This time to Saskatoon! Savvy Canlitmag⁽¹⁾ readers will instantly be able to guess the publication, but I hesitate to mention it due to vague superstitions and the fact that there is, of course, the possibility that the poems will be rejected and I will fret to myself if only I hadn’t mentioned the name of the magazine!

But of course this is all meaningless.

Been reading Bukowski lately, and just picked up two new⁽²⁾ books of Atwood’s poetry⁽³⁾ from Seeker’s, one of my favourite bookstores in this universe.

Still working on that short story. I kind of let it slide as I’ve been feeling sort of inspired to write poetry this week – most of it bad, and thus discarded, but there was one I really liked, and I send that along with some others written earlier to the (not so) mysterious Saskatoon lit mag.

Excited. Apprehensive. The result of work. Work that frustrates me the way code does, getting right, doing it properly. Work I love.

Back to it!

Footnotes:

1. How’s that for an abbreviation? [↩]
2. Used, actually, but new to me. [↩]
3. Atwood, my idol. [↩]

I had never heard of Modest Mouse, but was gifted “No One’s First, and You’re Next” on December 25th by an aunt⁽¹⁾ who’d perused my CD collection and though I’d like them.

She was right, I instantly loved their jangly, up- and off-beat indie rock sound. “The Whale Song” was all she promised it would be, but “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” and especially “Autumn Beds” were the two that stuck in my brain and refused to leave, and which I’d find myself humming and tapping, all a-jangle at inopportune moments.

I ended up buying another of their CDs, an earlier one called “Good News for People Who Love Bad News“, and listening to it realized I’d heard “Float On” before, after all.⁽²⁾ Then suddenly they were everywhere, at least, I suddenly seemed to recognize their presence in a way I hadn’t before.

Reading Zoe Whittall‘s excellent Holding Still for as Long as Possible in January I got excited when one of the characters put on one of their CDs. I know them! I thought it was nifty, but a fluke.

Then they turned up again in the book I just finished reading, A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore.⁽³⁾ Continue reading »

Footnotes:

1. She’s actually a step-aunt, as she’s my Grandfather’s wife’s daughter, though she’s only a few months older than me. As such, it seems hilarious to call her “aunt”. “Step-aunt” sounds unnecessarily remote. [↩]
2. I frequently hear music I like, then promptly forget the name of the band. I need to own CDs, see the case, the CD, the artwork, the lyrics to get the whole gestalt and remember things properly. Perhaps that’s why I’m so attached to books, too. They’re things. Lots of abstract ephemera, but I can remember that Zoe Whitthall wrote Holding Still for as Long as Possible because it has a white dustjacket with splashes of colour and a big red circle…but we’re coming to that. [↩]
3. Also a gift, and another excellent book. Although Moore overuses exclamation points. Every would-be humorous sentence is exciting! You can get used to it! Or despair! [↩]

Perhaps it’s because I’ve just finished reading Jane Eyre, but I took exception to the description given in the Spring 2010 Lapham’s Quarterly.

Allow me to explain, in this issue there’s a chart titled “Day Jobs” which sketches the careers of half a dozen well known writers, including Ms Bronte.

Included are listings of the writer’s name, occupation, salary, office life, occupational hazards and perks – a few words each. Most are amusing or harmless enough.

However, it also lists the works written, and a title or two are mentioned for each author. Except for our Ms Bronte, of whom it is declared that she wrote: “Nothing, used experiences for episodes in Jane Eyre.”

Compare: TS Eliot’s The Waste Land is deemed “partly inspired by sights he passed on the way to work.” Does this invalidate his contribution to literature?⁽¹⁾ Continue reading »

Footnotes:

1. Evidently not, Eliot’s works were inspired. Hrm. [↩]