Back in Sask

Hello Crackers, I'm back on/in earth, literally. Planting my garden and recuperating from jetlag. Good to see the blogging going strong. I had an amazing experience at the Poetic Ecologies conference in Brussels, and will post more about it the conference proceedings shortly. Oh(de) for French baguettes, Greek Feta, Dutch chocolate and Belgium beer...

Meredith Quartermain poems

There are some neat poems by Meredith Quartermain in Green Integer Review (March-April 2006)--poems from Matter, published this spring by Bookthug in Toronto.

Link to poems (the review has misspelled her name as Quatermain; don't correct the misspelling in the URL):

http://www.greeninteger.com/green_integer_review/
issue_2/Meredith-Quatermain.htm

Although I dislike Wells's frequently nasty poetry reviews--and his domination of poetry reviewing space in Canada--this looks like an interesting anthology. Blurb from Biblioasis website. Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets [978-1-897231]

ISBN: 978-1-897231-44-9 | Wells, Zachariah | Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets | Poetry | $19.95 In 1910 Lawrence J. Burpee published an anthology of 100 Canadian Sonnets. Poet and critic Zachariah Wells figured it was high time for an update on that dusty tome. In Jailbreaks, Wells has gathered 99 of his favourite sonnets written by Canadians, from the 19th century to the present day. Jailbreaks does much to question the standard assumption that the best Canadian poetry is written in free verse, while showcasing the enormous versatility of the sonnet and of the poets who use it as a vessel for their thoughts and feelings. It just might change the way we think about Canadian poetry. Includes poems by: Milton Acorn, Margaret Avison, Ken Babstock, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Tim Bowling, George Elliott Clarke, Fred Cogswell, Leonard Cohen, Don Coles, Mary Dalton, Ralph Gustafson, Steven Heighton, Daryl Hine, George Johnston, A.M. Klein, Archibald Lampman, Irving Layton, Malcolm Lowry, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Don McKay, John Newlove, Alden Nowlan, George Murry, Eric Ormsby, Richard Outram, Molly Peacock, E.J. Pratt, Steven Price, Stuart Ross, Robyn Sarah, Goran Simić, Karen Solie, Raymond Souster, Carmine Starnino, Peter Van Toorn, Phyllis Webb, and many others.

Ginsberg and Blake

The magpie's pick of the day-- Allen Ginsberg singing William Blake's "The Sick Rose" in 1969.

http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Ginsberg/Blake/Songs-of-Experience/Ginsberg-Allen_03_The-Sick-Rose_New-York_12-15-69.mp3

Two to note

Two terrific encounters I've had lately:

Bob Holman - how could I have not heard of him before!? A perfomance poet who's been doing it for years in New York and everywhere else. Here's some bumpf from his website:

Recently dubbed a member of the "Poetry Pantheon" by the New York Times Magazine and featured in a Henry Louis Gates, Jr. profile in The New Yorker, Holman has previously been crowned "Ringmaster of the Spoken Word" (New York Daily News), "Poetry Czar" (Village Voice), "Dean of the Scene" (Seventeen), and “this generation’s Ezra Pound,” (San Francisco’s Poetry Flash).

From Slam to Hiphop, from performance poetry to spoken word, Bob Holman has been a central figure in the reemergence of poetry in our culture. The series he produced for PBS, the United States of Poetry , features over sixty poets including Derek Walcott, Rita Dove, Czeslaw Milosz, Lou Reed and former President Jimmy Carter, as well as rappers, cowboy poets, American Sign Language poets, and Slammers. USOP lives on as an anthology from Harry Abrams Publishers (in its second printing), a home video from KQED, and soundtrack CD from Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records, a label Holman co-founded. He has appeared widely on TV: "Nightline," "Good Morning America," "ABC News Magazine," MTV's "Spoken Word Unplugged," and "The Charlie Rose Show," among others. The NEA has announced major preproduction support for his new poetry media project, the World of Poetry (worldofpoetry.org), the world’s first digital poetry anthology. Check out www.bobholman.com

Last night at the TalonBooks launch in at the Calgary Art Gallery - where - in Calgary of course! Several readers, but here I want to mention one - Fred Wah's terrific new book 'Sentenced to Light'. Bold and innovative at every 'turn'.