‎”It’s as if poetry were a virus, and school exposure a mass vaccination program. A small dose in elementary school, a booster in high school, and you’re immune for life. The tiny minority who contract the virus from the vaccine can go onto university programs and learn, from senior fellow-carriers, how to keep it under control through a regimen of critical theory.”
—Robyn Sarah (in “Little Eurekas”)

There was a good feeling about the place for the time I was there. On the steps of the art gallery people took turns talking. Each had 5 minutes. What I heard were eloquent, erudite expressions for the world we are sustaining and how we can create a better one. I was impressed and touched. I was not there for too long but in that short time I heard two poets speak as well (one a student in grade 12 and the other a spoken word poet). So good to see the poets there. Of course they have to be. This is poet territory with our quiet revolutions. See love backwards in revolution. That was on a sign I could not zoom in on.

The expressions were varied and not necessarily always in agreement. Which was also touching. There was no feeling of: if you are not with me you are against me.

Talking of directions:

There were places one could make a sign if they did not have one. Some random signs.

And this was my favourite. A very busy intersection downtown looked like this yesterday:

And the photo of the day:

If you do not get a chance to go out and support this phenomenon at least consider thinking about it. Do not give up if it is too hard contemplating this. It is. And giving up is not an option. Let it occupy you. Devote a small space of yourself to it. Let it grow.

• Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram
  Wednesday, August 31, 2011, 7:30pm. @ Canadian Memorial Center for Peace, 1825 W, 16th. Tickets: $10 (call 604-737-8858 to get your ticket).

I heard of him first through his book The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. I am still working my way through it. Not because it is hard to read, but because it is so full. Here is what The Spirited Review writes of the book.

And here are some quotes form the book:

“The life-world is the world of our immediately lived experience, as we live it, prior to all our thoughts about it. … reality as it engages us before being analysed by our theories and our science.”

“Our spontaneous experiences of the world, charged with subjective, emotional, and intuitive content, remains the vital and dark ground of all our objectivity.”

“Language is not a fixed or ideal form, but an evolving medium we collectively inhabit, a vast topological matrix in which the speaking bodies are generative sites, vortices where the matrix itself is continually being spun out of the silence of sensorial experience.”

“To touch the coarse skin of a tree is thus, at the same time, to experience one’s own tactility, to feel oneself touched by the tree. And to see the world is also, at the same time, to experience oneself as visible, to feel oneself seen.”

“From the magician’s, or phenomenologist’s, perspective, that which we call imagination is from the first an attribute of the senses themselves; imagination is not a separate mental faculty (as we so often assume) but is rather the way the senses themselves have of throwing themselves beyond what is immediately given, in order to make tentative contact with the other side of things that we do not sense directly, with the hidden or invisible aspects of the sensible.”

—from The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, by David Abram (1996)

So I have been thinking, catching thoughts buzzing in my head lately: something about our attention, something about awareness, where we places it, something about consciousness, something about who has more of it, who has less, about being and not.

I am also currently reading The Philosophical Baby: What children’s minds tell us about Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life by Alison Gopnik.

Much of what scientist are showing/proving/ investigating now around children and their minds works for me. It is always pleasant to find what I observe and intuit in my poetic investigations on the topic is getting its scientific underlining, hems, and buttons.

The other day in a small group of enthusiastic writers/readers I admitted that I do not read too many novels (hence I did not feel adequate in the novel discussions afoot). One person turned to me and asked “You don’t read much…?” That could have been a question, or an unfinished sentence, since in fast conversations among numbers of people threads get dropped and picked up with the speed of lightning, which can also be quite refreshing…
but I was stumped, do not remember answering….

So perhaps this could be the answer. But I cannot define all the directions in which I read. Sometimes we guide our reading. Make choices perhaps imposed from outside. At my best, with my reading, I do not follow too many outside guidelines. Maybe, I have the psychology of a bee, following lines that I cannot always explain why I am drawn or compelled to read this or that book. Or what dance got me here. But I know I am on the right track when honey is made.

Sometime we have to read by stepping barefoot on the grass. Digging our toes in the earth. Sitting by a tree in the deep shade of the wood where the last sunbeam reminds you to worship the light. Or sometimes we read by growing things. So there are many many ways to read. And there is so much to read and so little time.
Back to pollination and cross-pollination.

Mother Tongue Publishing has done it again. In this latest contribution to The Unheralded Artists of BC Series we are introduced to Mildred Valley Thornton: a painter, a poet, an advocate for first nations, for women and art.

What we love startles us awake (says Aislinn Hunter in her latest book A Peep-show with views of the interior: Paratexts). And it is here that I find the source of Mildred’s strength and passion. She loved big and she loved a lot. This passion transfers to her art, and wakes us to the existence and the possibilities of dwelling in the world, of our interconnections with it and with each other. Art “as an essential and guiding component of life” (p. 15). Art as a place to “enter into quiet communion with the aesthetic elements that exalt and elevate the race” (p. 15).

I wondered if Mildred’s journey would have been different had she not left Saskatchewan?
I wondered if her art would have been more appreciated by the establishments of the time had she not been so outspoken? Such questions tugged on me as I read.

Author Sheryl Salloum takes us on the colourful and multifaceted journey that was Mildred’s life. (I allow myself to be on a first name basis here with Mildred, since I found myself so close in sensibility, passion and love, in such kindred spirit company that using Mildred’s second name to refer to her will just introduce an unjustified and artificial distance.)

Mildred’s activism, her involvement and contribution to local and provincial art, to cultural, literary and social groups is admirable. She encouraged and helped other artists express and make a living through art. She was fascinated with first nations people, which launched her into hundreds of portrait canvases documenting faces and activities of First Nations as historic documents.
“She painted people in such places as fields, barns, and in their beds. Instead of working in a comfortable studio over a series of sittings, Mildred usually had one opportunity and a limited time to capture the likeness and character of her subjects” (p. 40). Author Sheryl Salloum highlights that by working that way Mildred broke from the portraiture tradition of studio sittings.

I was saddened to find out that our Vancouver Art Gallery has only one canvas of hers and has only displayed it about three times. Just when I was considering renewing my family membership there. I might have to ask them some questions first.

Hoping to leave a historic legacy with her art Mildred tried to keep the collection together in the hope that the government will purchase it and keep it in the province. She was so distressed by the lack of a reasonable outcome that she wrote a codicil to her will where she wanted her paintings of First Nations people to be destroyed. Thank goodness the work remained in tact.

Sheryl Salloum says in an interview: “Readers will find the art of Mildred Valley Thornton fascinating because they will discover that Emily Carr is not the only intriguing early female BC artist. Thornton was accomplished with both watercolours and oils and portraits and landscapes. The book has 100 beautifully reproduced images of her paintings as well as 18 rare and significant photographs.
Readers will also be astonished by the adventurous, confident, and passionate nature of a Canadian woman who, in the early part of the twentieth century, was ahead of her times.” I know I was taken by Mildred’s passion and unceasing struggle to build bridges and better understanding of First nations people through her art.

Hope you can pick up a copy of this or any of the other three books which cover the life and art of sculptor David Marshall, painter George Fertig, as well as The Life and Art of Frank Molnar, Jack Hardman & LeRoy Jensen.

This week at the Gala Night on Friday August 12 Mother Tongue Publishing will receive Pandora’s Collective Publishers Award for their contribution to Canadian books, for their brave and courageous undertaking to bring new and forgotten voices into the literary and art conversation.

How do you think we will do that Mr. Fraser Institute Guy? In under a minute I imagined a whole load of scenarios of how that system can go wrong and turn sour. To figure out how to implement that will be the challenge, would’t it?

Mr. Metric Fraser Institute Dude was unflinching at any reasonable question posed. He was sure as a cucumber. No matter what question he was asked the answer was certain, and the same (with the words shuffled around a bit): Again, the research shows…

(But this tool man did not speak, or think, like a researcher. He sounded too familiar… He… sounds like a politician.)

The radio host tried different questions to dislodge, perhaps shift, Mr. Man from the Fraser Institute and his metric we-test-the-students-to-find-out-how-the-teachers-are-doing answers. The host tried to perhaps induce some much needed meditation and some real thought on the issue….People called in with comments and questions prompting complexity, veering away from oversimplification. But, our man from the Fraser Institute would not have any of that. He held tight to his “metric” barometers, which apparently he pulls out of his tool box. I was hoping for a moment of… hesitation, for a moment of… acknowledging the complexity of the issue. But everything was ordered and simple in the Fraser Institute mindset that day…

So I thought I might offer some Dr. Seuss advice for this magic tool box.

“Oh, the jobs people work at! Out west, near Hawtch-Hawtch, there’s a Hawtch-Hawtcher Bee-Watcher. His job is to watch… is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee. A bee that is watched will work harder, you see.

Well…he watched and he watched. But, in spite of his watch, that bee didn’t work any harder. Not mawtch. So then somebody said, ‘Our old bee-watching man just isn’t bee-watching as hard as he can. He ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher! The thing that we need is a Bee-Watcher -Watcher!’ Well… The Bee-Watcher-Watcher watched the
Bee-Watcher. He didn’t watch well.

So another Hawtch-Hawtcher had to come in as a Watch-Watcher-Watcher! And today all the Hawtchers who live in
Hawtch-Hawtch are watching on Watch-Watcher-Watchering-Watch, Watch-Watching the Watcher who’s watching that bee. You’re not a Hawtch-Watcher.

You’re lucky, you see.”

(from Did I ever tell you how lucky you are? by Dr. Seuss)

There was something I wanted to ask Mr. Fraser Institute Tool… I wanted to ask one more question before the radio show was over…
I wanted to ask this Watcher from Hawtch Hawtch Fraser Hawtch Watcher Institute…

Do you, sir, get merit based pay? And how did you measure it?

…The shift was seismic. My confidence waned, but my curiosity sprawled.

…Stories aren’t about things. Stories are things.

…Stories aren’t about actions. Stories are, unto themselves, actions.

…The goal isn’t to represent an experience, but instead to create a piece of art that is itself an experience.

…The idea of a writer “wanting” to do something in a story unhinges me. At best, such desire smacks of nostalgia and, at worst, it betrays agenda.

…And writing what you know is knotted up with intention, and intention in fiction is always related to control, to rigidity, and more often than not, a little solipsism. The writer seems to have chosen an event because it illustrates a point or mounts an argument.

…And if empathy is important to fiction, compassion is invaluable. Compassion is empathy on steroids.

…Writers may enter their stories through literal experience, through the ground floor, but fiction brings with it an obligation to rise past the base level, to transcend the limitations of fact and history, and proceed skyward.

…I say fiction is an act of courage and humility, a protest against our mortality, and we, the authors, don’t matter.

I have discovered these are valid points for poetry as well.

Here are also 50 writing tools (via Cool Tools). Summed up in one of those cheat sheets format. You can print them on one sheet of paper. 50 of them. Like those sheets I would put all the math formulas that I could not remember for tests. Good reminders.
Then after the test, misplace, displace, and forget.

WOWEEEE. It is like the Tao Te Ching but more colourful. I love that part about sitting by the campfire with Plato, melting the Forms into marshmallows. The playfulness of the book dabs from a palette of delight onto the grey matter of the adult mind. I love how you get really in between things, like a child fitting between a wall and the refrigerator. So original! So refreshing! I am also really impressed by how you create a mood and an aura with so few words. Quite masterful…

Thank you, Alex, for engaging with It. Your words too are poetic and refreshing. The child fitting between the wall and the refrigerator…love it.

Here you can see A manifesto for play for Bulgaria and Beyond.

Then I saw Stuart Brown, a pioneer in research on play, who says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults-and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age. Here you can watch his TED talk.

I am going to continue to make my way through the various talks that keep bringing up the importance of play. One thing that stayed with me is the notion that the opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression. Lots to think about.

Of course, I am a proponent of play. Even though it was not directly addressed in my thesis it lingers in the background throughout. My small book of It is a big supporter of play. It loves to play. My whole philosophy around the poetic consciousness readily embraces play. So, of course, I am happy when people come out with the hard facts even though it is a no brainer how much we need it. Almost ironic we have to convince each other of its importance.
Now, time to play.

My essay is titled It’s Like Telling People You Have Rats and Forgetting to Qualify Them as Pets: A Poet’s Journey and you will find it on page 187.

ABSTRACT
How do I take my place as a learner, parent, educator in the fractal, multifaceted, kaleidoscopic process of being and becoming? How to negotiate the forces that pull us and push us in different directions? Or, how I discovered I am a poet, and survived to tell of it.

You can read it electronically in a PDF version or you can also have a print copy if you wish.
I thank the editors Mary Stewart and Lynn Butler-Kisber for including this essay in their journal. Also thank you to the peer-reviewers for their kind comments.

Hope you enjoy it. Feel free to let me know what it stirs.

Here is another view of It from freelance writer and editor Christina Shah:

‘It’ is that window, that urgent bright day which reminds us of the possibilties that call us, if only we’re willing to step out from our four walls. Each page of ‘It’ is a dynamic meditation, a burning juxtaposition, a study in inner tension. ‘It’ is brave– Elza gently takes the reader’s hand, and, with her trademark sense of humour asks the critical questions in a compassionate, high-spirited way. The result is the reigniting of that fundamental spark of wonder that exists within all of us. Elza is both teacher and student in this beautiful epistemological exploration.

Thank you, Christina for taking part in It and being part of It. Thank you for sending this along.

If you live with It you will also find how mischievous It can be. Next thing I know, It is in the lavender between the two little pine trees we have been growing from seed. My son brought them home from kindergarten. He will be going into grade six this September. Another way to measure time. A way to slow down time. A way to forget to measure. And the book of It has already befriended these two survivors and is not coming in, even as it begins to rain.