WINTERLUDE

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Update (March 2021): I'm digging through this blog, hunting down poems I've written but not put into a word doc which strikes me as a dangerous thing to not do. At some point Blogger changed a bit and I lost some formatting which I'm attempting to fix. 

I was so shy about blogging when I started out I didn't even mention the mentor with whom I was studying at this workshop—Patrick Lane. He is so missed by the tribe of poets that came to work with him over and over. We were so lucky.

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Next week heralds the beginning of spring, and I, for one, can hardly wait. I was feeling far too smug about not getting any of the "things" that are going around, and then I got double-whammied, with a cold that sucked whatever energy I had into a vortex of coughing and then, most recently, the 'flu, which I've not had for 10 years (and nor have I had a 'flu shot). But in between those two tests of my patience/sanity, there was respite, in the form of a writing retreat on Vancouver Island. This is the third year I've done this, and the time spent living and breathing poetry with like-minded folk keeps me doing what I do. The whole object of the exercise, captured in a brief, snowy moment:

Words, or something very like words, seemed to be floating everywhere you looked

 

There was much collaborative work, of the "what's another word for...?" variety

And plenty of time for listening to people read, sometimes their own work, sometimes someone else's

  And there was lots of time for simply enjoying each other's company

The view, like everything else this weekend, was spectacular

  I mentioned this was a writing retreat. Which means we didn't actually workshop any poems, other than the snap-your-fingers-quick kind of dialogue that inevitably erupts—in a good way (think sex, not volcanoes)—when people share their poetry with other poets. The night we read poems by someone other than ourselves, Mary Ann read this one, by American poet Billy Collins, from The Art of Drowning ©1995, which may explain our focus on writing as opposed to critiquing. For once. Here are the first couple of stanzas of the poem: 

 WORKSHOP 

 by Billy Collins 

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title. 

It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now 

so immediately the poem has my attention, 

like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve. 

And I like the first couple of stanzas, 

the way they establish this mode of self-pointing 

that runs through the whole poem 

and tells us that words are food thrown down 

on the ground for other words to eat. 

I can almost taste the tail of the snake 

in its own mouth, 

if you know what I mean. 

(pssst...the rest is here; the poem goes on for a bit and doesn't disappoint!) ) 

Oh yeah, then I got to finish off my time in Victoria visiting my friend Valerie and meeting Enid Jupiter Nancy, and on Monday, March 8, the poem I wrote for Enid the day she was born was the Magic Teeth Dailies cartoon! How cool is that? This is Enid Jupiter (my grandparents on my dad's side and her great-great grandparents are the same)

  And this is the cartoon And here's her poem 

ENID'S MOON 

 The night you were born 

 it wasn't only your mother 

 who laboured the fullness of herself. 

 The moon in the not-too-distant 

universe you came from expanded 

to her zenith, slid in and out 

behind following clouds. 

 It was bright enough to see by, 

 light enough I could have walked 

 to the compost with a midnight offering 

 of lime rind and orange peel, 

 grapefuit seeds and mouldy bread, 

 all these things a metaphor 

for your safe arrival: bitter and sweet, 

 full of promise and just a little fear. 

 Moon—she hung there in the southeast sky 

 protective, shining fiercely down, 

 letting you into the light. 

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