I am hoping to get an editing course running in mid-April. Details to come.
March has been filled with doing editing. I am super-close on getting 2 poetry manuscripts out the door, one started 5 years ago, one started 14 years ago. I’m going through notes of a test reader this morning, re-spell-checking because I swear those typos slip in every time I blink.
That cleared out, I’ll be able to get back to the manuscript re-boot of the 2010 book.
And I’l be able to rotate back more intensively to the book started in 2017. I have scads of notes of what to edit and add and change but haven’t sat with it to incorporate it all.
This morning I received a list of questions from a Girl Guide troupe who I’ll talk poetry with next week.
52. Landmarks: A Haibun Collection by Ray Rasmussen (Haibun Bookshelf Publications, 2015) is a tight collection, not surprising I suppose given he has been writing haibun for decades and editing magazines of them. The stories are grounded, alert, amiable and articulate, the haiku striking. Definitely recommend.
53. Stumbling toward happiness: haibun and hybrid poems by Kat Lehmann (29 Trees Press, 2019) is a delight and I’ve made a mess of it with about a third of it highlighted as if I were an undergrad studying for an exam. Her haibun are cosmic meditations on healing, love and gratitude, chronic pain, beauty and self-creation. After so many killer lines, it explains why I iz dead.
If you can’t move, from concussion, stress overload, or body cast, these will take take you away, like Calgon.
46. Smoke Bitten: A Mercy Thompson Novel book 12 by Patricia Briggs (Penguin, 2020). I’ve hopped around in the series. They are compelling, but mental potato chips. Feisty female coyote will go toe-to-toe with anyone.
48. Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega Book 1) by Patricia Briggs (Ace, 2008). This takes a Vietnam vet and his trauma and history into the story. This adds a new twist with an Omega, a wolf who is a healer. Trigger warning for abduction, harassment and rape.
49. Fair Game (Alpha & Omega, Book 3) by Patricia Briggs (Ace, 2012). It seemed hopeful that a Black character’s interaction with the Fae would lead to a Black regular, other than the continually cussing dangerous wolf character but the character of Leslie kind of fizzled as a hook. A near verbatim recycled conversation but with a different pair of characters about grandmother’s rolling pin. But then poets reshape better the next time an idea.
50. Blood & Ash: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 1) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2019). This was the snappiest of the Jezebel books, with repartee like a 1930s movie, but contemporary in content. I love that its basis of magic is 10 Jewish men trying to attain immortality and releasing angel magic on the world, instead of the usual trope of descending from Goddess Primeval who everyone but Mundanes worships monolithically. This is a different beast of fantasy where there’s nuance and community with complexity and natural fondness for each other.
51. Death & Desire: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 2) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2020). This continues from book 1 as if the next chapter although there is closure with each book. It’s less funny but stuff gets real and characters get deeper and broader. It’s a complicated chess board but moving step-by-step, and doesn’t bog.
52. Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 3) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2020). The characters develop and not only the main character.
Revenge & Rapture: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files book 4) by Deborah Wilde (Ta Da Media, 2020) somehow expands on aspects yet adds closure and opening at the end. I can’t imagine how a mind conceived and interweaves all this. Despite the name, it’s not the protagonist’s revenge, unless, as they say, the best revenge is living well despite.
For the day, the Montreal Review of Books features poetry reviews by Robyn Fadden of The First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate / Le premier coup de clairon pour réveiller les femmes immorales, by Rachel McCrum, Translated by Jonathan Lamy, I Am the Big Heart by Sarah Venart, Check by Sarah Tolmie, footlights by Pearl Pirie, and The Eleventh Hour by Carolyn Marie Souaid
footlights has now breached the 100-copies sold mark. Print is best. If you absolutely need it now, it’s on kindle for $10. You can hear me narrate it on Audible for $8.71. If you got your copy, but not the footlights colouring book, contact me and I can wing it your way.
Did you know the League of Canadian Poets has chapbooks? The next call for resiliency poems just closed (sound of deadlines whooshing overhead) but there are more chapbooks: Indigenous, Haiku, Black, Quebec, Atlantic, Youth.
Frontenac House’s call for submissions for Quartet 2022 is now open through April 30, 2021.
Wondering about poet and publisher David Zieroth? Here’s a good intro article.
Like vispo and noticed most of it is by men? Sampling error? Or something this handy anthology will counteract: Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry: A 21st century anthology. Full colour. 250 pages. 36 women, 21 countries. Past 60% funded.
From Contemporary Haibun Online: ” the best haibun don’t just have a bunch of haiku strewn about like so many decorative buttons on a coat. Yes, some of those buttons might be quite beautiful in their own right, but ultimately only a few really serve to keep the coat closed and the body warm.”
Despite the Tree Reading Series website being dead, the series continues on the 3rd Tuesday of every month on Zoom. Check Tree on Facebook. Next up are: Terese Mason Pierre and Tatiana Johnson-Boria.
The Saskatchewan Poetry Awards winner this year is This Hole Called Januaryby Paula Jane Remlinger. Nominees included The Dry Valley by (honourary Ottawaer) Bernadette Wagner, and Phases by Belinda Betker.
How to haiku with Tom Painting:
Interview with Susan Antolin, haiku poet, and Editor of Acorn a journal of contemporary haiku. She has held positions in the Haiku Society of America, judged contests, and been active in The Haiku Poets of Northern California.
Thurs 25 March you hear the new winners of The Poetry Society (UK), celebrate the long list; hear from recent prize winners Wayne Holloway-Smith, Mary Jean Chan and Momtaza Mehri.
Call for Queer Monsters, prose or poetry for an anthology at Arsenal.
36. There are no coincidences by Ruth Salmon (self-published, 2016) is a travelogue of best-of stories. Oddly it and Cardinal Divide both had a scene of feeling safe in a log cabin, of seeking a sense of home and the phrase, “there are no coincidences”. It’s a fun ride and we read it all aloud. ****
37. Cardinal Divide by Nina Newington (Guernica, 2020) is a book I came across via recommended by Amazon. It is a stunning book and I hope it sweeps awards. There is complexity, nuance and a good story. It is about a person working in a dry-out shelter as she navigates who she might be. The blurbs I saw presented it as a woman finds out her dad is a woman which is misleading in a way. It is not a story of being trans so much as the grey areas of expectation and gender. Recommended! *****
38. Leave it to Psmith by PG Wodehouse (audio: https://classictales.libsyn.com) 1923. Hearing a book read is a great perk of our time in history. Stop and go when sleepy or needing a break. It’s fluffy but amusing. The narrator of Classic Tales, B.J. Harrison, can do an amazing number of voices. He has new material up each week from out of copyright stories. The Great Gatsby is now up. ***
39. Less Dream by N.W. Lea (above/ground, 2021) has dense complex poems. Time does go on. I workshopped with him probably 15 years ago. It’s good to see what he’s doing now. I liked it better than his last full collection so we’ll see what comes next. ***
40. The Tradition by Jericho Brown (2019) is probably the best book of poetry I read this year. Some of his poems use repetition in a way similar to a renga with an overlap and pivot. The poems are rich and rewarding. I’ll re-read it a couple more times. *****
41. Crow Gulch by Douglas Walbourne-Gough (Icehouse, 2019) stood out to me in the poems that were tributes to family. The shining love in those were worth the book. ***
42. Fléche by Mary Jean Chan (faber & faber, 2019) is a gorgeous find, on the shelves at Perfect Books ottawa where we don’t often get graced by faber & faber. I often tend to like the publisher. Honed controlled poems with a punch. I love her safety poems and her poems that wrestle autonomy against mother’s expectations. ****
43. Subversive Sonnets by Pamela Mordecai was a mix of many voices of poems, but I’m not sure what makes them subversive. It wouldn’t cause me to hiccup under a different title. The poems were enjoyable. ***
44. The Inimitable Jeeves by PG Wodehouse (audio: https://classictales.libsyn.com) is vintage nonsense. I thought it was about the upper class but snuck in there is that the sympathy always is with the working class. The barbs at buffoons are the hapless foolish rich.***
45. Beloved by Toni Morrison (Vintage Books, 1987) is not a book that needs my fresh take but this is historical fantasy with ghosts and poltergeists. Why was that hook never shown me? It is unlike any other book I’ve read. I will never get out of my head the image she painted of Black men hooked up to reins and bits and getting a wild look in their eyes afterwards that never went away. It is a hard painful read but at the same time, a masterwork. *****
Many people have said some really nice things about my poems, books and chapbooks. Rather than the old haphazard, mostly chronological page, I’ve sorted quotes by title under Reviews.
26. Moving Meditation, edited by Lynne Jambor (2021) is an elegant little book graphically, with a layout that suits the content of haiku and senryu about tai chi and chi gong. (Contributor copy.)
27. Liberated Minds: A Close looks at Rastafari beliefs and customs (A Kirk Cornelius Book, 2017) was something I picked up at an Ottawa Small press fair years ago and its 81/2 x 11 size meant it didn’t fit shelves. It is disappointing that is an offshoot of Christianity. I had hoped it was something new. How women are to behave being a few pages look straight out of Mormonism.
28. The Orville #3: Heroes (Part 1 of 2) by David A. Goodman, David Cabeza, Michael Atiyeh (Dark Horse, Dec 2020). I was going to hold out longer but I couldn’t. Nice to see a female protagonist take the lead. Classic hero story of i nvaders enslaving locals.
29. The Orville #3: Heroes (Part 2 of 2) by David A. Goodman, David Cabeza, Michael Atiyeh(Dark Horse, Feb 2021). Spoiler: Xelayan for the win.
30. Line by Line: An anthology of Canadian Poetry, edited and with drawings by Heather Spears (Ekstasis, 2002). I’ve had this book for years. It’s a sweet cross-section of CanLit poets twenty years ago. Partly a game of ooh, look how young Y looks. Nice to see the poems back when too.
31. Life Sentence, by rob mclennan (spuytenduyvil, 2019) is organized by time and each chapter is a departure from the last. As ever, there are hair-raising phrases, “All words lack permanence. So does the stone.” (p. 37) There’s less stammering longer fragments than some of his collections. Still phrases are set near each other to illuminate each other from other angles in a way that prose can’t. The title section has that impressionistic collection of nouns. “First moment, tarmac. Hudson’s Bay, such stripes./Would plant a seed. Sets temperature, a daily. Who are you./Watched pot, boils” but the most interesting part are the last two pages on the provenance of the poems.
32. Marcus Mosiah Garvey: The Black Renaissance 1887-1940 (A Kirk Cornelius Book, 2014). An interesting read. It isn’t as detailed as a wiki entry would be. Big writing. Lots of photos.
33. Quill of the Dove by Ian Thomas Shaw (Miroland, 2019). The genre is political thriller. I don’t know if I’d read that genre before. It wasn’t fast paced. It invokes cultural misogyny but takes a journalists reporting stance. It casts a wide net over politics through decades of Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Spain and the U.S. with two converging timelines. It was a steep learning curve for me but became handy as the news picked up a Maronite presenting himself as other identities to do sexual assault locally.
34. Nurse Sing Home by Kemeny Babineau (above/ground, 2020). I’m a fan of most of what Kemeny does. This one really sang and goes to the keeper shelf.
35. I Hope we Choose Love: A trans girl’s notes from the end of the world by Kai Cheng Thom (Arsenal Pulp, 2019). I’ve flipped through this at the bookstore a few times when it came out, but it was really rewarding to sit with the book at length. Recommended.
Looking at the previous post: “I feel I am finally writing again.” That I sez, before going silent for 5 weeks.
But I have been writing and editing like mad, trying to slap into shape 4 manuscripts. 2 I won’t finish this year. 2 I hope to finish by spring or summer. 3 are poetry, 1 is fiction.
I have also been binge reading. Found 2 new to me authors and attempted to consume their every word. Completist strikes again.
Against the metric of #95books, it seems I read a lot. Even if I don’t count chapbooks or online, I shove a lot of books through my brain. 34 books in 12 weeks this year.
I should set a plan to submit poems. I should dedicate some schedule of time to writing and editing haiku.
I should clean my office so it isn’t a cat-hazard. And cut pieces for a quilt. And do more cardio. And talk more with friends.
Forget the past. Remember the lessons. Attempting to do better.