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poetry workshops

Some talk about reading, and an evening walk in the valley

Some interesting discussion yesterday about the different ways of reading: for academic purpose vs for writing. Erin and John talked about their ways of preparing during the writing of a poetry project, reading widely and employing techniques of serendipity, or delving and re-delving into more challenging works in order to find directions of thought from them.

Between our excellent meals we have been trying to walk off a pirogy here, a cookie there. One popular destination is Prairie Cherries, where the proprietors sell organic cherry products from their orchard. The variety they grow is a cross between the sturdy prairie classic, the Mongolian Cherry, which is short and hardy but a bit on the tart side; and the pie cherry for sweetness, a variety developed by the University of Saskatchewan.

On our after-dinner tick-catching stroll, we saw another prairie fruit in bloom everywhere: Saskatoon blossoms everywhere.

We met a Red Wing Blackbird.

And a wee Warbler.

A beaver dam…

…and a beaver.

A white horse….

…a black horse.

A deer on a hillside.

And lots of what Gary described as prairie wool. It’s like walking on a down quilt. Would’ve lain down to look at the stars but for the ticks.

News in the news, and devilish fun with translation

In the self-serving-don’t-mess-with-my-lifestyle department, a recent Pew poll says that over half of Americans surveyed don’t feel humans are responsible for global warming.

In the interesting angle department, Raj Patel draws some interesting conclusions from a recent Lancet article and the ensuing media headlining.

And in the bee-keeping department, here’s a cool manual on bee-keeping produced by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity.

Such fun with words we’re having. We started off doing translation exercises, similar to this “Homophonic Translation” routine, which we did using a latin text. Last night it occurred to me that I might be able to find a way into revision work by using an online translation tool, so I’ve been blasting a few pieces apart by translating them into Japanese, Greek, Portuguese, Korean, Russian, French, Italian and Spanish — and back again, sometimes more than once. It’s been a fun way to take apart a dull line or sentence and see what might enliven it. Or perhaps start me off in a new poem or image.

Here are the opening lines of an old poem of mine I chose at random:

The path of disaster is so often
just beyond the window we’ve turned
away from for that critical
moment

and the translated version (via Japanese and Greek)(with a few tweaks to make the syntax work, more or less):

Such a certain street of destruction
a precise and often window
that exceeds our regard
with empty importance
turns because this

So, a different world and a different meaning, and a lot of nonsense, but maybe something in there presents an opening for new directions and energy.

Still crawling

This feels like about my fourth springtime this year; where I am today, the Qu’Appelle Valley is starting to green.


Last night being chef’s night off, we went to Regina, to the Mediterranean Bistro where the 4-cheese tortellini looked somewhat better than it tasted (seriously overwhelmed by smoked salmon and dill, and using pretty ordinary tortellini; the asparagus was the best thing in it..)

I couldn’t see much to choose from if you have issues about industrial food: a lot of chicken on the menu with nothing to defends its origins. Maybe next time I’ll try the bouillabaisse, which had a pretty nice fennel broth to commend it… setting aside for one evening my many questions about the origins of the prawns.

This morning I picked up a couple of books of poetry from the Sage Hill library, and found a (now deceased) female American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis)

hanging onto a corner of Worn Thresholds, by Julie Berry.

Bugged

Tuesday it was bees: we had a most thrilling hive inspection as our last field trip.

We got to see some varroa mites, how to check for the tell-tale odour of foulbrood,

what a hive about to swarm looks like, how you graft a queen cell, how you mark a queen,

how you split a hive, and how you recapture a swarm that hasn’t left yet. It was not the best time of day (evening) or the best weather (a bit damp) but the bees bore it as best they could, and brave Larry showed us how an experienced bee-man can handle even cranky bees without nets or gloves…

..on account of he had very kindly lent me his jacket and veil. And has spent his entire life around bees. I feel hardly qualified to have my own hives just yet, but will spend a little more time hanging out with bee-folk and see how I feel next year.

Then, on to Saskatchewan where I’m participating in the Sage Hill spring poetry colloquium at St Michael’s Retreat Centre in the Qu’Appelle Valley,

where the ticks are active if not biting (phew). They’ve been crawling over us night and day, even those of us who haven’t gone outside let alone into long grass. This evening I found one hiding on my person. Here she is practicing her backstroke in a drop of water, before sinking into the last hot bath of her life.

Our colloquium leader Erin has researched the subject thoroughly, and apparently it’s unwise to try to crush them (even if you can) in case they’re carrying a disease which you can then spread on yourself by accident. So I think scalding is quick and merciful.

Anyway, there are eight of us here from all across Canada, all with manuscripts in progress. We’ve been having a good time doing poetry exercises and plunging into some hard editorial graft. Between meals, walks (in the short grass, thanks) and strolls into town. Where there is surprising variety in fire hydrant, I happened to notice.

London, briefly

The workshop ended on Friday, after a few more mouthfuls of food and poetry. We had readings several evenings during the week, the first from Tammy who read some of her travel poems; then a reading by all of us; then a reading of poems by others that we wanted to share, which included a few more Elizabeth Bishop poems, including The Moose. I read Maxine Kumin’s Custodian, David Cavanagh’s Montreal Blues, and Carolyn Forche’s For the Stranger.

Thursday lunch featured some of the most exquisite sausages, made by the local butcher (whose shop is, as you might have guessed, the location of the village post office).

On Thursday night, some more of those clever little squiddy things – this time stuffed with meat and cooked in tomato sauce – and a school of big happy sea bass swam our way, with a lucious veggie dish featuring aubergines, peppers and potatoes in a tomato sauce.

One of our number celebrated her fiftieth birthday that night, and there was cake – an ethereal tiramisu that I suspect made all but the celebrant wish it was our birthday too.

On Friday, there were more fab salads and tuna pastries

and a finale dinner of chicken and aubergine and zucchini and some potatoes in cream, followed by fresh fruit with warm custard.

Our last morning was a surprise as those of us who had not already left for the airport before 7.30 am were awakened by drums and flutes and some harmonious singing as the village wound its way to the church, pausing to sing to the saints on the wall plaques on the houses. As we had a plaque, we got a lovely serenade, which receded up the street. The event – the Mare de Deu d’Abril – marks the miraculous end of drought in the village in 1711.

And then before we knew it it was time to leave. A long but mercifully uneventful day hanging about Alicante airport, lunching on more noodle soup

and a bit of tuna

and one last flan,

and then up and away and back to a freshly scrubbed London where the rain had eased off by arrival time. Now readying myself for the journey back to Canada on Wednesday.

Questions of too much food

The week to date has been a blur of eating, drinking, reading, writing, talking, eating, drinking and so on. It’s been productive writing time for me, though I feel like every hour is filled, and manage to write only late at night when the muse is just about to fall asleep. We have had a couple of good brisk walks, including one yesterday to our lunch that was two hours there and two hours back. But we are all sensing that even a four hour daily walk might not be enough to counteract the scale of consumption.

Tammy is leading us to consider, poetically, questions of travel. We’ve spent a lot of time with the delightful book by Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, and more with the likes of Elizabeth Bishop, whose Arrival at Santos kicked us off, and whose Questions of Travel have given us both the name of the course and a lot of food for thought.

Not as much food as Marisa has been offering, of course – her Valencian suppers are stupendous, and her lunch salads a little too inviting, particularly when augmented with fluffy tortilla or tuna pastries.

Tuesday morning’s session was in the orange grove,

with the penetrating perfume of orange blossom and constant buzz of bees, surrounded by lush globes of fruit whose juice we have been consuming at all hours of the day. As we left we discovered almond picking, a recreation I have been obsessively enjoying for two days straight, its rewards exquisite as we discovered on our mountain walk, when a pause and a couple of flat rocks coincided well with a pocketful of booty.

Yesterday was the mid-session break, and we began it with a private view of Relleu‘s museum, full of interesting and artfully arranged ethnological treasures to do with the history and traditions of the area: old bee-keeping equipment

caught my attention, and some beautiful wooden garden tools.

After our epic walk,

our lunch was a fabulous Paella Valenciana

in the village of Sella,

and we ate so much – including starters of croquetas (bacalau – salt cod, but very understated), champignons and a deliciously simple salad of lettuce, onions and tomatoes in lemon and olive oil – that we all felt the need to walk it off by returning over the mountain,

instead of catching the offered lift back. It rained and shone and gave us wonderful views over the terraced hills, through olive and almond groves, our path formidably bordered by wild flowers.

After a short rest, supper was at a tapas bar in Relleu, where we had some boquerones (but these ones were not anchovies, they told me sadly),

squid rings, pork and liver, some small squid-like/octopus-like critters, tortilla, ribs, bread, anchovy-stuffed olives, and an absurdly delicious coconut flan

(flan is the Spanish version of creme caramel, and it’s wonderful) followed by what I’d say is my favourite coffee in the world, cafe cortado, the slightly bigger and bolder Spanish first cousin to caffe macchiato, my other favourite coffee in the world.

And then made our way (phew, downhill) back home.

We are into our final couple of days here, which I’ve found very useful and pleasant, and of course extremely well catered. I just hope el Cheapo airline does not weigh its passengers for the return journey this weekend…