Hurray! When the Chips are Down, I Managed my Cookies!

I'm back, after a few frustrating days of not being able to sign in and making one post from a friend's computer. It was a cookie problem, apparently, and now, I'm not quite sure what I did to fix it, but things are in working order again.

Today's thought: what's a suitable subject for a poem? The eternal question that faces poets on a daily basis. Anything, really. Anything large and deep, frustating, unfair, good, evil, great . . . anything. There are thousands, maybe millions of poems about these things.

At the other end of the scale, is there anything too small to be the subject of a poem? A speck of dust? A flea? A noiseless patient spider? A piece of gum that sticks to the bottom of your shoe on a hot day?

I haven't really researched the speck of dust or the piece of gum, but the flea and the noiseless patient spider have certaintly been the subject of poems, and famous poems, at that!

Here's today's challenge: choose something small, even very small, and write a poem about it. Maybe it will be a small poem--that's okay. But use powerful words, compact them, make them ring and make them sing!

Post yours as a comment to this blog post, and I'll post mine . . . as soon as I've written it.

BC Book Prizes . . . and the Winners Are . . .

The following is from the bcbookprizes.ca web site:

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
Supported by Friesens and Webcom
Winner! Everything Was Good-Bye
by Gurjinder Basran
Publisher: Mother Tongue Publishing

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize
Supported by Abebooks
Winner! The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
by John Vaillant
Publisher: Knopf Canada

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize
Supported by the BC Teachers’ Federation
Winner! On the Material
by Stephen Collis
Publisher: Talonbooks

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize
Supported by Transcontinental Printing
Winner! Images from the Likeness House
by Dan Savard
Publisher: Royal BC Museum

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize
Supported by the BC Library Association
Winner! Hunger Journeys
by Maggie de Vries
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada


Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize
Supported by Kate Walker and Company
Winner! Owls See Clearly at Night: A Michif Alphabet / Lii Yiiboo Nayaapiwak lii Swer: L’alfabet di Michif
by Julie Flett
Publisher: Simply Read Books

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award
Supported by The BC Booksellers’ Association
Winner! Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound
by Grant Lawrence
Publisher: Harbour Publishing

Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence
Winner! George Bowering

The Indirect Method

I read an essay today about how teachers teach. It wasn't any new revelation but rather a good reminder that no matter what we're doing, we are teaching. Either by good example or bad example, we are teaching. Either directly or indirectly, we're teaching.

I learned something really important in the creative writing course that I was in this semester. It had nothing to do with syntax, anapests, or synecdoche. It wasn't something on the syllabus, nor was it something that was taught directly.

Here's what it comes down to: excellence matters, but not to the exclusion of everything else. Like encouragement. Like self-expression. Like getting hidden hurts down on paper once and for all. Maybe even for the first time.

It was something I saw in action: such generous responses to everyone's work. For some people, it might have been the first time they ventured to write what they knew from their life and what they felt in their heart and then the agony of having to share it with the whole class. And be "marked" on it--have some value assigned to it.

The value for most of us was being able to say what we had to say. Getting it out. It's liberating, and to have such tentative steps met with uplifting hands and encouraging words is something that can't be measured.

It is, in fact, invaluable.

So thanks to our fearless instructor, Donna Kane, and to all those who shared some secret part of their souls in both the writing and in the comments on others' writing. It was a humbling experience.

More Poetry . . . Please!

I recently got a new book of poetry. It's an anthology that's sometimes used in college or university literature courses, and so presents a through-the-centuries and an across-the-board sweep of the genre. The subtitle is "A Pocket Anthology," though I dare say it will fit in no pocket of mine. However, it's small enough to carry in my purse or schoolbag, and certainly great for a bus- or train-ride read.

The first 55 pages are very textbookish, with short articles on types of poetry, the language of poetry, figurative language, stanza forms, and other arcana such as meter, feminine endings, and synechdoche. This, of course, would be enough for many to relegate the book to the shelf or worse, but once past this formidable section, we get to the poems themselves.

It starts off with ballads and lyrics from Scotland and England from around 1500. This is not the earliest English poetry there is, but it's pretty close to the start of what we have. Poetry by these "old dead white guys" is often disparaged, but it's pretty amazing. The words and lines are beautiful. The succinctness of the sonnets takes my breath away.

Some of my favourites are here: "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins; "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold; "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost; and "A Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman.

More--so many more--there's not time enough to read them all. But I think I shall make a resolution: more poetry. I am going to read more poetry. More of the favourites and more of the new.

Even if it's just one a day, like the multi-vitamin, my life will be enriched.

What are your favourites? Where will you start? How will you enrich your life with poetry?

More about Public Libraries

Thanks, patb, for your comment on your public libraries in Toronto. I loved the image of writing tools spread out on the large table, surrounded by inspiration and knowledge.


Two years ago, when I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, taking a course, I used the public library, in particular the Internet access in V2, the Virtual Village. It was down in the basement, but there were snazzy neon lights and a great purple and green decor. I got a visitor's card and could check my e-mail and send home the good report about what all I was doing.


One thing I really liked was actually outside the library. Along the walkway, posted on cement pillars were black and white square signs with quotes by famous people, some of them writers, about writing. (Charlotte is a city that is really into public art.)

Here's a sampling of the quotes:

Irving Stone: It's not macho to read a book? Nonsense. Reading is a stouthearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-it-ness.

A.A. Milne: "I just like to know," said Pooh, humbly.

Groucho Marx: I find television very educational. Every time someone switiches it on, I go into another room and read a good book.

Emily Dickinson: A word is dead,
when it is said,
Some say.
I say
It just begins
To live that day.


Ernest Hemingway: We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

Post us a comment telling about your favourite library or a favourite feature of your library, past or present.

Alternatively, post your favourite quote about writing.

Or do both!

What Do These Poetry Books Have in Common?

Here's the list.

Forage by Rita Wong
Nox by Anne Carson
Inventory by Dionne Brand
Selected Poems by Alden Nowlan
Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person by Erin Mouré

What's the commonality? I mean besides that the titles are unfamiliar to about 99% of Canadians and about 153% of people elsewhere. Some people somewhere might recognize some of the authors, but I'm not placing any bets.

These five books of poetry are the five books that CBC's Canada Reads event will consider. Other poets (at least as well known as the authors themselves) will "defend" the books. Here's the line-up with defense counsel:

Forage defended by Sonnet L'Abbé.
Nox defended by Anne Simpson.
Inventory defended by George Murray.
Selected Poems defended by Susan Musgrave.
Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person defended by Jacob McArthur Mooney

Tune in. Turn on (the radio). Find out!

My Public Library

I love my public library. I love the helpful librarians and library clerks. Despite the fact that they have reorganized the stacks and I'm still not sure where everything is now, I love to go and wander among the rows, scanning the shelves for something interesting or useful.

This week, I took out 17 books about dogs. Why this sudden interest in canine companions? It was a reading project for one of my ESL classes. The books were from the juvenile non-fiction section, and they had lots of coloured photos, quirky facts, and helpful hints. All the books belonged to a series, so they all looked the same and had the same layout, but each one dealt with a specific breed. This similarity was beneficial: students would find out the same categories of information for the breed that they chose. In class, they chose a book and just read. I noticed some of them copying down new vocabulary, which assured me that the reading time was well-spent.

While I was at the circulation desk checking out my books, I picked up the April edition of the Library newsletter, an 8 1/2 x 11 double-sided colour photocopied sheet with lots of tidbits about what's going on at the library: new books, services, hours, board members, and reading recommendations.

The Library to Go information was particularly interesting to me as an ESL teacher. Free audiobook and eBook downloads are available from the library web site. Wide selection for youth, children, and adults! No late fees!! Many of these selections are iPod compatible: The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel, Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy, Year of the Tiger by Jack Higgins, and Breach of Trust by David Ellis are just four of these new choices. My students, most of whom have iPods, can listen to audiobooks and improve their listening skills and pronunciation.

Big cities have big libraries, with branches throughout the city in various neighbourhoods. Small towns have smaller libraries but can probably access any book a patron wants through the interlibrary loan system.

Whether you're walking, jogging, driving, or relaxing in an armchair at home (soon out on the deck in the sunshine . . . as soon as it stops snowing, that is), grab a book and read.

It's what writers do when they're not writing.

B.C. Bookworld

The new edition of B.C. Bookworld was delivered into my mailbox at work today--not a virtual mailbox, but you can "have" it electronically if you wish.

I'm always amazed at the vibrancy of the publishing industry in British Columbia. There are so many publishers and so many writers doing so many great things. There are writers winning prizes and writers handing out prizes. There are books for old, young, and in-between. There are fiction books and series; there are non-fiction books and guide books and hiking books and boating books. There are independent bookstores and big chain bookstores and online bookstores.

It all adds up to something quite wonderful. News snippets of who's doing what, who's moved to what publishing house, and who has won what award keep us up on what's going on out there. For northern writers, we can scope out what's going on in the rest of the province. It ties us in.

This broadsheet newspaper has a world of information. If you want to be in the know, scope it out!

Haiku as Doggerel

I read a child's picture storybook today. The title was Dogku. The author is Andrew Clements, and the illustrator is Tim Bowers.


From looking at the cover of the book, I couldn't make any sense of the title. It's not even an easy word to say, with the hard "g" sound followed by the hard "k" sound. Go ahead! Try to say it out loud!

When I opened the book and read the inside cover flap, it became clearer, though it was still a bit muddy. The word "dogku" was related to the word "haiku." Okay, that made more sense.

Ah! On to the story itself, a story about a litle lost dog, a theme repeated, I'm sure, in many children's picture books.

What was unique about this book was that the whole story was told in haiku poems, one or two on each page, with a large coloured picture to carry the plot along.

Nothing too fancy, just your average 5-7-5 (syllables per line) three-line haikus.

Here's today's challenge: take a simple child's story (e.g., Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, etc.) and rewrite it in haikus.

Post your creations as a comment to this post! You show me yours; I'll show you mine!