In case I haven’t mentioned lately, I compile all the reviews of books and chapbooks people have expressed on what I’ve been lucky enough to have published and read.
I know finding poetry can be hard. I’ve stockpiled a couple thousand titles of it yet in the season of spring titles releasing I feel woe-be-gotten that I can’t buy loads. Nor will my library. They keep ejecting titles of the already scant shelves of a few dozen. Even T.S. Eliot, boom, outta here. Even history of Black writers. Gone. So frustrating.
But at least I thrifted and got back Jeeves and Wooster from the BBC series. I once donated it to the library so more could see it, but it was immediately turfed to the free pile and gone, instead of added to the collection, while I was being reminded by librarian over my protests that a library is not an archive. It is an active collection based on what appeals to people. And right now that means French novels and teen graphic novels it seems. Even cookbooks go. Man, what a hard hard room.
And in the land of composition today, a fortuitous set of words that suggest a relationship. Lucky Fancy Thigh Zones. Take that as a prompt. I did.
Dear god, I renamed one of my current 9 books at editing phase. Continued editing it, then started editing the old version so they diverge. An overlap of poems but changed edits, deletions and additions. I can convert to text files (more versions, goodie) then run through File Merge app to see where changes are.
The night before I set myself the prompt of dactylic meter (after reading wiki random post of epic poetry). I combined it with the prompt from Pádraig Ó Tuama at The Poetry Unbound Substack of night, animal, and rain. [In case you read that and thought, that seems not right, it is because it isn’t. It was the prompt of Roger Robinson.]
Rain on a Wintery Night
Heart is awake. In the ears, an adrenaline thunder of blood. Are there sounds? Through the darkness, an animal movement. What’s larger than mice? In my trumpeting trembling ears — There’a a shifting on springs—across my legs. And the back of him bunts at my shoulder to move me aside, to make room. It’s too cold on the floor. Can you manifest love as a shared heat? An inflatable threat just as quickly deflates. From Darth Vader with candy cane to a shadow. Out on the lawn… there is nothing the matter. Secure as blankets, as sheets. Aren’t curtains just sheets that can stand? Just as joists are just beams that can nap? Back to dog… He is a peace and a whole. As he presses, as he grumbles, his sleep becomes snor-ious. Happier than clams, he is wagging and yips in falsetto of play. I should settle too. Wisdom is clear at this hour, But the path to return to that slumber? I listen to the breath of the pup. And his twitching of chases. Some drowsiness can’t escape me this time. All his visions of meadows, the deer under sumac, a heat that can be dappled away. Can you hear it too? Gurgle of eavestrough or river. The sun has a tinkle like wind chimes, that call like the Fae.
It’s hardly the stuff of heroic epics but…Phew, that meter is hard. It forces to towards the words and structures I generally back away from in the name of efficiency and intensity: towards prepositional phrases, no contractions for helper verbs, gerunds, “and”, “just”.
I really have pushed lately towards iambic or so much spondees. Still, I prefer the pulse of iambic. It’s unstable, like a triplet somehow. Charming somehow though and not what I would normally write.
I chose some words that I took aside as words I liked and made sets of slant rhymes for ABBA ABBA CDCDCD. That done, I had them ready, with no idea of subject set. On waking I had some thumb twiddler to wake up with.
somewhere before dawn
ambitious day’s train decoupled derailed. some sinus pickaxe, some bodily aches who is the master, who is the dog, made to stay? a bark at small balled body, tail between legs. jaw in cahoots with the head. dreams of party-crashing t&t’s retail mochi, frozen dim sum, moon cakes curtailed. 1000 years away, those quail eggs.
I saw the parking lot full, what a schmuck to attend unmasked. thought I could carouse like some Viking king born of gods, what pluck to feel invulnerable. naif to choose that as if elastic youth. what the cat drug in. mousy, mouthed nape fever-damp, I drowse.
As I mentioned, the anthology launch of a Gatineau Valley spec fiction anthology is coming. Hill’s Al-manach des Collines has arrived. For locals, you can check out the library copy, when it gets processed into the catalogue and shelves.
It is a fun and beautiful thing, split run, some with sewn binding, some with stapled to a warm reception regardless. About 40 attended which is pretty decent for any literary readings these days.
If you missed it you can still get copies. I’m not sure how many sold last night, but there were somewhere around 50 in the print run, after contributor copies. They are $20 each with proceeds going to a mutual aid society. The image on the covers is a risograph print by Marc-Alexandre Reinhardt of a brass sculpture of a moose vertebrae by Craig Commanda. From the tradition of zines, it is without isbn and its own creature.
I tried to get a photo of each contributor but I lost count and at least one person called in sick. The contributors were both French and English. I won’t do the post bilingually but the event was.
There was some social time, and some pizza and some flipping through copies while people gathered.
The organizers, névé dumas and Marc-Alexandre Reinhardt welcomed and introduced the concept and process.
Because the process was collaborative, starting with a grounding workshop of envisioning land and community, literally walking the hills, and some was done as collaboration between writers and artists, it was fitting to do a launch in a circle with a lamp at the centre.
Each present could add, ask or discuss whatever, share process or what was included in the anthology or what they didn’t submit to include.
Here is an image for Ilse Turnsen’s poem, art done by Marianne Debonté.
Anya (right) shows the art cart that became a whole large page image.
Ariane went ahead to 2286. Some responded in poetry, some in short story. Art was made digitally, in painting, in watercolour, in pencil and all converted to green, blue, black and pink..
Madeleine composed songs which she performed to a tidal wave of applause.
Contributors:
Craig Commanda: moose spine / glass beads (scuptures reproduced) névé dumas: échos d’une colline Ariane Roberge: 2082 / 2109/2286 (poetry) Finn Douglas Drake: bridges (art) Pearl Pirie: history flashes / recipes / ads / did you know? Hannah Kaya Sideris Hersh: field manual / recipes Dalie Giroux & Amélie-Anne Maillot: bestiaire Ilse Turnsen & Marianne Labonté: fieldguide (poetry and art) Genevieve Cloutier: chairs (art) Madeleine Cloutier-Lynch: one after the other (song) Hannen Sabean: the heavy coffin (short story based on local history) anya: in the summer we can only go out at night Marc A. Reinhardt & névé dumas: édition / impression Jamie Ross: faerie magick
All in all a warm festive night thinking about how to make a future that’s healthy, connected, an act of listening to one another’s visions. There was talk of sequels. Time will tell.
