As I always try to put something poetry-related into these posts, I'm happy to announce that my poem, Tethered, that appeared in the anthology Refugium: Poems for the Pacific, edited by Yvonne Blomer, was selected to be included in Vancouver-area's Poetry in Transit this year! There'll be a reading of such poems (plus a couple of others) at Word Vancouver on September 30th and I'll be there. I'll provide more details (ie. where; when) closer to the date, but am I ever excited to think that one of my little poems is going to be riding buses and Skytrain and hopefully providing the odd person who looks up from their phone with a little hit of poetry. Tethered was born in La Manzanilla, the little fishing village on the west coast of Mexico (ie. on the Pacific Ocean) a few years back. I was very proud when Yvonne accepted it for the anthology, and now this! Do let me know if you happen to be riding and spot it. #PoetryinTransit @ReadLocalBC
I've been remiss in my blogging habit of late. Truth be told, I've often gone AWOL from Purple Mountain Poetry since I started it some twelve years ago, but after a happy month of daily blogging in April I had decided I'd make an attempt to blog at least a couple of times a month, just to keep those particular poetry muscles working.
Curious about exactly when I started this blog, I just looked up my very first post. It was in May of 2006, and I was so nervous about putting myself out there I wrote it in third person!
At the beginning of June, my 98-year-old mom had a heart attack, was in hospital for three weeks and is now back in her apartment in the assisted living place where she's lived for the past ten years. This has kept me and my two sisters unbelievably busy, leaving little energy for stuff like cleaning the house, never mind blogging! Here she is with her favourite grandson, Jesse. He got his musical talent from her; she was a fine violinist and pianist in her day and can still discuss the finer points of all things classical. And she supported his early musical training by giving him violin lessons, starting after we moved back to Nelson when he was seven.
In spite of this not entirely unexpected health drama (I told you she's 98), I have, however, managed to produce two chapbooks since the beginning of June. They aren't at the finished stage yet (ie. they're not quite ready for printing) but almost, and I'll certainly write about them when they are. Making little poetry books helps keep me sane.
I also made three Coptic-bound journals for a friend in Victoria and yesterday when I took visiting friends from Gibsons and La Manz over to the Kootenay Gallery I was told that someone had come in that morning specifically looking for one of my journals as she'd been gifted one before and loved it!
Speaking of making such books, Paper-Ya, my old Vancouver go-to place to buy book cloth has stopped carrying it. If anyone reading this has any tips as to where I can source good-quality (ie. silk) book cloth in Canada, please shoot me a message. I've spent a little time wandering around online, but haven't seen some of the stuff I really like, such as the cloth I used for these ones:
Any and all tips appreciated. You reading my blog is appreciated. All in all, it's a pretty good life.
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3 comments:
Congratulations
I enjoyed reading this, Linda - thanks for posting. And congrats on having your poem selected for the poetry in transit feature! Karl
What a beautiful post, Linda, thank you. Congratulations on the selection of Tethered twice over and I look forward to reading it and (loudly) exclaiming how beautiful the images and language are and that I sure hope somebody with good taste has published a book of poems of this calibre from (pretending to squint at your name) this amazing Linda Lee Crosfield poet person! xox I also love the journals you've photographed and presented here and of course, the loving looks exchanged between your handsome son and your amazing mom. A lovely post, all elements included.
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