May as well.

Snow's gone (again). Sun's back. It's May Day in these parts. Let the grueling writing schedule begin!

This is my sixth year taking part in the blog-based poetry project spearheaded by Ariel Gordon. Three days in and I'm already tired, struggling to find subjects to write about, and wriggling under self-applied pressure. All that said, it's always a great, productive time. Everyone working away diligently on their own projects and connecting online to share fresh work, perspectives, feedback. We've a healthy group of 16 poets this year and I'm already inspired by what I've seen.

Although I have, a few times, completed 31 poems during May Days past, due to some mid-month travel, that won't happen this year. But, I'm using May Day 2011 to dive into my newest project: this guy.

Edouard Beaupre, giant of Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan. More on him to come. Much more, hopefully.

shelf-ish

I know, in theory, that my little books are out in the world, being read, or waiting shyly on shelves somewhere. I know because once in awhile I get a royalty payment or whathaveyou. The cheques are small (though nonetheless welcome!) so I know that sales are drib-drabby at best.  

And I know my books are in libraries because I get a little cheque every year from the Public Lending Right Commission. Payments are based on an annual survey of a handful of libraries across the country; the amount of your payment is based on how many of those libraries have your book in their catalogue. But still, even though I've been cashing those cheques for a couple of years, I didn't ever stop and think: hey, my books are actually IN libraries. Being checked out (hopefully), or thumbed through, or -- gasp -- stolen. And by people I don't know in places I've never been.

Then I heard about worldcat.org, the world's largest library catalogue, and decided to take a look-see for my books. And it kind of blew me away. Both of my books are all over North America, mostly in university libraries. (Including Ivy League ones!) Vs. can be borrowed in Santa Cruz, CA; from the Library of Congress in Washington; Princeton; Harvard; and a whole wodge of Canadian universities. (The Sleeping Life gets even more hits.) Sure, I don't know how often these copies actually circulate, but I'm pretty chuffed at the thought of all places my books get to go, all the people who might be reading it.

So, thanks, libraries, for supporting small press poetry, and offering it up to all of us for free... as long as we return our loans on time...

Running up.

No cigars for me, lately, though I've been close a couple of times. There was the second place in TNQ's Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse contest, honourable mention (IE 4th place) in PF's Bliss Carman, 4th place among the women who took part an 8-week fitness program/contest at my boxing club. Then today, I learned that I'd placed somewhere among the top FIFTY in the Summer Literary Seminar contest. (To keep that in perspective, there were 900-something entries, so the ranking is still sort of encouraging.)

So, you can find me, pretty consistently, just over from the podium, within smelling distance of victory. (Which is especially pungent in the case of the boxing thing.) Not that I mean this as a complaint. It's pretty great just to be in proximity of winners.

But it has me thinking: when did writing -- and everything -- start feeling like a contest to be one or lost? And then I realize: it was when I started entering contests. Duh. Or maybe when I started publishing -- having a lit mag take a poem or a publisher accept a manuscript is exactly the same kind of competition, but your name ends up on a table of contents or better yet, a title page, instead of a shortlist. Prizes seem more prestigious because they come with bigger cheques and because they get more media attention than, say, a new issue of a journal.

But really, it's all completely subjective, we're all beholden to the whims of editors and juries, so why even spend precious writing time thinking about it? Besides, my Mom thinks I'm pretty hot stuff. And so, I hereby celebrate my recent experiences adjacent to glory.

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.

Reading!

Jeope and I have competing gigs next Wednesday... mine's a reading at Aqua, his a presentation at the GDC's first Pecha Kucha of 2011. Mine starts early; he's on in the second half, so really there's no reason a person can't attend both. That's what I'll be doing, anyway.

 

The Aqua Books Lansdowne Prize for Poetry Series:

Charlene Diehl, with Stacy Doiron and Kerry Ryan, Wednesday, March 9/11 7pm

 

 

 
Charlene Diehl is a writer, educator, critic, teacher and the director of THIN AIR, Winnipeg’s annual literary splash. She has published essays, poetry, non-fiction, reviews, and interviews in journals across Canada, and has to her credit a scholarly book on Fred Wah as well as a collection of poetry, lamentations, and two chapbooks, mm and The Lover’s Handbook. Excerpts from Out of Grief Singing, which appeared in Prairie Fire, won a a Gold Award for Best Article - Manitoba at the Western Magazine Awards. She was the featured poet in the fall 2007 issue of CV2. When she’s not chasing literary language (or her two speed pre-teens), she edits dig! Magazine, Winnipeg's little-jazz-engine-that-could.

 
Stacy Doiron is a poet, avid cyclist, kung fu artist, and editor whose poems have been published in Contemporary Verse 2. She recently participated in the Manitoba Writers' Guild Sheldon Oberman Emerging Writers' Mentor Program and attended the Great Blue Heron Writing Workshop at St. Francis Xavier University. She currently resides in a radical co-op house in West End Winnipeg and works at a corporate-esque publishing company in Point Douglas.

 
Kerry Ryan lives and writes in Winnipeg. Her first collection of poetry, The Sleeping Life, was published by The Muses’ Company in 2008 and nominated for the Aqua Lansdowne Prize for Poetry in 2009. She has had poetry published in a number of journals, including Prairie Fire, Grain, Room, CV2 and Carousel. Her second collection, Vs., was published by Anvil Press in 2010. Kerry was Aqua Books Writer-in-Residence for September-December 2010.

Unitered!

Nice story in The Uniter this week about Vs.! Check it out.

It was a fun interview, with thoughtful questions. (Many along the lines of: what's harder -- boxing or writing poems? Hmmm. Gooooooood question.) The reporter recorded it on her iPhone-a-ma-gadget. Which made me feel both totally modern and hopelessly out of touch.

I like that she picked up on some of the themes that other interviewers haven't: how boxing, and writing about boxing, affected my identity and self-perception, and how the hardest part of training was getting the brain and body to work together. 

I think it's funny she ascribed some boxing prowess to me. I must come off pretty tough while drinking tea at the Second Cup! As any Pan Am member can attest: you don't have to be good at something to write a book about it. (Still, it's a nice thought.)