Said Like Reeds or Things

Change of address

2006-07-25T22:24:00.000-04:00

A while back I tried to set up a WordPress blog but gave up because I'm such a loser when it comes to computers. Imperfect Offering's migration prompted me to check WP out again, and it's much more user-friendly now. So, I've moved. (I still plan to set something more sophisticated up, but that will probably have to wait until mid-September or so.) Please visit!

2006-07-23T19:07:00.000-04:00

Some videos.

2006-07-23T19:04:00.000-04:00

A performance:

2006-07-23T14:27:00.000-04:00

We at Said Like Reeds or Things make every effort to remain within the bounds of the socially acceptable and productive (yes, we too see warning flags on both counts, yet we sincerely prefer to play nice). We also try to keep things fresh, so we occasionally introduce new flavours. With this in mind, stay tuned for a possible series of speculative and exploratory posts under the title "What Would the Community Think? (Kill Yr Ideals)."

In the meantime, a blast-from-the-past treat:

P.S. Kill yr ideas, too. You likely already have too many.

2006-07-21T23:33:00.000-04:00

Today I said "wrong" when I meant "being logically inconsistent."

Geddy watch

2006-07-21T22:31:00.000-04:00

Tonight Geddy had his hair in a ponytail and was wearing a stupid bucket hat.

The paparazzi have nothing on me.

2006-07-20T21:00:00.000-04:00

If you get Sportsnet, turn on the Blue Jay game. Geddy Lee is sitting behind the plate.

2006-07-13T20:45:00.000-04:00

I don't know, Rob. You might have a point. I think, though, that a titleless poem, especially if it's positioned near the centre of the page, asks the reader to imagine an uninflected space or silence around it (or, as you say, the poem produces "the feeling of nothing happening before you enter"), much as most books ask the reader to shut out extraneous thoughts or noise, at least momentarily. Of course performing this act of shutting out is artificial and likely an ideal that is never actually attained. And we don't have to do what we're asked.

And of course this request on the part of the poem and the conventions on which it is based are fair game for challenge or critique.

But I think it's possible.

2006-07-13T20:40:00.000-04:00

Dear Mississauga workshop participants:

Here is a conventional English translation of the Lorca poem. It's by Greg Simon and Steven F. White:

AFTER A WALK

Cut down by the sky.
Between shapes moving toward the serpent
and crystal-craving shapes,
I'll let my hair grow.

With the amputated tree that doesn't sing
and the child with the blank face of an egg.

With the little animals whose skulls are cracked
and the water, dressed in rags, but with dry feet.

With all the bone-tired, deaf-and-dumb things
and a butterfly drowned in the inkwell.

Bumping into my own face, different each day.
Cut down by the sky!

2006-07-07T09:38:00.000-04:00

No time to blog lately, which is a shame because there's much to blog about. If you see me, ask me, and we can chat about what might appear here.

More soon. Maybe better-digested stuff than would have come together otherwise.

2006-06-26T16:48:00.000-04:00

Interesting to be working on poems without titles. I really like titles and the various spins they can put on a piece, so much so that I feel it's a good idea to jettison them for a while and see how poems move and shake without them.

Tracy Hamon once blogged nicely about titles.

Last Lex

2006-06-21T13:34:00.000-04:00

As is fitting, there was little in the way of closure to Lex last night (though I did have to leave early, so I may have missed something that had this effect). It was all a little messy, with young poet Alixandra Bamford (a potential member of the Lex community if there ever was one) taking part in the open michelle for the first and last time, and a number of people who seemed to be there as a stop on the open mic circuit doing their thing, and Lex regulars and irregulars saying goodbye and thanks. I think Lex was a site more than some kind of show or forum for presentation (though it was of course a little of each of those too). I know that's how I experienced it when I, a disillusioned lyric poet, happened upon it in February 2002. Lex was a series where you could show up for the first time, hang out in the background for a few months, find yourself recognized and greeted by the hosts within that period, try a few things out on the open michelle a little later, get to know others around you and strike up friendships, be a featured reader, and then feel like a crusty and entirely comfortable oldtimer, all within a span of four years. Lex was the place where I found a community of writers and readers to teach and challenge me. Lex was as close as anything I've found to a third place writing-wise.

Angela and Bill also had the uncanny ability to know when and how to renew the series. There were monthly featured collaborations, guest curators, and theme nights. They tended the series like a garden, and it grew. They also, I think, knew when the growing season was coming to a close and made a difficult but wise decision to call it quits. I'm not sure what changed, but I noticed that while most of the readers late in the series were great, there was a certain energy missing this past while. Bill and Angela were likely tired, and I suspect that the community Lex nurtured had changed.

There are many cases where I, individual I am, would have made different decisions from Angela and Bill's, and I didn't love everything about Lex, but I loved a hell of a lot of it and I think it's difficult to deny the contribution to the community that it has made. (I think, by the way, that community is a problematic term when used as if it has inherently positive value, but more on that later.) Bill and Angela set up their tent and invited everyone to stop in and stay a while. Some left and went on, some dropped in from time to time on their journeys elsewhere, and some hung around. But it was a good place to be. It could be a kind of home if you wanted. Congrats, guys. And thank you. And thanks to everyone who showed up. You are bright stars.

By the way, ditto on Angela's call for a series for Alixandra and Lisa.

2006-06-13T13:56:00.000-04:00

A couple quotes that have been sticking in my mind:

"Aesthetics and ethics are one." (Wittgenstein)

"When the man [writing] is frightened by a word, he may have started." (George Oppen as quoted in Rosmarie Waldrop's Dissonance (if you are interested))

2006-06-09T14:06:00.000-04:00

On the paucity of posts lately: I seem to be very much in mull mode these days. Maybe I'll have something to say before long.

How's it going with you?

2006-06-03T13:30:00.000-04:00

Best song lyrics ever?

2006-06-01T21:12:00.000-04:00

Sound files are up.

The new ontology

2006-05-31T15:18:00.000-04:00

I guess, now that I've discovered RSS feeds and the like, there's the possibility of sending ghost messages. What I mean is that, presumably, if I post something here and quickly take it down, it will still show up on news aggregators.

What fun!

In other news: So far, I think public aggregators are a mistake.

2006-05-25T21:55:00.000-04:00

Responses to last night here, here, and here.

Later: Here too.

2006-05-21T11:06:00.000-04:00

I'm not usually one to get excited about technology, but this thing is cool in a nice, routine-changing way.

Notice I use "cool" to mean "it's useful to me" or "I like it" as opposed to "it's slightly dangerous and countercultural and maybe even practises questionable hygiene," and thereby find myself unintentionally in the dominant current of early twenty-first century North American usage.

This month's Test

2006-05-19T16:14:00.000-04:00

Please come to the third installment of the Test Reading Series

STEPHEN CAIN and LISA ROBERTSON
a launch for Lisa Robertson's The Men: A Lyric Book (BookThug)

24 May 2006, 6:00 p.m. (readings will begin promptly at 6:30)
Mercer Union, a Centre for Contemporary Art
37 Lisgar Street, Toronto
pwyc ($5 recommended, all of which goes to the readers)

Please visit the Test site for more information, including biographies, poetry samples, poets' notes, recordings of previous readings, and a map to Mercer Union.

(Stephen Cain's info will be up soon.)

UPDATE: Stephen's stuff is up.

2006-05-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

In case people are anxiously awaiting the sound files from the last Test: I'm having a little trouble posting one of them on the hosting site. The site, an altruistic operation likely with limited resources and likely doing the best it can, seems to get a bit boggged down at times.

2006-05-02T15:34:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone who came out last night. Good readings (excellent readings, including one of Susan Kernohan's first, which was incredible, and an especially good one by Derek McCormack even by his standards), good intros, good music, and good conversation. I think it lived up to its billing (see below).

Adventure of the day: three orphaned baby squirrels delivered to the Humane Society, where they will be cared for until they're big enough to fend for themselves. They were very cute but covered in mites.

Later: Yes, courting "is kind to small animals" designation. I promise to watch some violent sports soon.

The literary event of the century

2006-04-30T20:35:00.000-04:00

"How can you even know that?" you ask.

I just do, okay. Check it out:

The launch of Lisa Heggum's anthology of stories for teens, All Sleek and Skimming, featuring readings by Gil Adamson, Diana Aspin, Gary Barwin, Susan Kernohan, Derek McCormack, Stuart Ross, and Ania Szado and music by Carmen Elle and the Whoremoans.

Monday, May 1, 8:00 p.m.
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen Street West
Toronto

I'm making a playlist. I think I'll include some Sly and the Family Stone. Definitely some P-funk. Some Bikini Kill too.

Be there. We'd love to see you.

2006-04-28T14:58:00.000-04:00

Stunning photos of the first installment of Test by Sharon Harris.

2006-04-27T12:21:00.000-04:00

I think Test was beautiful last night. The highlight for me was an extended and engaging Q & A in which Margaret and Brian discussed, among other things, the need for closeness (a degree of sincerity?) when working with found text (I think Brian's soundbite quote was "there's no detail at a distance") and Brian and audience-member Darren O'Donnell riffed on their reasons for working among multiple disciplines. Margaret's easy manner and tendency to respond thoughtfully to questions and then ask her own of Brian or the audience pulled the entire room into the discussion, which at one point gave rise to a polyvocal swell of talk about the possibilities and challenges of cross-disciplinary fertilization. During the readings, Margaret treated us to a substantial bit of new work (including the riveting and playful "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS"), and Brian spoke about his corpus in light of his practice of "stealing" (not to be confused with appropriation), read excerpts of Portable Altamont and an essay on the cassette tape, and played a clip from Voice-Over.

And all of this took place under the Evening Canopy and the Sunset Hour.

Points for me to keep in mind for next time: Keep extra chairs near the door for latecomers. Start on time, because this is likely the best way to be fair to the entire audience (from the punctual-arrivers-soon-to-be-fidgety-watch-checkers all the way to the unreformed stragglers).

I hope others enjoyed it as much as I did (for that is the goal). Sound files to come.

Also, stay tuned for the possible announcement of a special edition summertime Test. Please start studying for the May edition (that's the last dumb joke of this kind you'll hear from me).

2006-04-26T14:24:00.000-04:00

Tonight:

the second installment of the Test Reading Series

April 26, 7:30 p.m.
Margaret Christakos and Brian Joseph Davis
Mercer Union, a Centre for Contemporary Art
37 Lisgar Street, Toronto
PWYC

also featuring an opportunity to experience Karen Azoulay's the Evening Canopy and the Sunset Hour and marvel at Brian Joseph Davis's Yesterduh.

Click here for more info.

Be there or.

2006-04-20T09:21:00.000-04:00

Well, yeah, I certainly proved my ineptitude around technology last night. (Self-indulgent-pop-psych-self-examination-moment: I've been realizing lately that I have trouble with motivation and focus in certain competitive situations, a problem that manifests itself most noticeably around video games and playing-cards.) Emily, Darren, Bill, and Ken Babstock weren't inept however. Emily's talk dealt with narrative tropes in early video games and how they function in her novel. Actually (and I admit my attention was fading in and out as I settled into the evening, and then it skittered around a bit when some of her ideas caught), it was as if she was talking about archetypes and breaking them down into their relational configurations, which was interesting to me because I'm haunted by space. Darren and Bill talked so comfortably I expected to see a two-thirds-empty pitcher in front of them, and Babstock was a good foil. Interesting moments included a statement on Bill's part that pushed the Apostrophe Engine beyond (or maybe beside) the artificial intelligence debate, discussion of the role of failure in art, and(unsurprisingly) talk about the role of context in the reception of poetry. I wish there had been a chance for the audience to jump in. I would have asked them what they've learned about the world through the Apostrophe Engine. A slightly dumb question, maybe, but I would have been interested in how they'd take "world" in the context of their work and where they'd go from there.

2006-04-19T15:58:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I've joked about this in the past, but now I think it might actually be a good idea. Someone should set up a Toronto literary events planning registry. It could be pretty simple: just a year's worth of calendar online that lets people post events as they're planning them. Events could be assigned tentative status and then they could be confirmed. That way there'd be fewer conflicts like the one between Test and Pontiac Quarterly next week.

I'd do it, but I'm a loser around technology, and I already have a little computer project on the go as it is.

2006-04-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

Is it just me, or does Hugh Thomas look a bit like Ezra Pound with that beard?

It suits him well. I just couldn't help but notice the resemblance.

2006-04-18T16:47:00.000-04:00

Tonight:

Hadley Dyer's book launch for Johnny Kellock Died Today, 6-8pm at the Paddock (178 Bathurst Street at Queen)

Lex: Sandra Alland, John Lavery, Stephen Collis: Cameron House, back room, eight.

2006-04-16T12:13:00.000-04:00

Hockey-buddy Hadley and my sweetie Lisa get some love from Deirdre Baker in today's Star.

2006-04-13T16:36:00.000-04:00

One hundred.

2006-04-13T13:32:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Angela Rawlings, Jon Paul Fiorentino, and Sina Queyras for having their books reviewed (pdf) in this weekend's Globe and Mail. It's nice to see friends' books (in Jon's and Angela's cases—I've never met Sina) noted in the national media. At the risk of appearing ungrateful, however, I'd like to point out that if one ever needed evidence that the so-called avant-garde is marginalized in this country, one need look no further than l'Abbe's review, which, while certainly generous in intent, is stunning in its application of unexamined assumptions.

I think it's probable that the ability to offer assessments without bothering to justify key valuative terms is a sign that one is in a position of relative dominance, because for someone in such a position, one's values are self-evident: they are the norm. l'Abbe claims that Fiorentino's style has "moved further and further to the abstract end of the spectrum" and that "heightened abstraction would be fine if abstraction were left to move us as it does best: through impression, mood and sensual effect." Well, first, what does l'Abbe mean by abstraction? I can think of convincing arguments that, if we take ink on the page as concrete (vis concrete poetry), image is of the more abstract properties of poetry, since it is something mostly mental that readers map onto the work. Is this what l'Abbe means? Likely not, since, as she later claims approvingly, for Queyras "[w]ater waves are an image entry point to the waves of imagination and memory to which the poet is about to surrender. Queyras builds poems by layering images one atop the other." And who says that abstraction moves us "best" "through impression, mood and sensual effect"? Is moving the reader in this manner the object of all poetry? In any case, I would think that an explanation of how Fiorentino's work is abstract (assuming it is) is key to understanding it.

l'Abbe talks about Rawlings's "experimental placement of ... text in blank space." What does "experimental" mean in this sentence? Critics in various camps have argued that experimentalism is a hallmark of good poetry, that writing poetry is about discovering something new, and that therefore an otherwise traditional sonnet might be said to be experimental. John Cage, if I'm not mistaken, argued that the term "experimental" should be reserved for work that results from a process the outcome of which is unknown when it's undertaken. Is either of these what l'Abbe means? I suppose it's more likely that she means something like "not usual" (in other words, not what occurs in most of the poetry she reads) or maybe even "avant-garde." I think what she actually means is "not left-justified" and therefore "Other."

But here's the kicker: for l'Abbe, Queyras's Lemon Hound, the work on which she bestows her most comfortable praise, "shows the most restraint, achieving a lovely balance between lyricism and experimentalism." Wait a second, I thought this review was about experimental (that is, avant-garde) poetry. Are we to assume then that the best way for experimental poetry to be good (or to be lovely) is to moderate itself and be more like non-experimental poetry? Isn't this what l'Abbe is coming awfully close to saying? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I do actually think that l'Abbe means well by her review. I've seen her read during the open mic at Lexiconjury, which is relatively unusual for someone not identified as avant-garde and which I take as a gesture of good will. In writing this review, l'Abbe is using her cultural capital to bring attention to some work that might otherwise escape notice and acting as a kind of liaison between various sometimes exclusive poetry communities, and so she should be commended. I'm just not sure that, beyond garnering some barefaced exposure for the books she's considering, she's done the poetry itself any real favours by simply reading it through her own poetic and judging it.

In other news, I don't mean to whine about the marginalization of the avant-garde. I mean, who cares ultimately, because operating on the margins has its advantages. And what's with this throwing of the term "avant-garde" around anyway? I think I prefer something like "poetry that takes itself, its precursors, and the current times seriously." That's pretty messy, but you get the idea. Fit genuine humour in there as well. All that other stuff is for historians.

2006-04-07T22:16:00.000-04:00

The sound files are up. Please listen.

2006-04-06T09:57:00.000-04:00

Went to Harbourfront last night to hear Bill and Darren read and also to check out what Ken Babstock had to say. Bill and Darren read beautifully from Apostrophe, which is a nice thick tome, and Babstock confirmed that, while I'm not a huge fan of the kind of thing he's doing, his work is solid and worth reading further. Last night also confirmed that in my private hell, all poetry books will be by Don McKay. The guy seems nice enough, and I'm sure he means no harm, but his work actually makes me ~~angry~~ impatient. It's the way everything in the world of his poems lends itself willingly to his cuddly metaphors. The current M & S ad on Bookninja quotes a review calling McKay a "master of metaphor." I suppose it's right. And that's the problem.

Or maybe, you know, he's not the poet for me.

By the way, the same ad asks readers to "bask in the warm glow of four fantastic poets." I'm not even going to start on that one.

2006-04-05T17:33:00.000-04:00

All signs point to constructivism. That hiatus lasted long, eh?

2006-04-05T11:02:00.000-04:00

I've been reconsidering the blogging thing lately. While I like the opportunity to write regularly, I'm not sure I want to publish half-formed thoughts and casual musings right now. I think a different rhythm, one in which I write in a more sustained fashion on a limited number of topics (i.e., reviews, essays and the like) might make more sense. Still figuring it out though.

2006-03-31T12:43:00.000-05:00

Back to regular programming soon.

The Crepe of Consciousness (or: The Profiterole of Perambulatory Perception)

Readings by

Meredith Quartermain (special guest from Vancouver, author of Vancouver Walking (NeWest Press) and publisher of Nomados Editions)

Lise Downe

Mark Truscott, who will also interview Meredith Quartermain

Sunday, April 2, 2006, 4–7 pm

ART SQUARE, gallery & creperie, café, chocolate shop
334 Dundas St. West
(Directly across from the picturesque torn-open guts of the Art Gallery of Ontario)

2006-03-30T13:14:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who came out last night. I think it went pretty well. I'll change a few things next time around, but for the most part things worked. Great readings from Jay and Rachel.

And it was gratifying to see a group of people listening so closely to poetry. The big reward for me came when a few people told me they were able to hear in a way they hadn't before. That was the goal. Or, well, a goal. Thanks!

2006-03-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night, 7:30 p.m.:

The inaugural installment of the Test Reading Series

Jay MillAr and Rachel Zolf
Mercer Union, a Centre for Contemporary Art
37 Lisgar St., Toronto
pwyc ($5 recommended)

More info here.

2006-03-23T11:22:00.000-05:00

On honesty: Why get excited about that which doesn't excite you anyway? People can usually perceive your level of interest. Maybe someday the work will interest you more, or maybe you'll figure out how to be interested.

And besides, when the words in an account feel right (and even illuminate something), why mess with them, unless of course they'll feel even better (or more real)?

2006-03-22T12:38:00.000-05:00

'Twas a top-ten Lex last night, or would be if such lists were my habit. Stan Rogal's delivery was masterful and smooth, and his poems were eminently good-natured. Louis Cabri, meanwhile, in an effort to overcome the dim lighting, struck a pose—leaning forward off the stage, propped on the mic stand—that he claimed conjured Elvis, though it reminded me of a more than slightly academic Iggy Pop. (John Barlow would later strike his own extreme poses in the interest of light, though at the back of the stage and, at one point, holding a book open with his foot.) Cabri's foam poem, which began with play between the words "foam" and "form," was a highlight, as was his Elizabethan piece. Margaret Christakos forwent her open michelle reading to lead the audience in praising Nathalie Stephens and her new book, Je Nathanaël, which Nathalie had launched with a transfixing reading. Stephens manages somehow to be intense while exuding calm. I'm looking forward to reading her book, which has a Gide character at its centre and seemed like an especially close meditation on the relationships between language and the body.

The open michelle was scary, out of control, and hot: from Maggie Helwig's recitation from memory of uninteresting Shakespeare to Kyle Buckley's.... well, I'm not even going to talk about it.

Actually, come to think of it, I'm going to turn over a new leaf and start ranking everything.

2006-03-21T12:14:00.000-05:00

Fourth-last Lex tonight. See you there.

2006-03-21T11:31:00.000-05:00

As I got caught filling out a survey about the CBC website this morning, I thought of Paul Dutton's Speakeasy talk on the colonization of the arts by business speak, specifically the bit about his saying "neither—art" at the border when asked whether he was travelling on business or pleasure. I didn't know what to say when I was asked if I wanted to see more entertainment content (knowing the question likely means stuff like poetry as well as coverage of the Oscars). Annoyed as I am by the subsumption of the arts by the entertainment industry, at least according to the media, I went literal and said no. Should I have said I was part of a club or other social organization in the bit about how I spend my free time? I was tempted. As they stand, my responses give a pretty inaccurate picture.

2006-03-16T11:39:00.000-05:00

Throughout all the somewhat frantic busyness leading up to Test and the Quartermain interview, etc., I've been making sure I take some time to write each day, just to keep in touch. I've mostly been editing, which means deleting heavily and trashing a good many poems. My manuscript, which was close to twenty pages, is now down to eight (or possibly ten). I like the push-pull of improvisation and discovery and then refocusing. This is definitely a "pull" phase, and it feels good. Anyway, I found myself buying a grey Duo-Tang for the MS, which I suppose means something.

2006-03-09T21:24:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, like, maybe enough about the series. So, what's going on?

2006-03-09T12:08:00.000-05:00

So, yes, why "Test"? My first impulse was to go for the provocative and impish and call the series the Boring Reading Series, but then I thought that people—especially the readers—might not appreciate my humour (if there was any). So I cast about for a word that might connote a similar relationship to spectacle (at least as the latter popularly manifests itself, i.e., as something like effortless gratification), and, while reading a magazine, happened upon the word "test." Perfect, thought I. It carries the ideas of engagement and seriousness but also of provisionality, inquiry and openness and the possibility of unexpected results or malfunction. Plus, I think it sounds pretty sharp and a little funny.

Oh yeah, and don't take the seriousness too seriously. I hope the series will be fun as well, in a thoughtful way.

2006-03-08T12:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, why the series? Upon reading this article in October 2004, I realized that it was true, there were relatively few opportunities in Toronto to hear people read where the work was the focus. There were plenty of readings where socializing seemed to be the primary goal, and of course, because we're writers, and because we tend to spend a lot of solitary time (or so the argument goes), socializing is important, and in fact I would argue that what I've learned through my social experience in the Toronto literary community has been essential to my own work. But I began noticing that the easiest way to respond to the poetry read at such events was to key in to its ability to entertain in the immediate sense and that it was difficult (for me at least) to get a sense of its more subtle features. Again, entertainment in poetry is entirely valid in itself. I decided though that I also wanted a chance to hear the work in a different way, in a different context, and I guessed there were others (perhaps not a huge number) who wanted this as well.

2006-03-08T12:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, the site is up. Stay tuned for some musings about some of the decisions I've made with respect to the series. These will likely come in installments.

LATER: Don't look at Rachel Zolf's poem. It needs some formatting work. I hope this is the last fix.

2006-03-07T07:40:00.000-05:00

Calling all tech heads: please take a look at this using different browsers (if you're not a tech head, don't look; it's still pretty ugly). What's going on with the spacing in the main sections, especially around the links?

I have a feeling I need to use uls, but I'm not sure how.

Now that I look again, the links themselves ain't too hot either.

2006-03-01T12:51:00.000-05:00

Sigh. Remember those days when I had a chance to blog? Blogger guilt is setting in big time.

Anyway, I am really digging Craig Dworkin's Reading the Illegible.

2006-02-23T15:08:00.000-05:00

The fun is all here today.

2006-02-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I'm thinking about reviews right now. Is it just me, or does it seem as if review editors are more or less wide-open valves these days?

Take a look at this review for instance. The publication in which it appears is barely more than a one-person show, so let's temper our criticism and stifle our guffaws. But isn't it incumbent on an editor to ensure his or her reviewers are informed and capable enough not to make fools of themselves (e.g., that the reviewer has thought to check a library catalogue—many are available online these days!—to see if the author he or she is considering has published anything else and that said reviewer is aware that "the message" isn't always the point)? Shouldn't review editors themselves, as Margaret Christakos pointed out once, do a little thinking about the books and ensure that the reviews in their publications serve some kind of critical function?

Just askin'.

2006-02-18T16:58:00.000-05:00

I think the comments are working now.

2006-02-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

A weird thing I've been noticing lately: I frequently have memories (often dream-like) of text I haven't actually read by that is near text I have (e.g., I'll read an article on a left-hand page in a magazine and have the sense that I've already read something similar when I get to the article on the right). I imagine this kind of peripheral-vision reading is common (likely as a kind of unconscious prereading), but it's something I've noticed myself doing since I've been copyediting (I've found myself catching misspellings on right-hand pages while I'm editing the left). What's interesting though (at least to me) is that my peripheral-vision reading is often more playful—and, paradoxically, sometimes more attentive—than my focused reading, and I frequently come up with quasi-dyslexic readings through it (for instance, my now infamous reading of a sign in Ottawa that said "nicest cleaning" as "incest cleaning"). Today, while reading my e-mail and seemingly out of the blue, I had a vague thought that it would be funny if I were to get a message from Carmine Starnino with a subject line like "increased stamina." When I clicked on the arrow and went back to my main e-mail page, there was to my surprise a spam message with that very subject line beneath the message I had just read, but, alas, it was from someone named Carmine Santiago.

2006-02-15T14:27:00.000-05:00

I couldn't help but think of one of the poems Stephen Cain read at last night's Lex as a mashup of Goodnight Moon (accurate) and Sun Ra's "Nuclear War" (this part is the product of my addled brain):

Originally Ra was so sure the funky dance track was a hit, he immediately took it to Columbia Records, where they immediately rejected it. Why he thought a song with the repeating chant "Nuclear War, they're talking about Nuclear War/It's a motherf***er, don't you know/if they push that button, your ass gotta go/and whatcha gonna do without your ass" would be a hit is another puzzle in the Sun Ra myth.

2006-02-14T10:40:00.000-05:00

Responses to the Four Horsemen Project here and here (and promised here). I tend to feel overwhelmed by all but the most minimal of live performances, so I don't have anything overly articulate to say, but I found this performance superficial in its push toward spectacle and pointlessly repetitive. I admit my attention was divided because I kept wondering how Paul Dutton, who was in the audience, felt watching what seemed to me to be a watering down and glitzing up of his and his collaborators' work (see Gregory's allusion to the Phantom of the Opera). It seemed to me as if, for the Volcano Theatre, the Horsemen are merely a 'weird' moment in Canadian literary history. There did appear to be something interesting going on relating to a reframing of the Horsemen's work by a culture that better acknowledges its diversity than the one the Horsemen worked within, but this didn't seem especially well worked out. Maybe strip the show down (i.e., consider what purpose the technology and stagecraft is serving), justify or lose the campy costumes, and go from there.

P.S. Maybe I'm dead wrong and Dutton loved the show.

Further note on the weekend: I did get a chance to see, and really liked, this. Also, I'm going to keep an eye out for more work by Adam Brown, whose hand-drawn and elongated foolscap (I think it was called Lines and Margins) at the Mercer Union members' show was both elegant and hilarious.

2006-02-09T20:46:00.000-05:00

So I think I'm finally hitting on something again with my writing. My new focus, a series of ten-word poems or parts (five two-word lines), seems to have caught on something. I'm dropping the "Arts Week" newspaper project for now. I mean, I like the poems that are coming out of it well enough. I'm just not learning a lot from them. They're not carrying me anywhere I haven't already been, and I don't find them especially bewildering (or maybe astonishing). The title I'm using for the new series is "Infinite Formalism," though I'm not sure I like all of the implications of it. Yeah, it's supposed to be a bit ironic and provocative.

2006-02-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

Does a suspicion of humanism keep us from seeking the authentic?

Work hard. Be lazy.

2006-02-08T10:51:00.000-05:00

Lisa J. posts a nice Nam June Paik story that originally appeared on the Poetics List.

2006-02-07T18:45:00.000-05:00

My big thought from this weekend arises from a conversation I had with Danielle Maveal, one of the contributors to Shift & Switch, who now lives in Windsor. She said (and I apologize if my memory has altered or embellished in its digestion) that she hasn't written in years because she doesn't feel the need and that to write would be to fall into a kind of routine. I'm always fascinated by stories of people leaving writing (George Oppen, etc.), I think because I'm concerned that this poetry thing is a bit of a compulsion for me (startling revelation of the week: I've mostly outgrown a case of adolescent OCD). Yes, poetry, as a way of life, helps me make sense of the world and seems a good way to conduct myself (I also feel inextricably connected to other people's work), but I'm attracted to what I sometimes think of as "the other side." (Is this some kind of mediated interest in death? I guess likely, not to get dramatic or anything.) What would I be doing if I weren't writing? (I'm guessing that I'd eventually end up running marathons.) I've planned for a while to force myself to take a month off in the summer: no writing, no reading poetry or anything related. I probably won't last, but I think it would be an interesting (if slightly perverse) experiment that might help me gain some perspective. This is just to fool myself into thinking I have a choice in all of this.

It was good to meet people like Louis Cabri and Sergio Forest. I also feel extremely fortunate to have spent some time with Gus Morin and his work. His reading on Sunday night at the Zemra Lounge felt like one of those once-in-a-lifetime events, you know? It was also good to hear more of Rachel Zolf's Human Resources, of which I'm a big fan.

The next post will be all about someone else.

2006-02-03T13:29:00.000-05:00

From Apollinaire's Bookshoppe:

After ten years in hiatus, BafterC is back. In the early 90s, hidden amongst the nether regions of the York University undergraduate universe, BafterC published a single volume of four issues, edited by Jay and Hazel Millar. Now, with editorial headed up by Mark Truscott and myself [Jay], BafterC is back with the first issue of the second volume. It includes poetry by a.rawlings, Laynie Browne, Lynn McClory, Adam Seelig, Kemeny Babineau, derek beaulieu and Lisa Jarnot; it also includes writing by Julia Williams and Sandra Alland. CDN$6 for the issue, also available through Apollinaire's Bookshoppe. Who knows, maybe BafterC will stick around this time.

I might have copies next time you see me.

Also, check out the new Rogue Catalogue and the forthcoming spring BookThug titles.

2006-02-03T11:24:00.000-05:00

I have been falling down on the blog job big time lately. Apologies to all who rely on posts in this space for their mental health (ha ha).

From the small-world department: Lisa met Anita Daher at the Ontario Library Association conference yesterday.

From the department of shifting and switching (cosponsored by the No-Fly Superb Owl):

4 February, 8:00 p.m.
Shift & Switch launch
Milk Bar Lounge
68 University Avenue West
Windsor
Readings by Danielle Maveal, gustave morin, a.rawlings, and moi.

5 February, 8:00 p.m.
Shift & Switch reading
Diamond Cherry Reading Series
Zemra Lounge
778 St. Clair Avenue West
Toronto
Readings by Sharon Harris, gustave morin, Rob Read, Trevor Speller, moi, and Rachel Zolf.

From the behind-the-scenes department: an ongoing investigation into the relationships among form, pattern, and the social.

From the just-heading-to-the-library department: going to check out Craig Dworkin's Reading the Illegible on Stephen Cain's recommendation.

2006-01-31T16:36:00.000-05:00

Overheard on the subway early this afternoon: "Well, you know, anything you put in your mouth ends up in your saxophone."

The Buffalo-Philadelphia trip was thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks to Andrea Strudensky and Janet Neigh for organizing. And thanks to Kevin Thurston (and Christine) and Karen Hannah for putting me up.

We didn't read at the bar in Philadelphia listed below. I don't know where we were, but it was a nice bookstore. Sorry if anyone showed up at the wrong place.

Back to regularly scheduled programming soon.

Shuffle off to Buffalo, Fly in to Philly

2006-01-26T14:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess driving is somewhere between. See you there?

January 27, 7:00 p.m.

Rust Belt Books
202 Allen Street
Buffalo
(Saloon Conversation Series panel discussion on Canadian poetry with Lori Emerson, Alex Porco, and Angela Szczepaniak; readings Gregory Betts, Geoffrey Hlibchuk, Angela Rawlings, Rob Read, Trevor Speller, and Mark Truscott)

January 28, 7:00 p.m.

Night Flag Reading Series
Khyber Bar
56 South Second Street
Philadelphia
(readings by Gregory Betts, Janet Neigh, Angela Rawlings, Rob Read, and Mark Truscott)

2006-01-24T12:25:00.000-05:00

As a sidenote to Jay's fable, here are some ideas I've been playing around with:

Another reason to publish, etc., in public: to attempt to engage society as well as one's own community (or to attempt to engage other communities). Of course this is problematic and fraught with danger, but so too (I think, anyway) is a community with few windows or doors.

A gated community is an extreme example of the latter.

2006-01-23T09:12:00.000-05:00

Dear Election Santa, I would like an NDP-Liberal coalition. I'm even being realistic. If you think I've been really good though, please give me a place like this (except maybe one that's found its way out of the early 70s—don't be afraid of the name). I'm not sure how it would work in the long term, but it would be good to give it a try.

Public service announcement: If you're going to vote strategically, please at least do it right (er, well, left, but you know what I mean).

Also, there's a fable on Jay's blog that you might find interesting.

LATER: Okay, so I can see the attraction of the "let the Liberals die so the NDP can take over" scenario, but why not let the right-wing whackos implode first? And wouldn't the NDP become more or less the Liberals if they were to take over anyway? Isn't that what Layton's get-tough-on-crime-to-win-some-votes crap makes you think?

I'm still wishing.

Tuesday's Lex

2006-01-19T12:13:00.000-05:00

Adam Seelig's opening "thank you" poem emerged subtly from his response to Angela's introduction, and the rest of his reading kept up this dramatic sensitivity, only perhaps blowing it with the Billy Idol call and response he demanded for one of his pieces, which seemed otherwise to solicit careful attention (it was fun anyway). My reservation about Seelig's work has always stemmed from my feeling that he frequently pushes a good thing a bit too far, and I was happy to notice that this tended to happen more in his older work, from his chapbook Hands Face, which I think sometimes sacrifices clarity and focus to density of wordplay and allusion and the temptation to dazzle with variety (and not self-consciously as far as I can tell). His new poetry, which features repetition with permutation and a felt sense of the absurd, seemed much stronger. More to the point, I think this newer work draws on Seelig's strengths. I'm looking forward to what he comes up with next. He also read dramatic work and, at times, chanted or sang.

David McGimpsey, it will surprise no one, was hilarious. He read a long poem about academic succession, complete with bad couplets about squid. McGimpsey is a crowd pleaser, and his poems are carefully rendered too.

Sharon Harris read from a startling large number of projects. Not having had much exposure to them, I'm not sure I get any completely, so I can't comment on their soundness. What sticks in my mind though is her final poem, which she performed in a tender, almost-singing voice. I hereby nominate Sharon the emotional centre of the Toronto poetry community.

Later: Oh, I forgot about Fun with Pataphysics, which is a charming project that I've had a pretty clear view of. It was interesting to hear how deliberate, or at least self-aware, Harris is with respect to the "targeting" of her work. For instance, she referred to I Love You as her mainstream project.

Open michelle: I was glad to hear Jacob Wren, the man formerly known as Death Waits, whose C essay on truth I enjoyed and blogged about a while ago. Nadia's found poetry (whether discovered in discarded notebooks or in dreams) was great as well.

Other accounts here and here.

2006-01-19T09:42:00.000-05:00

Toward a decoding of the crypto-Republicans. (Three points for the best definition of "judicial temperament.")

2006-01-16T20:30:00.000-05:00

Ottawa: After a trip involving many on-the-fly driver changes (the person in the front passenger seat would steady the wheel and slowly edge toward the pedals while the back passenger moved to occupy the front passenger seat and the driver made his or her way over the seat into the back, etc.), we finally landed in the fair city of Ottawa. Michelle Desbarats and Mother Tongue hosted the reading, which was a blast, while the eminently hospitable Anita Dolman and her invisible partner James hosted me (James was out canvassing for the Green Party day and night, so let's cut him some slack). Reading: Angela introduced both the anthology and Max Middle, who gave an electrifying performance of a variety of texts, the most interesting of which were the ones that walked the line between sound poetry and lexical verse. Max introduced Rob Read, who spammed the audience in the most delightful manner and then called on me. I did my usual schtick and introduced Angela, who closed out the readings with a breathless, breathy and raspy version of excerpts of Wide slumber for lepidopterists. The highlight of the Ottawa stop for me though was meeting jw curry. There are some people you just need to listen to. He's one.

Montreal: Thanks to impresario Jon Paul Fiorentino for helping Angela put this one together and for doing it in customarily ass-kicking style. The house was packed with people who listened and who weren't afraid to respond to the work. The multi-layered intros began with Jon's allusions to some controversy surrounding Shift & Switch and to the current political climate in the Montreal poetry scene. Then Angela introduced the anthology and Max Middle, whose reading had a little more edge to it than the night before. Next came Jon, who read a selection of his poems, including ones from the forthcoming Theory of the Loser Class, with a beautifully controlled looseness (though he did spill beer on my leg). Jon then gave me an embarrassing and untrue (or at least inaccurate) introduction, and I read. Next was Matthew Hollett, whose unstudied delivery (of text found and otherwise) charmed the pants off the audience. Angela read some different poems from the night before, and then Rob gave a slightly sleepy reading that still managed to captivate the audience. Chatting ensued, and I met a variety of members of the Montreal literati, including a seventeen-year-old poet named Emily. Thanks to my sister and Pascal for putting me up. And thanks to Vivienne for helping me practise my French.

Likely coming soon: some questions I'm asking myself as I read Gregory Betts's If Language.

Factcheck update: Angela read exactly the same poems both nights. Where was I?

2006-01-15T00:05:00.000-05:00

Excellent readings in Ottawa and Montreal. Pics of Ottawa action here on photographic virtuoso John MacDonald's blog.

Details to follow. Yes, details.

2006-01-10T12:31:00.000-05:00

Look out, Ottawa and Montreal. Some Shift & Switch events:

January 13, 7:30 p.m.
Mother Tongue Books
1067 Bank Street
Ottawa
(Jon Paul Fiorentino, Max Middle, Angela Rawlings, Rob Read, Mark Truscott)

January 14, 8:00 p.m.
Café Esperanza
5490 Saint-Laurent
Montreal
(Jon Paul Fiorentino, Matthew Hollett, Max Middle, Angela Rawlings, Rob Read, Mark Truscott)

2006-01-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

Free idea for a thirty-second political television spot:

0–3 seconds: Open with a black screen.

3–25 seconds: Fade-in white text: "If the Conservatives win the election, Stockwell Day will be Minister of Foreign Affairs."

25–30 seconds: Fade text out. Sound: distant derisive laughter.

LATER: Apparently Rick Mercer is on the same wavelength. Thanks, Hadley.

2006-01-06T16:30:00.000-05:00

The following was the verification word in a comments box on Tracy Hamon's blog yesterday: ethynpo.

So, what does it mean?

Don't believe the hype 2

2006-01-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

When the media spews hysterical hyperbole regarding gun violence in Toronto, this sort of crap can resonate.

2006-01-02T23:19:00.000-05:00

Some important questions arising from the bits of the Leafs-Penguins game I saw tonight:

1) Why was Bill Watters sweating so profusely during the first intermission?

2) Did you see those two kids singing behind Michel Therrien?

2006-01-02T10:57:00.000-05:00

Off the cuff on Ron Silliman's post on Shift & Switch: About half the time, my response is almost identical to his (also, I really wish the introductions had been copyedited better, but that's probably just an expression of an obsession of mine). The other half, I admire the anthology's scrappiness and willingness to appear uncoordinated. I think that the anthology captures what it feels like to be part of the scene—to be caught up in the welter—as opposed to pretending to present it as an object of some kind. The editors are part of what they're documenting, and I think they're honest about this position in their approach. Does this make for a good anthology? I don't know. I have to admit that I have trouble settling on any kind of opinion regarding Shift & Switch, partly I guess because I'm in it and partly because I count the editors as friends. Are readers invited to take a similar position? Will the ones not included be prompted to show up at a reading and join the fray? Is Shift & Switch a generative anthology then?

2006-01-01T22:17:00.000-05:00

Yeah, years are arbitrary measures, but what isn't.

Some things I thought were good in 2005:

Deerhoof, The Runners Four
the Fiery Furnaces at Lee's Palace, October 9
Gus Van Sant, Last Days
Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man
the BGL show at Mercer Union
Tolling Elves
Rachel Zolf, Human Resources
Rob Read, 18 Full English Breakfasts and O Spam, Poams (together)
Betsy Warland's reading at the Mercury launch
Alexei Ponikarovsky

2006-01-01T17:05:00.000-05:00

Last year was the first I posted resolutions on my blog, and it was also the first I didn't keep any. Let's see how it goes this year.

1) Get back into a regular writing routine: at least two hours a day with one day off a week and a pass on nights I go to a literary event.

2) Keep a reading notebook.

3) Try harder to finish leftovers before they go bad.

4) Talk more.

2005-12-31T11:55:00.000-05:00

Just noticed that a video of Steve Reich's Clapping Music is up on his site.

Don't believe the hype

2005-12-29T14:41:00.000-05:00

Yes, certain events in this city this past week were horrible, but methinks members of the media sometimes get a little carried away with their own mythmaking.

The year 2005 is no longer searching for a theme. Boxing Day made it clear. Not just another shooting, easily contextualized in a more or less normal year of big-city homicide -- whatever that is -- the horror on Yonge Street is brazenly symbolic. However senseless it was, however trivial the dispute that triggered it might have been, it can only be felt as an act of terrorism: a targeted wound to the open heart of the city, delivered on the one day of the waning year it is most vulnerable, and a pointed -- to the point of seeming deliberate -- confirmation of the truly wild criminality that now threatens us all.

I admit that I tend to be a little more skeptical of notions such as theme than the average person, but shouldn't John Barber, the author of this hysterical babble (and who normally seems okay to me as far as columnists go), be a little embarrassed?

By the way, in the interest of perspective, I'll bet that a Torontonian is far more likely to be killed by a car than a gun. Yes, let's mourn a life lost and work to control guns and give kids in tough neighbourhoods some opportunities (the latter is a worthwhile thing in itself), but let's maintain our sanity while we're at it. Otherwise we might be tempted to overreact.

2005-12-23T16:49:00.000-05:00

The sky has a weird pinky glow to it right now, and for some reason I associate it with Blade Runner, which I barely remember otherwise, and the way New York looked the first time I saw it as we arrived on the Amtrak train. I think this glow is the result of pollution, but it's quite beautiful.

Now back to my nature poems.

Free idea

2005-12-20T12:55:00.000-05:00

Someone should put together a Mapquest-like site but for pedestrians (or everyday hikers). It could give all the shortcuts and recommend cool things to look at on the way. Just start with your own street. Or hey, make an interface so everyone can map his or her own neighbourhood.

2005-12-17T18:31:00.000-05:00

Funny, I thought Lisa's middle name was Margaret.

2005-12-13T13:07:00.000-05:00

"Words have their class and their occasion," says William H. Gass in his essay "The Sentence Seeks Its Form" (which I've now found). He also says,

Mr. James has the very highborn tone that Mr. Micawber strives for, and if he were to read Mr. James (which as fellows common to the Universal Library, he might), the right airs could be donned and doffed as circumstances required. The right airs include a measured gravity, a mouth-filling motion, and a stately rhythm that suggests every word is formed out of politest consideration for every other, and that a Latinated diction has been chosen, which is so full of itself, so free of the contaminations of commonness, it can hardly bear to touch any subject whatever, and lights upon one, only to leave immediately for another, which it approaches with the same trepidation.

I have to admit that I don't know much about Gass and that my only reading of the essay was pretty hurried. In my next one, I plan to search for indicators of irony to convince myself that he doesn't actually endorse this view. We'll see if this works. Of course language is social, and so class is implicated every time it's used. It's Gass's valuation of politeness that sticks in my craw. It renews my worry that literature and politeness are, at least for now, functionally linked. (I like to think that one of the aims of my practice is to separate them.) Let's hear it for rudeness and, to recalibrate something I said recently, bad grammar.

2005-12-12T17:47:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night:

Lex meets Word for an all-review revue. Dani Couture, Bev Daurio, Sharon Harris, Maggie Helwig, Jay MillAr, Stan Rogal, Lorissa Sengara, Hugh Thomas, and Mark Truscott (moi) read their favourite reviews without revealing the names of their authors. Match the readers' names with those of the reviewers on a handy game card to win fabulous prizes. At least I think that's what's happening. With an all-review open michele.

It's the launch of the first issue of the print version of Word: Canada's Magazine for Readers + Writers. Buy one.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005, 8:00 p.m.
Cameron House (back room), 408 Queen Street West, Toronto

2005-12-12T10:29:00.000-05:00

If you want confirmation that you are a lazy slug, check out Angela's latest post.

2005-12-07T13:16:00.000-05:00

Poem is wave.

At poem's base is the depth of our unknowing. At its crest our knowing. In the movement between—poem's urgent momentum.

Because poem's very form acknowledges both what can be said or known and never said or known, poetry may be as close as we come through language to the sacred.

—Betsy Warland, "Nose to Nose" in Only This Blue

I can get behind this formulation, and in fact I've said similar things. What stops me short is the word "sacred." What does sacred mean in this context?

2005-12-05T18:04:00.000-05:00

What a wild Sunday. Lisa and I went to the Pedal to the Metal craft fair and caught Gun Street Action Team, a pretty amazing band of high-school students who played covers (e.g., the Velvet Underground's "I'm Sticking With You") and original material. Lisa got their contact info in hopes of getting them to play at the library.

Then we headed over to This Ain't and listened to bill bissett talk about Lunaria, which was, well, excellent. Seriously though, what struck me about bissett's talk was that it seemed for him writing truly is coterminous with life and, perhaps, reality. I certainly am aware of the fact that language conditions my experience through and through, I figure that any experience is potentially going to figure into my writing, and I think of my writing as the primary way in which I understand the world, but to a great degree, and likely out of necessity, I keep my artistic practice separate from my paying work and stuff like cleaning the house. It was interesting, on the other hand, to gather the impression of a kind of total immersion on bissett's part, at least during the period of his work on Lunaria. He talked about a routine in which he got up in the morning, swam, ate, and spent the rest of the day on his book. He also spoke of watching September 11 on television and how it changed the colours in certain copies. bissett claims to be from the planet Lunaria, and he only occasionally gives signs (a smirk here and there) that he's joking. After his talk, I'm inclined to believe him. (By the way, hearing bissett meant missing the Youth Scream, but luckily Angela writes about it here.)

After bissett's talk, we went home and ate soup before heading back to This Ain't for the first installment of the Fictitious Reading Series. It had been a while since I'd heard fiction read, and I don't think I'd ever heard it in as non-commercial an atmosphere. I was impressed by the rendering of Heather Birrell's teenaged characters in the second story she read from (I'd heard the first before), and Harold Johnson's work was startling in its violence. I was curious, though, to see how it would feel at a fiction reading, conditioned as I am to poetry events. I'm not sure I noticed anything striking. For one thing, there was no heckling (nor any possibility of it, as far as I could see), and I suppose there may have been a greater and more respectful distance between reader and audience. That's it though, I think. It will be interesting to see if a core group of regulars forms.

Believe it or not, I'm stil working on an account of Shift & Switch and its launch. For a number of reasons (not least among them the fact that I find it difficult to write about events I read at), I've been hesitating. Maybe tomorrow. I also have to respond to some e-mail and some comments.

2005-12-01T12:01:00.000-05:00

Did a quick version of the True Colors personality test as part of a "team building" exercise at work. I love this kind of exercise, and I was disappointed to realize that we all weren't going to start wearing our colours in some kind of homage to the original Star Trek series (the first part of this sentence is entirely facetious; the second isn't). My results, in order from most to least like me, were green, blue, orange, and gold. Apparently greens and blues aren't supposed to like one another, which explains some inner conflict I've been experiencing.

Oh, and get this: the blue card says "I am a natural romantic, a poet, and a nurturer." That's how the puke stains got on my "Hello my name is ..." sticker.

Friday is my all-day "Working in Teams" workshop. I'm leaving if we don't get jumpsuits.

2005-12-01T08:58:00.000-05:00

Ron reads Rob Read. Rob the 21st century balladeer.

In the news

2005-11-28T14:48:00.000-05:00

Speaking of entropy, spring has sprung in Toronto. Stuart Ross, along with Kate Sutherland, has started a community-oriented fiction series. The first readers are Heather Birrell and Harold Johnson. I'll be there, Stu. In other news, Damian Rogers has published her first poems.

Yeah, I know, posts have been skimpy lately. I've had a productive three days. Stay tuned as I slide back toward procrastination.

Breaking news: Just throw the guy in jail.

Today in magazines

2005-11-27T20:13:00.000-05:00

Book Forum is sold out everywhere in my neighbourhood. Is everyone else looking for the William G(l)ass essay too?

Oh yeah, by the way, I'm working on an essay on form.

2005-11-25T12:56:00.000-05:00

Incidentally, it would be great to see you at the Mercury launch Tuesday night at Supermarket. The evening will witness the Toronto unveiling of Shift & Switch (full info on the S&S site), in addition to books by Mark Miller, Barbara Caruso, Richard Truhlar, D.O. Dodd, Gary Barwin and Derek Beaulieu, and Betsy Warland. Christina, who knows these things, tells me that Supermarket is possibly the hippest place in Toronto (besides the Boat, which clearly I've missed). Don't let that make you stay home. It will be fun.

2005-11-24T16:20:00.000-05:00

Broke down and got a flu shot today. It was that guy sneezing on my hand on the subway that changed my mind.

2005-11-22T14:58:00.000-05:00

The names of minerals and the minerals themselves do not differ from each other, because at the bottom of both the material and the print is the beginning of an abysmal number of fissures. Words and rocks contain a language that follows a syntax of splits and ruptures. Look at any word long enough and you will see it open up into a series of faults, into a terrain of particles each containing its own void. The discomforting language of fragmentation offers no easy gestalt solution; the certainties of didactic discourse are hurled into the erosion of the poetic principle. Poetry being forever lost must submit to its own vacuity; it is somehow a product of exhaustion rather than creation. Poetry is always a dying language but never a dead language.
Robert Smithson

2005-11-22T14:18:00.000-05:00

I sometimes cringe when one of my compatriots in poesy writes something formal that seems to try to engage normative grammar but makes a hash of it. Is this a fault?

Not saying I'm perfect.

UPDATE: I suppose what I find especially disturbing is carelessness with syntax. Syntax, of course, need not be of the normative variety.

2005-11-18T12:28:00.000-05:00

If you want to feel that language is a virus (from outer space or otherwise), work as a copy editor in a government office for a little while.

2005-11-16T15:28:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, due to a minor household disaster last night (a leak in our roof) and my tardy arrival at the Cameron House, I'll have to limit my contribution to the response to the latest Lex to Rob Read's performance and the open michelle. I'm compelled first, though, to mention Read's reading ensemble, which conjured the spirit of David Byrne's large white suits. It was only later that Read showed me the blue-faced police officers on his tie, a revelation from which I still haven't recovered. Read read Neil Hennessey's review of O Spam, Poams (plundered from a review of Ralph's Potted Meat Food Product) and then a delightful selection of his treated spam, all with his customary repertoire of voices and accents. If you haven't heard Rob read, you should check him out when you have a chance.

Last night's open michelle has left us with a new standard of excellence. Performers included Lynn McClory (who looked so clam-happy on stage), Maggie Helwig (who began by heckling the hecklers), Marianne Apostolides (who read the first poem she'd written since Grade 5. How cool is that?), a francophone poet whose name I should probably know (who openly and rather directly, but ultimately, I think, accidentally, propositioned Angela) and, get this, John Barlow (who has now read twice in public in the past month).

Oh, and my final vision from last night: Rachel Zolf and Jay Millar waltzing. It's true. It really happened. Jay even said something about having taken dance lessons.

2005-11-15T12:28:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah, Lexiconjury's tonight. Aaron Giovannone (Calgary), Camille Martin (New Orleans), Rob Read (Toronto). Eight o'clock, Cameron backroom. See you there.