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Last moments at the writers and artists colony
Read Full Post: Last moments at the writers and artists colonySo, Tracy explained about the Thursday night party which ended the 2006 Winter Colony. As she was in Saskatoon reading from the works of Al Purdy, she missed our final group reading, alas, although she was there in spirit, having composed a sonnet which she printed on wood shavings, glued to bark strips, and left in her place: we were well impressed. And we had studio presentations from our awesomely talented artists, Cherie and Frances, which were just breathtaking.
Here are some snaps of those gifted souls who shared their musical stylings with us.
Brother Kurt happened along and gave us some good old favourites.
Mari-Lou brought a new classical guitar and a Leonard Cohen songbook to her hermitage and we got to hear the results of her cloistered toil. She’s promised us a full Beatles repertoire next year.
And Terry O’Flanagan – who thought he had come to St Peter’s to re-build the college entryway – became part of the colony, and all the more so (was it the snappy cowboy shirt? the Johnny Cash numbers?) that last night.
On to the next and final morning. I heard tell there was a food cellar at the Abbey, and I asked our Colony Coordinator Anne if I could have a look, and so this is what I got to see before I left.Imagine a whole room full of potatoes!
And then there was the canned goods collection. Who could not be comforted by all those big, beautiful jars of food? And all of it grown on the Abbey’s farm. Fabulous and delicious.
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Home, home in the rain
Read Full Post: Home, home in the rainActually there is no rain here in Victoria (–but–gasp– it snowed for about ten minutes this morning!!). Quite a change from the biblical deluge we were experiencing when I left two weeks ago. I returned from St Pete’s on Westjet – the jokes were not quite as good as on the outgoing journey, and the trip felt endless. Saskatoon to Calgary, Calgary to Kelowna, Kelowna to Victoria. Luckily it was pretty clear all the way and I got to look down on the snowy world before stepping back on the green green grass of home. My taxi driver kindly advised me to put on my coat before leaving the terminal: very cold, he said, only about 4 degrees. Hah, I said, recalling the -30something low we had in Muenster last week.
Here’s a cold cat I met at the Abbey. It had a lot to say; I suspect it was telling me the many words for snow in its language. I have more photos to download.. after which I will tell my version of events of our last evening’s entertainments: you can read Tracy’s while you’re waiting.I rushed home to find my very good pal Jennifer had dinner on the plates and waiting for me, so I don’t have to remember how to cook for a little while yet. She’s here from Calgary to work further towards her Feldenkreis practitioner certification, and she’s their webmaster too. And she makes a mean chicken dinner.
After dinner I rushed out again to Mocambo to hear Tom Wayman read, and it was worth the trip: he’s endlessly entertaining. I bought his latest book, My Father’s Cup, which includes some powerful poems about his parents. While there, Wendy Morton broke the news that she’s been successful in her campaign to city council to get a Victoria Poet Laureate position in place.
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Closing Time
Read Full Post: Closing TimeAlmost done the 2006 winter colony, and counting down to this evening’s final readings and (thank you artists) studio visits. We have scaled the chip mountain and made our contributions to the local economy. We have written and read and walked and skied and skated and scrabbled. We have exchanged the obscurest trivia and the easiest recipes; blogged and emailed and even pinned writings to our doors. And tomorrow we return to reality.
Wednesday’s afternoon highlight was a visit to St Peter’s Cathedral, with live commentary from Fr. Demetrius. I’d heard about the paintings by Berthold Imhoff from people who’d been there before, and they were something to see in the streaming sunlight.
Spent the past three days wrestling with terza rima. Fiendish, I call it. Paul Farley calls it “the very devil of a form” in his review of George Szirtes’ book, Reel. But it was an invigorating work-out, and although I’m still grappling with a final sticky rhyme (–any suggestions for rhyming “novel” with other than “grovel”??) I might be fool enough to attempt it again sometime. Some other imaginary time when I have the luxury of three days to spend on nothing but sifting three way rhymes for iambic lines. **11:21 Update – since I can’t figure out how to include hyperlinking in comments – Thanks Ariel: hovel it is. I love Rhymezone too but I must say that after this exercise I have developed a renewed passion for my poet-centric Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary, which gives masculine, feminine and triple rhymes, and makes it fairly easy to work out half rhymes.
Hoping I experience again the miracle of St Peter’s and weigh in at home to discover I haven’t gained (or lost) an ounce despite two weeks of feverish chip consumption, daily cocktails, lashings of gravy on everything, and a respectful sampling of each and every dessert on offer. And only two hours of badminton in the balance. But I like to believe that all those hours spent out on the lane to the cemetery, ungloved, with a palmful of peanuts, feeding chickadees and braving incipient frostbite, have some counter-calorific effect.And so, as that classic British football ballad has it,
Here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go, here we go-o…
(rep. refr.)
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In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.
