I’m far behind on my aims to do posts on events let alone poetics. Many things in drafts, half-sketched then other priorities pull me aside again.
This week was Hot Ottawa Voices, a tradition to highlight upcoming talents of committed poets who are making headway in their craft and look like they’ll stay course and keep with poetry long term.

One Hot Ottawa voice for 2011 was Kate Hunt who did some of her steampunk poems and some tribute poems.

Bardia Sinaee, who’ll be hosting Literary Landscapes the last week of the month this fall, shared some old and new poems.

Frances Boyle, the third Hot Ottawa Voice, did an assortment of poems, taking into account the requests of kids for none of them to be about them.
You can see it and all the past videos of those who chose to be filmed on Tuesdays including some at the open mic and the Hot Ottawa Voices features of this week and previous weeks.

I read two poems at the open mic at Tree. On the 23rd I have the pleasure of good company, 3 ladies of the Ampers&s, our writers group: Amanda Earl, Sandra Ridley, Christine McNair and myself.

Justin Million who launches his apt. 9 chapbook August 24 but this night was presenting on WC Williams.
If you missed it, Tree Press has now launched its second chapbook and aims to cultivate writers at Tree, give publication to those who are working their craft in Ottawa at the workshops and open mics. This recently launched one was by Murray Citron:


And Rona Shaffron launched her chapbook officially which was for sale at the last small press fair.

Phil Hall gave a great reading for those who could last that long. His book Killdeer is absorbing. Playful language, keen observation and ploughing deep for thought. A one-stop poetry shot.
Tree can be quite the marathon night with dead poet reading, announcements, open mic, feature or two or sometimes four. If you come for the workshop and stay for the after bits of socializing, you’re looking at a 6-hour evening. At least promises were made to cut back on the intros and this week they were brief.
And the Tree Seed Workshops are set up to almost the end of its 3rd season. The bi-monthly poetry workshops are set out until spring. The last session had over a dozen at it, thinking of expanding frame of references for poetics. Upcoming facilitators are Lise Rochefort, Mike Buckthought, Phil Hall, Monty Reid, and Glenn Kletke.
Within a couple weeks the Tree Masterclass workshop weekend will be here. Registration filled for that in winter. 3 days with Barry Dempster. Next year, spring and fall, 2 more peak-career poets will be leading a retreat weekend for a small group. Watch Tree’s site for news on that.

With 4 books due any day now, wonder what it is? Canada Post folds books, even across the do not fold sticker. (Ah but my low blood pressure needed a boost, right? They do it for my health, really.)

This time no sticker, but 5 elastics to reshape it into the mail slot.
What is it? The mapping issue of Dandelion. Amazingly, the enclosed CD didn’t quite press out thru the back cover and it still works.
Lovely looking book. At 204 pages this will take me a while to read but looks interesting on first peruse.

Cities of Stone – People of Dust, photos of Jerusalem, Masada and Berlin by Leslie Hossack, opens tomorrow at SPAO at 6 p.m. They have a Red Wall Gallery of photographic art in their entry hall, stairwell and up into the School of Photographic Arts of Ottawa at 168 Dalhousie Street.
With it is the first in a series of ekphrastic responses of poets to photos entitled Call and Response.
The first series of responses is by me. An essay response to the work and a couple teaser poems, of verbal art for the visual art is entitled The Walls of Jerusalem. It is here. The rest will be available in the gallery at the vernissage and thru the length of the show. The exhibit runs August 5th – September 2nd, 2011, Monday-Friday 10-6, and Saturdays from 10-3.
The series of poets who reply with art for art is curated by rob mclennan, and will run for about a year.

You know I love prompts. And what better way to be masochistic than to add sleep deprivation to it?
Linda Crosfield points out one at her blog.
Entering it’s 12th year is the 3:15 Experiment. The deal? Pre-register, set your alarm for 3:15 a.m., and write a poem when it rings. No editing — post it. Repeat daily thru August. Or, if you’re a night owl, stop what you’re doing and compose at that hour, I suppose.
I can’t participate in this one. Dynamite literally can’t wake me until my body wakes itself. (Incidentally, I am not misusing literally; there are whistle blast warning and bedrock going boom. I feel like I’m living in the Flintstones.)

Kathleen pointed out this article by David Graham on fame and poetry.
He came to a realization: “a winner of most accolades the poetry establishment could bestow, including The Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award, the Bollingen Prize, and a stint as national Poet Laureate and Consultant to the Librarian of Congress. He was a founding member of the renowned Poets’ Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Scholarly books were written about his career. In his years as a professor he taught at many leading universities[…but…] It seems increasingly obvious that, despite his accomplishments and high reputation, lasting for decades, the poet Richard Eberhart was one whose name really was writ in water.”
He considers what Emily Dickinson wrote in correspondence: “I smile when you suggest that I delay “to publish,” that being foreign to my thought as firmament to fin[…] My barefoot rank is better.”
He said

Some critics and biographers have assumed that Dickinson was being disingenuous, seeking advice from a leading literary light while pretending not to be interested in his help toward publication. I probably thought so, too, if I gave the matter any thought when starting out as a poet.
But what if she meant what she wrote? What if, in fact, she really was inquiring of a well-known expert his opinion of the quality of her poems, without expectation of a “career” in the art or even publication?
What if she just wanted an informed evaluation, or wished to reach out to a possibly kindred soul?

What if she truly wasn’t trying to get somewhere just have a conversation. It’s funny that this is the first time I’ve heard this considered.
Some poems passed around privately are stronger than that I see published for polish in what Graham calls the “the maelstrom of Po-Biz”. Of course, most furtive poetry is probably weaker as communication as well. But the publication aspect isn’t the determinant. Some poetry get published and you wonder why. Some poetry doesn’t seek publication and you wonder why.
I get the impression that the majority of people who write poetry don’t self-define as such. They don’t enter the game of public discourse because it demands different constraints than what they gain from writing to work things out for themselves, the challenges and pleasure of craft and ideas. The hassle of hoops doesn’t have any appeal. When poets on panel get asked who they write for a good percentage (with or without huff or shrug) say one only writes for oneself. So then, why push it onwards towards publishing?
Is it a matter of honing different business skills? Routines of throwing things to the wind without attachment to results?
One doesn’t become a skilled conversationalist while having monologues with stuffed animals and it makes it more difficult to converse in poetry if one does so in monologues as well.
But does one need to be published to dialogue? With the right mind, a person alone can contemplate and further his or her own thinking, build and destroy and rebuild theories and stories and understandings.
Does poetry need an informed reader? Or only a single interested, critical and curious reader? Or only self? That would make for conversation with that one but it could make a private language, an idiolect of in-jokes.
Emily Dickinson was a prodigious correspondant. Dialogue in itself isn’t enough. Astute seeing is needed too.