New poems
Hello
The first half of the year feels about 3 years long and a minute, doesn't it?
As fast as the year is going, there's a lot to look forward to. New range of fashionable face masks, lots of time to consider what really matters. The end of the Trump era with any luck. The end of Covid-measures (by March of April 2021 is my prediction). A vaccine. Headway in societal change in ceasing to tolerate racism
A little chapbook went out to contributors to the hat of the June edition of the House Party Poetry Series. From sales and donations, the 50-odd participants raised $785 for BLAC (Black Legal Action Centre). As a first Zoom reading for many of us, it was a grand success.
In other news, I've been accepted to the Sage Hill summer program for work on my novel. A terrifying prospect that makes it real and work, and presented before writers I admire, instead of something to toy at.
I've also got a contribution in an anthology coming out this, Traveling with Haiga, edited by Ion Codrescu (fall 2020).
We have our gardens planted with green tomatoes coming along and an expansion into the world of grapes, currants and chard.
Hope that you have things to look forward to and projects that are percolating even if they aren't on the page or at the printer. Looking for something new to chew? Read on,
Recommended Reads
I have finished reading about 70 books and chapbooks this year. Of those, these are outstanding:
Novels:
A Quality of Light by Richard Wagamese (Doubleday, 1997) of the intersections of the lives of two kids, one a white boy, one an adopted indigenous boy, followed through decades. He's an amazing story-teller.
Death by Association by Madona Skaff-Koren (Renaissance Press, 2020) is Ottawa-based of a woman detective with MS who tries to prove a man innocent of murder. Love how it puts on the page as normal effects of fatigue and spoons.
Céilí by Moriah Gemel (Interlude Press, 2016) a young man who thought he was mortal who enters the Fae community. It's a sweet love story.
Essays:
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2019) follows his observations for a year as he tries to embrace what is joyful.
The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power by Desmond Cole (Doubleday, 2020) looks at 12 stories of being Black in Canada.
Short Stories:
Nothing without us: anthology edited by “Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson (Renaissance, 2020) covers sci-fi, fantasy in compelling short stories of many moods.
Poetry:
The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde (Norton, 1978) dauntingly her poems as pleas as a relevant today as then. Her poems of pleasure likewise are still resonant.
Low Centre of Gravity by Michael Dennis (Anvil Press, 2020) is a fantastic book of sombre, insightful and comical tales.
Newly Published
Terry Ann Carter's book, Haiku In Canada, History, Poetry, Memoir, from Ekstasis Press is a substantial study of the history of haiku in Canada. KaDo has a few pages and there is even a page or so on me and my haiku. What an honour.
What have I been writing? Up at the Ottawa Poetry Newsletter there's an interview about my press, and the small press fair, which, without covid, would have been this weekend.
An interview went up this week at The New Quarterly, on Finding the Form.
The Small Machine Talks, a podcast by Aaron Kozak and Amanda Earl are up to Episode 61, a look back at the contributors of Experiment-O.
I haven't sent an update in a while so you may have missed:
Dead Poets Reading Series: Reading Audre Lorde [May 11, 2020]
The Red Alder Review [April 21, 2020]
Periodicities (#3 with Adeena Karasick, Pearl Pirie, Paul Brookes, Manahil Bandukwala + Margo LaPierre : virtual reading series) [March 17, 2020]
Until next time, keep reading, keep writing, keep safe and keep breathing,
Pearl