The daily posting thing

[I accidentally posted this as a blank post with just a title; I'm going to become gun-shy of posting at all.]

I am really caught on the horns of a dilemma about posting a new poem every day in wordcurrents. On the one horn, the discipline of having to meet that daily deadline is really good for my writing bones; on the other, I am flooded with early drafts (consecutive daily poem 482 today).

Last night, after the movie (I saw Lucky You, with Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana — enjoyed it.) I realized I had not yet written the day's poem. I sat down at the computer, wrote the poem "parking lot", in about three minutes, posted it, and started wondering once again if I should keep doing it. But now that I am writing this piece, I think I see the benefit my craft receives from the exercise. I have come to be able to write "on command" ("By your command", as the Cylons used to say, in the earlier Battlefield Galactica, is fairly appropriate; it feels kind of robotic: I just decide on a topic or image or experience, how I feel about it, and start.) Last night, on the way home, we stopped in the Tim Horton parking lot so that Gilles' brother, Denis, could get a takeout coffee. While we were there, and as Gilles and I spoke idly about the experience of sitting there, I formed the image of desolation that it was, and started processing the experience that later became the poem.

When I sat down to write, I had no idea what the poem would be, but I did not have much time, so I just started writing without thinking about it. The poem is simple, not very ambitious, but adequate.

So I guess I will keep doing it for the time being. This blog, being a diary, reminds me a what diary researcher said: the one thing all diaries have in common is that everybody dies, and they (the diaries) all come to an end. I wonder where this will end?

Charles Wilkins

Last night, I attended a read by Charlie Wilkins, a writer of note who has the distinction (for me) of having once been my student. Charlie's writing includes considerable very insightful freelance journalism and several books about his travels and very astute observations.

A few years ago, he achieved some fame by walking from Thunder Bay to New York City. The walk was chronicled on CBC Radio. The resultant book was Walk to New York (Viking Canada, 2004), a rich and insightful commentary upon this unique adventure.

Charlie is a widely published free lance journalist whose harrowing look at the final years of Maurice "The Rocket" Richard should be required reading for any sports thinker or fan.

I shall not list all of his published major works here, but do draw your attention the the most recent: Circus at the Edge of the Earth (McLelland & Stewart, 1998) chronicles Charlie's extensive travels with the Great Wallenda Circus touring the hinterlands of north-western Ontario and Manitoba, and A Wilderness Called Home (Viking, 2001) is his account of traveling across Canada, partly from Thunder Bay to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in a working freighter.

Last evening, Charlie read from two works. The second was CC200- A Memoir of Voices, which he edited on commission from the Cornwall Collegiate & Vocational School's 200th Reunion Committee; the first work he read from was an unpublished memoir based on his job working in a cemetery in Toronto. This memoir is richly layered with outstanding details, vividly recalled and expressed. I was sorry when he stopped. I do not know the title*, but I'll let you know when I do. It is going to be very worth reading.

*Saturday, April 21, 2007: The title is In the Land of Long Fingernails.

400 poems

It is hard to believe I have posted 400 of my own new poems in just 375 days. I am printing them each day, and have filled one binder and started a new one January 1. (see photo below)

The new result has been that even if I sit down to write with no idea what is going to come out, I can usually start and finish a fairly serviceable poem in a few minutes. Today's poem, "I started to write a Saturday poem", was one of those: I typed what I thought was the first line, then looked up at the screen, and realized I had typed it in the subject slot. I left it as the title, and continued, realizing it was giving me the poem's theme, and the changes would provide the poem's arc.

When it comes right down to it, I often find the process of discovering the poem as rich as I hope is the reader's experience reading it.

News

I applied to and have been accepted as a member of the Zeugma mailing list for poets. The application consisted of four parts: writing, technical proficiency, critique and analysis, and a bio; here is a link to the criteria. I have not yet submitted a poem for critique, but am working on one. I have submitted a critique of a poem on the list. [Update January 26: I have posted two more criticisms, called CRITs, and finally posted a new poem called "Language Barrier", which has not yet posted because Yahoo is experiencing a huge backlog in which posts are delayed and mis-posted out of order . . . . I guess that will increase the suspense for me.]

There are 66 poets on the list, although I suspect only a few are active at a time. The difference between this list and the usual forum is that I am automatically subscribed to any post; on the writing forums, one must read a post or make a post respond to one before one is subscribed to it. The other big difference is that poems posted on the internet are considered to have been published. The down side of that is that publishers are not usually very interested in such material; however, I believe that material posted in such as the Zeugma list is not considered to be published, since it is not accessible to the general public. (I hope.)

I have started posting results of our Leisure Arts Duplicate bridge, just the first five places. Here is a link, in case you are interested: Bridge. The results are published on Wednesdays.