I've been Matilda Magtree-d!

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Carin Makuz, who blogs as Matilda Magtree and also runs the Litter-I-See Project, recently interviewed me about Stowaways.

It was a great, sprawling, summery interview.  (She's also interviewed Brenda Schmidt and Tracy Hamon, among others, whose interviews you can check out here.)

My thanks to Carin for keeping me company while I was on retreat in The Pas!

Reprint: Hilarity, Wit and Tenderness

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So Regina poet Gillian Harding-Russell reviewed Stowaways for the 10th anniversary issue of The Goose, which is the creative/critical journal run by ALECC (Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada).

Harding-Russell's review opens with the following:

"In Stowaways, Ariel Gordon reflects a feminist and often a mother's perspective in which zany metaphor and unusual collage are poised to startle and challenge the reader. And if this imagery and meaning brought about through juxtaposition are not enough to disrupt the reader's ordinary
senses, surreal angles and surprise turns are guaranteed to dislocate sensibility and overturn old ways of seeing. At the heart of Gordon's postmodern view, comedy and cleverness and an intrinsically parodic inventiveness reign, as witness the slew of 'how to' survive poems that make up the
last half of the collection."

It should go without saying that any poet appreciates close readings of her work. But in this case, I deeply appreciate that it was Harding-Russell, a senior female poet from the prairies, who provided that close reading. She seems to have 'gotten' many of my aims and efforts, which is always nifty...

You can read the rest of the review here and, if you'd also like to read reviews of books by my Palimpsest pressmates Yvonne Blomer, Patricia Young, and Ruth Roach Pierson, they're also reviewed in this issue.

Fall Literary Series

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I'm very pleased to be reading with Basma. I recently read her second book Niche, and it left me feeling both enriched and and cleaned-out. I wished that I'd written it...

I'm glad to report too that the Winnipeg International Writers Festival will be presenting the event as part of their fall literary series, which includes a Q&A session with Artistic Director Charlene Diehl.

Charlene interviewed myself and Kevin McPherson Eckhoff as part of an WIWF Afternoon Book Chat back in 2010 when Hump came out and it was great fun. So I'm looking forward to more of the same...

Writing on the Ridge

Rolla, BC. August 14, 2015. Photo by Melanie Siebert.

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Before heading out to Mayfield Lake in the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area, Donna Kane had organized a reading for us in Rolla, BC.

The reading featured myself, Melanie Siebert, and Gillian Wigmore, who drove up with 3/4 of her family from Prince George for the event.

We read on the deck at Donna's beautiful house. I started the evening in the dress the Internet had incited me to bring. I put on longjohns underneath, folded up to the knees so they didn't show under the hem of the dress. Then I went and got my denim shirt.

And then, just before the readings started, someone said to me: "You're shivering."

So I went and changed into more sensible clothes. And listened to Melanie and Gilly's readings with great delight.

When Donna introduced me, she said there was a lot of heat to my poetry, which I appreciated more given that I was wearing my coppery down vest and my cute-bum jeans.

And so I read Donna's neighbours and friends in the front rows, bundled into jackets and draped with blankets, but I also read to the troublemakers loitering to the rear of the crowd, who were crowing and gesturing with their drinks but also listening.

We went inside for Art Napoleon's set of originals and covers-with-Cree-translations, the audience sitting on the floor, jammed onto the couches, and perched on the chairs. And, after that, those that wanted to danced until 2 am.

I interspersed dancing-foolness with Perseid meteor shower-spotting out on the deck. And then we noticed that there were northern lights, so I bundled myself into a quilt and followed the group over to the horse paddock, where there was a minimum of light.

And then Donna's two horses arrived.

It was nearly a perfect day. (And I haven't even mentioned how we visited the ranch/studio of Emilie Mattson & also the Rolla Pub (shuffleboard! gin!), how I got to groom the big horse Riley, and my stints mooching rhubarb from Emilie & small delicious apples from Donna...)

My thanks to Donna Kane for the splendid organizing and hospitality and that turquoise quilt as well as the Canada Council for the Arts and EventHostBC for the funding to assemble us all there.

Bimblebox 153 Birds

In April, I saw an interesting call for submissions for poets and writers.

The Bimblebox Nature Reserve, a 8,000 hectare property in the Desert Uplands Bioregion of Central West Queensland, Australia, was facing mining development in and around the reserve.

All photos courtesy Bimblebox Art Project.

One of the projects they embarked on to help save the reserve was an art project where they looked for artist/poet/musicians to create artworks around each of the 153 species of birds that have been observed in the reserve.

While I'm not a birder or someone who writes deliberately about birds, some of the poems in my last book Stowaways, featured descriptions of birdsong as footnotes, mostly as a way to bring in more data about the world of the poem.

Intrigued, I had a look at the list of birds that hadn't yet been claimed. And they had a raptor left, the Brown Falcon (Falco berigora), which makes things much easier. I'm somehow not really a songbird person...
 
So I wrote/workshopped/recorded my poem and send it off, as did many other Canadian nature poets, including Yvonne Blomer, Jenna Butler, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Kerry Ryan, and Laura Lamont.

The project is now being exhibited at galleries all over Australia and project coordinator (and artist) Jill Sampson has posted some of the artworks to the Bimblebox website, with the following description.

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"153 Artists created 153 artworks. 153 writers created 153 poems & prose. 153 musicians interpreted the written onomatopoeia and mnemonic notations for these birds creating 153 bird calls. This is Bimblebox 153 Birds.

Bimblebox 153 Birds was exhibited at the Impress Printmakers Studio and Gallery, Brisbane in May 2015. It was astonishing to see so many species of birds filling the gallery. Audio of the writers poetry & prose mixed with the musicians' bird calls played into the gallery. A listening station provided the opportunity to choose to listen through headphones to any of the audios by the writers and musicians. Also provided in folders were printed copies of the bird inspired poetry and prose.

Bimblebox 153 Birds was officially opened by Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe AO. Ian gave an inspired, informative, and entertaining opening address. Ian spoke to us about the global, national, local and personal cost of developing more coal mines and in particular what we risk losing by destroying the Bimblebox Nature Refuge for coal mining. Ian reminded us with his compelling insight and all-encompasing science that Climate Change is the great challenge to ongoing life on planet Earth, our home. Ian spoke about the myriad forms of life that make up the incredible biodiversity of the Bimblebox Nature Refuge and finished his address with a poem penned especially for this occasion."

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My thanks to Jill Sampson for keeping all the artists and artworks untangled and to the members of the Electronic Garrett for their feedback.

Also useful was the internet, whose various birding sites helped me to 'see' the Brown Falcon.

Finally, here are the credits for the finished piece: "Brown Falcon, Poet Ariel Gordon, Musician Myf Turpin on piano. Compiled and mixed by Boyd."

Talking Wild

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If you're in/around Rolla (or Dawson), BC, this looks like it will be a nifty event!

It will feature Art Napoleon, Melanie Siebert, Gillian Wigmore and me and will be at poet/Writing on the Ridge organizer Donna Kane's house.

Reprint: Write out of Wolseley

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So I was interviewed a few weeks ago by Meg Crane for The Leaf, whose slogan is "Serving Winnipeg's Wolseley Neighbourhood."

We met at the Neighbourhood Cafe, where I slurped on loose-leaf tea while chatting with Meg about Stowaways and the Manitoba Book Awards.

My thanks to Meg & the Leaf!

Envoi-ing

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So, after a busy weekend that included the TWUC/LCP AGM in addition to the usual to-ing-and fro-ing, Regina poet Tracy Hamon, The Pas-based writer Lauren Carter, and I read at McNally's Monday night as part of the Envoi Poetry Festival.

There were a lot of poems, a lot of bad jokes (mine) and laughter, and a decent Q&A that included questions about putting together a ms., writing the body, and what it means to write poems in character when the person in question is a relative.

I'd like to thank Kristian Enright for hosting/enduring gentle ribbing, to McNally's for having us, and for the audience, some of which I knew and some of which I didn't...which is how I like it.

(I also managed to pick up the second volume of Rat Queens, which made me happy. The girl had a gift card she was itching to spend and, after extensive browsing, settled on the third Zita the Spacegirl.)

And that's it for the official Stowaways touring. I don't have a single reading on my event horizon, and hoo-boy, am I ever ready for a good long quiet summer of reading & writing & walks in woodsy places.

So is this an envoi ("the usually explanatory or commendatory concluding remarks to a poem, essay, or book; especially: a short final stanza of a ballad serving as a summary or dedication") for my second book? Yah. Mostly.

Envoi Poetry Festival

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For more information on the event, you can check out McNally's website or the Envoi Poetry Festival.

Two mics

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Yvonne Blomer and I read at the Get Lit Cabaret as part of the Cathedral Village Arts Festival in Regina on May 21.

We elected to read together, salon-style, which basically means that we alternated poems, selecting poems from our own books that addressed some image or theme or word from the previous poem.

You don't plan the poems in advance. You just listen and then flip through your book and read.

Reading this way means that you have be comfortable reading almost anything from your book. It also means that you have to listen hard, ferreting out meaning in someone else's poems but also connecting to something in your own work.

Here Yvonne is, reciting her "As if a Raven" at the very beginning of our reading. Which is a trick I haven't yet attempted...

I want to extend my thanks to Yvonne for reading with me, to Bernadette Wagner and the CVAF for having us, and to the SWG for sponsoring the reading. Special thanks to Tracy Hamon for billeting us and for her own reading at Get Lit, which included two videopoems.

Merlins & pears

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It was sunny when I drove to Saskatoon. And the only thing that saved me, despite driving straight through, was the time difference. Because I'm not especially good at getting up early enough or mobilizing all my clothes and books and scarves....

But thanks to time zone differences, I got there and got changed in time for us to walk across the bridge and on to the restaurant where we were meant to have dinner with John Donlan.

Afterwards, we walked to the Frances Morrison Central Library. And dee & Dave were outside, kibbutzing with buddies, and who was there, amidst the friends, but Don McKay.

And I suddenly felt very lucky, a feeling that was amplified by walking into the event room and seeing twenty-five people. Don had brought the poets from the colloquium he was facilitating at Sage Hill...

I read first. Along the way, I realized the folly of reading bird poems to Don McKay. But I did and then I read my pear poems and then I thought I'd end with "How to Tell if Someone is Dead." Because I thought if any audience would know Robert Kroetsch, whose death in 2011 the poem is a response to, it would be this one.

And I got a little weepy while explicating the poem. Which surprised me.

After that, Yvonne and John read in their turns. And it was lovely to encounter them both that way, but I especially loved the poem for two voices of Yvonne's that they did together. It made me glad to be a writer, to have cause to be standing there, reading & listening to others read, and to chat with people afterwards. It also made me wish I'd written that poem, so it was aspirational, in a way.

My thanks to the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild for sponsoring the reading, to the Saskatoon Public Library for hosting us so elegantly, to John for agreeing to read with us and for being so generous, and to Don McKay, for coming to a reading of mine and listening to my poems.

Because in the same way that having Robert Kroetsch blurb my first book was enough, having Don McKay listen to me read poems about merlins, about pears, and were-coyotes, was, well...enough.

Saskatoon! Reading!

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Three Poets Reading 
An SWG Sponsored Reading  

When: Wednesday, May 20 at 7:00 pm  
Where: Frances Morrison Central Library, 311 - 23rd St East, Saskatoon

Enjoy a reading by Writer-in-Residence of the Saskatoon Public Library John Donlan, Ariel Gordon & Yvonne Blomer.

Yvonne Blomer is the Artistic Director of Planet Earth Poetry, a weekly reading series in Victoria, BC, and recently became Victoria’s fourth Poet Laureate in 2014.

 Award-winning Winnipeg-based Ariel Gordon launched her second collection of urban/nature poems, Stowaways, in 2014.

This reading is sponsored by the SWG.

Lit-Lived!

(Clockwise from top left): Amber McMillan, me, what the books table looks like, mid-show, Andrew Forbes, Patrick Friesen, and the crowd in Homegrown Hamilton.

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The May 3 Lit Live reading in Hamilton featured me, Amber McMillan, Andrew Forbes, Patrick Friesen, Nick Michael Casteels, Nicholas Papaxanthos, and Valerie Nielsen.

I read first, because our group of poets, dining at the nearby Italian resto Capri, arrived at Homegrown Hamilton last.

But I don't mind where I read in a line-up, really. Not anymore.

And I had so much fun up there. Talking about Winnipeg, about poetry and football and heckling. (The best audience feedback I got was the owner of Homegrown Hamilton, who high-fived me when I went to get a beeeeeeeer at intermission...)

My thanks to Lit Live organizers, to Homegrown Hamilton, and to Gary Barwin for putting me up. 

Get Lit Cabaret

The Cathedral Village Arts Festival presents:
The Get Lit Cabaret 

Join us for an evening of literary wonderment!

When: Thu, May 21, 7pm –11pm
Where: The Artesian (2627 13th Ave, Regina, SK)
Cost: FREE

7 p.m. Digital Stories from the Neighbourhood Part 1
Examples of the new narrative, a mix of visual and audio, from workshops offered by Evie Ruddy through the Saskatchewan Writers Guild and Cathedral Village Arts Festival.

7:15 p.m. Poets on Tour – Yvonne Blomer and Ariel Gordon
Sponsored by Saskatchewan Writers Guild

Yvonne Blomer, Artistic Director of Planet Earth Poetry, a weekly reading series in Victoria, BC, became Victoria’s fourth Poet Laureate in 2014.

Award-winning Winnipeg-based Ariel Gordon launched her second collection of urban/nature poems, Stowaways, (Palimpsest Press), in 2014.

8 p.m. Digital Stories from the Neighbourhood 2.

8:15 p.m. History in the Making with Anne Lazurko and Allan Safarik
Co-sponsored by Coteau Books.

Fiction writers Anne Lazurko (Weyburn) and Allan Safarik (Dundurn) face off in an animated discussion of historical fiction and read from their most recent books.

In Lazurko's first book Dollybird, (Coteau Books), twenty-year-old Moira, banished to 1906 Saskatchewan due to unwed pregnancy, comes to terms with dodgy acquaintances and employment as a "dolly-bird".

Safarik's Swedes' Ferry, (Coteau Books), a retelling of an international showdown featuring two police forces, robbers, and life along the Canada/US prairie border in the late 1800's, is his 20th book and his first novel.

9 p.m Saskatchewan Book Awards Presents short-listed authors Laurier Gareau and Tracy Hamon

9:30 p.m. The Music in Poetry – Heather Peat Hamm
Co-sponsored by Wild Sage Press

Agricultural and ecological research gave Heather Peat Hamm a keen observational bent and drawing skills honed at the microscope, illustrated in her first book, Blue Grama (Wild Sage Press). Her songs are poetry with banjo and guitar.

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I've heard good things about the Cathedral Village Arts Festival for years, so it'll be nifty to finally be able to check it out.

I'm looking forward to spending time with writer friends, to encountering the work of writers and artists I don't yet know, but after a busy spring, I'm really really looking forward to that drive to Saskatchewan.

The six hours between Winnipeg and Regina is a beloved stretch of highway for me.

It's where I can be gloriously noisy and quiet. And I really need some singing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs. Some time-alone-in-my-car, with endless mugs of tea and the stereo blasting...

My thanks to Bernadette Wagner, CVAF Festival Chair, and the SWG for their support of this event!

Authors for Indies: Epic Books

(Clockwise from top left): Gary Barwin live-writing; Jaime Krakowski, me, Gary & writer Amanda Leduc behind the table of sweets that Epic was providing; the books of all the authors taking part in Authors for Indies; a long-view of Epic, which was all light wood and well-organized shelves.

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I caught a 5:15 am flight to Toronto and then got sort of jammed up, trying to bus & subway to Union Station, where I'd catch a Go Train to Hamilton. (Apparently, one of the major highways had a scheduled maintenance day...)

But I got to Hamilton just in time for my 1 pm shift at Epic Books, having re-read sections of my selected titles—The Studhorse Man by Robert Kroetsch, In the Tiger Park by Alison Calder, and Quivering Land by Roewan Crowe—on the plane.

By the end of Authors for Indies Day, I was largely wordless, powered solely by cupcakes and laughter. Luckily, there was lots of that, given that both the other authors I was hand-selling alongside and the bookstore staff were great fun.

The text that went with this photo, when I posted it to FB, reflects that over-punctuated state:
"Books! Live-writing! Cupcakes!"

So here are a few impressions of the day that are more lucid/considered:

Jaime Krakowski, owner, Epic Books
So I'm still coming down from my earlier sugar high, pixie sticks and bookselling—quite the combination. Anyways, we had a great Authors for Indies Day and would like to thank everyone that visited! It was tons of fun. Of course, we couldn't have done it without the help of all of the amazing authors that volunteered with us. So a great big thanks to Amanda Leduc, Ariel Gordon, Gary Barwin, Gisela Sherman, Sally Cooper, Sylvia McNicoll and Joe Ollmann, who did our fabulous window! Not to get too weepy, the sugar crash is upon me, but thanks also to Lisa my ridiculously energetic staff member that spoils me by being awesome & bringing me yummy treats to start the day with! There, now that wasn't too Oscar-y was it? Maybe a bit, but that's ok.

Authors for Undies, I mean, Indies Interactive Story at Epic Books by Gary Barwin: For Authors for Indies Day I was at Epic Books with Ariel Gordon and Amanda Leduc. I sat in the front of the store and wrote a story. I solicited ideas from customers and the other writers. Some of the content came by asking people to pick a book off the shelf and turn to page 106 and choose the 7th line. For example, there's a line from Lynn Crosbie's new book, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

And here's the end of Gary's story, which is somehow exactly right:

The phone rang raising a nimbus of dust from its ancient pre-cellular receiver. Without thinking, Avigdor lifted the receiver. The mouthpiece was caked in Paleolithic lipstick, discarded insect carapaces and spit. Avigdor gave the mouthpiece a quick theoretically antibacterial swipe with his sleeve and answered it.

“Hello?” he said. “Hello?”

“There’s a book I need. It’s blue. It was on the radio. It was written by rain.”

Reprint: UM Today

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So UM Today, which is the weekly journal at the University of Manitoba, wrote an article about the Manitoba Book Awards where my Landowne Prize win for Stowaways was the lede.

Also mentioned in the article were Maurice Mierau, Jonathan Ball, GMB Chomichuk, and Brenda Sciberras as well as the two awards won by UMP titles.

Fun!

Lansdowne Prize for Poetry

It was the last thing I expected, but I'm pretty happy that Stowaways won the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry last night at the Manitoba Book Awards.

Here are the judges' comments:

"Stowaways is well imagined and well crafted, each poem tight, the poet’s attention evident. From wildlife to the clutter of the everyday to “how-to” offerings, the reader is charmed and enticed by the poet’s light touch and sure pen.

Images jump out at us, grab us by the throat, leave us gasping. Ariel Gordon’s second collection is as strong as the parts of its sum.”

—Margaret Michele Cook, Katia Grubisic, and Paul Savoie, judges of the 2015 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry / Prix Lansdowne de Poesie.

Laurent Poliquin ("A deep and far-reaching exploration of the possiblity of words and language"), Alison Calder ("There is so much of breathtaking beauty in Alison's Calders In the Tiger Park"), and Luann Hiebert ("A true ephiphany of sound, structure, meaning, allusion, intent") were also nominated.

I expected Alison to win, because, as the judges put it, she's a "a thoughtful imp that sneaks into our night mind, a tender and wry traveller inviting her readers along." And, also, because I admire her work so very much...

As such, I didn't have any comments prepared, so I mostly mocked/thanked M, who had commented just before my award was announced—having watched Rick Chafe's gracious wife accept the inaugural Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright—that spouses should always get to accept awards.

(M was there in two capacities: loyal/long-suffering spouse but also as someone who'd worked on the Winnipeg Free Press' City Beautiful book, which was nominated in the design category...)

I also acknowledged Alison as her role as member of my writing group, along with Kerry Ryan and Jennifer Still.

And then I made the crowd chant "Poetry is Forever" which was sort of fun, but completely forgot to thank my publisher Palimpsest Press or editor Jim Johnstone or the MWG or even my colleagues at UMP. Sigh...

But I had a new dress for the occasion from Foxy Shoppe and had had my hair done at Edward Carrier, so between the wedge heels I was wearing and the pompadour I was sporting, I was at least six and a half feet tall...

The ballroom at the Marlborough Hotel was spacious but also suffocatingly hot, so people rushed out when all was said and done, but a group of us went to the Round Table and had buckets of bacon. Which was a nice end to the evening...

Fun!

(My thanks to Anthony Mark Schellenberg for the acceptance speech photo, from the moment when I got the crowd to chant "Poetry is Forever," mostly because I could. And because I believe it...)

Lit Live-ing!

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My next reading will be in Hamilton as part of the Lit Live reading series.

I'm excited to read with Patrick Friesen, who is a once and forever Manitoban and a very good poet.

I'm also looking forward to encountering the work of Andrew Forbes, Valerie Nielsen, and Amber McMillan as well as the emerging writers. And rambling around Hamilton a bit more, after my brief stop there in October.

Dirty hands

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And, because I'm a charter member of GMB Chomichuk fan club, here's another diptych from last night's ChiSeries reading, both pre- and post-drawing.

Spec-fic poems! Live-drawing!

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So last night was the ChiSeries reading in Winnipeg to celebrate National Poetry Month, which meant a slate lousy with poets but also live-drawing, which is a nice combo.

The event featured myself, Jonathan Ball, Adam Petrash, and GMB Chomichuk (who was the aforementioned live-draw-er...).

And it was fun to spend some time with the work of these writers. How-Tos on how to avoid becoming a horror movie cliche (not mine, shockingly). A poem on Leatherface and his chainsaw-wielding interpretive dance. A clutch of my were-mummy poems, both from Stowaways and newer variants. And a cut-up poem from Greg's Imagination Manifesto, which he handed out after.

It was also fun to go for a good, old-fashioned gossip over beer and buckets-of-bacon after the reading was done.

My thanks to Samantha Beiko and Chadwick Ginther for the organizing and hosting goodness!