WE ARE NOTHING IF NOT PART OF A TRIBE

§

"We" being writers, of course. 

A remarkable set of circumstances, beginning with my signing up for a writing course in 1991where I met the man who would eventually become my husband, has led to my getting to spend healthy chunks of Canadian winters in La Manzanilla del Mar, Mexico, for the fourth year in a row.

La Manz, as it's often called, is a fishing village on Tenacatita Bay where the pace is mostly pretty slow and you get sunsets like this:

This year I joined the local writers' group. We meet Saturdays from eleven until one at Martin's Restaurant, do a free write for twenty minutes or so, then take turns reading either what we've just written or whatever we like to the group. Because of the transient nature of the town the people involved change almost every week, but there are usually about eight of us. Last week we had a public reading at Casa Luz.

At our weekly get-together.

Sandi, one of the members of the group. Like most of us, she's hoping to be back next year.

There was a book table, of course.

I've been working on a chapbook over the past few days. My friend Chris made me a sweet little desk!

 I managed to get four copies sewed in time for the reading.

You have to love it when readers and audience alike turn up in bare feet!

Dogs are always welcome at readings here. (Sometimes they even wind up in poems!)

Patricia read from a travel memoir. Love her "Mrs. Noda". 

Betsy McGregor read a beautiful story from her book The Awe of Being Human ~ a Doctor's Stories from the Edge of Life and Death. She's having a solo reading followed by a discussion at Casa Luz on Wednesday, Feb. 19th at 7:30PM. If you're in La Manz you won't want to miss it.

Some of the thirty-plus people who came out for the reading.

I read four poems.

Lynda read from her work-in-progress, her grandparents' love story.

Julie read some of her poetry. That's her children's book she's holding.

Ron Stock read from new work while Melody showed us some of his silhouette paintings.

Moira had us in stitches with her trenchant story about a visitor to a town that could almost be this one!

Paulette, who was celebrating a birthday, read a short story.

Gabriela de la Vega opened and closed the evening with poems in both the original Spanish and the English translation.

Back at the Helping Hands Bookstore, you can still grab a copy of George Bowering's Los Pájaros de Tenacatita and my Rodeo Nights. They're 100 pesos each, which is more than most books in the store, but ALL of the proceeds go to the scholarship fund.

 New folk are always welcome at our Saturday meetings. All kinds of writing — fiction, creative non-fiction, memoir writing, poetry, you name it — by all kinds of writers — the published, the closeted, the nervous — are welcome. 11AM–1PM, Martin's Restaurant, every Saturday. See you there!

§

LOS PÁJAROS DE TENACATITA—POEMS OF LA MANZANILLA DEL MAR BY GEORGE BOWERING

§

As some of you know, I occasionally make chapbooks and other books through my imprint, NIB Publishing, aka "Nose-in-Book". Last month I published a collection of 22 poems by George Bowering that he wrote while he and his wife, Jean, were visiting La Manzanilla, Mexico in January.

In Los Pájaros de Tenacatita George looks at life in general and Mexican life in particular—its birds, its kids, its visiting gringos—with depth, compassion and humour. 

While working on the cover for the chapbook I went through dozens and dozens of pictures I'd taken of birds, but none of them was quite what I wanted. Then one day, when I was looking for something else entirely, I came across an envelope that had belonged to my aunt who died last year at 102. She  probably got the little card with its bird painted on an actual leaf while on one of her many trips, although I'm not sure which one. 

The chapbook is dedicated to Lidia and Pedro, both of La Manz, and to Pablo Medina, who came up with the form used in the poems.

Lidia can be found at all hours of the day and night behind the counter or stocking shelves at Lidia's Abarrotes, doing whatever has to be done to maintain her "Alice's Restaurant" establishment where you can indeed get just about anything you want.

Pedro works out of his taco truck, from which he sells the "best fish tacos in the universe".  We got him to cater a dinner party for us which he did with aplomb, and when I was sick with a nasty cold/cough he sent Ted home with various concoctions for me.

Each of the poems is written as a fulcrum which consists of six lines divided into couplets. Cuban poet, Pablo Medina, describes how he came up with the form here. 

One of the black and yellow critters immortalized in the poem He Sets His Watch

For only $10 this little chapbook can be yours. Email me. And here's to you, George. Thanks for letting me make  you a book!

§