. Kaleb Dovin Wells this morning at 1:33, after an incredibly impressive 13 hour labour. All members of the household are now home and happy.

It's Official

I'm a BC poet! My poem, "Heron, False Creek" has been accepted for publication in Rocksalt, a new anthology of BC poetry. "Heron, False Creek" had its debut here on CLM last March. Interestingly, the phrase "shitty creek" recently became very literally true. Life mirrors art, I guess...

I

Such a slim barrow into which to stuff
A life; such a narrow beam to cross
And brace the walls. Pollarded and shallow-
Rooted, it resists the winds, persists
Despite its pruning. Stiff and stolid
In its ramrod stance, it stands, but shifts
And strays when no one’s watching. It sees
The road ahead, but is always looking
Back. It asserts and it equivocates.
It makes mistakes. It flirts with grief and grace.
It wears a mask to hide its missing face.

Unsettled review

Just got a google alert for this little review of Unsettled by a pseudonymous blogger in Toronto. I appreciate the observation of both polish and raw in the poems.

Kate Sutherland on Jailbreaks

Kate Sutherland has posted a (very flattering) little review of Jailbreaks on her blog (it's number 11 in her omnibus review).

Drama at the Vancouver Zoo

This reminds me of when I saw my cat jump six feet straight up, reach a paw into the birdfeeder, and come down with a chickadee. Only on a bigger scale.

bug

I was supposed to work the train to Winnipeg this evening, but the flu bug I picked up on my last trip still hasn't run its course. I'm feeling better than when I was delirious and febrile on Wednesday night, but I'm still achey all over, my throat's sore, my head's stuffed, I'm coughing and I have little by way of appetite and stamina (a brief excursion for groceries yesterday led to a 1.5 hour nap), so I booked sick. Not something I like to do, especially with time-and-a-half on July 1, but I like working sick even less. (Oddly, the company is hyper-paranoid about the spread of viral infections on the train, yet provides no compensated sick-days as such to employees.) So I'm off to see a medic this morning, to get a note so that Great West Life doesn't think I'm malingering.

I'm Not There

Rachel and I watched I'm Not There last night. Friggin' brilliantly layered film, which I think really has to be seen more than once. Cate Blanchett's performance is uncanny. Whoever thought to cast her is a genius.

Jailbreaks lauded in the Walrus blog

Had this piece, by Jared Bland on The Walrus's blog, pointed out to me this morning. It's as much a paean to Biblioasis as it is a review of Jailbreaks. The former is very well-deserved. If I haven't said it before on this site, I'll say it now: I love Biblioasis. When so many publishers who have been around so much longer pump out catalogues of unremarkable books, it's wonderful to see a publisher with Dan Wells' levels of energy, commitment and discernment producing a varied and challenging catalogue every season. In its short history, Biblioasis has already published several excellent and even, dare I say it, important books. It's an honour to be part of such a classy endeavour.

But back to my book. I particularly like this line of Bland's: "It’s perhaps a fine distinction, but this is a collection for those interested more in poetry by Canadians than Canadian poetry."

King Lear at Bard on the Beach

Rachel and I went to see the Bard on the Beach production of King Lear last night. Lear is probably my favourite Shakespeare tragedy; I've read it more times than any other play (except Twelfth Night, which I acted in many moons ago). So I had high expectations--held in check somewhat by the fact that Lear is notoriously hard to stage.

The show's worth seeing for some of the performances alone, especially Bard Artistic Director Christopher Gaze in the title role. Also excellent were Patti Allan as Lear's fool (or nurse, in this staging, in which Lear is not only old, but infirm, spending most of the show in a wheelchair), Scott Bellis as Oswald, and Andrew Wheeler as a chilly Duke of Cornwall. There were no really weak performances, although Gerry MacKay, as Kent, occasionally obscured his lines by shouting them.

The performance was marred by some highly dubious decisions in the direction and stage management. The blocking was bloody awful, amateurish even. We were seated to the side, granted, but I could tell from our vantage that even for people seated stage centre, much of the drama must have been obscured by bad angles--including lines delivered from behind massive pillars. The cave scene was mostly acted out from a high, cramped balcony, for no readily apparent reason.

There was a musical element that sometimes worked, but often felt tacked-on and I can't figure out why the musicians (a cellist and someone playing a couple of xylophonish instruments, one very large) spent the entire play in prominent positions on the stage; this can't have helped with the blocking. The music in the storm scenes was often so loud that it drowned out the lines being spoken by the actors. At times, music turned what should have been pathetic scenes into humorous ones, causing audience giggling at rather unfortunate moments.

The modernisation of the play did nothing for it, either. This Lear is set in the "near future," with guns substituted for swords. Why? It seems to me to make costuming and fight direction easier, because otherwise, it added no new nuance to the play, unlike say Ian McKellen's film version of Richard III.

But as I said, it's still worth checking out, as long as you don't mind spending $33 on an imperfect show.

Jailbreaks Review

A couple of days after the Winnipeg launch, Jailbreaks gets reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press, by Maurice Mierau, who thinks the anthology should be in every school library. I couldn't agree more!

There's one remark that needs some qualification, however. Mierau says, "Winnipeg poet George Amabile is represented, but few other westerners are." I just did a run thru the table of contents, and by my count there are 28 contributors (out of 100) who are either from western Canada, live there now, or have spent a considerable amount of time living there. Manitoba has a population of 1.2 million; Saskatchewan, just under a million; Alberta, 3.3 million; and BC 5.3 million: in total about a third of Canada's population, so the demographics of the anthology, at least in terms of Western representation, aren't terribly out of sync with those of the country. Also, I think it's a significant factor that there's less of a connection to England and its traditions in the prairie provinces than there is in the east and in BC. The sonnet in English comes to us via our one-time mother-country, so I wasn't surprised to find fewer writers of the form between the Rockies and the Canadian Shield. It could well be that I missed some prairie sonneteers I wasn't aware of, whose work deserved inclusion; if so, I'd be curious to hear who those poets might be.

Audio: Winnipeg Jailbreaks Launch

Got back this morning from Winnipeg. Steady trip, quite fun; a lively bunch of very friendly Brits were hanging out in my car. I take back all the bad stuff I said about Brits before.

The audio for the Winnipeg Jailbreaks event is now up. I really enjoyed George Amabile's reading; hope you do too.

Winnipeg Jailbreaks Launch

Launched Jailbreaks tonight in front of a small but appreciative audience. It was wonderful to meet contributor George Amabile, who gave a charming reading from the anthology. I did manage to record the whole thing this time, and will post it once I get home (where I left the USB cable for my recorder).

The trip up was pretty uneventful, after a flurry--nay, a blizzard--of drink orders leaving Vancouver. That group left the train in Jasper, after which it was pretty dead. No complaints; I'm sure I'll have plenty of busy trips in the months to come.

Moonlighting

I'm off to Winnipeg on the rails today, more anxiously than usual, as Rachel is now in her last month of pregnancy and the baby has already "dropped," which is one of the precursors to labour. We've got our fingers crossed that the little bugger waits until I'm home. This is one of the definite downsides to the railroading lifestyle.

The not-quite-compensatory upside on this particular trip is that I'll be taking advantage of my layover on Thursday to launch Jailbreaks in Winnipeg, 7:30 pm at the new Aqua Books location, 274 Garry St. Reading from the anthology will be contributor George Amabile and myself. If you're in the vicinity of Winnipeg, I hope to see you there.

Audio: Toronto Launch of Jailbreaks, Part 2

And here is part 2, featuring David W. McFadden (reading Malcolm Lowry--again, I started the tape late, so only caught the last half--and Peter Dale Scott), Shane Neilson, Stuart Ross, Goran Simic (as read by Jim Bartley), Joshua Trotter and Margaret Avison (as read by yours truly).

Audio: Toronto Launch of Jailbreaks, Part 1

Jailbreaks launch and press

26 hours after leaving, I touched down again in Vancouver. The consensus at the launch was that this was a crazy thing for me to do, but as I'd anticipated, it was totally worth it. The launch was well-attended, I saw several old friends and met a number of people with whom I'd only corresponded previously, and the readings themselves were terrific. I've made a recording of the event (with gaps, because a couple of times I stupidly forgot to turn the recorder on in timely fashion; unfortunately, this meant that I didn't tape my reading of Don Coles' sonnet nor Meaghan Strimas' excellent reading of Gwendolyn MacEwen's "The Discovery"; I also missed the first part of David W. McFadden's reading. I seem to be better at taping things I'm not involved in myself.); I'll upload and post the recording once I've had a good long nap. I didn't sleep last night. After most of the crowd left the I.V. Lounge, I stayed behind, talking the night away with Walid Bitar, Stuart Ross and Meaghan Strimas. I got to Pearson Airport at sunup, boarded my flight and slept all the way home. More anon.

Meanwhile, you can check out this very nice review of Jailbreaks by Alex Good, and this little interview about the book with Nathan Whitlock (who was taking photos of the launch, which I reckon'll be showing up online sometime soon).

New CNQ, print and online

Just got word that the new CNQ is out and about, and that after a bit of a hiatus, there has been new content added to the website. I haven't had a chance to check it all out yet and haven't got my copy in the mail, but can't wait. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but can't hurt to do it again: please subscribe to CNQ, it's a wonderful magazine (and not just 'cause I work there).

phew

Just got home from five uninterrupted days of railroading. The train into Winnipeg was 3.5 hours late, which would normally mean that I would be exempted from having to work back (because the train arrived after my scheduled reporting time); all the other Vancouver employees, besides my counterpart in the other dome car, were allowed to exercise this right, but because I'm just so gosh-darn irreplaceable, I was "forced" (this is actually the term used by management; one of the few things they don't bother euphemising) to work home. I got paid time and a half for it, but would much rather have kicked back with a book and rested up. I'm totally bagged now, but trying not to succumb to a nap, as I have to catch a 7 am flight to Toronto tomorrow and a nap now means I'll have trouble sleeping tonight. My life often seems to consist of strategic acts of sleep deprivation.

So yes, tomorrow, I fly to Toronto for the launch of Jailbreaks at the IV Lounge. This is a silly thing I'm doing, travelling all that distance for one night, but it's a night I just don't want to miss, so off I go. If you're in the Toronto area, I hope to see you there and will certainly report back on the event.

Time: 8 pm

Address: 326 Dundas St. W., across from the AGO

Stephen Henighan reading

There was a good turnout for Stephen Henighan's reading tonight. It was a good reading, with a lively Q&A afterwards. I made a recording of it, which you can listen to here.

Also met up with fellow PEI expat David Hickey, who's in town from London, ON for a conference at UBC. We went out for a bite to eat after the reading and had a fine conversation on a range of subjects, literary and otherwise.

I'm off on the rails tomorrow. I've got no layover in Winnipeg this trip, which is good insofar as I'm home a day sooner, but it promises to be tiring. Can't be as tiring as the twelve-day railroading odyssey I pulled on my last stint, however, and I'm just now getting over the cold I got on said expedition, so I'll be fresh and perky for the tourists.

Stephen Henighan reads in Vancouver

Noted--and notorious--critic, translator and fiction writer Stephen Henighan is reading here tomorrow night. I'm going. Are you?

Date:	Thursday, June 5, 2008
Time:	6:30pm - 9:30pm
Location:	Pulp fiction
Street:	2422 Main Street
City/Town:	Vancouver, BC

All you care about is fruit and touching yourself. Well fuck you!

Saw Walk Hard last night. Pretty damn funny parody.

Further to My Last Post