Fancy Clapping a best-seller?

Strange things. For a brief time this evening, the yet-to-be-published _Fancy Clapping_ (YSP) was listed as the # 5 best-selling poetry title on Amazon.ca, just below Leonard Cohen, a novel by Michael Crummey, and two novels by Michael Ondaatje. I'm not sure what it means, but it's interesting.

Fancy Clapping cover

Here is the front cover of Fancy Clapping, due in spring from Your Scrivener Press. The image was made by the great and good Gary Barwin. The cover itself was designed by Chris Evans for YSP. Advance orders are available at www.yourscrivenerpress.com

POEM

Have you ever written a poem

for yourself, for no one else

but yourself, and read the poem

to the sky on a clear night?

Just the stars and your poem,

you and the breeze in the dark,

over the legendary hum of cicadas.

What else? A memory

dog-tailing this memory.

Fancy Clapping update

The cover for Fancy Clapping should be available for early blog posting in a few weeks.

Right now, working on a new sequence of poems. Updates will follow.

 

 

New Book: Spring, 2012

I’ve just signed with Your Scrivener Press for the proposed spring publication of Fancy Clapping.

The collection, written from May 2010 to August 2010 and revised November 2010 and again May to July 2011, consists (as of now) of 42 poems, including two long poems, “Fancy Clapping” and “Found Missing.” The title poem, consisting of 32 couplets, is an experiment in rhythm. While “Found Missing,” made of 25 modified cinquain stanzas with roughly 15 syllables per line, is a look at myth, law, gender, sex, and hubris. The collection deals with mortality in, I hope, a humourous way. Can’t wait to see what it looks like.

In other news, I hope to have a collection of short stories together by next year, and two novels are on the go – one slowly, the other very slowly.

Ghost Music, Nominations, and the Blinding Echo/Ego

I suppose it might be considered bragging, if I thought anyone read this blog, to say that Ghost Music (BuschekBooks) has been longlisted for the fabulous ReLit Award. If you, who probably aren't reading this post, haven't heard, the ReLit is given out to three books -- one novel, one collection of poetry, one short story collection -- published by small Canadian presses. True to its motto (Ideas, Not Money), The Relit Awards awards the winners with a beautiful and coveted ring ("My Precious!") with four articulated alphabetic bands for spelling out four-letter words (or short sentences: "Iwin," for example). I've only seen the ring in pictures, and in my dreams, so I can't say for sure what it's like, but I can think of a whole lot of four letter words that need spelling.

I am honoured to have Ghost Music listed alongside all those great titles. That's reward enough, isn't it? "We wants it, we needs it" -- oh, cut that out!

The Auld Kirk, Thessalon, Ontario, & a parade

An afternoon in Thessalon, Ontario, birthplace of both my father and grandfather. Played in a great-sounding room in The Auld Kirk, a cafe, concert hall, gallery, and cultural space run by Mr Tom Carnahan. It was the first time that a parade ran through one of my sets. Today was Thessalon's community celebration. So, after a couple of tunes, we all took a break to watch the parade. It was a blast. I'll be back on October 1 and again later that the month, or in mid-September. A nice sounding room.
Here's a snippet from the set. A tune called "Every Time We Begin," bootlegged by the ever-lovely mapi.