Booklist: Fictional Journals & Journaling News

I love journals. I love to read them -- both real and fictional examples. I love to write in my own journal, and study journaling as a practice.

And now I am embarking on a new venture: teaching journaling.

I am pleased to announce the launch of a new company, Four Rooms Creative Self Care. The name is inspired by Rumer Godden's quote:

There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.

— Rumer Godden in A House with Four Rooms

Four Rooms will focus on the power of the written word to lead us to wholeness and wellness, in all areas of our lives. To begin, Four Rooms will offer journaling classes, expanding into explorative poetry and bibliotherapy as time goes on. What is explorative poetry? It is simply reading and/or writing poetry in order to enjoy and respond with journaling and personal meaning, not an attempt to teach poetry as an art form with all its technical elements. And bibliotherapy? That is the use of a written text, primarily fiction, to explore and expand the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.
In celebration of this new movement in my life, I want to share a list of a few of my favourite fictional journals which provide a wonderful read.

1. I Capture the Castle / Dodie Smith

A delightful English book, set in the 30's, telling the story of Cassandra Mortmain and her eccentric family. Begins with the classic line "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." Art, eccentricity, Americans and true love...

2. Doctor Glas / Hjalmar Soderberg

A very powerful tale, penned in 1901 but eerily relevant today. A doctor secretly in love with an abused wife must make some difficult moral decisions. (My edition has an intro by Margaret Atwood).

3. Diary of a Nobody / George and Weedon Grossmith

Hilarious storytelling combining silly English humour and amusing illustrations, this reveals the inner life and daily tribulations of a suburban husband/bank employee and his family.

4. The Golden Notebook / Doris Lessing

While not strictly told fully in journal format, this Booker Prize winner and feminist classic prominently features the five notebooks of Anna Wulf. Anna keeps her thoughts and fears in notebooks colour coded for theme, and it is through writing her life in these journals that she overcomes the challenges she faces. Each notebook's topic shows us a different facet of Anna and the society she lives within.

5. Mable Riley / Marthe Jocelyn

And to finish off, a wonderful teen novel by a local Stratford author, all about a young woman growing up in 1901 -- in Stratford, Ontario. Mable helps her sister teach school and gets to know a neighbour who is interested in women's rights. It is a great read for Stratford residents but also for anyone who loves fictional journals and historical tales.

6. A Prairie as Wide as the Sea / Sarah Ellis

Okay, one more...the last book made me think of this installment in the "Dear Canada" series, a set of middle school fictional journals set all over Canada and ranging through various historical settings and events. This one is my favourite of all of them so far, telling the story of Ivy Weatherall, British immigrant to Saskatchewan, in 1926. It is beautifully written.

A Saving Grace

A Saving Grace: the collected poems of Mrs. Bentley / Lorna Crozier
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c1996.
98 p.

I mentioned this collection earlier this week: having just reread Sinclair Ross' As for me and my house, I wanted to also reread this set of poems which were inspired by the novel. Thankfully, Lorna Crozier wrote the poetry, which automatically meant I loved them much more than I did the novel! ;)

It is a brief book, with the poems speaking to and expanding on the story of Mrs. Bentley, the nameless journal keeper and narrator of the novel. She is a character who gets under your skin a bit, making you wrestle with you she really is. Unreliable narrators will do that to you. Here Crozier takes on some of the things that Mrs. Bentley leaves out of her version of the story.

While I very much enjoy Crozier's poetic voice, and her images are often unexpectedly sharp and exact and wonderful, I am not sure you would be able to fully benefit from this set of poems if you were unfamiliar with the inspiration behind them. Some of them stand alone quite perfectly, while others seem to need the background knowledge to shade them in a bit.

A few of the poems speculate that Mrs. Bentley was not so innocent as she claimed in her journal. I didn't really care for those, but that is perhaps because I had just finished the novel and was, truthfully, a bit tired of Mrs. Bentley and her circuitous manner of storytelling. Are Crozier's poetic speculations supported by the original text? Not altogether. But honestly it doesn't matter to me; I didn't like the original text all that much, and prefer Lorna Crozier's poetry over most other writing anyhow!

This collection has just been thoroughly examined by Person of Consequence over at Experimental Progress. And that discussion brings up many points I loved - ie: at one point it 'seems to dip slightly into fan fiction'. For an interesting look at this collection from the viewpoint of an English PhD student, take a look at that post.

I must say I enjoyed these poems, for the most part, as is usual with this fabulous author.

As For Me and my House: Sinclair Ross Reread

As For Me and My House / Sinclair Ross
Toronto: New Canadian Library, 1991, c1941.
216 p.

I first read this in high school, and Hated. It. So I thought it was time to reread it, as a mature adult with a vaster pool of literary experience for comparison's sake. Well, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

This novel is set in Saskatchewan in the Dirty Thirties. I come from Saskatchewan so I had all of Ross' work shoved at me in high school (especially since he came from a small town very near to where I grew up). This really does him a disservice, I think. This book in particular is eminently unsuited to appreciation by teenagers. No wonder I hated it at age 16 -- it would have been meaningless in its emotional landscape of bitterness and obsession and misery.

And it is full of misery. Hoo, boy, it is practically overflowing with misunderstandings, bitterness, selfishness, codependence, poverty, need, as well as unfulfilled longing for emotional and sexual connection, for a child, for a solvent life, for culture.

It is narrated by Mrs. Bentley (we never learn her name), and is told in journal format. I liked this aspect of it; reading her journal gave us insights into her unreasonable and obsessive love for her mealy-mouthed, selfish, childish husband. I really, really did not like Philip. But reading the story as presented in Mrs. Bentley's journal also makes her into a complex and unreliable narrator. How much of what she is telling us is the objective truth? Can we believe her take on the way their lives have turned out?

The story takes place during one year, from the time the Bentleys move to a new parish (Philip is a minister) to the time they leave once more. The town of Horizon is the same as all the others Philip has worked in; small, inbred, gossipy, and demanding, especially for the tortured and stifled artist that Mrs. Bentley presents Philip as being. Apparently they always leave the towns once the surroundings become too much for them, but looking at Philip's behaviour during their year in Horizon I think it much more likely that their previous churches have strongly encouraged the Bentleys to move on. There are the usual characters of a small town, the doctor and his more worldly wife, the bossy matron who makes trouble, the single school teacher, the farm families surrounding the town who are worried about the drought. Philip drops into this setting and proceeds to mope around the house, incapable of doing any physical labour to smooth his wife's life, glaring at her and giving the silent treatment to end all silent treatments. And yet she continually makes excuses for his behaviour and tries to smooth it over with their new parishioners.

This is the reason I still dislike this book. Mrs. Bentley is clearly in a codependent relationship with her emotionally abusive husband, a useless, mean and selfish creation. He is rude to her, he shuts her out continually, he carefully waits until she is asleep to come to bed, he insults her appearance although it is his lack of income which limits her possibilities, he prefers the company of their briefly adopted 'son' to hers, and he repeatedly and unfoundedly accuses her of an inappropriate relationship with the schoolteacher while he himself has had an affair with a church member and impregnated her. Mrs. Bentley is unable to speak to him about his rages, in fact she records how they silently move around each other in the house, constantly on eggshells, and when she finally breaks out into accusations once or twice she fall down crying and begging for forgiveness.

Ross seems to harp on the way he thinks men and women should behave and how they are just irredeemably 'different'. He has Mrs. Bentley constantly saying, well, that is just the way men are, and a woman will thus do this or that to be a good wife. Ross seems to me to be trying to restrain Mrs. Bentley every time her journal comes close to breaking out of his mold.

There are some very skilled descriptions of the surrounding landscapes and the effects that drought, sudden rain and blizzards have on the community. The situations of farmers, ranchers and townspeople are all explored. This book does reveal the stifling sameness required of individuals in a small town, and especially the excessive expectations held for a minister's family.
But there are flaws in the tale, besides my visceral reaction to Philip and Mrs. Bentley's slavish adoration of him. One example is the convenient death of Mrs. Bentley's rival at the end of the story, freeing them up to leave Horizon and move to the city, leaving the church altogether. It is also very, very unlikely that such a person as Philip is going to make a living in the city opening a second hand bookshop. I can tell you right now that a venture such as that, with Mrs. Bentley herself saying that she is the better businessperson but will let Philip take charge as she doesn't want to be a domineering female, won't have a chance. She herself expresses uneasiness at the viability of her idea, near the end of the book.

But Mrs. Bentley seems happy to have to care for her failure-prone husband as if he is a spoiled child. At the end of the book, when they finally have the son they've been longing for, she decides to name him Philip. Here is the response:

"Another Philip?" the first one says, "With so many names to pick and choose from, you don't need that again. Two of us in the same house you'll get mixed up. Sometimes you won't know which of us is which."

That's right, Philip. I want it so.

Alright, maybe I did hate it almost as much as the first time I read it. This time, at least, I can appreciate the format of the book -- I do like fiction in journal form, and it is used well here, to create an unreliable narrator. Structurally it is a fascinating creation. I can also appreciate the setting and realize what he is trying to get across, even if I found it rather heavy handed.

But the relationship between the Bentleys just results in such an emotional reaction from me that I can not enjoy this book. I feel stressed and stifled and angry; perhaps Ross was aiming for such a reaction, who knows. But I am frustrated by Mrs. Bentley and don't enjoy reading misery memoirs, fictional or otherwise. So, still not a favourite of mine. Perhaps I will try one of his other books and see whether it is just Philip that ruins this book for me, or if it is a larger theme running through his writing. I have also read some of his short stories (again, in high school) and perhaps will take another look at those as well.

But, judge for yourselves. Read an excerpt from the publisher, or some of these other recent reviews.

Alexis at Roughing It in the Books has read it three times!

Susan Bartlett thinks Mrs. Bentley is living "a quietly tragic existence"

Melanie believes it is "Good in that dark, musty, depressing way that only good Canadian Literature can be"

A Poem for Horses

Reading Dianne Warren's Cool Water inspired me to reread the classic Saskatchewan novel As for Me and My House - I wanted to see whether I would like it now or still find it as awful as I did when I had to read it in high school. More on that later...

For now, the concatenation of Lee's experience with his horse in Cool Water, and the story of Mrs. Bentley in The Other Novel reminded me of a collection of poetry by Lorna Crozier. This collection, which I used in my recent poetry titles poem, is entitled A Saving Grace, and it is a poetic re-imagining of the voice of Mrs. Bentley. I'll talk about that collection a little later as well. But for now, here is a sample, a brief horse-themed poem:


Winter Horses

The horses pull into town
white with hoarfrost, huge
albino beasts from a fairy tale.

In my dreams I ride one
under a cold and flawless moon.
Nothing moves me
but this animal between my legs.

He knows where we are going
and takes me there
past the houses where everyone's asleep,
above the elevators, suddenly small.

When we cross the sky's great lake
black with ice, his hooves
strike sparks big as stars.


Lorna Crozier
from A Saving Grace: the collected poems of Mrs. Bentley

Cool Water by Dianne Warren

Cool Water / Dianne Warren

Toronto: HarperCollins, c2010.
328 p.

This is a book I heard about just before its release, via a great review at My Tragic Right Hip. I have to agree with her -- this is a fantastic novel, one of my favourites of the year so far. I don't know why I am surprised by that; it is set in Saskatchewan (my home province, which I have a soft spot for) AND it is a Phyllis Bruce book. I idolize Phyllis Bruce, and rarely go wrong with her selections. And there is something about that gorgeous cover that makes me want a full size poster of that image.

This novel appears simple at first glance. It is set in Juliet, a small town in south Saskatchewan, where life moves along quite predictably, the regular and small moments of everyday life gathering into bigger moments and into resolution of one kind or another. Like the last Canadian book I read, Sounding Line, this tells the stories of a collection of disparate lives which all intertwine. Each of the characters cross paths throughout the book, and their stories are seen to influence and be absorbed into the others'. It is a masterful study of how we are each the centre of our own story and yet none of us exists in a vacuum: while we may think we are independent creatures we also play a role in other lives, some effects of our existence remaining unknown to us.

The book opens with a horse race between two cowboys, sometime in the early years of the 20th century. It is a hundred mile, day long race which is won by the younger of the two, much to the disappointment of most of the spectators. While these characters do not show up again (except in stories told by old farmers) they represent the theme carried on throughout the book. As Henry, the defeated cowboy, beds down that night, he re-examines his life. He looks ahead with a new perspective and realizes that this defeat may mean he can change his future by leaving off being a cowboy and settling down somewhere on his own land. As he thinks of this idea, things alter:

As his departure became a certainty, his heart slowed and his body lightened, and the straw beneath him became soft as a feather bed. In the hot barn, tomorrow was cool and clear, like water on his tongue.

The characters in the book are all on the cusp of change and have to negotiate an unsettling situation of one kind or another in order to find a new place for themselves, a new direction. They have to let go of the past in order to move into the future. Nevertheless, the characters are not types or symbols: you can feel for them, sympathize with and sometimes shake your head at them as well. There are a few distinct story lines, and which one will resonate most will likely differ for everyone. I really enjoyed Lee's story; he is a young man whose adopted parents have both died and left him in possession of the farm he grew up on. He is alone in the old farmhouse, feeling echoes of both parents, not certain of who he is or where he really belongs. A grey horse appears in his front yard in the middle of the night, distracting him from his insomnia (and it is a little odd that everyone in Juliet is suffering from insomnia that night!) and so Lee sets off on what turns out to be a marathon horse ride which echoes the opening horse race story.

I imagine this element spoke to me particularly, as I once had a white horse appear on my front lawn myself -- I was a very young child so the memories are vague, but my sister and I saw the horse - which had escaped from the farm annex of the nearby penitentiary - and also saw the truck with horse trailer which pulled up and took it away again. Lee's story brought back that magical feeling of surprise when we thought we'd just got a pony. ;)

There were many other characters who I loved reading about, including the bank manager Norval Birch. His awful job, his pregnant teen daughter and a wife who is more than she appears to be, make his tale a bittersweet and very moving one. There is also a romance developing between Drive-In owner Willard and his widowed sister-in-law Marian, one that neither of them quite knows what to do about. I adored these two. Each story is an integral part of the whole, and even when I didn't actually like a specific character (like any of the members of the Dolson family) they were a part of this town.

It was a wonderful read, with a deliberate pace and excessively normal people. There was humour and pathos, and some beautiful descriptive details worked in. I'd love to know how she made inanimate objects so important and alive in this tale. Highly recommended, this is one I want to own so I can reread at will.

Grace & Poison

Grace & Poison / Karen Connelly

Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, c2001.

196 p.

I've read most of Karen Connelly's nonfiction and poetry - still haven't read her novel The Lizard Cage (about a Burmese political prisoner) despite rave reviews from many bloggers & friends. I don't know why I haven't done that yet, I really love her writing.

This book is a collection of her poetry, two earlier works republished in one package (The Small Words in my Body & The Disorder of Love).It also includes an essay about her early poetry and the travels she's been on since her teen years. Karen Connelly has had character since her very first works and in these poems her voice comes through strongly. It is so impressive to reread these now and realize how talented she was even at the start of her career.

I enjoy her poetry for a simple reason: I get it. She writes of emotion, of relationships, of nature and things seen and treasured. Her perspective is different than mine -- I don't think she could have ever been as naive as I was for much of my youth, and her experiences and fearless witness to her own life lead to a raw and powerful take on the world around us. While I don't 'recognize' these things in my own life, I feel that I recognize them as a human experience and understand more about our world just by reading them.

The language is beautiful, even when it is not pretty. She is able to capture a feeling, an emotion, or a fleeting image in a way which communicates her intent clearly. I think I simply admire her ability to say things without fear of what people will think, and without any attempt to mask her meanings in obtuse language. I found these poems memorable for their images and the use of language, and enjoyed reading them gathered up together into one collection.

Here's an example of what I really like about her poems; this excerpt is a description of Spring, looking at it from the perspective of being away from home, and in a much different place --

The Smallest Slaughter

In my country,

spring arches its glossed back

out of the ground.

Spring slips in among the stones

and waits to splinter out sharp and green

and alive.

Perhaps I should be home now,

wrapped in the growing

soft pelt of blue air.

It is dry season here.

The fields tear open,

orange with fire.

Trees dance among the blowing red sheets.

Insects and birds batter against them, screaming.

Veins of smoke burst and bloody the sky for miles.

Then the fields uncurl gnarled as burned hands.

........

Read the rest of the poem in this book or in The Small Words in my Body

Read an earlier poem, Nightingales from the book The Border Surrounds Us

Sounding Line

Sounding Line / Anne DeGrace
Toronto: McArthur & Co, c2009.
360 p.

I received this book from the publisher, having read DeGrace's previous two novels (Wind Tails and Treading Water) and being curious about what she would do in her latest. I was pleased to discover that I liked this novel the best of all of them so far.

DeGrace's first book was a set of linked short stories, some of which had been published previously. Her second ties the stories of disparate characters together as they pass through a café in the mountains. Both of these take place out West, in Alberta and British Columbia. This new novel has a few differences, the most obvious of which is that it is set in Nova Scotia. While DeGrace still uses the technique of following the fortunes of a varied cast of characters, this book is much more seamlessly interconnected and really works as a novel.

It takes as its premise the occasion of a UFO crashing into the bay next to Perry's Harbour, Nova Scotia, in October 1967. (this is based on the true story of Shag Harbour, sometimes called 'Canada's Roswell'). The book focuses on the community of Perry's Harbour, closest to the crash site. It is a small town, with families who have been there for generations. One of these is the Snow family: Wilf, Merle and Pocket, a gangly adolescent whose nickname is now an ironic one. Merle is dying of cancer, and the effect this has on father, son, brother-in-law Scratch, and unexpected house guest Wanda is the focus of the tale. Pocket is one of the few people who actually witnessed the strange lights disappear into the ocean. His movements shape the book, as he interacts with town bully Cuff Dodds, with local storekeeper Shirley Crosbey, with his own parents and uncle, and with the strangers who come to town in the wake of the UFO sighting. He is a complex, well drawn character who engages the reader's sympathy.

I felt like I knew this community by the end of the story, and was fascinated with them. I also enjoyed the fact that while the UFO sighting certainly gave structure to the book, the real arena of exploration within the storytelling was the lives and relationships of the inhabitants of Perry's Harbour, old timers and newcomers alike. The 'facts' of the UFO sighting are never resolved -- are we to believe one character's view that it really was aliens whom she made psychic contact with, or the view of some others that it was probably 'something Russian'? It is never clearly indicated, and the evidence is inconclusive -- the narrative could support either view, depending which you personally favour. I found it very interesting how she kept each possibility alive!

It was a deceptively light read, easy to get through but with many characters who have stayed in my mind for days now. There is plenty of room for after-book discussions as well! I enjoy DeGrace's writing style, and this book exhibits her writerly skill as well as her obvious affection for her characters. I'll close with a couple of quotes I enjoyed from different parts of the book -- there are small sections interspersed with the main text which are told in second person, and while they are different from the rest of the book I liked them. So here are bits of both kinds of writing.

Just after Pocket's mother dies, and he loses track of the possibly alien artifact he found on the beach:

He could see his life, and the lives of everyone he knew spanning out in intersecting lines, the curves of change, the sharp angles of the unexpected, the steady climbs and the sudden dips. How the shift of one affects the direction of another, alters its course, which alters another, and another. It all seemed impossibly complicated.

In the afternoon sky a daytime moon floated, pale, as if to say that even such things as day and night could not be trusted to stay in their places. You thought you understood something, could just reach out and hold it, and then it could slip from your grasp, just like that.

In one of the interspersed sections, called Low:

The sea claims what it will; flotsam of all description finds land on a full moon tide, embraces rock or sandy shore, holds on for a breathy respite as the water recedes, until claimed again when the waves return. Things lost sometime drift to the bottom and lie waiting, joined as time passes by new treasure, that left glove, or the penny tossed, Neptune's magpie collection...

How deep is deep? How far the bottom? If you had a sounding line, how many fathoms might you count before the lead weight finds bottom, and you know the truth of depth?

Poetry Titles Poem

Over at So Many Books, Stefanie put together a lovely poem created from the titles of various poetry books she owns. It was such a neat idea, with such interesting results that I thought I'd give it a try for myself in this Poetry Month. Here is my attempt:

In case you can't read all the titles here it is in my poetic interpretation:

What the Living won't let go

Unsettled
Living in the open
The Secret signature of things
Could be
Taking Shape
Hard light
Hooked
A Saving Grace:
Something permanent


(Authors)
Lorna Crozier
Zach Wells
Marge Piercy
Eve Joseph
Heather Cadsby
Edward Carson
Michael Crummey
Carolyn Smart
Lorna Crozier
Cynthia Rylant

An Anansi Reader

Just one more thing...guess who this month's featured Anansi Reader is? Yep, click on over to the Anansi site to see a list of featured readers from the last year or two - there are a few other book blogger Readers as well.

Poetry Month Blog Tour Schedule

Just in case you'd like to see what coming up in the Blog Tour for National Poetry Month, here is the schedule (and check Mr. Linky on the original post for things added this month that may not be on the official schedule)

April 1: Savvy Verse & Wit Welcome Post, Maw Books showcases her old poetry, Semicolon's Favorite Classic Poems Survey

April 2: Diary of an Eccentric on Emily Dickinson, 32 Poems Interview with Geoffrey Brock

April 3: Regular Rumination on poet Claudia Emerson

April 4: Indextrious Reader interviews poetry publisher Brick Books

April 5: Jenn's Bookshelves reviews Tighty Whitey Spider by Kenn Nesbitt, West of Mars introduces the Roadie Poet

April 6: Janel's Jumble showcases Estrella Azul, The Betty and Boo Chronicles showcases Poems from the Women's Movement

April 7: Reading Frenzy features Edgar Allan Poe

April 8: Books and Movies features Billy Collins

April 9: Rhapsody in Books features W.B. Yeats, Literate Housewife will talk about Alan Ginsburg and one of his readings

April 10: Booking Mama will review Poetry Speaks Who I Am, Write Meg! features Kim Addonzinio

April 11: Tea Leaves will review "Song of two worlds" by Alan Lightman

April 12: Monniblog will highlight British Columbia, Canada, poets/poetry, Ernie Wormwood will talk about driving Lucille Clifton who did not drive.

April 13: Life Is a Patchwork Quilt features poetry for the deaf

April 14: SMS Book Reviews will surprise us with a poetry book review, Author Ru Freeman will talk about poetry's cross-cultural presence, such as Palestinian poet Dharwish

April 15: KCBooks will discuss Robert Frost's The Outsider and how it impacted her, Author Amok will post a Wall of Shame with a list of states that do not have poet laureates.

April 16: the life (and lies) of an inanimate flying object will review Poetry Speaks Who I Am and host a giveaway for 2 books, Evelyn Alfred will profile either Rita Dove, Marilyn Nelson, or Mari Evans.

April 17: She Is Too Fond of Books will review Tighty Whitey Spider, A Circle of Books will review a small illustrated Poetry anthology, Wordsworth The Eternal Romantic.

April 18: Bibliofreak will feature slam poet Regie Gibson and a technique for writing poetry that resembles that kid's game called MASH.

April 19: New Century Reading will review a couple of poetry books, 1330V will also post a poetry book review

April 20: Bermudaonion will review The New Kid on the Block by Jack Prelutsky, 32 Poems Blog will interview John Poch.

April 21: A Few More Pages will feature Lucille Clifton

April 22: Necromancy Never Pays will feature a poem

April 23: Everything Distils Into Reading will review a poetry book, In Bed With Books will discuss Romantic poetry, how to read it, and review Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know.

April 24: the bookworm will feature Pablo Neruda

April 25: Bookalicio.us will review How to (un)cage a Girl by Francesca Lia Block

April 26: Peeking Between the Pages reviews for one of these poets: Jill Bialosky, Margaret Atwood or Sylvia Plath; things mean a lot will review Mary Oliver's Red Bird; Jen's Book Thoughts features THE LINEUP: Poems on Crime by Reed Farrel Coleman

April 27: Jen's Book Thoughts follows up with more poems of Reed Farrel Coleman; Linus's Blanket will talk about her experience reading poetry, Reb Livingston's Your Ten Favorite Words, for That's How I Blog show with yours truly.

April 28: Ooh Books will post a poem for Free Verse with Mr. Linky; Estrella Azul will feature Karen Schindler.

April 29: Online Publicist will interview me, Boston Bibliophile interviews Cambridge Poet Populist Jean-Dany Joachim

April 30: Brimful Curiosities will feature read aloud poetry: Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young collected by Jack Prelutsky, All Kinds Of Families by Mary Ann Hoberman, The Wonder Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal; Diary of an Eccentric's The Girl talks about Shel Silverstein and his books

Lots for every kind of poetic interest, I'd think! Happy Poetry Month.

Poetry Month Interview: Brick Books

Brick Books is a small publisher located in London, Ontario (Canada) which is celebrating its 35th Anniversary this year. I had a chat with general manager Kitty McKay Lewis, who has been with the press for over 20 years, to find out what it's like running a poetry-only publishing company.


1. Can you tell us a little about how Brick Books got started?

Stan Dragland and Don McKay, co-founders and editors at Brick Books, were teaching at the University of Western Ontario in London back in the 1970's and kept on seeing good poetry from writers in the area. They decided to start a press to publish this work. They started with chapbooks but we now publish full-length books - in the case of poetry, this is any book longer than 49 pages.

2. How did you get involved with Brick Books?

Don McKay is my big brother and asked if I would like to help out. I started by filling the orders and taking care of overdue accounts, then gradually added more duties to my role as general manager.

3. It is the 35th Anniversary of Brick Books this year. What have been some of the best selling books in your history?

Our current bestseller is Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems by Randall Maggs - a book about the great hockey goalie Terry Sawchuk. This book has sold around 3,500 copies - which is quite a feat for a book that was published 2 years ago. Randall has been travelling across the country and into the United States reading from this book - around 60 readings so far. And the book has won the Winterset Award, the E.J. Pratt Poetry Prize and the Kobzar Literary Award and was a Globe 100 book.

A Really Good Brown Girl by Marilyn Dumont was first published in 1996 and we are in our 12th printing of this book. It is adopted for college and university courses in Canada and the United States.

Songs for Relinquishing the Earth (1998) by Jan Zwicky and All Our Wonders Unavenged (2007) by Don Domanski won the Governor General's Award for Poetry and have been reprinted a number of times.

Elimination Dance by Michael Ondaatje has been in print since it was first published as a small chapbook in 1975. The current version is our 'Bilingual Travellers' Edition' which is in English and French and includes many illustrations.


4. How many books does Brick Books publish per year, and how are they selected? Do you have any advice for aspiring poets?

Brick Books publishes 7 books a year. We read submitted manuscripts from January 1 to April 30 every year. The 7 manuscripts are chosen for the excellence of their writing.

Advice for aspiring poets - read, read, read, write, write, write, and read some more. It is important to read other poets' work and be aware of what has already been published. You want to develop your own voice. Most of our authors have had many of the individual poems from their manuscripts published in literary journals or magazines such as the Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review. Having a publishing history shows that the writer is serious, is developing their career, and has some experience with the editorial process. Most of these authors have been working on their manuscripts - writing, editing, revising - for 4 or 5 years before they send them to us for consideration.


5. What is the process of publication with your house? How long is it between acceptance of a manuscript and seeing a finished book?

We read submitted manuscripts from January 1 to April 30 every year. Anyone submitting will hear from us within 2 months - either the manuscript will be returned or it will be considered further. The final decision is made by our selection panel in early fall. The book will be published 2 years later. For example, we are assessing manuscripts for publication in 2012.


6. What kind of things have you done to promote and publicize poetry over the years? Have you noticed a change in the way you do things since social media became so omnipresent?

Brick Books authors are encouraged to travel to do readings to promote their books. We received promotion tour funding from the Canada Council for the Arts to assist with this. We place ads in a number of literary magazines. We also have been quite busy with Facebook and Twitter since these came on the scene. We have a group page and a fan page on Facebook and a presence on Twitter for Brick Books.

We also receive a marketing grant through the Ontario Media Development Corporation and we have used a portion of this grant to send authors to Yellowknife and Whitehorse the past 2 years.

I have been travelling the past 2 weeks with Randall Maggs, author of Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems to Edmonton, Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Vancouver. One of the fun readings on this tour was in the Ice Castle at The SnowKing Winter Festival in Yellowknife preceded by an interpretive dance based on a hockey play with a pond hockey tournament going on outside the castle.

7. I see that to celebrate your 35th Anniversary, you are having a big sale throughout Poetry Month. Can you tell us a little bit about it so we can take advantage of it while it lasts?

We are having a special anniversary sale - $10 books in 2010 – you can buy a maximum of 5 books at $10 each – that’s a savings of up to 50%… From now until April 30th – the end of National Poetry Month.

For example, Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems by Randall Maggs – regular price $20 – now available for $10. Or Short Talks by Anne Carson – regular price $14 – now available for $10. All our books are listed at http://www.brickbooks.ca/

Shipping is $3.00 per book. And add 5% GST to the total amount of books.

ORDERS TO THE UNITED STATES – Shipping is $4.00 per book. No GST.

Payment must be received before the books can be mailed.

1. Send a cheque to Brick Books, Box 20081, 431 Boler Road, London, ON N6K 4G6. Please include your name and mailing address. We will take care of the rest……

2. If you would like to pay through PayPal or with a credit card, send a message to Kitty Lewis at brick.books@sympatico.ca and she can guide you through this process on our website.

What can poetry tell you?

What can poetry tell you? Well, many things. Including your fortune, thanks to Dani Couture!

*photo from Dani Couture's site

This is the coolest use of poetry I've seen in a while, and she's made it shareable - go to her site to print off your own poetry fortune teller. This week you can get the first one, featuring poets Moritz, Robertson, Richards & Wright, but the fun doesn't end there. You can go back for more on April 7 and April 21. Have fun printing, folding, and finding guidance for the future ;)

Welcome, April and Poetry Month!

It is April again, and to me that signifies Poetry Month more than anything else. In the past few years (2009, 2008 and 2007) I spent the entire month of April posting a poem a day. This year I have decided not to do that; rather, I am going to post whenever I find a specific poem I'd like to share, or want to review a poetry collection, or interview a poet or publisher.

I am also taking part in Savvy Verse and Wit's National Poetry Month Blog Tour: Serena has set up a month long poetry extravaganza, with each day's offerings listed at her official intro post. I will be interviewing publisher Brick Books on April 4th, a publisher who deals exclusively in poetry and is celebrating their 35th year in business.

There will be lots of poetry goodness to be found over at the links at the Clover, Bee & Reverie poetry challenge this month, I am sure, so don't forget to check that out as well throughout April. And join in if you are already reading poetry or would like to read more.


Here is a link to Canadian Poetry Month organizers

And here is a link to some American Poetry Month info