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April 25, 2015
Geology, Thinking, and a Tent
As Jan Zwicky’s Wittgensteinian “The Geology of Norway” kept and keeps circling through my mind and body, I remembered Liz Howard’s gorgeous poem, “Thinktent,” which also works with, among ...
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April 24, 2015
On Being Led by a Poem
Yesterday evening, a friend emailed me a copy of Jan Zwicky’s “The Geology of Norway” from the collection Songs for Relinquishing the Earth (Brick Books, 1998). I’d never read the poem before, ...
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April 07, 2015
Parenthetical: On Neural Transformation:
(One of the things I’ve been reading about recently and am deeply engaged with is the idea of neuroplasticity. The internal reality formed by neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to alter in response ...
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April 14, 2015
Thinking (Again and More) with M. NourbeSe Philip's Zong!
In returning to thinking about Zong!, I’m also returning to the idea of neuro-plasticity, the forming and deforming inscriptions experience leaves on the brain. When reading Zong! or when listening ...
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June 09, 2015
Canadians in the New Yorker
If you missed the piece in the National Post last Saturday by Nadine Fladd on how Canadians changed The New Yorker, you should check it out. Coinciding with release of The New Yorker’s celebrated summer ...
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April 29, 2014
Questions Not to Ask While Facing a Blank Page
Is enjambment supposed to be pronounced with a French accent?What do you do when you unpack a line and can’t figure out where you thought you were going in the first place?Is a metaphor just a simile ...
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April 28, 2014
Shake It Up
Range is something to aim for – a poet’s ability to go multiple, whistle one minute, moan the next. Sound like a basset hound, then go for a high-pitched squawk of geese. Try tender, then bold; try ...
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May 31, 2016Thank You, and Good Night
There isn't enough time. There's never enough time. But at the beginning of May I thought the whole month unfurled before us like an endless field of wildflowers waiting to be picked as we strolled lazily ...
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April 09, 2014
Madness
Catching up on the frippery of “Downton Abbey,” I enjoyed Maggie Smith’s trenchant Dowager Countess of Grantham listening to her son wax a mite lyrically about land and history and then exclaiming ...
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April 02, 2014
Poetics of Place
I’ve been thinking about the poetics of place: Tim Lilburn’s Moosewood Sandhills; Don Domanski’s wilderness of a cosmos; Karen Solie’s truck stops and motels; Tim Bowling’s fishing boats. It’s ...
