Much ado

It's hard to believe that I've been back in the city for two weeks. So much has been going on I haven't even finished unpacking. "Art with Music and Words" on September 24th was well received and we three-Jane Burns, painter and printmaker, Roger Greenwald Norwegian speaker and Brenda Muller on cello had a lot of fun. Now that we know a little more about what we're doing we'd like to do it again with a group that enjoys experimenting with mixed media. We are open to suggestions.

Since then I've written a press release and the publisher, John Parry of Words Indeed, and I have mailed about 50 of them in the hopes that a few people will be so struck by the gorgeous cover on the first page that they won't pitch it in the waste basket. Book City Book stores has agreed to carry "The Risks of Remembrance" and John and I will soon be calling on some of the smaller book stores that are interested in having poetry books on their shelves ... like TWB where I launched my second book, "My Grandmother's Hair" , and Type. I haven't been to Of Swallows ... yet and can hardly wait to see the set-up and find out more about their programs.

Other plans afoot: food, drink and program for the launch of "Risks ... " at the Heliconian Club, booking readings -so far two are lined up at the Beaches Branch of the TPL in December and at OWN (The Older Women's Network) in January or February. Both of these will involve me and one or two other poets and maybe a musician or two. Painters welcome. November anyone?

Packing up

I have just taken 3 sculptures with their poems to the Gore Bay Museum on Manitoulin Island where they will be part of the Cross-pollination 2 project with partner Kate Thompson's wall collage and poem. 25 artist/writer pairs riffing on the artifact of their choice from the museum. Ours is Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound and we have had a great time with the hidden-ness of women's lives then, and now, revealed in one small, flowery advertising card: a product made by a woman for women at a time when women's bodies were a taboo subject. Google the project and learn all about it! Come to the opening at the museum on October 15 and tell me all about it. I can't make the trip back here -just too much going on in the city and a long way to come for a week-end.

Elisha Sidler of the Debajamajig Theatre Group was here for a last visit taking photographs of the dock at my rented cottage. They will form a wall collage -along with my oldest bathing suit on a hook, my Oakes Cottages peaked cap and my walking stick-and the prose piece I wrote for the 6 foot by 6 foot project she is organizing. My piece is: The Dock at #9 Oakes Cottages on Lake Mindemoya. Another opening in October I won't be here for.

It has been a wonderful summer of readings, book signings, interesting projects and the great people I meet. I don't think too many people "down south" realize that Manitoulin island is a hot bed of creativity year round. I feel lucky to be a summer resident participant. Back to packing up now.

A mixed media concert

"Art with Music and Words" is a mixed media concert happening on September 24 at The Toronto Heliconian Club at 8.00 p.m. I will be reading a sequence called "Norway Poems from my book The Risks of Remembrance, with Brenda Muller on cello and Jane Burns showing the painting that illustrates the poems. Roger Greenwold will read the lines in Norwegian. It's going to be fun and I'm looking forward to it, a great way to return to the city after 3 months on Manitoulin Island - although I'm always reluctant to leave the peace and quiet of the island for busy city life.

my new book

My new book, "The Risks of Remembrance: new poems" (Words Indeed Publishing) was released in August and was warmly welcomed at two book signings on Manitoulin Island, one at Edwards' Studios and Gallery in Kagawong on August 14, and a second at The Southbay Gallery in Southbaymouth the next day. Both galleries, and all the retail outlets on the island that stock books, are carrying Risks, as well as my other two books, "Shadows Light, poetry and sculpture", and "My Grandmother's Hair", a social memoir about how our family stories shape our lives and make our memories. The travails of the publication process are receding as satisfaction with the result moves in.

Next up is the Toronto launch at the Toronto Heliconian Club on November 2 at at 7.00 p.m. All are welcome to come and meet Jane Burns whose paintings (with a few of my sculptures) illuminate the poems, photographer Karen Hendrick who took the flattering head shot and Mary Kicic who designed a great cover, using one of my late sister Jane Champagne's paintings, and John Parry, publisher.

Coffee, tea, wine (in real glasses) and tasty nibbles will be served along with a minimum of speechifying, and a brief reading

Here's a taste. The opening poem, "Now", is a poetic summary of the themes you will meet in the book.

Now

water pulls back from shore
stories
bared in the sun

a look in your eyes
stirs
my grumbling gut

look-alike houses coloured doors mingled yarns

myriad women
linked
in the sound of speaking

water rolls up the shore
swirled rents open
to a common shoreline

voices sing in the wind around islands