There is so much art being created in Vancouver—I wish I could keep up with it all! On Monday, I attended the launch of Daniel Zomperelli’s Poetry is Dead, a new magazine of raw, sexy, risky poetry. Daniel was one of mine, I can say proudly ( a graduate of The Writers Studio 2009 and I also have to say that the boy knows how to throw one hell of a launch party. Check out Poetry is Dead. Tonight I’m attending the Real Vancouver Writers Series at the W2 Culture + Media House to hear a number of writers I admire.
I’ve just connected with Pandora’s collective, and am going to be participating in their Summer Dream Literary Arts Festival in Stanley Park. Sounds like they have been doing great work for years while I’ve been changing diapers and singing along to Baby Beluga. Now that two out of three kids are old enough to enjoy a bit of storytelling themselves, I’m hoping we can enjoy a bit of what Vancouver has to offer as a family.
In truth, even when I could, I didn’t attend a lot of events. I do love hearing work out loud, especially when its work I love and it is performed well. I also enjoy hearing authors talk about their work, but I love even more the private act of reading, preferably alone with a glass of wine (or, more likely these days, a bowl of leftover salad—bliss!) The pleasure of the text is, for me, generally best enjoyed in solitude.
Spring is everywhere in this contrary city of ours—cherry blossoms, but no snow for the Olympics! I have been thinking about beginnings as the red flowering current push forth their blossoms. What makes the beginning of a poem hook the reader?
Consider this line by Lorna Crozier:
Who wants to hear about
two old farts getting it on
in the back seat of a Buick,
–Lorna Crozier, My Last Erotic Poem
and this unforgettable one by Marie Howe:
I want to write a love poem for the girls I kissed in seventh grade,
a song for what we did on the floor in the basement.
–Marie Howe, Practicing.
Consider Gerald Manley Hopkins’ great struggle against darkness and despair:
Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee
and Louise Gluck’s opening from the depths:
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
–The Wild Iris
And Wayde Compton’s call and response poem that brings us all in:
caller got a treasure map and a silver pick.
all how you gonna know where to dig?
–Jump Rope Rhyme of the 49er Daughters
and two poets we lost recently, whose voices cannot be replaced (and so, with the beginning, the promise of spring, also comes the ending, the silence).
And shall I tell him that the thought of him
turns me to water
–P.K. Page, Water and Marble
My white mare on the Punjabi plains, the stamp of her hooves
–Kuldip Gill, Ghazal V
Send me your favorite beginnings, and I’ll post them. I won’t promise when, because then I’ll break no promises. Let’s say I’ll post them before spring shifts into summer…
Snowdrops and daffodils!
Rachel