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July 05, 2012
Filling in the Blanks: Photography, Inspiration and Max Dean’s Albums
I have an album. It isn’t mine, but I am taking care of it. For how long, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure for whom.The album tells a story, but the narrative is fragmented. It’s set in the US ...
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July 20, 2014
Craving a Talent Not My Own
Those who work in London are all either going down with flu, recovering from flu or in the grip of flu—even though most of the people going down with flu, recovering from flu or in the grip of flu don’t ...
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April 14, 2014
Ideas
I keep a list of things I think I want to write about. Back when the list was a more manageable size, I’d tackle my ideas at enough of a distance for me to have processed the simple stuff, the details, ...
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April 11, 2014
Revision
It’s a risky thing to put a poem out of sight in order to let it germinate or steep, whatever the science of hope might call the process. Some poems only turn up posthumously and are declared masterpieces ...
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April 08, 2014
Touch of Class
The other day, I agreed to read one of my own poems at a sixtieth wedding anniversary. There were fewer trees on the main street of the small town just north of Toronto than the last time I’d been there, ...
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April 01, 2014
Welcome to National Poetry Month
I always feel a bit uncomfortable when Poetry Month commences. It’s like I’ve had a secret for the last eleven months, no one really interested in how I’ve spent my days, successfully managing to ...
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July 07, 2014
Tending Toward Liquid
Habit makes time relative for us. At twenty, the faces surrounding us have no history except in the present of the gaze we turn toward them. So, young adults, old people, and children seem forever framed ...
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September 02, 2014
Hello, My Name Is Diane! (Part 2)
Some say that exposure helps dissipate the stress for people with performance anxiety—that old adage which claims the more you do the one thing that provokes fear in you, the easier it gets to manage ...
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December 13, 1901
Thinking the Future through the Present
To begin with: many thanks if you made it through yesterday’s post; you have my gratitude for sitting with uncertainty and/or dwelling in possibility.To continue: I’ll now try to offer an account ...
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June 05, 2015
On Making Sausages
June is the month of graduation. On campus, SFU students seem happier, despite impending midterms. Relatives in high heels are carrying peonies. All parking lots are full.As I pass by the Convocation ...