My Friend Klaas

I've been meaning to do this for some time. My friend Klaas has been painting for several years (he took quite a number of them off to do the job thing), but is now returning to embrace his love of the art once more. Which is great, because he's fantastic. In recognition of this, and to encourage you all to keep your ear to the ground for his work, I give you his Web site, complete with some of his older works, to bemuse yourselves with.
One of my favorites is "swimmer".

Some things about me and my evening, and some more things about me

I like little things. By little things, I mean little furniture, tiny dolly shoes, small paper doll patterns, baby forks and spoons, etc. For a long time I collected small things. Not sure where they got to. But I still have a collection of tiny furniture and tiny cutlery I hope to one day place in a tiny house I will build and wallpaper delicately myself. I have a family waiting to move in. In the meantime, my Sims will have to suffice. I've built 4 separate communities. My computer chugs now when I enter their worlds. I need a bigger hard drive for my fantasy lives. I think this is just darling. In fact, I may have that very outfit on the left. I love art deco-ey. 50's dinette sets too.

Speaking of art deco, I happened to go to a very neat Art Deco of Montreal meeting tonight. I'd met the lady who runs it at a recent Quebec Writers Federation meeting a month ago. She also happens to have written a book about Montreal's wealth of Art Deco buildings and is holding a world conference in 2009. She also wrote a very famous book about nutrition in the 80's, which I just happen to have found two weeks ago while working at a book warehouse, packing lots of used books to be catalogued by poor students like myself. How wierd that things come around as they do. I spoke to her a bit tonight, not as much as I'd like (I'm quite shy sometimes, really, much to my surprise). She's lovely. Her name is Sandra Cohen-Rose. Even her name sounds all flowers and wine. A very appropriate Montreal name to have, I think.

So, while seated at the table tonight of full strangers and older art deco enthusiasts, I milled about the conversations, sipping on red wine and stuffing myself with free cheeses, smoked salmon, and the sweetest strawberries I swear I've ever had. The table at one point was occupied by several very nice ladies who were telling me about Montreal neighbourhoods I should visit and the walking tour of Art Deco Montreal I should go on (which I shall), as well as some interesting conversational twists: 1970's feminism, Irish theatre, the wreck of the inbound 1914 ship Irish Empress, bound for Montreal but sunk in 1914, killing 68% of it's passengers in its sinking after 14 minutes of hitting another ship. Imagine! I even may have inspired one of those kind ladies to take up her lifetime passion of writing. She wants to take me for a walk-about of a Montreal neighbourhood. How nice. Although I was the youngest attendee tonight, I had a really good time talking, and then listening. Montreal has been so cold since I've been here. Adjusting is tough. But spring is here. And now I can look upward, toward the splendid peaks of Montreal's architectural glory.

And now for something completely different. I've decided to share some of my jewelry collection with the blog universe. Here's some of my treasured crap. Consider it a game of "what's in my jewelry box!":


My charm bracelet when I was a kid. The little head is a boy's head. They got that wrong somehow. It has my birthdate inscribed on the other end. If you see me wearing it sometime, ask me about the other dangly items.

More jewelry!



I made this ring in high school art class. Isn't it the ugliest thing? Can't bring myself to throw it away though. Funny how that is.


About, oh, 20 years ago at the FREX (Fredericton Exhibition) my first, er, love -- Tracey (yes, a boy) won me this piece of metal on one of those spinny wheel things. He had it engraved "walop the scallop". It means something. To me.


This is my favorite necklace. It's a lucky horseshoe-dealy. Although I wore it to the races and never won. Whatever. If you see me wearing it, chances are I'm feeling pretty happy. Or wanting to get lucky...


The Russians gave me this. I say "the Russians" like they're just a big mass of thing. But really they are. And I love them to pieces. I was engaged once. This was something his mom gave me. In fact, I've been proposed to twice. Both times, no ring. Does that mean anything? And, is this a pin to be worn on a lapel or something? Never could figure it out.


This locket was given to me by my grandmother. It contains a picture of her son, my father, who died in 1973. His name was Blair. What a great name that is.



My first (and only, so far) piece of jewelry I've bought here in Montreal. Love the amber. It sits on my finger like a spring day. Lovely.



Is this jewelry? Nah. But it's kinda neat, maybe. From my days in air cadets. Loved wearing a uniform. Something about the crispness of the fabric. How the pleats were razor sharp, the boots as shiny as mirrors. Won best cadet of the year the first year I was in it, in fact. Wierd eh?

Ok, all for now. So much stuff I still keep in my jewelry box. Maybe I'll indulge in another post sometime. This was a fun distraction down memory lane! (And now, my return to study time).

a few things about my eyes I'd like to change

there is this cylinder shaft that bends around like elbows
starts an eye to watering

a cool tube of liquid salt. it parts like seaweed,
a sea's hand combs through it

the tunnels of water are tall enough to surf on
and block the view

this eye, a gelled pad. it floats in its wet socket
unplugged and circuit-free

when frightened, eyes curl up into little cats
and wind themselves tight to hollowed strings

balls like this apple I hold in the palm of my hand
which is my eye. it is small like an eye and fits into the cupped space as it should

the apple is hard and does not melt, even though I know it to be soft
and smelling sweet

the eye like a wet sort of flesh against the tongue

Award Show

So I know you're not supposed to submit poems for a poetry award based on who's judging, but really, if I knew half the time, I wouldn't bother submitting. The poetry I write is not of any one-genre, not particularly genre-specific, rather I'd like to think the components of poems I write contribute to their own significance without need to justify this or place that. It could be that what I write is just kinda crappy; I'm not beyond believing that. And, it's just plain disappointing not to be part of the award gang, or something.

So I submitted to this local thing that is particular to a local group of which I'm part of. Already I think the odds are not so high as to entirely discourage my chances of getting this award-thing. But then I discover who the judges are. Fine people, all of them... but not exactly writing in any of the forms my poetics explore the boundaries of.

My question is, not should it matter (because it shouldn't, and hopefully it really doesn't... that people could judge on the basis of style alone), but maybe the question really is, should I apply for awards that "seem" to engage a poetic that exists to the left of my own? I suppose it may depend on the representation of said award...

Lit CV

So I'm having to make a literary CV for some volunteer editor position I seem to want. Like I have time to volunteer for anything lately. Considering I don't keep well enough track of what I've done, who I've read with, etc. I'm having a tough time coming up with a lot of details. And, I find it a pain in the ass to write about myself. I'd rather be writing about other people.

How does one craft a CV solely based on their writing without seeming puffed up and steak-done? My other resume extols my talent at web design, and unabashedly at that. The professional experience section is layered with enough fluff to choke a rhino.

Is writing a writing-based CV just more personal?

In any case, I borrowed the bones of one local writer guy's CV. Hope he doesn't mind. Or have it handed to him one day, out of some sheer dumb Murphy's Law shining moment.

Been playing with names of streets and things in my neighbourhood. Wrote a little ditty that goes something like this:


the isle islet, parc of arthur. the flu laurent wrote, the new of rue. mushroom street and a spare palm of square, change makes cabot and york a rich man. the french dine on mushrooms, there. adventure of egan, passed with clifford, hand in hand the river joins. lack of Battalle, a 1st and 2nd visit, the eve of more promises; the boulevard, the mink. manned, tin marches on the brown stone block; signs of inlet, of valiant. these things, this traffic ring.


In other news: last night I dreamed of PEI. I used to take the ferry when I was a kid. Wore those giant (then) red cloth flotation "bibs". Anyhow, in the dream the ocean was a viscious monster, pelting waves of salt water onto a fish 'n chip restaurant deck where I was standing. The terror was in the air, but somehow people were piling onto a ferry in hopes of getting to the island as soon as they could. I too was in a rush to board the ship of death. I can still see the surroundings. Parking lot to the right. Long skinny road curving into a flat horizontal line. Funny thing is, I know I've had this dream before. And the familiarity was warm and welcoming. I miss the volatile sea. The skinny roads. The sea meals.

Did you hear about the whale getting chopped up by some boat's propellor out there on the west coast? How sad is that.

fhole me

Y'all should ask dfb for his fhole. It's great. And read some things of mine in the next issue. Last issue highlights this-way.

And, one John Barlow constructs another significant animal: Psychic Rotunda. Ask him too.

There's a new series in Toronto. Named Test. Everyone should get out & support it. Toronto needs an "avant" reading, which this indicates will be. Now, if only Montreal had one. I really have to do something about that.

Lovely grey day in Montreal. People seem to be all in their houses. Like me.

The problem with "poets" and "poets"

Funny. Some poets can't remember meeting other poets. Or maybe they just don't care. Or it could be the revolutions surrounding their own special lives occupy the small spaces in between.

Example. I was asked to do a reading in x-town. X-town reading setter-up guy seems to have visited my web page about, oh, 30 times. When I told guy I couldn't do reading due to time conflict, guy never responded. Guy continues to visit same old web page that hasn't been updated in, oh, about a year. Must be some real interesting stuff on there.

Example. Other poet setter upper guy. Met this guy once. Emailed this guy once. Both on related poet-reading situations. Even small-press-fair tabled with this guy. This guy emails me about a reading-thing stating who he is and what he does and that he found out I was a poet. No, not because I told him. No, not because I talked to him explicitly about bad poetry (and what-not) while we shared said table and exchanged our poems, etc. But, because he visited my web page, you know the one, that hasn't been updated in about a year.

Ah... to read or not to read.

Today I bought chinese slippers. They look like this. They're only 5 bucks. It's one of the best things about living.