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Larder

Playing catch-up

Time has got away from me, but here are a few highlights of my doings since November.

Christmas came and went – abbreviated by pandemic restrictions, but enlivened by snow, which after a couple of days of heavy shovelling became old fairly soon, particularly when accompanied by a polar vortex. Which was then followed by an atmospheric river, though happily not to the degree we experienced in November.

And then some signs of spring (rhubarb) to come, though it’s frozen and thawed and frozen and thawed since then. It will be a while until the soil is warm and dry enough to start planting anything. Meanwhile, I’m sorting and swapping seeds with neighbours and getting ready to plan this year’s garden.

In literary news, one of my poems, Tasting Dirt (all about compost!) appears boldly on the front inner cover of the current issue of Small Farmer’s Journal (winter 2021). Fascinating and one of a kind journal, lavishly illustrated, with lots on farming with horses and oxen, and all kinds of interesting detail on everything from setting up a binder to a report on the apples of New York in 1908.

Another poem, Hügelkultur, which happens also to be on a soil-amendment theme, appeared in the autumn issue of the long running UK literary journal Acumen, and was featured as a guest poem.

And finally, an update on the rice porridge post below, from last summer: I made some with black (“Forbidden”) rice and it was as delicious as I remembered. In addition to the spring onions, crispy shallots, cilantro, sesame oil etc, I added some winter broccoli and Romanesco florets, and fennel fronds and slices and a dash of gomasio. A perfect winter food.

Channel this!

I’m delighted to have a poem included in the current issue of the Irish environmental literature journal Channel.

The editors accept poems from around the world and have managed the question of how to celebrate each issue with a launch by inviting participants to record readings and some photographic context. Then they put it all together and livestream it!

I read two poems from my upcoming book Larder, and sent some photos which the editors invited us to provide, to give context to the contributors’ lives and environments.

This issue is celebrated on Thursday November 11 at 8pm GMT – which for me is noon in Victoria. See you there?

(From the Facebook event page🙂

Details

We’re delighted to announce that the launch of Channel Issue 5 will take place via YouTube Premieres on Thursday 11 November at 8.00pm.

The online launch will feature readings by Irish and international contributors drawn from a pool of over 1800 submissions, along with photography capturing the settings that have inspired their work. We love the poems and stories gathered in this issue—ambitious, disruptive pieces that seem at home in the flux we’re living in today—and we can’t wait to share them with you all.

Also featured will be an introduction to the work of our Issue 5 cover artist, Kevin Mooney, a Cork-based painter whose practice explores the migration of Irish people and the gaps wrought in Ireland’s visual culture by this history of displacement. Kevin’s current exhibition, ‘The Erlish Tide,’ opened in the Excel Gallery, Tipperary, on 30 October, and features large-scale paintings informed by his research into the history, mythology and folklore of Samhain and Halloween. ‘Peasant,’ the painting featured on our Issue 5 cover, is taken from a body of work exploring links between the folk cultures of Irish émigrés and the cultures of the Caribbean.

Issue 5 is now available for pre-order via our website at https://channelmag.org/current-issue/.

Those who can afford to further support our work may consider subscribing to Channel to receive each new issue upon its release, or becoming a patron to also receive access to our digital archive of back issues as well as acknowledgement in print and online.

The launch video will be viewable from our website at the time of its release, or open the video in YouTube to chat with other readers and contributors during the event. We look forward to seeing you there!

Joining the Poets Caravan

Some years ago, when I lived in central London, an Afghan restaurant on Baker Street called Caravan Serai was one of my favourite places. In one of those life coincidences, I’ve found myself on another caravan here in Canada.

For much of this year, the Planet Earth Poetry series in Victoria BC has been filming local poets reading their poetry in their chosen location. Poets Caravan is a project that maps the various locations using Google Earth; the texts of many of the poems are shown alongside the readings. The poems are also available on Youtube (without the texts).

Here’s mine from Youtube (click here for the Google Earth version – patience: it takes time to load). I chose to read at Haliburton Community Organic Farm where I’ve been volunteering since 2008. I selected poems suited to the environment I was reading from, which prompted the videographer to ask me if I was an entomologist! (Nope, I’ve just been spending time looking closely at what bugs me and my garden, heh heh.)

Most of the poems are from my new manuscript, Larder, which will be published by Caitlin Press in 2022. One (Vegetable Kingdom) is from my 2006 collection Cartography.