‎”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”)

Saturday, February 4th at 7PM – 9PM
W2 Media Cafe [downstairs]
111 West Hastings Street, DTES
*** FREE EVENT ***

Featuring LIVE READINGS by:
Evelyn Lau, Marita Dachsel, Rob Taylor, Onjana Yawnghwe, Warren Dean Fulton, Daniela Elza, Timothy Shay.
Presented by Books on the Radio Projects, Pandora’s Collective and Tightrope Books.

‎”This experience—this awareness of my elemental, thingly presence to the tangible things that surround me—has remained, for me, the purest hallmark of magic, the very signature of its uttermost reality. Magic doesn’t sweep you away; it gathers you up into the body of the present moment so thoroughly that all your /explanations/ fall away: the ordinary in all its plane and simple outrageousness, begins to shine—to become luminously, impossibly so. Every facet of the world is awake, and you within it.”

—David Abram
(in Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology)

Cover photo by fellow poet, photographer, and mathematician Robin Susanto.
Introduction by Aislinn Hunter.
And here is the back cover with blurbs by Tim Lilburn and Cathy Ford.

Hope to see you there.

Heaven reflects Earth,
or Earth reflects Heaven.
The words were floating around, so it is your pick.

Happy day after Winter Solstice and Happy Holidays.

Work of the eyes is done, now
go and do heart-work
on all the images imprisoned within you; for you
overpowered them: but even now you don’t know them.”

—Rainer Maria Rilke
(from the poem Turning-point)

The Kranky Reading Series

Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 7pm
Poets Daniela Elza, Miranda Pearson, and Heather Haley will read at the Kranky Cafe on Thursday, December 1.
*Preambled by Garry Thomas Morse

Kranky Cafe #216-228 E.4th avenue

(East of Main west of Scotia)

Vancouver, BC

Hope to see you there.

Baikusheva Mura (Black Fir).
Pinus Leugodermis.
Age: 1300 years.
Circumference: 7.8m.
1930 meters above sea level.
Height: 26m.
She was found in the year 1897.
(I was not sure if to refer to the tree as a he or a she. I will refer to her as she since in Bulgarian fir is in the feminine. So why not. This helps sort it out a bit.)
A view of the top of her:

A view of the middleof her:

View of the bottom:

A view of her roots:

The whole of her:

The skin (or the scales) of her:

A different angle of the whole tree:

And me so happy to be here. So hard to leave. We had just barely met. I took so many photos. Wish I could put them all up. This tree is about as old as the country of Bulgaria.

So much to say, so much to share. I cannot even tell what language we spoke. I am in love again.

It has been a very busy year and I have raced through quite a bit of it. Ok, that is a lot of its, but, hey, I have a special relationship with it now. It means a lot more than a little pronoun.

With my graduation this year, I want to thank all the people who accompanied me. It is not a journey without its challenges, obstacles and deep inner searching, questioning. Which, of course, gives me a headache on some days. That is what I do now, by default.

I would like to thank Mother Tongue Publishing for being in care of the weight of dew, my debut full length collection of poetry coming out in the Spring next year. They make such beautiful books and I trust my baby is in good hands there. (You can tell It is not going to get less busy anytime soon.)
Here is the cover of the book so far. Thank to Robin Susanto for taking that shot.

I want to thank all those journals out there who tirelessly put out new voices. One of which was and is mine. (This will be a long post. Can you feel it. Looking for short cuts now.)

Still every day the challenge remains: to carve spaces and places, and times to be quiet, to be thankful, to “sing along ourselves.” (This idea came from an email exchange with a friend who, when I asked who was singing alongside him in his video, said I am singing in the background with me).

Today I wish that to you (and me) both literally and metaphorically, and, ok, lets add philosophically, why not?
I thank my friends and family for allowing these spaces to exist and for time to be stolen out of busy days.

And remember to receive thanks as well. Thanks giving is even more complete when there is someone to receive the thanks…no matter how far or immaterial the recipient. (Don’t you love that word immaterial. So tricky.)

Remember to share and… do not overeat. (Oh, well, if you have to.)
I keep forgetting to bring my Thanksgiving poem to readings. Should, one of these days.

On the 8:30am ferry with raincoat, my biggest umbrella, and the hope that all of you I asked to bring some sun and a poem would take me up on it.

The ferry was pretty full and animated with the noise of the cafe and the few baseball teams of what looked like high school boys. I used my time on the ferry to read and write and think. To immerse myself in Another Gravity.

Kim Goldberg picked me up at the Departure Bay terminal in Nanaimo. We first had a visit with Joe Rosenblatt and his house full of art, his lovely wife, and… and … his very friendly cats. See, if you did not have a lap they would make one to climb into.

Then we headed out to the first location the Roaming poets were to read- the Old School House Arts Centre. Where I finally met David Fraser, the brain behind this event.

(Thank you Kim for these photos).

After an hour of the three of us taking turns reading poems with open mic volunteers we strolled down to the courtyard in front of the library, where we read for another 40 or so minutes. This time in full sun, in full view of the fountain and the Bailey’s coffee house and in full view of the people coming in and out with their books in the crook of their elbows or under their arms.

Thanks to all of you who stopped by to listen, to comment, to read, and thank you to the sun which shone against the 60%-chance-of-rain odds.

We then gathered around the table at David’s house. We has to step over a passionate passion flower at his door step to get in and were swallowed by another house full of art, books, dogs and a cat, and good company. David and his wife treated us to a delicious dinner of Mediterranean chicken on rice, asparagus, tomatoes with mozzarella cheese, wine and good conversation. If I talked too much I would not know it, that is how busy I was talking. While we ate the home made lemon meringue pie we were treated to a poem about the time David worked as a baker. Well, we asked for it.

the book of It loves old buildings with clocks in them. So it asked to stay.