Snyder, Stein, and the hints of Summer

I've been AWOL for the last week or so, just trying to figure out some final project material for this semester. Fiction workshop has been a no-brainer in terms of finding a project, but the other two have been slipping in and out of consciousness for sometime now. I feel as though that academic stream of me has fallen hopelessly behind me. This is not something I really I'm at all upset about. Yes, it is true I have a not so faint disgust for Ivory Towerism. That's the problem with these academic pieces. Who is really meant to read them? Well, some might say the same for poetry, right? Probably those that write academic pieces. Is this all starting to seem circular?

Back onto course, I've started a series of poems about words, meanings, and the power of the Canadian land. I'm only about five poems into the series, but things seem to be taking a nice shape thus far. I would never have figured a cento created from site passages of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles would be so much fun to construct. You might say it was like the composition of dictionary itself. I hope to have a nice solid series poems that could be converted into a chapbook.

I have had to fuel this poetic explorations. I've found myself searching the canyons of the Wells' Library for material in recent weeks, and ended up with a considerable collection of works by Gertrude Stein and Gary Snyder. The Snyder thing shouldn't be such a huge surprise, given my recent attempt at short fiction piece guided by his work (The Light Upon the Bridgers). The fiction piece is resting (as all work must before revision or deletion). But I've found some of Snyder's collections quite helpful to get the ball rolling. I just finished Axe Handles in one sitting. In totality it wasn't off his best works, but there are always strong points to any given work. This one does have many. The best I could say is read it. It has much to do with Snyder's back-to-the-land homesteading in Northern California. If any thing its a great way to look at the world after the collapse of our very recent hyper-capitalist world. Yes, it is possilbe, even for a poet and Zen master, to live without diversified stocks and bonds and a brand new H3 in the manicured driveway.

I'm using some of Gertrude Stein's surrealist poetic sequences to look at new ways of talking about a world, I might only have a surface level connection with at best. I'm still working to decode and then recode some of her words. They can get a little disjointed. With summer so close and baseball season all ready on hand, they might also provide an interesting may to look at the divine game.

The Thunderstorms of Spring

Yes, it is true. We've been having a good number of them in recent days. Most of the town has gone to flowers and the long hard days of February seem to be nicely behind us. I've been rather behind updating this page. This has as much to do the effects of teaching, grad school, and general outside reading load that might be a tad bit too heavy for my own sanity. The best way to learn to write better is to read those you admire most. I might be taking my advice too liberally.

I forgot to report that Zaum 13 is out. It really is a nicely designed journal (I'm quite taken by the cover)and has some pretty cool things going on inside. My poem "Misplaced Nashville Skyline" appears in it. There are lot of solid poems in the journal, along with art work, that make it worth picking up for a read.

Work continues in earnest on a new poetry series looking into the lexicographical connection between Canadians and their landscape. Being from Ontario might make this just a biased as most of the critics out there would assume it to be. There is a long list of unique Canadianisms that could make for some interesting explorations of the power of the performative and words in our relationships to the world around us. I've been looking pretty hardcore in the history of OED this semester and this series will undoubtedly bear much of its success (or failure) to that study. My most recent short story is actually my longest to date. "The Landscapes of Hubert Pineau" is in its early draft stages and details the son of an artist and his search for a fatherly legacy on Pelee Island. There will be more to report later.