…Or more to the point, what is a falafel? These are some of the questions that arose from the Nightowls & Newborns reading in Regina last night. It was a delightful reading, done salon style, and more questions found their way into the after-session with Kerry Ryan and Ariel Gordon.

After the reading, I had a chance to ask some questions of my own, and here is the questionable interview (well, in multiple choice form) with Kerry Ryan, author of The Sleeping Life, that arose from our gathering:

Kerry: I like reading. I don’t find that I’m usually nervous, although I was for the initial book launch in April in Winnipeg this year, which was packed with nearly 100 people. I haven’t had any special training, such as theatre classes, but I like looking at the audience’s reaction when I catch their eye, and it’s interesting to see their response when I do.Tonight some of the people were even taking notes, probably Gerry’s students, but it’s great to see them engaged with the poetry.

Please pick the question you think most fits this answer:

1. Do you spell comfort with  a “k”?

2. Where is Regina?

3. Do you own a trained elephant?

4. How do you feel about reading, in particular the reading tonight?

Kerry: I feel it’s my job in a way, my duty. Community service. I don’t write poetry for money, but for fun. Although, it’s work, it feels like the thing I should do. Writing is my obligation, but doesn’t come easily, which is what I’m trying to say in my poem “29.”

when i realize

at 29 it’s too late

to become a child prodigy,

that–at best–

i might merely be ordinary,

competant at something

only i am interested in

Please pick the question you think most fits this answer:

1. Could you talk about the waters?

2. Where is the Comfort Inn?

3. Why do you write poetry?

4. Are you an entertainer?

Kerry: Not really. I had many short poems to begin with which my editor cut, but I snuck some back in that I thought worked. Clarise Foster, my editor, was good, and the editing process was heartbreaking but inspiring. This was my first time working with an editor and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’m pleased with the strength of the book that resulted from the process.

1. Where are the rye bread, marble cheese, kielbasa, ripple chips, French’s mustard, and pickles?

2. Is there dip?

3. Did you see that woman with the mossy teeth?

4. Do you see your smaller poems as interruptions in the sleep process?

Kerry: I begin from notes in a notebook, usually they can be snippets I hear, or read, words, phrases, but I find that often what starts the poem is what will eventually be cut from the poem. The trigger so to speak. Often I try to save it, but usually nothing comes of the what I’ve cut from a poem.

Please pick the question you most think fits this answer:

1. Do you want to join my book club?

2. Have you ever tried bison carpaccio?

3. Where is the bathroom?

4. How do you write, what is your process?

Kerry: The tour has been great so far. Ariel and I get along really well; we both respect each other’s work, and are peers in Winnipeg. We plan our readings in the car between cities (the tour has hit Saskatoon, Edmonton, Regina, and Prince Albert), which is fun. We try to come up with new ideas on reading the poems, to make the reading interesting for the audience, as well as to break it up for ourselves, so we don’t get tired of the same routine.

Please pick the question you think most fits this answer:

1. Does that necklace only come in black?

2. Would you like a cookie?

3. Are you still pregnant?

4. How is the tour going so far?

…I know I’m busy–I procrastinate doing anything and write a post on the blog. It’s true; the more I need to do, the more I fritter away my time writing things that really don’t need to be writ, on the blog that really doesn’t need to be writ, on the web, that sometimes should be off the writ…see, see the dribble? See what I mean?

Tonight I’m making a list and checking it naught, of all the things I have to do within the next few weeks–astounding, even for me. So what I thought is that perhaps I should post a blog post, telling you to get yer butts off the couch and out to this reading by two wonderful Winnipeg writers,  Ariel Gordon and Kerry Ryan :

Nightowls & Newborns Launch

October 9th @ 7:30 pm
Reading,
Rm. 208, Luther College/University of Regina
Regina, SK

In honour of their arrival, I’ve decided to clean the house, another reason I’m sitting at the computer writing a bunch of twitter. Isn’t twitter a good thing these days? Isn’t there a twitter among writers that to twitter is better than to totter? Or better than to teeter? (My apologies, how does one take anything I say seriously?) I imagine the house cleaning will eat up a good portion of my day (there is lots to do, not to mention lots of house), but my two lovely guests will be so much happier knowing they won’t have to wade their way through the piles of books, papers, and discarded proposals. (I’m in the midst of my MA proposal as well (I hunkered down at the computer for nearly a week, stared at the screen, typed an amazing amount of words, then began checking to see if anyone had sent me any email messages (only every 20 minutes), kept the fb open (uselessly), the chat on (vainly), while struggling to find that certain edge that will develop or at the very least put an end to the whole process.))

The following weekend, after another round of meetings (tell me again why I volunteer on so many committees?) I’m off to the SWG  AGM where James Romanow, renowned wine expert, is receiving the volunteer of the year award. Yah James! Also, I believe I owe him a bottle of wine after he let me beat him in scrabble. I think I will surprise him with something not of his choosing (he keeps going on about the quality, bah).

So here I am. Procrastinating the so many jobs at hand. And feeling not one bit of guilt that you have to read all this pratter. Heh.

…all over the net for an audio of Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Message, and this is the closest I could get without downloading a torrent: (look to the right side on the home page of the Ubuweb  August 2008 Featured Resources, number 7.

…of potatoes in Regina. Can we talk? Well okay, today, because I’m not in my right frame of mind, not that I’m ever in a right frame of mind, but simply that I’m not prone to ranting, I’m going to rant. (Luckily, I have the kind of job that I can tell as many clients as I must any rant I have, and of course, they have to listen, being stuck in the barber chair with metal shears flashing about their head; so I quickly tire of my verbal diarrhea). Today, though, I’ve been stuck at home in front of a computer screen working on a proposal of sorts, or of no sense, and I have a bit of rant on the rising cost of everything. So listen…

Why is it the influx of people into an urban (perhaps this happens in a small rural setting as well, only there’s no one there to notice) centre creates a rising cost on those items deemed necessity?  And mostly, (brace yourselves) I want to know, since when did the price of potatoes become more than the cost of beer? Since when does a root vegetable rate top dollar? Since when do 12, count ’em, 12 average sized red, round potatoes cost $9.17??

Did I miss something? I know I’m not the most observant person travelling in the grocery sphere most days, and I’m prone to blanking out in the dairy section frequently as I contemplate rows of multi-hued cheese, but as I’m standing at the till with my less than 15 items, at the 15 item or less line, I react suddenly to the shock of the price. “Since when,” I ask the young woman, neatly attired in black, her pants saran-wrapped to her butt, the standard issue grocery store sweater squeezed over top, and adorned with the company’s new subtle logo, “did potatoes get so expensive?” To which she snorts and answers, “At least you picked out nice ones, most of the time they’re rotten.”

And this too is true! The prepackaged bags of potatoes, the kind they sell in various poundage, now come in unclear plastic bags, so you can’t see the state of the potatoes. And the loose ones look like they’ve been carelessly stabbed many times over with a pitchfork. Or they try to convince you the small potatoes in the small square bags, with sprouts growing out the small, round breathing holes, are “NEW.”

Not only has the price risen like a child’s helium balloon, but in the time of a boon, we pay top dollar for gross product. Why in the era where we’re encouraged to eat healthy, to eat fresh, to locate and pluck the best organic and wholesome produce we can find, do they attempt to unload the crap on us?

And where does the good produce go? Do they sell those to superior, select stores for an even higher price? Maybe soon we’ll be having to distinguish our produce by grades, at which rate you’ll pay top dollar for a potato without any unsightly bashing. Or even worse, sprouts. One baked potato, $20.00 please.

So the girl packs my 14 items in the black recyclable bag that I have to buy every time I’m in line, because I don’t carry the bags with me everywhere, but the guilt of a cheap, plastic bag that will break as soon as get to the car, wears heavy upon my heart, and I fork out another $.99 to house my golden potatoes. I head out to the car that took only $14.00 to fill not 10 years ago, and now takes $50.00, so I can drive home the remaining 2 blocks to the house that now costs nearly 5 times what was paid for it not 10 years ago.

And why is it, I ask, worn from the misery of a rant that will go nowhere, and be seen by even fewer than a dozen eyes, I don’t see my income sprouting as quick as a “NEW” potato?

The room with a view.

The CN tower is there somewhere, although there is just a corner of it. The lounge of the Grand Hotel was a lovely little place where I spent most of Friday night visiting and it was also the place where I saw Austin Clarke. I didn’t get a chance to go and talk to him, as he looked like he was rather busy, but it was a great evening. The next day after a long meeting, I visited with numerous friends that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Life is good sometimes.

…gives with the sunsets my friend K asks late one evening from across the table at a noisy restaurant/night club.  The why in a voice hangs on the foam in the beer on the table. Two people furiously grope each other near the washrooms. The dj’s arrive and the music begins to rise around the din of people, floats as ordinary thoughts leaving the no longer rational brains of those no longer sober.

Right. What was it that made me post a record number of shots of the same thing– the sun, setting. I suppose I could merely say it is a part of the obsessive compulsive disorder, and rather than picking up previous bad habits where I left them when I obsessively stopped them, I began a new obsession about recording the  last summer of 2008. Maybe I could say they are beautiful, here as well as there, as well as everywhere and anywhere. Maybe I could say that my fascination stems from the symbolism behind the sunset, the connection with death. I do think the sunrise is beautiful too with a charm all its own, and it too connects with symbolism, of birth/renewal, but for some reason, the sunset is more striking to me than the sunrise. The patterns in the sky, against the clouds, the fluctuating hues of reds, oranges, and yellows create such a warm embrace of sky.

I find that although the connection with literary symbolism is always present in the orange glow in the west, the warmth of that glow, the calm about that glow, the serenity in that parting seems to work against the notion of death, or at least it does in my perception of it. The idea that even though there may be clouds for more than one day that block the view of the setting, the sun is still setting in the distance, and on another clear evening it will be where it was, though never quite the same as it was before. And yes, posting all those pictures is very much the same repetition, it’s cyclical: wake, sleep, life, birth, death, rise, fall, breath, and breathe. Although things end, they continue. A snapshot in the distant future of something we may never remember, may never know, but may only understand through life and beyond. The repeat of recording the sunset is the mimic: how eternal everything appears to be.

…the sunset in North Dakota.

…this time during a storm. I haven’t quite figured out why the sky was red/orange, as it was still cloudy, still raining, and still storming. I’m sure there is some logical explanation, and now I’m sure I really don’t need to know. All I know is that the view from my front door looked like some exotic place, the sky breathing out the last warmth of the day, and everything else far, far, away.

…deserves a new blog. I thought it might be a good idea to give my project a blog of its own. You can find my exercises in writing at The Plural Hoe.

The addition of a blog of its own should help to alleviate any confusion between regular posts and the project posts, as well as being cleaner and easier to read. I hope you follow along with the action as I explore blogging the voices of women that have inspired me, and many others, and hopefully they continue to inspire me.