Skip to content

Planet Earth Poetry

Ah, the mourning after… but Good Holding Ground, a very nice cake, and a launch this Friday

What can one say but congratulations to my new MP, Randall Garrison, who will shortly be joining lots of other new NDPs in Ottawa; and congratulations to Elizabeth May, who will be there too, waving a big green flag for that most undiscussed election issue.

Last Friday it were poetry, poetry, poetry as Cynthia Woodman Kerkham – who tonight reads the poem that won the Malahat Review’s Open Season competition – launched her first collection. Good Holding Ground, at Planet Earth Poetry. Place was packed to the rafters, and a jolly and generous crowd it was.

It never hurts a literary event to add a superb chocolate cake; like this one from Wildfire Bakery:

While I cannot promise such a cake this Friday, I am delighted to be launching a chapbook of food poems, The Earth’s Kitchen, also at Planet Earth Poetry, in the excellent company of Yvonne Blomer and Pamela Porter.

Poetry & Food: PEP & another winter market

We started off the year in a little anxiety. The home for Planet Earth Poetry has been sold – the Black Stilt is in transition to becoming another Moka House – but so far the poets hold sway, and the coffee still flows of a Friday.

Wendy Morton wanted to call our attention to the Solstice Poets feature – the only full page poetry feature in a Canadian newspaper – and offer thanks for its support by departing Times-Colonist editor in chief Lucinda Chodan, who is doing things a little backwards and leaving Victoria for Edmonton.

She was presented with an autographed apron…

After which there followed the open mic

and Patrick Lane introduced the main event, which was a reading by various contributors to the annual Leaf Press anthology of a group who have been meeting with him for retreats for many years.

The January winter market took place at Market Square, luckily missing much of the rain that started falling again in the afternoon.

Terra Nossa proving popular with the meat crowd again

and Sea Bluff Farm attracting a queue for the vegetables.

Crabs ‘n tomatoes ‘n poets ‘n sand

I was shocked the other day to see this guy running underwater, up the Gorge, heading (ultimately) for the ocean I guess. Looks like he mighta lost one claw to the soup pot, but the rest of him was all there.

A separate door for tomatoes on BC Ferries. They think of everything.

Wendy in fine fettle, introducing a new anthology – Crossing Lines – and a reading by Allan Briesmaster and his daughter Clara Blackwood at the Black Stilt on Friday.

An afternoon to let your ears flap in the breeze: a windy day on Island View Beach.

Fast Food David, recent poetry readings, and some offal news about chicken feed

This one has been doing the email rounds; a cautionary vision for us all:

Wednesday saw Karen Solie at Open Space Gallery, where she stunned us with the strength of new work. An interview with Tim Lilburn afterwards revealed that she has been reading, among others, Denis Johnson and John Ashbery.

On Friday we heard new work from Joelene Heathcote at Planet Earth Poetry.

And.. just when you might have thought sanity about animal feed was at last prevailing, this creepy story that shows so clearly we have not not not learned our lessons yet: the EU would like to feed pigs to chickens. This is upsetting moslems, animal rights groups and, I should think, most sane consumers whose memory of the causes of BSE has not yet faded.

If that upsets you, maybe you should settle your nerves with a calming snack of home-made yogurt, with a spoonful of the best honey you can find.

Sweet Mama, what a week

Not a monumental one, but a week in which food and poetry converged at last.

Some good food coverage on CBC, including a week on hospital food, a whole series on food issues in the new India, and an interview with Michael Pollan.

I spent one morning of slashing rain interspersed with bright sunshine driving up the Saanich Peninsula to my favourite grocery stop, Michell Brothers Farm, where I loaded up on leeks, tubers, squash and other winter vegetables. Then on to Dan’s Farm Shop to pick up a Farmer Dan’s Chicken and some organic chicken sausages, and then home to puzzle over my bounty. I had some leek & yogurt soup with dried mint, (using a broth made of my last Farmer Dan’s Chicken) which was fabulous and just as I remembered it.

I am looking forward to eating the Sweet Mama squash which Michell’s grows. My clever cousin, who had encountered it first in New Zealand where they ate it with roast lamb, told me to slice it into wedges and roast it, with or without other vegetables or a Sunday joint, which I have been doing – it’s wonderful, including the skin, very sweet and moist. Michell’s sells both Sweet Mama and Buttercup which looks almost indistinguishable, which got me to wondering about it.

Apparently it is a kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) variety. It can be cooked in Mirin, soy sauce and broth and if you ignore the advice about skinning it, eaten whole that way, a very waste not want not recipe, or you can make it into soup – though you’ll probably have to sacrifice the skin (thinner and more tender than most squash I’ve found, and also tasty) for aesthetic reasons. You could also use it in a pumpkin risotto.

The bad news for growers is that it’s a hybrid and according to at least one source, can’t be grown through seed saving.

I went to Planet Earth Poetry last night, for the first time since my return. It was the first reading of the new year and the place was heaving with youth and energy. There was a lengthy open mike, of good standard – including Linda Rogers, Barbara Pelman, Yvonne Blomer and Pam Porter – all of whom recently had Christmas poems in great big pages of the local paper. Then as ever the young scamps who’d just come to read or hear their buddies in the open mike disappeared and paying seats opened up for the main acts. Sina Queyras flew in from Montreal and young performance poet Martin Hazelboweer paddled over from Vancouver. Queyras had a satisfying revenge poem, The Tummy-Flat Girls, about some of her more resistant ex-students; it showcased well an interesting poetic quirk, a kind of list form (or ok, let’s call it anaphora) which seems to feature in pretty much all her poems.

Black Stilting


Susan and the Angels


All kindsa poetry fans…

The official launch of Planet Earth Poetry last night brought forth a monster medley of poetry lovers — all shapes, sizes and ages — and some fine musical accompanyment by Flat Lightning (half of which is Rick Van Krugel of Mandolirium). Susan Stenson was on hand selling AIDS Angels to raise money for medical relief to Africa, in lieu of admission charges. And then there were the readings – 20? 30? of them? An alarming number anyway. I thought I might fall in a swoon under the coffee table by the end, but things moved along at a good clip, made merciful by the evening’s rules: one poem only, by someone else. Our new hero, Dave Crothal, the owner of the Black Stilt, even read a poem.

Wendy Morton closed the evening with one of my favourite all time poems, Forgetfulness – click that link to find a fabulous animated version by the author, Billy Collins (I understand this is also available as an iPod download – now there’s technology I can get behind!)