writing: a way: of being:

Posted by Daniela Elza on Feb 06 2010 | Comment now »

As many of you know I have been hard at work on the recently completed manuscript. Jumped right into writing again for another deadline, and this week when I launched into the collaboration on a paper between poetry and philosophy my mind told me: That’s it. I cannot focus, I cannot switch gears, I cannot, I cannot… I cannot…. That combined with the few rejections that came in close together and I could see glum and gloom on the horizon. But I do not have time for glum and gloom. So I had to come up with a better story. It hit me the other day, I have not given myself a break. I have not followed my own advice. And that is: when empty, fill up. So I gave myself permission to do that. Hope you will too.

I read: Ignore Everybody: and 39 other keys to creativity by Hugh MacLeod. From cover to cover, took about two and a half hours. Reminded myself (again) why I write. That the essence of it is not in getting published, (although that is part of the game we have to play, and a nice side effect). Play being the key word here, but playing your own game first.

Concurrently, I got a link from a friend who pointed to What does it mean to be a writer? a post on Planting words …how does my garden grow blog. Fiona Robyn says: “[Poems] are like glittering sloughed-off skins, they are a result of a particular way of living in the world.”
Yes, writing is its own reward. Writing is the beneficial side effect of being in the world a certain way. I call that the poetic consciousness, but I am sure there are many names we could give it.
And the skin idea is beautiful since we change in this process: shed poems, novels, photographs, painting, dances, songs, etc.

If writing becomes a translation of this way of being, then perhaps we can also look at the act of writing as a way of being.

So what is in it for the reader? What does the reader respond to? The answer to this question could be voluminous (as its latin origin suggests: having many coils). Also vo(luminous as shedding light.

Here is my two cents for now, which came to me while participating in a discussion on Rob Taylor’s blog (by the way this blog is full of passages that whet my appetite to think about the nature of this paradox we call writing/reading). Ironically enough the post is called dissolve the barrier of skin and bone and separateness.

I thought how as a writer I try to translate as adequately and accurately as language (and my abilities with it) afford me, form my/the world into the word. Committing that first act of translation (as Robert Bringhurst might say).

But what do all these words amount to in the reader/listener?
I see the concrete experience of the writer as a beam of light which through the act of writing gets refracted in language. But where to? And into what spectrums? The variables here get too numerous to be able to apply science to them or precision. The reader is not a rigid, flat surface. We respond to the words as we know them, even more importantly, we respond to the humanity behind the words. The surface is fluid. And the surface is always in motion.

And as a writer I continue to benefit from this refraction. ie. exploring the many different angles and beams. I become the surface on which my words start playing. Some of these refractions were not present at the initial writing.

So it is as “precise” as we can get it at the moment of writing, and yet, we ourselves as writers begin to interprete it. In other words we become readers :-) of our own writing.

If this is difficult to see, think of the analogy of where you read someone’s words again over time, and they speak to you differently than they spoke to you a decade ago. What has changed? Not the words, right? You are a different surface, in a different moment in time, reflecting differently.

So the reader does at least half of the work. We need to give a lot of credit to the reader. They are like a translator, courageous enough to launch on their own act of translating. And we know that can be its own piece of art. And as unique. Which is a wink in the direction of the reader who turns critic.

lying (low) with glowing hearts

Posted by Daniela Elza on Feb 02 2010 | Comment now »

Yes, yes, the games are coming to town. I was trying not to think about it too much. But with all that is going on I am now more curious about the game behind The Games. Here is the official VANOC mission:

“The Vancouver 2010 mission is to touch the soul of the nation and inspire the world by creating and delivering an extraordinary Olympic and Paralympic experience with lasting legacies.”

And here is one story of how VANOC can touch you and leave lasting legacies, or was that legalese? I feel sorry for the people at Olympia Pizza, and for all the others whose stories are not heard. Also for the people on the street, the homeless, who are more vulnerable now. The whole security frenzy is anticlimactic. Who will protect VANOC from themselves?

And who you might ask is VANOC? Who hides behind the five letter acronym? See for yourself. Here is one VANOC breakdown, and here is one more breakdown.
I cannot afford the tickets, but I just might be able to afford The Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games by Christopher A Shaw, in which disturbing questions come to light:
Why does the IOC pay no taxes?
Who are the real estate developers behind the Vancouver bid?
Why are mega projects paid for with tax dollars?
What are the true costs of the Games?

I have been lying low, even though not all has been quiet on the Olympics Front. I have paid in numerous ways with my time, frustration, proximity (lets not talk about tax dollars). This, when 800 teachers in our province are in danger of getting their pink slips. (Does that mean 800×30 student will also be fired, to make the numbers match?) This extravaganza amidst all the unreasonable arts cuts, library services cuts etc..

I still said nothing.

But when it comes down to owning language, VANOC you will not be getting any sympathy from me. (Sympathy is a kind of sponsorship). See, words are my currency. I do not claim to own them, but I do my work with them. They are my business. Hands off. Olympic, oLympic, olYmpic, olyMpic, olymPic, olympIc, olympiC, and OLYMPIC. I count myself a sponsor of the Olympics and not just by the sheer proximity to it. Since we are scrambling I am also a sponsor of the OilyPmcs, of MyPicols, of PimcsOly.

Which nicely segues into my main point: that the whole of Vancouver is a sponsor of the Olympics. And they might all spell it differently with their losses, patience, frustrations, putting up with years of construction for the Olympics. For a two week party some VACON, CONVA or some such committee is putting on. Businesses that went under because you turned their streets into construction zones. How is that not paying dearly? How is that not sponsoring the Olympics? (Have I said this word enough already?) Ok, I will say it again, OlYmPiCs (Oh, and by the way, I am copyrighting this unique way of writng it, OK?). Vancouver and its citizens have been paying for, and sponsoring, the Olympics. I bet with all the money we put in it we must qualify for an official sponsor.

And one more thing: the “with glowing hearts” bit. Can we use these words? Or are they VANOC property, on which we cannot tresspass? Which they have to figure out how to cover with snow? Slippery slope, this one. Where did you get these words from? Can we sing them now? These words. Perhaps not so glowing, but still words we share? I should hurry up and reserve the words with heavy hearts for after the OLYMPics, when there might be somekind of coming to our senses?
And the Inukshuk? The Rings? If VANOC claims to own them, then they must have stolen them first.

I am not so much into repetition really, but here saying and writing Olympics seems i r r e s i s t i b le. Besides, in my little play I came up with a couple of good scrambles, scipmylO, and scimpOly, which I think I will reserve for the name of something on a menu somewhere. Maybe I will offer them to the owner of Olympia Pizza and he could add a couple of items to his menu in honour of the Olympics and the hassle he has had to put up with years before the event through no fault of his. What’s in a name? What’s next? No, I wasn’t paying that much attention (since I was fed up with the whole thing at least a year ago) But now I am.

Just wait till you see those trucks full of snow rolling into Vancouver from (they say) Manning Park, 100km away? This was going to be the greenest oLyMpIcS, and it just might turn out to be. The dewdrops have been out for weeks, you can take a stroll among the crocuses. Were we counting on some freak snow? You can cover the hills with pizza here a lot easier than you can cover them with snow.

manuscript is out of my hair

Posted by Daniela Elza on Jan 31 2010 | 2 Comments »

It has been a busy month. Writing. Finally, after so many years, I have compiled a full length manuscript. It is a collection of the poems I have written over the course of a decade (at least) with the presence or image of crows. Poems that puzzled me with their insistence and persistence. Kept cropping up among the other poems. I thought is was just a phase. They have not left me, these crows.

The work on the manuscript brought its own fascinations and rewards. To see these poems all in one place is like giving life to something new. The way they start echoing each other. The way they start telling things that individually they could not. Along side I am figuring out where to sent the manuscript, and how the whole process works. What the requirements are. How to play this new for me game.

(I have sent it out. I did, last week. It still has not sunk in. Even as I write it here it is hard to believe.)

Also finished writing a poetics piece for a journal, which I just sent out. Will be launching now into a collaboration on a paper on the topic between poetry and philosophy. While at the same time conjuring up a dissertation proposal.

For now there is tonight. I can forget about all that and open Aizlinn Hunter’s new book. It is called a Peepshow with Views of the Interior: Paratexts. Reminds me a bit of a collaboration I did which recently came out in the Academic Pathologies issue of educational insights. A piece in which the whole text/”paper” is in the footnotes, and the paper is just one sentence long.
In this book Hunter is working with the parts that come along with and around the text like contents, dedication, afterword, note from the translator, acknowledgements, prologue etc.
The paratexts become the text. :-)
It is promising to be a good read.

cold

Posted by Daniela Elza on Jan 10 2010 | Comment now »

The first Monday’s Poem is up at Leaf Press.

45 poets contributed. It was great to see Al Rempel there who keeps me good company in the 4poets book. It was great to see Dorothee Lang there, who edits the blueprintreview and with whom I correspond through email, (so it feels like we have virtually met). Also my friend and poet Christina Shah. Others I have met or know in this poem are poets Heidi Greco and Kim Goldberg, and Marry Duffy and Franci Louann who are much closer here and part of the Vancouver poetry community.

What a beautiful way to virtually bring 45 poets together with the same theme in the same poem.
ok, here is my couplet:

 the cold came in couplets 		unrhymed
every step 		a slip 		a slide 	an aside

of new beginnings

Posted by Daniela Elza on Jan 07 2010 | Comment now »

A good way to begin the year. I heard that my poem Savannah Rain, West Africa on One Ghana One Voice ended up on the Readers’ Pick Favourite Poem of the Year List for 2009. Thank you for your choice and comments. They are as invigorating as that rain.
I also re-read my interview, (out of curiosity) to see if I said something I will disagree with now. So far so good.:-)

Arleigh Wood, who also loves crows, but releases hers on canvas, had a call in December for bird haikus or haikus in response to her paintings. Here are some of her favourite entries up on her blog. Enjoy the selections of haikus. I have three haikus there loosely titled: roosting with crows. The winner has been announced. Congrats to Eden Fineday. There is a new year super sale at the end of the month (perhaps this could be a consolation for those who did not win:-)). I already have my eye on a couple of pieces.

While you are there check out Arleigh’s gallery. Lots there to pick from. I particularly like the raindrops on rooftops series and the migration series for its contrasts.

Finally, today the Academic Pathologies issue of educational insights went live. I have a collaborated piece: Desentence(sizing) the Reference: Lifenotes in Endnotes.
and two poems:

I would like to thank the editors and the technical staff who worked on the presentation of the pieces for the dedication and patience. I am so happy to see these poems look the way I envisioned them. (Especially when it is difficult to do this in print sometimes for one reason or another.) Both these poems had problems the first times they were published. Not to mention the “article” we sent them which is only one sentence long and the actual piece is in the footnotes. So each word of the one sentence takes you to the footnote associated with it.

here comes everybody

Posted by Daniela Elza on Dec 29 2009 | Comment now »

For those of you who are predisposed to play and to experimentation and to collaboration here is something for you from Leaf Press, a publisher of Canadian Poetry. Also check out their Monday’s poem. Maybe you will be tempted not only to contribute to the first one of the year, but perhaps to another Monday of the year.

Collaborative New Year’s Poem:

Last year the first Monday’s Poem of 2009 was given over to a collaborative poem of couplets about snow … some of you may remember last year’s snow! 86 poets participated — you can find the poem here.

This year it is temperature more than snow defines winter. We invite you to send couplets — what’s it really like out there on the streets/fields/forests … or in those unprepared homes during this time of high fuel prices? The working title: “Cold”.

Please do read last year’s poem at the link above to get a feel for line length. Notice: no end-of-line rhyme for this project. We’ll accept lines up to 5:00 p.m. on December 31, 2009.

the title here comes every body is borrowed from the title of Clay Shirky’s book.

words for crows

Posted by Daniela Elza on Dec 27 2009 | Comment now »

Just wanted to let you know that Words for Crows is on sale at the Apple iTunes store for $0.99.


Words for Crows

Words for Crows is a 50 page book for your iPhone or iPod Touch of some of my crow poems, original art (by Nevena Giljanović) and photography (by Dethe Elza and myself). Dethe also did the programming and design.

To turn the pages you drag your thumb/finger across the screen.
Check it out. And let us know what you think of our experiment with the new medium.

happy holidays

Posted by Daniela Elza on Dec 24 2009 | Comment now »

Best wishes for the Holiday Season.
Wishing you all:
Health
Love
Light
Laughter
Peace
Harmony
in all you do in the New Year.

May we safely navigate the narrow passages that life puts before us.
And may we walk up and down the creeks of our imagination, creativity, and passion everyday.

May the holiday season be restful and successful in delivering us into the New Year.

“This is philosophy, dusk descending like a curtain/ the leaves that mark the lateness of the season/ browning in the absence of light,/ raked into seams along the edge of the yard”
— Aislinn Hunter
from the poem Walking the Dog in her collection Into the Early Hours

ebb and flow

Posted by Daniela Elza on Dec 19 2009 | 2 Comments »

Still here. Managing December. Negotiating the ebb and flow of events, deadlines, schedules and holiday spirit.
In between potlucks and christmas parties I have been trying to go to a reading or two here and there. The latest one was the TWS Reading Series on December 10th. It was lovely to hear so many talented poets that night. The Rhizome Cafe is a wonderful space, the staff dedicated and supportive of the event. The atmosphere is conducive and welcoming to poetry readings. The lighting subdued and warm. The food great. So support them if you are in the area. We need to nurture such spaces.

What’s up? A couple of things. Six poems went up on ditch,(a Canadian online poetry magazine celebrating the innovative, the non-conforming, the radical, the alternative, the surreal, the avant-garde, the non-linear, the abstract, the experimental).

And soon after I got an email from the Mountain View Cemetery requesting permission to put the negotiating with the dead poem up on their website. I would like to acknowledge here that the poem was first published in Matrix: The New Vancouver, Issue 84. I keep trying to get the acknowledgements out there, but for one reason or another it does not seem to make it up on the various websites. So thank you to the editors of this issue of Matrix, Anne Stone and Sachiko Murakami, and thanks to the staff at Mountain View for including my poem on their website. What better place for it than the place where it was born.

the sun came out

Posted by Daniela Elza on Dec 01 2009 | Comment now »

The sun finally broke through the cloud cover after a few weeks of rain. It broke through and stayed. It is the first day of the last month of the year. No panic. What will get done, will get done. And what doesn’t, well it doesn’t, and will have to wait till it does. I have been doing the manuscript rollercoaster: going from Yes I got it, to No I do not have it. Perhaps I can blame this impermanence on the weather. This swimming between a sense of coherence of things coming together and the sun shining through to those moments when the whole falls apart and the sense of coherence is replaced with uncountable rain drops. And you love it, this rain, but after two weeks you are ready for a change. And here it is, the sun. And the crows have been coming closer, braving my windows to check on me. Like they want to know how their book is coming along. But they have been awfully quiet. Like I am holding their breath. And now is when I need them most.

Happy December. 20 days to the Solstice. To the first day of winter. To the growing light.