Winter on Wascana: A Frozen March Creek

By solar time, it's spring

but thick ice paves the creek,

willows leafless, branches bare.

This day channels November

light, gray shadows, sky.

From the west side of the bridge... Wascana Creek  © SB 

~~~~~

Snowbank Signs of Spring: Seven

Who knew a bench was here? 

Late March

archeology,

melt exposes

treasures,

trash.

Branches,

tennis balls,

birdseed,

newspapers

a green bench,

chip wrappers,

and one cast iron

chiminea.

Surprise! 

~~~~~

Louise and The Boy: Betty Jane Hegerat

The virtual launch of Betty Jane Hegerat's new book, The Boy (Oolichan Books) will start here at Latitude Drifts in late April.

Stay tuned for the date when Betty Jane, a writing friend and classmate from UBC, will drop by with Louise, a character whose persistent demands set the story in motion. In the meantime, you can listen to more about the story on audio at The Boy—where it began.

The idea to invite Louise came in part from reading the new blog by our friend Leona Thies. Always Under Revision features Kate, who lives inside Leona's latest novel-in-progress.

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Snowbank Signs of Spring: Six

Snowbank with rabbit tracks. © SB

The melting bank reveals

alfalfa, bought for rabbit feed.

I've seen prairie hares

run down the alley,

leap across the street.

I've never seen them eat here,

only tracks, dissolving

feet.

~~~~~

Snowbank Signs of Spring: Five

Photo © SB

Sunlit fans

flare open –

crystal coral,

frozen sea.

~~~~~

Morning Traffic: Grain hopper cars

Traffic blocked by Canada
and Saskatchewan hopper cars. © SB

Regina, SK: Rail lines surge in from the prairie, thrust across town.

Trains rumble through, commanding level crossings, stalling dawn commutes.

I wait on Elphinstone, counting tank cars, box cars, hopper cars. Rust and graffiti, forest, ochre, black. CN. Procor. Canada. Saskatchewan.

Brake lights before me, impatient to head south. Beneath the belly of the train, amber lights face north.

We're all late — morning drivers, daybreak freight.

The grain in these hopper cars will flow on to China, Mexico, Japan; Egypt, Italy, Sudan; the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan.

Once the crossing gates lift, the drivers will rush off through snowflakes, slush, to deadlines missed, meetings delayed.

I am stalled in this land-locked city, waiting for the train.

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Snowbank Signs of Spring: Four

Photo © SB

Geology of ice

emerges.

Dirt outcrops.

Snowblower

strata.

Layer cake

of leaves,

twigs, snow.

~~~~~

Midnight in Room Magazine

My contributor's copies of Room magazine arrived in the mail today. It's a beautiful issue — and yes, my poem Midnight is published in this issue, Room 34.1: Momentous, so I'm proud of it.

I was also happy to see a suite of three poems by Carla Braidek, a talented poet from Big River, Saskatchewan, in Room.

What a treat! My poem — and the chance to read Carla's work, too.

~~~~

R

Snowbank Signs of Spring: Three

Photo © SB

Detritus

dirt

asphalt

dog shit

frozen

leaflets

ice

decay

~~~~~

Snowbank Signs of Spring: Two

Photo © SB

The sun drives

deep inside the bank.

Assaulted snow caves

weep.

~~~~~

Snowbank Signs of Spring: One

Photo © SB

Snow blossoms

on friable ice.

Yarrow, baby's breath,

Queen Anne's lace.

*

Corals colonize

my curbside.

Ironshore.

~~~~~

When is a poem finished?

How do you determine when a poem is ready to be submitted to a magazine, a manuscript to a publisher?

That's what an audience member at Talking Fresh 9 asked Karen Solie, Michael Trussler, Brenda Schmidt and Daniel Scott Tysdal.

I love listening to writers engage on issues of craft, especially when they hit home: I have a manuscript of poems... But are they finished? Is the manuscript safe to send it off? (I also have a manuscript of short stories I'm asking similar questions about.)

Panel moderator Katherine Lawrence asked each panelist for their impromptu responses.

Brenda Schmidt: 
I have trouble letting work go.

I hang onto a manuscript and it will go into this limbo state. I just have to leave it there and come back to it as an older Brenda and see if it speaks to me in any way, and if it feels ready to let go of.

I don’t rush my work out the door. Ever. My manuscripts are really quite old by the time they get published.

Daniel Scott Tysdal: 

I go both ways on that. 

I have poems that I get hit and I work on for three days straight, and I print, go over them, and that’s done.

I have other poems that are in my first book where every time I go to read, I have to make sure I take the right reading copy, because I’ve changed the poem, even in the book.

Michael Trussler:  
To me, it’s very simple. The poem dies.

The difficulty in writing a poem is that you start with an idea or sensation or whatever, and then your ego is there. If it is going to work — and most of the time I just throw stuff out — it tells you that it has a separate identity, is separate from yourself.

You have to listen to it, and the poem will essentially announce itself. And when it’s done, it’s done. and it just goes, ‘I’m not going to spend any more time with you — thanks. Bye.’

Karen Solie: 

You can potentially tinker forever.

It helps for me to leave things sit for a time, so I can go back to them as a reader, rather than as a writer.

The only thing that a poem has is what’s actually on the page. What you intend, if it’s not on the page, it’s not there.

Another answer to the question, "When is a poem finished?" 

Riffing on an earlier audience question about taxes and writing awards, Dan Tysdal offered an unusual solution: Poetry certification by experts in taxation. 

***

And, for me?  

Read. Revise. Rest. Reread. Rewrite.

Yes, I could tinker forever.

Time to stop, to step into "the river of no."^*

^{* from The Hornbooks of Rita K, by Robert Kroetsch, University of Alberta Press.} 

~~~~~~~

Fire, Class Act: or, Frost Dragon, Disgorging Ice

Frost dragon fights fire:
Class Act Dance Studio, Regina
Photo © Shelley Banks

In late February, the Class Act dance studio building in Regina, Saskatchewan, burned.

Smoke billowed into a winter sky so cold that ice halos danced around the sun.

Sepia-shadowed plumes rolled over the warehouse district.

Fire-fighting equipment became a frost dragon, spewing icy water down onto the blaze... And I wanted to take a picture of that creature.

***

When G and I walked towards it, a police officer told us to move along.

"Or are you looking for a warm place to stay?" he asked.

A jail joke? I tried to explain my desire to capture that ice-fire serpent.

"The ladder... the hose — it looks like a dragon," I said. "I'd like to take a picture of its head."

He laughed.

I remembered then how much I'd relished my press pass. I gave that up almost 25 years ago when I left The Vancouver Sun. My nostalgia peaked when I saw a Global-TV crew saunter across the barrier.

The officer suggested we walk south and find an alley we could approach through. Cold seared my left cheekbone, my vulnerable spot at minus 35°C. Too cold to explore. We shivered back to the car.

Driving home, we saw smoke clouds looming even higher. We looped around to the north side of the fire.

***

In winter at latitude 50°26'N, the sun sweeps a low arc not far above the horizon, from about 16° at the Solstice, to 40° at the Equinox.

The top photo captures its elevation just after solar noon in this land frozen by The Time Act into permanent daylight savings. The sun will not climb higher.

***

Focusing directly at the sun shifts hues and tonal values. Other coverage of the fire features shots taken from the south, smoke surging into a cornflower sky. But from the north, through the camera lens at least, the sky glows quicksilver, pewter blue.

***

Does what we see define us?

If so, I wonder what others see in pictures of this fire that burned, then smoldered for three days.

***

Heat churns through these flames (edited by G
to bring out the colours he saw in these flames)
Photo © Shelley Banks 

Beyond empathy for the building owners and displaced young dancers...

Beyond nostalgia for that old reporter's rush...

I see small prairie towns where tracks slice north from south, where horizons are restless, skies alarming, and buildings huddle so low to the ground that firetruck ladders tower over all.

And I still see that dragon's head, reared back, mocking our impermanence, fragility. Frost creature spewing ice.

~~~~~

Jennifer Still — Girlwood

Jennifer Still reads from
her new collection, Girlwood.
© SB

Somewhere we are becoming /  
ourselves — 
... from SNAKESKIN, Girlwood (Brick Books) 

In Girlwood, Jennifer Still takes us on a flaming Sambuca, Jiffy Pop, Gravitron ride through girlhood and adolescence.

This poetry collection, her second, was launched Saturday at Regina's Talking Fresh poetry summit.

Less than a day later, I've read half and skimmed the rest.

Girlwood: Brick Books

Time to slow down and savour the moths, humming birds, leaves, "leaves under skin, private foliages."

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Holly Luhning — Quiver

Holly Luhning reads from Quiver
Photo © SB 

Saskatchewan (and Toronto) writer Holly Luhning launched her new novel Quiver (HarperCollins) at the Talking Fresh poetry summit in Regina on Saturday, March 5, 2011.

The horrific legend of sixteenth century Countess Elizabeth Báthory is at the heart of Quiver. It's a story that has fascinated Holly for many years.

Holly and I were in a writing group together for a brief time six or seven years ago, when she was considering a potential poetry collection about the legend of the Countess.

"Some of those poems are still in the text," she told us at Saturday's reading.

Congrats, Holly — and welcome back to the Prairies!

"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it." 

— Donna Tartt, The Secret History (epigraph from Quiver) 

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Talking Fresh 9: Saskatchewan Poetry Summit

Participants and organizers of Talking Fresh 9. 

Front: Katherine Lawrence, Dan Tysdal, Karen Solie, Gerry Hill,

Michael Trussler, Brenda Schmidt and Tracy Hamon;
Back: Jennifer Still and Holly Luhning. Photo © Shelley Banks

Writers at Talking Fresh 9: Saskatchewan Poetry Summit, featuring Brenda Schmidt, Karen Solie, Michael Trussler and Daniel Scott Tysdal, and the happy hour launch of new books by Jennifer Still (Girlwood) and Holly Luhning (Quiver).

Thanks to all of the featured writers! And also to Gerry Hill of Luther College and Tracy Hamon of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild for organizing, and Katherine Lawrence for moderating the Friday panel. It was a great event.

I especially enjoyed the panelists responses to the question, When is a poem finished?

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