A few days after the fact, I can say I’m home again now. I went from Sage Hill Experience directly to Purdyfest without wanting to touch the ground and all the nattering errands and practicalities that involved.
I wanted a lot from each…to change myself, as I usually do, except this time thru a route of new routines, new input, new questions, new people. Time will tell how much the global goals were achieved but what is clear is that I enjoyed myself.
Amazing sets of people. Purdyfest was 3 days of mostly camping but also reading in the round and a roundtable talking about the influence of Ted Plantos who I knew nothing about. He seems to have given a timely shoulder tap to encourage a lot of people to continue. Hanging out was sweet, except for that blasted mourning dove who tested my love of nature at all hours. The hardness of ground made bed that much softer we we got back.
The people at Sage Hill were phenomenal and the environment nourishing for mind, spirit and body. I talked at more length over at Humanyms on that.
It was something like Katamavik meeting writers coast to coast, but of all ages and equals in this experience of being able to relate to the experience of doing this odd obsession without needing to justify or get blank looks and need to define terms. People were curious and convivial. I was struck by how, East to West, Fred Wah kept coming up as an influence from various people. I had associated him with West coast sub-set but regardless of style, people referenced him.
Being in that time machine going nowhere but being present in that sealed context allowed new access in various ways. I haven’t arranged my life to get much exposure to short stories, novels and non-fiction — for those streams to be mixed with poetry readings showed me the unity in writing skill. The genres are not so worlds apart. I heard people and stories I wouldn’t have otherwise.
There were dozens of new and long-standing voices who weren’t on my radar at all, whether in person (John Lent and Ted Barris, and too many to list), or in book form (Gary Geddes, John B. Lee and Tim Lilburn). More Daphne Marlatt, Pat Lowther, Erin Moure and nathalie stephens to spend time with in person or page with the time to focus.
In the case of Susan Stenson I had heard her before on the page, but to hear in person puts a new depth and I now have a new book to watch out for: Her next book, Nobody Move, is coming from Sono Nis Press this fall.
For Sage Hill, part of my practical goal was: I wanted to pare down the unwieldy manuscript that ballooned from a few poems, shooting past chapbook length to somewhere near 190 pages. By the time I left home to go west, it got cut back to 130 pages but still too much and I was unclear on how it held together or didn’t. I have more of a sense of a couple routes to cluster poems, see where gaps are, blind spots in what I say or omit or oversay. Having people who don’t know me come and up and say, this part was good kiddo gives a sort of double-blind test of assurance.
Then there was the value of seeing other people in the midst of their projects and seeing how they think about its development was interesting. I liked getting into the meat of one idea, like space in a poem and just brainstorm around that as a group for 3 hours. That feeds the brain.
It was interesting to meet people I’ve only known on the paper or digital page, or known the literary effects, but not the name. And I was glad that meeting a literary hero worked as I was more impressed upon leaving. (You never know how such things might go in-person. Sometimes you love the work but then the person is a misclick. Or changes how the work reads for the worse. Not in this case.)
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I was largely away from the internet for 2 weeks and any composition was in my head then to longhand, with re-writes literally being writing it over again. (My usual often starting with jots digitally or in hand enough to jog my memory to do rounds of editing in typing.)
I inhaled as much books of poetry as I could absorb. I aimed to keep myself open by Susan Jeffers motto: don’t say no, can’t, will try, would like to, and shouldn’t. say yes to life.
Part of the Sage Hill included tips on giving a good reading, exposure to great readings and things to read. It was structured with focused time and downtime that allowed the brain to percolate.
I have more of a sense of project, top-down point of view of what does what. A poem can work by itself. I wish I could remember who rob mclennan interviewed who won a CBC Literary Award with some poems but cut them from the manuscript because, although, strong, they did not gel there.
One-off poems or short series I can do but project level is a different management skill. I’ve been watching the model of how to hang a manuscript together, for poems to be a book rather than a heap bound together ever since Stephen Brockwell was talking about the distinction 4 years ago.
My eye has been on the lookout for how people understand this notion of collection versus, best-of gathered together. When is it a gallery show of art, versus a gallery with incidentally in the same place art. At 40-words I’ve played with the same notions of gallery hanging of poems, how one affect the one beside it, changes flavours by juxtaposition and keeps the palate fresh, or with too much change back to back, bounces energy frenetic.
What is the ratio for mixing it up? In readings I’ve been watching how people make a mood-arc or narrative arc with poems. Start strong but neutral, end on a light night like a dessert seems to work well. In linked poems in haiku-world, the same principle applies. At Purdyfest last year, we did renga and it was explained the opening is a handshake with nothing too risky, eventually you can get serious, then risque then you bring it back down to a calm handshake again.
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So lot’s still to process. I have notes to go thru and questions to ask myself.
I actually applied for a federal grant for travel. This is the first time I’ve entered the grant system for anything. Even when eligible for EI, each time, I never applied. We’ll see eventually if there’s a pay-back in a financial sense. It’d be nice, but when I was teaching I just took unpaid leave, paid for national conferences out of pocket and absorbed the financial loss rather than enter the lottery of being knighted with approval. One does what one must. Working p/t or f/t for the cash economy, I was doing poetry the same. I’m not going anywhere. Been doing this poetry thing for what, 25 years (with my internal requisite earnestness). Provided I’m still alive, I expect to be still at in 50 more years, regardless of the money factor.
Gains are knowledge but more than understanding, gains are walking alongside people you appreciate, who wow you with their lives and words. And I met a lot of those people.