AAOF launched its first reading series, and we would like to invite you all to our first Poetry Night of 2016, next Monday, January 18, 7 pm at L’Avant-Garde Bar (135, Besserer St.).
Poetry Links
“It is not my job as an instructor to reify the knowledge that students already have and the spaces that they understand – it is my job to present them with information that they don’t know how to parse” ~ derek beaulieu in interview.
Blab chat on experiences with making anthologies with Ally Bishop and others. Interesting tidbit, if it’s a Kindle anthology users may not know how to get to the table of contents so if one piece isn’t as interesting they are more apt to skip to another book rather than poke ahead many times to get to the next story. Also, suggestion that a 4-month lead time is best if you have over 5 contributors to the anthology.
(Blab is a few-month old platform where you can video interviews, panels, informal live chats, etc.)
The semicolon project to get tattoos as gesture of solidarity and de-stigmatizing mental illness had an event where 27 got tattooed and the parlour gave the money towards the cause. ““The semi colon represents your story is not over” says Wile who is doing other events to publicize the idea.
The Ottawa Public Library now has a copy of The Other 23 & A Half Hours Or Everything You Wanted to Know That Your MFA Didn’t Teach You By Owen, Catherine and 4 are in line.
Amy McLay Paterson tracked her book reading, comments on learnings and made a public spreadsheet which tracks page number, nationality of publication, why it was chosen to read, and like GoodReads Reading Challenge, which I may eventually figure out (but the interface sure is bearish).
““We get drawn into arguments we did not choose for ourselves.” Sometimes I feel like I would rather talk about Kathy Acker. But what does the word “disability” mean? Is it useful to me? Can I get some heat from it? I am reminded of what Borges said to his nephew, “If you behave, I’ll give you permission to think of a bear.” Most often, I think about disability when I am asked to think about it. Then I feel an obligation to behave.[…] You are expected to be moral and teach. I think this is why Amiri Baraka wrote “Fuck poems / and they are useful.” Or what Laura Hershey meant by “Everything you say will prove something about / their god, or their economic system.”” Jillian Weisse
Sometimes an interview is enough to put a book on the to-read list, like this, with Laura Clarke‘s Decline of the Animal Kingdom.
Peterborough news had a prevailing “bleak fascination with crime and deviance, and a blandly smug insistence on the universality of majority values, of family and home and country.” but Electric City to the rescue as an alternative.
“Attention is a muscle, one that requires development.[…] While it might not work for everyone, the daily practice, and the momentum it can create, is the only way in which I get anything done.” from The Malahat Review tips column with rob mclennan. In the fall Shane Neilson did a column and said, “(currently I spend at least half of my professional life attending to the writing of others in essay form) I am immersed in the writing of others and I contribute to a conversation about that writing as a matter of course.[…] donate—invest!—ten percent of your professional time towards the writing of others in the form of reviews.”Jessica Michalofsky in her column agrees with the value of reviewing, how to get started and how to proceed.
Reviewing, workshopping and judging the work of others can hone the editing knife you can turn on your own work….
3 more days to vote for the people’s choice award of haiku at Heron’s Nest. Back issues are online.
Stats for Writing 2015
I meant to stay on top of the writing rates for 2015 and made it, well, halfway thru the year in real time.
What I find at the year’s end is I got published about 10% of what I start. Which is a good thing. I am to pursue fewer things more without giving up the attempting much. Drafts freshen the air.
drafted: 462
completed: 115
submitted*: 56
published: 42 poems (including 21 in 2 chapbooks, not including the ones in the radish book)
*(a wrinkle because I counted as a submission if 1 poem sent or 5 pages, but counted published per poem so they’re not entirely comparable. I’ll fix that for 2016.)
This year has about the same amount completed but had a bump up in drafts over last year’s 269 drafts because of a push to do senryu, haiku and one-word poems. I submitted twice as much as last year but published 10 fewer, although also published more that wasn’t poetry, a short story, a couple essays and a chapbook of trope humour.
Visually speaking to put in context of 3 years,
I went thru a longer retrospective last year going back over the 24 years of spreadsheet.
PSA: Reading Series Communication: What and When
I do post of tips occasionally, for example, a poetry rubric (2008), prompts (2009) Getting around Writer’s Block (2009), Tips on Giving Readings (2013), Author Photo Do and Don’ts (2013), and Taming the Uncontrollable Open Mic (2014). I’ve offered Templates for use in making chapbooks and broadsheets. Last year I did an Overview of Ottawa’s Literary and Book Scene (2015).
For those starting a series or trying to hone one, some observations as an organizer and as a reader about communications with the reader.
Here are some things I think reading series would do well to communicate with their readers.
4 months-1 year ahead:
- We’d like you to read here with series named ___ which has been going since (year).
- Can you come to City X at this time and place if we get funding? If we get funding the payment is $V. Can you come if we can’t? We do a hat pass and it may be around $W.
- Please send a twitter-length bio (140 characters), a long bio (a paragraph), and a full resolution original photo (at least 1000 x 1400)
- (We expect to know about funding by __ date).
- Other readings in our area are: ___ and their organizer’s contact if you want to do a reading there while you are in the area: ____
1-2 months ahead:
- We have funding. Can you still come to venue Y at City X, at this time and place?
- Do you need help with billeting?
- What is your twitter, website, book info for us to promote?
- Do you have any youtube video we can use to promote you?
- The url of our series’ website, blog, twitter feed, tumblr, and Facebook page are: ___
2-3 weeks ahead:
- Have their been any changes in your bio?
- You co-readers are Z, A and B.
- The reading length is ___ minutes.
- The evening usually wraps by (time).
- The poster for the reading is attached.
- The schedule of the evening is the following: ____.
- We can(‘t) have someone on hand to sell your merch.
- The turnout to readings vary between this number and this number.
- There is(n’t) a microphone and will/won’t be a recording.
- The url of our series’ website, blog, twitter feed, tumblr, and Facebook page are: ______
- The event on FB and listing in the local arts calendar is at: ____
1-2 weeks ahead:
- Would you like to do an interview with ___ to promote your reading?
- The MC will be C and contact on site will be D.
- The venue at Y address opens at (time).
- If you plan to film, inquire permission from the reader
- Recommended restaurants are: ___ and we would like to host you if you can make it.
- Remember to bring your books to sell.
- Look forward to seeing you.
Within 3 days afterwards:
- Thank the reader
- Ask if there were any concerns
- Point to any photos, tweets or video
The more you are comfortably on the same page, the better. If you need a certain amount of lighting or microphone or use of sound or video equipment, better to arrange ahead.
Readings like publishing is a scratch each-other’s back sort of cooperation. The more you combine your resources and audiences, the better for all.
The Stats: 2015
Almost a third of what I read was written this year or last with a push over the last couple months to finish up new things. Last year that rate was 57% was the current year.
I was aiming to read more classics but 66% of what I read was published in the 15 most recent years, which is an improvement in spectrum over last year with more deeper history.
I aimed to read wider. By path of least resistance I’m apt to read straight white males disproportionally to population. I looked for lists of recommendations for everyone else. In the end, in 2015 it broke down to 13% is by queer writers, 18% by People of Colour, compared against 7% PoC and 8% queer in 2014.
What about CWILA-style self-audit of gender? 47% by male, 39% female, 14% combined authorship or gender queer. Compare that to 2014’s 53% male, 38% female, and 9% combined or gender queer.
Domestic or international? 58% of titles are by Canadians, compared to 65% last year. I had aimed to read more international.
I was aiming to spread out to more science and more novels. It’s about extending gaze to more of the world and not burning out in a poetry rut. The world’s bigger. Still, my appetite is for poetry and two thirds of what I read is poetry, compared to 74% last year.
A quarter of what isn’t poetry is memoir, a fifth are essays and a fifth are novels, 15% history and 11% science. (I didn’t track genres last year.)
I added source this year. The library beats rest of top 5, twice the rate of online, direct from author, used book store or thrift store which were all about even. I feel I get a lot at festivals and book fairs but I guess it makes more of an impact because it costs me more. Thrift and used stores are $1-$10 each instead of $20 or $30 with tax and shipping.
This year I added a 5 star rating system, for my own uses. It’s skewed because why would I stick with books that are 1 or 2 star? Still I did that 53 times. Occasionally a book would pay off by the end but usually it was an opportunity cost of not reading something I liked better. Still a stretch is healthy. If I’m only reading what is easy and agrees with me I’m in a far more vulnerable position. The top 10% I’ve put in the previous post.
Let’s see that again, graphically:
Of those, 176 were “book-books”, that is over 48 pages. Almost a fifth of titles are chapbooks, about the same as last year.
Last year I split out the numbers twice, once for all, once excluding chapbooks. This year I let it ride. I started to count pages partway thru the year by which time I returned, gave away or couldn’t find some of the books. Some books had no page numbers. But the ballpark estimate is 27,000 pages, averaging 135 pages.
How does one compare anything to anything really. A small format book, and a large format, or one with a lot of white space or images or large print, or with little white space, tiny writing and little concern for editing.
Still, if you’re a mac-user and want to track such things, at resources I have a downloaded Numbers file, pre-loaded with graphs and some replaceable filler titles to get you started.