For the slump of day, I could eat, nap or do a 13 Thursday. For a taste the start of the 5th sentence from each on page 52:

1. Flint & Feather by Charlotte Gray: Less malleable than his elder brother, Allen ran away to his grandparents house on the reserve
2. Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms by Alisa Golden: 7. Fold the paper in half with the flaps inside.
3. Tilt by E. Blagrave. [5th line in this case.]: None of us stays fast.
4. The Fiddlehead, Summer 2012: carried the sound of rain even in sunshine.
5. Zadie Smith’s Rules for Writers: #5: Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6. Proustian Memory and the Palest Ink: Miserably I thought of all the precious memories I’d lost.
7. The Piano Society site: His artistic career blossomed after meeting Felipe Pedrell, the ‘father of Spanish music’, in 1883.
8. Selected Poems: William Carlos Williams, with an Introduction by Randall Farrell: It runs, it is Geo.
9. The Journals of Susanna Moodie: Poems by Margaret Atwood: the ears produce sounds
10. How to End a Poem: At times the shift from reading to not reading is so graceful it’s transparent
11. Signs of an Amateur Artist: While a professional artist will make a point sit down and work on their art every day, an amateur only works on their art when the “mood” is right.
12. A Hive Update: I sort of get the tiny feeling with some people, they want to hear that it’s not going so great, which will serve as some type of affirmation for them in some obscure category.
13. Stanley Kunitz: The Collected Poems: Let sons learn from their lipless fathers how

Poetry is sensation’s verbal residue. If that residue is to be sticky it comes from emotions which travel faster than thought and are gummier.

Sept. 15th: (former Ottawa Poet Laureate) Patrick White & Roy MacSkimming
Sept. 22nd: Alexi Zentner, Alison Pick, & Claudia Coutu Radmore
Oct. 13th: Ken McGoogan & Laurie Lewis.
Oct 27th: Zach Wells + hopefully, three Coach House writers: Cordelia Strube, Heather Birrell, and Matthew Tierney.
Nov. 10th: Ronna Bloom & Maureen Scott Harris (Pedlar authors)
Nov. 17th: Tanis Rideout, Grace O’Connell, & Mike Blouin.
Nov. 24: Sarah Tsiang, Sandra Ridley, & Christine McNair.
**Please NOTE all readings are on Saturdays at 7 p.m. @ Backbeat Books, Music & Gifts in Perth, Ontario.**

It’s been a while since I posted any drafts so here are two of the week:
working my way back to om from doom
what rises in time?
the rage in courage.
it’s enough to lug
the concerns of the living
without adding on
the burdens of the dead
how I halo the jawbones
their parts in the unity
of drinking the water
in synchrony lifting
the turn of wrists around
tumblers, swallows.
birdsong’s gaps claim
silence as proof
no need for guilt
the flush subsides 
in the dignity of 
the unexplained
—
youth never ends except by grief
the moon tries to become the sun
raindrops bounce back, aim for sky
and the father emulates the child
defers to him, as closer to the origin.
layers of lightning nickel-plates
the roofs and if this is the dark
before the light, I’ve got news:
tomorrow the sun explodes

Mia Celeste‘s had a list of 13 questions about writing habit. Taking that here:

1. Where do you write? Anywhere to draft or compose. Back of hand or envelope not recommended. To do later edits, my office, usually digitally. Substantial edits on paper then back to computer and then paper and so on.
2. Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see? Grasses from a field we owned once in front of a print of a forest.
3. Favorite time to write? 11am-2pm.
4. Drink of choice while writing? Water. Benefits include mental clarity, regulating temperature (more mammalian, less reptilian could only be to the good), joint-ease, fewer headaches…
5. What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript? I do various in parallel. None are from one prevailing source anymore. No biographies re-visioned or particular hive of bees under bonnet. It’s daily work as it comes.
6. Do experiences in your daily life influence your stories? Probably. There’s coloring of course. Self can’t be escaped.
7. When writing , do you listen to music? Nope, if there’s music I can’t read, write, edit or think verbally.
8. Do you write with others? Occasionally. A longer to-and-fro would be interesting.
9. Do you use a computer or a pencil/pen? Doesn’t matter. Computer makes re-reading more possible. Handwriting is quieter than keyboard, more expressive than touch pad to scan. I can find things by looking for mental image of handwriting. Unless that’s faded.
10. What’s your favorite writing craft book? I don’t have one I go back to. I read writing to leave stylistic ruts or impasses.
11. Is there a writing resource site you’d recommend? Have you seen Alternative Poetry Online at ditch, or interviews at rob mclennan, dVerse had things going on. I can’t seem to get into Jacket2 but just sound and no visual I find difficult. I like reading because the soundscape is all inside. Podcasts, I want to like but…
12. What’s your most valuable writing tip? Rewrite from the blank page on up.