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Poetry walking in Saskatchewan

Rhona-McAdam A week spent with environmental literati from around the country and beyond was stimulating, delicious and rather warm at times. The first ALECC conference since pandemic times was, as they say, an intimate affair – not everyone who could have attended was yet willing or able to rub shoulders – but protective measures such as masked indoor events felt safe and comradely.

Tuesday, the evening before the conference began, Mari-Lou Rowley, Katherine Lawrence and I read from our new collections to a live (masked) audience who joyously filled the reading space at McNally Robinson, with another 35 or so attending online through the magic of live streaming.

Mari-Lou-Rowley
On Wednesday, Mari-Lou and I attended ALECC’s opening reception (the food was excellent and plentiful) and caught up with some familiar names and faces. Ariel Gordon, Tanis MacDonald and Kit Dobson read from their new books with Wolsak and Wynn, and the “Confluence” exhibit by Susan Shantz was on throughout the conference in the next door gallery (her talk on Friday night, “Confluences of Water, Art and Science,” with collaborator Graham Strickert, was excellent)

Ariel_Gordon
Tanis-MacDonald
Kit-Dobson

Thursday I was teaching online all morning and turned up in time for the first of two Poetry Walks, with Ariel and Tanis. It was much fun – we walked along a walking / running trail, stopping at intervals to read poems to our followers in wood, fields, sculpture park. Ariel borrowed one of ALECC’s helpful balloons to guide us.

People-standing-in-field-green-balloonTanis-MacDonald_Ariel-Gordon

The setting for our Thursday night barbecue dinner was stunning; a hidden grove on the campus of our host organization, the University of Saskatchewan. The prairie dogs (Richardson’s Ground Squirrels) appeared not to have found this space, busy as they were gorging on the drifts of elm seed that covered much of the city… another sign of trouble, since trees shed seed when feeling stressed and needing to secure their genetic futures.

A river of elm seed on a Saskatoon street
Richardson’s Ground Squirrel – making the grounds  somewhat hazardous to human walkers

Friday was a long and rather warm day, temperatures starting to climb into the high 20s. Technical difficulties interrupted a video session, but it was all low tech for readings in the  “Ceremony, Desire, Requiem: The Poetics of Water and Land” panel. Sheri Benning kicked off with a reading from Field Requiem (starting with the beautiful “Winter Sleep” which was featured in film form on the Paris Review website last winter). Self-described “Indiginerd” Tenille K. Campbell followed with a passionate romp through poems from Nedí Nezu, and some straight talk on some realities of indigeneity in northern SK.

Saturday was a hot one, with temperatures forecast to reach 36c, so I was delighted to find we had a good following for our final poetry walk. Ariel, Tanis and I were joined by Lisa Bird-Wilson who read work about residential schools, while we read mostly environmental poems including a couple by Victoria poet Yvonne Blomer, who had planned the event but was unable to attend.

Lisa Bird-Wilson
Ariel reads, in the Sculpture Park
Tanis reads – finally some blessed shade
At least the pelicans could chill in the South Saskatchewan River

Larder.. the cover!

And the winning cover image turns out to be.. Still Life with Bowl of Citrons, by Giovanna Garzoni. Very pleased with the look of this one.

Much as I would have liked to feature the work of a living woman artist, Garzoni is an impressive figure in art history, and the Italian connection is satisfying, given the presence of poems written during my studies in Italy.

I had wanted something food related, but also to bring in the natural world. The insect figure may or may not be a wasp; but for purposes of this collection, that’s what we’re calling it, to chime with the wasp poem within!

The book will be out sometime in May, but pre-orders can be taken now by visiting Caitlin Press.

Upcoming readings and appearances are on my News page, which I’ll update as details change or get added. But here’s what’s coming up in the next couple of months:

Covering poetry

We’re getting close – the new poetry collection heads to the printer late next week! Over the past month I’ve looked at thousands of images, trying to reconcile the themes in the book, the title (Larder), cost (small press, no budget for images), orientation (vertical preferred for ease of design), size (bigger than 1mb)… my head spins.

I loved so many of the images I saw, so here are a few that didn’t make the cut but which I offer for your enjoyment:

Raspberries on a Leaf (1858) oil on panel painting by Lilly Martin Spencer

I simply love this surprising still life for its simplicity and unexpected juxtaposition of raspberries and the cabbage leaf.

Mason Jar with Blackberry Fruit by Joanne Thomson

Victoria artist Joanne Thomson painted a whole Mason Jar series which is incredibly beautiful. I liked this jar in particular because it had blackberries in it, and blackberries do occur in my poetry.

Still Life with Birds and Fruit by Giovanna Garzoni & Jacopo Ligozzi c. 1650

I would happily have anything by Giovanna Garzoni on my book cover. Discovering her 17th century still life paintings, which look fresh and contemporary to me, was a delight. They frequently include birds or insects, which combines the natural world with food items, and my poems address both.

from shutterstock

I have been looking for images with that ‘look again’ quality, which somehow integrate food imagery with the natural world. Brussels sprouts do look egg-like, and I like the loose and leafy basket.

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.

Life on Planet Poetry

Way back in 1988 I visited England for the first time as an adult. I had just published my second poetry collection, with a third on the way, and was keen to learn more about what was going on poetically in the UK. Before I left I got in touch with Mike Shields, then editor of the long running litmag Orbis, where I had had a few poems published. I asked if he knew any London poets I could meet, and he sent me the names Judi Benson and Peter Kenny, both of whom I met that visit and who both became longtime friends.

Towards the end of last year, Peter started up a podcast, Planet Poetry, with fellow poet Robin Houghton. Still fairly new, it charmed me from the outset with its straightforward approach; it feels like joining these two in the pub for a pleasant chat about poets they like, and what they’ve been reading and what they think about it.

So I was charmed to be invited into the virtual pub recently for a chat with Peter about long ago poems and themes of Arrivals/Departures. Hope you enjoy the trip!

Poetry & the Wild

I attended a livestreamed reading and talk called Poetry & the Wild: A Reading and Conversation with Jane Hirshfield last Thursday. Hosted by Tom Fleischner, of the Natural History Institute, the conversation touched on poetry, Zen, natural history… whale trails, Poets for Science, climate change, and much more.

Hirshfield is a poet who’s embraced, or perhaps entered, the natural world more than many. Her Zen practice informed many of her observations. “When the self disappears, the self is happiest” she said, discussing the need to be open to observation in order to engage fully with the world. And citing Robinson Jeffers – “falling in love outward”.

She was asked, how does poetry help us? It’s thinking and understanding with the whole body, she replied. Poetry is a journey of discovery for her, as a reader and a writer. With all that is before us just now, she said, poetry can provide assistance towards a sense of resilience. It can help us engage with what feels beyond understanding — or simply respond to a curiosity. You want to be left changed when you read a poem, and “to find wholeness among the broken”.

When she asked in return why natural history? the answer was also zen-like: the practice of focused attentiveness to the more than human world; “the practice of falling in love with the natural world”, and an observation that natural history should be seen as a verb rather than a noun. And nurtures the deeper feelings about engagement with the world that poetry does.

Fleischner quoted Hirshfield’s own words: “Everything changes, everything is connected, pay attention.”

Thetis Lake Park, Victoria BC