News from the Feminist Caucus, by Anne Burke
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News from the Feminist Caucus, by Anne Burke This month, more news, views on Imagining Ancient Women, by Annabel Lyon, and reviews of poetry books: It’s Hard Being Queen, by Jeanette Lynes; monkey ranch, by Julie Bruck; Red Ceiling, by Bridget Keating; Undark, by Sandy Pool; and Torch River, by Elizabeth Philips. Now for: An Urgent Call for Poems about Trees from Poets who Love Them, from Susan McCaslin; Magie Dominic from Newfoundland on Thanksgiving; Penn Kemp, from Dream Sequences, and Brenda Niskala on How To Be A River. from: "'Susan McCaslin'" Dear friends and fellow poets: I am currently involved in trying to save a very rare and special endangered rainforest in Langley by organizing some art and activism events around the issue. I organized an” Art in the Park Day” on Oct. 28th and, on Nov. 15th, over 160 students from the Langley School of Fine Arts converged on the forest to create and perform their art. These events garnered lots of local press and public interest in saving the trees. If a local environmental group doesn’t raise $3 million by Dec. 16th, the forest, containing three species of owls, a Black Cottonwood tree that could be between 240 and 400 years old, and many species of plants and animals, will be sold for development and logged immediately. Since the 25-acre parcel of land is currently public land, I and other artists, ecologists, scientists, and environmentalists are trying to put pressure on the Langley Township Councillors to reconsider their decision. However, they are obdurate and time is running out. My husband and I, an environmental lawyer, hope to get further media attention to the issue by organizing the following tree poem event. If you need more context, feel free to contact me at my email. There is lots of information on the website below as well, including reports by scientists and ecologists. I look forward to hearing from you. Please pass this on to other Canadian poets. The poems will be put into plastic covers and hung on the trees. Published or unpublished work is fine. It’s not exactly an anthology, unless you think of the forest as an anthology. Scroll down. All the best, Susan McCaslin The Han Shan Project: An Urgent Call for Poems about Trees from Poets who Love Them. Han Shan was an ancient Chinese poet who posted his poems on the trees and rocks of Cold Mountain . In the spirit of Han Shan…. Join our effort to speak for the trees of McLellan Forest East, an endangered rainforest in Glen Valley , Langley , BC . It could be sold for private development and logged after Dec. 17th2012. Send us a tree poem and we’ll post it on a tree in the forest. One poem per poet. Keep it to one page with your name at the bottom. Small photo of you is okay. St@nz@ E-Newsletter December 2012 This is the west coast, so poems about species such as fir, hemlock, cedar, hemlock, spruce, bigleaf maple, black cottonwoods are especially relevant. Send your poem immediately to Susan McCaslin who can provide more information about the forest and the issue. [email protected] Background: This remarkable and ecologically important forest will be sold by the Township of Langley for private development after Dec. 17 of this year if something radical is not done immediately to keep Council from proceeding. McLellan Forest For Further Information: http://mclellanpark.blogspot.ca/ Magie Dominic shares this: From Smithsonian Institution - The very first documented Thanksgiving in North America originated in Newfoundland, May 27, 1578. Story is from "Smithsonian Institution, Thanksgiving in North America". Happy Thanksgiving from a Newfoundlander! __________________________________________________________________ Penn Kemp says: “Just found this very kind note Susan McMaster read at the June AGM banquet!” “The Life Membership award goes to a member of the League of Canadian Poets for a lifetime of outstanding achievement in poetry, and is awarded by National Council. Penn’s work is being recognized for the ground-breaking innovation of her sound poetry and sound operas her own remarkable invention. She is equally being honoured for her unstoppable wide-ranging and amazing mentorship, publishing, promotion, and creativity. Above all, she is being recognized for the high quality of her poetic explorations and collaborations.” Susan McMaster Warmly, Penn Kemp From Dream Sequins Poetry by Penn Kemp. Drawings by Steven McCabe. Penn's sumptuous poems are beautifully presented in this gorgeous hand-made art book. Scintillating and flowing, they draw you simultaneously outside to the big order of things & inside to the mind, heart, & deep tissues of the body, celebrating vital speech & visual image. The poems were first performed in Penn’s 2010 Sound Opera, Dream Sequins, at Aeolian Hall with Brenda McMorrow and Bill Gilliam. From Brenda Niskala: Hi Anne: I'll be reading from my new book of poetry (yes!), How to Be a River (Wild Sage Press). Brenda Niskala is a Living Archives Matron and was a production manager for the Series. Born and raised in west central Saskatchewan, in the Coteau Hills near Outlook, Brenda Niskala currently makes her home in Regina. Brenda has been, among other things, a nurses' aide, a community college co-ordinator, a crisis counsellor, a legal aid lawyer, a labour rep and a writer- in-residence. She currently works in the cultural industries. St@nz@ E-Newsletter December 2012 Brenda Niskala’s first full book of poetry was Ambergris Moon (Saskatoon: Thistledown, 1983), followed by a co-authored collection, Open 24 Hours (Fredericton: Broken Jaw, 1997) and a number of chapbooks, including Emma's Horizon (Toronto: Hagpapers, 2000) and What Butterflies Do at Night (B-Print, 2005). Her forays into fiction include the novella Of All the Ways to Die (Toronto: Quattro, 2009) and the linked short story collection For the Love of Strangers (Regina: Coteau Books, 2010), nominated for the City of Regina Book Award and the CBC Summer Reading list for Saskatchewan. She is now collaborating with Barbara Kahan on a film script featuring an opinionated macaw, and working on her next (well, first) novel, which will introduce the pirating adventures of a Viking ship in about 1065. Brenda has read to audiences across Canada, in Finland, and in England. In 2011 she presented at the Festival of Words in Moose Jaw. Why is the press called "Wild Sage"? Wild: free to breathe, move, sing, feel, create... Sage: spare kind of beauty, wisdom, scent of nature, diversity of type, seeds of growth, joins sky and earth... http://www.wildsagepress.biz/books/how_to_be_a_river Review of It’s Hard Being Queen: The Dusty Springfield Poems, by Jeanette Lynes (Calgary: Freehand Books, 2008) 96 pp. paper Lynes grew up on a farm. It’s Hard Being Queen is her fourth poetry book. She published Left Fields (Hamilton, Ontario: Wolsak and Wynn 2003), shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award.; The Aging Cheerleader’s Alphabet (Toronto, Ontario: Mansfield Press, 2003); and A Woman Alone on the Atikokan Highway (Hamilton, Ontario: Wolsak and Wynn, 1999). She was awarded the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, the Bliss Carman Award, and first prize in the Grain Postcard Story St@nz@ E-Newsletter December 2012 Competition. She co-edited The Antigonish Review. She was a visiting artist/writer-in-residence at Queen’s University, Northern Lights College in Dawson Creek, and the Saskatoon Public Library, as well as a Faculty Member at St. Francis Xavier University and the Sage Hill Writing Experience. This collection of sixty-one poems was dedicated to the Writers of Saskatchewan, “You helped me hear the music again.” The songster was genetically predetermined to succeed, “ -Open your mouth- reach deep into your throat, it’s all there: fish, bird, gem, boy, song. (“Dust, Musings”, p. 11) She has an affinity with Gospel music, taking for her calling as “blues singer” from the convent school “voice, dust” (p. 15) in addition to the fact “the rhythm method had always/meant something else to Mary O’Brien.” (p. 19) She reveals “A record is a palimpsest, and incest/of sound.” (“A Brief History of Vinyl”, p. 18) The result is “a Dust Rush”. (“California”, p. 38) The companion poems of “The Studio: Memphis” deal with the business of recording, producers, hairdressers, and session musicians who appear along with the day-to-day events of touring. She receives fan mail as well as hate mail. She is a perfectionist, abused by her father, because “She’s all things to all/people.” (“You Know You’ve Made It When”, p. 28) Lynes created a concrete shaped-poem “Festival of Light, England, 1971”, in keeping with the venue of Westminster Abbey and an invasion by the Gay Liberation Front. In “Fortune”, the poet ponders other successful public figures, Edith Piaf, Peggy Lee, and Frances Gumm (Judy Garland) who suffered. The lifestyle means there is “blood” in the day. There are multiple allusions to tragic intonations, a sacred act, combined with orphic riddles, “Good Dust” or Quaaludes, martinis (“Dusty Nail. Dustini”) and “a Bloody Mary O’Brien”. (“Medicine”, p. 52) “Her wrists are no longer safe” (“Laurel Canyon, 1975”, p. 49) She experiences homophobia and “Mary Go Home” (“Nightmare of the Decade”, p. 55). A sanitarium, ironically, offers her “Release” (p. 56-7) She acknowledges her hating the band Aerosmith but loving “Disco” (“Brief History of Disco” and “Disco 2”, pp. 58-59). By the 1970s, she experiences “lost” years, when even her voice may fail, and a found poem is an unsigned draft apology to the Queen of England and sister Princess Margaret. (“From Buckingham Palace”, p. 61). By the 1980s, she has performed for money some awkward, desperate acts, since she has lost respect and has visible signs of ageing.