wall eyeing

OK, so it's not one of the large, permanent-type author headshots. (A few of which -- including my beloved L. Cohen -- are looking a bit sun-faded, btw.) It's a paper print-out, affixed with push pins, above the cash desk. Still, I'm pretty excited to be up on the walls at McNally Robinson, no matter how temporarily.

Not sure who had to make the certainly grueling decisions about which authors to include, or where to position them, but I lucked into a pretty sweet spot. If you come in through the parking lot doors, look up and to the right. Sure, I would have like to have been next to (sigh) Michael Ondaatje, but I'm in a good neighbourhood -- just upstairs from Michael van Rooy and kitty-corner to Carol Shields.

Take a gander next time you're in. And, I'll be at McNally's live and in person on Tuesday, April 19th, opening for Anvil author Rachel Thompson. Looking forward to it!

(The photo they used, also the one on the top of this blog, was taken by J. on the verandah of my parents' cottage. I'd just woken up from a nap, which accounts for the dreamy, out-of-sorts expression and the bed-head.)

Actually, I take milk, please.

(image from Black Coffee Poet's photo essay of Toronto Newsgirls' Boxing Club.)


It was all about me this week... over at blackcoffeepoet.com, that is.

OK, it wasn't just about me. It was somewhat about me, partly about Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club, mostly about boxing, and substantially about International Women's Day. And poetry. Still, it was fun to have my work featured there over the past week.

On Monday, BCP posted a review of Vs., along with a video on Toronto Newsgirls, a women's boxing club in Toronto. On Wednesday, an interview with me, interspersed with photos from Newsgirls. And, on Friday, a video of Newsgirls' owner Savoy "Kapow" Howe (whose nickname I covet), reading from Vs., while members of the club "acted out" some of the poems.

It was exciting/strange to see my poems out in the world, being performed without me. I tried not to quibble about intonation, pacing, or the fact that the medicine ball drill the Newsgirls do seems much more civilized than the ones to which I am accustomed.

It was pretty nifty, though, and I liked the peek inside another club. I'd heard of Newsgirls some time ago, then met one of their members at a reading I did in Toronto in December. I'd like to check it out in person the next time I visit TO; it looks like a pretty supportive and inclusive club -- just like my own Pan Am.