poetry versus prose: the cage match

SO I just got back from Montreal via Kingston, having read, in the space of 4 days, to students and profs at Queens' and McGill universities, Queen of the Angels High School for relatively well-behaved Catholic girls, and a large audience of mostly older people at the Jewish Public Library. The last event (the only paid one) was a talk about and reading from The Violin Lover, and the high school trip was to teach the girls how to write poetry; at Queens' and at McGill I did a mixture of poetry and prose, groping towards some kind of understanding of what I myself am doing and, not entirely coincidentally, nudging me towards writing a paper for the Bronwen Wallace conference next March.

was that all one sentence? no? good.


ANYHOW initially I was kinda stuck on the polarities of lyric and narrative, the former being a vertical slice of time, an exploration of all the qualities of the moment, resulting, most often, in images, while the latter is the engine of plot, horizontal, sequential cause and effect, etcetera. I've generally understood these not as genres but as aesthetic imperatives: "stop and explore the now" in tension, always, for the artist, with "go on and tell the story". But when someone at Queens' actually asked me what was the big difference for me,in my own work, between writing prose fiction and writing poetry I realized that it wasn't that at all, it was dialogue. After all, dialogue is the imitation of speech while the rest of it is unambiguously textual.

This may help me think more clearly about Bron's decision to write stories after so many years arguing that narrative poetry could do everything fiction could. Obviously her short stories are longer than her poems, and have flashbacks, and are written in sentences rather than lines, etcetera, but perhaps the polyphony -- the sense of many voices talking -- was key for her.

Have to think about this more. If anyone else out there is thinking about it too, I'd love to hear from you!!

I'm sorry but it seems to be my week for posting only UK items! But you have to read this.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2190553,00.html

My new favourite song!

http://music.metafilter.com/560/The-Cheese-Song-in-Dmaj

hysterical British skit about agents and authors on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1XFz0kac0&v3

Andrew Motion on the 13 volume OED

Every time I peer into it, which is several times a day, I think: "All the words I'll ever need are here; the only thing I have to do is get them out in the right order."

from this weekend's Guardian Review.

Too late!!

Last week of summer

INDIAN SUMMER

Emily Dickinson [1830-1886]

These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, -
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!

Not the south of France. But you can feel the warmth anyway.

My friend Michael Redhill has started a blog, On the Via Domitia, charting his family's adventures in the south of France. So far they have been entirely positive, dominated by extraordinary food, generous people, and affable lizards. Were I to try something analogous here, in my own backyard, what would I write about? The acrobatic squirrel who sways back and forth on the giant sunflower head while chomping around it, like a kid on a swing negotiating a melting ice cream sandwich? The brilliant yellow of the goldfinches, who also like to feed upside down? The overabundance of "Roma" tomatoes on every vine, ripening faster than I can cook or eat them? The indefatigable "Roxanne" cranesbill geraniums, in bloom for eight weeks and still going strong? The way the basil releases waves of scent whenever I water it?

I love my garden. I love that everybody on my street loves their gardens (the Roma tomatoes were a gift from my next door neighbour Diana, and the cranesbill geraniums were planted next to "moonbeam" coreopsis because that combination worked so well at Christie's house across the street). I've lived in Toronto since 1977 but only recently have I begun to feel at home here, largely because of this neighbourhood. When you walk down the street everyone says Hi and invites you onto their porch for coffee or wine; the lovely old couple at the corner store gets a New York Times just for my husband and lets the kids buy candy on credit; we look after each others dogs.

Toronto is often described as a city of neighbourhoods. Therein lies its charm. It is, in a microcosm, what Canada is in macrocosm: a loose confederation rather than a staunch republic. Its outlines are hazy-- who can tell exactly where the Annex ends and Seaton Village begins, or what the difference is between Riverdale and Danforth Village? And does anyone care except real estate agents?

And yes, I'm from Montreal. Call me a traitor if you will, but I like it here. C'est pas pire.

We are stardust, we are golden

The Universe Invites You
to an exclusive viewing
of

The Perseid Meteor Shower
on
Saturday night August 11th
between 9 pm and 4 am.

Don't miss it!

Famous Poems as Limericks.

OK, so as if I didn't find enough ways to procrastinate, over at Bookninja that fiend, George Murray, issued an irresistible challenge: to rewrite famous poems as limericks. Here are my best ones:

There once was a mariner old
who wanted his damn story told
so he fixed passers-by
with a glittering eye
and bored them to death in the cold.

Larkin sat on a train and was grim
because no one was marrying him
no girls in loud dresses
would offer caresses
to someone so scornful and dim.

A traveller in lands antique
dug in the sand for a week
when he came up for air
he was filled with despair—
“This writing’s Egyptian, not Greek!”

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
went chortling through tulgey groves
“The Jabberwock’s dead!
Beamish cut off his head!”
“So what?” said the borogoves.

By the time you understand this it will be too late!

The Empty Nest, Part one

Briefly, this summer, we were alone. Both kids were away at camp for two and a half weeks.

We were almost too busy to notice, but not quite. No one needed to be driven anywhere or suddenly discovered his or her soccer cleats (bathing suit, jeans) didn't fit anymore; nobody rejected a healthy home-cooked meal prepared according to rigorous nutritional guidelines in favour of Lipton's chicken noodle soup a la salt, nobody spent an hour in the shower or monopolized the DVD player night after night watching Smallville and refusing to share the obligatory glimpse of Tom Welling's six-pack.

There was more hot water, and more space; more movie-watching time, more time in general. Also a lot more quiet. A spooky amount of quiet. Which is strange because even when they are home, our kids aren't home all that much. But still.

Up and down our street people are having babies. Gosh, those babies are noisy, and insistent! They cling until they can toddle, then toddle until they fall down , then cry and cling again. Their parents are so burdened with buggies and diaper bags and toys and snacks they can barely move. By contrast, my kids grab a cell-phone and a house key and are out the door so fast I can barely get a kiss goodbye. And one day, too soon, they will take the rest of their stuff with them, and the house will not only be big, and quiet, it will be very very empty.

Luckily, not yet.

Why do I keep taking these quizzes? Because they come up with answers like this!!

***You Are a Purple Flower***

A purple flower tends to represent success, grace, and elegance.
At times, you are faithful like a violet.
And other times, you represent luxury, like a wisteria.
And more than you wish, you find yourself heartbroken like a lilac.

What Color Flower Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatcolorflowerareyouquiz/

But how do I pay???

I find this screamingly funny. That probably says something about me.

facebooooooooook

OK. So like everyone else, I got sucked in to joining Facebook. And now when I sit down to work in my ergonomically correct chair, I can procrastinate indefinitely by reading my e-mail (3 accounts), updating my blog, browsing Bookninja and various other web-blogs, before finally prowling around on Facebook and sinking into a swamp of complete inertia. I suspect I am going to have to disconnect from it, as I formerly did from instant messaging, as being too much of an interruption to my already-sufficiently-distracted-and-undisciplined self. But I must say, it's fascinating to see how the format of cyber-chat brings out everyone's flip side: everyone's much wittier on Facebook than they are in person.

Bookstores shake down publishers and dupe public

Insiders in the publishing industry have long been appalled by the practice of "co-op"-- the outrageous fees demanded by big box bookstores to promote books. It's no longer enough to write a decent book and make it past the agents and editors and reviewers: to get your baby into the loving hands of an actual READER you have to bribe Books R Us to put it somewhere the public can actually see it.

Here's an article from the Times revealing the fees charged in the UK. I would love to know what it costs to be "New and Hot" "Recommended" or something "Canada Need More" of at Chapters/ Indigo.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1945931.ece

Advice from the Buddha

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/061107/just-be-cool.gif

Outside of a Dog

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
-- Groucho Marx

(This is when Tobytheincrediblycutedog starts getting fan mail from people who never comment on my blog. But after disconsolately wandering the aisles of Book Expo all day Monday, I'm the one who really needs a hug...)

4 things meme

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

• Chicken inoculator (Kibbutz Barkai, Israel)
• Receptionist (Sidgwick and Jackson Publishers, London, England)
• Chambermaid (Oxford University, England)
  
• Waitress (Carroll's Colonial Diner, Medford, Massachusetts)
  

Four Movies I Can See Over And Over:

• The Princess Bride
  
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
  
• Casablanca
• Le Roi de Coeur (it's been many years since I last saw it, but I remember it fondly)
  

Four Places I’ve Lived:

• Athens, Greece
  
• London, England
  
• San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
• Boston, USA
  

Four TV Shows I Love:

• Dalziel & Pascoe
  
• Star Trek Next Generation (who is more adorable--Picard or Data?)
  
• Hercule Poirot with David Suchet
  
• Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett
  

Four Places I’ve Vacationed:

• San Francisco
  
• Prince Edward Island
  
• Quintana Roo (I just love saying that! great birdwatching.)
  
• The Pays Basques
  

Four Of My Favorite Dishes:

• Moules marinieres
  
• Greek salad
  
• A simple perfect omelette
  
• really dense stone ground whole wheat toast with ginger marmalade
  

Four Places I’d Rather Be Now:

• Anywhere on the Mediterranean, but especially Crete
• Kew Gardens
  
• At Les Granges, the most amazing bed and breakfast near Giverny, France, drinking Normandy Cider
  
• At my friend Natalie's cottage on Lake Kashebog in the Kawarthas (Natalie, call me)
  

My Garden

Lovely photo of alium, mallow and mysotis by my sister Lisa. Instead of a poem.