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Rhona

Spreading the Word

For more than a year now I’ve been dipping into Spreading the Word: Editors on Poetry which was one of last year’s great finds at the AWP conference in Vancouver. It’s a collection of essays by poetry editors of American literary journals published back in 2001. Though not many of the titles will be familiar to Canadian readers, it is enduring and enlightening reading for anyone submitting poems to literary journals anywhere. The big message that comes through here is the amazing volume of submissions the American editors must plough through to find gold. I’d be interested to know how Canadian submission figures compare: anyone out there know?

For example: the then editor of the (somewhat presumptuously named) North American Review, poet Peter Cooley, said he received about twelve thousand poems a year, all of which he read, before choosing the fifty (yes 50) he could publish per year. And that was at least five years ago, so I’d guess the numbers have been elevating since then. Think on them numbers, folks, while you are gazing bleakly upon yet another photocopied rejection slip, and try to feel a little sympathy for the editors and readers at these publications.

On the editor’s side, he comments bleakly

“…writing the cover letter appears the major creative act for a poet. Yes, life is tough, we know that. But to hear of the author’s abusive parent, recovery through therapy, botched career, tedious job, demanding children, broken dishwasher or car or toilet, dying parent, dead kitten, impotent husband, rat-infested bar, or frigid wife is not to claim my attention…”

Geez. Obviously I have been needlessly terse in my cover letters if this is what other poets have been sending in.

The other thing I’ve enjoyed about reading this collection is the sample poems each editor chooses to illustrate points of taste; none of the poets included is familiar to me, but the poems, which the editors in some cases discuss in light of their selection process, are enlightening and often dazzling.

There’s also mention of editorial meetings where each shortlisted poem is presented and discussed and argued over before being selected. Certainly I had never given much thought to the passion that the selection process can inspire in editorial staff: neither do the rather businesslike form letters that announce most acceptances give us much insight into that realm of things. Anyway, it makes me feel almost privileged to be kept waiting by a journal if I can imagine that the delay is due to my poems being read so closely and passionately (and not just lost in a pile of unread stuff somewhere on someone’s desk).

Most of the editors say that they can tell on first reading if there’s anything there for them, so a swift rejection is much worse in some ways than a long-postponed one, though it’s all the more clear from all the editors that their tastes are subjective, so we still have that to cling to.

For the prose writers out there, there’s a fiction version available too: The Whole Story: Editors on Fiction.

On a rather different note, Mary shared this strange Japanese video the other day, which shows you how to peel a potato, and I think it deserves a wider viewing public. I confess to being rather disturbed, however, by the image of mashing what must be a pretty cold spud after its polar dip.

Black Moss in Spice City

It was a Black Moss kind of night last night. Heard Paul Vasey and Marty Gervais at Mocambo, and had a chance to wave my new book around. Paul had just recovered from laryngitis and a wicked cold but he read well from his novel Last Labour of the Heart, published by Marty’s Black Moss Press of Windsor, whence hails our new favourite CBC morning show host. Marty showed off his design and photography skills with his letterpress book Taking My Blood, and read from his new collection Wait for Me, also published by Black Moss.

A couple of nice ‘n spicy lunches with ladies this week. We were going to attempt a novelty lunch at the Provincial legislature restaurant, but we were a little late since they close it to the public at 11:30 when the house is in session, and there were a couple of bus tours downstairs taking up space, so we wandered off in search of something else.

Our sure-footed local expert Aurelie took us by the noses and led us to Santiago’s, a bright happy Thai, Mexican and tapas place; lively in the evenings and fills up for lunch. It’s only a block or so from the legislature, tucked away on Belleville. We got to perch up above the crowd in a booth, while the spring daylight streamed in through the conservatory-like front of the restaurant.The menu includes tapas items which actually seemed large enough for main courses: Thai red curry with shredded squash looked and was confirmed to be amazing; chicken quesadilla is said to be a reliably good standby; and my beef burger with jalapeno relish was very good indeed.

I’ve walked past The Reef a zillion times, as it’s next door to the Yates Street parkade where I often park when visiting Ferris’ Oyster Bar directly opposite. I discovered the room is deceptively deep inside and equipped with several comfy booths, each with their own mechanical fish tanks which grind a little strangely in your ear as you read the menu. I’d never had roti, and wondered what it was like, so had one filled with Jerk Chicken, a dark spicy mixture that soaked nicely into the flatbread wrapper. (So the answer is, it’s like spicy stuff in a flat bread, and it works!) It came with a fairly bland coleslaw – which was ok given the spice in the roti. I allowed myself to be talked into a noontime Mojito which went a little too well with everything else. We had some plantain chips to start with and enjoyed dabbling them lightly in the spicy Caribbean hot sauce.

Back home, in milder mood, I made a rhubarb custard pie the other night… yum… My recipe also called for a tablespoon of orange peel and a quarter tsp of cloves. You can cover it with a lattice if you like, but it is fine as a single crust.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a… book!

Well, I have it in my hands, Cartography, this product of a 13 year gestation. Delighted I am, but U.A. Fanthorpe captures that sense of our poems never quite living up to the perfection we’d aspired to (which is why we keep trying?!): “As usual, when they’re together, and bound, I feel ashamed of them. Individually, they had a right to exist. But when they gape out at me, cheek by jowl, I feel like a mother with a whole clutch of unsatisfactory children.”

Anyway, it is here, and it is particularly lovely thanks to a cover image by the quite extraordinary Calgary artist Colleen Philippi, whose art has blessed the cover of three of my books now. The launch will be lovely too, and I hope anyone in the area will come and celebrate with me on May 3.

Supper tonight will be arroz con pollo which I haven’t had for a very long time, and which I saw described as the Cuban cousin of paella. I can’t help but admire a meat dish that incorporates both starch and vegetable, yet doesn’t come across as a casserole. Or maybe I’m just falling for an exotic sounding name for good ol’ chicken and rice.

88 years later

Today would have been my mother’s 88th birthday.

In her honour, I made a batch of her oatmeal squares, which I rediscovered in England under the name of flapjacks. These ones are not as sticky as flapjacks, which use golden (or corn) syrup as a bonding agent instead of a glue of brown sugar and butter. Rather they are, at their best, crispy with a slightly raised border and a subtle chew in the middle. And they are wheat and dairy free. Melt half a cup of butter or margarine; add three-quarters of a cup of dark brown sugar and then two cups of quick oats and half a teaspoon baking soda. Press lightly into a square (8×8) cake pan and bake 10-20 minutes at 350f. Cut while warm and remove to a plate or baking rack.

I have been reading a bit of Heather McHugh, who read in Vancouver last year. A poet of terrifying intellect, she is a very funny reader – I think I was responding to some essence of irony that we must surely attribute to her Canadian parentage. It is comforting to know she is just across the water in Seattle.

Words on the Water and after

So: the Words on the Water writers festival (check out the virtual tour of Campbell River!) was a good old time. We arrived, on a day of brilliant sunshine, at 8:30 sharp and purchased $40 worth of tickets for all the day’s readings, of which there were eight, in four sessions. We heard that the Friday night gala had been a success, and were offered a few newly added (thank you fire department) seats for the Saturday night literary cabaret. But in the end we decided against staying for the evening as well, since all the readers were the same as for the daytime sessions, and we felt in our bones – and a few other places – that sitting through the first 8 hours of readings was probably enough.

Evelyn Lau kicked things off with some poems from her new collection, Treble. She talked about the autobiography of writing: even when she’s writing fiction, she said, she’s in the story. She came across well and was warmly received by the audience; though she had some serious zing in some of her poem endings I opted to spend my cash instead on another gorgeous Gaspereau poetry collection by Jan Zwicky, Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences. As she’d been asked, she talked a bit about philosophy, music and poetry and how these come together for her; and she quoted Don Paterson, in an introduction to his translations of Spanish poet Antonio Machado, who’d observed that Spanish is a guitar, while English is a piano.

We had a break then, with treats supplied by Save-on-Foods, the official festival sponsor. Although I’d raised an eyebrow when I saw the supermarket was also selling the books, after a day feeding on their goodies (including a very nice lunch buffet) I came round. But it would have been nice to see a local independent bookseller, if there is such a thing in Campbell River, reap a little of the benefit of the event, which saw about 150 people attend the day’s readings.

We heard some prose then, from Claudia Casper, and some poems – read in his characteristic moaning growl- by poet, typographer and bringer of tales from the Haida, Robert Bringhurst. One of his suggestions was that all Canadian children should be required to learn at least one indigenous language so that they may read, in their original words, stories in which humans are not the most important elements.

And stood in a long long queue for lunch, after which we had more prose, from Annabel Lyon who talked about music, prose and law school, and read a bleak little tale she’d gleaned from a murder trial she’d once watched; and some new and hilarious writing from our favourite storyteller David Carpenter.

Another break and we sped toward the finish with poetry: first, Gregory Scofield demonstrated that had he chosen another path he could easily charm the words from the trees as a singer. Then Patrick Lane wrapped things up with a reading from his memoir and a few newer poems. He remarked on once being stunned to discover that a metaphor he was teaching about a wren was lost on a group of first year university students, only a couple of whom were aware that a wren was a bird.

We enjoyed a sunny afternoon drive back to Courtenay, where we stopped in to enjoy a bit of gin and some patatas bravas and some spicy squid in garlic yogurt at the Union Street Grill and Grotto before pressing on to Fanny Bay to put our feet up and rest our weary heads. In the morning we scooted back down the island, pausing to make a side trip to Thetis Island for lunch, and then on to Victoria in the sprinkling rain.

Glosas & a few words about rejection

I’ve been working on a glosa arising from a quatrain by our late lamented high priestess of Canadian poetry, Gwendolyn MacEwen. An interesting thing, the glosa. Aside from Marilyn Hacker, who seems to have tried every form invented, you don’t really see them much by any but Canadian poets. That PK Page has a lot to answer for! In her inspiring collection, Hologram, she defines it as a stanza form, based on a quatrain by another poet, consisting of four 10-line stanzas where the 6th and 9th lines rhyme with the 10th. (Pah, child’s play, sez I after wrestling through 9 stanzas of terza rima..)

But my research tells me that it is also considered pretty much a nonce (love that word) form, also known as a glose (that seems to be how the Americans spell it) and that you can use any number or kind of lines as your starting point: they need not even be poetry. Neither is there any law that says the stanzas must be ten lines or follow any particular rhyme scheme.

The art of it is, I think, firstly to find a way to make the source lines your own, so that they have – fully – two lives; and secondly to walk a fine balance between bringing your poem to its own life and paying appropriate tribute to the source poet’s words. Choosing those source lines is difficult enough, and it’s good to know we can look beyond quatrains for them.

Rejection. Ouch: it never stops hurting, but I guess in this world so overcrowded with words we can’t write without it. One of the AWP sessions in Austin that I wasn’t able to make centred on The Resilient Writer, a collection of interviews with writers who survived to talk about rejection. Meanwhile, I found a blog about rejection by an editor who helpfully and comprehensively explains the nature and context of rejection letters… in a way that doesn’t hurt… TOO much.

So up here in Fanny Bay we might not have escaped another day of rain, but we did get a bucket of oysters for supper last night, and this morning a real live rainbow!