Civil Elegies

On Friday, July 10th, I went to hear Canadian poet Dennis Lee read his 1972 work, Civil Elegies, as part of The Scream Literary Festival.

At the event, If Hope Disorders Words, Lee read Civil Elegies in its entirety (and it was the first time he had publicly done so - or maybe the first time since its original publication - I'm not sure).

The poet Jacob McArthur Mooney did a wonderful introduction of Lee, and has also written an essay for Open Book about Civil Elegies where he calls it "the saddest book in the history of Canadian letters". (You can also read an excerpt of the essay on poet Paul Vermeersch's blog.)

Before the event I read some of Lee's work - mostly from Un and YesNo, and it was powerfully musical and energetic. There was an intensity - even a violence to some of the lines, yet Lee read them with a much slower, quieter voice (than I had) which gave them a more lyrical quality and tone. It was lovely. Check his books out if you like your language twisted and wrenched, and moving.

As a bonus, here are some poems by Paul Vermeersch and some poems by McArthur Mooney.

Read Poetry for Toronto's Birthday

Toronto and I shared a birthday last week and it was great fun. I didn't know it was going to be Toronto's birthday, so I made my own plans.

I did at least get with the program regarding the Keep Toronto Reading event, and at the Graphic Bandita's urging, put a copy of Glen Downie's Loyalty Management on hold. If you haven't read poetry in a while, I recommend you pick it up. It will remind you how great poetry can be.

Check out the Shortlist for Keep Toronto Reading too. Elyse Friedman's book, Long Story Short, which I blogged about a while ago, was shortlisted. Her stories really merge a new Canadian incarnation of tragic hipness.

Now I am back to reading the Portable MFA in Creative Writing book I mentioned before. I was reading about classic story structure and there was a section on the (non-classic) plotless story. When I got to:

"Keeping a reader engaged with an idea is tricky... However, Milan Kundera's hugely succesful novels are idea laden, perhaps even idea driven."

I realized that I have never read a Kundera novel because of the type of people I've only ever seen reading Kundera novels: skeezy pretentious guys in their twenties! Ha! There's my confession of reading bias for today. What's yours?

The Hebrew Mamita

I've just been introduced to the Hebrew Mamita, Vanessa Hidary, and I'm better for it.



The other Def Poetry speakers/poets are great too. Looks like I'm going to be spending a lot of time on Youtube this week...